Entitlements are the biggest government programs in the US.  In 2016, the Social Security program cost $916 billion, Medicare $595 billion, Medicaid an estimated $651 billion and all other welfare programs an estimated $433 billion.  What began as an almost negligible part of the national debt in 1900 is now an estimated 17% of all national spending.

              When did this happen?  The largest jump in entitlement spending occurred during the Great Society programs of 1964-65, but most people trace the root back to the Depression and Roosevelt's New Deal programs.  Just to have a date, the Social Security Act was passed January 17, 1935, with the creation of the original "Welfare", AFDC, and the relief programs we have today.  At that time "relief" was $18 per month for one child and $12 per additional child.

              Entitlement programs are not necessarily bad.   When a man has had his wages taxed his whole life, I see little wrong with his picking up a Social Security check.  He is, theoretically, just getting his money back, money he loaned to the government for their use and which they are returning.  But entitlement in general has become a bad word.  To most of us it means "the belief that one is inherently deserving of special treatment," and not because it is earned.

              I wish I had a nickel for every conservative politician, even every Christian, I’ve heard complaining about people who have entitlement issues.  The ones who act like the world owes them a living; like they should never have to reap the consequences of their sown wild oats; who think that having money or, interestingly enough, NOT having money, makes them exempt from the laws of the land.  While I find myself agreeing with most of those opinions, I also see this:  every one of them, politician and Christian alike, has an entitlement issue of his own.

              First there is the husband who wants everything done in a certain way, even if it is a lot more work for his wife; who demands certain foods cooked a certain way and served with certain other foods or he refuses to eat it; who requires every item of clothing pressed, even if they are permanent press and no one else will know the difference; who wants his big boy toys because he’s “worked hard and earned it,” even if it means others in the family will do without needs.  After all, he is the head of the house.

              Then there is the wife who wants everything the neighbors have, even if the neighbor makes a lot more money; who thinks she must have plenty of time and money allotted for preening; who considers sacrificing for her family a kind of torture; who believes that life is for recreation and begrudges every minute she must spend caring for the children or keeping the house or cooking meals; who recites her list of woes to anyone who will listen every time she has the opportunity so she can be properly pitied and praised for dealing with them.  After all no one should have to go without a new pair of shoes for every outfit.

              And don’t forget the children these two raise:  selfish, materialistic whiners who are never satisfied; who think that their parents owe them every new electronic gizmo the world creates; and who never once utter the word, “Thank you,” much less actually treat their parents with enough respect and courtesy to even look up from their phones and carry on a civil conversation.  After all, they didn’t ask to be born so they deserve everything they want to make up for it.

              Do you think these attitudes hasn’t invaded the church?  Where do you think we get those members who refuse to do as they are asked for the sake of visitors from the community?  Why, no one can have my perfect parking place (under the shade tree) or my perfect seat (in the rear).  Why do you think we have people who treat their precious opinions like the first principles of Christianity—basic and undeniable, and shame on anyone who isn’t as enlightened as I am?  Where do they come from, the people who will raise an argument about the trivial just to show their smarts and regardless of who may need the larger point being made?  Or the ones who, when they suffer, raise their fists at God and complain, “I’ve served you all my life.  Why me?” as if they could have ever earned any blessing at all?

              And why do you think we have such a hard time overcoming a single besetting sin?  “That’s just the way I am,” we think, as if the Lord should count Himself blessed to have us and overlook it.

              Yes, we are all guilty.  And what does Jesus have to say about that when he hears us pontificating about “those people” with entitlement issues?

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? Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ when there is the log in your own eye? You hypocrite, first take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother's eye, Matt 7:3-5.

              Be careful the next time you rant about entitlement.
 
Dene Ward

I don’t remember exactly when it was, but I remember the light bulb that went off in my head.  I have taught women’s Bible studies for well over forty years now.  We never have the hen parties or gossip fests that many are accused of.  We study. We learn.  We grow.  I am so proud of my women I could burst.

              One of the biggest blessings of sitting in a good women’s class is finding out that many marriages are like yours, and so are many husbands, at least in some ways.  That is the light bulb moment I spoke of. 

              We were studying Hannah and shaking our heads at Elkanah, who was the typical oblivious man.  Despite the fact that the scriptures call Hannah and Peninnah “rivals,” the same word used in Num 10:9, “when you go to war against an enemy,” he either didn’t notice the obvious tension in the household or he thought it trivial. 

              “Why are you so upset?” he asked Hannah.  “Aren’t I better to you than ten sons?”  That was supposed to not only assuage a bitter conflict in his home, but overcome a cultural stigma that weighed on Hannah every hour of every day.  Really?

              My first inclination was to call him an egomaniac (“aren’t I better…?”), then unfeeling, or at best clueless.  But another woman pointed out that he obviously loved Hannah.  Look at the special way he treated her, and the point he made of doing it before others when the family offered sacrifices at the tabernacle.  A real jerk wouldn’t have done that.  He was simply being a man.

              So, over the years, we have learned to point out “man things.”  We say to our younger women, “He didn’t mean anything by it, honey.  It’s a man thing.”  The point isn’t that men do not necessarily need to learn to do better, but that women need to stop judging them unfairly, as if every time they do one of those things, they are deliberately setting out to hurt them.  Nonsense!  They have no idea they are hurting you.  They love you and if they did think it might hurt you, they wouldn’t do it.  That little bit of wisdom has brought a lot of us through some tricky moments in our marriages.

              Unfortunately, we do that to one another in the church too.  It can’t be that nothing was meant about us specifically when a comment was made—it simply must have been meant as an insult or a hurtful barb.  It escapes us that we are talking about people who love one another, and even though we are supposed to be loving them too, we automatically assume the worst.  It is the worst kind of egotism to imagine that every time anyone speaks or acts they have me in mind.

              I tried to look this attitude up in a topical Bible and do you know where I found it?  Under “uncharitable” and “judgmental.”  Isaiah talks about people “who by a word make a man out to be an offender” (29:20,21).  Isn’t that what we are doing when we behave in such a paranoid fashion?  It isn’t anything new.  People have been making false judgments, jumping to the worst conclusions possible, for as long as there have been people.

              What did the Israelites say to Moses?  “You brought us out here to die” (Ex 14:11,12).  Really?  He certainly put himself to a lot of unnecessary grief if that was his purpose.  He could have just left them in Egypt and they certainly would have died as oppressed slaves.

              Eli watched Hannah pray at the tabernacle where she and her family had come to worship and accused her of being drunk (1 Sam 1:14-17).   Talk about being uncharitable.

              Actions like those do not come from a heart of love.  Love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, 1 Cor 13:7, which means I put the best construction on every word or action of another, not the worst.  It means I am concerned about how I treat them in my judgment of them, rather than being concerned with how they are treating me.  If I am not careful, I may be the one with the ulterior motives.
 
Hatred stirs up strife, but love covers all offenses, Prov 10:12.
             
Dene Ward
 

This begins a series by guest writer Lucas Ward on the "One Another" Commands.  You will find them in the middle of the month for the next several months.

God could have saved us through the sacrifice of His Son and then left each of us to find our way to heaven on our own. In His wisdom, however, He created the church so we’d have a family of believers to help us make it. The church was designed to be a family. A place where we don’t have to be as on guard as we do out in the world. A place to receive encouragement as we battle temptations. A place where the older can teach the younger (Titus 2) and where we can find others who have been through what we are currently suffering and can offer advice and exhortation. This family, when it runs as God intended, is far more supportive than most physical families. Unfortunately, men have corrupted God’s family, often acting as if it were an institution where they can garner power, influence and/or wealth. Other local branches spend more time fighting among themselves than they do supporting each other. It is no wonder so much of the New Testament is instruction for how we should be getting along with each other. Depending on exactly how you count it, there are 51 passages in the NT specifically about how we should (or should not) treat one another which use that phrase, “one another”. If nothing else, all the references to “one another” should emphasize that we are connected. We are not individuals; we are of each other, part of a group. The 51 passages encompass 22 different commands about how we treat one another. Everything from forgiveness to exhortation; from kisses to admonishment; from not lying to not “biting and devouring” one another. The most basic command, which is really the underpinning of all the other instructions, is that we are to love one another. If we get that right, all the others will fall into place; if we fail to love, no amount of teaching on the other commands will accomplish anything.

The first thing to note about love is that it is a first principle. 1 John 3:11 “For this is the message that you have heard from the beginning, that we should love one another.” John says that the instruction they heard from the first was to love. One of the first things taught to new Christians by the Apostles themselves was love. He repeats himself in his second epistle: 2 John 1:5 “And now I ask you, dear lady—not as though I were writing you a new commandment, but the one we have had from the beginning—that we love one another.” A lot of churches have “first principle” classes for new converts to teach them the basics of Christianity. According to John, loving each other should be prominent in that class’s curriculum.

That leads right into the next point. Obedience to the truth leads to love. 1 Pet. 1:22 “Seeing ye have purified your souls in your obedience to the truth unto unfeigned love of the brethren, love one another from the heart fervently.” Obedience to the truth was “unto” love of the brethren. That is the result of obeying the truth. Notice what else Peter says about brotherly love here: it is to be from the heart. In our culture, we think of the heart as the seat of emotions and so might get the idea that we are to be emotionally attached to our brothers. In the first century, however, the heart was not considered the seat of emotions, but the seat of reason. One thought with the heart. So, the command to love our brothers from the heart isn’t a directive to gooey feelings, but rather to decide to love our brothers by doing what they need. Choose to do good for them. Remember that the famous description of love in 1 Cor. 13 is all about actions. Choose with your heart to love your brothers and sisters and do for them what they need.
Connected to the idea that obeying truth leads to love is the fact that God teaches love. 1 Thess. 4:9 “But concerning love of the brethren ye have no need that one write unto you: for ye yourselves are taught of God to love one another”. Love is from God and is basic to Christianity.

Love fulfills the Law. Rom. 13:8-10 “Owe no one anything, except to love each other, for the one who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, "You shall not commit adultery, You shall not murder, You shall not steal, You shall not covet," and any other commandment, are summed up in this word: "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." Love does no wrong to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfilling of the law.” I really enjoy that Paul cites examples of the ten commandments to prove his point. If you love your brother, you won’t murder him. (!) You won’t steal his wife, nor his possessions. Love fulfills the law. If we love each other God as teaches us, we won’t need detailed instructions on how to live our lives.

Our love for each other should continue to grow. 1 Thess. 3:12 “and may the Lord make you increase and abound in love for one another and for all, as we do for you”. In this epistle, Paul praises the Thessalonians for their love, but he urges them to continue to increase in that virtue. The word “abound” in this passage means to be over and above. It is also translated as “exceed” and “enough and to spare.” So, our love should not be just barely enough to get by, but should be overflowing toward each other. We should continue to increase in how we show our love to each other. Again, love is action; it is doing for each other. Also notice from the context of this verse that Paul’s next visit combined with their growing love for each other would establish their hearts. Continually growing love of the brethren was as important as an apostolic visit to their continued spiritual health.

Twice Jesus told His apostles to love each other as He had loved them. First was in John 13:34-35 “A new commandment I give to you, that you love one another: just as I have loved you, you also are to love one another. By this all people will know that you are my disciples, if you have love for one another." Given that His second admonition to love in chapter 15 is clearly linked to the crucifixion, I believe that this particular command was looking back on how He had loved them during His earthly life. Earlier that evening He had humbled Himself to wash their feet. Throughout their association, He had chosen them, taught them, live with them, and was patient with them. Essentially, He put their needs above His wants. That is what He is teaching them to do now. Put each other’s needs above the wants of self. Also, note that love is to be the defining characteristic of Jesus’s disciples. All will know that we are His if we love each other. That, however, logically means that all will know that we aren’t His if we don’t love each other. A church might sing without instrumental music, organize itself according to the NT pattern, and only use its monies as taught in the NT but if they don’t love each other, they aren’t a “sound” congregation. According to Him, not me.

The second time Jesus instructed His apostles to love as He did was in John 15:12-13 "This is my commandment, that you love one another as I have loved you. Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends.” Despite the past tense, this is clearly looking forward to the cross as Jesus mentions dying for others. (Incidentally, God regularly spoke of future events in the past tense in the OT to emphasize how certain His promises were. Jesus doing this here might be yet another indication of His deity.) He died for us. We are to love as He did. We are to love our brethren more than our own lives. They are to be first in everything.

Finally, we cannot please God unless we love one another. 1 John 3:23 “And this is his commandment, that we believe in the name of his Son Jesus Christ and love one another, just as he has commanded us.” The context here is that we are pleasing to God and can ask Him for whatever we need because we keep His commandments. Then the commandment is listed as believing in the Son and loving one another. Wait, did the Holy Spirit through John just put loving one another on a par with believing in the name of Jesus? Yes, He did. Can I be a Christian if I don’t believe that Jesus is the Son of God? No, I can’t. Can I be a Christian if I don’t love my brethren? According to this passage, no, I can’t. Then there’s 1 John 4:7-8 “Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love.” If I am born of God and know God, I love. If I don’t love I don’t know God. I can’t please Him if I don’t love. Again, in 1 John 4:11, “Beloved, if God so loved us, we also ought to love one another.” John has just stated that God’s love led Him to sending His Son to die for us and to be a propitiation of our sins. If He loved us that much, surely we can love each other. And if I can’t love my brother, aren’t I casting aspersions on God’s judgement? If I judge Brother So-and-So to be unlovable, and I know that God has loved him so completely, then I’m setting my judgement up against God’s, aren’t I? “God made a mistake in loving that jerk!” I might want to be careful in acting in a way that posits that idea. Finally, there is 1 John 4:12 “No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us.” God abides in us only if we love each other. If we want God to be with us, we must love our brethren. Also notice that God’s love for us is only perfected, or completed when we love each other. God loved us, which caused us to love Him, and then taught us to love each other. So, it is God’s love which leads us to love each other, and the work of God’s love isn’t finished until we do love each other.

Don’t leave God’s work unfinished. Love one another.


Lucas Ward

We had headed out on our trip to Apalachicola in the middle of the week, in late October.  Since Keith retired we have discovered the best times for traveling are any time but the week-end.  Less traffic, fewer tourists vying for the same sights, food, and lodging.  And our own Inn was less expensive midweek, so our gift certificate went further.

              We had decided to take US 98 west along the coast.  As a born and bred Florida girl it seemed a shame that I had never in my life made that trip, winding around on two lane roads bordering the Gulf, watching the waves through and beneath the stilted beach houses, swaying sea oats, and sand dunes.  We prepared ourselves to be relaxed and patient and enjoy the brand new scenery despite miles and miles of bumper to bumper tourist traffic.

              So we headed out early, stopping in Branford, a small town on the Suwannee River with a café featuring an excellent breakfast, including the biggest, fluffiest, tastiest biscuits I had eaten in any café anywhere—the Branford Gathering, if you care to know.  We took our time there, as well, chatting up the waitress about their lunch and evening meals, asking her favorite dish and the best times to eat each of those meals—just in case.

              Then we crossed that fabled river and headed through "Old Florida," not the glitzy Florida of amusement parks, tourist traps, and high end hotels.  This was more like the Florida I grew up in, though decidedly more wooded than central Florida.  The sun flashed metronomically through pencil thin pine forests.  Logging trucks sat rumbling by the side of the road in deep muddy ruts awaiting their load of logs before pulling out on the two lane blacktop.  Pickups passed going the opposite direction, some pulling horse trailers, some boats, and others farm equipment.  Up ahead we would see a green sign telling us we were entering a town—Cabbage Grove, Scanlon, Newport--only to find a convenience store or a gas station, and little else.

              Finally we turned south toward the Gulf, wondering when the traffic would begin.  We wondered that for mile after mile, even after we gained sight of the water.  We kept trundling along at the speed limit, on cruise control, in fact, never once having to hit the brakes for another vehicle.  Somewhere around Carabelle we picked up a car or two ahead of us, but it was probably Eastpoint before we really had any traffic.  As a result we arrived about two hours earlier than we expected, and had absolutely no trouble finding our inn.  We came across the bridge at the mouth of the Apalachicola River and there it stood.

              Apalachicola is a slow, lazy, Southern town.  Diagonal street parking, a lone blinking yellow light, more pedestrians than vehicles and not that many of them.  After finding our room and unpacking, we went for a hike and quickly found the Visitors' Center.  We were the only visitors there.  And that may be the first place we came across the nickname of that area of Florida's Big Bend—the Forgotten Coast.

              You may be thinking, especially if you are not a Floridian, "Forgotten?  Who ever heard of it in the first place?"  As it turns out, Apalachicola was once a very important place.  Between 1840 and 1860 it was the third busiest cotton port on the Gulf, after New Orleans and Mobile.  By 1860 the population was nearly 2000.  And now?  The population in 2010 was still just over 2200.  The railroad no longer runs from Columbus, Georgia, with its tons of cotton, and Apalachicola is suddenly not as important as it used to be.  Shrimpers and oystermen still work the waters, supplying 90% of the oysters consumed in the state.  But without the railroad, the cotton, and the ships offshore waiting for those bales, the town, even the whole coast, never continued growing.  It has become "Forgotten."

              When something is no longer an important part of our lives, we tend to "forget" it.  Not that we really cannot remember it happening, just that we seldom think about it, and certainly never plan our lives around it.  That's what happened to God.  His people "forgot" him.

              God warned them that might happen.  And when the LORD your God brings you into the land that he swore to your fathers, to Abraham, to Isaac, and to Jacob, to give you—with great and good cities that you did not build, and houses full of all good things that you did not fill, and cisterns that you did not dig, and vineyards and olive trees that you did not plant—and when you eat and are full, then take care lest you forget the LORD, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery. (Deut 6:10-12)

              And sure enough, even that warning did them no good.  But I am the LORD your God from the land of Egypt; you know no God but me, and besides me there is no savior. ​It was I who knew you in the wilderness, in the land of drought; ​but when they had grazed, they became full, they were filled, and their heart was lifted up; therefore they forgot me. (Hos 13:4-6)

              I wonder if we don't need the same warning.  We live in prosperous times.  Most of us are so wealthy we don't even realize it.  "Busyness" has become a status symbol in itself.  And so our extra classes die on the vine because no one attends, the older men who offer their help in study sit alone and waiting for all the ones who never show up, and our children complain because doing a Bible lesson is "boring."  A very few good women take care of every need among the saints while others have their families, or their careers, or their "me time."

              Do we realize how dangerous this is?  My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge; because you have rejected knowledge, I reject you from being a priest to me. And since you have forgotten the law of your God, I also will forget your children. (Hos 4:6)  When God is no longer the center of our lives, when pleasing him is no longer our purpose, when knowing more and more about him and his Word so we can serve him even better is considered extraneous, when serving his people is the last thing on our lists and therefore usually undone, we are forgetting God just as those people did so long ago.

              A God whom the Old Testament describes as one whose "lovingkindness endures forever" again and again, eventually ran out of patience with a people who no longer valued him or his law.  Don't think his patience won't run out on us.
 
I will scatter you like chaff driven by the wind from the desert. ​This is your lot, the portion I have measured out to you, declares the LORD, because you have forgotten me…(Jer 13:24-25)
 
Dene Ward

This was according to the eternal purpose that he has realized in Christ Jesus our Lord, in whom we have boldness and access with confidence through our faith in him, Ephesians 3:11-12.
 
              Ho-hum, I thought as I grabbed the concordance to look up yet another word in our study of faith.  Expecting to see that “boldness” was also translated courage, bravery, or some other obvious synonym, I found myself sitting up at attention instead. 
              This word for boldness is not the usual word.  This one actually means boldness of speech.  In fact, the one Greek word is translated by those three English words more than once as in 2 Cor 3:12, “Having therefore such a hope, we use great boldness of speech.”  If you have a modern translation, as I did my ESV that day, you will miss it.  Pull out your old 1901 ASV and you will see the three word phrase.  Then pull out your King James, “ …we use great plainness of speech.”
              That means, according to that verse at the top, you can talk freely—and plainly—to God.  You don’t have to worry that God will take things the wrong way.  You don’t have to worry that God will misinterpret your meaning.  You don’t have to worry that He will take offense like some people who make a career out of getting their feelings hurt.
              When you are disappointed, you can talk to Him.
              When you are depressed and discouraged, you can talk to Him.
              When you are mad, you can talk to Him.
              When you want to ask why, you can.
              When you want to feel a little sorry for yourself, you can.
              When you need to vent, you can.
              God says, be plain, be bold, tell me what you need to tell me—I am here for you.
              That verse in Ephesians says we can do this because of faith.  If you don’t believe God cares this much for you, that He will listen to anything and everything, that He actually wants you to feel free to talk to Him, then somewhere your faith is lacking. 
              It isn’t faith to say, God doesn’t want to hear this.
              It isn’t faith to say, my problems are too small to bother God with them.
              It isn’t faith to say, God is busy with more important things right now.
              Faith speaks.
              Faith speaks freely.
              Faith shares whatever needs to be shared whenever it needs sharing—just ask Job.
              Tell God how you feel today.
 
A Psalm of David:  Hear my cry, O God; Attend unto my prayer. From the end of the earth will I call unto you, when my heart is overwhelmed: Lead me to the rock that is higher than I. For you have been a refuge for me, A strong tower from the enemy. I will dwell in your tabernacle for ever: I will take refuge in the shelter of your wings. Selah.
Psalms 61:1-4
 
Dene Ward

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Everyone who cooks on a budget knows what filler is.  If you called things by the order 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 miniscule 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

We recently spent a few lovely days in Apalachicola.  Our children pooled their resources and gave us an anniversary gift certificate for a turn of the 20th century inn, Florida cracker style with large windows and wrap-around verandas and white wooden rockers, antique furniture, narrow, steep stairways (no elevators!), and a widow's walk.  Our room had a four poster bed with bars for mosquito netting, wooden-slat blinds, a chamber pot (just for decor), a clawfoot iron tub and a pedestal sink.  The floors were all original long leaf pine and black cypress, complete with creaks!  Despite the authenticity, it was completely comfortable, well, except maybe for Keith having to carry our suitcases up three flights of stairs.

              Located in the center of this small fishing town, we were able to park at the inn and simply walk everywhere.  One day we went to the Orman house, an old home originally owned by the man who practically put Apalachicola on the map.  It is now a "state park" and the ranger was our guide.  This place is not just his job, it is his life.  He has written books on it, and he knows it like it is his own childhood home.  We saw all the furniture, dishes, and even clothes from the original family, up three stories all the way to the locked entrance to the widow's walk. As nice as this home must have been in the 1800s, it amazed us more to find out that it had been the guest house.  When the family's main home was destroyed they had moved into this one.  Being this family's guests was a privilege indeed.

              After we left the house, we began our walk back to the center of town down the residential streets.  Most of the houses were beautiful old frame homes in the same style as the inn—large windows, high ceilings, wrap around porches, and widow's walks, with professionally landscaped lawns. Before long we were taking pictures of ordinary peoples' homes instead of those in the historic district.

              After a few blocks we came upon the Chestnut Street Cemetery.  The cemetery is the oldest burial ground in the town.  It is said to have 560 marked graves as well as many unmarked ones.  Certainly it appeared full to me as we walked around what looked like a haphazard layout on a rough, uneven path shaded by old live oaks.  We had been given a map but it was almost impossible to find some of the graves.  It was equally impossible to read some of the gravestones because they were so old.  We found at least one grave of a woman born in 1700s. 

              Our wandering showed us the final resting sites of people who died in their 60s, 50s, 40s, and even 20s and teens.  We found Confederate soldiers and Union sympathizers lying not 50 yards apart.   We found large plots where the remains of wealthy family members all rested together, and small insignificant stones marking the graves of the poor, among them a marker reading "Rose, a Faithful Servant."  Then, not far from another large family enclave, we found the grave of a woman who had cut her husband's throat—and then her own. 

             We found many, many tiny stones marking the graves of infants, often several from the same family.  In one spot we found three names on one marker, a 40 year old father, his 2 year old child, and 6 month old baby, all victims the same year of a yellow fever epidemic.

             All this reminded me of the fourth Lamentation.  The whole focus of that psalm of lament seems to be that the destruction of Jerusalem did something no reformer ever could—it made all the people equal. 

Her princes were purer than snow, whiter than milk; their bodies were more ruddy than coral, the beauty of their form was like sapphire. Now their face is blacker than soot; they are not recognized in the streets; their skin has shriveled on their bones; it has become as dry as wood. (Lam 4:7-8).  The wealthy among them, who neglected and even mistreated the poor, now looked no different and suffered no differently than the poor they had once looked down upon.

              Death does the same thing.  The large, ornate markers over the graves we saw were just as difficult to read due to age as the smaller plain markers, and the bodies beneath them would not have looked one bit better had they been dug up. 

            But death does do this:  it separates the righteous from the unrighteous.  The final destination of the former is far better than that of the latter.  In that they are not equal.  And if anything can finally make us realize that all these things we spend our lives on are pointless unless our work and service is directed toward God, perhaps it is that.  Unfortunately, too many of us learn this a little bit too late.

               If you can find the Chestnut Street cemetery, or one like it, maybe it would do you a world of good to walk through it soon.
 
One dies in his full vigor, being wholly at ease and secure, his pails full of milk and the marrow of his bones moist. Another dies in bitterness of soul, never having tasted of prosperity. They lie down alike in the dust, and the worms cover them. (Job 21:23-26)
 
Dene Ward

I knew a woman once, a faithful Christian, who believed that crying over the death of a loved one was sinful.  She bravely, some would say, faced the loss of a child to a dread disease with a smile.  No one ever saw a tear leave her eyes.  I know a lot of people who agree with her, a lot of people who would applaud her as “strong and full of faith.”  I don’t.  In fact, that erroneous belief of hers affected both her physical and mental health for the rest of her life.  It also made her unsympathetic to others she should have been best able to comfort. 

              God created us and He made within us the impulse to cry, just as He made other appetites and needs.  He never expected us not to cry, not to mourn, and not to grieve.  Do you want some examples?  Abraham cried when Sarah died, Gen 23:2.  Jonathan and David cried when they realized they would not be together again in this lifetime, 1 Sam 20:41, and David cried again when he heard that Jonathan, and even Saul, were dead, 2 Sam 3:32.  Hezekiah “wept bitterly” when he heard that he had a terminal illness, 2 Kgs 20:3.  Paul wept real tears when he suffered for the Lord, Acts 20:19, and he wept for those who had fallen from the way, Phil 3:19.  Where do we get this notion that righteous, faithful people never cry?

              1 Thes 4:13 does not say we sorrow not over the death of loved ones.  It says we sorrow not as others do who have no hope.  “As” means in the same manner.  Yes we sorrow, but not in the same way.  We know something more awaits us.  Our sorrow is tempered with the knowledge that we will one day be together again, but that does not mean the sorrow ceases to exist—it simply changes. 

              I cried often after my Daddy died, usually when I saw something he had made for me, or given me, or repaired that I had thought was a goner.  He was handy that way, and I miss the care he showed for me in those small gestures.  Even now, writing these things makes my eyes burn and water just a bit, several years after his passing.  But I do not, and I have never, let grief consume me and keep me from my service to God and to others.  I have not let it destroy my faith—my hope—that I will see him again and be with him forever.

              Anyone who thinks that crying is faithless sits with Job’s cold, merciless friends.  Job did cry.  Job did ask God why.  Job did complain with all his might about the things he was experiencing, yet “in all this Job sinned not with his lips” Job 2:10.  What did he get from his friends?  Nothing but accusation and rebuke.  “Have pity upon me, oh you my friends,” he finally wails in 19:21.  Paul says we are to “weep with those who weep,” Rom 12:15.  If weeping were sinful, shouldn’t he have told us to, as Job’s friends did, rebuke them instead?  No, God plainly says at the end of the book that Job’s friends were the ones who were wrong.

              And, of course, Jesus cried.  I have heard Bible classes tie themselves into knots trying to make it okay for Jesus to cry at the tomb of Lazarus.  How about this?  He was sad!  To try to take that sadness away from Him strips Him of the first sacrifice He made for us when He carefully and deliberately put on humanity.  Hebrews says He was “tempted in all points like us yet without sin.”  That means He experienced sadness, and people who are sad cry.

              Do you think He can’t understand our specific problems because He never lost a child? 

              And when he drew near he saw the city and wept over it…O Jerusalem, Jerusalem…how often would I have gathered your children together as a hen gathers her chicks under her wings and you would not, Luke 19:41; Matt 23:37.

               When Israel was a child, I loved him, and out of Egypt I called my son. The more they were called, the more they went away; they kept sacrificing to the Baals and burning offerings to idols. Yet it was I who taught Ephraim to walk; I took them up by their arms, but they did not know that I healed them. I led them with cords of kindness, with the bands of love, and I became to them as one who eases the yoke on their jaws, and I bent down to them and fed them... How can I give you up, O Ephraim? How can I hand you over, O Israel? How can I make you like Admah? How can I treat you like Zeboiim? My heart recoils within me; my compassion grows warm and tender, Hos 11:1-4,11.

              Anyone who cannot hear the tears in those words is probably not a parent yet.  God knows what it is like to lose a child in the worst way possible--spiritually.  Don’t tell the Lord it’s a sin to cry.

              I have seen too many people nearly ruin themselves trying to do the impossible.  I have seen others drive the sorrowful away with a cold lack of compassion.  Grieving is normal.  Grieving is even good for you, and God knows that better than anyone since He made our minds and bodies to do just that.  How much of a promise would it be to “wipe away all tears from their eyes” if He expected us to do it now?  In fact, David asks God in a poignant psalm to collect his tears in His bottle—don’t forget that I am sad, Lord.  Don’t let my tears simply fall to the ground and dry up, keep count of them—“keep them in your book” Psa 56:8.  Do you think He would have preserved that psalm for us if crying were a sin?

              If you have lost someone near and dear, if you have received a bad diagnosis, if you have been afflicted in any way, go ahead and cry.  This isn’t Heaven after all.  But don’t lose your faith.  Sorrow as one who has hope, as the father of the faithful did, as the “man after God’s own heart did,” as one of the most righteous kings Judah ever had did, as perhaps the greatest apostle did, even as the Lord did.  Let it out so you can heal, and then go on serving your Lord.  His hand will be on you, and one day—not now, but one day--He will wipe away every tear from their eyes, and death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning, nor crying, nor pain anymore, for the former things have passed away. Revelation 21:4
 
Dene Ward

(This will make a lot of more sense to you if you go to http://www.flightpaths.org/denes-blog/bussenwuddy, and read it first.)

              I told you awhile back about our first overnight with our grandson Silas.  It was fun, it was sweet, it was exhilarating, and it was a little frustrating at times when we weren’t sure what he wanted. 

              The “bussenwuddy” nearly got us.  Luckily I had cared enough to listen to the things he talked about to recognize “Buzz” and “Woody” from the Toy Story DVD.  Good thing I was the one listening.  Buzz and Woody could have been next door neighbors as far as Keith was concerned.  When you are profoundly deaf, you don’t casually pick up on bits and pieces of conversation or those things “everyone knows.”  You don’t immediately recognize normal words for all that.  No wonder he was lost.

              How well do you hear God?  Even if you recognize the words, do you know enough to make the correct associations and figure things out?  I know people do not know their Bible enough to be familiar with apocalyptic language when they turn the beautiful promises of the book of Revelation into some futuristic Armageddon between political nations (which, have you noticed, change with every generation’s “interpretation,” which ought to tell them something).  I know they don’t care enough to study carefully the entire communication God gave to us when they come up with ideas a real disciple can shoot holes through with half a dozen scriptures off the tip of his tongue.

              But how are we doing?  I hear more faulty exegesis from brethren these days than I do from my neighbors.  Taking things literally that are obviously hyperboles simply because they cannot comprehend a Lord who cared enough to come as one of us, speaking as one of us, including the use of hyperboles and humorous comparisons; refusing to see the obvious parallels between elements of the new covenant and those of the old because they have decided that “nailed to the cross” means don’t ever even look at the Old Testament again, much less study it; spending so much time fighting the heresies of mainstream denominationalism that they miss the important fundamentals of a sure hope and a grace beyond measure—these are just a few of the problems.

              What do you think of when you read “Christ in you, the hope of glory” Col 1:27?  Does the Shekinah even cross your mind, that physical manifestation of God’s glory that dwelt over the mercy seat?  Or is it just another “bussenwuddy” that eludes you, and robs you of a greater, more magnificent promise than you ever imagined?  I could go on.

              Knowing God’s word, not just superficially, but deeply, can lead to a greater understanding and a more heartfelt faith.  Facts may seem cold, but without them you are missing a lot.  You cannot make connections.  You cannot take your understanding to a deeper level.  You cannot see parallels and applications that will make your life more acceptable to your Father.

              Take the time to learn those facts.  How do you think you will ever come to a better knowledge of God if you don’t know what He said?  All it will be is a “bussenwuddy” on deaf ears.
 
For who knows a person's thoughts except the spirit of that person, which is in him? So also no one comprehends the thoughts of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might understand the things freely given us by God. And we impart this in words not taught by human wisdom but taught by the Spirit, interpreting spiritual truths to those who are spiritual. The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned. 1 Corinthians 2:11-14
 
Dene Ward