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

At least one other rule of economics is fairly easy to comprehend.  The more the commodity costs the manufacturer to make, the more it costs the supplier, and therefore, the more it will cost the consumer.  It only makes sense, and it is only fair.  Capitalism depends upon this very rule.

It is an easy rule to misunderstand though.  Our idea of “cost” is the cost of the raw materials to make the product.  Over the years I have learned better. 

At some urging from one of the elders where we attended, I have written, published, and sold Bible class material since I was 25.  I never expected to get rich with it—that certainly wasn’t my purpose--but I discovered quickly that there was more to “cost” than simply printing the books.  I needed high quality boxes for shipping because books are heavy.  I needed padded envelopes and packing tape.  There was the cost of gas to go to the post office to mail orders, especially after we moved thirty miles from town.  There was the price of advertising.  Businesses larger than mine also need a place to store inventory, salaries for employees and the benefits that attract them to the job, utilities and insurance for the store.  That’s not even half of it, but you get the point.  I am no longer outraged when I discover that the markup for some items is two or three hundred percent.  The “cost” is a whole lot steeper than the simple cost of manufacture.

Then there was my other sideline.  When I first started teaching piano lessons, I was still a student myself, so I only charged half of the amount my teacher charged.  Then I graduated from college and joined several teaching organizations.  When I looked around at other teachers, I suddenly understood that I needed to be paid based on my qualifications and my experience, and on the things I offered my students. 

I spent over $200 a year on professional dues so I could offer the competition, scholarship, and performance opportunities those organizations afforded its members’ students.  I spent more on workshops to keep myself up to date.  I had a degree in music that none of the others in my county had, and that education cost money.  I knew what it took to prepare for a college audition while no one else in the county did.  My students needed theory and history classes and for those I needed tapes, CDs, reference books, teaching materials like flash cards and rhythm band instruments, a music library for my older students to borrow from, and computer music theory games as well.  All of that cost money and my rates reflected that.

But once again, grace doesn’t follow the rules of economics.  Grace cost God, the manufacturer and supplier, an unconscionable amount—it cost his son.  I know there are some things in life that will always be beyond my means.  I will never drive a luxury car.  I will never live in a real house.  I will never visit a foreign country.  Knowing that, and based on the cost alone, I should never be able to afford grace.  Not even the wealthiest of us is able to pay for it.  But I can, and so can everyone else, because regardless the steep cost, for all of us this invaluable commodity is free.

Remember to thank God today for his rules of economics.
 
Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift, 2 Cor 9:15.
 
Dene Ward

Economics was not my favorite subject in school.  Too much of it sounded like gobbledy-gook and the “rules” seldom seemed as logical to me as they did to the teacher—they were far too complicated.  One principle I did understand, though, perhaps because it was played out right in front of me in the early 1970s. 

            After working the whole summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college, I managed to buy my first car, a ’67 Mustang.  I commuted to Florida College and, in those days, a music major had to take 21-24 hours a semester just to get all the requirements in, plus stay for extra rehearsals.  I was on campus from 7:30 am till about 9 pm nearly every day.  Then I went home, grabbed a bite of leftovers, fell asleep across my homework about 2 am, got up at 6 and started again.

         That was the year of “the gas shortage.”  Many stations closed completely.  Others opened for only three or four hours a day—till the gas ran out.  Sometimes purchases were limited to five gallons per vehicle so that more customers could be served.

            We patronized one particular station in Temple Terrace.  One evening every week, the proprietor called us and his other regular customers.  Early the next morning, while it was still dark, we all lined up our cars behind the station so we wouldn’t attract attention, and he filled us all up, the station sign remaining dark and the office and service bays unlit.

            Eventually even that ran out.  Everyone in town was on the look-out and word passed quickly when a station opened, an attendant setting out the sandwich board sign, “Gas Today.”  In particular I remember sitting in my little blue Mustang with the red painted wheel wells in a long snaky line that reached from the station on the corner out to the southeast shoulder of 56th Street at Fowler Avenue, all of us hoping we would reach the pump before the owner turned the sign around to read, “Out of gas.”

            The supply was small, but the demand was just as great as ever, so I am sure you know what happened.  The price jumped from thirty-five to sixty-five cents a gallon.  In those days, minimum wage was $2.00 an hour, $12,000 a year was a good salary, and $25 bought a week’s groceries, so a tank of gas jumping from three or four dollars to nine or ten was a hardship.

            The rules of economics say that when the supply is small and the demand great, the price will rise.  On the other hand, when the supply is great and the demand small, the price will drop like a rock.  Things don’t work that way with grace. 

            Some of the early Christians, understanding how wonderful grace was, had the mistaken notion that since grace covered sin, they should sin more so there would be more grace.  Paul answers this error in Romans 6:1,2.  What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?  God forbid. We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? He then goes on to explain that baptism into the death of Christ requires a death to sin on our part.  We should be living like baptized people, like people who are “no longer in bondage to sin,” v 6. 

           After a long discussion he starts talking about the price of that grace, a point he had begun in chapter five, and do you know what?  The price of grace to us has nothing to do with how much we need it or how much we sin.  The price of grace does not fluctuate like the price of gasoline.  No matter how much you need it, there is always plenty.  No matter how much you need it, it is always free.  We will never have to sit in line hoping we make it to the front before it runs out, and we will never be too poor to receive it.  The laws of supply and demand have absolutely nothing to do with grace, and aren’t we glad?
 
But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ, Rom 5:15-17.
 
Dene Ward

My sister and I stood near the end of the long pier that jutted into the Gulf, a steady breeze blowing our hair across our faces, the hot sun pounding our shoulders as only a Florida sun can.  The planks beneath our sandaled feet were thick and gray, old enough to have splintered on the surface here and there but still solid, only a faint vibration when anyone walked past us.  The waves rolled in, small and steady, splashing the pilings beneath us and sprinkling us with salt spray.
            We had cane poles that day, no fancy rods and reels—just throw it in the water and pull it up when the fish bites.  And all of a sudden one did.  At 11 and with very little experience in the sport, it felt like a monster and I am sure I must have squealed.  Suddenly I was surrounded and a hand helped me pull the thing up.
            “What is that!?” I asked no one in particular.  It was the ugliest thing I’d ever seen, about 5 pounds worth of ugly.
            A man I didn’t know laughed.  “It’s a cowfish,” he said, but actually the profile looked more like a pig’s than a cow’s to me.  He advised me to throw it back and I did—the only fish I ever caught.
            Fishing is a common theme in the Bible—and I bet you’re thinking of the gospels.  But Amos, Jeremiah, Habakkuk all used that metaphor too.
            ​The Lord GOD has sworn by his holiness that, behold, the days are coming upon you, when they shall take you away with hooks, even the last of you with fishhooks. Amos 4:2
            “Behold, I am sending for many fishers, declares the LORD, and they shall catch them. And afterward I will send for many hunters, and they shall hunt them from every mountain and every hill, and out of the clefts of the rocks. Jer 16:16
            You make mankind like the fish of the sea, like crawling things that have no ruler. ​He brings all of them up with a hook; he drags them out with his net; he gathers them in his dragnet; so he rejoices and is glad. ​Therefore he sacrifices to his net and makes offerings to his dragnet; for by them he lives in luxury, and his food is rich. Is he then to keep on emptying his net and mercilessly killing nations forever? Hab 1:14-17
            The prophets use the metaphor of God’s people being caught by a net or hook and carried into exile.  It was a fearsome image, one far removed from the picture we might have of a quiet man meditatively casting his line into a babbling brook. It takes Jesus to turn that scary prophetic metaphor on its ear.  Yes, we are “fishers of men,” but whereas the Assyrians and Babylonians made captives of those they caught, Jesus sets us free.
            For the law of the Spirit of life has set you free in Christ Jesus from the law of sin and death. Rom 8:2.  Free from the law, free from sin, free from the lusts of the flesh, free from death.  How could we be any freer?
            And it doesn’t really matter to him how ugly a fish we are.  Unless we struggle in his hands, he won’t throw us back. 
 
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed him, “If you abide in my word, you are truly my disciples, and you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.” John 8:31-32
 
Dene Ward

I don’t need to tell you the story of the Prodigal, or Wasteful, Son.  I am sure you have heard the lesson so many times you might shut this book if I tried.  All I want you to think about this morning is the point that young man had to reach before he could truly repent.  He had to hit rock bottom.  He had to wake up and find himself completely alone with nothing but the pigs for company and the food he fed them for sustenance. 

            We raised pigs when the boys were still with us.  Every fall we put a new one in the freezer and it kept us well fed for a year.  But after raising them, I can say with authority that it was a brave man who first ate one.  Leaning over to put the feed in the trough and coming face to face with a snorting, muddy, ugly, animal whose head was twice as big as mine, and who nose was always running and caked with a mixture of dirt and feed was nothing short of disgusting.  I never had a bit of trouble come slaughtering day, despite the fact that we named them all—either Hamlet or Baconette, depending upon gender. 

            When we have sinned against God, we need to reach the point that young man did, bending over and finding himself face to face with a filthy, reeking, disgusting animal.  We need to understand how low we have sunk.  For some it may not take as much.  Their “rock bottom” may be a realization that comes from private study and its conviction, or someone’s chance comment in a Bible class that hits the mark.  That may be enough to turn their hearts.  But for the stubborn, the arrogant, and the foolish, it will always take more.  They have to have their noses rubbed in the mud of the sty to realize that they are indeed eating with the pigs.

            But we must not think this is only for those who have “left” and then returned.  This needs to happen every time we sin, not just the “big ones.”  Why do you think those little sins keep plaguing us?  Because we have never seen them as anything but “little.”  We have let our culture and our own pride keep us from comprehending the enormity of sin and what it does to our relationship with our God.  Nothing that caused the death of the Son of God is “little.”  For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Rom 3:23.  We don’t understand “glory” if we think that even the tiniest amount of sin can stand in its presence.  We have to, in the words of Ezekiel, remember your evil ways and your deeds that were not good, and loathe yourselves for your iniquities and your abominations, 36:31.

            So the next time you pray for forgiveness, ask yourself first if you recognize how far you have fallen; if you understand that any sin is horrible; that even the tiniest sin, as men count them, makes you forever unworthy to stand in the presence of an Almighty God.

            Ask yourself if you realize that you have been eating with the pigs.
 
For godly grief produces a repentance that leads to salvation without regret, whereas worldly grief produces death. For see what earnestness this godly grief has produced in you, but also what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation, what fear, what longing, what zeal, what punishment! At every point you have proved yourselves innocent in the matter, 2 Cor 7:10,11.
 
Dene Ward

It’s been over a week now and there hasn’t been a mouse in my house.  If the supply is endless, at least it is experiencing a lull at the moment.  But it’s only a matter of time…

            …which itself is not endless.  God tells us over and over that time will eventually stop.  Eternity will begin and never end, which is a lame definition, because by its very definition eternity neither begins nor ends, so how can you describe it by using words like “endless.”  We will no longer say, “in a minute,” “before long,” or “after a while.”  There will no longer be a “then.”  Everything will be “now”—or will it?  Will that word be irrelevant as well?

            This is getting just a little too deep for me, and maybe that is something I needed.  I have grown impatient with people who make such a big deal out of things that happen in this life, whining and complaining, “Why me?” seeming to forget that we are promised an eternity that will make even the longest ordeal here look less than minuscule.  Even God made a point to remind us over and over about the relative unimportance of physical life compared to an eternal one.  Over fifty times the scriptures use phrases like “eternal life,” “everlasting life,” “life evermore,” and “live forever.”  So it must be easy in the midst of pain, and sorrow, and surrounded by death, to forget.

            Use the help we have been given to remind yourself, especially when things are tough, that eternity is what matters, not what happens in the here and now.  If I could find fifty passages, maybe you can find more—maybe they are nearly endless.

            Just for the sake of having a way to describe it to us temporally bound souls, eternity is not the last “endless supply.”  Another one awaits us, perhaps one even better.  Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who according to his great mercy begat us again unto a living hope by the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead, unto an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fades not away, reserved in heaven for you,  1 Pet 1:3,4.  “Fades not away” refers to the quality of that eternal life.  Unlike this world we find ourselves in now, we will never wish it could end, for the joy of being with the Lord will never run out either.
 
For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?" The sting of death is sin, and the power of sin is the law. But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. 1 Cor 15:53-58.
 
Dene Ward

You would think it would go without saying.  You would think that looking around at the world God made would make it obvious.  It is he who made the earth by his power, who established the world by his wisdom, and by his understanding stretched out the heavens. Jer 10:12.  If God can do that, certainly his power is endless.  Nothing is too big for it to handle, and it will never run out.

            So why have I heard on more than one occasion, “I know people who have it worse than I do, so I try not to bother God with my piddling little problems”?  It’s almost like they think they will cause someone else not to get the help they deserve if God helps them too.  It’s almost like they think God’s power could actually run out.  Let’s review a few scriptures.

            O Lord GOD, you have only begun to show your servant your greatness and your mighty hand. For what god is there in heaven or on earth who can do such works and mighty acts as yours? Deut 3:24

            I am the Lord!  There is nothing too difficult for me, Gen 18:14.

            Awesome is God from his sanctuary; the God of Israel--he is the one who gives power and strength to his people. Blessed be God! Psa 68:35

            And what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places, Eph 1:19,20.

            Did you catch that last one?  “The immeasurable greatness of his power.”  There is another endless supply if ever I heard it.  Later in the same epistle Paul adds, to him that is able to do exceeding abundantly above all that we ask or think, 3:20.  Sounds like Paul agrees with those messengers who promised Abraham and Sarah a son at their advanced age.  Nothing is too hard for God.

            What was Jesus always telling those apostles when they hit a snag?  “O ye of little faith.”  Maybe that’s our problem too.  By not asking God for the hard things, we aren’t making it easier for Him, we are making it easier for us!  If I don’t get a “No”, I won’t be disappointed and my faith will not be challenged.  I won’t have to deal with finding the lesson I am supposed to learn from having to deal with a trial.  I won’t have to change and grow.  That is what’s too hard, not the thing we ask of God.

            Paul says in 2 Cor 13:4, For he was crucified in weakness, but lives by the power of God. For we also are weak in him, but…we will live with him by the power of God.   The same power that raised Christ from the dead, helps us live a godly life.  If we sin, it is because we are refusing the only power that can make it possible.  It is a choice on our part, not on his.  He is more than happy to help us.  And that leads us right back to our first endless supply—grace.  And God is able to make all grace abound to you, so that having all sufficiency in all things at all times, you may abound in every good work, 2 Cor 9:8.  The good you can do is endless, but only when you trust that His endless power can supply you with an endless amount of grace to accomplish it.

            You don’t need to make excuses for God.  You don’t need to protect him from a possible failure.  Job said it best, when he recognized that even with all the amazing things in the world that testify to the power of God, we have only seen a tiny bit of what is available.  By his power he churned up the sea…By his breath the skies became fair; his hand pierced the fleeing serpent.  And these are but the outer fringe of his works; how faint the whisper we hear of him.  Who then can understand the thunder of his power? Job 26:12-14.

            God’s power is endless.  It will never run out.  Now go out there and live like you believe it.
 
…that your faith might not rest in the wisdom of men, but in the power of God, 1 Cor 2:5.
 
Dene Ward

We have never had much trouble before now.  Barn cats do an excellent job.  Even after the second in a row went hunting one evening never to return, we had no trouble because a garter snake moved into the enclosed crawl space under the house.

            For four or five years that snake minded his own business, which was good for us—we seldom had a mouse in the house, in spite of living deep in the piney woods.  Sometimes we’d see him stretched out in the sunny yard, nearly four feet long thanks to his dark pantry beneath our floors, but we would turn and go the other way to keep the dogs off of him until he had returned home.

            One fateful summer day last year, he ventured out while Keith was mowing.  He assumed the snake would turn and slither back into the flower beds as he approached.  Just as he passed by, the frightened reptile turned and darted toward the mower.  Keith groaned aloud as he rode right over him, scattering garter snake to the winds.

            The trouble started in the winter, of course.  I began hearing them gnaw on the bottom of the house.  So Keith crawled into that dark, dusty cavern with packets of poison, a flashlight, and a pistol, in case a less benevolent snake had moved in.  In a couple of days the noises stopped, only to start again three or four days later.  The packets of poison were empty.  More crawling, more packets, and once again quiet reigned in the night.  In about two weeks, we seemed to have the problem licked.

            Two months later, when Keith rose at 4:30 am to get ready for work, he found a mouse sitting in the middle of the kitchen floor.  We set out traps this time, as well as poison.  Sometimes I hear one in the middle of the night crunching the poison pellets.  Then we’ll have two or three nights of quiet before the next one arrives.  You see, where we live there is an endless supply of rodents.  Mice will never make the endangered species list.

            Not all endless supplies are bad though.  The grace of God is a good case in point.  Christ told Paul, “My grace is sufficient” (2 Cor 12:9) to help you handle your problems.  It isn’t that you need to get rid of the problem, he told him; it’s that you need to trust that there is enough grace to help you through it.

            Paul told Timothy that God’s grace was “exceeding abundant,” 1 Tim 1:4.  The root word means “to abound,” a word that brings to my mind that Southern phrase “a gracious plenty.”  Yet in this passage Paul attaches an intensifier, huper (from which we get “hyper”). So it means “to abound exceedingly.”  Not just a lot, but a whole lot of a lot.  You simply can’t need more grace than God has to give, no matter how big a sinner you may think you are, nor how often you sin; no matter how big your problems are.  That means he’ll have enough for your neighbor too—you won’t lose out if you share.  Yes, in this case, an endless supply is a very good thing.
 
But not as the trespass, so also the free gift. For if by the trespass of the one the many died, much more did the grace of God, and the gift by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, abound unto the many.  And the law came in besides, that the trespass might abound; but where sin abounded, grace did abound more exceedingly: that, as sin reigned in death, even so might grace reign through righteousness unto eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.  Rom 5:15,20,21.
 
Dene Ward