I grew up in Tampa.  I learned to drive down Busch Blvd when there were actually empty, weedy lots between Temple Terrace and Florida Avenue.  I drove on I-75 with a learner’s permit, what is now I-275, and even into downtown Tampa where my eye doctor had his office in a 20 story “skyscraper”—by Florida standards anyway.  I drove down 75 past Howard and Armenia to shop at the only mall in town, Westshore Plaza, in an era when sometimes you wouldn’t see more than 3 other cars on your side of the interstate.  Yes, it was a long, long time ago.
            I took Driver’s Ed at King High School.  They had a little driving course in the back of the school.  A two lane “street” painted on a parking lot with stop signs, yield signs, diagonal parking, and pylons for practicing parallel parking.  I could drive that course without a hitch and usually even managed to parallel park without crushing a pylon.
            But we never practiced U-turns.  So one day after I had passed my exam and had my own brand new driver’s license complete with the requisite peon-home-from-working-the-field picture, I was headed west on Busch Blvd and realized I had passed my turn-off.  Time for my first U-turn.  I pulled into the left lane and patiently waited for the traffic on the other side to clear.  It may have been years ago, but traffic was not kind that day.  Those cars were spaced just so that I had to wait far longer than if it were a normal left turn.  I knew I needed time to straighten out the car and get back up to 45 mph before any oncoming traffic reached me.
            Finally there was a break, just barely big enough for me to maneuver, if I hurried.  So I spun that wheel hard to the left and pulled out and hit the gas.  My little Mustang made it to the far right lane before completely turning, but almost immediately I was in trouble.  I had kept the wheel turned too long.  The tires screeched as I crossed back over all three lanes and was headed for the median.  Even though I needed to let go of the steering wheel I couldn’t.  I had thrown myself nearly into the passenger seat and was hanging on for dear life.  Thoroughly panicked, I finally let loose enough for the wheel to slide between my hands and allow the car to straighten.  I took my foot off the gas and shifted back into the seat just in time to miss the median and straighten myself out in the left lane.  No one and nothing was hurt but my pride.  I slunk in the seat as the oncoming traffic caught up and passed me, hoping no one I knew had seen that.
            That’s what a lack of experience will do for you.  I was old enough to drive.  But I had never performed that maneuver before, and had probably never paid enough attention to my parents as they did.  “It’s just a longer left turn,” I thought.  No, it’s a bit more than that.
            U-turns in life can be difficult too.  I have seen so many young people completely disillusioned because they thought making those U-turns after their baptism would be a cinch.  Now that I’ve turned my life over to God I won’t feel those temptations any more, they think.  I will suddenly be a changed person, able to live perfectly from here on in.  Once again a lack of experience is showing.
            We can be forgiven from our sins, but very often the consequences are still there to live with.  That can mean things as difficult as serving jail time or fighting addiction or dealing with people we have hurt physically or emotionally.  It can also mean the urges of a besetting sin.  You will still have to work on it.  You may need to change not just your life, but your schedule and your friends in order to see a difference.  The same things that tempted you before will continue to tempt you, and the Devil will try even harder because he thinks he might have lost you.  Why work on the ones who are securely under his belt?
            Tell your children these things.  Tell that neighbor you are trying to convert.  If they are not prepared for reality, they may lose hope.  But also tell them that now they will have help, help that can strengthen them enough to overcome anything—not necessarily easily, but certainly.  Help that understands what you are going through and will bear with you as you learn and grow with experience.  You may throw yourself across the highway the first time or two, but eventually you will learn to navigate the roads of life, and those U-turns will become easier to make. 
            And, if you have been “raised in the church,” you may find that the U-turns you need to make are of a completely different sort.  It is all too easy when you have never been involved in what we call “the big bad sins” to look down one’s nose on those who came from that background and judge them unworthy because they still struggle.  That is the U-turn you must make:  away from a judgmental attitude toward compassion, the same compassion Jesus showed for an adulterous woman, a thieving publican, and a convicted criminal.  Your U-turn may be the most difficult of all, but he still expects you to make it.
 
But [I] declared first to those in Damascus, then in Jerusalem and throughout all the region of Judea, and also to the Gentiles, that they should repent and turn to God, performing deeds in keeping with their repentance. Acts 26:20

Dene Ward

I just pitted two pounds of fresh cherries.  I knew there was a reason I liked blueberries better.
            Even with a handy-dandy little cherry pitter, it is still quite a chore.  You have to do them one at a time, well over a hundred, and sometimes the pit does not come out the first try.  You have to fiddle with the cherry until you get it in there just right—so the little plunger will go right through the center.  Then there is the clean-up as some of those wayward pits bounce across the counter and floor, staining everything cherry red.
            Not worth it you say?  You have obviously never had a cherry pie made with anything but canned cherry pie filling!  Some things are worth the trouble.  Like children.  Like marriage.  Like living according to God’s rules.
            Satan will do everything in his power to make it seem otherwise.  He will tell you his reward here and now is greater, like a ready-made store-bought pie.  He will tell you that God’s reward is mediocre, like a pie you can have in the oven in 10 minutes with canned filling and refrigerated pie crust.  He will tell you God’s reward does not even exist, that there is no such thing as a pie with a homemade crust and fresh cherries—it’s all an illusion.  Everyone knows pies come in a box in the freezer case!
            But God’s reward is real; it is better than anything this life and that Enemy have to offer.  It takes some effort.  Sometimes we fail and have to try again.  Sometimes people make fun of us.  Sometimes we work till our backs ache and our fingers cramp up, but when you put God’s reward on the window sill to cool, everyone knows it was worth it.  Even the ones who won’t get to taste it. 
 
Blessed are you when men shall hate you, and when they shall separate you from their company, and reproach you, and cast out your name as evil, for the Son of man’s sake.  Rejoice in that day, and leap for joy, for behold, great is your reward in Heaven.
So that men shall say, “Truly there is a reward for the righteous; truly there is a God who judges the earth.” Luke 6:22,23; Psa 58:11

Dene Ward
 

I have a pretty amazing recipe for peanut butter cookies.  Here it is:  peanut butter, sugar, and an egg.  Period.  You do add a mere teaspoon of vanilla, but no flour at all, no salt, no soda or other chemical leavenings—that's why they are "unbelievable."  They are nearly pure peanut butter, but somehow they hold together.  Do you suppose that is why they taste so good?  Nothing else to dull the flavor.  If you are a peanut butter fanatic, you will love these cookies, just like my little Judah does.
            When I first saw the recipe, I said, "No way.  They forgot the flour, at least."  But then I read the recipe itself and right there in the text was the statement, "No.  I did not forget the flour."  Then, and only then, did I try them.  They remain to this day, the only peanut butter cookie I make.  I have a few other cookie recipes where peanut butter is an ingredient, but none other where the peanut butter is the star.  And I am here to tell you:  it works!
            A lot of folks seemed to think that God got the recipe wrong too.  Seeing that Jews ask for signs, and Greeks seek after wisdom: but we preach Christ crucified, unto Jews a stumblingblock, and unto Gentiles foolishness; but unto them that are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God. (1Cor 1:22-24)
            God becoming man was unthinkable.  The Creator dying on a cross at the hand of his creation was ridiculous to even contemplate.  A kingdom "not of this world" became, and still seems to be, a bone of contention for the religious world.  The kingdom must be a physical kingdom here on this earth, the same problem the Jews had, and even the apostles at the beginning.  The pure and simple gospel of a risen Savior and a spiritual kingdom just can't work, the world continues to say. 
            And the pure and simple kingdom, the church, is no longer relevant in a complicated world, they maintain.  So they add things God never seemed to think of, believing they are improving things.  They change the structure and even the mission of the Lord's body because they know better—better than God does, evidently.
            And yet I have continued to see God's way work just fine my whole life.  I grew up in the arms of parents who carried me to an assembly of the Lord's people every time the doors were opened, who taught me the way at home, and who showed me with their lives what it meant to be a part of that kingdom—a pure and simple kingdom run the same way it did when it began two thousand years ago.  I know it works, firsthand.  The people I worship with today know it works.  We see it all around us.  And as we grow and make new disciples, we see their amazement at the simplicity of the gospel, and watch while they learn what should be obvious to everyone who even claims to be a believer:  God knows what He is doing.  He doesn't need our new-fangled notions and the arrogance that thinks it is wiser than the Creator of us all.
            The simple purity of a life and worship ordained by the authority of the Word of God and the approved example of first century believers instead of the think-sos of men will thrill your soul.  It may be unbelievable at first, but if you stick with the recipe, it will all hold together and you will finally believe.
 
For the word of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us who are saved it is the power of God. For it is written, I will destroy the wisdom of the wise, And the discernment of the discerning will I bring to nought. Because the foolishness of God is wiser than men; and the weakness of God is stronger than men. (1Cor 1:18,19,25)
 
Dene Ward

A few years ago we lost our resident rodent killer, a three foot+ granddaddy of a garter snake that lived under the house.  For some reason, he decided to venture out one day while Keith was mowing and instead of turning the other direction, slithered right under the mower.  No more snake—well, actually a bazillion pieces of snake.  It was not long before we heard the noises begin beneath the floors—the scampering, the skittering, and the awful gnawing.  By the time the noises were noticeable and we could get into town for what we needed, we were infested.  At least they stayed under the house and never got inside. 
            So we brought home a couple of pails of rat poison and Keith crawled under the house and laid the small green blocks out on the bases of the pillars.  The next week, every block was gone.  He laid out more and the next week they were gone again.  Another trip to town and two more pails.  It took two months and $200 worth of poison for him to finally crawl under and find most of the poison still sitting there.  We had finally gotten them all.
            So why am I on about rat poison today?  Rat poison is 99% or more inactive ingredients.  In other words, the poison runs around half a percent of the product while the rest is good food for the rodents.  That's why they eat it.  It often has flavoring like peanut butter in it.  Again, that's why they eat it.  If it didn't look good, smell good, and taste good, it would not work!
            But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness, your minds should be corrupted from the simplicity and the purity that is toward Christ (2Cor 11:3).
            False teaching looks good.  Much of it sounds right.  It's exciting and entertaining and just plain fun sometimes.  How could it possibly be wrong?  The same way rat poison can kill you.  The gospel is plain and simple and that's not enough for some people—they want more.  It has always been this way.  Look further on in that same passage above. 
            For if a person comes and preaches another Jesus, whom we did not preach, or you receive a different spirit, which you had not received, or a different gospel, which you had not accepted, you accept it well enough  (2Cor 11:4).  They had the same problem then that so many today have.  Please don't fall for it.  If you do, that wonderful, exciting new (and different) teaching will kill your soul as easily as all that rat poison took care of my rodent problem.
 
I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting him who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel— not that there is another one, but there are some who trouble you and want to distort the gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel contrary to the one we preached to you, let him be accursed (Gal 1:6-8).                                                                                                                    
Dene Ward

Maybe I am just too simple-minded to understand these things.
            I have heard preachers of the premillennial doctrine espouse their beliefs since I was a child and some things I just don't get.
            First, they say that the church is just an afterthought.  God had wanted to establish the kingdom when Christ came the first time, but the people were just too hard-headed and stubborn and wouldn't do it, so he stuck the church in as some kind of place holder.
            Second, they say that when Jesus comes back again, he will establish the kingdom then and all will be as God originally intended.
            Third, they tell me this kingdom will last only 1,000 years and only the 144,000 will spend eternity in Heaven.
            Here are my issues with all that and frankly, it doesn't even involve scriptures, although I could certainly quote quite a few.
            First, do you mean to tell me that an Almighty, All Powerful God cannot do what He wants to do because men got in His way?  I don't recall that being a problem any other time in Biblical history.  And what exactly do they think "Almighty" means anyway?
            Second, if He couldn't do it the first time, how do we know He will be able to do it the second time, and if you tell me, because He is God and He can do whatever He likes I will say, then why not the first time?
            And third, are you telling me that the so-called hope we have is for 1000 years of bliss instead of Eternity?  I just cease to exist afterward.  What kind of hope is that?
            I don't even need to study to know I want nothing to do with a doctrine like this, one that calls into question the power of God and turns His kingdom into a second best consolation prize.
 
Unto me, who am less than the least of all saints, was this grace given, to preach unto the Gentiles the unsearchable riches of Christ; and to make all men see what is the dispensation of the mystery which for ages hath been hid in God who created all things; to the intent that now unto the principalities and the powers in the heavenly places might be made known through the church the manifold wisdom of God, according to the eternal purpose which he purposed in Christ Jesus our Lord (Eph 3:8-11).
 
Dene Ward

I have been clipping and redeeming coupons since we got married.  I have a file box and a system.  I search ads faithfully and use them to plan both my shopping trip and my meals.  And I don’t fall into the coupon traps—if I don’t need it or won’t use it, or did not want to try it anyway, I don’t buy it.  We got by for 50% less than most families with teenage boys.
              I seldom have one of those shopping trips you hear about, where the woman buys $100 worth of groceries for $2.98, primarily because I do not buy a lot of processed, prepared foods.  I have a garden; I bake from scratch.  My grocery bill rarely includes anything but staples, meat, paper goods, and the few produce items we do not grow, like onions, potatoes, and garlic.  You don’t find many coupons for those things, but occasionally I make a “coupon coup.”  There was the jar of mustard, regularly $1.29, on sale for 99 cents.  A 50 cent coupon brought it down to 49 cents.  There was the week Publix actually put their bakery’s key lime pie on sale for $4.50.  I had a $2.50 coupon PLUS they gave away a free loaf of French bread with every pie.  So for $2.00 I got a key lime pie (regular $7.49) and a loaf of French bread (regular $1.99).  I couldn’t have made a key lime pie alone for any less than $4.00, and theirs is nearly as good.
            Then I raided the drug store, the popular hang-out for those who are aging.  Keith needed glucosamine chondroitin.  $30.00 a bottle.  It was buy one get one, plus I had a $3.00 coupon.  We needed vitamins, regular $6.00 a bottle.  They were buy one get one, plus I had a $2.00 coupon.  They also had my favorite shampoo on sale, one I hardly ever get to buy because it is usually $4.29 a bottle.  They had it for $3.00, plus I had a coupon for $2.00 off 2, plus, for buying two, they automatically gave me another $1.00 off anything in the store at the check-out, effectively making the price $1.50 a bottle.  Finally we needed some low dose aspirins--$4.69 a bottle.  I had a $4.00 coupon, making that 69 cents.  Are you keeping track?  I bought $86.29 worth of items for $38.19.  Don’t tell me the time I spend clipping and sorting isn’t worth it.      
            Redeeming coupons brings to mind another sort of redemption.  I am always thrilled when I get a high quality item for a low price.  I would never pay full price for a crushed box of crackers or a dented can of tomato paste; nor would I for wilted produce—maybe half price for overripe bananas because they still have some use.  But top dollar?  Forget it.
            I am so glad God was not as stingy as I am!  He redeemed me, paying full price not for dented cans, crushed boxes, or even overripe bananas.  He got the culls, the totally useless, rotten, spoiled produce; he paid top dollar for something no one else would have even considered buying. 
          I think, when you have “been good” all your life, perhaps “raised in the church,” as we are prone to say, it is hard to realize our worthlessness, and really appreciate what has been done for us.  An old song goes, “Alas and did my Savior bleed and did my Sovereign die; would he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?”  I noticed that in one of the newer hymnals that last line has been changed to “such a one as I.”  Unh-unh.  We need to get the “worm” back in there, because that is how low we were—totally worthless and disgusting--when Jesus redeemed us, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold…but with precious blood, as a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ, 1 Pet 1:18,19.  Truly the Lord is gracious.  In fact, we got the real bargain—precious grace for irregular, damaged merchandise!
 
For while we were weak, in due season Christ died for the ungodly.  For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, maybe for a good man someone would dare to die.  But God commends his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  Rom 5:6-8     
 
Dene Ward

I found a verse the other day that intrigued me--for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness, and peace, and joy in the Holy Spirit, Rom 14:17.  While the meaning is obvious—in the context of eating meats sacrificed to idols, Paul is telling them that being in the kingdom is a matter of the inner man not the outer man—I still wondered why those three things were chosen among the many traits describing Christians.
            Before much longer I found Romans 5:1-3.  Those three things are not three separate items, as if they can be chosen one without the other, they are a chain reaction.  I am justified (made righteous), and as a result have peace with God, and that creates joy in my life. 
            Keep reading down to verse 5 in Romans 5, then add 12:12 and 15:13 to the mix and you see that joy is inextricably bound with hope.  The Greeks did not use “hope” the way we use it, a wish for something that could go either way, but as a confident assurance or, as Keith likes to say, “a vision of a certain future.”  Along with the apostle John in 1 John 5:13, I should be able to say, “I know I am saved; I know I have been forgiven; I know I have a relationship with God; I know I am going to Heaven.”  Is there anything that should inspire any greater joy?
            Being joyful does not mean we may not face sad times; it does not mean we must not ever grieve in a trial.  What it does mean is that we will bounce back from those times because joy is the foundation for our lives.  If, instead, I come through a trial with an attitude only toward myself, what I have endured, and what I believe others should be doing for me because of it, my joy has turned into bitterness.  In fact, I have not successfully endured that trial at all. Whenever I allow something to smother my joy, in at least that much I have allowed that thing to be more important to me than my relationship with God. 
            This is easier said than done.  I used to wonder how to have this joy that everyone kept telling me I was supposed to have.  God does not leave us without direction.  Col 1:9-14 gives us several techniques for having joy.  Be filled with the knowledge of Him; walk worthily of the Lord; bear fruit in every good work; give thanks for our salvation.  Do you know what that boils down to?  Focus on the good things and stay busy serving others. 
            Joy is like a glow-in-the-dark toy.  The more I focus on what God has done for me and what he expects me to do for others, the longer I sit in the light and the stronger my glow will be.  But if I sit too long in the shadow of sadness and grief, focusing too long on myself, my joy will begin to fade until eventually it is gone altogether.    
            If you find yourself alone in the dark today, it’s time to come back into the light before your joy disappears, along with the hope that reinforces it.  This is a choice you make, one that has nothing to do with what happens today or what anyone does to you, but with the path you choose to take regardless.              
 
That the proof of your faith, more precious than gold that perishes though it is proved by fire, may be found unto praise and glory and honor at the revelation of Jesus Christ:  whom not having seen you love; on whom, though now you see him not, yet believing, you rejoice greatly with joy unspeakable and full of glory:  receiving the end of your faith, the salvation of your souls. 1 Peter 1:7-9.
 
Dene Ward
 

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.
 
I have a brown cap that I wear only around the house.  Though the thermostat says the house is warm, my head gets cold because I have no hair.  I mislaid the cap.  I looked everywhere I had been and everywhere it could be.  I found another, less well fitting cap to keep my head warm and looked everywhere it could not be.  I looked in all those places again.  Still no cap.  In fact, the time I spent looking far exceeded the value of the cap which has no sentimental value either.  But, I had to know where it had gotten to.  
 
After 3 or 4 days, I put on a pair of old knock-around jeans that I'd tossed in the floor of the closet during a warm spell here in Florida when I wore shorts.  The cap fell out.  Did I mention the jeans were brown?  Or, that I had moved them at least twice (and everything else in the floor of the closet) looking for the cap?
 
Now, the cap did not know it was lost.  Neither did the coin.  The sheep probably knew when it looked around and there were no other sheep nearby, but he did not know the way home.  The son never knew he was lost until things got so bad that he had nowhere else to go—but at least he knew the way home.
 
Sometimes attitudes and facts are so ingrained in us that we do not realize that everyone does not know what we know.  When we preach the gospel "to a lost and dying world," they do not hear because they not only do not know they are lost, they do not know what "lost" is any more than my cap did.
 
Jesus did not tell his parables for the lost but for those who were sure they were not lost, who saw no need for salvation for themselves.  We need to learn the lessons of the parables to understand how to show the lost their need.
 
Sometimes we appeal with love and companionship to a lost sheep who realizes a need for others of a spiritual bent, but unless we teach them, they are not really "found."  When their feelings are hurt, they have no truth to fence them in the fold.  This is happening in many churches and their numbers swell with those who are still lost but who are warmed by association with sheep.
 
We do not have to wait until the sinner hits "rock bottom" like the prodigal.  Paul converted many by the appeal of a God who loves and who knows each of us individually.  He also taught them that they were lost and destined to a fiery judgment without Jesus, "when the Lord Jesus is revealed from heaven with his mighty angels in flaming fire, inflicting vengeance on those who do not know God and on those who do not obey the gospel of our Lord Jesus." (2Thess 1:7-8).  These sounded forth the word because they knew the reality of having been lost and being saved (1Thess 1:8).
 
In vain do we teach those who, like my cap, have no sense of being lost.  They may learn facts, they may respond to some things that have some appeal to them, but they cannot be saved.  Many of our religious friends fall into this category.  We must sweep them from their hiding places to find them, expose them to the light and bring about repentance unto life.
 
Let us give thought to how we can show people that they are lost in order to motivate them to seek the salvation we wish to teach them.
 
When you follow the desires of your flesh, the results are very clear:
sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures,
idolatry, sorcery,
hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger,
selfish ambition, dissension, division, envy,
drunkenness, wild parties,
and other sins like these.
Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God. (Gal 5:19-21).
 
Keith Ward

"I'll never forget what he did to me."
            As you might guess, this was not said in a kindly or grateful way.  What this person remembered was something he perceived as an evil against him.  One done by a brother.  And it was said again and again, in fact, every time that person's name came up in conversation.
            Everyone out there understands the problem here, at least in their minds.  When it happens to them, it may not be so clear how they should feel.  After all…and here come the rationalizations.  But let's just focus on a few passages that make it as plain as possible that our own salvation depends upon whether we forgive others.
            Let all bitterness, and wrath, and anger, and clamor, and railing, be put away from you, with all malice: and be ye kind one to another, tenderhearted, forgiving each other, even as God also in Christ forgave you (Eph 4:31-32).
            Put on therefore, as God's elect, holy and beloved, a heart of compassion, kindness, lowliness, meekness, longsuffering; forbearing one another, and forgiving each other, if any man have a complaint against any; even as the Lord forgave you, so also do you (Col 3:12-13).
            Just like God forgave us, it says.  Are we so arrogant as to think that while God must forgive us, we don't have to forgive anyone else?  The next verse in Ephesians goes on to say that we should be imitators of God, and forgiving is the nearest antecedent.
            For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses (Matt 6:14-15).  I think that one is pretty plain, don't you?  Then we have the following:
            Therefore the kingdom of heaven may be compared to a king who wished to settle accounts with his servants. When he began to settle, one was brought to him who owed him ten thousand talents. ​And since he could not pay, his master ordered him to be sold, with his wife and children and all that he had, and payment to be made. So the servant fell on his knees, imploring him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you everything.’ And out of pity for him, the master of that servant released him and forgave him the debt. But when that same servant went out, he found one of his fellow servants who owed him a hundred denarii, and seizing him, he began to choke him, saying, ‘Pay what you owe.’ So his fellow servant fell down and pleaded with him, ‘Have patience with me, and I will pay you.’ He refused and went and put him in prison until he should pay the debt. When his fellow servants saw what had taken place, they were greatly distressed, and they went and reported to their master all that had taken place. Then his master summoned him and said to him, ‘You wicked servant! I forgave you all that debt because you pleaded with me. ​And should not you have had mercy on your fellow servant, as I had mercy on you?’ ​And in anger his master delivered him to the jailers, until he should pay all his debt. ​So also my heavenly Father will do to every one of you, if you do not forgive your brother from your heart. (Matt 18:23-35).
            Please notice:  the servant was forgiven and in good standing with the king until he sinned again by failing to forgive his debtor.  The king had forgiven an unpayable debt, while the servant would not forgive one a small fraction of his own.  That is where we stand, with that unforgiving servant when we follow his example.  The debt God forgave us is one we can never repay.  No matter how wrongly we have been treated, and some have been abused to the point of martyrdom, we cannot hold on to a festering grudge that eats away at our hearts.  It will send us to Hell.
            No, you may not ever truly forget how someone mistreated you.  No one can just open up his brain and cut it out.  But you can keep from bringing it up day after day, wallowing in the memories and sharing them with any who will listen.  Those words at the top of this article should never come out of the mouth of a person who has experienced the saving grace of God brought about by his Son's sacrifice.  It may be the most ungrateful thing we can do to God.
 
You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the LORD (Lev 19:18).
Do not say, “I will do to him as he has done to me; I will pay the man back for what he has done” (Prov 24:29).
See that no one repays anyone evil for evil, but always seek to do good to one another and to everyone (1Thess 5:15).
Repay no one evil for evil, but give thought to do what is honorable in the sight of all. If possible, so far as it depends on you, live peaceably with all. Beloved, never avenge yourselves, but leave it to the wrath of God, for it is written, Vengeance is mine, I will repay, says the Lord (Rom 12:17-19).
 
Dene Ward

After decades of scrimping, doing without, patching and re-using when most would have tossed the old one and bought a new one, things have gotten a little easier for us.  I guess it finally hit me the day I was sweeping our bedroom, picked up the old plastic trash can next to my dresser to sweep under it, then flipped it over to empty into a trash bag I was carrying room to room.  There on the bottom was a piece of duct tape over a long crack that somehow, despite weekly cleaning, I had forgotten about.  I suppose I had just gotten so used to it that it disappeared from view.  We couldn't afford anything unnecessary for so long, and that handy swath of duct tape made buying a new one "unnecessary."
            But things are different now and that fact suddenly broke through old attitudes and habits.  "What does one of these cost?" I asked myself.  "Five dollars?  Six?  I think we can afford that now." And the next week on our once a week trip to town (we still don't make extra trips at two gallons of gas per trip), I bought myself a new trash can for the bedroom.
            And now Keith has decided that we can afford to have our house cleaned every other week.  I can't deny that my old age ailments make doing it myself a lot more difficult and painful than ever before.  However, it does cost extra money.  [Actually, I did not want this godly woman wasting her energy and time cleaning and then being too tired to prepare these posts and her classes, kw inserted.]
            So he found a young Mennonite woman who is an excellent cleaner and hard worker, and who charges half the going rate to boot.  We give her a substantial Christmas bonus so she won't go out of business any time soon.
            Do you know the hardest part of having someone clean my house?  Actually letting her clean it.  I want to go around the day before she comes cleaning bathrooms, dusting shelves, and scrubbing floors.  It's too embarrassing to let someone else see my dirt.  Why am I like this?  I could blame my mother, a perfect housekeeper who kept our home spotless with everything in its place.  But it probably has a whole lot more to do with pride and plain old embarrassment. 
            That may be the problem people have when it comes to conversion.  Do you know how many times we have heard, "I have some things I need to work on first?"  As if things so monumental, in our minds, that they will keep the Lord from accepting us, are things we can easily handle on our own.  Even after years of NOT being able to handle it on our own.  Do you really think the Lord hasn't already seen your dirt?
            While the Lord certainly expects us to clean up our lives when we commit them to him, he never expected us to do it beforehand and without his help, and he was willing to spend an awful lot to make that help available.  Stifle your pride and embarrassment.  Come "just as you are" and let him help you change that.
 
​Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matt 11:28-30).
 
Dene Ward