Love Notes

Based on Proverbs 27:9, 1 Thessalonians 1:1-10, Jeremiah 13:1-14:22, Psalm 118:15-20.

Hearty counsel You do provide, O GOD, through Your Word and by Your Spirit's leading and by wise among our friends who live in Christ in Your sight! Thank You, O GOD and Father, for our election by You, for choosing us to receive the Word in much affliction, how You turned us from idols to serve You, the living and true GOD, how You enable us to wait for Your Son, whom You raised from the dead, even Jesus, who delivers from the wrath to come.

We cling to You as we see evil people who refuse to hear Your words, who follows the dictates of their hearts, who walk after other gods to serve them and worship them. You say to us, "Every bottle shall be filled with wine" which is to say drunkenness. We read: Kool Aid. We read that You will neither pity nor spare all inhabitants who are filled with the drunkenness of forgetting You and trusting in falsehood.

Our backslidings are many. We have sinned against You, and the prophets prophesy lies in Your  name -- false visions, divinations, worthless things, and the deceit of their hearts. Therefore You will consume many by sword, by famine, and by pestilence. Yet because of Christ we dwell in tents of righteousness and this, we shall not die but live, declaring Your works, O LORD. You have chastened us severely, but did not give us over to death. Instead You opened to us the gates or righteousness, and we will go through to praise You, LORD. Thus we became Yours, having received Your Word by much affliction and by hearty counsel, in the joy of Your Holy Spirit. 

In gratitude and astonishment, we wait for the One You raised from the dead to deliver us from the wrath to come. Amen.

This photograph is by Kristofer Rowe.