Today’s post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

In our Matthew class, I noted that chapter 19 is all about the cost of discipleship.  Jesus does teach about Marriage, Divorce, and Remarriage, but his main purpose in that section is that some may have to give up their sexuality for the kingdom's sake (vss 1-12).  Go read it and tell me what else, “become eunuchs for the Kingdom of Heaven’s sake” might mean.  

His next point is that we must become little children (vss13-15).  So, Jesus challenges us to give up all that makes a man a man. In the kingdom, a man is not “just a man” bound by his nature, he makes choices for God.  

Finally, he talks about how hard it is for a rich man to enter (vss 16-30). Will you do what the rich young ruler would not and give up your success, your money, your status, your sense of fulfillment?  

This changes a lot of perspectives in the Marriage Divorce Remarriage section--It IS hard.  No compromise at all.  Do you want Jesus badly enough to give it up?  He will not do what many denominations have done and accept the alternate or sinful lifestyles because that is “just how they are” or "God wants me to be happy."

It may come as a shock, but God does not care whether you are happy. He wants you to be saved and that process may make one unhappy!  One may be full of joy in his relationship with Jesus and in the life of triumph and the hope of eternal life while realizing that temporal happiness will never come.  Did not Paul feel this way?
 
Not that I am speaking of being in need, for I have learned in whatever situation I am to be content.  I know how to be brought low, and I know how to abound.  In any and every circumstance, I have learned the secret of facing plenty and hunger, abundance and need.  I can do all things through him who strengthens me. Phil 4:11-13

We do not want you to be unaware, brothers, of the affliction we experienced in Asia. For we were so utterly burdened beyond our strength that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt that we had received the sentence of death. But that was to make us rely not on ourselves but on God who raises the dead. Our hope for you is unshaken, for we know that as you share in our sufferings, you will also share in our comfort .2Cor 1:7-9
 
Keith Ward

I tried to call Keith from the doctor’s office the other day.  I had just stepped out of the elevator and was standing in an enclosed “breezeway” between the bank of elevators and the eye clinic, lined with windows and a view of the city from four floors up.  The little screen on the phone showed “Calling work,” then suddenly switched back to the home screen.  I never did hear it ring on the other end.  I tried twice more but both times the phone stayed silent. 

            I knew I had called from that site before, so I stepped a few paces to the left and tried again.  This time I got a rough ring on the other end and Keith picked up.   We still had a difficult conversation between the phone connection losing every other word of his and him being so deaf that even an amplifier is not an instant cure, but at least we communicated the necessities—I had managed to make another trip into town without running over anyone or anyone running into me.

            Sometimes we have difficulty making connections with God, and usually that is our fault—we are standing in the wrong place. 
 
But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, so that he will not hear. Isa 59:2
If I regard iniquity in my heart, The Lord will not hear, Psa 66:18.
And he said, I will hide my face from them, I will see what their end shall be: For they are a very perverse generation, Children in whom is no faithfulness, Deut 32:20.
 
            We overstate the matter, and miss the point entirely, when we say God only hears Christians.  He heard Cornelius’s prayer before he was converted, Acts 10:4.  God answered that “prayer of a sinner,” not with the instant forgiveness promised by televangelists today, but by sending Peter to preach the gospel, Acts 11:14, “words whereby you shall be saved.”

            The passages listed above were all said of people who claimed to be children of God, “children in whom there is no faithfulness,” yet people we would have called “believers” today.  Faithfulness involves dependent trust.  When God’s people in the Old Testament began relying on the gods of their pagan neighbors, participating in their worship, while at the same time claiming to worship him, he had them carried into captivity as a punishment.

            What are you relying on besides God?  Whatever it is, it stands between you and the connection you so badly need to help you handle life’s difficulties.  If you pray and pray and pray, yet still feel deserted by God, look around.  Are you standing behind a pillar of self-reliance?  Do you count your financial preparations as the ultimate security?  Do you look at the life you have led thus far and find yourself so completely satisfied with your efforts that you think you have salvation “in the bag?”  Security in the promises of God is one thing—arrogance and self-righteousness is quite another.  When we trust in anything besides God, we have become the same faithless children as those ancient Jews.

            God never tells us that life will be easy.  He never says that nothing bad will happen to us as long as we are faithful.  What he does tell us, is that as long as we rely on him alone, he will not forsake us.  He will give us the help we need to get through the tough times, and ultimately to the eternal salvation that will make this life look like a mere blink of the eye.

            Are you having a difficult time making a connection with God these days?  Take a step or two in the right direction, and suddenly the signal will become loud and clear.
 
And Asa cried unto Jehovah his God, and said, Jehovah, there is none besides you to help, between the mighty and him who has no strength: help us, O Jehovah our God; for we rely on you…Oh Jehovah you are our God, 2 Chron 14:11.
 
Dene Ward

Last time we talked about knowing who and what God is, and the way He interacts with people.  Let’s look a little further at the reason and the method He chooses to interact with us.

            You shall not make yourselves detestable with any swarming thing that swarms, and you shall not defile yourselves with them, and become unclean through them. For I am the LORD your God. Consecrate yourselves therefore, and be holy, for I am holy. You shall not defile yourselves with any swarming thing that crawls on the ground. For I am the LORD who brought you up out of the land of Egypt to be your God. You shall therefore be holy, for I am holy.” Lev 11:43-45.

            And the LORD spoke to Moses, saying, “Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them, You shall be holy, for I the LORD your God am holy. Every one of you shall revere his mother and his father, and you shall keep my Sabbaths: I am the LORD your God. Do not turn to idols or make for yourselves any gods of cast metal: I am the LORD your God. Lev 19:1-4.

            Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the LORD your God. Lev 20:7

            You shall be holy to me, for I the LORD am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine. Lev 20:26

            After reading those verses back to back, one cannot help but be impressed with the holiness of God, that this is the “why” of every command God gives.  After this beginning, whenever He gives a command, God merely says, “I am Jehovah,” and expects them to remember that His essence demands their holiness if they are to relate to Him at all.  Check out Leviticus chapters 18 and 19 to see for yourself.

            From the beginning, God wanted a relationship with his creation.  And they heard the sound of the LORD God walking in the garden in the cool of the day... Gen 3:8.  It seems He had a regular date with Adam and Eve to get together and talk, an appointment that was lost in their sin and that He took great pains to regain.

            When He brought His people out of Egypt, He tried to set up the same sort of relationship. 

            And let them make me a sanctuary, that I may dwell in their midst. Exod 25:8

            There I will meet with the people of Israel, and it shall be sanctified by my glory. I will consecrate the tent of meeting and the altar. Aaron also and his sons I will consecrate to serve me as priests. I will dwell among the people of Israel and will be their God. And they shall know that I am the LORD their God, who brought them out of the land of Egypt that I might dwell among them. I am the LORD their God. Exod 29:43-46

            I will make my dwelling among you, and my soul shall not abhor you. And I will walk among you and will be your God, and you shall be my people. Lev 26:11-12

            Once again His people rejected that relationship, but do not relegate that concept to the Old Covenant.  God is still trying to reach us in this intimate way.

            What agreement has the temple of God with idols? For we are the temple of the living God; as God said, “I will make my dwelling among them and walk among them, and I will be their God, and they shall be my people. 2Cor 6:16

            in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit. Eph 2:21-22

            The first of those two passages applies to individuals and the second to the church, his spiritual Temple.  God wants to be among us.  In fact, God wants what He had in the beginning, a relationship that, this time, will continue for Eternity.

            Then I saw a new heaven and a new earth, for the first heaven and the first earth had passed away, and the sea was no more. And I saw the holy city, new Jerusalem, coming down out of heaven from God, prepared as a bride adorned for her husband….through the middle of the street of the city; also, on either side of the river, the tree of life with its twelve kinds of fruit, yielding its fruit each month. The leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations… And I heard a loud voice from the throne saying, “Behold, the dwelling place of God is with man. He will dwell with them, and they will be his people, and God himself will be with them as their God, Rev 21:1-2; 22:2; 21:3.
 
Dene Ward

I am a crossword puzzle enthusiast—a cruciverbalist, but that is not the extent of the word games I enjoy.  One of my favorites involves making as many words as possible out of one larger word—not anagrams exactly, which use every letter of the word and are small in number, but using the letters of the word only as many times as the original word uses them and making as many other words as possible, three letters or larger, not counting plurals, past tense, or other obvious derivatives. 

            For example, how many other words can you make out of the word “jealousy?”  Sea, use, you, soul, say, aloes, lose, louse, yea, seal, joules, lea, sole, jay, lay, say, soy—and that’s just off the top of my head typing as fast as I can.  But how about this one—joy?  Seems a little ironic, doesn’t it, that you can make joy out of jealousy?

            A lot of people get those two mixed up.  In times where we should be “rejoicing with those who rejoice,” we find ourselves feeling just a tinge of jealousy.  Why did he get that promotion and not me?  Why is she being lauded from the pulpit and not me?  Why do people run to them for advice when I am just as smart/experienced/knowledgeable/ wise, etc.?  And that green-eyed monster gradually takes over, turning us into its willing minion.  We can easily think of reasons that other person does not deserve this and spread it to whomever will listen, causing us to ignore our own blessings, steeping ourselves in ingratitude that gradually becomes bitterness, not just against the other person, but at life in general. 

            Elizabeth is the best example I know of someone who got it right.  She took what could have been a cause for jealousy and changed it into a cause for joy.

            Zacharias and Elizabeth had made it to old age without having children.  According to Lenski, Elizabeth was probably looked down on as someone who had somehow displeased God—that was the general attitude toward barren women.  Finally, after years of waiting, probably with a multitude of prayers, Zacharias came home with the good news—albeit written down, since he could no longer speak:  “We are going to be parents!”  And not only that, but this child will be special—he will be the promised Elijah spoken of in Malachi.

            Then lo and behold, six months later, along comes her teenage cousin with even better news.  She too, is pregnant, and is blessed to bear the Messiah.  What?!  Elizabeth has been waiting for decades.  She is older and wiser.  She has been the faithful wife of a priest, and borne the ridicule of an ignorant culture, blaming her for her own misfortune.  And she gets the Forerunner while this child who has scarcely lived long enough to even be considered faithful, who is fertile (in this culture the family would know her menstrual history) and will probably (and ultimately did) bare more than half a dozen children, this girl gets the Messiah?  How fair is that?

            But Elizabeth had the grateful attitude and the abiding Messianic hope of a faithful child of God.  In those days Mary arose and went with haste into the hill country, to a town in Judah, and she entered the house of Zacharias and greeted Elizabeth. And when Elizabeth heard the greeting of Mary, the baby leaped in her womb. And Elizabeth was filled with the Holy Spirit, and she exclaimed with a loud cry, “Blessed are you among women, and blessed is the fruit of your womb! And why is this granted to me that the mother of my Lord should come to me? Luke 1:39-43.

            Not only is she excited for Mary, she humbles herself before a younger woman, one with far less experience and far less service on her record—she simply hadn’t lived long enough to do much yet.  And her joy?  It was not a feigned, polite joy, but a joy so overwhelming that “the babe leaped in her womb for joy” v 44.  I am told that “leap for joy” is one Greek word, the same one used in verse 40, quoted earlier.  It is a sympathetic joy.  In other words, Elizabeth was so moved with joy that it caused her unborn child to move within her.  Every mother understands how her own emotions can affect her unborn baby, in the last trimester especially.  Elizabeth’s joy for her young cousin was that deep and moving.  Jealousy never entered her heart for a second.

            How does that match with statements like, “He gets to lead singing more than my husband;” “My husband hasn’t been asked to teach in a long time;” “How can he be an elder when my husband is just as good as he is and no one has asked him.” 

            Oh yes, it happens.  And it should not.  If we are all members of the same body, then if one member suffers, all suffer together; if one member is honored, all rejoice together. 1Cor 12:26. 

            Love “envies not” 1 Cor 13:4.  When you do envy, you do not love as you are commanded to.  Jealousy and envy are works of the flesh (Gal 5:20,21).  Those who practice them “will not inherit the kingdom of God.”  Check yourself on this.  Has your speech given you away?
T
            oo many of us get this backwards.  We rejoice when bad things happen to others and weep when good things happen to them.  What about you?
 
If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another. Gal 5:25-26
 
Dene Ward
 

On our last camping trip we once again canoed the Blackwater River.  This time Lucas was along so things were easier but more exciting at the same time. 

            I didn’t have to paddle.  Instead, Lucas did the steering up front while Keith supplied the power from the rear.  I sat in the middle on a cushion with a pair of binoculars and the backpack of water bottles and snacks, like a queen in a floating sedan chair.

            On this trip we were able to identify the water bird we chased upriver the last time—a kingfisher giving a strident rattling call as he dove from a tree limb and skimmed the water, racing around the river’s bend.  Once I was able to catch his profile, high atop a dead cypress, a bird over a foot long with a shaggy, blue-gray crest and back, and a heavy, pointed bill.  After we left one behind, we soon came upon another.  These birds are highly territorial and know not to cross the invisible boundaries.

            Every time we passed fallen trees in the water, I raised the binoculars again and was usually rewarded with one or more turtles sunning on the logs, some with shells as large as hubcaps, some brave and daring as we paddled closer, others slipping quietly into the water as soon as they sensed us closing in, with no splash at all, a perfect score in Olympic diving.

            If it were just me, I would have been happy to continue on like that, a peaceful, beautiful, relaxing float on the water.  But with two guys, both of whom have the adventure gene in them, it was not to be. 

            We often passed small streams emptying into the larger river, but also a few backwaters—larger, deeper creeks that quietly flowed into the river.  Lucas pointed one out over our shoulders as we passed it, and Keith suddenly said, “Want to go up it?”

            Lucas grinned, “Sure!”  So with a little effort they managed to turn the canoe and paddle upstream to the tributary. 

            It was obvious no one had canoed that waterway in years.  The banks were overgrown and we stirred up more wildlife in fifteen feet than we had on the whole river.  Immediately we came to a tree trunk fallen over, spanning the width from one side to the other, probably ten feet.  All of us had to lie down in the canoe in order to get past it.  Still we paddled on, through water lilies, cypress knees, and flooded out brush.  Eventually, after a couple hundred yards, we could go no further.  The stream narrowed and water plants blocked the way, allowing the water itself to seep through, but too thick for a vessel of any size.  So we turned the canoe again, a little more trouble in the narrow inlet, and headed back out to the river, ducking one last time as we neared the mouth of the stream.

            It was fun to go where no one had been for a long time.  It was interesting to see things we could not have seen in the middle of the river and would never have seen where several canoes a day disturb the isolation.  But it was also good to get back to the river, where we knew others had paddled and we would ultimately find our goal—the beach just past the second bridge.  

            Meditating can be a lot like that.  If all you ever do is travel the same old path, paddle the same old stream, what will you find that others have not found before you?  The scriptures talk about musing, pondering, and meditating on God’s word, on his statutes, on the things he has done.  If we want to grow in the word, we need to do exactly that, and it may require going places we have never been, thinking thoughts we have never thought, wondering about things we may never be able to find out one way or the other.  But isn’t that what growth is all about?  Isn’t that why we often sit and listen in wonder at teachers who have dared to do those things, and who always make us see a passage in a different light, in a deeper, exciting way?  I would much rather learn from a man like that than sit in a class where all we ever hear are the same old platitudes.   

            But even more I would love to find those things on my own, and that will never happen unless I start thinking on my own, daring to wonder about things that may even seem a little heretical.  Most of the time, we will discover that they aren’t, that someone else found them before we did, and another old chestnut that is simply wrong will be debunked.

            Yet we must always be tethered to the larger river.  We must always recognize when it is time to turn around and come back.  Exercising our minds in the scriptures is a marvelous thing.  It brings understanding, Psa 119:99.  But God warns us to keep our eyes fixed on his commandments, Psa 119:6, so we don’t get so far off the beaten track that we never find our way back and are snared by the backwoods trappers who lie in wait.  It’s one thing to lie down in the boat so we can pass under a “low bridge.”  It’s another to get so entangled in the water brush that we cannot get loose.

            So today while you paddle your way down the river of life, be sure to check out a tributary or two.  But always be aware of the bowline that tethers you to God’s law, and turn around before you stretch it so tight that it breaks.
 
Keep back your servant also from presumptuous sins; let them not have dominion over me! Then I shall be blameless, and innocent of great transgression. Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer.   Psa 19:13,14.
 
Dene Ward

Part 2 in the series taken from a class on the nature of God.
 
            To begin this session of the class I have to tell you something I don’t really have any knowledge of—Greek.  According to my good brother, John 4:24 should be translated, “God is spirit.” Not “a spirit,” just spirit.  Something about the Greek means “a” does not belong—don’t ask me what.  Without the “a,” “Spirit” becomes God’s essence.  Now add a couple of other verses where there is, correctly, no “a.”

            “God is light” 1 John 1:5.
            “God is love” 1 John 4:8, 16.
           
            Okay, so what? 

            First of all, “God is spirit” tells us what he is, an invisible being.  “God is light” tells us who He is, the essence of holiness and purity.  “God is love” tells us how He relates to us—with grace and mercy.  Put it all together and you get this:  God is an invisible person who is entirely pure and holy, whose acts are always perfect love.

            Now add this to the mix: 
            But as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 1Pet 1:15-16.  And--
But I say to you, Love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven. Matt 5:44-45
God wants us to be like Him.  In order to be like Him, we must understand who and what He is and how that effects our behavior.  The verses we read at the beginning tell us the response God expects from the fact of who and what He is.

            First, God is spirit, and those who worship him must worship in spirit and truth.” John 4:24.  What God is, spirit, means we are to worship “in spirit and in truth.”  Our simplistic explanation of that verse, that it means we do the right things with the right heart, ignores the first part of the statement—“God is spirit.”  If, like God, your spirit is your essence, then God expects you to come before Him with your own true essence.  We may hide from others who and what we are, but we are to take the “real” us before Him when we worship.  He will accept nothing less.

            Second, This is the message we have heard from him and proclaim to you, that God is light, and in him is no darkness at all. If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin. 1John 1:5-7.  If God is light, then He expects us to walk in the light.  Our lives must match what He is (pure and holy) or the blood of His Son will not cleanse us.

            And third, Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us. God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. 1John 4:8,16.  If God is love and He offers that love to us, then He expects us to love others the same way and to the same extent.

            So here is the point:  the essence of God, who and what he is, makes demands on us.  This is unique among all religions.  Spend some time studying those Greek gods and find any who desired that their worshippers be like them.  Find any who expected behavior to be changed by anything but fear.    

            Find any who can claim to be, in very essence, spirit, light and love.  That is our God, and that is who He expects His children to be.
 
Dene Ward

A few years ago, some young parents we knew had a child whom they discovered was legally blind.  It was possible that nothing could be done for that child, even with glasses or lenses, to correct his vision.  Because I was a child who was visually disabled myself, I wrote this letter to them.  I thought it might also be a help to you or someone you know who has a child who is disabled in any way.  Feel free to share it with anyone it might possibly help.

We were so sorry to hear about your little one’s condition.  When your child is hurt, there is nothing quite like the pain in your heart.  Any loving parent would instantly trade places to spare him.  We will continue to think of you and especially to pray for your comfort, and that your precious little one gets the help he needs, and perhaps even less disability than you have been told.  Our God can indeed work wonders.

            But for now, may I please be so bold as to offer you a little advice?  My current vision problem did not just suddenly start—I was born with it, but no one realized it, not even my parents.  In those days children were not checked as often or as completely as they are today.  As a result, my parents treated me exactly like they would have any child.  The first four years of my life I saw nothing but a blur of color, but I was the only one who knew that, and of course, I thought everyone was that way and did not complain.  I was, in fact, legally blind, yet I still learned to feed and dress myself.  They were able to potty train me.  I memorized quickly because I couldn’t see, and that has stuck with me, at least until now when age has affected it some.  Still I probably remember things better than most people my age.

            Even after they realized something was wrong, the doctor himself did not recognize exactly what the problem was, just that “she has really bad vision.”  You probably know something about magnification in lenses.  My magnification was +17.25 and that only got me to 20/40 on a good day, and that was not even the worst of my issues.  Yet I still learned to function.  When you can’t see well you notice things that other people don’t. 

            Even with correction I couldn’t see faces across a lawn or a parking lot or even a large room.  But I knew people by their walks and hand gestures.  If I had seen them earlier in the day, I remembered what they wore.  I couldn’t read street signs, but I knew there was a tree on that corner, or a pothole just before the turn.  You adapt when your survival, whether life and death or simply getting along in society, depends on it.

            Even if I eventually lose it all, which is probable, I still plan to be independent as long as possible.  I will probably be a widow someday, but I do not want to live with anyone, or in some care facility, until it is absolutely necessary.  I feel that way because of how I was raised.

            You need to give your child that same spirit of independence.  One thing is good and I say this from experience:  since he was born this way, he will not know what he is missing.  Don’t you make him miserable by treating him like there is something missing.  The best gift you can give him is the one my parents gave me, even if it was accidental:  treat him like a normal child.  He is normal; normal for him!  Help him learn how to get along.  Push him.  Tell him he can do it, even when you aren’t sure he can.  You’d be surprised what can be accomplished simply because a person thinks he can.  This is the loving thing for parents in your position to do.  Babying him is not.  I will be forever grateful that I was not babied—it has made me strong and able to bear far more than most.

            Now comes the hard part:  don’t let anyone baby him, and that includes grandparents.  You may have to put your foot down once in a while.  Do not be afraid to tell them, “No.”  You can do it kindly and with respect, but you have to be the one who stands up for your child against anyone’s misguided attempts to shelter him.  He is your child and God will hold you accountable for his care.  You might need to remind them of that once in a while. 

            Treating him as a normal child will also mean disciplining him that way.  It is hard enough to scold or spank the little hands of a perfectly healthy child.  You must be strong enough to do this.  Your child is counting on you to turn him into a faithful child of God and save his soul.  If you let him have his way because of his “problem,” you are only creating more problems for him to overcome—you are not loving him like you think you are.  I am forever grateful to my parents for not turning me into a selfish, and self-absorbed, adult.

            God has a purpose for all of his children, and your little one will grow up better able to serve those who have disabilities than those who have none ever could.  He will understand and sympathize and think of things that other people do not—another thing that Keith and I have discovered as our disabilities have increased.  No one even thinks to consider what we can or cannot hear, can or cannot see.  Only the disabled give us that consideration. And thus the disabled are enabled to help others.  But he won’t perform that service if you raise him to think that he is the center of the universe because of his disability.

            Please let us know if there is anything we can do for you.  Do not be too proud to use Blind Services or anything else offered to you.  It is not sinful to take help.  It will be nice to know that someone who really deserves our tax money is making use of it.  And do not be afraid to ask for whatever help you need from your brothers and sisters in the Lord, including us.  That’s why God put us here.

            We are praying for you as you take this journey.  It will be hard at times, but other times it will bring you even more joy than the parents of the perfectly healthy children.  Just you wait and see!
 
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. 2Cor 1:3-4

Dene Ward

We sing a few hymns written in a minor key.  They are always more difficult for the congregation to learn, primarily because we are used to major keys, the good old “do-re-mi-fa-sol-la-ti-do.”  Practically anyone can sing that scale and get it right (if a little flat), even if they have never studied music.  I would guess that 80-90% of modern Western music (as in “not Oriental,” which is how we use the term “Western” in music theory) is written in a major key.  Minor keys are less common, but common enough that they do not sound too odd to our ears—we still “get it” when we hear them.

            One of the ways we introduce minor keys to a child is to talk about “happy” music and “sad” music.  “Sad sounding” merely touches the surface of what makes a key minor, but it’s a good place to start, especially with a young elementary school child, or even an adult non-musician.

            Often at the end of a minor (sad sounding) composition, the third note will be raised to the note it would have been if it were the parallel major, something we call a Piccardy third.  Suddenly something that sounded “sad” sounds “happy,” if only for that final chord.  That’s what I want you to think about this morning—a sad song becoming happy.

            I think we have done the Lord a grave disservice by promising our new converts a happy and peaceful life.  We are preaching a “health and wealth gospel” as strongly as any televangelist when we do so.  What about the “cross” Jesus says we must take up?  What about his promise that men would “hate you?”  What about Paul telling Timothy, “Yes and all that would live godly in Christ Jesus shall suffer persecution” 2 Tim 3:12? Jesus said to count the cost before committing to him.  How can people do that when we tell them that all their problems will be solved as long as they get wet and sit on a pew?

            When I try to make Christianity a panacea for life’s ills, I am putting too much emphasis on the sad music of my life and not enough on the ending “Piccardy third.”  God gives us the promise of an eternal and joyful reward—at the end, not necessarily in the middle. 

            How did Moses give up the wealth and power that would have been at his disposal?  By faith Moses, when he was grown up, refused to be called the son of Pharaoh's daughter, choosing rather to be mistreated with the people of God than to enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. He considered the reproach of Christ greater wealth than the treasures of Egypt, for he was looking to the reward. Heb 11:24,26.  Do you see that?  He considered those things “fleeting.”  He understood that relative to eternity, his 120 years of life was nothing.  Most of us will be lucky to live 2/3 that amount of time and we still can’t give up what Moses would have considered “the lesser wealth.”

            Life may be in a minor key for us.  In fact, Jesus promises that it will be in many cases, and often because of him.  But he leaves us with the promise that one day the joy will be unfathomable and unlimited.  Yet only those who suffer through the minor key “for his name’s sake” will enjoy a Piccardy third at the end—a time when the happy music takes over, a new song we will sing forever.
 
"Blessed are you when people hate you and when they exclude you and revile you and spurn your name as evil, on account of the Son of Man! Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, your reward is great in heaven; for so their fathers did to the prophets, Luke 6:22,23.
 
Dene Ward

I saw a post on Facebook recently saying, “’Let’s see who’ll read this’ at the beginning of your post virtually guarantees I won’t read it.  Ever.” 
I’m a little the same way.  That phrase, “Let’s see who’ll read this,”  is supposed to make you feel guilty if you pass it by, nagging at your conscience to the point that eventually you scroll right back up and read it.  The same thing is true of all those “Copy and paste this if you are a real Christian/patriot/friend, etc.”  Now that one really bugs me.  If copying and pasting something is how someone else judges my Christianity, or my patriotism, or my friendship, then I am not the one who needs to feel guilty.

            God never used either of those things to get people to read His Word.  He simply laid it out there and the ones who cared enough to read and learn from it gained more benefits than they could have ever imagined.  God never tried to “guilt” anyone into doing anything for Him—he knew it wouldn’t be sincere if He did.  Josiah tried that with the people of Judah.

            Then he made all who were present in Jerusalem and in Benjamin join in it. And the inhabitants of Jerusalem did according to the covenant of God, the God of their fathers. And Josiah took away all the abominations from all the territory that belonged to the people of Israel and made all who were present in Israel serve the LORD their God. All his days they did not turn away from following the LORD, the God of their fathers. 2Chr 34:32-33.  No, they did not turn away from God—not as long as Josiah was alive to make them behave, but he was hardly cold in the grave before they were just as bad as before.

            A long time ago, my eleventh grade Advanced English teacher taught a unit on advertising and semantics.  I will forever be grateful to her.  I learned about the Straw Man, the Bandwagon, Bait and Switch, and a host of other sales/debate techniques I have forgotten the names of.  I see them on Facebook, on television and in flyers all the time, and thanks to her I seldom fall for them.

           But I never see them in the Bible, except when some evil man uses them to tempt God’s people away from Him, like the Rabshekah in Isaiah 36.  God never uses those deceitful techniques, his prophets never used them, his preachers never used them. 

           Jesus never used them.  In fact, he taught in parables to weed out the ones who would not care enough to try to understand them (Matt 13:13).  He didn’t want them if they didn’t want him.   Give not that which is holy unto the dogs, neither cast your pearls before the swine, lest haply they trample them under their feet, and turn and rend you. Matt 7:6

           It’s up to us to read God’s Word ourselves, not to be forced into it by a guilt trip.  It’s up to us to live by them.  And a simple copy and paste won’t proclaim our faith in our Lord.  It takes a lifetime to do that.
 
But blessed are your eyes, for they see, and your ears, for they hear. ​For truly, I say to you, many prophets and righteous people longed to see what you see, and did not see it, and to hear what you hear, and did not hear it. Matt 13:16-17
 
Dene Ward

Read any book on parenting and you will probably see a line like this:  Never tell your children they must obey “because I said so.”  God broke that “rule” constantly, and that is precisely why, as a parent, I chose to break it myself.  How else do you teach authority?

            Yes, when there is a good reason for something you tell them to do, and when they are capable of understanding that reason, give your children the reason.  But they must eventually come to the understanding that obedience has nothing to do with the reason, but with the authority who requires it.  If they never learn this lesson, they will disobey whenever it suits them, whether it is you they disobey, or their teachers, or their employers, or the law of the land—or God.

            Look at Lev 18 and 19.  God punctuates every command with a declaration of who he is. 
            My ordinances shall you do, and my statutes shall you keep, to walk therein: I am Jehovah your God.         
            You shall therefore keep my statutes, and mine ordinances; which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am Jehovah.

            That’s just two verses.  Keep right on reading for the next page or so.  “I am Jehovah,” meant, “I have the right to rule over you.”  It meant exactly what we say when we tell our children, “Because I am your father (or mother), that’s why!”  It is the exclamation point that says, “I mean it!”

            Read through those passages some time today.  Some of them may open your eyes to areas in which our culture has failed significantly.

            You shall fear every man his mother, and his father…  I am Jehovah your God.
            You shall not swear by my name falsely, and profane the name of your God: I am Jehovah.
            You shall not go around as a slanderer among your people, and you shall not stand up against the life of your neighbor: I am Jehovah.
            You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am Jehovah, 19:3,12,16,32.

            I have read that this was part of the covenant ritual, and as such, we are required to do our part in order to receive God’s part—his blessings in this life, and ultimately salvation.  If we won’t obey “because he said so,” we won’t enjoy eternal life with that Father, the Ultimate Authority Figure. 

            Remind yourself today of that lesson you learned long ago about exclamation points.  They are used for emphasis and to express strong feelings.  God has perhaps his strongest feelings against those who disobey.  “Because I said so,” should be good enough for any who claim to be his children, whether we understand or not.
 
And by this we know that we have come to know him, if we keep his commandments. Whoever says "I know him" but does not keep his commandments is a liar, and the truth is not in him, but whoever keeps his word, in him truly the love of God is perfected. By this we may know that we are in him: whoever says he abides in him ought to walk in the same way in which he walked. 1 John 2:3-6.
 
Dene Ward