Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

Dene's latest book, Down A Country Lane, inspired a couple of thoughts about our country lane for me, too.  (Photos of our real country lane by Katie Whipple Photography.)

Through circumstances too complex to explain here, when we bought our five acres, it was the only piece in about 200 acres with a clear title. This had the great advantage of providing a lot of elbow room for us and play room for the boys. The downside was that I was solely responsible for our 4/10 mile access lane. It was created by driving through what had been open pasture and woods down the right-of-way created by a surveyors plat map.
 
Florida is sandy. It rains 4" today and you have to water your plants the day after tomorrow. Except, in our area, there is a subsoil strata of clay about 2 feet down. Thus, in a 50 yard long depression between two rises in the lane, the rain collected into a one to two foot deep puddle that took days to percolate through the soil. It had no outlet to run downhill and away. About the time it dried out, it rained again. The car had to be parked outside the puddle. Elsewhere, Dene has written about wading through, drying our legs and going to church and reversing the process to get home. Don't come to us with frivolous excuses for missing church (read that: all excuses are frivolous).

Obviously, I had to do something. Just as obviously, I could not afford equipment rentals. An insurance customer had several dump truck loads of roofing rock from a demolished building. He asked me to take all I wanted. Every night after I finished selling, I stopped and shoveled a load onto my Isuzu pickup and drove home with my nose in the air, front wheels pretending to touch the pavement. Every morning, I shoveled the rock until I had covered that 50 yard area of the drive about 3-4 inches deep. The rains came again and the rock beat into the mud and we had to get the neighbor to pull us out again. And, start wading again.

So, I dug a ditch over 100 yards long to the highway with a shovel. I threw the dirt up into that same Isuzu pickup and hauled it down to the house to landscape to divert the water from running under our DWMH. I shoveled, Dene raked it out. The ditch was 2 shovels wide and was hip deep to cut through the rise but tapered to less than a foot deep at the road.  Finally, we had reliable access to our home 22 months after we moved here.

Much of my "training up the boys in the way they should go" came from necessities like this. Of course, the first lesson to them was how important church was to us. You cannot teach your children to love God if every obstacle prevents you from assembling to worship. They follow your example, not your words. Did I mention that we killed about a dozen rattlesnakes and cottonmouths in this same period? During this time, we followed a weak flashlight beam ¼ mile from the puddle to the house. We never missed services due to this inconvenience.
 
This was roof rock, so it came with nails and pieces of glass. I paid the boys (age 9 and 7) a nickel for each nail they found in the road and a penny for each piece of glass. I stressed how important it was to find them all as we could not afford to buy new tires if one caused a flat. Thus, they learned about working and earning but also with a sense of responsibility toward the family and making a contribution to our survival.

They saw persistence and saw it pay off. More than one person said the ditch could not be done without equipment. The boys learned to never give up by seeing the results. When one thing did not work (the rock) we started another. We never quit.

They saw a father in action caring for his family with all he had. I had no money, limited income, no equipment. But, I did all I could because my family needed me to do so. None of it was heroic. There are no medals, no monuments except those that live on in my two sons.
 
Keith Ward

[This photo shows how much the original road has been built up over the years and the ditch graded out.]

Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.
 
Have you ever heard this one?  If God really is loving and wants all to be saved, why is He so picky about things? Why does He have all these rules and why does He make it so hard to be accepted? Why doesn’t He just accept everyone?

The idea that the way to salvation is hard isn’t error dreamed up by Satan to deter people from religion, by the way. Jesus Himself tells us the way will be difficult. Matt. 7:13-14 "Enter by the narrow gate. For the gate is wide and the way is easy that leads to destruction, and those who enter by it are many. For the gate is narrow and the way is hard that leads to life, and those who find it are few.” So, while the way to destruction is easy, the way to life, to salvation, is hard and only a few will find it.

Also, Luke 13:23-27 “And someone said to him, "Lord, will those who are saved be few?" And he said to them, Strive to enter through the narrow door. For many, I tell you, will seek to enter and will not be able. When once the master of the house has risen and shut the door, and you begin to stand outside and to knock at the door, saying, 'Lord, open to us,' then he will answer you, 'I do not know where you come from.' Then you will begin to say, 'We ate and drank in your presence, and you taught in our streets.‘ But he will say, 'I tell you, I do not know where you come from. Depart from me, all you workers of evil!'”

Not only will the saved be few, but many who listen to the Lord and eat with Him – figuratively, those who participate in some form of religious activities – will be condemned. If God really wishes that all would be saved (1 Tim. 2:3-4) then why does He make the road so hard?

I suggest that we are looking at this issue backwards. Instead of moaning about how hard the road to the narrow gate is, we should be looking instead at all God did to open the gate for us. For instance, God had a plan in place to save us before He even created us: 1 Pet. 1:19-20 “but with the precious blood of Christ . . . He was foreknown before the foundation of the world but was made manifest in the last times for the sake of you”. Before the world was created it was already planned out who was going to be the Christ and how salvation was going to be realized (His blood). God also had a plan for who was going to be saved, those who through faith were holy and blameless. Eph. 1:4 “even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him”. So, God didn’t create us willy-nilly and then after Adam & Eve sinned come up with an ad hoc plan to save us. He loved us enough to use forethought and plan for our salvation.

Then there is the unimaginable: God sacrificed His Son for us. We know this, but has the concept dulled through repetition? Feel this in your gut. God killed His Son so we could live. The most famous passage in the Bible: John 3:16 "For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life.” How much does He love us? How much does He want us to be saved? He gave His Son

If there are any further doubts about His love, see Romans 5 “and hope does not put us to shame, because God's love has been poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit who has been given to us. For while we were still weak, at the right time Christ died for the ungodly. For one will scarcely die for a righteous person—though perhaps for a good person one would dare even to die—but God shows his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.” (vs 5-8). Notice especially how we are described in these verses. Weak. Unable to save ourselves. Lacking the strength. Ungodly. If being godly means being toward God, having God as our focus, living our lives for God, then being ungodly means being against God. Working against His wishes. Sinners. Offenders against God. Having missed His mark. Having fallen short. Then if we were to look at verse ten, we are all called enemies of God. Weak, ungodly, sinners and enemies. That’s who we were when Christ died for us. He did that to reconcile us to Him and open the door to salvation.

Parents, let me ask you a question: Is there anything so important to you that you would kill your child to accomplish it? Moms? Dads? That’s what God did for us. That was the price and He paid it. Now, if someone did allow their child to die to save you, how would you feel about him? Imagine that you are fishing out on a boat and you and your buddy’s son both go overboard and your buddy saves you first and by the time he gets to his son, the boy is dead. If your buddy ever asked you for a favor, do you think you’d do it for him?

But God’s working to save us didn’t end at the sacrifice of His Son. He would have been perfectly justified in saying “Ok, I opened the door by sacrificing my Son, now you guys get through the door on your own.” But He didn’t. He continues to work to help us make it through that narrow gate. Rom. 8:32 “He who did not spare his own Son but gave him up for us all, how will he not also with him graciously give us all things?” He will give us all we need to make it. Also: Eph. 1:19-20 “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”. How great is His power toward us? As great as the power He used to raise Jesus from the dead and take Him to heaven. How much power does it take to do that? If it could be measured in Kilowatt-hours, what would the electric bill be? However amazingly much power it is, it is the power God is using to help us get to heaven.

How do these passages affect your understanding of other promises of God? In 1 Cor. 10:13 we are told that God is guarding us and not allowing us to be tempted more than we can bear. He is using the same power to protect us that He used to raise Jesus. Do you think there is any chance Satan will sneak past that? In James 1:5 we are told to ask God for wisdom.  Do you think God is going to be chintzy when He answers that prayer? No, He will “graciously give us all things” we need, just as He gave us His Son. When we read that “I can do all things through him who strengthens me.” (Phil. 4:13), how much is He strengthening us? With the power He used to raise Jesus from the dead and translate Him to heaven! God is working hard to help us make it through the door of salvation which He opened for us with the death of His Son.

But His efforts on our part still aren’t done. Having sacrificed Jesus and promised to help us, He worked to get the word out. In Jeremiah, when God is describing how hard He had worked to try to get the Israelites to obey Him there is an interesting phrase used: Jer. 7:13, 25 “And now, because ye have done all these works, says Jehovah, and I spake unto you, RISING UP EARLY and speaking, but ye heard not; and I called you, but ye answered not. . . Since the day that your fathers came forth out of the land of Egypt unto this day, I have sent unto you all my servants the prophets, DAILY RISING UP EARLY and sending them”. This phrase comes up over and over again throughout Jeremiah: Jer. 7:13, 25; 11:7; 25:3, 4; 26:5; 29:19; 32:33; 35:14, 15; 44:4. God wasn’t sleeping in and then sending His prophets whenever He got around to it. He was earnestly working to save His people.

If He worked that hard to get the word out to the physical nation of Israel, do you think He worked hard to announce His kingdom? He sent His Spirit to work directly with the Apostles, and later other prophets, on the day of Pentecost. The divine working directly with man. Second in awe inducement only to the divine becoming man and dying for the created, God also worked to confirm that His apostles and prophets were indeed from Him: Mark 16:20 “And they went forth, and preached everywhere, the Lord working with them, and confirming the word by the signs that followed.” The signs showed that what the Apostles said was backed up by God.

Then, the Spirit directed the writing of the New Testament in the space of 50 years, an incredible outpouring of inspiration when you consider the Old Testament took 1,000 years to write. Finally, God providentially protected His word through the millennia so we could be confident in it today. (And there is no legitimate doubt about the text of the scriptures.)

To sum up, He planned for our salvation; He sacrificed His Son so we could be saved; He works to provide us all the help we could need; He worked to get the Word out and keep it preserved for us.

By comparison, how little He asks of us.

He asks that we believe when we hear the word, that we confess Him as Lord and Jesus as Christ, that we repent of our sins and be baptized for the remission of those sins and that we live holy lives before Him. That’s all. And yet people will argue until they're blue in the face that they don’t have to do those simple things. After all He’s done for us.

I’m not saying the way will always be easy. In fact, we know it won’t be because Jesus said the way was hard. We will be ridiculed, or worse, by unbelievers if we live our beliefs. We have to work to learn His word. We have to worship according to the pattern. The way isn’t easy, but think of how much He did to open the way for us.

Finally, think about this. If God had wanted mindless obedience, He could have created robots programmed to obey. Instead, God wanted servants who would choose to serve Him and who would jump at the opportunity to be adopted into His family. That’s what we are promised, to be the children of God.

The nature of choice, though, means that some will choose not to follow God. Some will choose not to live holy lives. This is not what God wants; He wants all to be saved, but the nature of choice is that some won’t follow Him.

Don’t be one of those who make the wrong choice.

Lucas Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward

Our car keeps track of the gas mileage on an ongoing and cumulative basis. I can watch a graphic display that tells me how I have been doing for the last 15 minutes and the display by the odometer tells me how it has done since it was last reset. Until a couple of weeks ago, it had not been reset since a month after we bought the car 2+ years ago. I accidentally reset it while trying to do something else (tech whiz huh!).  So, before this recent reset, it took many miles of high mileage driving on the graph to raise the long-term mileage by even 1/10 mpg. Conversely, an all day trip from grocery store to doctor to hardware in traffic might not lower it at all. Now, just coming down the 4/10 mile driveway can lower that "long term" mpg by a couple of tenths and the 22 mile road trip to town will raise it right back up. The sheer mass of the data in the old system kept every trip from having significant impact on the bottom line reading.

When a large heavy object (mass) is moving (momentum) quickly it is difficult to stop. Its mass and momentum give it a lot of power. A Civil War general saw a cannonball rolling across the field toward his staff and laughed and put out his foot to stop it. He lost the foot. On the other hand, the third baseman can catch the 100+ mph line drive with little difficulty.

Church is "for the perfecting of the saints, unto the work of ministering, unto the building up of the body of Christ: till we all attain unto the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, unto a fullgrown man, unto the measure of the stature of the fulness of Christ: that we may be no longer children, tossed to and fro and carried about with every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, in craftiness, after the wiles of error;" (Eph 4:12-14). New Christians are like the reset mileage counter—they have no mass of data (faith, knowledge, experience) to stabilize them. Every wind of doctrine or trickery of men used by Satan pushes them off course. Today, they are on the highway on cruise control and racking up the high mileage. Tomorrow, they are bumping down the driveway in low gear and dragging the numbers down. Church shares the mass and momentum of older Christians and teachers and elders in order that the weaker are not tossed about before they have their own mass and momentum built up.

I think that after 50+ years, it would be a shame if we were going to church to learn and be built up. Of course, we do sometimes learn some new thing and are often encouraged by the faith of others. But, we certainly ought to have our own faith grown large and rolling downhill by now. We should be there to supply to the increase of the body building up itself in love. We should focus on the joy of each level of progress of others and our part in that growth. Certainly we still grow, we have lightbulb moments that open new appreciation for God's grace or open new avenues of service. But, primarily we are there for others.
It is certainly a shame when a member of 10 or more years "in the church" is such a babe that he has to be coddled and is complaining he did not get anything out of the services.
 
For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you have need again for someone to teach you the elementary principles of the oracles of God, and you have come to need milk and not solid food. (Heb 5:12)
Keith Ward
 

Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.

Casey Stengel, Hall of Fame baseball manager for the Yankees and Mets, was known for his sayings. He once said, “There are three things you can do in a baseball game. You can win, or you can lose, or it can rain.” I first heard that quote as ‘Somedays you win, somedays you lose and somedays it rains.’ First time I heard it I thought it was silly. The more I thought about it, the more profound it seemed. And it got me thinking about the Christian life.

As a Christian, sometimes we win. In the Bible, can you think of a bigger win than Acts 2? Peter is preaching the first gospel sermon, and the response is incredible:

“Now when they heard this they were cut to the heart, and said to Peter and the rest of the apostles, "Brothers, what shall we do?" And Peter said to them, "Repent and be baptized every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins, and you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit. For the promise is for you and for your children and for all who are far off, everyone whom the Lord our God calls to himself." And with many other words he bore witness and continued to exhort them, saying, "Save yourselves from this crooked generation." So those who received his word were baptized, and there were added that day about three thousand souls.” (Acts 2:37-41)

Three thousand souls were saved that first day as they accepted the Gospel. 3,000! Hey preachers, have you ever had a day like that? In reading about the Restoration period, I read of evangelists holding 2-3 week gospel meetings in which 1,000 people were baptized during the course of the meeting. But that was over three weeks, and this is in just one day – and three times as much! An incredible win. Do you think Peter was feeling good that evening? And there are other big wins scattered throughout Acts. John and Peter’s sermon in Acts 3 led to thousands more being baptized in Acts 4:4. Paul had, for all practical purposes, a whole city turn out to listen to him in Acts 13:44. Somedays, we win.

But somedays, we lose. An example would be the last part of Acts 17. Paul is in the city of Athens waiting for his companions to catch up, having been rushed out of Berea ahead of a lynch mob. While waiting, he sees the rampant idolatry around him and he can’t help himself. He speaks out against this evil. The Athenian intelligentsia hear about him and decide to grant him an audience. What an opportunity! These are some of the leading thinkers of the day. What if Paul can convert a number of them? So he begins to speak in Acts 17:22 and gives what is widely considered one of the best gospel sermons ever. In the space of ten verses he brings these men from idol worshippers unaware of God to the Gospel of the resurrected Savior. An incredible sermon. And what is their response?

“Now when they heard of the resurrection of the dead, some mocked. But others said, "We will hear you again about this."” (Acts 17:32)

The vulgar laughed and the polite essentially gave him a “Don’t call us, we’ll call you”. Paul had a wonderful opportunity and preached perhaps the greatest sermon ever and **pffft!**

When thinking of losses, how can we not think of Noah? Peter calls him a “preacher of righteousness” (2 Pet. 2:5) and it seems that he had roughly 100 years to preach (Gen. 6:10,13; 7:6). In 100 years of preaching, he saved precisely no one outside his family. Again, preachers, have you ever had a dry spell to compare to that? Somedays, despite our best efforts, we lose.

And somedays, it rains. Nothing goes the way we had planned. We see this in Paul’s life at least twice. First, Acts 16:6-8

“And they went through the region of Phrygia and Galatia, having been forbidden of the Holy Spirit to speak the word in Asia; and when they were come over against Mysia, they assayed to go into Bithynia; and the Spirit of Jesus suffered them not; and passing by Mysia, they came down to Troas.”

Having been very successful in what we would today call southeastern Turkey, he planned to move to southwestern Turkey but, whoops, the Holy Spirit forbade them. Ok, let’s go to north-central Turkey. Whoops, Jesus would not allow it. All his plans done in by acts of God (isn’t that an insurance phrase for weather?) Paul wound up in Troas. Where he heard what we term the Macedonian Call. And churches were planted in Philippi, Thessalonica, Berea, and Corinth specifically because Paul’s plans were ruined. He couldn’t serve God in the way he had planned, but he continued to serve as best he could in the situation he found himself. And souls were saved.

Then there’s Acts 20:2-3

“And when he had gone through those parts, and had given them much exhortation, he came into Greece. And when he had spent three months there, and a plot was laid against him by Jews as he was about to set sail for Syria, he determined to return through Macedonia.”

Paul was in a hurry to return to Jerusalem and give the poor their the alms he had been collecting from the various Gentile churches. He planned to sail from Corinth to Syria and then, likely, from Syria to Caesarea and then overland to Jerusalem. That was the fastest means of travel at that time. But his plans were ruined by something out of his control: the machinations of his enemies. So, to avoid them, he took the long way around. And had a chance to revisit the Macedonian churches, preach in Troas, and see the Ephesian elders again for what he thought would be the last time. Some of the most often referred to passages in Acts wouldn’t have been written if Paul’s plans had worked out. Somedays, it rains, but we still serve as best we can.

In our service to the Lord, somedays we will win big. There will be much rejoicing and the results of our efforts for the Lord will be obvious. Somedays, however, we will lose. Despite our best efforts we won’t accomplish what we set out to do for Him. Even in our losses, though, we can find some progress. In Acts 17 it does mention two who believed and clung to Paul, despite the ridicule of the multitude. And Noah was not completely unsuccessful, he did save his wife, three sons, and their wives, in addition to himself. If we give our all for God, He will make some use of it, even if it seems a loss to us. And somedays, it will rain. Everything we thought we would do for the Lord will get turned on its head. We’ll find ourselves in circumstances far different than we expected, doing different work than we expected. Even in those odd situations if we do the work before us, we can have a great impact for the Lord.

The examples given were all of evangelism, but this is true of all service to God. As parents raising your children for Him, somedays you will win, somedays it will seem as if you lost despite your best efforts, and somedays nothing will go as you expected. Keep pressing on. As ministers to needy brethren we will win, lose, or have it rain, but keep doing what you can. In all of the examples win, lose, or rain, God used the efforts of His workers to accomplish His will. He will do so today as well.

Regardless of the weather, keep “pressing on”.

Heb. 6:11-12 “And we desire each one of you to show the same earnestness to have the full assurance of hope until the end, so that you may not be sluggish, but IMITATORS OF THOSE WHO THROUGH FAITH AND PATIENCE inherit the promises.”
 
Lucas Ward

I was looking through some of the older hymns for another entry in this recurring series when my eyes fell upon "Peace, Perfect Peace."  This small, seemingly insignificant hymn, one that is often labeled "boring" especially by a younger generation, has lasted almost a century and a half despite that misconception.  I started doing some research and came across this article, which says it far better than I ever could.
 
               So here are the words of guest writer Matt W. Bassford, from his blog, hisexcellentword.blogspot.com.  (Used by permission.)  I recommend the entire blog wholeheartedly.
 
                                     Hymns and Scriptural Literacy

In the worship wars, one of the most common criticisms of traditional hymns (sometimes stated, often implied) is that they are boring.  Particularly, they bore young people, so if we want young people to continue to worship with us, we’d better sing songs that are exciting or at least interesting.

Admittedly, most traditional hymn tunes are not the kind of music that sets the pulse to racing.  In fact, many hymn-tune composers were aiming for solemnity and thoughtful repose rather than excitement.  However, even though I find this to be true, I personally still don’t think that well-written hymns from any era are boring.  Even if they leave me contemplative, they don’t make me want to go to sleep.

I wonder, then, if the source of boredom for some and fascination for others lies not in the music but in the lyrics.  In particular, I wonder if it lies in the rich Biblical allusions that are characteristic of the best traditional hymns.  Singers who are Scripturally literate will recognize the Biblical language and appreciate its use, while singers who aren’t Scripturally literate will miss the point and find nothing to dwell on.

I started thinking about this while singing “Peace, Perfect Peace” at a funeral last week.  For those who don’t know it, here are the first five verses:
 
Peace, perfect peace, in this dark world of sin?
The blood of Jesus whispers peace within.
 
Peace, perfect peace, by thronging duties pressed?
To do the will of Jesus, this is rest.
 
Peace, perfect peace, with sorrows surging round?
On Jesus’ bosom naught but calm is found.
 
Peace, perfect peace, with loved ones far away?
In Jesus’ keeping we are safe, and they.
 
Peace, perfect peace, our future all unknown?
Jesus we know, and He is on the throne.
 
“Peace, Perfect Peace” is a hymn I’ve known all my life.  I can’t remember learning it.  However, I certainly have not fully understood it for all or even most of my life.  The music isn’t particularly stirring (see “solemnity and thoughtful repose”, above), and even though I knew what the words meant, I didn’t get the hymn.

That changed once I started reading through the Bible regularly.  In the course of so doing, I encountered Isaiah 26:3, which reads, “You keep him in perfect peace whose mind is stayed on you, because he trusts in you.” (ESV)
Ohhh.  All of a sudden, the hymn went from blah to brilliant.  Edward Bickersteth didn’t pluck the phrase “peace, perfect peace” from thin air.  He plucked it from Isaiah 26:3.  In fact, he is confronting the apparent impossibility of the promise that Isaiah 26:3 makes.  

How can it be that God guarantees that I will have complete and total peace despite all of these problems I’ve got?  Just look at all of ‘em!  I’m constantly struggling with sin, my life is busy and out of control, I’m depressed, I miss my family, and I have no idea what’s going to happen next!
(Side note:  even though this was written nearly 150 years ago, it’s hard to imagine a better portrait of the lives of 21st-century Christians.)

In every case, Bickersteth points out, the answer to our problems is Jesus.  In the blood of Jesus, we find forgiveness for sin.  We rest in our service to Him.  We turn to Him in despair.  We trust Him to protect our loved ones, no matter where they are.  It’s even OK that we don’t know the future, because we do know Jesus.  In other words, Jesus is not only the fulfillment of all of the Messianic prophecies of the Old Testament.  He’s the fulfillment of Isaiah 26:3, because perfect peace is possible through Him.

That’s an amazing point.  It’s so profound that “profound” doesn’t really do it justice.  Any Christian should be able to sit and meditate on that for a good long time.  

However, “Peace, Perfect Peace” doesn’t come right out and make that point.  It implies it, but in order to catch the implication, you have to know Isaiah 26:3.  
Sadly, a lot of Christians are more likely to know the square root of pi than they are to know Isaiah 26:3.  They’ve never read the Bible cover-to-cover even once.  When they come home from work, they don’t bust out the Good Book to relax.  They turn on the television.  As a result, their spiritual maturity is about on the level that a good friend of mine lampoons in his Answers To Every
Question In Bible Class:
               “Who did it?”
               “Jesus!”
               “Where did it happen?”
               “Jerusalem!”
               “What should we do?”
               “Obey God!”

Christians on this level are going to be baffled by the likes of “Peace, Perfect Peace” just as surely as the natural man of 1 Corinthians 2:14 is going to be baffled by the things of the Spirit of God.  They will find their worship home in the contemporary songs written with a Jesus-Jerusalem-obey God amount of depth because that’s how much spiritual depth they have too.

Of course, it’s not necessarily shameful for a Christian to be at that level.  If your hair’s still wet from your baptism, you’ve probably got some growing to do before you grow into Isaiah 26:3.  Yes, our repertoire should include songs for brethren at the wet-hair stage of spiritual maturity.  Often, believers at this point are best served by hymns that use simple, accessible choruses as a gateway to meatier verses.  Here’s something for you to understand now; here’s something for you to grow toward understanding.

What is shameful, though, is for Christians whose hair dried 25 years ago to remain spiritually immature and Biblically ignorant.  If you’ve allegedly been devoting your life to the Lord for decades (which is true of most Christians), you should know Isaiah 26:3.  

In fact, “Peace, Perfect Peace” assumes this level of Biblical mastery.  Bickersteth didn’t write the hymn because he thought that congregations of Victorian-era Anglicans would miss the point.  He wrote it because he expected them to get it.  The hymn’s survival, long after Bickersteth himself died, shows that worshipers did get it.  It is only the Biblical illiteracy of our age that renders the hymn (and others like it) inaccessible.

The solution to the problem is not to dumb down the repertoire.  That would be like “solving” the crime epidemic on the South Side of Chicago by making murder a misdemeanor.  When you address failure to meet a standard by lowering the standard, all you get is more bad behavior.  

Instead, we must allow our challenging hymns to challenge us.  In our songs, we need to wrestle with concepts above the Jesus-Jerusalem-obey God level.  We need to sing things that we don’t fully understand yet, identify our lack of comprehension, and seek answers in the word.  Let’s put away the childish things of a content-light repertoire and worship with doctrinally rich hymns that will lead us on to maturity!
 
Matthew W Bassford
http://hisexcellentword.blogspot.com/

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

I like guns. I have always liked guns. I suppose a lot of that started with all the western movies and TV shows I saw as a kid.
 
I have never been able to have as many guns as I wanted. But, I can read about them. Despite having qualified in the Marine Corps, my knowledge of guns, ballistics, bullets, revolver vs automatic, holster types and advantages, etc. was miniscule. I began reading gun magazines. I did not understand all that I read. I did not really know enough on most topics to separate the wheat from the chaff among the articles I read. I just read and read and somehow I learned a few things. Some magazines never say anything negative about any firearm. They are “owned” by their advertisers—they are mostly useless. The better ones give a balanced view and mention problems without losing advertisers by calling products junk.

I found that much of what I thought I knew was foolishness, fostered by movies and oft repeated myths.

I read every article whether the subject interested me or not. I found that a lot of them were useful to understanding something I did want to learn about and I became interested in a few new subjects too.

I changed a lot of my views and gave up some cherished opinions.

I now can talk intelligently about most gun subjects; sometimes, people even come to me for information.

Now, why couldn't someone do that with the Bible? (Saw that one coming, didn’t you?) I know some who have done so with no formal program of study. They just wanted to learn and read until they did. One whose highest education is H.S. converses intelligently about theologies and Bible customs and Greek words, etc. The other does the same and is married to me. Will you become one??
 
As for you, son of man, your people who talk together about you by the walls and at the doors of the houses, say to one another, each to his brother, `Come, and hear what the word is that comes forth from the LORD.' And they come to you as people come, and they sit before you as my people, and they hear what you say but they will not do it; for with their lips they show much love, but their heart is set on their gain. And, lo, you are to them like one who sings love songs with a beautiful voice and plays well on an instrument, for they hear what you say, but they will not do it. (Ezek 33:30-32)
 
​Take care then how you hear, for to the one who has, more will be given, and from the one who has not, even what he thinks that he has will be taken away. (Luke 8:18)
 
Keith Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.

For a while there, I was really big on self-analysis in fighting temptation. I’d break down what was tempting me most at what times. I’d define my mental state when I was most strongly tempted. I’d determine the difference between the times I overcame strong temptations and the times I fell. I invested all this time and effort to know myself and my weaknesses better, to know what helped me overcome and I’d still fall to temptations! Temptations that I knew intellectually how to beat!! Why? Because eventually it just comes down to me saying, “No.” All the self-analysis, self-knowledge and planning in the world isn’t going to help if I don’t say no.

Nancy Reagan became famous in the eighties for her anti-drug mantra “Just say No”. She was widely ridiculed by some who thought it too simple. ‘There’s peer pressure and teen immaturity and depression and economic desperation and all these things that lead to drug problems!’ they answered. All those things are true, but, however those things are dealt with, if one is to remain drug free one has to at some point just say no. Notice that Mrs. Regan never said it would be easy. She just said it was the answer. And she was right.

God tells His people the same thing about sin: “Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause.” (Isa. 1:16-17) Make yourselves clean and “cease to do evil.” Just stop it. God goes on to tell His people to refill their lives by doing good, but at base He says stop being evil. Just say no.

My Dad used to work intake at the prison system and one of his coworkers was a drug counselor. Like many good drug counselors, this man was himself a recovering addict. At the time Dad told me this story his coworker had been clean for about 20 years. He confessed to Dad that he still had cravings. Sometimes they were so strong he would sit in his office and just hang on to his desk until they passed, because as long as he hung on to the desk, he wasn’t going out to find a fix. He just told himself “no” and hung on. Now if he can do that, why can’t I just hold on and not lose my temper? Why can’t I hold on and not have impure thoughts? Why can’t I hold on and conquer the temptation to ______________?

This is not to say that being aware of yourself and honestly analyzing your successes and failures isn’t helpful. It can be very helpful in learning to avoid situations that lead to temptations and in finding strategies to assist in saying no. For example, I almost never go to the public beaches in season any more. When I want to go to the beach, I find the lesser known, little used areas where I rarely see anyone else. Why? Because the public beaches are full of naked women, which is something I don’t need to be seeing as a Christian man trying to keep my thoughts pure. (And, yes, if you are only covered up in six square inches of fabric, you are naked.) So, that helps, but at some point, alone with my thoughts, I still have to say no to temptations to impure thoughts.

God calls us to be holy. He never says it will be easy. Quite the contrary. In telling us to be holy as our Father is, Peter instructs us to “gird up the loins of your minds”. Back when robes were the customary garment of all, anyone preparing to do hard labor or exercise had to tie up the ends of his robe to avoid tripping and to be ready for the exertions to come. In the same way, being holy requires preparation for hard mental work.

We have to say “no” and hang on.

1 Pet. 1:13-16 “Wherefore girding up the loins of your mind, be sober and set your hope perfectly on the grace that is to be brought unto you at the revelation of Jesus Christ; as children of obedience, not fashioning yourselves according to your former lusts in the time of your ignorance: but like as he who called you is holy, be ye yourselves also holy in all manner of living; because it is written, Ye shall be holy; for I am holy.”

1 Tim. 6:12 “Fight the good fight of the faith, lay hold on the life eternal . . .”
 
Lucas Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

God lifted Ezekiel and took him from Babylonian captivity to Jerusalem in a vision. In a divinely led tour of the temple, Ezekiel saw abomination after abomination in the very house of God. At each stop, God said, "Do you see this, you shall see greater abominations than these,” and led Ezekiel on to the next scene. At tour's end, God said, "Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it too light a thing for the house of Judah to commit the abominations that they commit here, that they should fill the land with violence and provoke me still further to anger? (Ezek 8:17, ESV2011).

Did you catch that? God considered the desecration of the temple to be a "light thing" in comparison to the things they were doing in the land. Instead of "light thing," we might say, "no big deal."

The "image of jealousy" in the court of the house of God is small? Seventy elders in the chambers that shared a wall with the temple itself worshiping all manner of idols and creatures is a thing to be dismissed? Women idolaters, men who turned their back on the house of God to worship the sun--these are small?

Maybe we need to re-evaluate the way we view our service. If a modern Ezekiel toured a church and saw instruments of worship, women preachers, open misuse of the Lord's Supper and worse, God might well say that these were light things in view of the violence done by his people to get ahead in life, to be dismissed in comparison with parent's neglect of children to pursue social standing, small things in relation to the indifference shown to the souls of the lost we never find time or a way to invite. Does our anger in rush hour traffic fill the land with violence? You can continue the list with your own observations of the daily failures to measure up to the correct worship we do on Sunday. [With Jesus we exhort, "These you ought to have done and not leave the others undone"].

God does not think like we do. We think if the public worship is by the book, then we are a sound church.

Ezekiel learned otherwise.

We still do not know God.
 
Keith Ward
 

Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.

My coworkers and bosses all know that I am a regular church goer. So, back at Christmas time I was fielding the usual questions: Does your church have a special Christmas service? A day-break service? etc. I was busy trying to explain that, no, we don’t have those services. That “my” church doesn’t do those things. Then it struck me that this was far from the first time that I had answered these questions. Do you have special Easter services? Good Friday? Thanksgiving? Put those negative answers alongside the answers about musical instruments, church councils and creeds and it occurred to me that to my coworkers the outstanding feature of the church of Christ might be that it doesn’t do anything. “Lucas? He goes to the Church that doesn’t have instrumental music, doesn’t cooperate with other churches, doesn’t give to orphanages, doesn’t have Christmas or Easter services and doesn’t have a fellowship hall.” Is this what we should be known for? What we don’t do?

Now, let me say that it is incredibly important to seek after God according to His ordinances. Doing those things would be against scripture, so we should not do them. But should we only be known for what we don’t do?

John 13:34-35 “A new commandment I give unto you, that ye love one another; even as I have loved you, that ye also love one another. By this shall all men know that ye are my disciples, if ye have love one to another.”

Jesus says that we should be known by how we love each other. That His disciples would be known by how they loved each other. We should not be ostentatious in the good deeds we do for each other (Matt. 6:1-6) but we should be so busy doing good for each other that others can’t help but notice. Dad loves to tell the story about the time he was in the hospital and so many brethren visited him that the nurse was amazed and commented on it in a wondering voice. That is how people should know us, as the church which loves its own and does good for the world as well. (1 Timothy 2:1-2, “pray for all men” see also Jeremiah 29:7)

Surely God would rather have us known as the Church whose members are always going about doing good than as just “the Church which doesn’t . . .”

Isa. 1:16-17 “Wash you, make you clean; put away the evil of your doings from before mine eyes; cease to do evil; learn to do well; seek justice, relieve the oppressed, judge the fatherless, plead for the widow.”
James 1:27 “Pure religion and undefiled before our God and Father is this, to visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unspotted from the world.”
 
Lucas Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

It has happened fairly often lately with the climate change – we will go through a long spell of dry in mid-May sometimes into June. Then the rains come. 2 inches in two days, 3 or 4 inches in a day. Rains every day for a week or two. Actually, this causes little problem if it has rained from the beginning. But, after weeks of just enough irrigation, the sudden influx of too much rain causes my tomatoes to crack, then the gnats and other bugs and the rot get in. Often, even green tomatoes burst.

Someone will say, well, Keith, God knows more about how much rain to send and when to send it than you do. No doubt. But, this is a sin cursed garden, not Eden. So, I have weeds, too much rain, too little rain, blights caused by just a dampening shower every evening which does not in a week add up to a tenth, but keeps it wet so fungi grow.

It surely makes me long for THE garden.

In a similar way some say that the will of God will not lead where the Grace of God is not sufficient. But, then, their self will leads them to situations and they expect the grace of God to rescue them....without harm. NOT!

Or, something has happened that derailed me, and I just know that God has a better plan for me. Seems more likely that sin ruined the better plan God had for me (and you) and now you (and I) are stuck with plan B or even plan J. We just cannot go our own way and expect to escape consequences. Our lives may turn out far worse and our service may be much less than would have been possible had we not gone our own way for a time, or two, or three.…

It is by the grace of God that I enjoy anything from my garden, even the tomatoes that did not crack and the other veggies rescued at great effort from bugs, blights and weeds. It is by the grace of God that there can be a Plan C (or Q). Rather than moaning about what might have been or expecting something better, we must press on with what is left in the service of God who loves us.
 
​Why should a living man complain, a man, about the punishment of his sins? … but he disciplines us for our good, that we may share his holiness. (Lam 3:39,   Heb 12:10).
 
Keith Ward