Margaret Gorman was crowned "The Most Beautiful Bathing Girl in America" on September 8, 1921 in Atlantic City, New Jersey, in what would later become the Miss America Pageant.  The first pageant was solely an attempt to increase tourist business in the Atlantic City boardwalk area after Labor Day.  The first pageant involved just a few contestants from several cities.  In fact, it was billed as an "Inter-City Competition."  Despite the best efforts of pageant organizers, the event developed a reputation for being a little risqué.  Through the years, many church groups protested outside the event, right next to feminists of their era.  Then there was the year the movies became involved as did outright nudity.  That was stifled quickly. Still, the women all had to compete in the bathing suit competition and I remember my daddy fussing about that.  It wasn't "decent," he said, to parade young women about in such scanty attire for all the world to see.  But despite all the attempts to make the competition about the scholarship and the community service, everyone knows it's about how pretty you are.  "She's a real Miss America," people say, and they aren't talking about her good works.  And too many times we spend far more money and time on how we look than on how we act and what we do for others.
 
               And he called the people to him again and said to them, “Hear me, all of you, and understand: ​There is nothing outside a person that by going into him can defile him, but the things that come out of a person are what defile him.” --- And when he had entered the house and left the people, his disciples asked him about the parable. And he said to them, “Then are you also without understanding? Do you not see that whatever goes into a person from outside cannot defile him, since it enters not his heart but his stomach, and is expelled?”  (Mark 7:14-19)

              You would think that a generation that is so big on “the heart” and emotions and how worship “makes me feel” would have little trouble understanding that true beauty and goodness have absolutely nothing to do with what you eat.  But more and more I see young Christian women obsessed by their diets and exercise programs.  Understand, I have nothing against diets and exercise.  When the time comes to lose a few pounds I will willingly push away the food as easily as the most conscientious dieter out there.  I used to jog 5 miles 6 days a week—until my feet gave out on me, and now my eyes.  So I hop on the elliptical machine 4 or 5 times a week for 45 minutes at a whack.

              But I will never stand in front of a mirror and tell myself that I am not beautiful today because I ate a doughnut for breakfast, particularly if it’s the first one in 6 weeks.  Jesus very plainly tells us in the above passage that we are defiled by sin, not by what we eat. 

              In fact, when my diet and exercise regimen keep me from practicing hospitality or fellowshipping with my brethren at a potluck, maybe my diet and exercise program have defiled my heart instead, making me ugly before God.  I hope that everyone has the sense to know that I am not talking about celiac disease or IBS or deadly peanut allergies.  I am talking about fads that mean far more to us than our discipleship seems to, taking up more time researching them than studying the Word, obsessions that make us anxious about the wrong things and keep us from practicing the right ones.

              And this is not meant to give you license to become a glutton.  It does however give you Biblical authority to graciously receive a meal offered you by another brother and sister who have worked all day to prepare for you the best they have.  It allows you to accept gratefully that piece of warm banana bread from the elderly widow you stopped by to see, who went to that trouble because she so seldom has visitors and who will be hurt if you refuse.  It permits you to go to lunch with that group of sisters after an hour or two of intense Bible study, to cement your relationships with one another around a shared table.  If your regimen does not allow for these things, you need to consider again what Jesus said as well as the many scriptures commanding us to offer hospitality to one another, and the examples of Christians meeting house to house to “break bread” together on an almost daily basis.
 
             Doing these things makes us beautiful in the eyes of God.  It has nothing to do with a svelte, sexy figure and everything to do with service, gratitude, and graciousness.  Don’t judge yourself ugly because you ate a doughnut today.  We are made in the image of God, and when you have your priorities straight, those who are His children will not see you as anything but beautiful.
 
Do not let your adorning be external—the braiding of hair and the putting on of gold jewelry, or the clothing you wear— but let your adorning be the hidden person of the heart with the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God's sight is very precious. 1Pet 3:3-4
 
Dene Ward

I apologize for that, but I just don’t know what else to call it.  Chloe has a cold.  I never knew a dog could get a cold.  It has been typical of a human cold.  She felt miserable for two or three days, and then she started coming out of it, once again running to greet us when we step outdoors, and racing the couple hundred yards to the gate to meet us when we come home.  And, just like a human cold, the runny nose lingers on.  She never coughed or that would have lingered too, just as Keith’s has for over three months now.

              But this nose thing is almost intolerable.  Let me put it like this:  when a dog blows its nose, you had better stand way back. 

              She comes out every morning trying to clean out her pipes, clearing her throat and spitting, blowing her nose and sneezing--just like her master, except he knows to use a handkerchief.  Chloe on the other hand looks just plain disgusting. 

              I am sure you remember how it was when your toddler had a cold and you couldn’t follow him around all day wiping his nose.  You really did have diapers to wash, and meals to fix, and floors to mop, and on and on, a never ending list.   Suddenly he would come running to share with you a tot-sized marvel, and you would look up and, even if you didn’t say it, you would think, “Gross!” and grab a Kleenex to wipe up what was, um, hanging.  Well, with a dog, multiply that several times--and add a few inches. 

              And just like a child, Chloe most certainly does not appreciate it when you wipe her nose.  She has learned to recognize the restroom variety brown paper towels that hang on the carport, and runs when she sees one in Keith’s hand.  As much as I hate to do it to her, when she flees to me for help, I grab her collar and hold her still so he can indeed, clean up that repulsive little schnozzle.  I found out the hard way what happens if you don’t.  Not only will she sneeze on you, but she will then wipe that nose all by herself--on your hem, or your shirtsleeve, or your jeans, or whatever else she can reach, mixed in with whatever dust or dirt she has lain in.  It is repulsive and the only way it comes off is in the washing machine.

              Are you thoroughly grossed out now?  What do you think when you see a friend with a bad case of sin?  Do you act like it isn’t there?  Are you afraid of losing him to correction?  Do you sympathize with him if anyone does care enough to try to help, joining in your friend’s criticism of their methods, their words, even their motivation—as if you could read minds?  Do you just go along like nothing has happened, like it won’t make any difference to them or you or anyone else?

              Sin is disgusting, especially in someone who claims to live a life of purity.  It will keep him from eternal life just as surely as a nose full of snot will keep a child from breathing well.  It will drip all over him in one disgusting glob and affect the lives of others who see him.  And if you stay too close, it will get on you too.  How can it not?

              Think about that special friend right now.  Everyone has one—someone you love who has lost his way.  Are you going to allow your friend to continue in this revolting situation, or do you love him enough to grab a spiritual paper towel and wipe his nose?
 
But you, beloved, building yourselves up in your most holy faith and praying in the Holy Spirit, keep yourselves in the love of God, waiting for the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ that leads to eternal life. And have mercy on those who doubt; save others by snatching them out of the fire; to others show mercy with fear, hating even the garment stained by the flesh, Jude 1:20-23.
 
Dene Ward

Then the angel who was speaking with me went out and said to me, “Lift up now your eyes and see what this is going forth.” I said, “What is it?” And he said, “This is the ephah going forth.” Again he said, “This is their appearance in all the land (and behold, a lead cover was lifted up); and this is a woman sitting inside the ephah.” Then he said, “This is Wickedness!” And he threw her down into the middle of the ephah and cast the lead weight on its opening. Then I lifted up my eyes and looked, and there two women were coming out with the wind in their wings; and they had wings like the wings of a stork, and they lifted up the ephah between the earth and the heavens. I said to the angel who was speaking with me, “Where are they taking the ephah?” Then he said to me, “To build a temple for her in the land of Shinar; and when it is prepared, she will be set there on her own pedestal.” (Zech 5:5-11)

              Zechariah sees an "ephah."  An ephah is a standard Hebrew measure, about 22 liters I found in several books.  However it is quite possible that the word here simply means "large."  Here is a large basket, large enough to hold a grown woman.  Evil is often personified as a woman in the Bible, but lest you get your knickers in a knot, notice who it is that carries this "Evil" away and disposes of it—two [good] women.  She is deposited in Shinar, "the ancient name for the district in which Babylon, Erech, and Akkad were situated (Gen 10)."  (Homer Hailey)  These places were associated with going against God's way.  Baldwin says they were symbolic of Satan's government.

              The message is this:  wickedness will not be tolerated in God's kingdom.  It will be removed.  So how is that encouraging, especially when we know we still on occasion sin?  It's the attitude, people.

              Then he cried in my ears with a loud voice, saying, “Bring near the executioners of the city, each with his destroying weapon in his hand.” And behold, six men came from the direction of the upper gate, which faces north, each with his weapon for slaughter in his hand, and with them was a man clothed in linen, with a writing case at his waist. And they went in and stood beside the bronze altar. Now the glory of the God of Israel had gone up from the cherub on which it rested to the threshold of the house. And he called to the man clothed in linen, who had the writing case at his waist. And the LORD said to him, “Pass through the city, through Jerusalem, and put a mark on the foreheads of the men who sigh and groan over all the abominations that are committed in it.” And to the others he said in my hearing, “Pass through the city after him, and strike. Your eye shall not spare, and you shall show no pity. (Ezek 9:1-5)

              In Ezekiel's vision, God is ready to slaughter the people of Jerusalem.  But first he sends a man to mark those who "sigh and groan" over the sin in that city so they will be spared.  These people are not perfect, but they don't sit back and enjoy watching the sin either.   They don't abstain while wishing they could participate.  These people hate the sin, even when they themselves slip and fall.  When you have that attitude, when you have learned to love what God loves and hate what he hates—sin!—the thought of being in a place where it no longer exists is liberating.

              And that is why God's kingdom ousts the rebellious.  (1 Cor 5, etc.) Not the people who slip and fall, but the ones who sin and dare you to do anything about it.  The ones who are proud of their sin, as well as those who approve of them (Rom 1:32).  

              If you hate sin, God's kingdom will be your haven.  It is the place you can go to get away from the filth of this world and calm your weary heart, your sore eyes, and battered ears.  This is where your soul can rest.
​
Hot indignation seizes me because of the wicked, who forsake your law. ​I look at the faithless with disgust, because they do not keep your commands. My eyes shed streams of tears, because people do not keep your law. (Ps 119:53, 158,136)
 
Dene Ward

Our first morning in Apalachicola I peeked out our wooden blinds toward the Apalachicola Bay and onward to the Gulf.  The sun was just creeping up out of the water and lighting up the second floor veranda below us with a golden sheen.  Looking down and across the street with its sparse and slow moving traffic was a shop we had seen as we wandered the afternoon before.  "Old Stuff" the sign proclaimed and we could hardly wait to cross the street and give it a look.

              As we walked in a local policeman was coming out.  "If you can't find it here, you can't find it anywhere," he told us, and I believe he might have been right—assuming you were indeed looking for "old stuff."

              The shop area was not huge, but the owner had lined up table after table jammed against each other, and you could walk up and down the single file wide aisles and look at the things he had piled on them and beside them, and in some cases above or below them.  We saw huge old ice tongs—the kind the iceman would have used when he brought that block for your icebox.  We saw a real scythe.  This city girl is not sure she would have known what it was if Keith hadn't told me.  There was an old adding machine with what looked like at least 100 buttons on it.  A stack of LPs sat next to another of comic books, including the original "Iron Man," and behind them stood a crossbow.

              There was carnival glass, Depression glass, candy dishes of every size and shape, and an antique 8 place setting of china for a mere $75.  There were pull-up metal ice trays, metal serving trays with painted ads for Coca-Cola, and cast iron implements of every sort.  There were old soda bottles, bowls full of old silverware, and Emily Post's Etiquette.  A pile of early 20th century sheet music sat next to an ancient accordion.  Old dolls with porcelain heads and eyes that close when they recline, sat next to toy trains and model planes, jacks, and tiddly winks.  And that's not even the half.  One separate room held tools I had never seen, and probably never heard of, in my entire life.

              Keith asked the old gentleman about the soda bottles and what he got for them.  "Depends on their age," he said.  "The later ones go for about $5, and the older ones for up to $25."  Each.  We have a couple dozen of those $5 bottles ourselves.  The kind you used to pay a 10 cent deposit on.

              If respect and honor are measured in dollars, isn't it funny, or not, that the same old gentleman could probably walk down any street in our country and not command half the respect those old things in his shop do?  And why?  For the same reason his "old stuff" does get respect--because he is old.  In any other venue, our society wants nothing to do with the old.  Even those who are old want nothing to do with it—they do their best to get rid of its evidence with hair color, plastic surgery, and wrinkle cream.

              But the Bible is full of commands to respect the elderly—or else.  “You shall stand up before the gray head and honor the face of an old man, and you shall fear your God: I am the LORD. (Lev 19:32)

              And more than that it tells us to walk, to live our lives, in the old paths.  Thus says the LORD: Stand by the roads, and look, and ask for the ancient paths, where the good way is; and walk in it, and find rest for your souls... (Jer 6:16)

              There is much value in old things.  But there is even more in older people, and in older ways of doing things—if they are old because they come from the Ancient of Days, a God who has been and always will be, and to whom we owe the utmost glory, honor, and respect—not by shouting, "Hallelujah!" but by obeying his ancient and everlasting word.
 
“As I looked, thrones were placed, and the Ancient of Days took his seat; his clothing was white as snow, and the hair of his head like pure wool; his throne was fiery flames; its wheels were burning fire. ​A stream of fire issued and came out from before him; a thousand thousands served him, and ten thousand times ten thousand stood before him; the court sat in judgment, and the books were opened. (Dan 7:9-10)
 
Dene Ward

And when evening had come, since it was the day of Preparation, that is, the day before the Sabbath, Mark 15:42.
 
           Before a holiday, I am busily making preparations.  I cook as much ahead as I possibly can.  I start cleaning two or three days earlier, changing sheets if guests will stay overnight, and dusting things I only dust a few times a year.  I pay special attention to places I seldom really see, like the corners on the porch ceiling and the splashguard behind the sink.  If my guest is tall, I might even wipe the top of the refrigerator.  My mind is focused on the coming event.  Everything else has to fit in around that.
            I think it’s interesting that the Jews called Friday “the Day of Preparation.”  What were they preparing for?  Mark says, “the Sabbath.”  How did they prepare?  For one thing, if the example of the manna means anything at all, the women cooked up enough food for two days rather than one.  If something needed doing “soon,” they went ahead and did it rather than taking the chance that it would need to be done on the Sabbath.  Those Pharisees may have completely missed the point about the Sabbath, but at least they understood that it was an important day. 
            The law called for “a holy convocation” on the Sabbath, Lev 23:2,3.  It was the custom on the Sabbath to think about and listen to the reading of the Law or ask questions of its teachers, 2 Kings 4:23; Acts 13:27; 15:21.  The New Testament Jews met in their synagogues, read from the scrolls, and encouraged one another on the Sabbath, Acts 13:14,15.  Doesn’t all this sound familiar?
            There were some among them who were “clock-watchers,” impatiently waiting for the whole thing to be over so they could go back to their lives (Amos 8:5,6), people we would call “Sunday morning Christians.”  The hypocrites among them were condemned in Isa 1:13 and practically every other page of the prophets. 
            As Christians we now meet together on the first day of week, (Acts 20:7; 1 Cor 16:2, etc.)  It isn’t the only part of our worship and service to God any more than the Sabbath was for his people of old, but that does not mean it isn’t important.  As Christians we should be looking forward to that day all week long, and looking back at the most recent one to stay encouraged for the week ahead.  As such, it gives us both motive and momentum.
            I often wish God had instituted a Day of Preparation for us.  I see too many children in Bible classes who are so exhausted from Saturday’s activities that they cannot learn.  They haven’t had time to get their Bible lessons, so you cannot even reinforce what their parents should have taught them.  Or they come rushing in late and miss half the lesson.  I understand that life intervenes sometimes, but every week?  And could we not have looked ahead far enough to know we needed to get those Bible lessons on Friday, or even Thursday?  Could we not have made sure they were in bed early Friday night if we knew that Saturday would be difficult this week?  Not if we aren’t focused on the importance of our meeting together; not if the Lord’s Day means nothing more to us than something else to cram onto our to-do list.
            We often hear men telling us to “prepare our hearts and minds” for the Lord’s Supper.  It needs to go further than that.  We are coming before God in a solemn assembly, one different from the fellowship we have with him daily.  As his priests we may not see the Shekinah over the mercy seat, but he is with us nonetheless.  Our host, the Christ, is walking up and down the aisles greeting us as we come in.  The Spirit is hovering nearby to comfort and help.  How have you prepared yourself to meet with the three of them?
            We will actually see them one day.  If we cannot take the time to prepare for them in this life, like his apostate children of old, how will we ever be prepared to meet him in the next?
 
Therefore thus I will do to you, O Israel; because I will do this to you, prepare to meet your God, O Israel!" For behold, he who forms the mountains and creates the wind, and declares to man what is his thought, who makes the morning darkness, and treads on the heights of the earth-- the LORD, the God of hosts, is his name! Amos 4:12,13.
 
Dene Ward

Boundary disputes once helped win an American presidential election. 

              In 1818, we signed a treaty with Great Britain agreeing to joint ownership of the Oregon Territory.  Citizens from both countries had settled there.  They eventually agreed to a boundary between America and Canada at the 49th parallel.  Then they both got greedy.  The British claimed anything north of the 42nd parallel.  Along came American expansionists who were willing to go to war in order to claim the disputed area up to the 54th 40 parallel for America. 

               Franklin Polk ran on the expansionist platform with the slogan "Fifty-four forty or fight," referring to what is now the southern border of Oregon, fifty four degrees, forty minutes north latitude.  On Dec 4, 1844, after an election that had run since November 1, he won the presidency.  However, he abandoned the fight and left the Oregon Territory boundary at the original line of agreement, the 49th parallel, where it still is today.

             We've had some boundary issues ourselves.  When we first moved onto this land, no one else lived on the parcels anywhere around us.  Everyone else bought for the investment and planned to sell later, and with the titles unclear (except for ours) the plots remained empty for a long time.  With no fences in place, the boys literally had their own version of the Hundred Acre Woods to play in. 

              When the first hard rains showed us how the land around here drained, and that we would soon be washed away if something weren’t done, the owners to the north of us plowed a ditch along that side to help us out.  It was required by law, but they were compliant and even stopped to make sure we were satisfied before their rented equipment went back to the store.  Yes, we were.  The ditch worked fine and we stayed dry.

              We assumed the ditch ran right along the northern edge of the property and used all the land up to it for our garden, for our yard, for flower beds, even for a post to hold guywires for our antenna.  When the land around us began to sell and people moved in, we finally had to put up a fence.  Imagine our surprise when we discovered that we had been using as much as five feet more land along the north boundary than was actually ours.  But of course, the surveyors were correct.  They had sighted along the boundary markers, white posts set on all four corners of our five plus acres.  I even had to dig up half of a lily bed one morning and transplant them elsewhere so they could put the fence along the correct line.

              The Israelites were aware of boundaries and the landmarks that outlined them.  “You shall not move your neighbor's landmark, which the men of old have set, in the inheritance that you will hold in the land that the LORD your God is giving you to possess. Deut 19:14.  It was a matter of honesty and integrity.  “‘Cursed be anyone who moves his neighbor's landmark.’ And all the people shall say, ‘Amen.’ Deut 27:17.  And this is just talking about land.  Imagine if someone moved a landmark that showed something even more important than that.

              The princes of Judah have become like those who move the landmark… Hos 5:10.  The wicked kings of God’s people had blurred the lines between right and wrong, between good and evil.  The standard became which will make me wealthier or more important among my peers, rather than which is right in the eyes of God?  Which is more convenient, which is easier, which do I like the best, which appeals to my lusts?  All of these have been used to move the boundaries of right and wrong in people’s lives for thousands of years.  When the government does it too, we have an instant excuse.  After all, it’s not against the law, is it?

              Do you think it hasn’t happened to us?  What do you accept now that you would never have accepted thirty years ago because you knew that the Bible said it was wrong?  Now people come along and tell you the Bible is a book of myths or the Bible only means what you want it to mean.  They have moved the landmark, and many have accepted it.

              God does not move landmarks.  What He says goes—then and now.  He may have changed the rituals we perform in each dispensation, but basic morality—right and wrong--has not and will not change.  Even Jesus used the argument, “But from the beginning it was not so…” (Matt 19:8). 

              We can move the landmarks all we want, but we will still wind up on the Devil’s property, and God will know the difference, whether we accept it or not.
 
​Do not move an ancient landmark or enter the fields of the fatherless, for their Redeemer is strong; he will plead their cause against you. Prov 23:10-11
 
Dene Ward

We had a terrible time with gnats this past summer.  Despite our automatic atomizer, a dozen swarmed the lights at night and several buzzed us during dinner.  So I looked up the reproductive process of gnats and found out why.  We live in a veritable breeding ground—standing water (water buckets for the dogs), damp landscaping (mulch in the flower beds and more rain this year than any in the past ten), food (a large vegetable garden, a blueberry patch, and grape vines), and, ahem, animal residue—we live in the country, it’s everywhere.

              So keeping the doors and windows shut should fix the problem, right?  No, they breed in garbage cans too.  When you live in a small rural county, there is no weekly pickup.  You must carry your own garbage and trash to the dump.  To minimize the number of trips we put all the flammable items in a paper bag to burn in the “burn barrel” onsite, and the wet garbage in the kitchen can until it fills enough to empty it into the one outside.  That means our kitchen can is probably emptied less often than yours because there is no paper trash “filler,” and that means plenty of time for any gnats that whiz in a door as we enter or leave to lay eggs and hatch. I have tried spraying it every morning with insecticide, but even that does not seem to help.   

              There is no getting around it.  Garbage breeds vermin of one sort or another all the time.  They simply love filth. Putting it in the garbage can, as long as the can is still inside the house, doesn’t really help a bit.  You have to remove it from the house entirely, and soon enough that the gnats cannot breed.

              If we don’t want spiritual vermin, we have to get rid of the garbage in our hearts.  It doesn’t help to just try to hide it.  Make no provision for the flesh, to fulfill the lusts thereof, Paul told the Roman brethren in 13:14.  You can’t just stash it away in case you might want to indulge again.  You have to remove it completely, and soon enough that it doesn’t breed yet more.  The Devil loves the dirt.  His minions wallow in it.  Why do we think it won’t soil us too as long as no one knows?  Would you eat a meal that was swarming with gnats and flies?

              Get rid of the gnats in your soul.  The only way is to empty that garbage can inside yourself and keep it that way.
             
…Touch no unclean thing and I will receive you.  And I will be to you a father and you shall be to me sons and daughters, says the Lord Almighty.  Having therefore these promises, beloved, let us therefore cleanse ourselves from all filthiness of flesh and spirit, perfecting holiness in the fear of God, 2 Cor 6:17-7:1.
 
Dene Ward
 

When I was growing up, all the young people wanted to be "different."  As I looked around me and actually considered what was happening, it dawned on me that they didn't really want to be different at all.  They didn't want rules or even societal expectations, that was the problem.  They wanted to be different from their parents.  But every single one of them wanted that in exactly the same way, and they all wanted to just like each other. 

               When it came right down to it, I was one of the "different" ones.  I wore my skirts to my knees, no strapless or spaghetti straps, nor deep vee necks or backs, no short shorts, no bikinis.  I never swore, never smoked, drank, or used drugs.  And they all knew it.  But because I was not like them, I was an outcast.  So much for appreciating individuality.  They were as much hypocrites as they claimed their parents were.

              Now think a minute about Daniel, Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego.  Those boys were probably the same age as our children who struggle with wanting to be like all their friends—late middle school to early high school.  Not only were they different, they reveled in it.  They forced the issue with their insistence on different foods. 

              Just to clear up a few misconceptions, vegetarianism is not required by the Law.  In fact, to be a good Jew, you had to be a meat-eater.  The Passover meal and all the sacrifices required eating of the sacrificed animal as part of the worship.  So why did these boys insist on vegetables only?  It might have been that the meats they were given were sacrificed to idols.  Part of their training was probably in the Babylonian religion.  Maybe that is why they refused the meats.  But understand this, eating any meal prepared by Gentile hands in a Gentile country was unclean, even if it were not sacrificed to idols.

              So maybe this is the point:  they were trying to show that they were different from the other young men who had been carried away from other cultures.  They wanted to be seen as different.  And before long, their God-enhanced abilities made the differences even more obvious.  God himself made sure they were seen as different!  And they didn't mind one bit.

              So here is my question for you:  Are you teaching your children not only to be different, but to want to be different?  Do they want to stand out from the world or do they want to disappear into the crowd, eventually being swallowed up by the same desires and goals as the rest, living the same lifestyle, blending in, being, in the words of the Star Trek franchise, "assimilated?"

              When I graduated from high school, my junior English/senior Writing teacher gave me a poster with this quote by Henry David Thoreau: If a man does not keep pace with his companions, perhaps it is because he hears a different drummer.  Let him step to the music which he hears, however measured or far away.      

               I did not realize its significance at first, but my mother did.  "She knows you are not like all the rest," she told me, "and she respects that."

              Perhaps it's time we all taught our children, not to march in step with all their friends, but to listen for that distant, and different, drummer, and keep pace with Him.
 
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. (1Pet 2:21)
 
Dene Ward

The day of our 20th anniversary marked the day I had lived with my husband as long as I had lived without him.  Well, not exactly, since I did not marry on my birthday, but you understand my point.  Every year after that meant I was further and further removed from my “first life” as a dependent of my parents.

              As the years went by I saw even more “lives.”  I spent several years as a full-time preacher’s wife and homemaker who taught a few piano lessons here and there among the many moves we made.  Then I went through a life when my husband worked the regular hours of any provider and my in-home music studio became nearly a full time job.  Now I am in another life, one of increasing disability.  Yet in many ways it is the best “life” yet since I am finally able to spend hours in Bible study and writing, and have come to know the joys of being a grandparent.  I suspect there will be yet another life sooner or later.  All things being equal, as they say, I will probably be a widow someday, and due to this eye disease will be blind and once again living as a dependent.

              When I was young, I remember people speaking about a TV show called “I Led Three Lives.”  I never saw it.  It first aired on Oct 1, 1953, before I was even born, and its last episode was broadcast May 1, 1957.  It was a product of the Cold War, loosely based on the life of Herbert Philbrick, an advertising executive in Boston who infiltrated the American Communist Party for the FBI.  His three lives were as advertising man, “Communist,” and counter spy.  A little mulling it over and I realized Christians all lead three lives—first sinner, then believer, and finally immortal.

              The New Testament even speaks of it as “lives.”  In Col 3:9,10, the old self and its practices are put away for a new self, “renewed by knowledge.”  The old self was corrupt through “deceitful desires,” and the new self was “created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness” Eph 4:22,24.  The old life was lived for ourselves, the new life is lived for Christ, 2 Cor 5:15.  We crucified the old man, one enslaved to sin, and the new man was set free from that sin.  We were once slaves of righteousness and are now slaves of God, Rom 6:6,7,19,20.  We used to live for human passions; now we live for the will of God, 1 Pet 4:2.  At one time we lived in darkness and now we live as children of Light, Eph 5:8.  Once it was I who lived, but now it is Christ living in me, Gal 2:19,20.

              And that leaves only the eternal life to come, 1 Tim 4:8, the one Paul says is “truly” life, 6:19.  That one depends upon how we live this second life.  We must feed on the bread of life, John 6:51.  We must sow to the Spirit, Gal 6:8.  We must have patience in well-doing, Rom 2:7.  We must do good and believe, John 5:29; 6:40.  We must be righteous which, in the context of the verse, Matt 25:46, means we must serve, and we must love our brethren in order to experience that eternal life, 1 John 3:15. 

              But simply making a list and following it won’t suffice.  The life must be such an integral part of you that the “list” takes care of itself.  Philbrick lived his three lives simultaneously; ours are supposed to be consecutive, one completely giving way to the other.  Anything else is a sham that will keep you from that third life.

              Paul never speaks of eternal life as anything but a certainty.  As surely as you are living a life now, that final one will come too, the life that is “truly” life.  It will make these other two seem like nothing in its length, in its glory, in its joy.  “I led three lives,” we will say.  No, we only led two.  We will lead the last one forever.
 
Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began, Titus 1:1-2.
 
Dene Ward
 

I recently taught a class in which the various tenets of a major religious philosophy came up for discussion.  After a lengthy explanation of only one of those items, one of the class members said to me, “It must take a theologian to make something that is so simple so complicated.”  The more I thought about it, the more I agreed with her.  Just a little common sense makes them all sound ridiculous.

           Have you heard that we are all born in sin, totally depraved and unable to do anything good?  Yes, I can take some passages out of context and completely apart from the rest of the teaching of scriptures and make them say anything I want them to say too.  So?  Common sense makes it plain that this is a ploy to blame our sins on God.  After all, He is the one who made us, who created us the way He did.

            Now just exactly how did God create man?  He made us in his own image!  Now tell me I am completely and totally depraved and unable to do anything good.  That is not only ridiculous, but patently irreverent and probably sacrilegious as well, if I am indeed made in the image of God.

            But that doctrine does do this for me:  it takes the blame off of me when I sin.  It makes my sins completely and utterly God’s fault for making me that way.  Let me know if you are willing to be the one who stands before Him and tries out that excuse.

            The Bible teaches that there was a time when I was without sin, Rom 7:9.  What could that possibly be but childhood, before I was unable to recognize a consciousness of sin?  At that point, “Sin revived and I died [spiritually].”  So much for “born in sin.”

            Then there are passages galore that tell us that sinning is our choice.  “Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies,” Rom 6:12.  “God is faithful and will not allow you to be tempted beyond your ability but will with the temptation provide the way of escape,” 1 Cor 10:13.  “Resist the devil and he will flee from you,” James 4:7.  My class easily came up with a dozen more telling us that sin is not inevitable for the Christian, the one who now has the help of Christ, that he now has a choice.  That means we do not have to sin--the blame is ours, not God’s, not the church’s, not our parents’, not society’s—not even Adam’s.

            And it certainly makes wonderful and obvious sense that someone created in the image of God was not only created “very good,” Gen 1:31, but also has the power to choose between right and wrong.  The problem comes not because we have no choice, but when we make the wrong choice.  You have to work pretty hard to complicate that.
 
And God said, Let us make man in our image, after our likeness, Gen 1:26.
Behold, this only have I found: that God made man upright, Eccl 7:29.
"'In him we live and move and have our being'; as even some of your own poets have said, "'For we are indeed his offspring.'” Acts 17:28.
Put on the new self, created after the likeness of God in true righteousness and holiness, Eph 4:24.
 
Dene Ward