In the winter sparrows invade my yard, swarming the feeders like ants.  It is nothing unusual for 15 or so to cover the trough by the window, while half a dozen more sit in the azaleas waiting for an opening.  Meanwhile, thirty to forty hop along the ground, flitting back and forth to the smaller hanging feeders, which sway from the impetus of their continual take-offs.  After several frosts the brown and black grass successfully camouflages their drab brown and gray feathers.  I can only tell they are there because frosted off grass doesn’t ordinarily move, but that grass literally writhes.
 
             Brown and gray—drab colors compared to the brilliant red cardinals, the bright yellow goldfinches, the contrasting red and yellow bars on the blackbird’s wing.  Even the brown of the Carolina wren is comparatively bright, and the stark contrasts of the zebra-striped black and white warbler perched pecking at the suet cage draws your eye far sooner than the mousy little sparrow.

              But someday you should sit at my window when one of them lands on the trough not six inches from your nose.  Up close the intricate patterns on their wings suddenly turn those drab colors into a source of wonder and delight.  Like delicate lace, the brown and gray sections, outlined by white and spotted with black, will keep your attention for a half hour or more as you struggle to discern the pattern God has placed in their tiny feathers.  No artist could have created anything so exquisite, especially using those colors.

              And what about you?  God can take your drab colors and create a creature far beyond your imagination.  He can take a miserable life and give it purpose, a sorrowful spirit and make it joyous, a selfish heart and tenderize it with compassion.  He can take a soul overwhelmed by the darkness of sin and make it bright with the reflection of its Savior.

              There is nothing drab about the life of a Christian.  God can make even the most ordinary person extraordinary.  We have no need for garish colors, for manmade ornament, or the laurels of worldly praise.  We know who we are—new creatures, “created in Christ Jesus for good works,” each of us beautiful in His glory.  If all you see are drab colors, you just haven’t gotten close enough.
 
…Put off your old self, which belongs to your former manner of life and is corrupt through deceitful desires, and…be renewed in the spirit of your minds, and…put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness, Eph 4:22-24.
 
Dene Ward
 

I barely remember it.  It wasn't all that exciting so a toddler would hardly have sat down and watched it.  The humor was sometimes wry and certainly not slapstick or as in-your-face as today's.  Three couples competed in a series of questions.  They were always interesting couples, I am told, with different areas of expertise.  The emcee told them the category and the husband decided—before hearing the question itself—whether he would answer or his wife.  Thus the name of the show, "Who Do You Trust?"
              The original show debuted on January 3, 1956 with Edgar Bergen as host.  It lasted barely a year.  Then on September 30, 1957 the producers brought it back with Johnny Carson as host.  Johnny's career was lagging seriously at the time, but the show and the way he handled it, spending more time on the interviews than the actual questions and keeping the live audience entertained, kept it on the air for another 6 years, until Jack Paar retired and the Tonight Show came calling.  The rest, as they say, is history.
               Salvation is certainly not a game show.  The prizes at stake are far more than the $25, $50, and $75 for three questions.  But the question of "Who do you trust?" is still relevant.
              I grew up in a time when we were regularly told from pulpits all over the country that we should never say that we knew we were saved, we certainly shouldn't talk about Heaven as something we had a real expectation of.  "You can lose it any time," was the doctrine we were taught, and while that is certainly true, we were taught it so constantly and vigorously that we spent our lives looking over our shoulders wondering when death would strike, hoping we would have enough warning to throw up a quick prayer for forgiveness.  Otherwise, we were sure, all was lost—especially us.
              And what has this done?  It has created a generation without hope, one that lives in constant fear, one that doesn't trust God to save them.  We have done a fine job of aiding Satan in discouraging the saved to the point that they are indeed no longer saved.  They were told it was impossible and they believed it, and so they quit trying.  Or if, somehow, they are still out their knocking themselves out trying, uttering prayers for forgiveness every hour or so, their lives are not full of joy, they are full of insecurity and foreboding, afraid they might come across as arrogant enough to actually believe they have a chance.
              Would a God of love want us to live that way?  What do you think he feels when we talk about him like he is up there watching, just waiting to say, "Aha!  Gotcha!" and then zap us when we aren't looking?  I would be insulted if my children thought I would do that to them!  Why do we think it is "reverent" to think that of God?
              We have completely forgotten grace.  Grace is not only about your initial salvation.  Grace is there all your life.  God never expected any of us to know all the facts, understand all the doctrines, and have all our character flaws worked out the moment we were baptized.  We keep working on those things, sometimes struggling harder at one thing than another, looking at ourselves honestly and learning as much as we can about God and His Word, repenting when we find it necessary, and grace covers what we haven't yet reached.  God said he would do that.  He said he loves us and wants us to go to Heaven.  He gave up his Son so that could happen?  Don't you trust God?
              …for they cried out to God in the battle, and he granted their urgent plea because they trusted in him. (1Chr 5:20)  Won't God answer your plea to cover your errors if you trust him?  If you don't believe that, then you don't trust him.
              When we don't trust God's grace, just what is it we really trust?  Some trust in chariots and some in horses, but we trust in the name of the LORD our God. (Ps 20:7)  The chariots we trust in are works.  We keep thinking we have to be perfect and we must get that way now!  Nonsense.  Look how Jesus carefully brought Peter along.  Look how God dealt with Gideon as he gradually built his courage and faith.  He does that for all of us.
              But I trust in you, O LORD; I say, “You are my God.” (Ps 31:14)  Trusting God is a requirement for being his child.  No trust means no relationship with the Father.
              And here is the bottom line:  Therefore, when the LORD heard, he was full of wrath; a fire was kindled against Jacob; his anger rose against Israel, because they did not believe in God and did not trust his saving power. (Ps 78:21-22)
              When we don't trust in God's grace, we are trusting a doctrine of the Devil, a doctrine he puts out there through his own ministers to destroy our faith, our spirit, and our relationship with God.  Don't let anyone steal your trust in God and his power to save even the vilest sinner—even you.
              "Who Do You Trust" is not a game show—it is your life.
 
 I write these things to you who believe in the name of the Son of God that you may know that you have eternal life. (1John 5:13)

You would think after all these years that I would know better.  You should never take a brand new recipe to a potluck or try it out on guests.  There is a reason cooks talk about "tried and true" recipes.  But I saw this gorgeous "Chocolate Glazed Peanut Butter Filled Torte" in a magazine, one that is usually trustworthy, and wanted to make it.  Keith and I do not need rich desserts around the house for just us two, so taking one somewhere else means we seldom have more than a piece or two to splurge on when we bring the remains back home—which may sadden my heart, but not my waistline.  It looked good, the ingredients sounded good, and I had them all which was an added bonus.  So here we go…
 
             This was one of those uber-rich cakes with scarcely enough flour to hold it together.  When I read that I was to cut this two inch thick layer in half, fill it, and then put the top back, I should have known there would be trouble with so little flour.  And there was.  First, it sank about halfway in the middle.  That meant when I took my long serrated knife and tried to cut it in "half" there was nothing in the middle to cut.  What I cut off looked like a tire.  Calm down, I told myself as my pulse and respiration increased, the filling will show through there and it will look like it's supposed to be that way. 

              But then I tried to remove that top.  It came away in sections.  You would have thought a Lamaze class was going on I was panting so hard by then, but I carefully put the pieces on another plate and kept them all where they were supposed to go.  "There is a chocolate ganache glaze," I kept chanting.  "Ganache fixes anything!"

              I got the peanut butter filling on and learned immediately to be careful spreading it, otherwise the cake sticks to it and rolls right up over the knife.  More panting and chanting.  Finally I got the filling spread on the bottom layer.

              Now it was time to reassemble the jigsaw puzzle of a top.  Except the cake was so moist that a thin layer of it stuck to the plate the top was sitting on.  And the large sections broke into small chunks.  Gradually, I got all the pieces put back on top of the cake.  With the peanut butter filling, the torte was now nearly 3 inches high, in spite of losing a good eighth of an inch on that other plate, but it looked like a chocolate mosaic.

              No one has been happier to make ganache than I was that day.  This will cover all sins, I told myself.  It will be shiny and beautiful.

              Oh, it was nice and shiny all right, but underneath that glistening surface you could see every lump and bump, every nook and cranny, every place where anything underneath was not absolutely perfect.  Kind of reminded me of the last time I tried on a dress a size too small.

              So now what?  Do I take this monstrosity to our potluck?  Well, it was a tiny little potluck made up of one of my classes and their families and they always count on me for an entrée and a dessert.  I had no time left to make another after having spent not only two hours on this ugly thing, but another one on the entrée and another couple studying.  And besides that, this thing was expensive.  I sure couldn't afford to throw it away.

              So the next afternoon I took my so-called torte and apologized for bringing the ugliest thing on God's creation to our lunch.  For some reason, it didn't stop them from eating it, and one even asked for the recipe.  "Sorry," I told her, "I threw it away."

              Well, guess what?  Every one of us is an ugly cake.  God took beautiful ingredients and made us "in His own image," but for some reason we all eventually turned out just plain ugly.

              We have all sunk into the morass of sin and crumbled beneath its weight.  Even when we proclaim our commitment we often manage to stick to things we should have let go of.  We fall to pieces in trials and temptations instead of standing strong.  It took Him a few thousand years of piecing things together, fixing the things we made even more messes of, and spending the most awful cost to do it, but He made us into a cake that tastes pretty good when we follow His directions.  Oh, the lumps and bumps may still show through occasionally.  Our imperfections may leave scars that simply cannot be hidden, but He is ultimately satisfied when we forget about trying to fix things ourselves and just do it His way, not worrying what others might think about how we look.  He won't give up and throw us away, but will take us to the Feast he has prepared, and will not be ashamed of what an ugly cake we were to begin with.  After all, ganache—in this case, grace—can fix anything.
 
Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and eat with him, and he with me. (Rev 3:20)
 
Dene Ward

               On April 22, 1884, Thomas Stevens left San Francisco riding a fifty inch high wheeler called a penny-farthing.  104 days later he reached Boston, the first cross-country bicycle ride.  It may not sound like much, but consider this:  there were few paved roads in the country at that time, few roads at all out west, and he had only gotten on a bike for the first time two weeks beforehand.
 
             I taught myself how to ride my bike in the backyard of a small cinder block house, a yard far larger than the average yard today, with a definite slope.  I had discovered that if I rode downhill, I picked up enough speed to remain upright longer than on a flat surface, and when I did fall, the grass was far softer than the street.  Every day I went a little further down that hill before the bike finally started to tip.  The day I made it all the way down, turned and came halfway back up the hill, I knew I was ready for the road, a long cul-de-sac with the same slope as the backyard.  Within a week I could ride that bike on any street in the neighborhood.

              After Keith and I married, we both had bikes, and after the boys came along, each bike had a child seat on the back of it.  By that point we lived in the country right next to the meetinghouse and the cemetery.  We often rode our bikes to visit folks, one boy perched on the back of each.  It made a great conversation starter when we pulled in to the homes of those who had recently visited the assembly, the elderly, or the young marrieds whom the church was in imminent danger of losing to the world.  Sometimes we rode as far as five miles one way, then back home an hour later.  The rural highways were largely empty and safe.

              I haven’t been on a bike in a long time now, but Keith rode his to work, usually twice a week, thirteen miles one way.  He is on his third bike, but with the price of gas, a new bicycle pays for itself quickly.

              We have had a lot of windy days this spring—extremely windy.  Twenty-five mile an hour winds with gusts up to forty.  One morning his ride to work was in the same direction that wind was blowing.  He made it in 55 minutes, instead of the usual 65-70.  The ride home was against the wind, and it took 92 grueling minutes.  His legs were practically jelly when he hopped off the bike.  If you have never ridden a bike against the wind, a real wind not just a breeze, you don’t understand exactly how difficult it can be.

              Except for this—if you remember your life before you became a Christian, it was exactly that way—against the wind.  No matter how hard you tried to be good, you failed.  No matter how much you wanted to turn your life around, when all you did was pedal into the wind you made little or no progress at all.

              Then Christ came along and “delivered you from this body of death” (Rom 7:24).  He put the wind behind you.  How else can you explain the fact that you have become something so much better than you ever were before?  Now you have help, a wind at your back gently pushing you along toward success. 

                If you aren’t seeing any progress, something is wrong.  Are you still
pedaling against the wind?  Then you are still trying to control things you cannot control; you are still trying to be something better by your own might.  Only when you give up and let the Lord guide your bike with the gentle nudge of a loving Savior, and his hand on the seat to keep you upright, will you ever begin to make progress against sin and the world.  You need to turn that bike around and stop pedaling against the wind.  What you can be and do with the help of Christ is limited only by your willingness to accept his friendly push.
 
For I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate. So now it is no longer I who do it, but sin that dwells within me. For I know that nothing good dwells in me, that is, in my flesh. For I have the desire to do what is right, but not the ability to carry it out... For I delight in the law of God, in my inner being, but I see in my members another law waging war against the law of my mind and making me captive to the law of sin that dwells in my members. Wretched man that I am! Who will deliver me from this body of death? Thanks be to God through Jesus Christ our Lord!...There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus.  Rom 7:15, 17-18, 22-8:1
 
Dene Ward

Sometimes you wonder about a so-called "improvement."  On February 18, 1947, Enock Ancker of Ft Bayard, New Mexico, invented the blister pack.  He said its purpose was to provide "a sanitary container for the tablets wherein novel means are incorporated to the end that one tablet at a time may be easily removed from the container."  Yes.  "Easily removed."  That's what the application says.  I just spent twenty minutes trying to get 84 acid reducing pills out of six blister packs so I wouldn’t have to do it every morning for the next 7 weeks.  Twenty minutes! 

               What is it with these manufacturers?  You would think they would want you to try their medication, not give up in frustration, throw the whole thing away, and use another.  Or maybe it’s meant to be self-perpetuating:  the more aggravated you get, the more acid your stomach produces, and the more you need their pills.

              I have an issue with childproof caps too—about the only ones they keep out of the bottle are those of us with arthritic hands.  And CD and DVD packages?  How many times have I cut myself on them and, with this aspirin-a-day regimen, bled all over everything before I even knew I had done it?

              Manufacturers who don’t want you to use their product—sounds strange doesn’t it?  What about that branch of theology that says that God doesn’t want to save everyone, that Jesus died only for the ones He does want to save, and that no matter what you do or how you feel about it, there is nothing you can do to change that?  Let me show you why I have a problem with that.

              Say to them, As I live, declares the Lord GOD, I have no pleasure in the death of the wicked, but that the wicked turn from his way and live; turn back, turn back from your evil ways, for why will you die, O house of Israel? Ezekiel 33:11

              This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth, 1 Timothy 2:3-4.

              For the grace of God has appeared, bringing salvation for all people, Titus 2:11

              The Lord is not slow to fulfill his promise as some count slowness, but is patient toward you, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should reach repentance, 2 Peter 3:9.

              God does want us to be saved, as many as are willing to live by his Word.  Jesus died for all, not just those lucky few.  You can make a difference in your own salvation, “turn back from your evil ways,” “come to a knowledge of the truth,” and “reach repentance.”

              Praise God that He loves us and wants us with Him for Eternity.  Praise God that salvation does not come in a blister pack.
 
For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this: that one has died for all, therefore all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised, 2 Corinthians 5:14-15).
 
Dene Ward

Otto Wichterle was born on October 27, 1913 in Prostejov, Moravia.  Because he did not want to work at his father's machinery factory, he went on to study chemistry and became interested in plastics.  He was jailed for a while by the Gestapo, but eventually released and became a professor and textbook author at the Czech Technical University.  Over the years he made many discoveries and in December 1961 created the first soft contact lens with a child's erector set and a phonograph motor.  Sounds a little like MacGyver to me.  Leonardo da Vinci, who had first imagined contact lenses, would have been proud.

              Not quite that far back a young doctor decided to try contact lenses on my nanophthalmic (one 15 and the other 16 mm), hyperopic/aphakic (scrip +17.25), steep-cornea-ed, corrugated, football-shaped eyeballs.  Everyone told him he was crazy, that it was impossible.  Somehow, amid all the discouraging words, he managed to make it work.  For the first time in my life I could see more than the fish-eyed tunnel in front of me. 

              These were the original hard contact lenses.  He had sat me down and told me that the only way I could possibly wear them in my “special” eyes was to want to wear them.  I did not realize till much later how wise he had been.  They were incredibly uncomfortable, especially on my deformed eyeballs, but I saw so much more that I knew I would never give them up, regardless the pain.

              Seven years later rigid gas-permeable lenses became available through overseas channels.  They were a tiny bit more comfortable, but more important, they kept my eyes healthier.  I wore those for thirty-five years.  Finally a type of soft lens has been developed that I can actually wear with no ill-effects.  Not only that, but they cause no strange visual effects either—no starbursts, no fish-eyes, no distortions at all.  It seems ironic that they have come now when my vision is failing and when only one eye can tolerate wearing one, but I am not complaining.

              I have had to learn different methods of insertion, removal, and overnight care.  This thing is so much more comfortable that sometimes I am not certain it is in.  The many surgeries I have had have changed me from hyperopic to myopic, and my vision, even with the lens, is far from perfect.  That is why I did not realize for about an hour that I did not have the lens in my eye the other morning. 

              At first, when the usual blur did not clear up right away, I thought it was just one of those days when I was not going to see well.  They happen often enough.  Finally I put my finger to my eyeball and touched only eyeball—I knew the lens had not made it into my eye.  So where was it?

              I ran back to the bathroom, got on my hands and knees and felt across the floor from the door to the vanity cabinet, the only way I could possibly find it down there.  No lens.  At least I knew I wasn’t going to step on it.  So I stood up and I felt across the entire vanity countertop.  No lens. 

              Finally I took the hand towel off the rack.  I always open the lens case over a towel because of the fluid in it.  I felt one side of the towel and then turned it over.  Still no lens, but when I picked up the towel again, there was the lens under it, finally having fallen off the towel with a tiny little “clink.” It was as solid as one of my old hard lenses.  That nice soft lens material had dried up even in the humid bathroom air.

              I soaked it in saline a couple of hours and it came back to life.  Finally I could see again, at least as well as I ever do these days.

              I came across a passage the other day. The light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine. His strength shall be hunger-bitten, and calamity shall be ready at his side. His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branch be cut off. His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and he shall have no name in the street, Job 18:5, 12, 18, and 19.

              Trying to live your life without Christ will dry you up.  I do not understand how people who do not have the hope He offers can handle life’s problems, and especially how they can handle dying.  They have nothing to live for, and certainly nothing to die for.

              We have said it over and over.  The grace of God not only gives you salvation, it helps you overcome temptation, bear tragedies, and face death.  If I turn into a dried up, bitter old woman, it is because somewhere along the line I refused to make use of that grace. 

              I wince, thinking about the pain I would have felt if I had tried to put that desiccated contact lens into my eye.  We sometimes go about with pain that we needn’t bear.  A good long soak in the grace and goodness of God makes it possible to live this life to the fullest and look forward to the one to come.
 
Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water, John 7:37,38.
 
Dene Ward

My grandson came by for a quick visit recently.  I spent a couple of hours preparing the house, putting up the things that might hurt him and the things that could get him into trouble.  Then I put out the old toys his daddy used to play with, the “new” ones I had picked up at a thrift store, the crayons, a small plastic chair I had bought for him, as well as my old rocking chair, the one I sat in until I outgrew it.

              You are never really sure what a two year old will find interesting.  Their likes and dislikes change with every mood.  I picked up blueberries and chicken nuggets, two of his favorite things, at least the last time I was with him.  That doesn’t mean he will like them this time.  At least I know that about toddlers.  It would have been more helpful to have been able to remember well my own preschool days.  Then I might have stood a better chance of pleasing him.  All of that is entirely normal. 

              In fact, that is normal in every case.  If you could climb into the mind of the person you are trying to relate to, wouldn’t it be much easier to understand them and get along?  A long time ago, Job said the same thing about man and God.  There was no one who could “lay his hand on both” God and man, 9:33. 

              Which is precisely why the Word “became flesh and dwelt among us,” John 1:14.  The Hebrew writer says, “He had to be made like his brothers in every respect” so that he could become our high priest, our intercessor, the one who stands between us and God, laying his hand on both because he understands both worlds, 2:17.  Paul makes it plain in 1 Tim 2:5 that Jesus is the only one of the Godhead who fulfills that requirement--There is one mediator between God and man, himself man, Christ Jesus.

              So now we cannot say, “No one understands.”  Jesus went through a lot of pain and sorrow and injustice and indignity just so he could understand.  Any time we excuse ourselves with something like, “Well of course he could overcome sin, he was the Son of God!” we are demeaning the sacrifice he made for us, and the things he bore on our behalf so he could be “the missing link” between our Father and his children.  We are saying that he doesn’t, and can never understand what it is like to be human.

              The Son of God is also the Son of Man.  He knows how we think, he knows how we feel, and he knows what we can and cannot endure.  He sits at the right hand of God even now, making intercession for us, Rom 8:34, because he searches our hearts and knows what is in them (v 27 with Rev 2:23).

              I may make a mistake about what will pique the interest of my two year old grandson.  Christ will never make the same mistake about us.
 
This makes Jesus the guarantor of a better covenant. The former priests were many in number, because they were prevented by death from continuing in office, but he holds his priesthood permanently, because he continues forever. Consequently, he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, since he always lives to make intercession for them, Heb 7:22-25.
 
Dene Ward

I am often amused by our insistence on certain words to the point that we are willing to make them a test of fellowship, while making up our own words and phrases which can be found nowhere in the scriptures.  In fact, the thing we are describing often has scriptural phrases that we steadfastly avoid.  By imposing our words on the concept we often miss connections that had a profound impact on the people who first heard them. 

              I grew up hearing the phrase “rolled forward.”  Imagine my surprise when I checked half a dozen translations and could not find that phrase in any of them.  Because we understand that “the blood of bulls and goats cannot take away sin,” someone created this phrase to try to explain how sin was dealt with under the Old Covenant.  Why do we do that when the scriptures explain things plainly enough?

              Thus shall he do with the bullock; as he did with the bullock of the sin-offering, so shall he do with this; and the priest shall make atonement for them, and they shall be forgiven, Lev 4:20.
              And all the fat thereof shall he burn upon the altar, as the fat of the sacrifice of peace-offerings; and the priest shall make atonement for him as concerning his sin, and he shall be forgiven, 4:26.
              And the priest shall burn it upon the altar for a sweet savor unto Jehovah; and the priest shall make atonement for him, and he shall be forgiven, 4:31.
              And the priest shall make atonement for him as touching his sin that he hath sinned, and he shall be forgiven, 4:35.
              And he shall offer the second for a burnt-offering, according to the ordinance; and the priest shall make atonement for him as concerning his sin which he hath sinned, and he shall be forgiven, 5:10.
              And the priest shall make atonement for him as touching his sin that he hath sinned in any of these things, and he shall be forgiven, 5:13
              And the priest shall make atonement for him with the ram of the trespass-offering, and he shall be forgiven, 5:16.
              And the priest shall make atonement for him concerning the thing wherein he erred unwittingly and knew it not, and he shall be forgiven, 5:18.

              Funny how I grew up thinking the word “forgiven” was found nowhere in the Old Testament.  Guess what?  I found it well over a dozen times before I decided that was enough for me to understand that those people were forgiven, just not forgiven the way we are.  They understood that, too, without someone thinking he had to improve on God’s words with a manmade phrase. 

               For the law having a shadow of the good things to come, not the very image of the things, can never with the same sacrifices year by year, which they offer continually, make perfect them that draw nigh. Else would they not have ceased to be offered?... But in those sacrifices there is a remembrance made of sins year by year, Heb 10:1-3. 

               Those worshippers understood that forgiveness in their time would not last forever, that every year God would once again remember them.  And not only did he remember the sins of the past year for which they had offered sacrifices, he also remembered the year before that, and the year before that, and the years and years before that.  Every year that weight grew heavier and heavier on every soul.   

             That made the promise of the New Covenant much more precious.  Behold, the days come, says Jehovah, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel, and with the house of Judah: not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hand to bring them out of the land of Egypt;… But this is the covenant that I will make with the house of Israel after those days, says Jehovah: I will put my law in their inward parts, and in their heart will I write it; and I will be their God, and they shall be my people… for I will forgive their iniquity, and their sin will I remember no more. Jer 31:31-34. 

              Now forgiveness would include forgetting. That weight of guilt would be lifted forever.  If there were no other spiritual blessing under the New Covenant, that one alone would make serving God worthwhile.  How often do we completely miss the importance of that blessing by refusing to use the words the Holy Spirit did?

              It is not that we cannot comprehend an Old Covenant forgiveness that does not forget.  We have a habit of practicing that very thing. We practice Old Covenant forgiveness when we say we forgive yet every time a certain person’s name comes up we say things like, “I’ll never forget what he did to me.”  The remembrance of their sins against us gives us away.

              Jesus told his disciples they were to expect the same forgiveness from God that they gave to others.  His blood of the New Covenant has power beyond the power those Old Covenant people experienced.  But New Covenant forgiveness only works on us when we practice New Covenant forgiveness to others.
 
Put on then, as God's chosen ones, holy and beloved, compassionate hearts, kindness, humility, meekness, and patience, bearing with one another and, if one has a complaint against another, forgiving each other; as the Lord has forgiven you, so you also must forgive. Col 3:12,13.
 
Dene Ward
 
 

We raised pigs when the boys were growing up.  A pig a year in the freezer went a long way toward making our grocery bill manageable, everything from bacon and sausage in the morning to chops and steaks on the supper table, ribs on the grill, and roasts and hams on our holiday table.  The first time the butcher sent the head home in a clear plastic bag and I opened the freezer to find it staring at me nearly undid me, though.  After that Keith made sure to tell them to “keep the head.”

            We bought our pigs from a farmer when they were no more than 30 pounds.  That created a problem that usually the boys and I were the only ones home to deal with.  Once the pigs were over 100 pounds they could no longer root their way under the pen, but those young ones did it with regularity, especially the first week or so when they had not yet learned this was their new home and they could count on being fed.  More than one morning I went out to feed them and found the pen empty, spending the remainder of my morning looking for the pig out in the woods.

            One Wednesday evening when Keith had to work, the boys and I stepped outside to load us and our books into the car for the thirty mile trip to Bible study, only to see the young pig, probably 40 pounds by that time, rooting in the flower beds.  We spent the next forty-five minutes chasing it.  You would think three smart people, two of them young and agile and me not exactly decrepit in those earlier days, could corner a pig and herd him back to the pen.  No, that pig gave chase any time any one of us got within twenty feet of him, and they are much faster than they look.

            You see things in cartoons and laugh at the pratfalls exactly as the cartoonist wanted you to, knowing in your mind that such things never could happen.  When you chase a pig you find out otherwise. 

            Once we did manage to corner the thing between a fence post and a ditch and Lucas, who was about 12, leapt for him with his arms outstretched.  Somehow that pig managed to move and Lucas landed flat on the ground on his stomach while the pig ended up trotting past all of us on his merry way, wagging his head in what looked like amusement.

            Another time Lucas actually got his arms around the pig’s stomach, but even an un-greased pig is a slippery creature.  Nathan and I never had a chance to grab on ourselves before it was loose again and off we all ran around the property for the umpteenth time, dressed for Bible study by the way, which made the sight much more ridiculous, especially my billowing skirt.

            We never did catch that pig.  He simply got tired and decided to go back into the pen.  I had opened the gate and as he trotted toward it, we all gratefully jogged behind him, winded and filthy and caring not a hoot that it was his idea instead of ours.  Still, he had to have the last word.  Instead of going through the open gate, at the last minute he ran back to where he had gotten out in the first place and slunk under the rooted out segment of the pen.  Then he turned around and looked at us.  “Heh, heh,” I could almost hear with the look he gave us.  We shut the gate, filled in the hole, loaded up the feed trough, and went inside to clean up, arriving at Bible study thirty minutes late and too exhausted and traumatized to learn much that night.

            God is a promise maker.  He has given us so many promises I could never list them all here.  We have a habit of treating those promises like a pig on the loose, like something we can’t really get a good hold of, certainly not a secure one. 

            I grew up in a time when it was considered wrong to say, “I know I am going to Heaven.”  Regardless the fact that John plainly said in his first epistle, “These things I have written that you may know you have eternal life,” (5:13), actually saying such a thing would get you a scolding about pride, and a remonstrance like, “Let him who thinks he stands, take heed lest he fall!”  We were too busy fighting false doctrine to lay hold of a hope described as “sure” in Heb 6:19.  

            That word is the same one used in Matt 27:64-66.  The priests and Pharisees implored Pilate to make Jesus’ tomb “sure” so his disciples could not steal the body and claim a resurrection.  He told the guards, “Make it as sure as you can.”  Do you think they would have been careless about it?  Do you think there was anything at all uncertain about the seal on that tomb?  Not if you understand the disciplinary habits of the Roman army.  It is not quite as obvious because of the different translation choice, but the Philippian jailor was given the same order, using the same word, when Paul and Silas were put in prison:  “Charging the jailor to keep them safely [sure],” and he was ready to kill himself when he thought they had escaped.

            That is how sure our hope is—“an anchor…steadfast and sure.”  It isn’t like a pig we have to chase down.  It isn’t going to slip through our fingers if we don’t want it to.  Paul told the Thessalonians that “sure” hope would comfort them, 2 Thes 2:16.  How comforting is it to be fretting all the time about whether or not you’re going to Heaven?  How reassuring is it to picture God as someone who sits up there waiting for you to slip so He can say, “Gotcha!”  That is how we treat Him when we talk about our hope as anything less than certain.

            I never knew what to expect when I stepped out of my door the first few weeks with a new piglet.  If we hadn’t needed it, I would not have put myself through the anxiety and the ordeal.  Why in the world would anyone think that God wants us to feel that way about our salvation?
 
…in hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before times eternal, Titus 1:2.
 
Dene Ward         

During the last presidential term I heard a lot about “the debt ceiling.”  A lot of my brothers and sisters are outraged over having it raised.  It makes no sense.  We all want this country on sound economic footing again.  How in the world can going even deeper into debt do that?

            Yet we ask God to raise our debt ceiling to him again and again.  Instead of coming to grips with sin and learning to overcome it, we whine about being “only human” and how we “just can’t help it.”  “Just a little more forgiveness today, God,” we ask, and the day after, and the day after, with no sign of effort on our parts to improve.

            The problem may be that we really don’t want to repent.  Peter says that in the times past we lived like we wanted to, immoral and fulfilling every sinful desire.  Now we are to live for the rest of the time in the flesh no longer for human passions but for the will of God, 1 Pet 4:3. Enough is enough, he says (“times past suffices”).  Change!  You can’t “make Jesus the Lord of your life” without repentance.

            Or maybe the problem is laziness.  It is hard to fight the Devil.  God never promised otherwise.  He calls it a war in more than one place.  Take up the whole armor of God that…having done all, you may be able to stand, Eph 6:13.  “Having done all,” he says.  That means when the battle is over, not when I get tired or even wounded.  You keep on, even when you wonder if you can take another step or land another blow.  Just exactly how tired do you think the Lord felt after a night of torture?  Resist the devil, James says, and he will flee from you.  He won’t run away if all we do is stand there waggling our fingers in our ears chanting, “Nanny nanny boo boo.”  He won’t run away if we give up after the first time he knocks us down.  You have to fight, really fight, and keep on fighting until the end.

            But just maybe our biggest problem is that we don’t trust God to do what he says he will.  Pray that you enter not into temptation, Jesus told his apostles, Luke 22:46.  The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, Peter reminds us, 2 Pet 2:9.  With every temptation he will make also the way of escape that you may be able to endure it, Paul says, 1 Cor 10:13.  Don’t we believe that? Maybe if I don’t pray those prayers I can say there was no escape and excuse myself once again.  Maybe I can say that God made the escape route even more difficult than the temptation.  Maybe I can say he hid it too well.  Maybe, maybe, maybe…

            So, which is our problem?  Are we unwilling to repent?  Are we a bunch of spoiled children who want it all handed to us on a silver platter?  Or do we just not believe like we say we do?  How high do we expect God to make that debt ceiling?  Do I want it higher and higher so I can sin as long as I want to? Do I want to excuse my sin instead of working hard to grow up in Christ, to endure the trials, and to control myself! 

            Every time we sin, we are asking God to raise our debt ceiling.  If anything, the debt ceiling we want is far more outrageous than anything Washington could ever come up with.
 
For the death he died he died to sin, once for all, but the life he lives he lives to God. So you also must consider yourselves dead to sin and alive to God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, to make you obey its passions. Do not present your members to sin as instruments for unrighteousness, but present yourselves to God as those who have been brought from death to life, and your members to God as instruments for righteousness. Rom 6:10-13.                                                                       

Dene Ward