Scripture Treasures

  But love your enemies, do good to them, and lend to them without expecting to get anything back. Then your reward will be great, and you will be children of the Most High, because he is kind to the ungrateful and wicked ~ Luke 6:35 I can’t think of any enemies that I have, and perhaps many of you are of the same mind as I, for I live a peaceful life. I can and do thank the Lord for that, as I know that not all people have the kind of tranquility in their life that I am blessed with. There are some in this world who do actually have enemies and they are real and ready to bring harm. Even in this day when Christianity is more and more disputed and ignored, Christians in the Western world live a fairly peaceful life. Our enemies only then become those who are opposed to our belief in the Word of God and its Truth when we stand firm. Then, they speak out against us. Perhaps our enemy has become a subtle avoidance such as the refusal to allow prayers in schools, or talking about God...

And without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him ~ Hebrews 11:6 The sad reality is that those who do not have faith in God do not believe they need to have faith in him. That is, as always, the stumbling block for salvation. They do not recognize their need, yet without him, there is no hope. When a loved one dies, or even when the time comes when they will die, where do they go? Back into the earth brings no hope. To become dust again leaves me wondering what was I here for? To toil and go through the struggles of life only to end up in the ground and turn to dust? No, that cannot be. God created us and God desires relationship with us. Relationship stems from faith in him and that he is who he says he is. He is the Redeemer, the Saviour, the “I Am” of the Old Testament. He is also the Comforter, the Guide, the Wisdom of God, and the Counselor. He is the victor over death an...

May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace as you trust in him, so that you may overflow with hope by the power of the Holy Spirit ~ Romans 15:13 What is it that is on your mind today that is causing you to worry? What concerns lay at your doorstep which bring with them doubts and anxiety? Every day brings its own trouble said Jesus to the crowds that listened (Matthew 6:34). We are to be concerned for today alone, but sometimes our today’s trouble is overwhelming enough to bear and it lends itself into our tomorrow! We feel there is no answer, no relief for our burden. But I tell you, lift your eyes to Jesus. He also told the crowds to come to him, “all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light” (Matthew 11:28-30). This is the hope we have in Jesus, that no matter our problem or issue, when we give it...

  Walk with the wise and become wise,     for a companion of fools suffers harm ~ Proverbs 13:20 Wisdom comes at the cost of self. In other words, if I am proud and boast about it, I will not have the ears to hear wisdom, and wisdom will be lost. When one walks with a wise person, they are in conversation of listening and talking, of sharing and learning, of gaining goodness and losing what is wasteful. Our minds are opened to broader vision when we walk and talk with a wise person. Our own prejudices are challenged, our ways of thinking are given new insight, and the learning of another is our profit. Wisdom is learned at cost, at least usually, unless we do walk and learn from another. For their insight may have cost them a great deal, so if they pass it along and we hear it, we are saved much grief of learning through the hard lessons of life. A foolish person on the other hand does not hear wisdom for they lean toward a person who themselves do not listen nor h...

  Give praise to the Lord, proclaim his name;     make known among the nations what he has done ~ Psalm 105:1 God is so great! Our every need is taken care of by him, he takes our burdens on his shoulders when we give them to him, he cares for us as no other. We can and do praise the Lord, and we should proclaim his name to the nations! He never leaves us or forsakes us, and daily he walks our journeys with us, hand in hand. His salvation through the cross is enough to proclaim let alone all that he does for us each and every day as he guides us in his way. Give praise to the Lord! Praise him for his miracles, praise him for his healing power! Praise him for his words of life which bring a newness to our heart and life. Praise him for his blessings when we do not deserve them, praise him for his grace when we have not earned it. Praise him for his mercy which forgives us, praise him for receiving us as co-heirs with him. Praise him for his Holy Spirit within us, ...

We demolish arguments and every pretension that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ ~ 2 Corinthians 10:5 Paul has stated that he is timid, but also bold. He is timid in person, but he is ready to take a bold stand when he writes, knowing that if he does not, the church plant can be sent off in all sorts of tangents by those who come preaching a different message than his. His message of course, is the message of Christ. When it comes to mixed messages about Jesus, Paul will stand and fight, but not as the world fights. His weapon is the power of the Holy Spirit. There is no fighting against the Spirit of God, for God will vanquish every enemy through the power of Truth and Love. We are to be timid when we are trying to win the world to Christ, but we are also to be bold in our actions and our living out what Christ calls us to be and do. We are not in this day and age listened to, in fact, we are shut down, but ...

If you remain in me and my words remain in you, ask whatever you wish, and it will be done for you ~ John 15:7 This almost makes Jesus sound like a Santa Claus figure. I sit on his knee and ask for whatever I want, and my wish is granted. Sounds grand, doesn’t it? What do I want today? A giant boat, a new car, how about a new house? In this high turnover housing market, I certainly cannot buy one on my own, so maybe, if I ask, Jesus will get it for me – free! How shallow are these words, even as I write them. The secret to getting whatever we wish and having it done for us is in the relationship with Jesus. IF I remain in him…step one. My relationship has to be real; it has to be ongoing, it has to be deep. For when it is, my heart becomes his heart, and my desires are streamlined toward his desires. Step 2 – his word must remain in me. I cannot go off on a tangent of my own but must read what the Bible tells me. From there I learn about love, compassion, forgiveness, justice, hope, ...

  But I will sing of your strength,     in the morning I will sing of your love; for you are my fortress,     my refuge in times of trouble ~ Psalm 59:16 Every day is a new day in the Lord. Isn’t that exciting? I may have made mistakes yesterday, but today, my slate before the Lord is clear and clean. That is the love of God in action – that my errors and ways which may have led me away from him are removed from me. I draw close to him as the new day dawns. I desire that my day will produce that which he calls me toward and that I will not turn away from following ever more closely the Saviour and God who not only created me, but who guards and protects me. There is no love that comes close to the love of God for those who have received him into their heart. He loves us with all our warts, with all our misguided thoughts, and in his love, he draws us to learn from him so that our warts will disappear, and our misguided thoughts will turn into h...

  Search me, God, and know my heart;     test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is any offensive way in me,     and lead me in the way everlasting ~ Psalm 130:23, 24 These words should be our prayer every morning as we start our day and every night before shutting our eyes. Often in the night hours, our minds may awaken us and our thoughts drift to our daylight hours. What has taken place in those hours? Have financial troubles come our way? Did I have sharp words with a friend or a loved one? Did I fail to follow the leading of God’s Spirit, or am I worried about tomorrow’s doctor appointment? Our mind takes us to many places in the midnight hours. And then, when we awaken, our experiences, our activities, our interactions too can lead us into places where we had not planned to go with our words and our thoughts. Search me, O God, and wipe away all that is offensive in me. May I not bring a scourge to your name. May I always live a...

If I speak in the tongues of men or of angels, but do not have love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal ~ 1 Corinthians 13:1 Without love, and the purest form of love found in us is from the Lord God, we are empty vessels blowing off steam. We can talk all we want, we can direct and guide, but it will all be for nought, if we do not have the love of God guiding our thoughts and heart. Paul wrote of the characteristics of love extensively. Jesus’ every act and word, even his sharp words to the Pharisees, stemmed from love. Love, when guided by the Lord’s love can be words of judgment, or words of encouragement. They can uplift and they can set our conscience on fire. Words of love can bring repentance and forgiveness. Let our words always be filled with the love of God so that they take on meaning in the lives of those we speak with. Let our heart always be filled with God’s love so that we do not err with empty and hollow words. Pastor Julia image by pixabay

Therefore, I urge you, brothers and sisters, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and pleasing to God—this is your true and proper worship ~ Romans 12:1 How many of us really offer our bodies as a living sacrifice? It is a question that I ponder, for it has multi answers and multi problems. The first thought that comes to my mind is that it is difficult because we have to put our “old man” to death. Paul speaks extensively about this act, for it is to put away sin and our slavery to sin. Peter too talked about this as he wrote that we are to put aside malice, deceit, envy, slander, and deceit. He also said to not conform to our former lusts. Even John, the beloved disciple, took part in this conversation telling us that if we walk in the darkness, we lie and don’t practice the truth, and that we can do this even though our words say we walk with the Lord Jesus (Romans 6:6; 1 Peter 1:14;1 John 1:6, 7). Therefore, we cannot really offer our bodies as...

For I am the Lord your God     who takes hold of your right hand and says to you, Do not fear;     I will help you ~ Isaiah 41:13 When my children and twin granddaughters were tiny, I would take them by the hand to lead them and keep them safe. We all do that with our little one’s. We are their protector, their guide; we love them and want them to be safe. That is what a caring and responsible parent/grandparent will do. We don’t want our little ones to run out into the street, or to trip and fall and scrape their knees. We want them to be content and happy. We want them to be confident that we will and do care for them. God is our parent, our Father in heaven, and he desires for us as we desire for our children and grandchildren. He reminds us that he has it all under control. There is nothing that God does not know about us, or about our God-inspired choices in life. His plans are higher than our plans, says his word. When we entrust our life into...

Surely God is my salvation;     I will trust and not be afraid. The Lord, the Lord himself, is my strength and my defense; he has become my salvation” ~ Isaiah 12:2 The prophet writes that “surely” God is his salvation. There is no hesitancy, no “second-guessing”, just a strong inner sense of peace that he has nothing at all to fear. It is the faith of one who knows what God has done in the past and knows what God will do in the future. I was raised in the church in my childhood, and I knew some of the basics about God, but it was not enough to put my trust completely in him. It wasn’t until I was in my early 40’s that I truly turned to him and gave myself over to his leading. That was when I began to trust in him. I then came to know his full salvation and to understand what I had not grasped as a young child. I wasted many years fighting against him, yet even now he uses those “lost years”. Nothing is a waste in God’s eyes. He loved me before I loved him, and he...

“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock…” ~ Matthew 7:24 Nova Scotia is mostly surrounded by water and rocky shores. And of course, since a good portion of her shores are right on the side of the Atlantic Ocean, lighthouses are built and are a ready sight to see, the most famous of course being at Peggy’s Cove. That being said, they are all built upon the rocks of the shoreline. The storms may rise, the waves may crash, but still the lighthouses stand tall and strong, warning the men out at sea of danger. As I read this verse, I liken the words of Jesus to those lighthouses. His words are full of warning, of safety for our soul. His words bring protection and care, love and hope to our wave-crashed heart. It is not just in the hearing of God’s words though, for we must listen to his words and obey them. We must take them into our heart and meditate upon them. They must become as much of us as the...

  I have hidden your word in my heart     that I might not sin against you ~ Psalm 119:11 I do not have the kind of memory that can quote scripture from its origin in the Bible, but when I need the word of the Lord to come to my aid, it is there because I have read it, and studied it, and many times, preached on it. If God’s word is not in our heart, how can we lean on him when times become difficult? Who would God be to us then? A distant being with no words, no comfort, no guidance is what I think! God is personal, and loving, and if we do not read what he has to say to us, we are a “sitting duck” for the enemy of our soul. Satan does not desire that we lean on our Lord for strength in times of distress and lean on the Lord is exactly what we need to do in those times. Without God’s word in our heart, sin has an open door into leading us to follow the way of the world around us, and the way of our own carnal desires. I encourage you to read from God’s word ever...

  …Neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord ~ Romans 8:39 The other day, I saw a homeless man who was bent over, standing in an ally by my home. He was leaning over from the waist, mumbling to himself, which made me wary, for it indicated to me a mental health problem. I was out for a walk with my dog at the time, and I prayed, “Lord, if he is still there when I return, let me go over and see if he needs help.” He was there when I returned, and I discovered as I went near to him, that he had an injury on his back and on his leg. It was his leg he had been bending over to attend. I went into my apartment and found some gauze and bandages and made him a couple of sandwiches, which then opened a conversation with him. We started to talk, and he asked me if I knew his mom. He was a very elderly man, so I knew his mom was probably dead. I said I did not know her, but since we had been...

Let us then approach God’s throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need ~ Hebrews 4:16 Do we really, really believe that when we come before our Lord God in prayer that he hears us, let alone will answer? That is the meaning behind this verse. You see, if we come with a divided mind about what Christ can do for us, will we see the answer? James, the half-brother of Jesus said “But when you ask, you must believe and not doubt, because the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea, blown and tossed by the wind. That person should not expect to receive anything from the Lord” (James 1:6, 7). We are called then to pray, with confidence, as we come into the Lord’s presence. It is a matter of trust. If we thoroughly trust God, we will not lack any confidence in our prayer, and if we pray with not generalities, but with specifics, we can expect God to answer. His answer may not be fulfilled by our expectations, and I think we can...