Today's post is by guest writer Lucas Ward.

Matt. 8:1-4  "And when he was come down from the mountain, great multitudes followed him.  And behold, there came to him a leper and worshipped him, saying, Lord, if thou wilt, thou canst make me clean.  And he stretched forth his hand, and touched him, saying, I will; be thou made clean. And straightway his leprosy was cleansed.  And Jesus saith unto him, See thou tell no man; but go, show thyself to the priest, and offer the gift that Moses commanded, for a testimony unto them."
            This man who came to Jesus was an outcast.  Moses taught in Numbers 5:2 that all lepers were to stay outside the camp.  When the people came to the promised land, lepers were kept out of the cities (2 Kings. 7:3-8).  If one touched a leper, he became unclean (Lev. 22:4-6).  Because of that, anytime they were around anyone, they had to annouce themselves as unclean.  (Lev. 13:45-46).  Lepers were generally looked down upon as being cursed by God.  They were shunned.  Faith certainly wasn't expected from those people.  And yet, see his faith:  "If you will, you can make me clean."  There was no doubt at all in this leper regarding the power of the Lord.  When one compares him to the "good" Jew in Mark 9:22-23 who said "If you can" do anything to help, who comes out ahead? 

Matt. 8:5-13  "And when he was entered into Capernaum, there came unto him a centurion, beseeching him, and saying, Lord, my servant lies in the house sick of the palsy, grievously tormented.  And he said unto him, I will come and heal him.  And the centurion answered and said, Lord, I am not worthy that you should come under my roof; but only say the word, and my servant shall be healed.  For I also am a man under authority, having under myself soldiers: and I say to this one, Go, and he goes; and to another, Come, and he comes; and to my servant, Do this, and he does it.  And when Jesus heard it, he marvelled, and said to them that followed, Verily I say unto you, I have not found so great faith, no, not in Israel.  And I say unto you, that many shall come from the east and the west, and shall sit down with Abraham, and Isaac, and Jacob, in the kingdom of heaven:  but the sons of the kingdom shall be cast forth into the outer darkness: there shall be the weeping and the gnashing of teeth.  And Jesus said unto the centurion, Go your way; as you have believed, so be it done unto you. And the servant was healed in that hour."
            Here we have a gentile, a 'faithless, uncircumcised dog!'  No one would expect great faith from such a one.  And yet his faith in the power of Jesus was such that he believed His authority stretched far enough to heal his servant.  Contrast this with the Jews, all of whom asked Jesus to come to the sick person.  In fact, in the very next chapter it is a ruler of the Jews who begs Jesus to come when his daughter is "at the point of death" (Matt. 9:18).  Even Jesus is shocked at this gentile's faith. 

            So often in the stories told in the Gospels it is the people from whom the least is expected that the greatest faith is seen.  It is the outcasts, those looked down upon who amaze even the Lord with their faith.  Jesus taught in the synagogues, yes, but He also taught in the marketplaces, on fishing boats, atop mountains, along roadways and in homes.  We should never limit ourselves in preaching the Gospel only to those we expect to respond.  We might just be surprised at who has the greatest faith, and who actually has very little.
 
Mark 16:15  "Then he told them, "As you go into all the world, proclaim the gospel to everyone."
 
Lucas Ward

I have a feeling that some of Bella and Chloe’s playtime might have been a little unsettling to Bella’s youngest master.  Young wild animals learn survival skills through play—how to hunt and how to fight.  Even domesticated animals learn some of these things.  Puppies always engage in rough and tumble play, including baby nips and growls.  Chloe and Bella did the same, and being larger and older, it looked much fiercer.
            Teeth bared, growls ferocious, their muzzles tilted back and forth as if trying to find the best place to lock onto one another.  Larger Bella ran at Chloe and broadsided her, sending her rolling, then pounced on top.  In seconds, more experienced Chloe had her legs wrapped around Bella and flipped her over, like a wrestler reversing a pin.  Sometimes they ran headlong into one another like charging bulls and as they met, the saliva flew in all directions.  I learned to stand way back.
            How did I know this wasn’t real, that it was simply an older dog teaching a younger through play?  Because they never drew blood.  If you watched their mouths, neither ever closed tightly on the other dog’s body anywhere.  And when they finished, they stood panting for a few moments, energy spent, both tongues dangling toward the ground, looking at one another.  Often they would touch noses, then walk shoulder to shoulder back to the shade, Chloe under the truck and Bella under a tree—lesson for the day over.
            I remember a time when brethren could discuss things, even differing views on a passage, and each come away having learned something.  They could trust one another, not only to have each other’s best interest at heart, but also to listen and consider fairly, and never to become angry.  Even if voices rose, no blood was drawn, spiritually speaking, respect continued, and both left with more knowledge and insight.
            What has happened to us?  If someone disagrees with me, it makes me mad or it hurts my feelings, and either way I don’t like him any more.  It is no longer about learning and growing—it about winning arguments and putting people down.  Instead of being able to trust a person because he is a brother, one must try to find a brother he can trust, and it isn’t easy.  That’s not just a shame, it’s a tragedy.  If a man say, I love God, and hates his brother, he is a liar: for he that loves not his brother whom he has seen, cannot love God whom he has not seen. And this commandment have we from him, that he who loves God love his brother also. 1 John 4:20-21
            God meant us to learn and grow together, honing our skills and building one another up.  It might make us occasional sparring partners, but in that sparring we learn how to handle the word more accurately, we learn how to defeat the gainsayers who deny the Lord, and the false teachers who might be after our souls.  And after that sparring match, we “touch gloves” and leave with our love and respect intact.
            At least that’s the way it’s supposed to be.
 
Iron sharpens iron, and one man sharpens another. Proverbs 27:17
 
Dene Ward

We had a second stint of puppysitting recently and this time Chloe adapted more quickly.  By the end of the first day, she and now six month old Bella were romping together in the field.  Chloe was still the boss and called the shots—including the play schedule—but play they did, especially in the evenings when Chloe would crawl out from under the porch, stretch, look over her shoulder at Bella and scamper off with a toss of the head—an open invitation to “catch me if you can.”
            Bella also came with us when I gave Chloe her morning walk around the property.  Chloe usually accompanies me in a steady trot, stopping here and there to sniff at an armadillo hole or a depression at the bottom of the fence where a possum makes its nightly excursions.  Bella preferred to run everywhere, usually in the meandering lines of Billy, the little boy in the Family Circus comic.  Then when she suddenly looked up and found herself behind, she would come bulling her way past us in a brown blur.
            It was one of those times that particular morning and I heard her overtaking us like a buffalo stampede.  The path at that point was narrow, just room for me, my two walking sticks, and Chloe.  As Bella drew near, I just happened to be looking down when she very neatly leapfrogged over Chloe without disturbing a fur on her head.  In a few seconds she was around the bend and out of sight.
            I wonder how many we leapfrog over every day and leave in the dust behind us because we’re too impatient to wait, too unconcerned to care, too impulsive to even notice?  Sometimes the young with their new ideas, scriptural though they may be, have too little respect for the old warriors who need time to consider and be sure.  Sometimes the more knowledgeable become too arrogant to slow their pace for the babes or those whose capacity may not be as deep.  Sometimes the strong forget that God expects them to help the weak, the ill, the faltering.  All these people are just obstacles in our way, things to get past in our rush.
            When you leapfrog over a brother and leave him behind, how do you know he will make it?  God didn’t expect us to walk the path alone.  He meant for us to walk it together.  When you lack the love to walk it with your brother, you may as well not walk it at all.
 
Now we that are strong ought to bear the infirmities of the weak, and not to please ourselves. Let each one of us please his neighbor for that which is good, unto edifying. For Christ also pleased not himself; but, as it is written, The reproaches of them that reproached thee fell upon me. Romans 15:1-3.
 
Dene Ward

We are puppysitting for some friends, a four month old chocolate lab named Bella.  She is already taller than our full-grown Australian cattle dog, though not as heavy, a long-legged gangly dog still with a puppy mindset—which means faster is better than slower, all things are meant to be chewed upon, and play time is the only time. 
            Chloe, on the other hand, is middle-aged, 6½, or about 45 in dog years.  To her the best things in the world are a belly scratch, a chewy treat, and a nap, and one of the worst things in the world is a puppy being foisted upon her carefully controlled domain.  She learned quickly that Bella has difficulty getting under the truck—something about all those long knobby leg bones getting in the way—so she spends the vast majority of her day there while Bella roams about being a curious puppy.  Someone I know well has learned not to leave things lying about outside if he doesn’t want them ventilated with puppy-teeth holes, something I consider an unexpected benefit to Bella’s visit.
            Chloe is not a purely sedentary lap dog, though.  She enjoys nosing around some, and will run back and forth to the gate to greet us.  She walks around the property with me and often leaves me in the dust when she spies something interesting in the corner woods.  Bella is walking with us now.  Her nose is always in the air, and her ears cocked for any sounds that might drift our way—one neighbor’s baying bloodhound and the other’s crowing rooster, for example.  But she doesn’t listen long.  As soon as she determines the direction, she is off in a shot while Chloe listens a bit more, making a studied determination about whether the sound needs investigating or not.
            Bella thinks everything is a game.  She has no ability to distinguish when it’s time to be serious.  Chloe will stop for a drink and Bella will be all over her, standing in the water, stepping on the edge of the pan, causing it to tilt and spilling the water everywhere.  When a frog jumps in the old tubs Keith uses to soak his hickory wood for smoking meat, she jumps right in after it, NOT looking before she leaps, landing belly deep with a splash.  Reminds me of the puppy we had once who thought the rattlesnake next to the woodpile was a toy and tried to play with it.  We managed to get him away before he was bitten, but when we left for a camping trip, the neighbor found him one morning with fang marks in his neck.  Lucky for him, the skin there was loose and that’s all the snake got, not the muscle in his neck.
            Yet despite their own preferences, both of these dogs are adapting.  Chloe finally learned to quit running away and stand up for herself.  After a nip or two on the nose, Bella knows who the boss is now and she will actually “bow” before Chloe, lowering her height by crouching on her belly in front of her.  Chloe will now stand nose to nose with her, sniffing, and then suddenly take off in a run, looking behind to make sure Bella is chasing her.  Bella has learned to be a little more discreet and Chloe has learned that fun is still—well, fun, and it’s worth having some once in awhile.
            Older and younger people—older and younger Christians, no matter their physical age—need to learn from one another in the same way.  We teach our children not to go running down the halls, especially among older people who have issues with balance and might be knocked over.  A fall for the elderly could easily lead to a broken bone, and how many broken bones have led to a fatal case of pneumonia?  That’s not something a child would ever think of, which is why the adults must teach them.  In the same way, babes in Christ mustn’t go running helter-skelter down our spiritual halls with no concern about the fragile souls we might encounter.  Yet, the older ones need to learn that we must go out into those halls and encounter those souls, not sit quietly and safely in our pews.
            The younger must learn the need for wisdom and discretion and the value of quiet reverence, but the older must learn that “emotion” is not a four letter word. 
            The younger must learn respect for those they label “nay-sayers.”  They must realize that those old “fuddy-duddy” cautions come from concern for their younger souls’ safety and good, not from cowardice or a lack of faith.  The older must remind themselves that God called them to take a risk, to exercise their faith not to sit in dusty rooms discussing it.
            The younger in the faith and the older in the faith—we learn from each other, but not if we’re too busy putting one another down, refusing to listen to one another, with attitudes full of disrespect and disdain. 
 
The glory of young men is their strength, but the beauty of old men is their gray hair, Prov 20:29.
 
Dene Ward

     How many times have I heard people read about Abraham and Sarah's subterfuge, "She is my sister," and then say something like, "How could 'the Friend of God,' 'the Father of the Faithful' do such a thing?  Where is all that faith he is so renowned for?
     The problem is, we judge them by what they eventually became, forgetting that they did not start there, any more than we started where we now are in our journey of faith.  We don't allow them to grow.  The Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 12 were not the Abraham and Sarah in Genesis 22.  So where did Abraham and Sarah really come from?
     Ur, of course, but what was that?  Ur was a city-state in an alliance of other Sumerian city-states.  We have already seen that it was a thriving metropolis.  Besides that, it was thoroughly pagan.  Every city in the alliance had a ziggarut at its center, devoted to the pagan god it worshipped.  (All of this comes from the Holman Bible Atlas.)  Abraham grew up not only in a pagan culture, but also in a pagan family.
     And Joshua said to all the people, “Thus says the LORD, the God of Israel, ‘Long ago, your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor; and they served other gods (Josh 24:2).  The real wonder is that Abraham and Sarah came to have any faith in God at all.  Yet they did, which is a clear vindication of Paul's statement in Romans 1 that the pagans were "without excuse" in their failure to recognize God (Rom 1:18-22).  Somehow that couple believed and God got them out of that culture where He could carefully cultivate their faith over the last half of their lives.
     And so here is the lesson: in our society it has become the rule to blame our culture, our parents, our community, whatever else we can blame for our failure to live righteous, godly lives, or at least a law-abiding, productive life that recognizes a standard of goodness toward others.  Even people in the government are ready to excuse criminals "because they don't know better."  If they do not know better, it is their own fault.  At least that is what God says about it.  Anyone in any culture can pull themselves out of it and do right.  In fact, it you were to find people who did that and ask them about it, they would be the ones who most staunchly deny that how you are raised is an excuse that counts for anything at all.  Is it difficult to get yourself out of the mess you find yourself in?  Of course it is, but life is never easy.  When we teach our children that it should be, we are setting them up for failure every time.
     Even the people who came out of Ur with Abraham and Sarah never really lost their cultural baggage.  Laban had gone to shear his sheep, and Rachel stole her father's household gods (Gen 31:19).  But Joshua told their descendants, as they came to the Promised Land, that the choice was theirs—they were not bound by their raising.  And if it is evil in your eyes to serve the LORD, choose this day whom you will serve, whether the gods your fathers served in the region beyond the River, or the gods of the Amorites in whose land you dwell. But as for me and my house, we will serve the LORD (Josh 24:15).
     We always have a choice.  No one can take it away from us.  It may be difficult, but that has never constituted a valid excuse to God.  He wants us to serve Him.  He may have given Abraham and Sarah a little boost by removing them from their culture, but why can't we do exactly the same thing?  We can, if we truly want to.  No one is ever forcing us to do otherwise.

I have Your decrees as a heritage forever; indeed, they are the joy of my heart. I am resolved to obey Your statutes to the very end (Ps 119:111-112).

Dene Ward

     A few months ago I fell.  It was not an "old lady" fall; anyone else would have fallen under the same circumstances.  The x-rays showed no breaks, no cracks, no bone bruises, nor any other problem, but I landed hard on the side that seems to have had a lot of some of the worst arthritis out there.  We assumed it would heal in a couple of months and all would be well.  Here we are over five months later and not only has it not healed, it hasn't even improved. 
     Every morning it takes me about two hours to be able to walk through the house without holding on to furniture and countertops.  Then it takes an hour and a half of physical therapy exercises to be able to get through the day, not without pain, but without making noises when I move.  Often I need to stop halfway from the parking lot and the church house or doctor's office or grocery store and lean over for a while to make the pain bearable.  No longer does Keith wheel the grocery cart for me as I shop; instead, I hang onto it so I can make it through what used to be an enjoyable part of my routine.  It may not have been an "old lady" fall, but it has certainly turned me into an old lady almost overnight.
     I seldom sleep well any more.  I have found only one position I can lie in without considerable pain.  I start out that way and then, in the night, when I move the pain wakes me.  It takes a few minutes to get back into position and then wait out the pain until it settles down and I finally drift back to sleep.  It will happen again and again as the night wears on.  What ought to be an eight hour rest is seldom more than five or six.  Then, after a week of that, I will finally have a decent sleep just because I am so exhausted that I can sleep through the pain.
     On nights when that happens and I wake fairly well rested, my mind thinks all is well.  Then I try to stretch or roll over and suddenly I realize that nothing has changed.  The pain is still there.  It will never stop.  It is, in a word, relentless, and that is the worst part.  I have had worse pain, especially in my eyes—battery acid drops in an eye with a fresh incision or on a freshly abraded (scraped) cornea.  But at least that pain always stops eventually, the one after 10 or 15 minutes and the other after three or four days.  After all these years, I know that and can put up with it.  Nothing, however, has stopped this hip pain that radiates up and down my whole leg, and after trying so many things it appears that nothing will.
     Jesus spent a lot of words trying to describe Hell in a way that would horrify us.  He wants us to avoid that place at all cost and doesn't mind using some negative reinforcement.  Now I have found something that will motivate me like nothing else.  Eternity is difficult to describe too, but I think the Eternity of Hell is now easy for me to comprehend.  It is relentlessness.  Whatever you use as your picture—fire, pain, dark, all of those things and more—it will always be there, without a break, without even a moment's relief.  Now I understand the rich man in Jesus's parable—just a drop of water on my tongue, he asked for.  Just a few minutes without this relentless pain, I think.  But Hell has no tomorrow, just the ever-present Now that never ends.
     I tried to find an antonym for relentless, something positive that never ends.  Nothing really suited me, either in online dictionaries or Merriam-Webster.  Then I asked myself what would make this pain just a little more bearable, and came up with "hope."  You see, the doctor did make one suggestion that I tried and the pain actually went away for 5 days.  But there is one insurmountable problem.  That medication also worsens my eye problems.  Which would I rather have, no pain or eyesight?  I am sure you know the answer to that!  Even if I reach the point that I can no longer move at all, I still want to see—flowers, sunsets, rainbows, and all the beautiful faces of the ones I love.
     But we have come up with a compromise—I can take that medication for one week every four months.  That means that three weeks out of the year I will have no pain!  Do you know how marvelous that sounds after the last six months?  That sounds like "hope."  You better believe I am looking forward to that week and more than that, I know it will happen because we have already tried it once.  I trust that it will work again. 
     Hope is the thing that should carry you through your life, no matter how bad things get.  What did we expect anyway?  This world is cursed by sin and death and we brought it on ourselves.  But God gives us hope.  Our eternity does not have to be relentless.  Because God gives us the hope of the resurrection, we can look forward to relief from the pain and suffering we all live with.  No, hope is not "a thing with feathers."  It is a strong and heavy anchor that will keep us from drifting if we hang onto it with all our might.
 
So when God desired to show more convincingly to the heirs of the promise the unchangeable character of his purpose, he guaranteed it with an oath, so that by two unchangeable things, in which it is impossible for God to lie, we who have fled for refuge might have strong encouragement to hold fast to the hope set before us. We have this as a sure and steadfast anchor of the soul, a hope that enters into the inner place behind the curtain, where Jesus has gone as a forerunner on our behalf, having become a high priest forever after the order of Melchizedek (Heb 6:17-20).

I’ve seen it all my life, everywhere I’ve ever been—a brand of false teaching that even the best of us participate in, that even the best of us fall prey to.
            Over and over we teach people to follow the examples of Herod and Herodias, of Ahab and Jezebel, of practically every evil king ever mentioned in the Bible.  We teach that example and we follow it ourselves.  The examples of Simon and David are left ignored, at least in that one area.  What am I talking about?  How to accept correction, how to appreciate the one who loves us enough to rebuke us or try to teach us better. 
            What did Simon the sorcerer say when Peter rebuked him? “Pray for me that none of the things that you have spoken may come upon me.”  Simon was only interested in being right before God, not in saving face or somehow turning the rebuke back on Peter because he was so angry or hurt by it.
            What did David say when Nathan stung him with the simple words “Thou art the man,” and followed it with a horrifying list of punishments, including the death of a child?  “I have sinned against the Lord.” And what did he do later?  He named a son after Nathan (1 Chron 3:5).  Every time he saw that child for the rest of his life, he was reminded of his namesake, the man who rebuked him and prophesied such devastating punishment.  All you have to do is read his penitent psalms to understand David’s attitude.  He was grateful to Nathan, not angry; heartbroken over his sin and joyful that God would even consider forgiving him.
            Simon and David set the bar high for us, a brand new Gentile convert and a king who could have lopped off his accuser’s head at a word. Yet how often are we counseled to follow their examples?  Instead, we are coddled by people who blame the rebuker for being so hard.  Never have I heard anyone say the kinds of things that Peter and Nathan said.  “Your money perish with you.”  “You are in the gall of bitterness and the bond of iniquity.”  “Your heart is not right before God.”  “You have despised the word of God.” 
            What examples do we teach instead?  We may not throw people into prison for their words as Ahab and Herod did, but we isolate them from others by spreading tales of “how mean they were to me,” allowing their name and reputation to be chewed up in the rumor mills.  We may not have them murdered as Herodias and Jezebel did, but we do a fine job of character assassination.  We follow faithfully in their evil steps and teach others to do the same when we pat them on the back and agree with their assessment of the one who dared tell them they were wrong.  In other words, we do it out of “love.”  I imagine Herod said the same as he turned the prison key on John, and then signed off on the death warrant.
            Why is this example of how to accept correction so neglected?  Why do we reinforce the examples of evil people instead?  Is it because someday it might be us receiving that rebuke?  Someday it might be our turn to feel the hot embarrassment spreading like a fire across our faces and the acid churning in our stomachs? 
            God meant us to love each other in exactly this way.  Brethren, if anyone is caught in any transgression, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness, looking to yourself lest you also be tempted, Gal 6:1.  We all take turns at this.  We all need it.  And I have an important piece of information for you, one that should be obvious but apparently is not:  it never feels “gentle” when you are on the receiving end.  I have knocked myself out prefacing correction with “I love you” statements, with praise for the good in a person’s life, only to have to endure a cold shoulder for weeks or months or even years, only to hear later from others how “mean” I was.  I have also felt that sting of conscience when it was my turn to listen, and even when I knew the person speaking loved me.  But the good God meant to come from these things will be completely lost if all we do is tell the erring brother or sister that it’s just fine to be like Herod and Herodias.
            So you think this isn’t false doctrine?  Then tell me what it is to teach others to be like evil men and women.  Whatever you come up with, it still isn’t right.
 
My brothers, if anyone among you wanders from the truth and someone brings him back, let him know that whoever brings back a sinner from his wandering will save his soul from death and will cover a multitude of sins. James 5:19-20.
 
Dene Ward    

It's been eleven years, which I can hardly believe.  Silas came to visit all by himself.  Granddad had carefully planned the play time, and on the first afternoon, as the thermometer hit 95, and the sun beat down mercilessly, he grabbed the garden hose and I knew immediately what was up.
            Keith was always a hands-on Dad, more hands on than the boys wanted in some cases, but also in the fun times.  He played with them from the time they were born, carefully moderating his strength when they were small, but never moderating the little boy inside that never quite left him.  One of my favorite pictures came when he knocked on the door one rainy day, and there the three of them stood, streaked with mud, having played in the soft warm rain throwing mud balls until you could only tell which was which by their relative size.
            So now it was four year old Silas’s turn, his baptism by mud, so to speak, as Keith filled up the low spot in front of the sour orange and the herb bed, dammed by a berm so the water would back up and have time to soak into the ground before rushing on down the hill to the run just off the east side of the property.  As soon as the spot was a couple inches deep, Keith called him in to splash around.  Even that took awhile, but finally Silas waded in and started jumping up and down, squealing with delight as the water splashed up around him, and especially when it splashed on Granddad.
            Then came the magic moment.  Keith reached down into the black mud, scraped up a handful, and flung it carefully onto Silas’s back.  Talk about indignant!  He scrambled up the slope to the carport where I sat in the breeze of a fan, drinking iced tea and watching the fun.  “Granddad threw mud on me,” he complained as he spun in a circle trying to see the damage behind him.
            “So throw some on him!”  I said encouragingly.
            He was aghast.  “But it’s dirty,” he argued.
            “That’s the fun,” I told him, and he slowly walked back to the puddle, glancing over his shoulder at me with a skeptical look.
            Granddad met him with another handful of mud, this time on the chest.  “Arghh!” he protested and scrambled away, but this time not to me.  I was obviously not on his side in this one.
            “Here,” Keith said, and stood, chest bare and arms out wide.  “Throw some on me.”
            Once again, Silas yelled, “No,” but it wasn’t long till he finally picked up a handful of mud on his own.  Keith stood there with a grin, waiting as Silas walked up to him.  But the little guy couldn’t stand it.  Just as he got within a four-year-old’s throwing range, he turned and threw the mud into the puddle instead.  Immediately, Keith picked up a handful and threw it on him.  Silas ran around in circles, but never left the area this time.  In a flash he had another fistful, but once again threw it in the puddle. 
            Finally, Keith sat down in the mud.  “See?  I’m already muddy now.  It’s okay to throw it on me.”
            It still took another five minutes, but finally Silas got into the spirit of the thing and threw a generous handful at Keith.   I am not sure how much reached skin, but he was as thrilled as if he had dumped a bucketful on him.
            For the next thirty minutes the mud was flying.  They both wound up with mud caked on their shorts, dripping from clumps on their shoulders, bellies, backs, and even their heads.  I doubt Silas had ever been that dirty in his entire life, and he thoroughly enjoyed it.
            I could do a lot with this one.  I could talk about hands-on fathering.  I could talk about shucking your dignity so you can play with your child, about shedding that authoritative image so he will know you love him enough not just to correct him, but to enjoy being with him--on his level, not yours.  That’s easy, so I will let you take care of those.
            How about this?  Did you notice how hard it was for Silas to actually start throwing the mud?  Even though he was assured it was all right, even though he was encouraged to have fun that normally was not allowed, it still took a long time for him to give in, but give in he did.  Why do we think we can hold up against far more powerful forces than that when we place our souls in harm’s way?
            The world will tell you it’s all right.  The world will tell you it’s fun.  The world will say, “Look at me.  See?  I’m doing just fine, and so will you.”  If you think you won’t give in, you probably have an inflated opinion of your spiritual strength.  The truly strong person would have never been there to begin with.
            So take it from a little boy who had the time of his life in a mud fight.  You will give in too, only your fight will end up with a dirt that can’t be washed away with a hose, and you may enjoy it too much to ever leave the mud puddle behind.
 
You therefore, beloved, knowing this beforehand, take care that you are not carried away with the error of lawless people and lose your own stability. But grow in the grace and knowledge of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. To him be the glory both now and to the day of eternity. Amen, 2 Peter 3:17-18.
 
Dene Ward

On February 2, 1839, Edmond Berger is said to have invented the spark plug.  I say it that way because of the differing accounts I found.  In fact, the first mention of this I saw gave the date as February 3 and said he actually patented it that day.  Several other places said the date was the second of the month and he never patented it at all.  Perhaps the most reliable citation I found said that he invented it on the second, but since he was in France he did not patent it with a US patent, and that since the internal combustion engine was new at that time and extremely unreliable, the spark plug he invented would have been experimental at best.  So we will leave it at that.
            What I want to consider this morning are mental spark plugs.  When I sit down to write, especially after all these years of doing so over 300 times a year, I often need a spark of an idea to get going.  The ancient Greeks knew the problem and came up with the nine goddesses they called Muses.  These, they said, were the inspiration behind all the Sciences, Literature, Poetry, and the Arts.  No one could create any of these without their motivating spark.  Which also gave you someone to blame when nothing came to you when you needed it, I immediately thought.  Might come in handy—if only they were real.
            And so I looked to the Scriptures to find anything about "sparks" that the Word of God might mention.  As you might suspect, no spark plugs—or Muses—were mentioned.  But I did find this verse:  O LORD, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Israel, our fathers, keep forever such purposes and thoughts in the hearts of your people, and direct their hearts toward you (1Chr 29:18).  David was finishing a stirring prayer after calling the people to give of their means for the building of the new Temple after his death.  He worried that the emotion of the moment would fade and that Solomon himself, a young man, would falter in his determination to build what amounted to a Palace for God.  So he prayed that the spirit that was then moving the people to give willingly and to support this monumental task would continue.
            But notice:  the fact that David prayed for this to continue in itself shows that this attitude is a choice.  We are not talking about the Holy Spirit coming in and forcing His will upon us.  In fact, Satan can come in as a "muse" and lead our thought astray from sincere and pure devotion to Christ (2 Cor 11:3) in the same way.  If one is a choice we make, so is the other.  Our devotion is likely to fluctuate.  That is perfectly normal, I think.  But we have the choice of which "muse" we choose to allow to ignite our thoughts and deeds.
            God promises He will help us out—without forcing us.  Jeremiah tells us that we cannot walk in our own ways and do well (10:23), so it makes sense that if we have anything like a Muse in the Christian walk, it is the Word of God.  Seek God's way, obey His commands, listen to His voice.  With regard to the works of man, by the word of your lips I have avoided the ways of the violent. My steps have held fast to your paths; my feet have not slipped (Ps 17:4-5).  Indeed, that is the only spark plug that amounts to anything at all.

The unfolding of your words gives light; it imparts understanding to the simple (Ps 119:130).
 
Dene Ward
 

On February 1, 1960, four students from North Carolina A & T staged a sit-in at the whites-only lunch counter in a Greensboro, North Carolina, Woolworth's.  It was not the first sit-in, but it was the first time that students had been able to make a difference.  Before, Civil Rights had been considered something for "grown-ups."  By April that year, 70 southern cities had experienced sit-ins, a direct result of this one. 
            I wonder if the feelings of people then were similar to the time when word came to Jerusalem about Peter preaching to Cornelius, the first Gentile convert (Acts 10).  They certainly took him to task in chapter 11.  By the end of that explanation, Antioch was preaching to Gentiles and welcoming them to the fold right and left (Acts 11:19-23).  All of a sudden the "status quo" had changed, and the ones "in power" were not so happy about it.
            What we fail to understand is the great divide between Jew and Gentile.  Gentiles were considered unclean and called "dogs."  Jews believed they were the favored race and that salvation could only come from them.  They went out of their way to avoid doing business with Gentiles, eating with them, or socializing with them.  Gentiles thought Jews were strange because of their belief in monotheism, and knowing their utter disdain for them, hated them in return.  We think the racial divide in our country was bad, this was many times worse.  When a Jew married a Gentile, the family held a funeral for him.  He was dead as far as they were concerned.
            But God had stated from the beginning, even as He was forming His chosen people from whom the Messiah would come, that this would be a blessing "to all nations" (Gen 22:18).  ("Goy" by the way is the Yiddish word for Gentile, and it means "nation.")  That promise continues throughout Genesis and is picked up by the prophets, more times than I can even list.  Isaiah said all nations would flow into "the mountain of the Lord's house" (2:2).  Micah repeats part of this prophecy almost verbatim (4:1-3).  Isaiah also promises that all those who had formerly been considered unclean will be accepted into Jehovah's house, for my house shall be a house of prayer for all peoples (50:1-8).
            Jesus gave hints of this unification during his ministry, clear enough that the Pharisees once remarked, God forbid! (Luke 20:16).  And before he left this world his instructions clearly underlined God's original intent, Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to every creature, Mark 16:15.
            God expects all of us, whatever nation, whatever race, to meet together as one body.  I would hate to be one of those in the past who forbade a certain race to come into the assembly of the saints.  What do we think?  That God will have a "Jews only" or "whites only" section roped off in Heaven?  When we sing with our children, "Red and yellow, black and white, they are precious in His sight," we should have a congregation that shows them exactly that—all nations accepted into the house of God.  This acceptance goes both ways—not just one side to the other, each one of us acting with perfect love and humility.  None of us is any better than the other in the sight of our Creator—who made us all.
 
And I have other sheep that are not of this fold. I must bring them also, and they will listen to my voice. So there will be one flock, one shepherd (John 10:16).
 
Dene Ward