I received my first pair of glasses when I was four, coke bottle lenses hanging over the glasses’ frames at least a half inch.  Needless to say, my vision was horrible.  I don’t remember the prescription then, but by adulthood my left eye wore a +15.50 and my right a +17.25.  The cornea specialist at Shands told me I had the worst vision of any sighted person he had ever treated except for a man in his late 80s who had finally reached +18.

            Those first glasses seemed like miracles to this child.  I remember people saying, “It’s a shame she has to wear those big, ugly things.”  Yes, they did make my eyes, which were actually too small, look huge and bulging behind those thick lenses, but all I cared about was the fact that I could see for the first time in my life.  I had, for instance, never seen bugs before.  My mother says I was particularly enthralled with ants, and she would often catch me leaning over gazing at them intently as they scurried about on the concrete or through the blades of grass, something else I had never seen but only felt with my hands.

            They were indeed miracles for me, but they did not fix everything.  I could only see what was right in front of me.  I had no peripheral vision and could not see what was under my feet.  I stumbled a lot.

            People who come to the Bible with preconceived notions do exactly the same thing.  If a particular doctrine has been drummed into one’s head, he will never see the truth of a scripture that refutes it.  His brain refuses to.  That’s why you become so frustrated with your friends when you show them something in black and white and they say, “I don’t see it that way.”  The truth is, they really don’t see it that way.  Their glasses are distorting some things and hiding others.

            But here is the scary thing:  if other people can be blinded by teachings they have heard all their lives, the same thing can happen to me, and it can happen to you.  Even good-hearted people who are trying to obey God and serve him in the smallest detail can miss the obvious.  Do you want some examples?

            Matthew 15:8,9 was not written about denominational theologians and their human creeds, the only way I ever heard this verse applied as a child.  It was written to people of God who tried to follow his law exactly but who had a habit of creating traditions they counted as even more important than the law of God, even to the point of refusing fellowship to those who broke those traditions.  It was written to us!

            Romans 6 was not written to prove either the necessity of baptism or the form it should take (immersion).  It was written to Christians who had already been baptized to tell them they should live like they had been baptized.  It was written to us!

            James 2 was not written to people who believe in salvation by faith only in the Protestant denominational sense.  It was written to Christians who believed that as long as they assembled, and never did the big bad sins (by their definition), they were just fine.  They didn’t really have to do good deeds, show mercy and kindness, or serve others.  It was written to us!

            1 Cor 14:15, Eph 5:19 and Col 3:16 were not written as proof texts for our a capella singing.  They were written to show us how to sing and why; to command us to sing, not simply mutter and certainly not to sit there close-mouthed.  Singing is not a matter of choice, folks, any more than taking the Lord’s Supper is.  That is what those verses teach, and they were written to us!

            I could go on and on.  We must be every bit as careful as our religious friends when we read the scriptures.  Some of the phrases we use are simply not there.  Some of the notions we have are simply not so.  We are just as blind as our friends, just as much victims of our own tunnel vision, if we accept the things we have always heard or been taught without checking them out with an open mind.  Worst of all, we often miss things that will make a huge difference in our service to God. 
 
Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me! Psalm 119:18,19.
 
Dene Ward
 

Today’s post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

If any man see his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and God will give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: not concerning this do I say that he should make request. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death. (1John 5:16-17)

When a Bible class gets to 1 Jn 5:16-17, the discussion immediately turns, often with heat, to consideration of exactly what is the “sin unto death” and the “sin not unto death” since the wages of [all] sin is death. Then, someone will opine that the sin unto death is the same as the unpardonable sin of which Jesus spoke (Mt 12:32). All these things are fun to speculate about and, being unknowable, do not cut anyone with the sword of the Spirit.

But, consider the one thing we can know for certain from this passage. If we see a brother sin, we are to pray for him, pray for life for him. This is a far cry from some of the attitudes often expressed. “He is not so high and holy after all.” “Did you hear what she did?  “I may not be perfect, but at least I don’t…”  “There he goes again.”


What is your thought when you see a brother (or sister) sin? Is the first thing that comes to mind to go pray for his soul? No wonder we spend our time arguing over “sins not unto death.” That one cuts. (Me too!) How many other Bible class wranglings come from just such attempts to avoid the backswing of the sword of the Spirit?
 
If it is not helping us improve our service to God, it is not fit discussion.
 
Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any trespass, ye who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; looking to thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Gal 6:1
 
Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working. Jas 5:16
 
Keith Ward

My mother recently moved and among the things she left behind were half a dozen old cookbooks printed in the 40s, 50s, and 60s.  I spent a few minutes leafing through them.  Our culture’s tastes have certainly changed in the past fifty or sixty years.

              Most of the recipes I found were for simple fare with plain ingredients.  When I was a child, my mother’s favorite market did not have an “International Foods” aisle.  The only pastas available were spaghetti and elbow macaroni.  The only salad dressings were Italian, Thousand Island, and that bright red-orange French.  All olives were green and pimento stuffed.  The only baked beans were Van Camp’s pork and beans or B & M baked beans, which none of us Southerners liked.  There was only one kind of rice and no couscous to be found.  The most exotic ingredient any of my mother’s favorite recipes called for was La Choy soy sauce.  No one had ever heard of Kikkoman.

              Yet each recipe in those old cookbooks was headed by a comment like, “Very filling,” or “Easy and good,” or “A family favorite.”  And I know those statements were true because I remember eating some of those recipes and even the dishes they were served in on our family table.  Not only were they good and filling, they were inexpensive, even in today’s dollars.  But would anyone even be tempted to use those old recipes today?  Would we serve them to guests?  I doubt it.  Somewhere along the line we’ve become status conscious, even in our food preferences.

              How about our spiritual tastes?  Just look at a modern worship service.  Would that “mega-church” down the road be satisfied with congregational singing and a simpler sermon loaded with scripture?  No, they demand a praise band for entertainment and a comedian/orator for their “pep rally.”  It is no longer about carefully approaching a Holy God with reverence and fear to offer our gift of worship, but all about how it makes ME feel and what I get out of it.  It’s about whether I approve instead of whether God approves.  Unfortunately, we seem to be falling into the same trap.

              In the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, the people came together to worship, standing for hours as the Law was read (Neh 8).  Then the Levites explained it, “they gave the sense” (8:8), what we would call a sermon.  No praise bands, no shouting, no dancing in the aisles, just a calm, intelligible sermon.  And how did that sermon affect them?

              And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them. Neh 8:12

              How about us?  Do we expect, even demand, something besides plain food with simple ingredients?  Are we dissatisfied with the old hymns because we are so Biblically illiterate that we cannot comprehend their depths?  Do we complain about simple old-fashioned sermons because they’re boring? 

              Would we ever stand for hours listening to the Word of God, then go home to Sunday dinner with rejoicing just because we were able to hear His Word?  Or would we cover our meals with the gravy of griping and serve dessert on a platter of complaints?  Is it all about ME instead of all about HIM?
 
Thus says the LORD: “Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ Jer 6:16
 
Dene Ward

After six months, working 20-30 minutes at the time, I finally finished stacking that woodpile.  When it became apparent that I was near the end, and I hoped “this” would be the last load, I stacked the garden cart just a little too high. 

            Have you seen those old Garden Way carts?  A large wooden three sided box sits on two bicycle tires, with two props in front (instead of two more wheels) and a tubular handle that comes straight out from the bottom of the cart.  You lift on that handle and pull or push the cart at an angle to the ground.  Basically, it’s one giant lever. 

            Since I was hoping to finish that day, I started stacking the wood into the cart from the back, behind the wheels.  Instead of laying the whole first layer, which would have been so much smarter, I kept stacking the back higher and higher.  Then as I turned around to grab a log for the first layer on the front end of the cart, I heard a sudden WHAM!  I was almost afraid to look, but when I did, I saw that the cart had tipped and fallen on its back and all that carefully stacked wood had tumbled out onto the ground.  Instead of balancing the weight on, behind, and in front of the wheels, I had put it all behind the wheels.  What should I have expected?  God doesn’t ordinarily change the laws of physics when his children act in a less than intelligent manner.

            We all have tipping points and we are often just as brainless about them.  God warns us over and over that sin can enslave us.  It isn’t something we can dabble in and then step out when we’re ready to.  Peter says we reach a point when we “cannot cease from sin” (2 Pet 2:14).  Paul says we can become “past feeling” at which point we will “give ourselves over” to unrighteousness (Eph 4:19).  He also talks about people who have their “consciences branded” (1 Tim 4:2). 

            Slaves were branded in the first century.  When, having sinned over and over, we reach the point that we have become “obedient slaves of sin” (Rom 6:16), our consciences become branded.  We may think we are free, but that is part of the entrapment.  Somewhere along the line we have become addicted to our sin and we cannot stop, cannot cease, have given ourselves over to this master.

            And when that happens God “gives us over” as well (Rom 1:24).  Whatever we want to do, He will allow, however we want to live, He will not stand in the way.  “There remains no longer a sacrifice” for us (Heb 10:26).

            When do we reach that tipping point?  I do not know.  I do know that the thought of it scares me to death.  If anything will keep me righteous, maybe that is it—the idea that somewhere along the way I can reach a point where even God gives up on me.  Maybe that will make me stay away from that balancing act altogether. 

            Does that make me yet another kind of slave?  You bet—a slave of righteousness.  But tipping over in that direction will bring an entirely different result.
 
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.  For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification… But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.  Rom 6:16-19,22.
 
Dene Ward
 

We planted our first garden 41 years ago.  Even though Keith had been brought up with gardens, we were both tyros, especially considering the climate we were in, different from either of our childhoods.  He set me up with all the equipment I would need, and most of which I still use all these years later, canners, mason jars, jar lifters, lids, rings, funnels, sieves, lime, vinegar, canning salt, and cookbooks, I had them all.

              One of the things I knew I wanted to make was a batch of dill pickles.  I love dill pickles.  I could eat a whole jar.  So I looked all over for recipes and found one that was fairly easy.  I did exactly as the recipe said and one afternoon in July lined my shelves with a dozen pints of dill pickles.  The recipe said to let them sit a few weeks, as I recall, so I did, and did not get around to trying them yet. 

              Finally we had company one evening and Keith grilled some hamburgers.  The perfect meal for my pickles, I thought, and proudly set them on the table.  I made a point to put the mason jar on the table so our guests would know they were homemade.  Too bad for me as it turned out.  Keith’s pal took one bite of pickle and tried very hard to keep his face from screwing up, not entirely succeeding.

              “Wow!” he finally choked out.  “These are DIIIIIIILLLLL pickles.”

              I took a bite myself and resolved to not only toss the recipe but every jar in the pantry.  The recipe had called for four tablespoons of dried dill seed per pint.  That’s one-fourth cup, people.  After all these years of experience, I would have looked at that recipe and immediately known something was off, but then I was a newbie and didn’t know any better.

              Ah, but we make the same sort of mistakes as Christians.  But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Heb 5:14.

              I learned from my mistake with the pickles and tried again, and again, and again, until I finally got it right.  But I would never have gotten it right without all that practice.  That’s what it takes with the Word.  No, it doesn’t take a college degree to understand the Bible and knowing exactly what to do to begin your relationship with Christ is pretty simple, but the Word of God is a profound book.  If all you do is read a chapter a day, you are missing 90% of its power.

              I have seen too many young people, especially those “raised in the church,” spout off simplistic definitions and explanations and think that’s all there is to it, completely missing the depths that can be plumbed with some diligent work.  I’ve seen too many older Christians who have relied on those same one-dimensional catch-phrases instead of growing to the height they should have after all those decades as a Christian that they are so proud of.  And I have seen too many old chestnuts that are patently wrong passed from generation to generation. 

              If reading Hebrews 7 doesn’t send you immediately back to Genesis 14 and Psalm 110, if seeing the word “promise” doesn’t make you instantly check for a reference to the Abrahamic promise, if reading the sermons in Acts doesn’t make you realize exactly how important it is to know the Old Testament, you have not been “exercising your senses” in the Word. 

           Please be careful of anything that sounds too pat, that makes arguments based on simplistic definitions or the spelling of English words (“Godliness is just a contraction of God-like-ness”).  Do not repeat anything you did not check out with careful study yourself.  And if you are still quite young, please check out your understanding with someone who is not only older, but well-versed in the scripture, and be willing to listen and really consider.  Do you know who I have the worst trouble with in my classes?  People who were “raised in the church.”  They are far less likely to even consider that they might be wrong about something and to change their minds than a brand new Christian, converted from the world with a boatload of misconceptions.

            You cannot know too much scripture.  It is impossible to be “over-educated” in the Word.  The more you know, the more motivation you will have to live up to your commitment to God, the better person you will be, and the fewer embarrassing mistakes you will make when you open your mouth. 
 
…put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Col 3:10
 
Dene Ward

Not only is a little knowledge a dangerous thing, it can be unscriptural as well.

            Most people miss a command regarding the elders because they speed right past it to what they consider the more important issues, not realizing that all those others would be much easier if they took care of first things first. 

            But we beseech you brethren to know them that labor among you, and are over you in the Lord, and admonish you, and to esteem them exceeding highly in love for their work’s sake. 1 Thes 5:12,13.

            Yes we are to give them honor, esteem, and obedience.  You cannot read the epistles without seeing that.  But Paul first says “to know them.”  That doesn’t mean to just recognize them across the room or be able to point them out to visitors. 

            This is not the usual New Testament word for “know”--ginosko.  If you have done much Bible study at all, or listened to many sermons, that is the word you have probably seen on all those power point displays.  This word is oida.  Let me show you how the Holy Spirit uses it in a couple of other passages.

            ‘You know neither me nor my father.  If you knew me you would have known my father also…but I know him.  If I should say I know him not, I shall be like you, a liar, but I know him and keep his word, John 8:19,55.  Do you realize Jesus is talking to the Jewish religious leaders and telling them they don’t know God?  No, actually he is telling them they don’t know God like he knows God, even though they think they do.  This is a full knowledge borne of a close relationship, not a superficial recognition of who someone is.

            Many will say to me in that day, Lord, Lord, did we not prophesy in your name and by your name cast out demons and by your name do many mighty works?  And then will I profess unto them I never knew you; depart from me you who work iniquity, Matt 7:22,23.  Will Jesus not recognize who these people are?  Of course he will, but he will not give them approved acceptance.

            Do you know your elders that well?  Had you worked to develop a close relationship with these men before you chose them to lead you?  Do you know them so well that you are able to approve their knowledge, judgment, and life in general?  Why exactly do you think those qualifications are listed?  Not so we can just check them off as quickly as we read them, but so we can investigate and really know they have been met.

            If you know your elders as the Holy Spirit intended you should by using that particular word, the rest of the commands pertaining to them will come more easily.  You will trust them enough to accept their judgment on things and obey them (Heb 13:17).  You will neither gossip about them, nor listen to it either (1 Tim 5:17-19).  You won’t be speaking to them without the respect due their position (I Thes 5:13).   If you cannot do these things, it is your fault.  You chose these men without really “knowing” them. 

           It isn’t their obligation to invite us over for dinner and be our best buddies.  It is our obligation to find out who they are deep inside, deep enough that we really know what they are all about.  We cannot always be privy to every bit of information they have when they make their decisions.  God never meant us to be.  That is why this knowledge we are supposed to have of them is so important.  It’s what makes our trust and submission possible. 

              Look back at the beginning of this little essay.  “Know them who labor among you.”  This is a command, folks, not just a recommendation.  Just which one of God’s commands do we think we don’t have to obey?

Obey those who have the rule over you and submit to them; for they watch in behalf of your souls, as they that shall give account; that they may do this with joy and not with grief, for that would be unprofitable to you.  Heb 13:17

Every so often after a shirt slips over my head and rests on my shoulders I know instantly that I have put it on backwards.  The neckline chokes me while my upper back feels a draft.  Even a crewneck tee shirt is a bit lower in the front than in the back!

              However, I have a blouse that has inspired even perfect strangers to inform me that I put my shirt on backwards.  The blouse is a deep pink, with an embroidered vine trailing down the right side on the front, studded with shiny silver beads, the flowers themselves a raised pattern of brown felt and the leaves an olive green.  But that same vine also crawls up over my shoulder and falls down the back.  And thus we have the problem.  Most people’s shirts have the design only on one side, while mine is on both.

              I was actually standing at a supermarket deli, waiting for my number to come up when a lady tapped me on the shoulder and whispered conspiratorially in my ear, to save me embarrassment, I suppose, “Honey, you put your shirt on backwards this morning.”  At that I turned around, smiling, and she was suddenly no longer so quiet.  “OH!” she blurted out, and then it was her turn to be embarrassed when she saw that my shirt was on frontwards after all. 

              I had no ill will toward her.  She was only trying to help.  And this morning she is helping us see something very important.  Too often we judge other people’s affairs from our perspective.  Somehow from where we sit, we can figure out all the “right” ways to handle things, the “right” things to say, the “right” things to do.  Too often we are looking at the back of the shirt while judging it to be the front.

              I suppose I had my nose rubbed in that lesson for the first time when I became a young preacher’s wife.  Everyone in the church could tell me exactly what I ought to be doing, what my husband ought to be doing, what my children ought to be doing, what I should and should not spend money on, how many hours my husband should spend in the church office, and whom we should visit.  They could also figure out how much time it took my husband to prepare his sermons and Bible classes. 

            At some point along the years, a brother suggested that Keith should be receiving $800 a week (it was a good while back).  Another man stuttered out, “Wh-wh-why that’s $200 an hour!”  In yet another place a man said that all the visiting requirements of the New Testament should be handled by the preacher “because he has so much time left over”—that’s after those four hours he works on Sundays and Wednesdays, I suppose.

              I really think as a whole the church is much more informed about the work a preacher actually does, the time he must spend studying in order to answer all those “Bible questions” off the top of his head and to preach intelligible lessons, the personal Bible studies he holds as well as the one-on-one counseling sessions with struggling brothers and sisters, and the 24/7 on-call nature of his work.  But until you have actually done the work yourself—or seen your husband or father do it—you don’t really get it.

              And when we see our brothers and sisters struggling, it’s easy to think we know the right things to say to comfort them and the right advice to give.  We are often mistaken.  Until we have experienced something similar we need to be cautious in our words.  Having said that, let me reassure you that truth is still truth whether I have experienced exactly what another has or not, but compassion and empathy can go a long way in helping a hurting soul do the right thing no matter how hard it is to do.  Acting like an unmerciful, self-righteous know-it-all can do far more harm than doing nothing at all.

              Sometimes the shirt is on frontwards after all.
 
Finally, all of you, have unity of mind, sympathy, brotherly love, a tender heart, and a humble mind. (1Pet 3:8)
 
Dene Ward

I told you yesterday that I had googled “reasons for abortion” and had found a couple of articles, but in that post I only told you about one of them.  I also found one of the most self-serving articles I have ever read with a title so long I won’t bother now to type it out, but it started, “Ten Reasons I am Pro-Abortion,” and the author is Valerie Tarico.  Let’s just go over some of her statements today.

              1.  Abortion is “fundamental to female empowerment and equality.”  What is this world all about any more except me and my rights?  We fight this in the church all the time, just as Paul fought it in the first century.  We are to be willing to “suffer wrong,” actually yielding our rights for the sake of others--I Cor 6,8, Rom 14, Phil 2—need I go on?  The whole mentality is the opposite of being Christlike.  Now we that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each one of us please his neighbor for that which is good, unto edifying. For Christ also pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon me. Rom 15:1-3.  Yielding our rights and subjecting ourselves to one another, whether male or female, is what Christianity is all about.

              2.  Taking pregnancy “as it happens” instead of planning it, and by inference removing what is unplanned, “trivializes pregnancy.”  On the contrary, treating pregnancy like something listed on a schedule trivializes it.  Babies are not some kind of item we need to remember to pick up at the market before we get home, or can toss in the trash if we don’t want them.  Even when it just “happens,” the people of God have always considered …children a heritage from the LORD, the fruit of the womb a reward. Ps 127:3

              3.  “Real people” are more important than a fetus.  And there you have the perennial justification.  A fetus is not a person.  God says otherwise, period.  Before I formed you in the womb I knew you… Jer 1:5.  But our society no longer has any respect for God or his Word, and with that perspective it can justify anything.  This woman even compared an unborn child to a hamster, and the hamster came out ahead.

              4 and 5.  Abortion can “fix our mistakes” or “fix tragic accidents.”  We now live in a society that blames our mistakes on others, or that thinks we should bear no consequences from them.  Unfortunately life is not like that and trying to pretend that it ought to be is foolish.  Do not be deceived: God is not mocked, for whatever one sows, that will he also reap. Gal 6:7.  Indeed this argument is not about fixing mistakes or accidents, but about making me unaccountable for my sin.  There we go again—sin, a horribly old-fashioned word for something that no longer exists anyway, not to a godless society.

              6.  Abortion is “good economics.”  And by that of course, we are talking about having the money to raise a child.  I am so happy for her that she is part of a family that can eventually reach a point where they can “afford” a child.  If we had waited till we could have afforded them, we would never have had children at all.  Is she saying in all her wisdom that poor people should be neutered?  My children survived on hand-me-downs and happiness.  I do not believe either one of them feels deprived.  ​“Therefore I tell you, do not be anxious about your life, what you will eat or what you will drink, nor about your body, what you will put on. Is not life more than food, and the body more than clothing? ​Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? And which of you by being anxious can add a single hour to his span of life? And why are you anxious about clothing? Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow: they neither toil nor spin, yet I tell you, even Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these. But if God so clothes the grass of the field, which today is alive and tomorrow is thrown into the oven, will he not much more clothe you, O you of little faith? Matt 6:25-30.

              7 and 8.  Abortion is “a way to form a family of your own choosing,” and not having access to legal abortion would be “a violation of our values.”  Let me be clear that I am not against contraceptive measures being used by a married couple.  I am not against choosing the number of children you want to have as far as you can control with those contraceptive measures.  Medical science has made that possible today without the killing of conceived infants.  However, notice the attitude in these two statements.  It’s all about me and what I think, not about the eternal principles of right and wrong.  Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter! Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes, and shrewd in their own sight! Isa 5:20-21.

            9 and 10.  Abortion is for the sake of the “happiness of the unborn” and to “give them a healthier start.”  What we’re talking about here is aborting defective babies.  As someone who was born with a birth defect, let me tell you exactly how angry this one makes me.  Does this writer think I am not happy?  Does she think I was not loved and cared for like a “perfect” child?  How dare she make those judgments for me and intimate that it would have been better for me if I had not been born!  How dare she say that I was not worth the trouble and expense to my parents or society!

            But folks, we will never win this argument because as Christians we will never come at it from the perspective of selfishness, materialism, and irreverence.  And we have no hope against someone who claims that her views on abortion prove that she “believes in mercy, grace, and compassion.”  We obviously do not even speak the same language.
   
            At some point, our task becomes one of keeping ourselves from being infected by this insidious attitude.  We must avoid anything that smacks of selfishness.  We must treat all things spiritual as the priority in our lives.  We must hold God and His Word in reverence, obeying every command and living a life of holiness and righteousness.  We may never change the minds of the godless, but we can keep our own hearts pure, and our actions and attitudes mirror images of the Lord’s. 
 
 Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul. Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. 1Pet 2:11-12
 
Dene Ward

It was my ten year high school reunion, the only one I have ever attended.  I graduated in a class of 800 so I wasn’t exactly pining to see a lot of close, old friends.  I did manage to find four I had known fairly well, but even that turned into a bit of a fiasco.  That sweet girl, someone I thought of as like-minded in her dress, speech, and actions, whose boyfriend became a West Point cadet, both of whom were decidedly to the right in their politics, was now, ten years later, an abortion clinic nurse.  I was absolutely flabbergasted and physically ached when I heard it.

              So then my dear husband began talking about a “case” he knew of.  He told her about this very young teenager who had gotten herself pregnant, but not by her fiancé.  She was very poor, and she was from a town where the social ramifications would be devastating.  “What would be your advice?” he asked my old friend.

              “An abortion,” she immediately replied.  “Teen pregnancies are dangerous to both mother and child and how will she support it?  Assuming her boyfriend and she do eventually marry, how fair is it to expect him to raise someone else’s child?  And why put herself through the torture that we all know society wreaks with unfair judgments?  Her life will be ruined.”

              All of a sudden I knew exactly where this was going, and waited for him to deliver the punch.  “The young woman’s name was Mary and you just killed Jesus,” he said.

              Even though this was in the 80s before search engines ever existed, all you have to do is google “reasons for abortion” and you will find his points exactly.  I did.  One article listed these:  poverty, teen pregnancy, relationship issues, parental upset and fear of what others will think.  There it is in a nutshell:  Mary, who would have entered betrothal to Joseph at about 13 (the kiddushin), who was so poor she had to offer the “poor people” sacrifices at the birth of her son, who lived in a society where she would have been stoned had not the Romans forbidden it and where even her betrothed was planning to divorce her—that’s how binding a betrothal was.  And every abortion doctor in the world would have advised her to terminate that pregnancy.      

           And where would we all be because, congratulations!  You just murdered the Messiah. 

               Aren’t we glad she did not?
 
And it came to pass, when Elisabeth heard the salutation of Mary, the babe leaped in her womb; and Elisabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit; and she lifted up her voice with a loud cry, and said, Blessed art thou among women, and blessed is the fruit of thy womb. Luke 1:41-42
 
Dene Ward

Part 1 appeared yesterday.

When I was studying these women for a class, I found myself amazed by God’s providence and bemused by his methods yet again.  How many times have we said that God’s thoughts are higher than our thoughts and his ways higher than our ways?  His ways are not only different from ours, they often don’t make any sense to us.

            To keep his prophet safe from Jezebel, he sent him into the heart of Jezebel’s home country. To house him he sent him to a poor woman.  To feed him, he sent him to a starving widow.  To encourage him, he sent him to a Gentile.  Would we have even thought to do any of these things in these ways?

            Yet God demands that we accept the same sorts of contradictory things every day.  But many who are last shall be first, and the first last, Matt 19:30.  For whoever would save his life shall lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake shall find it, Matt 16:25.  The greatest among you shall be your servant, Matt 23:11.

            In that lies the test of faith.  It is not shown so much in great deeds of heroism as it is in accepting God’s way when it makes no sense.  It is shown when we follow a path that no longer seems to lead anywhere.  It is shown when, day after day, we live the principles his Son lived, not trusting in things of this world, but trusting that God’s way works no matter how it looks from our perspective.  How else could Gideon have gone to battle against an army “without number” with only 300 weaponless men?  How else could Mary have faced a skeptical village every day for the rest of her life when she had a healthy baby six months after marrying?  How else could Mark’s mother have opened her home to praying Christians when everyone knew they were in danger?  How else could Abraham have offered in sacrifice a son through whom God had made so many promises?

            How do we face another trying day today?  By realizing that God does not work like we do, but that his ways do work.  By understanding that we might not actually see here on earth exactly how they work, but trusting that they will anyway.  By knowing that his Spirit will give us the strength to continue, expecting God’s purposes to come to fruition, just as his promises always have.  Day after day after sometimes difficult day.

            God used a poor, starving, heathen woman, living in the middle of his enemies to save his prophet.  Don’t doubt what he can do for you.
 
You are my witnesses, says Jehovah, and my servant whom I have chosen; that you may know and believe me, and understand that I am he: before me there was no God formed, neither shall there be after me. I, even I, am Jehovah; and besides me there is no savior. I have declared, and I have saved, and I have showed; and there was no strange god among you: therefore you are my witnesses, says Jehovah, and I am God. Yea, since the day was I am he; and there is none that can deliver out of my hand: I will work, and who can hinder it? Isa 43:10-13.
 
Dene Ward