When we describe our camping trips, people sigh and say things like, “That sounds heavenly.” 
            We cook over an open fire, the meat caramelized by the flames and flavored by the smoke.  At night we sit by a pile of crackling logs under a black sky of twinkling diamond stars and sip hot chocolate.  In the mornings we cuddle by a fire pulled together from the coals of the night before, and gaze on a view that ought to cost extra—mountain after mountain after green rolling mountain against a blue sky, or wrapped with frothy clouds like lacy boas, or peeking through a fine mist, or shining in the sun, covered with trees sporting all the fall colors along with a few dark evergreens.  We hike through wilderness forests unsullied by human rubbish, watching birds we seldom see flit from limb to limb, coons or deer or bears trundling off in the distance or standing stock still in shock staring at us, tiny rills splashing over rocks into larger brooks running to yet larger creeks and finally to the rivers in the valleys below.  We visit orchards and buy apples straight from the tree, not prettied up for the store, sporting a real blemish here and there, but full of flavor, juicy with a perfect texture.  That evening we peel and slice a skillet full, add butter, sugar and cinnamon, set them on a low flame on the propane camp stove and twenty minutes later eat the best dessert you ever had.
            Then we trot out the other side of camping to our friends:  a day long misty rain that, even inside the screen set up over the table, seeps into your clothes and leaves you shivering; carrying a loaded tote to the bathhouse a few hundred yards up or down a steep hill every time you want to brush your teeth or take a shower; stepping outside the tent in the morning to a thermometer that reads 27 degrees. 
            “I could never do that!” one says.  “I’d be headed for the first Holiday Inn!” another proclaims.  Unfortunately, you don’t get the good part without the bad part.  The good parts often happen after the day-trippers head for the hotel.  Their food doesn’t come close and they pay a whole lot more for it at a restaurant than we did at the grocery store the week before we left.  They see the view once, just for a few minutes before being jostled out of the way by the next person standing behind them at the overlook.  And most hotels would frown on a campfire in their rooms.
            Keith and I are snobs about our camping.  When we camp, we live outdoors.  We don’t hide when the weather turns cold, or even wet—we can’t in a tent.  So we just wrap up and tough it out.  Oh, so superior are we.  But we have our limits too.  You will never find us at a primitive campsite.  You certainly won’t find us at a pioneer campsite.  We want our water spigot and electricity.  How do you think we handle those nights in the 20s?  We handle them with a long outdoor extension cord snaking its way inside the tent zipper to an electric blanket stuffed in the double sleeping bag and a small $15 space heater that, amazingly, raises the tent temperature 20-30 degrees inside.
            So where am I when it comes to Christianity?  Am I sold on the health and wealth gospel?  As long as good things happen to me, I am perfectly willing to believe in God and be faithful to Him.  Do I recognize the need for a little bit of trouble to prove my faith, but NOT full scale persecution or trial?  Have I come through some tough tests and now think so well of myself that I can scream to God, “Enough!” as if I had the right to lay out the terms for my faithfulness?
            The rich young ruler thought he was pretty good.  He had kept the commandments.  But Jesus knew where this fellow drew the line—his wealth.  So that is precisely where Jesus led him. 
            Do we have a line we won’t cross?  Is it possessions, security, health, family stability, friendships, comfort?  Whatever it is, the Lord will make sure you come against that line some day in your life.  You may think you are fine—why I can stay in my tent when it’s 25 degrees out!  What if the thermometer hit zero?  What if it rained, not just one day, but every day?  What if I had no running water, no hot showers, no electric blanket?  Would I pack up and head for the hotel?  Or would I tough it out, knowing the reward was far greater than even the most torturous pain imaginable in this life?
            You can’t run to the hotel and hide when persecution strikes.  You can’t close the RV door and count on riding out the storms of life.  Sometimes God expects you to stay in the tent in the most primitive campsite available.  Sometimes he even takes away the tent.  But you will still have the best refuge anyone could hope for if you make use of it, and when the trial is over, you get to enjoy the good parts that everyone else missed.
 
And another also said, I will follow you, Lord; but first suffer me to bid farewell to them that are at my house. But Jesus said unto him, No man, having put his hand to the plow, and looking back, is fit for the kingdom of God, Luke 9:61,62.
 
Dene  Ward

Every Sunday afternoon I go through those colorful inserts in the Sunday paper and cut out coupons.  We don’t use much processed food beyond condiments and cereals, so I seldom clip the “hundreds of dollars worth” they brag about, but it’s always enough to pay for the paper and pull my shopping trip under budget, sometimes as much as 20%, so it’s well worth the effort.
            I regularly shake my head at a lot of the products I see these days.  Convenience foods have turned us into helpless klutzes in the kitchen.  Even at out of season prices I can buy a large fresh bell pepper and chop it myself into well more than a cupful for about $1, OR I can buy a measly half cup already chopped for $3 and save myself a whopping 2 minutes of chopping time at six times the cost.  Wow, she muttered, unimpressed.
            Then there is the “fun factor.”  For some reason we always need to be entertained.  As I flipped through those coupons last week, I came across a full page ad for a new cereal—“Poppin’ Pebbles,” which, I am told, offer “big berry flavor with a fantastic fizz.”  Evidently these out-fun the snap, crackle, pop of the old Rice Krispies I grew up with, judging by the amazed look on the child model’s face, her hands splayed over her cheeks in wonderment.  Now, I guess, our meals must entertain us before they are worthy to be eaten.
            Don’t think for a minute that this doesn’t reflect our spiritual attitudes.  “I can hardly listen to that man,” a sister told me once of a brother’s teaching ability.  The brother in question had one of the finest Bible minds I ever heard and regularly took a passage I thought I knew inside out and showed me something new in it, usually far deeper than its standard interpretation, one that kept me thinking for days afterward.  So what was the problem?  He didn’t tell jokes, he didn’t share cute stories or warm, fuzzy poetry.  He just talked and you had to do your part and listen—and THINK!
            Do you think they didn’t have those problems in the first century?  Pagan religion was exciting.  The fire, the spectacle, the pounding rhythms, the garish costumes, not to mention the appeal to sensuality, made it far more appealing to the masses than a quiet service of reverent, joyful a capella singing, prayers, and a simple supper memorializing a sacrifice.
            Some of those long ago brethren must have tried to bring in the fun factor.  When it came to spiritual gifts, they weren’t satisfied unless they could have the flashy ones.  The whole discussion in 1 Corinthians 12 begins with a group who thinks that their gift is the best because of that.  They have to be reminded that they all receive those gifts from the same source “as the Spirit wills” not as they will—it has nothing to do with one being better, or more necessary, than the other, or one brother being more important.
            They wanted to jazz up their services every chance they got, even speaking in tongues when an interpreter was not present.  Paul had to tell them to stop, to “be silent.”  It is not about entertainment and glory, he said, it’s about edification (1 Cor 14:26). 
            What did Paul call these people who wanted flash and show, who wanted entertainment?  In verse 14:20 he says that such behavior is childish.  In 3:1 he calls them carnal and equates that with spiritual immaturity.  Did you notice that breakfast cereal ad I mentioned is directed squarely at children?  It is assumed that when you grow up you don’t need such motivation to do what’s good for you, like eat your whole grains, and God assumes that as spiritual adults we will understand the importance of spiritual things. 
            And what about the friends we try to reach?  Do we pander to their baser instincts then expect to create an appreciation for intense Bible study, an ability to stand up to temptation, and a joyful acceptance of persecution?  When it’s no longer fun all the time, when it’s hard work and sacrifice, will they quit?
            People who want to be entertained are the same ones who want a physical kingdom here on this earth instead of the spiritual one that “is within you,” that is “not of this world.”  They are the ones who want a comedian for a preacher instead of a man of God who will teach the Word of God plainly and simply.  They want a singing group they can tap their toes to instead of songs they can sing from the heart with others who may be just as tone-deaf as they are.  Read the context.  “Singing with the spirit” is not about clapping your hands and stomping your feet to the rhythm.  It’s about teaching and growing spiritually.
            Being a Christian is always joyful, but when I believe that joy is always predicated on entertainment, I am no better than Herod who wanted Jesus to entertain him just hours before his crucifixion.  I am no better than the former pagans who tried to bring flashy rituals into the spiritual body of Christ.  I am no better than a child who needs coddling in order to behave himself. 
            Imagine what might have happened if Jesus had needed to be entertained in order to save us.
 
For it is a rebellious people, lying children, children that will not hear the law of Jehovah; that say to the seers, See not; and to the prophets, Prophesy not unto us right things, speak unto us smooth things, prophesy deceits…And for this cause God sends them a working of error, that they should believe a lie: that they all might be judged who believed not the truth, but had pleasure in unrighteousness.  Isa 30:10,11; 2 Thes 2:11,12.
 
Dene Ward

I read some statistics recently that I found appalling.  Cosmetic surgery in this country has increased dramatically.  In the July 17, 2006 issue of The Des Moines Business Record in an article entitled “Looking Like A Million,” Sarah Bzdega states that there were more than 10 million such surgeries in 2005.  This does not count reconstructive surgeries for such things as injuries or breast cancer, which actually decreased 3% from the previous year.  These figures only include things like liposuction, face lifts, nose and ear jobs, breast augmentation and buttock implants.  Minimally invasive procedures also increased 13%, and many of the patients are now men as well as women.
            Have you noticed the plethora of weight loss commercials?  And why are these people losing weight?  Not for their health, but so a man can have a “trophy wife” and another can have a “better sex life,” and a forty year old mom can have a “smoking hot body.”  More and more young women are falling into eating disorders because they want to look acceptable.  Americans are so consumed with the concept of celebrity that we care more about looking like our favorite star than being a decent human being.  I have even heard “Christians” say things like, “It’s a pity she isn’t better looking,” when meeting a new bride.  Truly Samuel was right when he said, in 1 Sam 16:7:  for man looks on the outward appearance…   But shouldn’t we, of all people, be better than that?
            What good will it do me to look 40 when I am 80 and my time is up?  It will not keep me from dying.  It will just make a pretty corpse.  What are we teaching our children about what to look for in a spouse, someone beautiful on the outside or beautiful on the inside?  It is really true that the inner person can eventually effect how the outer person looks, especially to those who know them best.  That is what they need to hear, and more, need to see exemplified in the Christians around them.
            I bet when the judgment scene in Matthew 25 unfolds, the right side will be overrun with pleasantly plump, gray-haired sheep, still sporting all their laugh lines, while the left has an inordinate number of thin, gorgeous goats.  And I bet every one of those goats would take all their crows’ feet, gray hairs, and thigh fat back in an instant for a chance to switch sides.
 
But Jehovah said to Samuel; Look not on his countenance or the height of his stature, because I have rejected him.  For Jehovah says, for man looks on the outward appearance, but Jehovah looks on the heart. 1 Sam 16:7
Grace is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. Prov 31:30
 
Dene Ward

     From what I remember about my parents' conversations, I lived in three places as an infant and toddler.  Then, due to Daddy's job, we lived in three more the next 12 years, all of which I remember, especially the last one, the home I left to be married.  But my parents moved after my first year of marriage, again due to Daddy's work, and I never had a "home" to go home to.
     Things were not much different after we married, at least not at first.  Our first home was a 10 x 50 trailer we bought used from another "preaching couple" at Florida College after that student got his four year certificate (it was a pre-degree FC) and moved on to his first fulltime preaching job.  It was tiny and either hot or cold, depending upon the weather.  One summer we turned off the AC while we were away for a weekend and came home to find our table candles, slumped over on the table, melted but still shaped like candles that had simply fallen asleep.  The particle board countertop had begun to swell around the kitchen sink, bits of the top layer of Formica flaking off to expose the damp particle board, and one morning I woke to mushrooms growing around the tap.  Keith replaced that countertop before we left, selling the trailer to yet another FC "preacher student."
     Our second home was a church house, a small shoebox of a house a couple of blocks from the meetinghouse in north central Illinois.  I saw snow for the first time and learned how to drive on ice pack to buy groceries.  Though the house was small, the third bedroom barely larger than a walk-in closet, the pantry was huge and one I have often wished to have again.  It also held the washer and dryer and water softener, but the shelves that went from waist to ceiling high on three walls were exactly what I later wished for when I had a growing family.  I also had my first experience with mice, surrounded as we were by cornfields.  But the backyard looked onto a drive-in theater, the screen of which faced our back door.  If we had had a speaker we could have seen a free movie every night.
     Our first child was born there and was only 11 weeks old when we moved to our third home, a nice brick house in the piedmont of South Carolina, only an hour from the Blue Ridge Parkway.  Keith had to buy it while I was back home with a newborn and so he did not see a few things that might have had me hesitating.  The kitchen was a long walk through the family room around a poorly placed wall (you wonder what some architects are thinking) to the dining area, and there was a huge, ugly ink spot on hallway carpet, a wall to wall so it could not easily be replaced.  We couldn't afford to do anything with the house so we just made do, and our second child was born there.  We have pictures of them both in the snow which is the only way they know it.
     Our next move came three years later to another church home, this one a brand new double wide next to the church and behind a cemetery in North Florida.  Brand new doublewides look pretty amazing until you have to do your first repair and discover that nothing is square and nothing standard will fit--you have to go to a Mobile Home Supply instead.  We had an "open house" one Sunday night after services because the church members had never seen this place and we thought it only fair that they got a look.  I kept snacks coming on the table, and the coffee pot burbling as they trooped through, all 100+ of them.
     The next move was only about forty miles northeast from there, still in North Florida which we came to realize was not like anywhere else in Florida—we actually had some winter.  We had moved so quickly that the only place we could find at first was a filthy old frame house in poor repair.  But it had a living room large enough for my studio grand piano and was the only place that did.  The church ladies helped us clean, one of them so grossed out that she took regular visits to a trash can to throw up.  The men made a moving caravan and we were moved in one day.  We had neither running water nor heat for the first week, which was also the first week of January.  I remember all of us sitting over breakfast with coats and hats on, our "breath fog" clouding the table.  Even with normal utilities, things were precarious.  Finally, after the transformer went bad and ruined our electric skillet, washer, vacuum cleaner, and television, we decided we needed better housing. 
     The only thing we could afford was another doublewide, and one of the men in the church allowed us to live on a piece of his property "for improvements" rather than rent, which included us paying for a well and septic tank, and tearing down and hauling off an old rundown frame house bit by bit. Four years later we moved our home across the county to the five acres we lived on for the next thirty-eight years.  That piece of land took our literal blood, sweat, and tears.  We had adventures and misadventures, fun times and harrowing times, most of which my longtime readers have read about.  We learned things we had never even suspected that we needed to know, and sometimes I am amazed that we lived through it all.  That was the closest thing we had to a "home." 
     Then we got old.  Keith could no longer work the property like he had before.  Work that had taken a Saturday in the early years, now took three days, and we no longer had live-in help—they grew up and left us!  We lived 40-45 minutes from town, depending upon where we had to go—which included all the doctors and church--and the trip itself was becoming tiring.  Neither of us see well at night and I can no longer drive at all.  Then my brilliant eye doctor retired and left me with one I am sure was smart, but was in his early thirties and inexperienced with someone like me.  Our time here below is becoming short and we needed to be near someone who could watch out for us, and I needed another world class doctor.  So now we are here in Tampa, Temple Terrace to be exact, in what we hope will be our last house—a real house, something I never even thought I would ever have again.
     So how do I feel about It?  When I look at old pictures of the place up north, especially when I see my boys playing on the tree swing, playing baseball in the field, climbing trees or standing at the "fort"—a group of huge old live oaks that made almost a complete room between their trunks—or see my grandsons in similar pictures with a grin on their faces as they discover what it might be like to live in the country, I get a pang deep in my heart.  But my better sense tells me that this is for the best and I still have memories to cherish.  After all, God told Abraham and Sarah to leave a home they had lived in for over twenty years longer than I lived up there.  It had to be hard—at least I knew where I was going while they did not.
     But they understood where their real home was.  These all died in faith without having received the promises, but they saw them from a distance, greeted them, and confessed that they were foreigners and temporary residents on the earth. Now those who say such things make it clear that they are seeking a homeland. If they were thinking about where they came from, they would have had an opportunity to return. But they now desire a better place — a heavenly one. Therefore God is not ashamed to be called their God, for He has prepared a city for them (Heb 11:13-16).
    We must all be careful not to become too attached to this world.  Thinking of any place here as "home" can lead to temptations we can hardly bear.  Peter reminds us, And if you call on him as Father, who without respect of persons judges according to each man's work, pass the time of your sojourning in fear (1Pet 1:17).  Jacob called his life "a pilgrimage" (Gen 47:9), and Paul tells us our citizenship is in Heaven (Phil 3:20).  Don't get too attached, they all seem to be saying.
     "This world is not my home," we like to sing.  Are we telling the truth?
 
Hear my prayer, LORD, and listen to my cry for help; do not be silent at my tears. For I am a foreigner residing with You, a temporary resident like all my fathers. Turn Your angry gaze from me so that I may be cheered up before I die and am gone (Ps 39:12-13).

Last year I read a book that proved by extensive research of ancient writings that mainstream Protestant belief is completely different from the beliefs of the apostles and the first century church.  The author wrote page after page quoting men who were companions or students of the apostles, men who knew firsthand what Peter, Paul, John, and the others believed.  You would think that by the end of the book the man would have taught himself straight into restoring the New Testament church.  But no, he stopped short.  In fact, he said it was impossible to restore the real thing, and the doctrines he had chosen to attack were only a few.  He never questioned his own desire to keep a few of those “heretical” -isms for himself. 
            I thought about that this morning and went on a rambling train track of other doctrines.  Finally, I hit the premillenial kingdom.  Do you realize that did not become a popular belief until the 1800s?  How can we possibly believe that the men who stood by the Lord as He proclaimed His kingdom and the others who learned directly from them could have missed it?  How can it be that everyone in the next 1800 years was wrong? 
            The problem with that doctrine is the same one the apostles first had.  They thought that the kingdom was a physical one, one that included physical armies that would destroy Rome and install a Jewish Messiah on the throne in Jerusalem.  Even they should have known better.  The prophet Jeremiah prophesied that no descendant of Jeconiah (a Davidic king shortly before the captivity) would ever reign in Jerusalem, Jer 22:28-30.  That includes the Messiah.
            Finally those men got it, and they fought that carnal notion of anything physical, or even future, about the kingdom for the rest of their lives.  John made it plain that he was in that kingdom, even while he sat on the isle of Patmos writing the book of Revelation, 1:9.  We are in a spiritual kingdom, one where we win victories by overcoming temptation and defeating our selfish desires, one where two natural enemies, like a lion and a lamb, can sit next to each other in peace because we are all “one in Christ Jesus.”
            The belief in a physical kingdom here on this earth?  Isn’t that a bit like an astronaut candidate stepping out of a training simulation and proclaiming, “I just landed on the moon?”  Our inheritance is far better than a physical earth--it is “incorruptible, undefiled, [one] that fades not away, reserved in Heaven,” 1 Pet 1:4.  Why should I want something on this earth when I can have that? 
            But it will be newly created, you say?  No, Jesus said my reward is already created, “from the foundation of the world,” Matt 25:34.
            It will last a thousand years?  Then what?  We cease to exist?  No, no, no.  I was promised “eternal life” Matt 19:29; 25:46; John 3:16; 4:14; 5:24; 6:40; 10:28; Rom 2:7; 5:21; 6:23; 1 Tim 6:12, and—well, there are dozens more, but surely that makes the point.  No wonder no one in the first 18 centuries after Christ lived believed such a doctrine.
            We are supposed to have matured in Christ, to have gone beyond the belief in a material, physical kingdom, just as those apostles finally did.  Our kingdom is "not of this world."  It may not look like much to the unbeliever, but we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal. 2 Corinthians 4:18.  We have a kingdom right now far greater than anything a mortal man can dream up.  It’s just that only those with spiritual eyesight can see it. 
            But you have come to Mount Zion and to the city of the living God, the heavenly Jerusalem, and to innumerable hosts of angels, and to the general assembly and church of the firstborn who are enrolled in heaven, and to God, the judge of all, and to the spirits of the righteous made perfect, and to Jesus, the mediator of a new covenant, and to the sprinkled blood that speaks a better word than the blood of Abel…At that time his voice shook the earth, but now he has promised, "Yet once more I will shake not only the earth but also the heavens…Therefore let us be grateful for receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, and thus let us offer to God acceptable worship, with reverence and awe, for our God is a consuming fire. Hebrews 12:22-29.
 
Dene Ward

The way we camp now is considerably different than the way we started.  The first year, when the boys were 4 and 6, we left on a 10 day trip with two suitcases, one tent, a camp stove, a propane lantern, and a couple of pots stuffed into our car trunk.  What we have now fills the back of a camper-topped pickup to the brim.  When Lucas went with us for the first time in nearly 20 years, he smirked and said, “You guys don’t rough it.  You camp in style.”
            Yes, we put a screen over the table now so we can eat without bugs, and even in the rain.  We have a larger tent, and pull an extension cord in through one of the zipped windows to plug into an electric blanket and stuff it inside the double sleeping bag.  Since we camp in the fall and winter that only makes good sense.  So does the queen-size eighteen inch high air mattress—getting up off the ground is not so easy any more.
            Keith designed and rigged up a PVC-pipe light pole from which we hang a couple of trouble lights, and we sit in our outdoor lounge chairs by the fire now, instead of always at the table.  We carry a couple of wooden tray tables to hold our coffee cups and the books we are reading.
            We have two stoves now instead of just one, but since they are only two burner stoves and you run out of room when breakfast includes pancakes and sausage on a two burner griddle and a stovetop coffeepot, that has become a necessity too.  I also found a folding rack that hooks to the side of the picnic table to hold things like paper towels, antibacterial wipes, dishwashing liquid, and salt and pepper so we have more room on the table itself.
            Yes, we camp “in style” now, but I would still never leave my modest home to do it all the time.  Eight to ten days a year is fun because it is different, but every day would be a pain in the neck, especially considering the relative luxury I am used to.
            I think we miss the first, and huge, sacrifice Abraham and Sarah made.  Our arrogance tells us they were primitive people anyway, so what was the big deal when God called them?  Here is the big deal:  God called them out of Ur, a thriving metropolis for its time.  One book I read said the city had its own educational system and some form of running water. 
            Abraham was a wealthy man.  He had an entourage of servants that included an army of 318 trained men (Gen 14:14).  Whenever he arrived at a new place with his thousands of flocks and herds and hundreds of servants, the kings wanted to meet him.  Undoubtedly, they were anxious to know why he was there, and not a little afraid of the possible reason.  Especially in a small city-state like Gerar, Abimelech had reason to worry—Abraham’s army might actually have been bigger than his!  Imagine the home they must have lived in, and the status that wealthy couple must have enjoyed before they left Ur.
            Yet when God said go, Abraham and Sarah went.  They left a fine home in a then-modern city to wander in places they were only promised and often unwelcome.  I imagine they “camped in style” for the time, far better than the desert nomads because of their wealth, but it was still camping.  No more running water--even the kind they had back then--constantly subject to the weather, sand in your clothes and probably in your food if the wind blew wrong.  Can you imagine Bill Gates leaving his various homes to live in an RV for the rest of his life, much less a tent?  Do you think they would do it even if it were the best RV money could buy?  Even if he had a caravan of RVs behind him, holding his most important employees?  And especially if he had to do it in a foreign country less advanced than ours?
            I don’t see that happening.  Even with your less than Gates-esque dwelling, would you give up your own cozy bedroom, where you could walk a few steps to the bathroom in the middle of the night should you need to?  Where you could stay warm and dry regardless the weather?  Where you have places to store all your “stuff?”  Where you have a job and financial security, and a place in a community that accepts you?
            Abraham and Sarah had a long way to go in more ways than one when God called them.  Yet God saw in them a faith that would grow and a trust that would never give up.  He believed that with his tender cultivation, Abraham would become “the father of the faithful,” and Sarah the mother of all godly women and the “princess” through whom the King of kings would eventually be born.
            What do you think God sees in you?  Do you have that potential?  He thinks so or he never would have sent his Son to die for you.  Here is the test for today:  would he have even bothered to tell me to pick up and go, or am I too tied to this world and its luxuries?  He may never ask you to give it all up, but he must see in you a willingness to do so if the need arises. 
            If he does call and you go, God may allow you, like Abraham and Sarah, to camp in style, but it’s still camping.  He expects you to understand that the real home is ahead of you.
 
So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple. Luke 14:33
 
Dene Ward

Despite living 38 years in one place, we have been in many places during our marriage, with many different neighbors.  Meeting them and learning them has always been an interesting part of the experience of each location.  And hearing how people define themselves upon introduction says a lot more than most people realize.
            One man we met could hardly get past hello before we knew that he had had a highly successful career in an area we won't name.  He listed instance after instance of winning moments.  And each of those "wins" involved making a huge sum of money.  It wasn't long before that defining mechanism showed in everything he did—where he went for entertainment, the items he purchased and the brand names he insisted on.  He was too good for anything "economical," whether a trip he took or a car he bought.  Before long, he had nothing much to do with us.  It was obvious we were poor peons compared to him.
            As Christians I hope that we define ourselves by something much more important than how much money we make, where we live, the cars we drive, and the vacations we take.  I am reminded of Hezekiah, truly one of the most righteous kings Judah ever had, but what happened when the Babylonians came to visit?  At that time Merodach-baladan the son of Baladan, king of Babylon, sent letters and a present to Hezekiah; for he heard that he had been sick, and was recovered. And Hezekiah was glad of them, and showed them the house of his precious things, the silver, and the gold, and the spices, and the precious oil, and all the house of his armor, and all that was found in his treasures: there was nothing in his house, nor in all his dominion, that Hezekiah showed them not (Isa 39:1-2).
            These pagan people understood that Hezekiah had just been seriously ill, so ill he should have died but for his God's intervention.  Yet God is never mentioned when Hezekiah shows off his wealth to these Babylonians.  Why wasn't he talking about his God, the one who answered His prayer, showing the house where Judah worshipped that God instead of showing his own, and proclaiming that God to these pagans?  For some reason, this otherwise godly man did not at that moment choose to define himself as one of God's people to a nation that needed that testimony.  And what did Isaiah tell him because of this?  Hear the word of Jehovah of hosts: Behold, the days are coming, when all that is in your house, and that which your fathers have laid up in store until this day, shall be carried to Babylon: nothing shall be left, says Jehovah (Isa 39:5-6).
            How do we define ourselves, especially to people of the world?  We should be talking about eternal things, not the physical.  Hezekiah was reminded that not only would he leave behind those physical things at his death, but none of them would survive the coming destruction either.  They do not matter!  All that matters is our relationship with God, the one who watches over us, sustains us, and ultimately, forgives us so we will have a place that does last.  Do we really need an Isaiah to remind us that it will all be gone in a moment, maybe even before we are if the economy crashes?
            Think for a moment this morning, about how your neighbors would define you based upon the things you have told them.  Maybe we need to change our place in the dictionary.
 
​Incline my heart to your testimonies, and not to selfish gain! ​Turn my eyes from looking at worthless things; and give me life in your ways (Ps 119:36-37).
 
Dene Ward
 

My family loves gravy.  I would never think of serving bare rice or naked mashed potatoes.  There must always be gravy. 
            On the other hand, sometimes you cannot have gravy.  When you grill a steak, there is no gravy.  When you smoke a chicken quarter, there is no gravy, and if somehow you did catch the drippings, you wouldn’t want them.  Believe me, I tried it once.  Smoked drippings simply taste bitter.  Oh, you can always fake it with butter, flour, and canned broth, but any gravy connoisseur will know the difference.  You only get really good gravy with fresh meat drippings, flour sizzled in the pan, and some kind of liquid.
            Yet, if your life depended upon it, you would choose the meat over the gravy any time.  You would know that the only real nutritional value, the only real protein, is in the meat and not the gravy.  If you tried to live on nothing but gravy alone, you would soon starve.  You might be round as a beach ball, but you would still starve.
            Too many times we give up the meat for the gravy.  We give up marriages and families for the sake of career and money.  We give up a spiritual family that will help us no matter what for fair weather friends who won’t.  We even give up our souls for the sake of good times, status, and convenience.
            Then there are the times when it seems like life makes no gravy.  So we give up God because he dared to allow something less than ease, comfort, and fun into our lives.  Can’t have the gravy too?  Then I don’t want you, Lord.  You’re going to give up a grilled rib eye because it doesn’t come with gravy?  Really?
            I doubt we realize exactly what we are doing.  The problem is that we have things reversed.  We think this life is the meat, and the next is just the gravy.  That is what we are saying when we give up on God because things didn’t turn out so well here.  Justin Martyr, a philosopher who was converted to Christianity in the early half of the second century wrote, “Since our thoughts are not fixed on the present, we are not concerned when men put us to death.  Death is a debt we must all pay anyway” First Apology, chapter 11. 
            Can we say that, or are we too addicted to our pleasure loving, wealthy culture?  The first Christians converted with the knowledge that they would probably lose everything they owned and die within a matter of weeks, if not days.  And us?  We are out there looking for the gravy and blaming God for his scanty menu.
            The fact is we do have some gravy promised in this life.  We just look for it in the wrong places.  Then Peter said in reply, "See, we have left everything and followed you. What then will we have?" Jesus said to them …everyone who has left houses or brothers or sisters or father or mother or children or lands, for my name's sake, will receive a hundredfold and will inherit eternal life. Matt 19:27,29.  Are you still looking to the world for your gravy?  Jesus plainly says the place to look is in your spiritual family.  When it works as he intended--even if it only comes close—it is far better than anything the world will ever offer you.
            So remember where to find your spiritual sustenance.  Remember where to go when times are rough and you need a hand.  And even those things are not the meat.  The meat is eternal life with a Creator who loved you enough to die in your place.
            Everything else is just gravy.
 
…train yourself for godliness; for while bodily training is of some value, godliness is of value in every way, as it holds promise for the present life and also for the life to come, 1 Tim 4:7,8.
 
Dene Ward

I started thinking about it when the man from the phone company called, trying to get us to add to our basic service.  “We have a package for ___ dollars that will give you everything you want,” he said. 
            “But I don’t want those things,” I told him.  “I’m perfectly happy with the basic package,” which is nothing actually, but a phone on the wall that works.
            “But you can talk long distance as long as you want.”
            “I don’t make that many long distance phone calls.”
            “But you can have call waiting and never miss a call.”
            “I don’t receive many calls.”
            “But you can have digital internet service and not tie up your phone with dial-up.”
            “I’m never on the computer longer than ten minutes and if it’s important, they’ll call back.”
            He was stumped.  He had never run into someone who was not held captive by their telephone.
            We do it all the time about everything.
            “Lather, rinse, repeat,” the bottle says.  Do you realize you don’t have to repeat?  If you wash your hair regularly, once is all you need.  Can’t get enough lather, you say?  Add a handful of water to the lather you already have and that usually does the trick.  Saves you money, too, because your bottle goes twice as far.  Yet most follow those directions without even thinking about it—held prisoner by a bottle of shampoo.
            How about the calendar?  I learned this lesson long ago from my mother.  We lived a thousand miles away and couldn’t get down for the holidays.  She left her decorations up until we got there the end of January, not worrying about the strange looks she got from the neighbors.  I have done the same with my children.  A holiday or birthday is when you can be together, not when the calendar says it is.
            Twice I have had eye surgery on our anniversary.  We celebrated several weeks later.  It isn’t about the date as much as it is about the sentiment.  If it isn’t about the sentiment, you are simply a slave of your calendar.
            Women are held captive by fashion.  I went to the mall—another place that holds us prisoner with the obsession to shop, shop, shop—and came away with nothing.  Everything I saw was just plain ugly.  Most of the clothes in my closet are well over ten years old.  Why buy a new dress when the old one still fits, is in good condition, and especially if you don’t like the new style?
            It’s amazing to me that we Americans, a people who pride ourselves on our independence, can let things take us prisoner so easily.  It’s horrifying to me when the same feeling makes us prisoners of sin. 
            I read an article several years ago in which European women were asked what they thought of American women’s clothes.  “Americans dress like prostitutes,” was a common opinion.  (Check out Prov 7:6-12!)  In fact, considering my last visit to that mall, I would have to agree.  It looked like I had been dropped into the middle of a streetwalkers’ convention.  I remember the first time the miniskirt came into fashion.  A few years later the hemlines dropped again.  It’s a shame that some Christian women only dropped theirs because their masters, the fashion designers, said to.  Dressing like a pure and godly woman had nothing to do with it.
            But that is not the only way sin can take us captive.  Do you want to be liked?  Do you want to be accepted by your peers?  Do you want to be popular or cool?  Guess how that affects your behavior given the general sinfulness of society, which you are making your lord and master with those motivations?
            God has set us free from sin and expects us to act like it, completely independent of the culture we find ourselves in.  Think today about the things you let take you captive.  Maybe it’s time you broke out of prison.
 
So Jesus said to the Jews who had believed in 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." They answered him, "We are offspring of Abraham [We are Americans!] and have never been enslaved to anyone. How is it that you say, 'You will become free'?" Jesus answered them, "Truly, truly, I say to you, everyone who commits sin is a slave to sin. The slave does not remain in the house forever; the son remains forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:31-36
 
Dene Ward

By now I can imagine some of you saying, "If their place was so perfect, why did they leave?"
            Well, obviously, there was something about it that wasn't perfect.  Our circumstances are changing—we grow older every day and our bodies weaker.  Taking care of a large property with very little power equipment had become more and more difficult.
            And then someone might ask, "If this new place is so imperfect, why did you buy it?"
            No, it doesn't have beautiful flowers.  Yes, it is a tiny yard with neighbors you can shake hands with out the windows--well, almost.  Yes, it needs a lot of work.  But you see, our priorities have changed.  We are 5-6 minutes from a son and his family.  We are 7-8 minutes from church.  We are 10-12 minutes from another excellent eye specialist.  An ambulance can probably get here in 2-3 minutes.  That's what counts these days.
            Priorities make what is unacceptable in one circumstance, acceptable in another.  And that is why it is so important that a Christian have his priorities in order.  God never promised an easy life.  Jesus reminded us to "count the cost" before making the commitment to Him.  Indeed, all who desire to live a godly life in Christ Jesus will be persecuted (2Tim 3:12).  If you don't understand that going in, you will never last when life becomes difficult.
            We sing a song with the title of this series, but take a moment now and ask yourself, when I sing that song, do I make a hypocrite out of myself?  Does my discipleship matter more than where I live or how I live?  Is it more important than who likes me and who doesn't?  If I lose everything for the Lord, can I live with it joyfully?  For you had compassion on those in prison, and you joyfully accepted the plundering of your property, since you knew that you yourselves had a better possession and an abiding one (Heb 10:34).  Do we have the strength and spirituality to do that?  If not, then maybe our priorities need a second look—a long one. 
            This move has made us think a little harder, change a little more in that direction.  No matter where you live in this world, it is still just a motel stop on the way home.  Treat it that way and your life will be so much better in the long run.
 
Indeed, I count everything as loss because of the surpassing worth of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord. For his sake I have suffered the loss of all things and count them as rubbish, in order that I may gain Christ (Phil 3:8).
 
Dene Ward