May God Crown the New Year with Bounty

“Praise is due You, O God in Zion, and to You shall vows be performed, O You who hear prayer to You shall all flesh come…You crown the year with bounty.” -Psalm 65:1-2, 11a (ESV). [Read Psalm 65]

This is the first day of a brand New Year! Welcome, 2017! The end of the year just passing and the beginning of a new year is a somber time for me: a time to reflect upon blessings, to remember, sometimes to consider regrets and to seek forgiveness, but certainly a time to look forward with anticipation to the fresh new year beginning. I highly recommend David’s reflections in Psalm 65 as a basis for our own thoughts of remembrance and reflection as we look both backward and forward and thank God for the time he continues to give us to “live and move and have our being” in this present world. May we awake each day of 2017 with this acclamation on our lips: “This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it!” (Psalm 118:24)

Why am I living in this year of our Lord, 2017? Do you consider that God had a purpose for each of us, even before we were conceived in our mother’s womb? So we are told in Psalm 22:10: “On you was I cast from my birth, and from my mother’s womb you have been my God.”

The beginning of a New Year is a time of reflection—of looking back to count blessings, both spiritual and temporal. And among them are our beginnings, the family into which we were born. I hope each of you reading this, as I, had a loving Christian home, one where parents trained you up in the way you should go, so that when you were older you would not depart from their Christian instruction (as promised in Proverbs 22:6). I owe a great debt to my parents. And they, too, exampled for me, when I became a parent, that I had a godly responsibility to the children entrusted to me. At the closing out of the old year and the beginning of the new, I am flooded with remembrances and thanksgivings of who I am because of the foundations of faith and stability in which I was reared.

As the New Year dawns, it is a time of anticipation. David’s Psalm 65 attests strongly to God’s providence and salvation. In the Psalm the author affirms that the people will make their prayers to God and pay their vows. He anticipates that God will visit the earth, water it, make it produce. He pictures how the people will have what they need: “You crown the year with Your bounty; your wagon tracks overflow with abundance” (Psalm 65:11). What then, is my purpose, your purpose, as the new year 2017 dawns? Could our purpose be to praise and honor God, to live close to Him, to recognize His favor, to pray for and love our families and be reconciled to them? To pray earnestly for our country and its leaders, to live as responsible, caring, helping citizens, to love those with a godly love within the parameter of our influence? . Psalm 65:4 gives us an answer: “Blessed is the one You choose and bring near to dwell in Your courts!” Consider that God has chosen each believer for this time and place in history in the vast span of time and eternity. What a sobering and awesome thought!. A strong example from history happened during the reign of King Ahaseurus of Persia, who ruled from about 486-464 BC. Her Uncle Mordecai said to Esther when she was to approach King Ahaseurus on behalf of the Jews: “And who knows whether you have not come to the kingdom for such a time as this?” (Esther 4:14b, ESV).

What an awesome message for 2017 is contained in David’s words in Psalm 65:5-8: “By awesome deeds You answer us with righteousness, O God of our salvation, for the hope of all the ends of the earth and of the farthest seas; the One who by His strength established the mountains, being girded with might: who stills the roaring of the seas, the roaring of their waves, the tumult of the peoples, so that those who dwell at the ends of the earth are in awe at Your signs. You make the going out of the morning and the evening to shout for joy.”

Prayer: O Lord, our Lord, in this year of our Lord, 2017, we are thankful to be alive! Help us reflect on Your bountiful provisions in the past and anticipate with joy Your leadership in this New Year and in the future.

-Ethelene Dyer Jones 01.01.2017

Developing an Attitude of Gratitude

“Giving thanks always and for everything to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, submitting to one another out of a reverence for Christ.” -Ephesians 5:20-11.”Pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” -1 Thessalonians 5:17-18 (ESV).

     This is our Thanksgiving season, a special time set aside in November to give thanks. Do we consider the seriousness of giving thanks, and how the Word of God urges us to “give thanks for everything,” and to “give thanks in all circumstances?”

     Most of us have difficulty overcoming the inability to “give thanks for all things” and “in all circumstances.”

     What about illness of self or one dear to us? Can we give thanks in this circumstance?

     Or what about hard times, some situation or event that clearly challenges every effort we can engage just to subsist or live through it? But to give thanks in it? That is difficult indeed.

     I recently heard a man’s son give a beautiful eulogy of his deacon father at the man’s memorial service. In the remarks about his loving and stalwart Christian father, the son recounted how his father always taught his children that they are strengthened by adversity and can, indeed thank the Lord for trying circumstances. Accepting the difficult situations as times to gain strength and to grow closer to the Lord and depend upon Him for guidance helps one to grow in character. If we can remember to be thankful in circumstances and to depend upon God’s guidance to bring us through whatever we are facing, victory surely will be ours. We will come through the period of trial a stronger and more understanding person.

     To develop an attitude of gratitude means to sincerely seek to have a spirit of thanksgiving every day. It is good upon arising to quote sincerely Psalm 118:24: “This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” In this way, the believer starts on a plane of gratitude and it will be more likely that throughout the day his spirit will rejoice and seek that which is uplifting and inspirational, even in hard situations.

     As we count our blessings this Thanksgiving, and give God glory for bringing us safely through another year, may we also give consideration to cultivating an attitude of gratitude that will help us every day to count our blessings and be grateful for the difficult circumstances as well as those that are happy, manageable and don’t require extreme effort.

     This exercise should help us to see that God is good, all the time, and every circumstance holds something good for those who love the Lord and seek to do His will. - Ethelene Dyer Jones 11.20.2016

Signs for the Seasons

“And God said, ‘Let there be lights in the expanse of the heavens to separate the day from the night. And let them be for signs and for seasons, and for days and years, and let them be lights in the expanse of the heavens to give light upon the earth. And it was so. And God made the two great lights—the greater light to rule the day and the lesser light to rule the night--and the stars And God set them in the expanse of the heavens to give light on the earth, to rule over the day and over the night, and to separate the light from the darkness. And God saw that it was good. And there was evening and there was morning, the fourth day.” –Genesis 1:14-19 (ESV). He made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting.” –Psalm 104:19 (ESV).

“Spring forward! Fall back!” These are not commands for some military maneuver, but directions for how to set the clock when Daylight Saving Time change rolls around on the calendar. Now (in 2015 and since these dates became effective in 2007) the time for fall change (roll back one hour) is 2:00 a.m. on the first Sunday in November and the spring (move forward one hour) change is on the second Sunday in March at 2:00 a.m. Electronic devices are set to change automatically. It is hardly practical that anyone would stay awake to make the changes right on the minute of occurrence of time change.

The history of the time change is intriguing. If you are interested, I recommend that you seek out and read the story of how the phenomenon of Daylight Saving Time evolved. The history will reveal that the hurdle to change the time has met obstacles. From religious antagonism to secular displeasure and disregard, the idea to change time has met with opposition. We “set-in-our-ways” people don’t like changes that go against “what we are accustomed to.” And time seems so set. As we read in Genesis, God got time just right on the fourth day of Creation. He set day and night. Each was ruled by its own special light: the sun for day, the moon for night. And He saw that the way He had created it was very good.

“So then, when there is a good thing going, why change it?” argue those who may be irked and whetted while getting used to an hour’s change in time spring and fall. A writer for “Snopes” wrote this comment: “The purpose of the shift (to Daylight Saving Time) is to transfer, in effect, an hour’s worth of daylight from the early morning hours of the day, when only milkmen and chickens are awake to appreciate it, and use it to push back sunset until one hour later in the day. This arrangement is claimed to cut electricity usage in the evening and help reduce traffic accidents.” (http://www.snopes.com/science/daylight.asp. Accessed 10.31.2015.)

In this new month and in the beginning of this winter season’s Daylight Saving Time change, may we, as the Psalmist, rejoice that from the beginning of Creation God has faithfully brought day and night, light and darkness, sunset and sunrise. Indeed, we can say with the Psalmist, “He made the moon to mark the seasons; the sun knows its time for setting” (Psalm 104:19). Furthermore, we can declare with positive faith as did the Psalmist: “My times are in Your hand” (Psalm 31:15a), and, assuredly, “This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it!” (Psalm 118:24).  

-Ethelene Dyer Jones November 1, 2015

Shout Hosanna! Jesus’ Triumphal Entry into Jerusalem

“Rejoice greatly, O daughter of Zion! Shout aloud, O daughter of Jerusalem! Behold, your king is coming to you; righteous and having salvation is He, humble and mounted on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.” –Zechariah 9:9 (ESV). “Most of the crowd spread their cloaks on the road, and others cut branches from the trees and spread them on the road. And the crowds that went before Him and that followed Him were shouting, ‘Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!’ And when He entered Jerusalem, the whole city was stirred up, saying, ‘Who is this?’ And the crowds said, ‘This is the prophet Jesus from Nazareth of Galilee.’”-Matthew 21:8-11 (ESV).

All four gospel writers record what we have come to term Jesus’ triumphal entry into Jerusalem.

You might like to read all four accounts in their entirety: Matthew 21:1-11; Mark 11:1-11; Luke 19:29-44; and John 12:12-19. In Christendom, we call the observance “Palm Sunday,” marked by the triumphant waving of palm branches. On that day in Jerusalem the jubilant waving of palm branches and laying of cloaks in the path were outward acts declaring the people’s recognition of and submission to Jesus as King. Waving palm branches had been associated with important Jewish victories of the past. Imagine the tenor of the crowd as they anticipated that soon their long-expected Messiah would declare His rule and free them from Roman oppression.

Jesus rode on a donkey. That, too, had significant symbolism. One who rode in triumph on a lowly donkey brought peace—not war. Of the four gospel writers, Matthew is the only one who mentions two animals, both the donkey and her colt. We are not to see a problem here, but that both were brought by the disciples sent to get them. It is fitting to recognize that the donkey would have walked alongside her unbroken colt to give confidence to the young animal on whom no one had ever ridden. But Jesus rode on the foal. The shout of “Hosanna in the highest!” is from Psalm 118:25-26. The translation from the Hebrew (hoshiahna) is rendered “Save us!”: “Save us, we pray, O Lord! O Lord, we pray, give us success! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! We bless you from the house of the Lord.”

An atmosphere of celebration and jubilation was everywhere. Noted by the religious authorities whose critical watch was ever upon the prophet and healer—whom they termed an impostor—they commented on the commotion at the city gate: “You see that you are gaining nothing. Look, the world has gone after him” (John 9:19). When some of the Pharisees asked Jesus to rebuke his disciples for the celebration and demonstration of loyalty their shouts and actions displayed, Jesus told them, “I tell you, if these were silent, the very stones would cry out!” (Luke 19:40). Jesus was referring to the words from Habakkuk 2:11: “For the stone will cry out from the wall, and the beam from the woodwork respond.”

Those who cast palm branches and cloaks before Jesus and cried so fervently, “Hosanna in the highest!” so quickly turned against the King of King and Lord of Lords. Their cry became “Crucify Him! Crucify Him!” Let us view the triumphal entry in the earthly life of our Lord in the perspective of His purpose for coming to earth. He was, indeed, King of King and Lord of Lords—but not in the way anticipated. He was not just for the Jews to be declared their king alone and to establish His rule in the holy city of Jerusalem. He is indeed the righteous Messiah who would “save His people from their sins” (see Mark 8:31, Romans 5:6-8). His triumph as Christos, Saviour, Messiah, Emmanuel was His ultimate purpose: Not for the Jews but for everyone who will crown Him King! Not for an age, but for all ages! Not for an earthly dominion but for the glory of an eternal kingdom! Let us indeed shout “Hosanna! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord!” - Ethelene Dyer Jones 03.29.2015.

God Is Very Good at Making Days

“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!  Because His mercy endures forever.” –Psalm 118:1 (NKJV).  “Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.  And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness.  God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.  So the evening and the morning were the first day.” –Genesis 1:3-5 (NKJV).  “This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”  -Psalm 118:24 (NKJV).

Do you ever try to stretch your imagination and think how it was before God spoke and created day and night, light and darkness, the world and everything in it,  the sky, the seas, the firmament, the animals, the birds, the creatures everywhere, and man and woman?  From nothing—He created everything in perfect order!  With the power of His word He created!

God has been very good at making days from that time henceforth.  At first, calendars were not like we know them today, with 365 days per year except that every fourth year came leap year with 366 days.  Then, man with his ingenuity, and no doubt inspired by God, wrapped the days in countable time called weeks, months, years, decades and centuries.  Even the day/night sequence was paced with twenty-four hours, or 1,440 minutes, or 86,400 seconds.  Rev. Robert J. Morgan wrote:  “God is in the day-making business.  The Ancient of Days is the Manufacturer of Days…One new day rolls off God’s assembly line every twenty-four hours, right on schedule, each one unique”  (100 Bible Verses Everyone Should Know by Heart.  Nashville, TN:  B&H Publishing Group, 2010, p. 165).  Just to consider receiving a new day every twenty-four hours is phenomenal!

Consider the question:  How shall we use the new day allotted to us?  How shall we fill the gift of today that God is so good at making?

I heard of a widow who was feeling sorry for herself and her plight as she faced the prospect of days alone after her husband died.  Then she was reading her Bible and Psalm 118:24 seemed to leap out at her:  “This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.”  She decided that she would use a glass-carving instrument and engrave the verse into the panes of the window at which she stood each morning immediately after arising.  Seeing the words carved into the glass became a good reminder to her that each day was a brand new gift from God, made especially for her.  Why should she feel such self-pity when God had provided so bountifully for her?  With the psalmist, she resolved to be glad and rejoice in each day.  Following that experience, her life changed from one of self-pity to one of praise, thanksgiving and seeking to help others.

A Bible dictionary defines “rejoice”  as to feel gladness, to exult and be jubilant, to have a heart that sings.  Vivian Green gave us these classic lines about how to rejoice:  “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass.  It’s learning how to dance in the rain.”

 Here is a quatrain of praise I wrote that can be sung to  “The Old 100^th”—Doxology—tune:

Oh, Lord I thank you for today;

Praise for Your guidance on my way.

When nighttime falls may all be well;

At last in Heaven may I dwell.   Amen.    –Ethelene Dyer Jones  06.22.2014

God Is Very Good at Making Days

“Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good!  Because His mercy endures forever.” –Psalm 118:1 (NKJV).  “Then God said, ‘Let there be light,’ and there was light.  And God saw the light, that it was good, and God divided the light from the darkness.  God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night.  So the evening and the morning were the first day.” –Genesis 1:3-5 (NKJV).  “This is the day which the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” – Psalm 118:24 (NKJV).

            Do you ever try to stretch your imagination and think how it was before God spoke and created day and night, light and darkness, the world and everything in it, the sky, the seas, the firmament, the animals, the birds, the creatures everywhere—and then man and woman?

            From nothing he created the world and its order!  With the power of His word He created! And God has been very good at making days from that time henceforth.  At first, calendars were not like we know them now, with 365 days per year except for leap year.  But back then, man with his ingenuity, and no doubt inspired by God, wrapped the days in countable time.  Seven is known to be a ‘perfect number,’ and so seven days were contained in a week of time.  Weeks were enumerated into four (and a few days more) for months.  Twelve months were designated in a year.  Ten years became a decade and 100 years a century. 

            Even the light and darkness—day and night—were combined in a period of twenty-four hours for a day.  That day counted out as 1,440 minutes or 84,400 seconds.  Perhaps we might overlook the significance of this time and how counted, but note how it has order and sequence.

            Rev. Robert J. Morgan wrote:  “God is in the day-making business.  The Ancient of Days is the Manufacturer of Days…One new day rolls off God’s assembly line every twenty-four hours right on schedule, each one unique (100 Bible Verses Everyone Should Know by Heart.  Nashville, TN: B&H Publishing Group, 2010, p. 165).  Just to consider receiving a new day every twenty-four hours is phenomenal!

            Then the question comes:  How shall we use the new day allotted to us?  How shall we fill the gift of today that God is so good at making and giving to us?

            I heard of a widow who was feeling somewhat sorry for herself and her plight as she faced the prospect of days alone after her husband died.  As she was reading her Bible, Psalm 118:24 seemed to leap out at her.  She decided she would use a glass-carving instrument and carve the verse into the panes of the window at which she stood every morning immediately after arising.  Seeing the words carved into the glass became a good reminder to her that each day was a brand new gift from God .  Why should she feel such self-pity when God had provided so bountifully for her?  With the Psalmist, she resolved to be glad and rejoice with each new day.

            A Bible dictionary indicates that rejoice means to feel gladness, to exult, to be jubilant, to have a heart that sings.  Vivian Green gave us these classic lines about how to rejoice:  “Life isn’t about waiting for the story to pass.  It’s learning how to dance in the rain.”

            Here’s a little quatrain from my pen, a song of praise for today that can be sung to the hymn tune “The Old 100^th”—“The Doxology”:

            O Lord, I thank You for today;

            Praise for Your guidance on my way.

            When nighttime falls may all be well”

            At last in Heaven may I dwell.  Amen.                       
 -Ethelene Dyer Jones 04.06.2014

Rejoice at All Times

“Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, Rejoice.” –Philippians 4:4 (ESV).

“Rejoice always; pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you.” -1 Thessalonians 5:16-18 (ESV).

Sometimes I find the Lord’s commands extremely hard to follow.  Paul’s statement of the Lord’s will in Philippians 4:4 and in 1 Thessalonians 5:16 is one such command:   “Rejoice always.”  I want to argue and question the Lord:  I am to “always rejoice” Lord?  What about when troubles beset on every hand?  When my own perceived needs are immanent and I don’t know how I will meet them?  When others turn to me for help and I am so mired in my own load of deadlines and things to do that I cannot see the light of day?  Rejoice then, Lord?  There must be some mistake, Lord, in this admonition from You.  And so my arguments and excuses go.

Following closely on the command to “rejoice always,” are others equally as hard for me to follow:  “Pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances.”  And then comes this concluding reason with which I can raise no argument:  “For this is the will of God concerning you.”  Then almost as brilliantly as the sunlight shattering the darkness at dawn or the landscape turning into dazzling aliveness after the dead of winter, an insight came to me as I read more carefully.  “Rejoice in the Lord always.”  It is the Lord’s indwelling within the life that makes the person rejoice.  He walks alongside me, dwells within me, fills me with the reason for rejoicing.  I don’t have to do the constant rejoicing on my own power!  It is He who lifts and upholds me.  “Do not quench the Spirit,” Paul writes (1 Thes. 5:19).  Further, he states, “Now may the God of peace Himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.”  The secret, I think, of rejoicing always is abiding always in Him and allowing the Spirit of God who lives within the believer lead us to rejoice.  “He who calls you is faithful; He will surely do it,”  declares Paul in 1 Thessalonians 5:24.

It is possible to rejoice even as one cries.  I have experienced this over and over in my life.  It is at times like these that we hold on to God’s faithfulness, not our own weaknesses and woes.  Considering how the Lord loves and provides for His children, how can we help but rejoice in every circumstance and look for the good even in what appear at first to be disappointments? 

Good and God’s undergirding reasons lie beneath every circumstance that besets us.  In this foreknowledge, we can, indeed, learn to rejoice always!  In retrospect, when we’ve been through a hardship, we can examine and see how God worked it all out for His glory.  But in anticipation of the good outcome—and with the sure knowledge that God is working things according to our good—we can rejoice.  The Psalmist had the right attitude as he penned 19:8:  “The precepts of the Lord are right, rejoicing the heart; the commandment of the Lord is pure, enlightening the eyes.”  And again from the Psalmist:  “This is the day which the Lord hath made; I will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24 KJV).  I like the words of Vivian Green that go along with the idea of rejoicing always:  “Life isn’t about waiting for the storm to pass.  It’s learning how to dance in the rain.”  -Ethelene Dyer Jones  03.16.2014.

Light for the Journey

Many times in my life God has spoken to me through His Word.  Just when I seemed to need special encouragement and assurance from God, the Spirit led me to certain Bible verses that applied to the very situation I was facing.  Here I will give you three very personal examples.

The date was November 16, 1993.  My husband Grover had already received extensive cardiovascular tests and was in Atlanta Medical Center (formerly Georgia Baptist Hospital) awaiting bypass heart surgery scheduled for the next day.  I had a guest room in the old Georgia Baptist School of Nursing dormitory (the school being then closed out).  The dormitory was on the top floor, but reached from a sort of tunnel passageway  that went from the lower level of the hospital across and to the dormitory.  In 1993 it was a place for family members of patients to board.  Knowing that Grover faced serious surgery the next day, I was naturally concerned.  Settled into the room and ready for bed, I took my Bible to read and pray.  I opened to Psalm 118, the psalm with the recurring refrain:  “O give thanks unto the Lord; for He is good because His mercy endureth forever” (Ps. 118:1; see also verses 2, 3, 4, 29).  Then verse 17 seemed to stand out as a special message for the occasion:  “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.”  I felt the verse was a promise from God given in anticipation of successful surgery and recovery for Grover from the next day’s heart surgery.  After claiming that promise and praying, I slept well and awoke the next day very early, ready to see Grover before he was taken to surgery and to share with him the verse the Spirit had led me to claim for his health and well being.  The surgery was successful and he made a good recovery from it.

The date was August 28, 2007.  I was in Middle Georgia Medical Center, Macon, Georgia undergoing extensive cardiac tests and awaiting decisions about whether I would have heart surgery.  My daughter was a long distance away on vacation, as was my son.  My granddaughter, Crystal, had taken me to the hospital and was my “family member” standing beside me during this period of stabilization and decisions about surgery.  On August 30, 2007 I had five bypasses heart surgery.  Prior to the surgery, I remembered Psalm 118:17, and going through my mind, too, was all of Psalm 23, “The Lord is my shepherd…”  I was unafraid.  I knew that if anything went awry I would go immediately to be with the Lord, but if I survived it would be assurance that God “had not finished with me yet.”  When my daughter and my son returned from the places they were at the time of my admittance to the hospital, I was already through with heart surgery and up and taking those first halting steps to exercise in post-surgery therapy.  “I shall not die, but live, and declare the works of the Lord.”

The dates were May 31 through June 6, 2013.  Son Keith was in Piedmont Hospital, Atlanta, with too-rapid pulse rate and other electrolyte imbalance symptoms.  Stabilization and tests occurred for several days and on June 3 he had heart catheterization and two stents.  Still there were episodes of too-rapid heartbeat and he was kept for observation and more tests.  On June 5 he had another probe, this time of the veins, and two ablations were performed to mend the areas where the heart’s “electrical” system was out of sync.  The procedure worked, and he was able to return to his home on June 6 after having been “an interesting case,” not the usual heart-attack, diseased arteries and other cardiac ailments with which the specialists deal.  Remembering Psalm 118:17, I read it and claimed its promise.  I read another and also claimed it for Keith’s recovery:  “I believe that I shall look upon the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living!  Wait for the Lord; be strong and let your heart take courage; wait for the Lord.” (Psalm 27:13-14).

God provides light for the journey.  Search His word and find reassurance…and pray. 

                                                                                                            -Ethelene Dyer Jones  06.09.2013