Flight Paths

Everyone who cooks on a budget knows what filler is.  If you called things by the relative amount of their ingredients, I served my family dumplings and chicken, spaghetti with sauce and meat, and potato and beef stew.  At times it should probably have been called loaf meat instead of meat loaf.  Even now the two of us split a chicken breast between us or share one pork chop, then load the plate with “filler.”  Filler is the cheap stuff, the stuff that costs a minuscule amount of the protein on the plate, but fills up the eater twice as fast—potatoes, rice, noodles, bread. 
            Sometimes we treat certain verses in the Bible as filler.  We skim the genealogies and miss relationships and facts that would open up the ‘more interesting” parts.  We treat the addresses and farewells in the epistles the same way.
            All who are with me send greetings to you. Greet those who love us in the faith. Grace be with you all, Titus 3:15. 
            I was working on some class material on faith when I read that passage and nearly skipped over it as useless.  Then I found an alternate translation, one of those I seldom look at because they are just a bit too loose, but it opened my mind to the possibilities in this verse.  Greetings to you from everyone here. Greet all of our friends who share in our faith. I pray that the Lord will be kind to all of you! (Contemporary English Version)
            Look at that middle sentence:  Greet all of our friends who share in our faith.  Now read the other one again. Greet those who love us in the faith.
            How many of your friends and neighbors will tell you that you can be a Christian without participating in what they sneeringly call “organized religion?”  What they mean by that is they can have faith in God without having to worry about being members of a church, answering to the ordained authority in that church, or being obligated to serve anyone else in that church.  Yet Paul told Titus that part of being in the faith was recognizing (greeting) the others who share that faith with you, those who, because of that shared faith, love you. 
            Those friends will tell you, “Of course I love people,” but John said, Let us not love in word or in talk, but in deed and in truth 1 John 3:18.  You can’t sit at home in your easy chair and love anyone.
            The New Testament tells us in passage after passage that our lives are judged by how we treat “one another.”  Love one another, we are told.  Be at peace with one another.  Welcome one another.  Instruct one another.  Wait for one another.  Care for one another.  Comfort one another.  Agree with one another.  Serve one another.  Bear one another’s burdens. Be kind to one another and forgive one another.  Bear with one another.  Submit to one another.  Encourage one another.  Show hospitality to one another.  Confess your faults to one another.  Consider one another.  Exhort one another.  Do good to one another.  I defy anyone to do these things outside the fellowship of a group of people.
            And I pity anyone who has not experienced the joy of bumping into a brother or sister as you run your daily errands, who has not felt instant camaraderie with people you have never met before when you walk into a meetinghouse in an unfamiliar city, the absolute sense of haven and relief that spreads through you simply because you and someone else are bound by the grace of God.  As Paul seems to imply in that “filler” of a verse, it cannot help but affect your faith.
 
…and the Lord added to the church daily such as were being saved, Acts 2:47.
 
Dene Ward

I never had much trouble sightreading piano music.  You read the note, you find it on the piano, and you play it.  I wasn’t perfect by any means—trying to read music and translate that to a mental keyboard in your mind and then have your hands immediately go to the correct place on the real keyboard in just a matter of milliseconds takes a quick mind and perfect eyesight, neither of which I had even then.  But for the most part I was a good music reader and got the job done, even if I did have to slow the tempo down so I could play in the correct rhythm too. 
            Then I got to college theory classes and was expected to sightsing!  Now that is a completely different issue.  Looking at a page of notes and singing them seemed like an impossible task to me.  It takes a natural ear.  If you don’t have one, you have to train it.  I had to put mine through boot camp the entire first year of theory classes.  Eventually I learned to do it—I could look at a piece of music and sing the notes, without accompaniment of any kind, not even chords to keep you in the right key.  I wasn’t any more perfect at it than I was at the piano, probably less, but I was musician enough to pass my tests, classes, and juries, and to make two college choruses and a women’s sextet.
            Most of the hymns in our books are written in standard major keys, with standard four part harmony.  They are nothing like the music I had to sightsing in college, so I can usually sightsing them without too much trouble.  It’s sort of like being asked to boil an egg when you have been making soufflés for four years--simple.  Most of the congregation, though, do not have the advantage of being trained musicians and they just sing it the way they first heard it, which in many cases was incorrect. That means that very often I stick out like a sore thumb (or a sour note).
            I have tried to sing what everyone else is singing just so I won’t, but I have trained myself so diligently that I can’t.  I’m a musician—I see the note, I sing what I see.  We were singing “When We All Get to Heaven,” the other day, and every time (at least three) I sang it right I created a clash that was hard to go unnoticed.  “Leaning on the Everlasting Arms” creates at least five such clashes.  With “Amazing Grace” the list is nearly as long as the song itself.
            But you know what?  While I don’t want to cause those clashes, my training makes it nearly impossible to sing the songs wrong, and my desire to please God by obeying His commands to sing makes it completely impossible for me to stop singing.
            Isn’t that the way life is supposed to be for a Christian?  You really don’t want to clash with your neighbors.  You really want to “live peaceably with all men.”  But you should have trained yourself so well that you find it nearly impossible to sin.  Sticking out like a sore thumb shouldn’t matter to you.  Yes, it may be difficult, but no one ever promised us “easy.”  We are supposed to be different from unbelievers.  We are supposed to “conform to the image of His Son,” not to the world. It should be a habit by now.
            Sometimes when I sing things correctly, but differently, I get funny looks.  Once, a song leader even went to the microphone when that section came up on the next verse so he could sing the (wrong) note loud and clear.  I guess he heard my different note on the first verse and it bugged him. 
            This coming Sunday morning, if you hear someone sing a different note than you are singing, maybe you should check the notes you are singing.  Then do something much more important.  Use it as a reminder to check your life.  Could anyone tell you apart from your neighbors, or do you blend right in?  Out there in the world, you should be sightsinging a completely different tune.
 
But the wisdom from above is first pure—then peaceable…James 3:17.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed…Rom 12:2.
 
Dene Ward

Living in the country has meant adapting.  In many ways it has been good for me.  The city girl found out she could learn and change, even though change is a thing I have never liked.  I love routine.  Now, after 43 years, it isn’t change, it’s just a new routine, and that helps when I have had many more changes in the past few years, and see more coming.
            One of the things I learned quickly was to make sure I had everything I needed to get by for the week.  A sixty to eighty mile round trip, depending upon which side of town what I need is on and how many other places I have to stop as well, doesn’t happen more than once a week even if you did forget the bread or run out of milk.  You learn to do without. You don’t change your mind about the menu unless you already have on hand the things the preferred dish needs.  When an unexpected guest arrives and you want to offer a meal, you put another potato in the pot, double the biscuit recipe, and get out another package of frozen garden corn, and if you didn’t plan dessert that night, you put the home-canned jellies and jams on the table to go with the biscuits.  So far, no one has complained.
            I have learned to be organized.  I do everything in one visit, and usually that coincides with a doctor appointment or a women’s Bible class.  I keep track of everything I run out of, or run low on, as the week progresses, and visit stores in the order that uses the least gas.  I keep staples well stocked.
            I have also learned that I don’t have to have everything I think I do.  The only store close to us is a tire store, about three miles down the country highway.  The man has been in business for 40 years.  Our children went to school with his, and somehow he has made a good living selling tires in the smallest county in Florida just outside a village that might have a population of 100 if you count the dogs.   But as far as shopping, it doesn’t do much for me.  You can’t try tires on, they don’t do much for the home décor, and window shopping is the pits.  So I don’t “shop.”
            Sometimes we become slaves to our culture.  We think we must wear certain things, go certain places and do things in a certain way because everyone else does.  We shop and buy because everyone does, not because we need it.  We go see the movies that “everyone” has seen.  We buy a cell phone because “everyone” has one nowadays—“it’s a necessity.”  We run down to the store every time we run out of something instead of carefully making a list of what we need and taking care of it in one, or at most two trips a week, wasting precious time and costing ourselves more money than we realize.  Everyone does, we say.  Maybe we should stop and think about that.
            Why?  First, because it never crosses our minds to be different than everyone.  Is it sinful?  Maybe not, but then why does something have to be sinful before I am willing to look at it and decide whether it is best for me and my situation?  Why am I so afraid to be different?  A Christian should have a mindset that is always looking at things in different ways than the rest of the world.  If I decide this is the best way to live (and not sinful), then fine, but I should, at the least, think about it.  Christians who always act without thinking will eventually do something wrong some time in the future. 
            Second, we are to be good stewards of everything God gives us, including time and money.  If we saved a little time, could we use it in service to God?  Could we offer help to someone in distress?  Would we have more time for visiting the sick and studying with neighbors?  If we saved those few dollars every week, could we give more to the Lord?  Could we help someone in need more often?  Could we be the ones who take a bag of groceries to a family in distress because that day we could buy for them instead of running to the store for yet something else we forgot?
            But we aren’t really talking about running down to the store here.  We’re talking about attitude and priorities—about doing the best we can for our Master in more than a haphazard way.  Paul says we are to “purpose,” or plan, our giving.  I have no doubt that doing so ensures a larger donation than merely waiting till the last minute to see what’s left in the bank or the wallet.  The same thing will be true if we plan our prayer time, study time, and service time.  Instead of running out of time for any of it, we will find ourselves making a habit of the things God expects of us.
            In a parable Jesus praised the steward who was “a faithful and wise manager,” who was always working, always serving, and able to get the appropriate things done at the appropriate time (Luke 12:42).  Those servants, he goes on to say, are always ready for the master’s return.  Are we ready, serving and working as many hours a day as possible as faithful stewards, or are we so disorganized that judgment day will find us at the checkout for the fifth time in a week, just to pick up a forgotten jug of milk?
 
As each has received a gift, use it to serve one another, as good stewards of God's varied grace: whoever speaks, as one who speaks oracles of God; whoever serves, as one who serves by the strength that God supplies--in order that in everything God may be glorified through Jesus Christ. To him belong glory and dominion forever and ever. Amen. (1Pe 4:10-11)
 
Dene Ward

This is one extremely practical book, and is meant to be that way as evidenced by its subtitle:  40 Conversations to Help Them Build a Lasting Faith.  When I read the foreword, by J. Warner Wallace, whose own Cold Case Christianity has become a popular staple in the Apologetics world, I was excited.  Here was a book we could use not only in family Bible studies, but perhaps in Bible classes or special Teen Weekends, as many call them these days.  In fact, some of my brethren need to read that foreword themselves as they seem to miss some vital points in their work with the young people of our congregations.  Mr. Wallace says the same and points to this book as the solution.
            The biggest problem with this book is that the author's theology often gets in the way of her advice.  You don't teach teenagers to be careful students of exactly what the Bible says, then turn around and twist passages like Mark 9:1 and say they don't really mean what they say because that makes premillennialism untrue.  And although she professes to believe in freewill, her Calvinism also causes her problems.  Some of her arguments are just as specious as the ones she is trying to counter from atheists.
            On the other hand, this can be used carefully as a guide in talking to your children about the things they will hear at school, on media, and from friends.  Several chapters contain a wealth of information that will save you a lot of time gathering for yourself.  My husband will in fact use some of it in the high school class he is teaching, but he has a great deal of knowledge gathered over decades and can find his way through the potholes.  We also have a son who has a degree in Apologetics to bounce some of these things off of.  If you use this book, be sure you use some of the same kind of resources to avoid problems.
            Keeping Your Kids on God's Side is published by Harvest House Publishers.
 
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

God must have loved formal worship services – he made so many of them.

God instructed Israel to meet for worship three times a year, Passover, Pentecost & Tabernacles. He gave exact prescription concerning the actions to be done at each. This was also done with other times of worship, such as the Day of Atonement, which was a week after the feast of Tabernacles. Attendance at these was not mandatory as it was with the three. In addition to required times, individuals or families could worship in special ways whenever they could afford to do so financially, sacrifices called peace offerings or free-will offerings.

If the things written aforetime “learn” us anything, we should see that God does not leave us adrift concerning how to worship him; it is not up to us. We are not allowed to choose actions that make us feel good.

On the screen at many churches, every Sunday the projector flashes that “Worship is 24 X 7 X 52.” Aside from simple math causing you to realize this would give you a day off every year, this is true. Rom 12:1 teaches that we are to present all the duties and works of our lives to God as worship every day.

Some have jumped to the conclusion that means that there is no formal worship or that there is no difference between that worship and that which one does during the week. Some even declare that actions reserved for the First Day in the New Testament may be done at any time.

Such attitudes surely come from careless or biased reading of the Scripture. Several times in the New Testament, God instructs what we are to do when we come together. These both imply that there should be a formal gathering and that things are to be done there that cannot be done on Thursday over supper at home. 1 Cor 5:4, they were not to withdraw from the disorderly separately but “in the name of the Lord Jesus, ye being gathered together” (1 Cor 5:4). The Apostle Paul makes it clear that the Lord’s Supper cannot be taken individually, but must be taken at a formal gathering of the church (1 Cor 11: 17 & 33). Further, He makes a clear distinction between “church” and “home” (1 Cor 11:22, 34).  

Again 1 Cor 14 repeatedly discusses what can be done in the assembling and what cannot. Vs 19 “in the church, I had rather…” Vs 23, "If therefore the whole church be assembled together" (sort of hard to fit the modern house church concept with gatherings all over the place into that!), Vs 26 "When ye come together"…. (these instructions may not apply to the 24 x 7 worship or women could never talk? Vs 34). In CONTEXT, "Keep silence" refers to spiritual gifts, not normal speech.  A man who can speak in tongues is to "keep silent" if there is no interpreter. First, he can talk, just not speak in tongues. Second, he can tongue speak at home all week if he chooses.

Paul commands a treasury for a church benevolent action in order that gatherings not be made when he arrives. If each keeps his treasury at home, then gatherings are needed on Paul’s arrival. That treasury was to be collected on the first day of the week (1 Cor 16:1-2).  We use this example as the only way God showed for the church to gather the funds needed for its works. Operating a business or other methods are not authorized for the church, though an individual may operate one and donate as much as he chooses to the church.

Just as in the Old Testament, God describes a formal worship, not 3 times a year, but weekly on the first day of the week. The New Testament includes things to be done in the manner he says. We can choose to do as Israel did and do our own thing, but we will cease to be Christ’s church.

In the past, it is possible that too much emphasis was placed on what happened at the assembling. (I do believe most of those people did a great job with daily worship, though they did not often call it that.) Now, as so often happens, the pendulum has swung the other way with the primary emphasis being placed on the daily worship and the formal assembling worship often down-rated in order to make that emphasis.

Both extremes are wrong.

Worship God in the Church Assembling. Worship God daily.

If therefore the whole church be assembled together…. if all prophesy, and there come in one unbelieving or unlearned, he is reproved by all, he is judged by all; the secrets of his heart are made manifest; and so he will fall down on his face and worship God, DECLARING THAT GOD IS AMONG YOU INDEED.  (1Cor 14:23-25).

Keith Ward

All summer I had been watching those monarch butterflies flit over my flower beds. Every couple of days I carefully checked the herb garden twenty feet away for signs of their caterpillars.  That’s what I read somewhere—that monarch butterfly caterpillars are the dreaded parsley worms that can wreak havoc on that herb almost overnight.  Nothing happened.  My parsley grew well and was never infested.  Somehow I got off easy this year.  I thought.
            Then in mid-October we went away for a week.  We returned on a Friday night, after dark, too late to see much but the back porch by the light hanging outside the back door.  The next morning we stepped out for a stroll and saw what had happened.  Every sprig of parsley was completely bare, only the bright green stems sticking up completely naked—except here and there for the bright green worm still clinging to the bush it had just decimated.  I am not so paranoid as to think that somehow they all got together and planned the attack for while we were away, but it was certainly suspicious.
            Satan, on the other hand, is perfectly capable of planning his attacks that way.  He waits until we are most vulnerable.  He waits until we have experienced a crisis in our lives, until we are frustrated by circumstances, until our defenses are down, and then he zooms in for the kill.  Being on the alert when you are tired and hurt is not easy, but that is exactly what we must do, standing guard as a soldier in the Lord’s army. 
            One of the greatest benefits of being in the family of God is having people who care enough to watch your back.  All of us should be aware of the crises in our brothers and sisters’ lives.  Too often we are so consumed with our own affairs that we don’t have time to watch out for others, and that means we are too consumed, period.  Then we wonder how a brother could fall so far, why a sister was caught up in such a sin, why a family has “suddenly” disappeared from among us.  How in the world could those things have happened?  They happened in part because everyone was too busy to notice.
            What do you do when announcements are made in the assembly?  Is that when you spend your time arranging your books, glasses, and children on the pew, the time you flip to the first song and look through it, the time you know you can spend a little longer in the ladies’ room before you need to be seated?  Those announcements should be your greatest tool the next week as you figure out what you need to do for whom, how you can encourage a brother or sister in distress, what you might say to one whose soul is in danger.  How much do you hear when you are finishing up a conversation that has no bearing on a soul, or racing to your pew before the first song begins?  Those pieces of news are about service, and that is the most important part of a Christian’s life, considering one another…Heb 10:24.
            Be aware of the timing in the lives of others too.  Is it the first anniversary of a widow’s loss?  Is it a season that makes being alone that much harder for the single?  Are ordeals approaching in people’s lives that might make them more prone to Satan’s attacks?  We have a job to do; we have service to offer; we have comfort to give and sometimes exhortation and rebuke when we see those attacks making progress in the lives of another.
            If we see them.  If we care.  If we aren’t so wrapped up in ourselves that we miss the attacks and wake up one morning to an almost overnight slaughter in the garden of God.
 
Wherefore lift up the hands that hang down, and the palsied knees; and make straight paths for your feet, that that which is lame be not turned out of the way, but rather be healed, Hebrews 12:12-13.
 
Dene Ward

I have been teaching Bible classes since I was sixteen, to literally hundreds of women and children in over a dozen different locations, in several different venues.  Sometimes I wish I could go back and apologize to those early classes.  Experience has taught me so much.  This particular experience has probably happened to every teacher everywhere, probably more than once.
            A sensitive topic was on the agenda so I approached it with more than a little trepidation and a lot of prayer.  What I was about to tell them is no longer popular in the world.  I had prepared myself for possible objections, and steeled myself to stay calm and give thoughtful answers in a calm voice.  Oddly enough, when you defend the word of God, it should never sound “defensive.”
            A few weeks later, one of the young women wrote me a note.  She told me she had not agreed with everything I said, but that she had learned things she never knew before that would affect her views from then on.  She said she was likely to change her mind on some as she considered the things I had presented.  She thanked me for the time and effort I had taken to teach that study.  I still have that note, and always will.
            Contrast this to another young woman who, as the subject was presented, began to seethe.  She compressed her lips into a thin line and narrowed her eyes in contempt.  As soon as I took a breath, she raised her voice, and accused me of judging her personally.  She told me I was wrong in a tone of voice I would not have used on an enemy.  Then she folded her arms, sat as crossways as she could away from my general direction, and lifted her chin defiantly.  I doubt she heard anything else I had to say.
            It was an important topic that should not be avoided, and really, to be responsible before God as a teacher of His word, I could not have avoided it.  No names were mentioned.  I knew no one’s personal history.  I carefully said at the beginning, “I am not aiming this at anyone here because I do not know you that well.”  By her own actions, this person identified herself to all as one who had the problem, and by her own actions she told me that she would not even consider that she might be wrong.  
            I have far more confidence in the first woman’s continuing faith than the second.  I only hope that by making such a big deal out of it herself, that the latter will remember it and perhaps reconsider in spite of herself.  Her problem, you see, was pride.  She wasn’t wrong simply because she couldn’t be wrong.
            But he gives more grace.  Therefore it says, “God resists the proud, but gives grace to the humble,” James 4:6.  That word “resist” is a military term.  It means “to range in battle against,” according to W. E. Vine.  It means you are going to war against God.
            Matthew Henry says it like this:  “In his understanding [the proud man] resists the truth of God; in his will, he resists the law of God, in his passions, he resists the providence of God.”  How many other ways can God reach us?  If we resist all these things because of pride, we will never find his grace.
            I found so many passages where God talks about destroying the proud that I lost count.  Sometimes it was individuals.  Sometimes it was a small group like the church at Corinth.  Sometimes it was the general personality of a nation, like Edom and Moab.  People who are proud will never find God, because they will never admit their need for Him.
            It can all be seen in something as small as a Bible study.  That first listener is far more likely to experience the grace of God.  She is open-minded and willing to listen, and most of all, she is willing to consider that she might possibly be wrong about something.  Peter refers to the same scripture as James in 1 Pet 5:5,6.  Notice, however, the context of this reference. 
            Likewise, you who are younger, be subject to the elder. Clothe yourselves, all of you, with humility toward one another, for "God opposes the proud but gives grace to the humble." Humble yourselves, therefore, under the mighty hand of God so that at the proper time he may exalt you.
            Though he begins by speaking about the elders in particular (5:1-3), he gradually moves on to the more general “older” and “younger.”  As with the constant urging in the book of Proverbs from which the original passage comes (3:34), he expects us to learn from those who are older, who have more knowledge, and more experience.  Perhaps they are wrong, but if we instantly dismiss them because they disagree with us, how can we ever hope to find out?  It all reminds me of children who look at a new dish and say, “I don’t like that,” when they have never even tasted it.  Childish, indeed, and so are we when we are too proud to listen and study because, “I’ve never heard that before, so it can’t be right.”
            Is anything worth missing out on the grace of God?  When it is asking too much of us to say, “I was wrong about that,” or even, “I might be wrong about that,” it will be asking too much of God to say, “Enter in…”
 
Talk no more so very proudly, let not arrogance come from your mouth; for the LORD is a God of knowledge, and by him actions are weighed. 1 Sam 2:3.
 
Dene Ward

Last spring, just like every spring for the past 37 years, we planted the garden. That early in the year, the heat is not bad, the humidity is low, and the sub-tropical sun leaves us with only a moderate sunburn.  We came in with dirty clothes and aching backs, sat down together, leaned forward with crossed fingers on each hand held tightly at our temples, squeezed our eyes shut and said, “I hope, I hope, please, please, please grow.” 
            Do you for one minute believe that?  No, we counted five days ahead, and then went out that evening and looked for what we were sure would be there, seedlings poking their heads through the clods of earth, and sure enough, there they were.
            Our definition of hope is very much as I described, like a couple of middle school girls who “hope” a certain cute boy will look their way, or a teacher will change the due date on a big project, or a “mean” girl won’t spread some sort of embarrassing news about them.  “Please, please, please, maybe, maybe, maybe.”  That is not the Bible definition of hope. 
            I knew that, but I am not sure how much I really understood it until I did a study on hope and found passage after passage that made it abundantly clear.
            …Waiting for our blessed hope, Titus 2:13.  That’s “waiting” like waiting for the bus at the regular stop, not like you just walked out one morning with absolutely no knowledge of the city transit system, sat down on the side of the road and “hoped” you had guessed right.
            …The full assurance of hope, Heb 6:11, not just a hint that it might be possible, but completely sure it will happen.
            Hope is a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, Heb 6:19.  How would you like to use the hope we often express as a “maybe” as your anchor in the middle of a storm?
            …Hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised, Titus 1:2. 
            Peter says that our salvation is “ready to be revealed,” 1 Pet 1:5, a salvation he makes synonymous to the “hope” in verse 3.  It’s like a portrait on an easel covered by a satin cloth, just waiting for the unveiling.  God has prepared that salvation “from the foundation of the world,” Matt 25:34.  No one is up there still hammering away on the off chance it might be ready when you need it.  It is already there, available whenever the Lord decides to give it.  Sure.  Certain.  There is nothing cross-your-fingers “maybe, maybe, maybe,” about it.
            Farming is tricky enough with weather, pests, and plant diseases abounding.  If a man had to wonder whether or not a seed would sprout where he planted it, who would ever even try?  Paul uses that very example in 1 Cor 9:10: for our sake it was written that he who plows ought to plow in hope, and he who threshes to thresh in hope of partaking.
            Our hope is like planting seeds.  They will come up, and it will come about.  It’s time we left middle school behind with its string of maybes, and became adults who understand the assuredness of our hope, and then use that certainty to strengthen us in whatever situations life holds.
 
Now our Lord Jesus Christ himself, and God our Father who loved us and gave us eternal comfort and good hope through grace, comfort your hearts and establish them in every good work and word,  2 Thessalonians 2:16-17.
 
Dene Ward

I just put a pear pie in the oven, one with a cheddar streusel crust.  I also flavored it with ginger, which seems to have a natural affinity for pears.  If it had been an apple pie, I would have used cinnamon while a cherry pie would have called for almond flavoring.  Some flavors just go well together.  Chocolate and caramel, chocolate and mint, tomatoes and basil, onions and peppers.  A chicken salad does well with tarragon while tuna salad needs dill.  They are natural pairings and any cook of even small experience will soon pick up on them.
            I think as Christians we should have a natural affinity for certain things too.  I would never be comfortable in a bar. I am even a little uncomfortable when a neighbor invites us over for a gathering when I know they will serve alcohol.  I am uncomfortable around people whose language is inappropriate.  I am uncomfortable around people whose dress is less than modest.  It is not that I think myself better than the people who do these things.  Would those same people be comfortable in a gathering of Christians who, after enjoying a potluck meal together, gathered up some hymnals and began to sing?  Of course they wouldn't, but does that mean they would think themselves better than those people?  Then why should that same accusation be made of Christians?
            Romans 8 tells us that we should have a spiritual mindset rather than a carnal one (8:5-8—bear in mind that the capital S there was put in by the translators and could just as well be a lower case s).  If a person's mind is set on spiritual things, he will have a natural affinity for spiritual things.  And, of course, the opposite is true as well.  The mindset we choose is up to us.  Repentance can change that mindset, but, just like a new cook needs time to learn flavor combinations that work well, it will probably take a while to reap the benefits of the new natural pairings of a spiritual mind.  Gradually, it should become easier until it reaches the point that it seems natural.
            Ask yourself today what things you are uncomfortable with.  Is there anything at all?  A Christian with a carnal mindset is an oxymoron.  You might as well slather a beautiful red velvet cake with garlic frosting.
 
If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God (Col 3:1-3).
 
Dene Ward

Whenever I see those commercials touting the ability to order your contact lenses online and get them the next day, I want to laugh.  If you can do that, thank your Heavenly Father for the vision you still have and don't complain.  Only two labs in the whole world can create the contact lenses I need.

That means an optician is out of the question for me.  I need a real doctor to fit my strange little eyeballs.  They say I have a 16 eye and a 15 eye.  That's shorthand for millimeters, and doesn't take into account the tenths.  When they are that size the tenths don't really matter.  It's a condition called "nanophthalmos."  If you have a normal sized eyeball, it is 26-28 mm.  Nanophthalmos begins at 20 mm, and it skews all the formulas and makes every procedure much more difficult and risky the lower that number goes.

Because of all the procedures and surgeries I have had, my eyes no longer have the same, or nearly the same, vision.  In the old, pre-surgery days, the corrections in my lenses were +17.25 for the right and +15.50 for the left, a difference of less than 2 points.  Once you hit a difference of 4 or more, any sort of correction for both eyes at the same time in a pair of glasses leads to double vision.  My eyes are now right at a 4 point difference.  I can either wear correction on one eye only, or I can wear contacts, which somehow do not have the same problem as glasses.  Of course, I am wearing contacts, the only way to have even halfway normal vision.  (Neither eye can be corrected to 20/20.)  If I become too old or ill to handle contacts, I will be in a mess as far as my vision goes, assuming I still have it, which is always in question.

Sometimes my vision is a bit off because of the difference.  Usually, the brain takes over and the eye that is causing the problem is automatically blocked out.  And when I wear OTC reading glasses, that always happens because the lenses are the same correction, meaning one eye can hardly see at all.  I suppose it all sounds complicated and aggravating, but I am used to it now and only think about what I can see, not what I cannot see, and thanking God that he has sent me to some amazing doctors.

I am afraid some of us have a spiritual optometrist.  We go to him for specialty lenses that we really ought not to wear at all.  We talked not long ago about "Super Hero Glasses," the ones that let you look at Bible characters as being far above our abilities and therefore excuse ourselves from even trying to follow their examples.  (See post on 4/26/24.)  The Jews must have worn those.  They prided themselves on being Abraham's children, but never acted like that faithful obedient man themselves (John 8:39).  Being his children means acting like him, Jesus reminded them, and then called them children of the Devil instead.

Sometimes we ask for glasses that block out the necessary and keep us distracted with things of this world.  The eye is the lamp of the body. So, if your eye is healthy, your whole body will be full of light, ​but if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If then the light in you is darkness, how great is the darkness! ​“No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money (Matt 6:22-24).  Money is just one of those distractions.  Add to it things like entertainment, things that are not necessarily sinful but which eat up our time, taking our focus from the spiritual.

And some of us ask for bifocals that see the errors and faults of others, but which, like my brain automatically blocks out the bad, will block out our own faults.  ​Why do you see the speck that is in your brother's eye, but do not notice the log that is in your own eye? (Luke 6:41), Jesus might ask us. And we would have to say that we had those glasses specially made to do just that.

Then there are those who buy the lenses that will strike out any command of Jesus that we find offensive.  What did he have to say about that?  Then the disciples came and said to him, “Do you know that the Pharisees were offended when they heard this saying?” He answered, “Every plant that my heavenly Father has not planted will be rooted up. Let them alone; they are blind guides. And if the blind lead the blind, both will fall into a pit (Matt 15:12-14).  Something we might do well to remember the next time we find a sermon not to our liking.  We might manage to get rid of the preacher in our self-serving complaints, but it won't change the result of wearing those types of lenses.

And along those lines, we might ask for lenses that completely block out anything that doesn't suit us, that goes against what we have always believed, or that we cannot seem to comprehend.  Even the Spirit of truth, whom the world cannot receive, because it neither sees him nor knows him…(John 14:17), and, For judgment I came into this world, that those who do not see may see, and those who see may become blind. Some of the Pharisees near him heard these things, and said to him, “Are we also blind?” Jesus said to them, “If you were blind, you would have no guilt; but now that you say, ‘We see,’ your guilt remains" (John 9:39-41).

I could go on and on because inability to see plain Truth is mentioned again and again as various ones reject Jesus, God, and their messengers.  It is so easy to put on those glasses, not corrective lenses, but those that actually inhibit your spiritual eyesight.  Do you realize who that optometrist is who is giving you these glasses?  It is you.  It is me.  We create them ourselves, preening in the mirrors to see how they look on us, and what we mistakenly believe they will help us see. 
 
And even if our gospel is veiled, it is veiled to those who are perishing. In their case the god of this world has blinded the minds of the unbelievers, to keep them from seeing the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God. For what we proclaim is not ourselves, but Jesus Christ as Lord, with ourselves as your servants for Jesus' sake. For God, who said, “Let light shine out of darkness,” has shone in our hearts to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ (2Cor 4:3-6).
 
Dene Ward