Flight Paths

We all know about Paul Revere.  But have you ever heard of Sybil Ludington?  She was born on April 5, 1761, and on the same night as Paul Revere, April 26, 1777, sixteen year old Sybil rode 40 miles—over half again the length of his ride—to rouse her father's militia unit to delay the British army in its march toward Danbury, Connecticut.  In driving rain and darkness, over unfamiliar terrain, she sounded the alarm with the same results as that more famous gentleman.  She did the same job and received no recognition for it until early in the twentieth century.

 That is what I like about Sybil.  She did not need to go out and march on a courthouse or a congress hall or anywhere else in order to do her job.  She just did what needed to be done.  If I remember correctly, she wasn't even asked to do it—she volunteered.  Then, after the Revolution, she lived a perfectly ordinary life, marrying and raising a son.  She died at the age of 77 in Unadilla, New York.

 Many people try to paint the Bible—and God--as misogynistic.  They are showing their ignorance of what they revile when they do so.  The laws that to an uninformed person who is virtually ignorant of ancient cultures seem "anti-woman" were actually placed there to protect women from any man who would misuse his place in the hierarchy God set about in Eden.  As Jesus eventually said about divorce under the Old Covenant, there will always be hard-hearted men and God did His best to protect His women from such.  The other things women fuss about are simple common sense.  We have adages that state the same thing, some made up by those same hard-hearted and biased men:  "Too many chiefs and not enough Indians," for example.  Someone has to be in charge if you want to get anything done.  But God's women all over the Bible, under both covenants, have not let those hard-hearted men who abuse God's system keep them from doing what needs doing when it needs doing.  You will find the toughest women you can imagine in the pages of the scriptures, all of them honored by God when He memorialized their deeds in His Word.

 Jael, left alone to face an enemy army general, fought him the only way an unarmed woman could have.  Inspired Deborah said of her, Blessed among women shall Jael be Jud 5:24.

 Abigail, who heard the foolishness of her wicked husband, immediately set about trying to undo the harm, carrying gifts through the hills and throwing herself on the mercy of a warrior who had sworn to kill them all.  Not in subjection you say?  She did [her husband] good and not evil all the days of his life (Pro 31:12), which included saving his.

 Rizpah, in her torment and grief for her dead and hanging son, sat in the open for as long as 6 months, warding off scavenging birds and beasts until David finally noticed and buried his and the others' bones.

 I could go on.  None of these women were prima donnas, divas, or hot house flowers.  They were women who understood that when something needs doing, you do it; no matter how difficult or uncomfortable or disgusting it is, no matter how tired you are, no matter your grief or hurt; you just get up and do it.  And none of them looked for praise or recognition.  As true servants of God they simply did the work set before them and served others.  And as true servants of the Suffering Servant who gave His all, let us do the same.

 In fact, all of us should be this way, not just women.  But if we will lead the way in anything, ladies, let's show the men how this is done.

A worthy (also translated strong, valiant, able, powerful, mighty) woman, who can find?  Her price is far above rubies Prov 31:10.

Dene Ward

I was ten years old the first time I remember anyone calling me “ugly.”  It was Sunday night, just after services had let out, sometime during the school year.  We all stood in pools of manmade light around the little rock church building, the adults talking and laughing together, the children scampering about in the front yard of the lot, usually girls together and boys together, except for the teenagers who stood together in a group off to one side, aloof from it all.  I didn’t do much running because of my vision, so it was easy for a boy to sneak up behind me, pull my hair and say that awful word.

 No, he did not have a crush on me.  That’s what they always told girls like me, that and the ugly duckling story.  I was overweight with a head full of frizzy hair, and big coke bottle glasses that made me look bug-eyed and a little stupid.  When he said it, he meant it.

 Despite my precarious vision, I fled around the side of the building into the blackness of the back yard—no lights to see here, either ugly me or my ugly tears.  I would never have gone back there for any other reason—it was far too scary and I tripped over things right in front of me even in broad daylight, but that dark, shadowy place was where I thought I belonged, because I had seen myself in the mirror and I believed him.  I had also heard several adults talk about my “ugly glasses,” and what a shame it was I had to wear them.  What they didn’t realize was since I could not see at all without them (a +17.5 prescription), they were as much a part of me as my nose or any other part of my face.  They were my eyes, and if they were ugly, so was I.

 Child psychology has come a long way.  We know that children believe what others say about them.  If you tell a child he is bad, he will live up to it.  And if you tell a little girl she is ugly, it will take her decades to get over it.

 So why do we do this thing to ourselves?  Why do we go on and on about being “only human,” as if being made in the image of God were a bad thing?  Why do we constantly tell one another we are “not perfect?”  Why do we introduce ourselves as “sinners?”  Okay, maybe it is a humility thing, but I see too many times when it is something else entirely—it’s an excuse for not doing better.  And the more often we give ourselves those excuses, the more often we will need them.

 Listen instead to the Word of God:

The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, Rom 8:16.

For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works…Eph 2:10.

And, having been set free from sin, [you] have become servants of righteousness, Rom 6:18.

…But you were washed, you were sanctified, you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God, 1 Cor 6:11.

But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light, 1 Pet 2:9.

 That’s what you are—God’s work, God’s children, chosen, royal, holy, righteous, sanctified.  Tell yourself that every morning. Look in the mirror and say the words aloud.  We are “called saints” right along with those Corinthian brethren, 1 Cor 1:2.  Stop calling yourself a sinner all the time.  If that is what you believe, that is what you will do, and then find yourself running back into the darkness trying to hide from it all.

 Turn on the light and call yourself by the names God does.  This is an “Ugly Duckling” story that has really come true.  You are His child, and that makes you beautiful.  Now live that way.

See what kind of love the Father has given to us, that we should be called children of God; and so we are. The reason why the world does not know us is that it did not know him. Beloved, we are God's children now, and what we will be has not yet appeared; but we know that when he appears we shall be like him, because we shall see him as he is. And everyone who thus hopes in him purifies himself as he is pure, 1 John 3:1,2.

Dene Ward

We moved my mother so she would be near us the last few years of her life.  She has accumulated a lot in 87 years.  Even though she gave away at least half of her kitchen equipment and several pieces of furniture, as the movers traipsed in and out and the little house begin to fill, we no longer said, “In the living room,” or “In the back bedroom.”  By the end we were telling them, “Just find an empty corner and put it there.”  True, the house is 100 square feet less than the one she left, but that’s only a 10 x 10 room, perhaps one very small bedroom, and there seems to be many more times that much furniture we have yet to find a place for.  It appears that she will need to give away even more.

 I found myself thinking what I might give up when we need to leave this place we have lived for 33 years now.  Relatively small as family homes go, just 1330 square feet, we still managed to raise two boys to manhood and have accumulated far more than will fit in a house the size of my mother’s new one.  So what can I do without?

 The answer is really simple.  You can do without practically every possession you have.  Just look at what we take camping.  It’s a lot to take for a vacation, but for living, it’s practically nothing and we manage just fine for well over a week. 

 But maybe the answer is even easier than that.  What will you take in the moving van when you die?  Absolutely nothing.  It will be empty from front to rear, top to bottom.  Absolute essentials for this physical life may be the smallest and plainest amounts of food, clothing, and shelter, but for your spiritual life, all those things that you spend so much time picking out, caring for, and working to pay for are completely nonessential 

 So why do we spend so much time and energy on them?  Why do we care so much where we live and how it is decorated, what we wear and who designed it, what we eat and how good it tastes?  Could it be because we have forgotten this fundamental truth:  things of this life—possessions, status, wealth, connections—none of it matters to the wise child of God. 

Do they matter to you?  If you could not give them up, they matter more than you probably want to admit.  And if losing them would turn you into an emotional wreck, your priorities need a serious overhaul.

Today, think about that moving van on the day of your death.  It doesn’t really matter what you might like to put in it.  Your soul is going somewhere, but it won’t move an inch.

Be not afraid when a man becomes rich, when the glory of his house increases. ​For when he dies he will carry nothing away; his glory will not go down after him,Ps 49:16-17.

Dene Ward

A follow-up to Monday's post on imputation:

What the gospel, therefore, cannot mean is this: When God comes to judge the world, God will treat you as righteous when you are not; you’re saved from being judged on that day no matter what you do, how you live, for whom you live; Jesus’ righteousness is enough to get you off the hook with God; God expects nothing of you. If we think this is what Paul’s gospel means for us, we have to be prepared to say that God does show partiality. God will judge his Son’s friends according to one set of standards and everyone else by another set of standards—and he will declare innocent those in the first group who would fail the test if they belonged to the second group. 

(D.A. deSilva, Transformation, 19, emphasis in original).

Silas is afraid of dogs.  Who can blame him?  Most are as big or nearly as big as he is and the ones that aren’t have an attitude that is.  Dogs have big mouths full of pointy teeth.  They roar—which is what barks and growls sound like to a small child.  They nip when they play—which doesn’t keep it from hurting.  And licking you is just a little too close to eating you.

 So when he first saw Chloe, Silas’s reaction was to try to climb me like a tree.  No amount of reassurance that she wouldn’t hurt him sufficed.  But by the second day of watching her run away from him, his fear subsided.  In fact, he was no longer sure she was a dog.  One morning as he sat perched on the truck tailgate eating a morning snack and watching her furtive over-the-shoulder glance as she slunk under the porch, he said, “I’m afraid of dogs but I’m not afraid of that!”

 Yes, he decided, some dogs should be feared, but at only 5, his little brain had processed the evidence correctly:  this was not one of those dogs and he would not waste any more time or energy on it.

 Too bad we can’t learn that lesson.  We are scared and anxious about the wrong things.  “Use your brain, people” Jesus did not say but strongly implied in Matthew 6.  “God clothes the flowers; He feeds the birds.  You see this every day of your lives.  Why can’t you figure out that He will do the same for you?”

 Instead we waste our time and energy worrying about not just our “daily bread,” but the bread for the weeks and months and years ahead as if we had some control over world economies, floods, earthquakes, storms, and wars that could steal it all in a moment, as if we had absolute knowledge that we would even be here to need it in the first place.  And the kingdom suffers for want of people who give it the time and service it deserves and needs.  “God has no hands but our hands,” we sing, and then expect someone else’s hands to pull the weight while we pamper ourselves and our families with luxuries and so-called future security.

 And the things we ought to fear?  We go out every day with no preparation for meeting the roaring lion that we know for certainty is out there.  He is not a “just in case” or “”if perhaps.”  He is there—every single day.  Yet we enter his territory untrained and in poor spiritual condition, weaponless, and without even a good pair of running shoes should that be our only hope.  Why?  Because we are afraid of the wrong things and careless about the things we should have a healthy fear for; not because the difference isn’t obvious, but because we haven’t used the logic that even a five-year-old can.

 And what did Jesus say to the people who were afraid of the wrong things?  “O ye of little faith.” 

 What are you afraid of this morning?

“Do not call conspiracy all that this people calls conspiracy, and do not fear what they fear, nor be in dread. But the LORD of hosts, him you shall honor as holy. Let him be your fear, and let him be your dread,Isa 8:12-13.

And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather fear him who can destroy both soul and body in hell,(Matt 10:28.

“Listen to me, you who know righteousness, the people in whose heart is my law; fear not the reproach of man, nor be dismayed at their revilings. ​For the moth will eat them up like a garment, and the worm will eat them like wool; but my righteousness will be forever, and my salvation to all generations,”Isa 51:7-8.

​The LORD is on my side; I will not fear. What can man do to me? Ps 118:6.

Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

When the boys were almost teens or just beginning those years, I noticed that Nathan had posters on the ceiling of his room. I just presumed he ran out of wall space. After he left, we took them down and discovered all the water marks and holes they had covered. At a still earlier age, the roof leaked in that end of the house and I tried everything I could to fix it as I could not afford a professional. Then, I did not know how to fix the holes, but Nathan managed—he covered them up. Finances improved and it was not long after we discovered the problem that we had someone fix it.

Watergate may be the best known in our times, but corruption and coverups have been around since government was. God ordained government, but Satan corrupted it. Coverups were much simpler when kings could simply lop off the heads of any who objected. Now, in our republican form of government, often the coverup causes more trouble than the original corruption.

Imputation is certainly the most evil coverup of all time with the vilest consequences. The notion that when God looks at a sinner under grace, He does not see the sins but rather looks at the perfect life of Christ which he accounts to the sinner. God wrote no passage of scripture that even suggests such an odious coverup –that a sinner with all his rotten, vulgar evil is counted righteous just like he is?!  God wrote no passage that even suggests such a thing. Satan must have worked overtime to get that one accepted as a prevalent doctrine among those denominations that call themselves, "Christian." It certainly leaves the sinner comfortable in his sins while continuing them without change and believing the lie that God is looking at Jesus rather than his foul soul.

Passages can be multiplied that proclaim that we are cleansed, pure and holy because we are forgiven by Jesus' blood, i.e. His death, burial and resurrection (Rom 6:1-7; Heb 8:11-12; Acts 22:16; etc ) Paul makes clear that God chose us to be holy and without blemish and by his grace through Jesus and the redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses i.e. sins (Eph 1:3-10). Forgiveness makes men holy, not some kind of mockery of holiness wherein God pretends that the sinner still in his sins has the righteousness of Jesus. We remain holy by finding the way of escape God provides and by seeking Jesus our advocate "IF" we sin (1 Cor 10:13; 1 Jn 2:1-2). Since God makes the way of escape, it takes a willful act by a man to return to bondage. A man overcomes temptation by God's gracious help.

"For if, while we were enemies, we were reconciled to God through the death of his Son, much more, being reconciled, shall we be saved by his life"is expanded and explained when the apostle says a few verses later, "We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life…for he that has died is justified from sin." The whole matter of being saved by Jesus life is summed up, "I have been crucified with Christ and it is no more I who lives but Christ lives in me" (Rom 5:10; 6:4,7; Gal 2:20). You have no need to cover up the holes in your holiness, the ugly stains on your soul with pretend posters of Jesus taped up between you and God. Repent and live righteously by the power of the blood.

As Christ also loved the church, and gave himself up for it; that he might sanctify it, having cleansed it by the washing of water with the word, that he might present the church to himself a glorious, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish.

And such were some of you: but you were washed, but you were sanctified, but you were justified in the name of the Lord Jesus Christ, and in the Spirit of our God.

When we moved to our new home in Tampa, we renovated more than the house.  The grass was patchy and thin.  The front walk from the driveway to the door was nearly overgrown with schefflera on both sides.  You almost needed a machete to get through.  The podocarpus were trimmed like a French poodle and the gardenia by the front door nearly covered the front step and rarely bloomed.  The oleanders were spindly and almost bare.  First the sod went in and then out came the oleanders and the schefflera that hid the front walk.  The rest of them we trimmed so we could see out the windows.  We allowed the podocarpus to grow and fill in the strange shapes they had been pruned into and finally, they look almost normal—a sentinel on each side of the garage. 

 Finally, we found what we wanted by the front door—a triple hibiscus that blooms red, pink, and yellow.  Out came the gardenia which had proved such a disappointment, and in went the hibiscus, which has been a beautiful addition to the entry.  Every morning I open the door to count the blooms and the colors.  It is now 6 feet high and fills that spot perfectly. 

 I am especially happy with the hibiscus.  When I was a small child in Orlando, the first house I remember sat at the top of an inclined cul-de-sac, or what most people back then called a dead end street.  It was a two bedroom, one bath concrete block house, painted green with a maroon trim around the roof and on the front screen door.  A back screened porch had been closed in to make a "TV room" as we called it, which left the small front room as a living room where we received our guests, mostly family and church people.  I found the original sale price of the house sometime in the past few years—something around $7000, if I remember correctly.  It couldn't have been more than 900 sq ft.

 Besides the front step, on the left side of the house under the front bedroom windows was an attached brick planter.  My mother grew roses there and something she called "shrimp plants."  You can look it up yourself to find the big fancy name, and picture of the blooms that do indeed look a bit like shrimp.  On the right side of the house, which I always thought was east and only found out was west when I grew up, she had planted a hibiscus with bright red blooms as large as my little girl head.  I must have really liked that plant because I remember it so well

 .  In the last few years of my mother's life, she began telling me stories of both her childhood and mine as a baby and toddler, things I could never have remembered myself.  She said that my Daddy had taught me the names of all the car makes by the time I was three and I could point to any car on the road and tell him what it was.  He enjoyed showing me off to his friends, whom, she said, were amazed.  One time I pointed to a car and told him it was a "Wincoln."  The only problem was, its turn signal was going and they never really knew if I was saying it was a "Wincoln," or it was "winkin'. 

 But more to the point this morning is the time she and I walked around the house on the west side and I saw a hibiscus bloom close to the ground.  She said that I asked, "Mommy, is that a lobiscus?"  It took her a moment to realize that when I heard the name "hibiscus" what I really heard was "high-biscus," so of course a bloom near the ground would be a low-biscus to me.

 Children are smarter than most people credit them.  They make connections that we in our orderly-minded way cannot.  Children with disabilities sometimes learn things that no one ever expected them to be able to do or remember because they come up with ways to do them that no one else had thought of, thinking "outside the box" as we call it as if it were some adult-only possibility.  When you consider that children with parents from two different nationalities can learn more than one language in the first two years of life, it ought not to be such a surprise.

 God knows children far better than some of their parents do.  The things I have seen small children learn will just plain knock your socks off.  And so it shouldn't be such a surprise that God expected children to ask questions and even arranged things specifically for that reason.

 When your children ask you, ‘What does this ritual mean to you? ’you are to reply, ‘It is the Passover sacrifice to the LORD, for He passed over the houses of the Israelites in Egypt when He struck the Egyptians and spared our homes.’ ” So the people bowed down and worshiped Exod12: 26,27.

 Even today, Orthodox Jews, when celebrating the Passover, have their children ask, "The Four Questions," so that the story of God's deliverance is remembered and passed to each generation.

 That was not the only time God set things up specifically to cause the younger generation to ask questions.  After the entire nation had finished crossing the Jordan, the LORD spoke to Joshua:“Choose 12 men from the people, one man for each tribe, and command them: Take 12 stones from this place in the middle of the Jordan where the priests are standing, carry them with you, and set them down at the place where you spend the night.” So Joshua summoned the 12 men he had selected from the Israelites, one man for each tribe, and said to them, “Go across to the ark of the LORD your God in the middle of the Jordan. Each of you lift a stone onto his shoulder, one for each of the Israelite tribes, so that this will be a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you, ‘What do these stones mean to you? ’ you should tell them, ‘The waters of the Jordan were cut off in front of the ark of the LORD’s covenant. When it crossed the Jordan, the Jordan’s waters were cut off.’ Therefore these stones will always be a memorial for the Israelites”Josh4:1-7.

 And we could go on and on with them.  Surely today we should heed that example and pass on our rituals and commandments to our children, telling them exactly why we do what we do.  One of the saddest things in the world is parents who do not take the time to answer their children's questions, and treat those questions as a bother. 

 Today, take that time.  Tell them why, even if they don't ask.  Maybe you have worn it out of them by not answering in the past.  Show them now that you will answer, and share your God and your faith with the ones who should matter the most to you.

“When your son asks you in the future, ‘What is the meaning of the decrees, statutes, and ordinances, which the LORD our God has commanded you? ’ tell him, ‘We were slaves of Pharaoh in Egypt, but the LORD brought us out of Egypt with a strong hand. Before our eyes the LORD inflicted great and devastating signs and wonders on Egypt, on Pharaoh, and on all his household, but He brought us from there in order to lead us in and give us the land that He swore to our fathers. The LORD commanded us to follow all these statutes and to fear the LORD our God for our prosperity always and for our preservation, as it is today. Righteousness will be ours if we are careful to follow every one of these commands before the LORD our God, as He has commanded us’Deut6:20-25.

I live where the animals meditate quite often.  When we first moved here, the bobcats screamed in the woods every night.  Even after all these years of people moving closer and closer in on us, the mourning doves still cry and moan every day, morning and evening.  I hear one out there now even as I type.

 “Meditate?” you ask. 

 Exactly.

 For thus the LORD said to me, As a lion or a young lion roars over his prey…Isa 31:4.

 Like a swallow or a crane I chirp; I mourn like a dove…Isa 38:14.

 “Roars” and “mourn” are the same Hebrew word translated “meditate” in the KJV, including this one:  But his delight is in the law of the LORD, and on his law he meditates day and night.  Ps 1:2.

 I grew up in a time when “transcendental meditation” was popular.  Most of those who participated sat in the lotus position and hummed the syllable in the above title.  I have no idea what was in their minds at the time, but it seems a far cry from the passages above.  Yet, from what I have seen, we don’t really understand what meditation is any better than they did.

 A Bible class teacher once told us he had decided to meditate more.  He did this by memorizing a passage every week and then reciting it at various times during the day.  As he continued talking, it seemed he expected that repetition to magically change his attitudes and his heart.  As an educator, I understand that repetition is the key to learning, but simple repetition itself is as useless to your heart as repeating Hail Marys.  The New Testament calls such things “vain repetition.”  Maybe it’s time to see what the Bible says about meditating instead of what the world does.

 I looked up every occurrence of the Hebrew word found in the three passages above.  I found 24.  In the King James Version, the word is translated “meditate” 6 times, which is the most frequent translation.  But here is a really interesting case.  While in Psalm 1:2, the word speaks of the action of a righteous man, in Psalm 2:1, the action is of the wicked and is translated “plot” in the ESV (“imagine” in the KJV).  The word clearly involves some mental activity.  In Psalm 38:12 the wicked are imagining “treachery all day long.”  In fact, in the ESV that is translated “meditating” treachery.

 Seven times the word is translated “speak” or “talk” or “utter” so it does involve sound, but not that mindless hum or rote repetition so many think.  If you check out the passages, the wicked “speak” (meditate) deceit or perverseness or falsehood.  The righteous “speak” (meditate) wisdom and truth, and “talk of” (meditate) God’s praise and righteousness.  Try doing any of those things without some serious thought.

 So where does the “sound” involved in this word come from?  Sheer effort and emotion.  The young lion roaring over his prey in the Isaiah 31 passage has reached a moment of intense effort in his hunt for food.  Although the dove is not really mourning, the passage is a metaphor for God mourning over his lost people, trying to save them.  Imagine reaching out to grab someone who is about to take a serious fall, or step in front of an oncoming vehicle.  Would you do it quietly?

 No, meditating on God’s word is not a time of quiet, mindless repetition.  It is a time of intense mental effort.  “Ponder how to answer” the ESV translates it in Prov 15:28.  Run it over and over in your mind for the various possibilities, for the possible results of actions or the ideas to which those thought processes might lead.  Meditate today on meditation, for clues in the texts themselves or, as we have done, in how the word is used in other places.  Memorizing is wonderful.  Reading the word of God is a necessity for one of his children, but if all you do is speak the words either aloud or in your mind, you have done no better than a pagan on his yoga mat.

Be diligent in these things; give thyself wholly to them; that thy progress may be manifest unto all.  1Tim 4:15

Dene Ward

This blog is a long term investment.  It debuted August 2, 2012.  But even before that, I began writing devotionals that I sent to a small email list three times a week.  That first list contained 32 names.  Many times I have thought about quitting, especially when I looked at a blank screen and could not think of a thing to write, but knew I had to if this thing is going to stay alive.  “Why?” I think, especially since I rarely get feedback and sometimes wonder if anyone else cares whether I bruise my brain for a couple dozen hours a week anyway.

 My average pageview day runs 300-400, with an occasional spike of 2000+.  I have now passed over a million pageviews total.  But look back where I started—32 names.  It has taken many years of hard work, truly a long term investment.  I would never have made it this far if I had given up.

 Life is made up of long term investments.  Education, marriage, children, career, mortgages, as well as stock portfolios, and many other things take years to show any profit, any growth, any benefit.  In spite of our instant gratification society, most of us know this about life:  some things are worth the time and trouble and the long, long wait, and many of us manage to avoid quitting.

 Why do we forget that in our spiritual lives?  We become Christians and expect overnight that our problems will disappear, that our temptations will cease, and that our faith will move mountains.  Then reality sets in and instead of working on it, we give up.  We go to an older, knowledgeable Christian and ask for help in learning to study, but after two or maybe three weeks of making the time to meet and finding the time to do the studies he assigns, we quit.  It’s too tedious and we are too busy.  We thought there was some get-wise-quick formula.  It’s just the Bible after all, not rocket science.

 It’s perfectly normal to have bouts of discouragement.  David did:  How long O Lord?  Will you forget me forever?  Psalm 13:1.  Asaph did:  All in vain have I kept my heart clean and washed my hands in innocence.  73:13. I’ve tried and tried and gotten nothing for it!  Why bother?  And then they remind us to look ahead, because it is a long term problem with a long term solution.  In just a little while the wicked will be no more…you guide me with your counsel and afterward you will receive me into glory.  Psalm 37:10; 73:24.  Sometimes the wait seems long, especially when we are suffering, but faith will be still before the Lord and wait patiently for him 37:7.

 And if you are floundering a little, wondering perhaps if you will ever make it, if your faith will ever be strong, if you will ever be able to overcome temptation on a regular basis, give yourself a break.  This doesn’t happen overnight.  Are you better than you were last year?  Did you overcome TODAY?  That’s progress.  Keep working at it.  No one expects to lose 100 pounds in a week.  Some of us have way more than that to lose spiritually. 

 The reward is worth the waiting.  It is worth the struggle.  It is even worth the tedium of learning those difficult names and the exercise involved in buffeting our bodies.  But you won’t get there if you give up, if you say, “This is boring,” or “I’m too busy,” or “I can’t do it.” 

 I have many new friends because of something I started a long time ago during a difficult time of life.  I cannot imagine being without them now.  I certainly don’t want to be without the Lord.
 
For you have need of endurance, so that when you have done the will of God you may receive what is promised, Heb 10:36.
 
Dene Ward

I bet you have some of those recipes yourself—Hawaiian pizza, nacho cheese stuffed shells, Mexican lasagna, spinach and feta calzones.  It may not be an upscale restaurant’s version of fusion cooking, but for most of us it’s as close as it gets.  Italian cuisine mixed with Mexican, Greek mixed with Asian, French with Thai, anything to put a little variety in the weeknight meals.  And for many of us, they become some of the family’s favorite dishes.  When the flavors don’t clash but meld together beautifully, the whole dish is improved.

 Isn’t that the way the church is supposed to work?  God never meant us to gather in monochromatic assemblies.  He never meant for one ethnic or economic group to position itself higher in the pecking order as the more learned, the more spiritual, the more zealous.  The prophets prophesied a multi-cultural kingdom.  It shall come to pass in the latter days that the mountain of the house of the LORD shall be established as the highest of the mountains, and shall be lifted up above the hills; and all the nations shall flow to it, and many peoples shall come, and say: “Come, let us go up to the mountain of the LORD, to the house of the God of Jacob, that he may teach us his ways... Isa 2:2-3. 

 Even as far back as Abraham God promised, “In thy seed shall all nations of the earth be blessed,” Gen 22:17.  Not one nation, not two, but all.  When you read the book of Genesis and watch God funnel his choice down to one people, then in the New Testament see that funnel turned upside down to include salvation for all in the fulfillment of that promise, you cannot possibly exclude anyone and still show a true appreciation for God’s plan. 

 And you cannot make yourself better than any other without annulling grace.  For in Christ Jesus neither circumcision nor uncircumcision counts for anything, but only faith working through love, Gal 5:6.

  “God is no respecter of persons,” Peter said to Cornelius, and even he had to learn that lesson and teach it to others.  And the struggle went on for years.  Have we not in two millennia finally figured this out?  Even Jesus began the process when he chose Simon the Zealot and Matthew the publican.  If ever two people, even of the same race, could be polar opposites in ideology, it was these two, but they overcame their biases and went on to work peaceably and respectfully together to conquer the world for their Lord—the whole world, not just one race.

 Who are you teaching?  Who are you welcoming into your assemblies?  Who puts their feet under your table and holds your hands during the prayer of thanksgiving for the meal?

 A long time ago, my little boys wanted some friends to stay overnight and go to school with them in the morning.  “We’ll tell the teachers they are our cousins.” 

We adults looked at one another and smiled.  These playmates were black and my boys were about as fair-skinned as they come.  Their father shook his head and said, “I don’t think that will work.”

In all innocence and sincerity they asked, “Why not?”

Finally Keith looked at the father and said, “We’re brothers, aren’t we?  So I guess that makes them cousins after all.”

Would that we could all be as color-blind as an innocent child, as color blind as the Lord who died for all.

For as many of you as were baptized into Christ have put on Christ. There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is no male and female, for you are all one in Christ Jesus. And if you are Christ's, then you are Abraham's offspring, heirs according to promise,Gal 3:27-29.

Dene Ward