Many years ago we were in a discussion with a group of Christians about the word “temptation” when Keith mentioned that “tempt” by its very definition means a possibility of and a desire to give in to that temptation.  No one wanted to accept that statement, probably because we all want to believe that we don’t want to sin.  We happened to know a certain brother’s dessert preferences because we had often eaten with that couple, and suddenly the solution came to me.
 
           “Bill cannot be tempted off his diet by a coconut cream pie,” I said.  “He cannot be tempted that way because he hates coconut.  Maybe chocolate, but not coconut.”  Click!  The light bulb went on for practically everyone.  Suddenly they understood what it meant to be tempted. 

            That understanding can lead to all sorts of discussions and get you into some deep water, but consider this one thing with me this morning.  I was “raised in the church,” as we often put it.  I had parents who taught me right from wrong in no uncertain terms.  Frankly, I have never even been tempted by most of the “moral” sins out there in the world.  I know a lot of others in the same situation.  But that doesn’t make us any better than someone who has just recently given his life to the Lord.  I am afraid that sometimes we think it does make us better.  When a young Christian tells me that older Christians look down on him when he says he still struggles with sin, I know we think so.

            Yet how does the fact that you have never struggled with a certain sin make you stronger than one who does?  In fact, since you have never struggled with it, how do you know you could win the fight at all?  There may be other temptations that cause us to fall, and not needing to fight one doesn’t mean we would be any better at fighting others.

            It only shows how weak we are when we pride ourselves on the fact that we have never been tempted in certain areas.  Ironically, that very feeling is our weakness, the thing that tempts us, and the thing in which we usually fail--pride, self-righteousness, unjust judgment, and a failure to love as we ought.

            What is your coconut cream pie?  What distaste keeps you from even being tempted in one area, and as a result, makes you fail the test of humility?  I might have to have a piece of pie while I think about it.
 
 And he spoke also this parable unto certain who trusted in themselves that they were righteous, and set all others at nought: Two men went up into the temple to pray; the one a Pharisee, and the other a publican.  The Pharisee stood and prayed thus with himself, God, I thank you, that I am not as the rest of men, extortioners, unjust, adulterers, or even as this publican. I fast twice in the week; I give tithes of all that I get. But the publican, standing afar off, would not lift up so much as his eyes unto heaven, but smote his breast, saying, God, be merciful to me a sinner. I say unto you, This man went down to his house justified rather than the other: for every one that exalts himself shall be humbled; but he that humbles himself shall be exalted, Luke 18:9-14.   
 
Dene Ward

At least one other rule of economics is fairly easy to comprehend.  The more the commodity costs the manufacturer to make, the more it costs the supplier, and therefore, the more it will cost the consumer.  It only makes sense, and it is only fair.  Capitalism depends upon this very rule.

It is an easy rule to misunderstand though.  Our idea of “cost” is the cost of the raw materials to make the product.  Over the years I have learned better. 

At some urging from one of the elders where we attended, I have written, published, and sold Bible class material since I was 25.  I never expected to get rich with it—that certainly wasn’t my purpose--but I discovered quickly that there was more to “cost” than simply printing the books.  I needed high quality boxes for shipping because books are heavy.  I needed padded envelopes and packing tape.  There was the cost of gas to go to the post office to mail orders, especially after we moved thirty miles from town.  There was the price of advertising.  Businesses larger than mine also need a place to store inventory, salaries for employees and the benefits that attract them to the job, utilities and insurance for the store.  That’s not even half of it, but you get the point.  I am no longer outraged when I discover that the markup for some items is two or three hundred percent.  The “cost” is a whole lot steeper than the simple cost of manufacture.

Then there was my other sideline.  When I first started teaching piano lessons, I was still a student myself, so I only charged half of the amount my teacher charged.  Then I graduated from college and joined several teaching organizations.  When I looked around at other teachers, I suddenly understood that I needed to be paid based on my qualifications and my experience, and on the things I offered my students. 

I spent over $200 a year on professional dues so I could offer the competition, scholarship, and performance opportunities those organizations afforded its members’ students.  I spent more on workshops to keep myself up to date.  I had a degree in music that none of the others in my county had, and that education cost money.  I knew what it took to prepare for a college audition while no one else in the county did.  My students needed theory and history classes and for those I needed tapes, CDs, reference books, teaching materials like flash cards and rhythm band instruments, a music library for my older students to borrow from, and computer music theory games as well.  All of that cost money and my rates reflected that.

But once again, grace doesn’t follow the rules of economics.  Grace cost God, the manufacturer and supplier, an unconscionable amount—it cost his son.  I know there are some things in life that will always be beyond my means.  I will never drive a luxury car.  I will never live in a real house.  I will never visit a foreign country.  Knowing that, and based on the cost alone, I should never be able to afford grace.  Not even the wealthiest of us is able to pay for it.  But I can, and so can everyone else, because regardless the steep cost, for all of us this invaluable commodity is free.

Remember to thank God today for his rules of economics.
 
Thanks be to God for his unspeakable gift, 2 Cor 9:15.
 
Dene Ward

Economics was not my favorite subject in school.  Too much of it sounded like gobbledy-gook and the “rules” seldom seemed as logical to me as they did to the teacher—they were far too complicated.  One principle I did understand, though, perhaps because it was played out right in front of me in the early 1970s. 

            After working the whole summer between my freshman and sophomore years of college, I managed to buy my first car, a ’67 Mustang.  I commuted to Florida College and, in those days, a music major had to take 21-24 hours a semester just to get all the requirements in, plus stay for extra rehearsals.  I was on campus from 7:30 am till about 9 pm nearly every day.  Then I went home, grabbed a bite of leftovers, fell asleep across my homework about 2 am, got up at 6 and started again.

         That was the year of “the gas shortage.”  Many stations closed completely.  Others opened for only three or four hours a day—till the gas ran out.  Sometimes purchases were limited to five gallons per vehicle so that more customers could be served.

            We patronized one particular station in Temple Terrace.  One evening every week, the proprietor called us and his other regular customers.  Early the next morning, while it was still dark, we all lined up our cars behind the station so we wouldn’t attract attention, and he filled us all up, the station sign remaining dark and the office and service bays unlit.

            Eventually even that ran out.  Everyone in town was on the look-out and word passed quickly when a station opened, an attendant setting out the sandwich board sign, “Gas Today.”  In particular I remember sitting in my little blue Mustang with the red painted wheel wells in a long snaky line that reached from the station on the corner out to the southeast shoulder of 56th Street at Fowler Avenue, all of us hoping we would reach the pump before the owner turned the sign around to read, “Out of gas.”

            The supply was small, but the demand was just as great as ever, so I am sure you know what happened.  The price jumped from thirty-five to sixty-five cents a gallon.  In those days, minimum wage was $2.00 an hour, $12,000 a year was a good salary, and $25 bought a week’s groceries, so a tank of gas jumping from three or four dollars to nine or ten was a hardship.

            The rules of economics say that when the supply is small and the demand great, the price will rise.  On the other hand, when the supply is great and the demand small, the price will drop like a rock.  Things don’t work that way with grace. 

            Some of the early Christians, understanding how wonderful grace was, had the mistaken notion that since grace covered sin, they should sin more so there would be more grace.  Paul answers this error in Romans 6:1,2.  What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?  God forbid. We who died to sin, how shall we any longer live therein? He then goes on to explain that baptism into the death of Christ requires a death to sin on our part.  We should be living like baptized people, like people who are “no longer in bondage to sin,” v 6. 

           After a long discussion he starts talking about the price of that grace, a point he had begun in chapter five, and do you know what?  The price of grace to us has nothing to do with how much we need it or how much we sin.  The price of grace does not fluctuate like the price of gasoline.  No matter how much you need it, there is always plenty.  No matter how much you need it, it is always free.  We will never have to sit in line hoping we make it to the front before it runs out, and we will never be too poor to receive it.  The laws of supply and demand have absolutely nothing to do with grace, and aren’t we glad?
 
But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if many died through one man's trespass, much more have the grace of God and the free gift by the grace of that one man Jesus Christ abounded for many. And the free gift is not like the result of that one man's sin. For the judgment following one trespass brought condemnation, but the free gift following many trespasses brought justification. For if, because of one man's trespass, death reigned through that one man, much more will those who receive the abundance of grace and the free gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man Jesus Christ, Rom 5:15-17.
 
Dene Ward

My mother moved into a one bedroom apartment recently and that meant some serious downsizing.  We have been going through her things, pricing them for a yard sale, and the memories come flooding back as I handle them. 

            I can tell you what she served in every one of her serving dishes and which casseroles bubbled away in which pans.  I pulled a few things out for myself and last week I cooked a pot roast in her Magnalite roasting pan, used her pale blue plastic shaker to mix flour and water for the gravy, and then poured that gravy into her small blue bowl, just like she did for us Sunday after Sunday for years.  And I remember the Sunday, under her compassionate direction, we carted all that food to a neighbor whose husband had been killed in an automobile accident the night before.

              I emptied a file cabinet that held a folder for every major appliance in the house, plus its manual and even the sales slip with either her or my daddy’s signature on the bottom.  I found a letter sorter with “Gulf Oil” etched on it, a tape dispenser with “Gulf Credit Union” and its phone number taped to the side, and even a Gulf Oil hardhat with “Gerald Ayers” on the front of it.  And I remember the people at that company who learned to respect a man who was honest in everything and whose language was pristine.

              I found a recipe card collection that I remember from my early teens, which contains some of my favorite recipes.  Some are printed cards with color pictures, but others are handwritten, including one for “Rice with Backbone.”  Tell me where you will ever find that recipe anywhere else.  In fact, tell me where you will find backbone!  And I remembered all the recipes she made for company who graced our table, family, brethren, college students who loved having a home cooked meal, and the showers she hosted, the gospel sings, and the meeting preachers.

              And that’s not the half of it.  I found myself tearing up again and again as the memories flooded back, memories of a loving family and an extremely blessed childhood.  How many times have I thanked God for the parents who raised me, who taught me right from wrong, who turned me into a responsible adult, and most of all, who taught me about God.  And here is the fruit of it all:

              My parents raised two daughters.  Each of those girls married a godly man.  Between them they raised 9 grandchildren, all of whom are Christians.  Of the three married grandchildren, all married Christians as well.  And now six great-grandchildren are being taught the same way we were.  My parents’ progeny speaks well for them.

              They were not famous.  They were not influential in worldly ways.  But each one of us carry memories of them that keep us on the right track, memories that inspire us and make us want to be like them.  No, they were not perfect.  Show me anyone who is.  But they did what was necessary to raise us in the nurture and admonition of the Lord and to teach our children and those children teach theirs what they need to know to serve God. 

              You are creating memories for your children.  One day, they will go through your things.  What will mean the most to them?  What will they think of when they see your signature, when they read a letter you wrote, when they pick up a bowl or a mug or even a wood-cased thermometer that used to hang in your shed by a piece of green twisted wire?  What have you taught them about serving God?  You have taught them something, whether you intended to or not.  Maybe it’s time to spend a little more time on the eternal things.
 
“Only take care, and keep your soul diligently, lest you forget the things that your eyes have seen, and lest they depart from your heart all the days of your life. Make them known to your children and your children's children-- Deut 4:9
 
Dene Ward

I wonder what Punxatawny Phil saw this morning.  According to folklore, when this 120 year old groundhog leaves his burrow on Gobbler’s Knob each February 2nd, his shadow, or lack thereof, predicts the length of winter.  If he sees his shadow, there will be six more weeks of cold.  This has never made much sense to me.  The only way to see your shadow is on a sunny day.  It would make far more sense if the day was cloudy and gray and he did not see his shadow.  A cold gray day should mean more winter, not less.  Besides, how can Phil predict my weather over 1000 miles away?  My own local weatherman changes his five day forecast every twelve hours, and still misses it half the time.

            The idea of shadows is used a lot in the scriptures.  I was raised on the concept of “foreshadowing”—items under the Old Covenant used as types of things in the New, Heb 8:5; 10:1; 1 Cor 5:7,8, etc.  I think I had the notion that esoteric concept was the primary use of the word “shadow” in the Bible.

            Then I discovered Psalm 102:11, 144:4, and Eccl 8:13.  Our lives are depicted as shadows that decline and pass away.  Have you ever stood outside when a breeze was blowing those puffy cotton ball clouds across the sky?  One minute you are in the sun and the next in the shade—one minute you have a shadow and the next you don’t.  Life is just as ethereal in several ways.  One moment you are basking in the warmth of happiness and good times; the next your life is dark and gray with trials.  One minute you are here, and the next you are gone.  Remember not to lay up treasures for this world, but for the lasting one to come.

            The word is also used in terms of protection, hiding in the “shadow” of God.  David conveys thoughts like these in Psalm 17:8; 36:7; and 57:1.  Jeremiah uses the figure in Lam 4:20.  In a hot land with several desert areas, the protection of shade is important and that figure spoke volumes to these people.  Down here in Florida we have a healthy respect for shade which can make a ten to fifteen degree difference in the temperature.  We will walk the entire length of two parking lots in order to park a car in the miniscule shade of a thin-limbed sapling.  I wonder why so few are interested in the huge cooling shadow of a loving God.

            But then maybe I do understand.  When you step into the shadow of someone who is bigger than you, your own shadow disappears.  Our lives “are hid with Christ,” Col 3:3.  Maybe we just cannot stand the notion of giving up self.  We want to retain just a touch of independence.  “That’s just who I am,” becomes an excuse for our failure to overcome sin and become new creatures.  We fail to realize that we have merely swapped dwelling in the protective shadow of God for dwelling in the outer darkness of the Devil.

            Think today about shadows—about the interesting study of Old Testament items foreshadowing those in the New; about the fleeting nature of life, like a shadow dissolving when a cloud sails across the sun; about the great protection found in God’s shadow.  Think too about hiding yourself in the larger shadow of a Big Brother whose life we must emulate if we ever hope for that Father’s protection, and a life that is no longer as ephemeral as a shadow.
 
He that dwells in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of the Almighty. I will say of the LORD, He is my refuge and my fortress: my God; in Him will I trust, Psalm 91:1,2.  
 
Dene Ward

We visited our son a couple of months ago—the bachelor son.  He always spends nearly a full day cleaning before we arrive.  I know it’s true—you can smell the pines, the lemons, and the bleach when you walk in the door.  The vacuum, the broom, and the mop are usually still standing in the corner.  The bed is made with fresh, crisp sheets and his best towels hang in the bathroom.  He has obviously worked hard.

              But he is a man.  Some things he just doesn’t see or even think to look for.  I was loading the dishwasher one morning and after rinsing a plate my eyes fell on the window sill.  A layer of dust coated it, which, being in the kitchen where cooking grease rises in the steam and settles with an adhesive and almost audible thump, couldn’t just be quickly wiped away. 

              That evening when I stepped out of the shower, I saw the top of the baseboards.  And that’s when it hit me.  What about my baseboards?  What about my kitchen window sill?  When was the last time I cleaned them?  When was the last time I even thought to look and see if they needed cleaning?

              It’s so much easier to see someone else’s dirt—and that goes for spiritual dirt too.  Why do you look at the speck in your brother’s eye but don’t notice the log in your own eye?  Or how can you say to your brother, ‘Let me take the speck out of your eye,’ and look, there’s a log in your eye?  Hypocrite! First take the log out of your eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your brother’s eye,  Matt 7:3-5.  Jesus warns us about judging others more harshly than ourselves, about expecting perfection from others who might actually be closer to it than we are.  My son’s apartment was a lot cleaner than the house I left behind at that point.

              It takes a practiced eye to see the dirt.  I still remember the day I really learned to wipe off the dinner table.  I thought I’d done exactly that, but my mother called me back.  Indeed I had gotten every crumb and obvious spill but she showed me how to lean so that the overhead light shone on the table.  I had wiped, but had only smeared butter, gravy, and other assorted foodstuffs.  First you wipe up the crumbs and spills, then you rinse your cloth and actually clean the table.

              Experienced housekeepers know that kitchen surfaces collect greasy dirt and that any flat surface—even narrow little baseboards—collect dust.  They know ceilings “grow” cobwebs and shower doors amass soap scum.  They know that wiping off the top of anything isn’t even half the battle.  There are sides, a bottom, and sometimes insides that need our careful attention.

              Maybe it’s time to do a real housecleaning on ourselves.  If you don’t know where to look for dirt, try all those places you find it so easily in others.
             
“Woe to you, scribes and Pharisees, hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence! Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup, so the outside of it may also become clean. Matt 23:25,26.
 
Dene Ward

I received my first pair of glasses when I was four, coke bottle lenses hanging over the glasses’ frames at least a half inch.  Needless to say, my vision was horrible.  I don’t remember the prescription then, but by adulthood my left eye wore a +15.50 and my right a +17.25.  The cornea specialist at Shands told me I had the worst vision of any sighted person he had ever treated except for a man in his late 80s who had finally reached +18.

            Those first glasses seemed like miracles to this child.  I remember people saying, “It’s a shame she has to wear those big, ugly things.”  Yes, they did make my eyes, which were actually too small, look huge and bulging behind those thick lenses, but all I cared about was the fact that I could see for the first time in my life.  I had, for instance, never seen bugs before.  My mother says I was particularly enthralled with ants, and she would often catch me leaning over gazing at them intently as they scurried about on the concrete or through the blades of grass, something else I had never seen but only felt with my hands.

            They were indeed miracles for me, but they did not fix everything.  I could only see what was right in front of me.  I had no peripheral vision and could not see what was under my feet.  I stumbled a lot.

            People who come to the Bible with preconceived notions do exactly the same thing.  If a particular doctrine has been drummed into one’s head, he will never see the truth of a scripture that refutes it.  His brain refuses to.  That’s why you become so frustrated with your friends when you show them something in black and white and they say, “I don’t see it that way.”  The truth is, they really don’t see it that way.  Their glasses are distorting some things and hiding others.

            But here is the scary thing:  if other people can be blinded by teachings they have heard all their lives, the same thing can happen to me, and it can happen to you.  Even good-hearted people who are trying to obey God and serve him in the smallest detail can miss the obvious.  Do you want some examples?

            Matthew 15:8,9 was not written about denominational theologians and their human creeds, the only way I ever heard this verse applied as a child.  It was written to people of God who tried to follow his law exactly but who had a habit of creating traditions they counted as even more important than the law of God, even to the point of refusing fellowship to those who broke those traditions.  It was written to us!

            Romans 6 was not written to prove either the necessity of baptism or the form it should take (immersion).  It was written to Christians who had already been baptized to tell them they should live like they had been baptized.  It was written to us!

            James 2 was not written to people who believe in salvation by faith only in the Protestant denominational sense.  It was written to Christians who believed that as long as they assembled, and never did the big bad sins (by their definition), they were just fine.  They didn’t really have to do good deeds, show mercy and kindness, or serve others.  It was written to us!

            1 Cor 14:15, Eph 5:19 and Col 3:16 were not written as proof texts for our a capella singing.  They were written to show us how to sing and why; to command us to sing, not simply mutter and certainly not to sit there close-mouthed.  Singing is not a matter of choice, folks, any more than taking the Lord’s Supper is.  That is what those verses teach, and they were written to us!

            I could go on and on.  We must be every bit as careful as our religious friends when we read the scriptures.  Some of the phrases we use are simply not there.  Some of the notions we have are simply not so.  We are just as blind as our friends, just as much victims of our own tunnel vision, if we accept the things we have always heard or been taught without checking them out with an open mind.  Worst of all, we often miss things that will make a huge difference in our service to God. 
 
Open my eyes, that I may behold wondrous things out of your law. I am a sojourner on the earth; hide not your commandments from me! Psalm 119:18,19.
 
Dene Ward
 

Today’s post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

If any man see his brother sinning a sin not unto death, he shall ask, and God will give him life for them that sin not unto death. There is a sin unto death: not concerning this do I say that he should make request. All unrighteousness is sin: and there is a sin not unto death. (1John 5:16-17)

When a Bible class gets to 1 Jn 5:16-17, the discussion immediately turns, often with heat, to consideration of exactly what is the “sin unto death” and the “sin not unto death” since the wages of [all] sin is death. Then, someone will opine that the sin unto death is the same as the unpardonable sin of which Jesus spoke (Mt 12:32). All these things are fun to speculate about and, being unknowable, do not cut anyone with the sword of the Spirit.

But, consider the one thing we can know for certain from this passage. If we see a brother sin, we are to pray for him, pray for life for him. This is a far cry from some of the attitudes often expressed. “He is not so high and holy after all.” “Did you hear what she did?  “I may not be perfect, but at least I don’t…”  “There he goes again.”


What is your thought when you see a brother (or sister) sin? Is the first thing that comes to mind to go pray for his soul? No wonder we spend our time arguing over “sins not unto death.” That one cuts. (Me too!) How many other Bible class wranglings come from just such attempts to avoid the backswing of the sword of the Spirit?
 
If it is not helping us improve our service to God, it is not fit discussion.
 
Brethren, even if a man be overtaken in any trespass, ye who are spiritual, restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness; looking to thyself, lest thou also be tempted. Gal 6:1
 
Confess therefore your sins one to another, and pray one for another, that ye may be healed. The supplication of a righteous man availeth much in its working. Jas 5:16
 
Keith Ward

My mother recently moved and among the things she left behind were half a dozen old cookbooks printed in the 40s, 50s, and 60s.  I spent a few minutes leafing through them.  Our culture’s tastes have certainly changed in the past fifty or sixty years.

              Most of the recipes I found were for simple fare with plain ingredients.  When I was a child, my mother’s favorite market did not have an “International Foods” aisle.  The only pastas available were spaghetti and elbow macaroni.  The only salad dressings were Italian, Thousand Island, and that bright red-orange French.  All olives were green and pimento stuffed.  The only baked beans were Van Camp’s pork and beans or B & M baked beans, which none of us Southerners liked.  There was only one kind of rice and no couscous to be found.  The most exotic ingredient any of my mother’s favorite recipes called for was La Choy soy sauce.  No one had ever heard of Kikkoman.

              Yet each recipe in those old cookbooks was headed by a comment like, “Very filling,” or “Easy and good,” or “A family favorite.”  And I know those statements were true because I remember eating some of those recipes and even the dishes they were served in on our family table.  Not only were they good and filling, they were inexpensive, even in today’s dollars.  But would anyone even be tempted to use those old recipes today?  Would we serve them to guests?  I doubt it.  Somewhere along the line we’ve become status conscious, even in our food preferences.

              How about our spiritual tastes?  Just look at a modern worship service.  Would that “mega-church” down the road be satisfied with congregational singing and a simpler sermon loaded with scripture?  No, they demand a praise band for entertainment and a comedian/orator for their “pep rally.”  It is no longer about carefully approaching a Holy God with reverence and fear to offer our gift of worship, but all about how it makes ME feel and what I get out of it.  It’s about whether I approve instead of whether God approves.  Unfortunately, we seem to be falling into the same trap.

              In the time of Ezra and Nehemiah, the people came together to worship, standing for hours as the Law was read (Neh 8).  Then the Levites explained it, “they gave the sense” (8:8), what we would call a sermon.  No praise bands, no shouting, no dancing in the aisles, just a calm, intelligible sermon.  And how did that sermon affect them?

              And all the people went their way to eat and drink and to send portions and to make great rejoicing, because they had understood the words that were declared to them. Neh 8:12

              How about us?  Do we expect, even demand, something besides plain food with simple ingredients?  Are we dissatisfied with the old hymns because we are so Biblically illiterate that we cannot comprehend their depths?  Do we complain about simple old-fashioned sermons because they’re boring? 

              Would we ever stand for hours listening to the Word of God, then go home to Sunday dinner with rejoicing just because we were able to hear His Word?  Or would we cover our meals with the gravy of griping and serve dessert on a platter of complaints?  Is it all about ME instead of all about HIM?
 
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. But they said, ‘We will not walk in it.’ Jer 6:16
 
Dene Ward

After six months, working 20-30 minutes at the time, I finally finished stacking that woodpile.  When it became apparent that I was near the end, and I hoped “this” would be the last load, I stacked the garden cart just a little too high. 

            Have you seen those old Garden Way carts?  A large wooden three sided box sits on two bicycle tires, with two props in front (instead of two more wheels) and a tubular handle that comes straight out from the bottom of the cart.  You lift on that handle and pull or push the cart at an angle to the ground.  Basically, it’s one giant lever. 

            Since I was hoping to finish that day, I started stacking the wood into the cart from the back, behind the wheels.  Instead of laying the whole first layer, which would have been so much smarter, I kept stacking the back higher and higher.  Then as I turned around to grab a log for the first layer on the front end of the cart, I heard a sudden WHAM!  I was almost afraid to look, but when I did, I saw that the cart had tipped and fallen on its back and all that carefully stacked wood had tumbled out onto the ground.  Instead of balancing the weight on, behind, and in front of the wheels, I had put it all behind the wheels.  What should I have expected?  God doesn’t ordinarily change the laws of physics when his children act in a less than intelligent manner.

            We all have tipping points and we are often just as brainless about them.  God warns us over and over that sin can enslave us.  It isn’t something we can dabble in and then step out when we’re ready to.  Peter says we reach a point when we “cannot cease from sin” (2 Pet 2:14).  Paul says we can become “past feeling” at which point we will “give ourselves over” to unrighteousness (Eph 4:19).  He also talks about people who have their “consciences branded” (1 Tim 4:2). 

            Slaves were branded in the first century.  When, having sinned over and over, we reach the point that we have become “obedient slaves of sin” (Rom 6:16), our consciences become branded.  We may think we are free, but that is part of the entrapment.  Somewhere along the line we have become addicted to our sin and we cannot stop, cannot cease, have given ourselves over to this master.

            And when that happens God “gives us over” as well (Rom 1:24).  Whatever we want to do, He will allow, however we want to live, He will not stand in the way.  “There remains no longer a sacrifice” for us (Heb 10:26).

            When do we reach that tipping point?  I do not know.  I do know that the thought of it scares me to death.  If anything will keep me righteous, maybe that is it—the idea that somewhere along the way I can reach a point where even God gives up on me.  Maybe that will make me stay away from that balancing act altogether. 

            Does that make me yet another kind of slave?  You bet—a slave of righteousness.  But tipping over in that direction will bring an entirely different result.
 
Do you not know that if you present yourselves to anyone as obedient slaves, you are slaves of the one whom you obey, either of sin, which leads to death, or of obedience, which leads to righteousness? But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the form of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness.  For just as you once presented your members as slaves to impurity and to lawlessness leading to more lawlessness, so now present your members as slaves to righteousness leading to sanctification… But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life.  Rom 6:16-19,22.
 
Dene Ward