Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me,
All His wonderful passion and purity.
May His Spirit divine all my being refine
Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in me.

When your burden is heavy and hard to bear
When your neighbors refuse all your load to share
When you're feeling so blue, Don't know just what to do
Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in you.

When somebody has been so unkind to you,
Some word spoken that pierces you through and through.
Think how He was beguiled, spat upon and reviled,
Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in you

From the dawn of the morning till close of day,
In example in deeds and in all you say,
Lay your gifts at His feet, ever strive to keep sweet
Let the beauty of Jesus be seen in you.
 
            This one will probably go in a direction you never expected.  Look at the third verse.  Read it through once, twice, or as many times as it takes to find the problem. 

            If you haven’t found it after half a dozen readings, don’t be too hard on yourself.  After all, I sang this song for five decades before I saw it.  Will it help to tell you the problem is in the third line of that verse?

            Hardly anyone I have spoken to sees it.  But tell me this, when was Jesus ever “beguiled?”  I have checked over half a dozen dictionaries, and that word always has something to do with being “deceived.”  Look at 2 Cor 11:3:  But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve in his craftiness...

            I looked up every usage of that Greek word in the New Testament (5) and they all mean the same thing, sometimes even translated “deceived.”  In fact, Rom 7:11, says sin beguiled us.  Now tell me that has anything at all to do with our Lord.

            What I really do not understand is the extent people will go to in order to make this lyric scriptural.  One person frantically searched more and more dictionaries until he found some “forty-fifth” definition that might possibly make the word mean something besides deception.  But tell me, is it a good word choice if I have to stand on my head and do cartwheels in order to find anything that will make the concept correct, when the easy, normal use of the word is anything but?  Why would anyone be so desperate to prove a hymn written by a man did not have an error in it?  (No, he was not related to the man.) 

            I find I cannot sing that line in the song any longer.  The rest is perfectly fine and full of wonderful thoughts and I sing them “with the spirit and the understanding.” 

            But all this trouble over one word makes me wonder what else we try to hang onto that might be a whole lot more important.  We have things to say about friends and neighbors who cannot seem to let go of a doctrine they have believed all their lives, even when we show them a clear passage on the subject.  Maybe it’s time to ask ourselves if we would really be any better.
 
But I am afraid that as the serpent beguiled Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ. 2Cor 11:3
 
Dene Ward

My writing teacher taught me that the final sentence can make or break a story, essay, or speech.  What she actually said was, “Too many people don’t know when to shut up.”  She told us to make the last line, or at least the last phrase, short and punchy so it would stick in people’s memories for at least a while after they put our writing down or walked away from our speeches.  If you keep on going, you weaken the impact of what should have been the last sentence, and no one will remember it.

            There have been times the last sentence took me days to come up with.  I ended the essay just to get it finished, then walked away and turned the thing over in my head until finally, as long as a week later, I came up with that punchy last line.  There have also been times when I never found it—I just hoped I hadn’t ruined the whole thing with my failure. 

            The last word of our lives is just as important.  Sometimes we want to rest on our laurels, laurels that become bigger to us as the years go by, so big we often get lost in their branches.  I once heard an old retired preacher who could not sit in the Bible class without reminding everyone of all he had done in the past.  The subject at hand made this particularly ironic.  It must have finally struck him that everyone else was talking about their past mistakes and the things they had learned in life which had helped them develop humility.  He finally spoke up with, “Oh, as I became older I realized I had been wrong about a few things when I was young—but not very many!”  Since we were visiting and he was quite elderly, I went away hoping that did not turn out to be his last word before the Lord.

            We cannot count on things we did long ago to save us; we cannot choose what will be our last word and expect God to forget what came after.  God told Ezekiel, When I say to the righteous, that he shall surely live; if he trust to his righteousness, and commit iniquity, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered; but in his iniquity that he has committed, therein shall he die, 33:13.  God expects us to continue doing right as long as we live.  He expects us to continue serving others in whatever way we can.  Those right things may change as our circumstances do; our “serving” may reach the point of simple example as our bodies deteriorate.  We may actually become the tool to allow others to serve—saying “yes” when others offer to help is just as important, and humble, as offering the help.  For many of us, “Thank you,” to a loving brother or sister may be the last words we utter.

            God, the Righteous Judge, will be the one with the last word in our final judgment.  Nothing I say or do can change the fact that I have sinned and deserve eternal punishment, but the grace of God gives me hope.  The last word I want to hear before I leave the realm of Time and enter Eternity is, “Forgiven.”
 
This is the end of the matter; all has been heard: fear God, and keep his commandments; for this is the whole of man, Eccl 12:13.
 
Dene Ward

“Then the kingdom of heaven will be like ten virgins who took their lamps and went to meet the bridegroom. Five of them were foolish, and five were wise. For when the foolish took their lamps, they took no oil with them, but the wise took flasks of oil with their lamps, Matt 25:1-4.
 
            Every time we hear this parable the same point is made—it was foolish to have no oil for their lamps.  But one thing has always struck me from the outset of this little story.  Why were they carrying lamps in the first place if they didn’t also pick up some oil?  It’s like carrying a gun in a dangerous place but no ammunition.  It’s like carrying a hair dryer to a primitive campsite.  It’s like peeling a five pound bag of potatoes with no pot to cook them in.  Why bother? 

Does that mean the story isn’t valid?  Nope.  I see those same foolish people every Sunday.  They get up early to come to church and sit on a pew and a listen to the preacher—but they have made no commitment to God, to their Lord, or to their brothers and sisters.  They do absolutely nothing all week long—no Bible reading, no praying, no serving.  They live exactly the way they want to live, and usually don’t get caught.  Or maybe they are relatively moral, having been taught by their parents to be good people—not because God requires righteousness of His servants.  In fact, God is the last person on their minds in every decision they make.

What’s going to happen when the trumpet sounds?  They will suddenly realize they did not bring any oil.  They carried a lamp every Sunday and somehow thought it would light itself or give off light simply because it was a lamp, or who knows what irrational reason. 

You know that word translated "foolish"?  It means “stupid.”  It’s the word moros.  Look familiar?  I think it’s the word we get “moron” from.  Don’t be a moron.  If you plan to carry a lamp, put some oil in it.  Maybe carry some extra.  Sitting on the pew never has saved anyone, and it won’t save you.
 
​“What to me is the multitude of your sacrifices? says the LORD; I have had enough of burnt offerings of rams and the fat of well-fed beasts; I do not delight in the blood of bulls, or of lambs, or of goats. “When you come to appear before me, who has required of you this trampling of my courts? Bring no more vain offerings; incense is an abomination to me. New moon and Sabbath and the calling of convocations— I cannot endure iniquity and solemn assembly. Your new moons and your appointed feasts my soul hates; they have become a burden to me; I am weary of bearing them. When you spread out your hands, I will hide my eyes from you; even though you make many prayers, I will not listen; your hands are full of blood. ​Wash yourselves; make yourselves clean; remove the evil of your deeds from before my eyes; cease to do evil, learn to do good; seek justice, correct oppression; bring justice to the fatherless, plead the widow's cause, Isa 1:11-17.
 
Dene Ward
 

One of my writing teacher’s favorite metaphors was something she called “the abstraction ladder.”  She told us we wrote in forgettable generalities.  “You have to bring it down the ladder,” she said.  Then she began to show us what she meant.
 
           On the board she wrote, “Meat cooking in a pan.”  What kind of meat?  What kind of cooking?  What kind of pan?  “Bring it down the ladder,” she said.  “Make it appeal to as many senses as possible.” 

            Under the offending phrase she drew a large ladder. Then, as we answered each question, she rewrote the original phrase, placing each clarification down another rung on the ladder.  Gradually that blah little phrase became more and more concrete.  At the bottom of the ladder we wound up with, “Bacon sizzling in a cast iron skillet.”  Suddenly you could see it, you could hear it, you could even smell it. 

            Learning all the Bible stories is essential to a Christian.  All those narratives make the abstract commands more concrete.  “Flee fornication,” Paul says in 1 Cor 6:18.  The concrete illustration is Joseph in Genesis 39.  Look at all the things Joseph did to help himself—first he said no to the woman, then he did his best to avoid being alone with her, and when finally she caught him, literally, he simply ran. 

            But even recognizing that does not bring it down the ladder far enough.  I must apply it to my own life.  What temptations do I struggle with?  Do I even get past the point of saying no?  Do I avoid the temptation or try to see how close I can get?  Do I think I need to prove something and so stand there and try to overcome the temptation when the wiser thing would be to run away?

            That is just a small example of how the Scriptures should affect my life.  Men stand and pray at the end of practically every sermon that we will “make application” to our lives.  Too often we don’t even try.  Too often even the sermons themselves are void of specific concrete examples to help us find a way to apply them.  In actually making pointed applications, even made-up situations, the preacher is likely to hit a nail right on the head accidentally.  Maybe that is why we don’t hear too many specific applications.  That means we need to try even harder to do it for ourselves.

            God meant for the scriptures to lead us to Heaven.  We have the mistaken notion that we need to stay at the top of the ladder to get there.  But in this case, the closer we get to the bottom, the more likely we will make it.
 
This book of the law shall not depart out of your mouth, but you shall meditate thereon day and night, that you may observe to do according to all that is written therein: for then you shalt make your way prosperous, and then you shall have good success, Josh 1:8.
 
Dene Ward

The idea of me writing a tutorial on how to use a website is hilarious, but I have been asked the same questions over and over, and usually have a new influx of readers every few months, so I have given in to the advice to write a how-to.  If you already know how to use all the elements of the Flight Paths blog, then you can safely skip this one.  If you are new, you might want to read it in any case.
            So, in the spirit of websites everywhere, here are the FAQs:
 
How do I get to the blog?    
I know that many people come here only from posted or shared links, especially from facebook.  If you do that, you will go straight to that post instead of the main page of the blog, and that means you will miss other posts.  I do post five days a week, except when otherwise noted. 
            To get to the entire blog, type www.flightpaths.org in your search engine.   If you come from the Flight Paths facebook page, go to the left column of that page and scroll down until you see the blue address in the description of the website.  Click on that.
            By approaching the blog in either of those ways, you can scroll down and read the current and previous nine entries on any given day.  At the very bottom of the main page, on the left (under the current ten entries), you will see the word “Previous.”  If you click on that, you can go to the ten entries just before those, and so on, all the way back to the beginning of the blog.
 
How do I subscribe to the blog?
I am told there are two ways to do so.
            First, on the right sidebar of the main page, under “Categories” you will see “RSS Feed.”  If you click on that, it will take you to a page to subscribe.  I am not sure how it works.  In fact, some have had trouble getting it to work or figuring out what to put in the form on the page, but if you are far more computer literate than I, you can give it a try.
            More people have told me they “bookmark” the main page.  On my computer, you go to the top bar and click on a little square on the right.  A box drops down and then you find “bookmark this page” and click on that.  It will then be added to your favorites list.  After that, all you have to do is click on “favorites” or “bookmarks” or whatever your computer calls it.  When the box drops, look for “Flight Paths” and click on that.  It will take you straight to the page without the hassle of a Google search.
            This will only work if you bookmark the main page.  If you use a link, that one post is what you will get every time.
 
If I go from a link, how do I find the main blog?
Any time you go to the blog from a link, just look on the left sidebar for “Dene’s blog.”  Click on that and you will get the entire blog, including the ten previous posts.  Just keep scrolling down as we mentioned earlier.  You can also bookmark it at that point, and it will work just fine.
 
How do I get a Flight Paths book?
Also on the left sidebar, you will see “Dene’s books” and “Dene’s classbooks.”  Click on whichever you want, and it will take you to a page that links to a bookstore or my publisher.
 
How do I find a specific article?
This is what the right sidebar is for.  Under my picture you will find “Archives” and “Categories.”  If you know the approximate date, then click on the month and year and scroll through those.  If you know the general topic, try the categories list.
            About those categories.  Many posts are linked under several.  Some of the categories have to do with the topic of the post: faith, unity, family, etc., but others are based on the jumping off point.  If I came up with a post while I was cooking one day, you should look under “Cooking/Kitchen.”  If you remember something about a camping trip, look under “Camping.”  If it started with a cute story about a child, click on “children.”  So you have several ways to find a particular post—date, jumping off point, and topic.
 
Are there other pages?
All the other pages of the post are listed on the left sidebar.  Whichever page you are on will be highlighted.  I have already told you about the book pages.  Let me talk a minute about two others.
            “Contact Dene” is an email page.  This might be useful if you have a question you would rather keep private rather than posting on the bottom of an article.  Anyone can see the comments on the bottom of the articles, but only I receive the question from the “Contact” page.
            “Dene’s Recipes” came about from the Cooking/Kitchen entries.  After reading a particular post, people often asked for the recipe I mentioned.  So I have started including them on that page, with links to the date of the original post.  You can go either way—from the post to the recipe or from the recipe to the post.
 
What do I do with the facebook page?
The facebook page is strictly for announcements, tips on using the blog, and usually one link a week.  If you “like” the page, you will automatically see anything I post on that page on your newsfeed.  I use it to share when and where I will be speaking, when a new book is coming out, when I am starting a series, and many readers use it to share links with people they think might find a particular post helpful.  I do not link all of my posts.  That would make me the proverbial boy who cried wolf, and people would stop noticing.  If all you use are the links on the facebook page, you will miss 80% or more of the posts.  That is why you need to bookmark the main page.
 
I hope this has been helpful.  Feel free to contact me if you have other questions.
 
Dene Ward

I had a great writing teacher and I still remember the things she taught me.  One of the best things she ever said, was, “Don’t fall in love with your own words.”
 
           I had a habit of going off on tangents, especially in expository writing.  I kept making asides, ideas that had nothing to do with my main point.  “You are confusing people,” she said.  “Your main point is coming across as one of several in a list instead of something vital.  If those other things are that important, make a whole new essay about each of them.  If they aren’t important enough for that, they certainly aren’t important enough to ruin what is important.”

            I have tried to follow that advice for nearly forty years now.  It is a lesson speakers need as well.  While tutoring home-schoolers, preachers “in training,” and a few “full-fledged” preachers with their writing, I have finally come up with the perfect analogy.  Grab a can of orange juice concentrate and read the directions.  Pour the concentrate into the pitcher and add three cans of water.  Guess what happens if you add more than three cans?  You dilute the juice, and the more you add the weaker it gets.  Before long you just have orange-colored water. 

            When you have a point to make and use too many words to say it or drown it in a sea of words that do not apply, you weaken your point.  A short pithy statement will stay in people’s minds long after they finish reading (or listening).

            The same thing is true in life.  When we need to rebuke someone don’t we add all sorts of extra words to soften the blow?  Often that is a good idea.  Just the right amount (three cans) can help someone listen to what they need to hear.  But sometimes we add so many that they go away agreeing with us, never realizing it was them we were talking about.  What was that statement Nathan made to David?  “Thou art the man.”  Four little words pierced David’s heart to the core.  We often forget to say that part, not because we are wise and loving, but because we are cowards, not loving enough to say what needs to be said.

            Then there is this sad fact of life:  the more you talk, the more likely you are to put your foot in your mouth.  That is why I try not to judge preachers, elders, and Bible class teachers.  Their job is to talk.  Inevitably something will come out wrong.  Be kind in your assessments.

            Be careful out there.  The more you talk, the more likely you are to hurt someone, the more likely you are to embarrass yourself (and your spouse), and the more likely you are to sin with your tongue.  But when the time comes to speak, be careful not to add too much water to the juice out of fear, but just the right amount to help someone find his way back to the Lord.  God wants pure orange juice Christians.  If He will spew out lukewarm Christians, surely He will spew out the orange-colored water Christians as well.
 
Be not rash with your mouth, and let not your heart be hasty to utter anything before God; for God is in heaven and you upon earth: therefore let your words be few. For a dream comes with a multitude of business, and a fool's voice with a multitude of words, Eccl 5:2,3.
 
Dene Ward

Lucas lives five minutes from the beach.  On our first visit we drove across Santa Rosa Sound and strolled the white sand beach, watching the sandpipers’ maniacal little legs dodging the last remnant of a wave as it crept across the shiny wet sand, and looked across the emerald green water for the first sign of a dolphin breaking the surface while the seagulls screamed overhead hoping for an errant crust or dropped crumb.  We plodded along, our feet sinking into the mud, leaning into westerly winds that would blow the curls right out of your hair, our words caught just as they slipped out of our mouths and blown away like dust bunnies in a fan.

            We weren’t alone.  Pale-skinned tourists in floppy sunhats scoured the beach for shells.  Children played tag with the waves.  Older tweens and teens, their hands and legs breaded with sand, carried pails of mud for sandcastles and sculptures, and gathered shells and driftwood for ornamentation.  Lovers of all ages strolled hand in hand, eyes only for one another.

            The beach itself is lined with condos, ten or more stories of glittering glass, reflecting the sun, balconies furnished with umbrella-ed tables and cushioned chairs and potted plants of the sort than can tolerate the sun, the heat, and the salt spray that constantly drifts over the narrow spit of land between the surf and the sound.

            “Wonder what one of those costs?” we often ask, telling ourselves we would never tire of the view and the calming rhythm of waves pounding the shore again and again and again.

            But guess what?  Before long we’d had enough and we piled back into the car for the five minute drive back to the apartment.  The first time we visited, we walked on the beach three times in three days, but soon it was down to one almost obligatory visit, and this past visit?  We didn’t go a single time.

            It’s easy to get used to things.  When we moved to Illinois for two years, I saw snow for the time in my 21 years of life.  Guess who was out playing in it, digging tunnels through eave-high drifts, throwing snowballs with mittened hands, and building snowmen?  All of our neighbors stayed inside where it was warm, peering through their blinds at the crazy people from Florida.

            A few weeks ago a YouTube video went viral.  It pictured something not often seen these days—a young man helping a poor, elderly woman check out in a grocery line one item at a time because she was not sure she had enough money, and doing it with patience, respect, and kindness.  Isn’t it sad that something like that has become so rare that, just like a landlubber at the beach or a Floridian in the snow, everyone stops in their tracks to look?

            And isn’t it sad that some Christians need the example that young man set?  Giving courtesy and respect where it is deserved and even where it isn’t, yielding our rights, speaking with kindness, accounting others the right to make the same mistakes we do without incurring our wrath, and realizing that not everyone operates on OUR timetables—THAT should be so common among us that no one gives it a second thought and certainly wouldn’t take a video of our actions as something rare—even behind a steering wheel.  Instead, we pat ourselves on the back for doing these things once every now and then.

            We should be like the waves incessantly breaking on this world with mercy, grace, and kindness, whether the shore is rough and rocky or flat and smooth.  No one ever questions whether the next wave will come.  It rolls in again and again, over and over and over without a break in the rhythm, so regularly that no one stops to say, “Look!  Here comes another wave.”  If it didn’t come, it wouldn’t be a wave.

            Are you a wave, or just an occasional splash?
 
Keep your conduct among the Gentiles honorable, so that when they speak against you as evildoers, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day of visitation. 1Pet 2:12
 
Dene Ward

Keith and I have made a concerted effort to eat healthier meals this year.  We have not turned into rabid health nuts, the ones who look down their noses at your occasional cheeseburger and tut-tut your references to morning coffee.  Organic food is not in our budget and depriving yourself of a treat now and then just makes you want one more.  We have merely kept the fat and calorie intake to a modest level, substituted complex carbs for the simple ones, and made our servings smaller.  We have been rewarded with modest weight loss and better “numbers.”  The best reward is hearing the doctor say, “You’ve lost some weight.  Excellent!”

            Sometimes I daydream about losing another ten pounds, or maybe fifteen or twenty.  Thirty might be a little too much.  On the other hand, who would not want his doctor to say, “I think you need to gain a little weight?”  No doctor I have had in my entire life has ever said such a thing.  I am not sure the one I have now even knows how to string those particular words together in that order.  Even when I was two minutes old and weighed six pounds eight ounces the doctor wouldn’t say it, and that was probably his last chance in this lifetime.  But still, a girl can dream, can’t she?

            When you stop and think about it, there are a lot of words we often dream about hearing, and many of them we eventually do.

            “Will you go out with me?”

            “Will you marry me?”

            “It turned blue.”

            “It’s a boy.”

            “You’re going to be a grandmother.”

            “He’s here, grandma!”

            Words can be precious.  They can change your life in an instant.  Just wanting to hear certain words can change your life because you suddenly realize you won’t hear them if you don’t change it.

            There are many things I may never hear, especially, “You need to gain some weight.”  But if I really put my mind to it, I could.  If I changed my lifestyle drastically, I could.  It just depends on how much I really want it.  Dreaming alone won’t get it.

            There are some words that are worth a drastic lifestyle change.  They are worth the loss of pride involved in self-examination and the humility of admitting wrong and repenting.  They are worth losing family, friends and status.  Some have even thought they were worth losing their lives for.  Dreaming that I have the faith and steadfastness to do those things won’t get me those words, but if I really want to hear them, I can.  They make take that drastic lifestyle change, but they are worth losing it all, because in the losing you gain everything.

            “Well done, good and faithful servant…enter into the joy of the lord.”
 
Tell the righteous that it shall be well with them for they shall eat the fruit of their deeds.  Woe to the wicked!  It shall be ill with him, for what his hands have dealt out shall be done unto him.  Isa 3:10,11.
 
Dene Ward
 

Masquerade balls have a varied and grisly history, depending upon which historian you believe.  Some say they were invented by the Venetian upper classes in the sixteenth century during Carnival season as a way to let loose without getting into trouble.  Others say they began in the fourteenth century in France when whole villages celebrated an important event, often a welcome of some high dignitary into their town.  Crimes were sometimes committed amid the anonymity, as well as immorality of all sorts, especially drunkenness, gluttony and lust.  The English took them up in the eighteenth century, though some considered them outings for “The Man of Taste.”  Then the Swedes discovered them, but on the night of March 16, 1792, King Gustav III was assassinated at his own masquerade ball by a disgruntled nobleman.  He died two weeks later on March 29 and due to an informant among the cabal, so did the murderer’s anonymity.
           
            God’s people would never try to hide their sins would they?  The people of God have always understood that as God, He knew everything they did, even the things done “in secret,” right?

            At that time Abijah the son of Jeroboam fell sick. And Jeroboam said to his wife, “Arise, and disguise yourself, that it not be known that you are the wife of Jeroboam, and go to Shiloh. Behold, Ahijah the prophet is there, who said of me that I should be king over this people. Take with you ten loaves, some cakes, and a jar of honey, and go to him. He will tell you what shall happen to the child,” 1Kgs 14:1-3.

            Consider the foolishness of this situation.  Jeroboam believes this man is a prophet of God, yet he thinks he can trick him, first by sending someone instead of going himself, and second by disguising that someone.  If God can do what Jeroboam believes He can, then how will He be fooled by a disguise?

            This isn’t the only instance recorded in the scriptures.  Ananias and Sapphira come quickly to mind.  But in my lifetime, I’ve seen Christians do the same thing again and again, and sadly, sometimes I have fallen into this trap too. 

            Usually it’s the obvious—Sunday morning Christians who seem to think that God does not know what goes on the rest of the week, as if He is bound by the meetinghouse doors.

            But there are a few more complex ways of disguising ourselves.  Some of us do the right things, but without the heart, or with entirely the wrong heart.  As long as God sees me take the Lord’s Supper every Sunday or attend whenever the doors are opened, it doesn’t matter that I hate every minute of it.   As long as I give, it doesn’t really matter if I do it grudgingly or not.  As long as I shake everyone’s hand, it doesn’t matter if I hate the very sight of them.  Really?

            But then there are those who raise their hands and shout hallelujah, who “give God the glory” every other sentence and hug everyone in sight, but who are quick to find an excuse for not doing exactly what God says He wants.  “It’s such a little thing…”  “God wouldn’t mind…”  “But God knows my heart.”  Yep.  He knows it’s a heart of self will that only pretends to love and worship Him as long as it gets things its way.

            Hypocrisy, legalism, ritualism, emotionalism—God wants none of these disguises.  He wants people who love Him and serve Him the way He wants to be served, because He is the great and glorious God who sees all we do and knows our hearts, and He alone deserves it.  God has never gone for masquerades.
 
The LORD looks down from heaven; he sees all the children of man; from where he sits enthroned he looks out on all the inhabitants of the earth, he who fashions the hearts of them all and observes all their deeds, Ps 33:13-15.
 
Dene Ward

I was searching through my Bible the other night, preparing for a class on how to overcome temptation.  I spent a considerable amount of time looking to the example of our Lord and how he managed it.  Maybe we will talk about those things another time.  However, I found in 1 Peter a passage in which I saw at least three methods to help myself overcome.
           
Take a moment now and read 1 Peter 1:13-21, just to save me space in this little essay.  In verse 13 Peter says to set your hope.  We have this nifty little definition we often use—hope is confident expectation.  I think we miss the emphasis on confidence.  It isn’t that we hope, maybe, if possible, perhaps, we will be saved—it is that we have every confidence that we will.  At least in the King James Version that Greek word is translated “trust” more times than it is “hope.” 
           
And notice on what we are to set our hope, our trust—not ourselves, not our own righteousness, not the great and wonderful things we have done for the Lord.  If that were the case, our hope would be hope-less.  We set it on the grace of God.  Now do you see where the confidence comes in?  Because I have trust in the grace of God I can more easily overcome sin.  I know it is not a “hopeless” cause.

Now look at verses 15-17—and this one I want to write down for you.   We often miss the point because of the parenthetical statement Peter includes.  I am going to skip that phrase so you will see what he is getting at.  But as he who called you is holy, be also yourselves holy in all manner of living, because it is written, “You shall be holy because I am holy.” And if you call on him as Father…pass the time of your sojourning in fear.”

Do you start your prayers, “Our Father?”  Remember who that Father is, a Holy Father.  I loved my parents as much as any child ever could, but sometimes it was remembering those parents that made me behave myself.  I had a very real fear—not simply respect—of their reactions if I didn’t.  When you go out in the world and temptation suddenly strikes, remember who your Father is, a holy one, who expects the same from you.  When you dare to call on him as Father, let that remind you to behave yourself.
           
Then in verses 18 and 19 Peter reminds us of the price that was paid for us.  When someone gives me an expensive gift, I take far better care of it than some little token picked up at the Dollar Store, don’t you?  The price paid for our souls was the blood of Christ.  Do you think so little of it that you would throw it away like so much rubbish?  Are you that ungrateful?  I doubt it.  But sometimes we need to be reminded of things we already know.  In moments of trial, it is far too easy to forget.
           
Set your hope, your trust, on the grace of God, not yourself.  Remember who your Father is.  Remember the price that was paid for your soul.  I hope these help you get through the day, and perhaps a few more to come.
 
 For the love of Christ constrains us because we thus judge that one died for all, therefore all died, and he died for all that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again, 2 Cor 5:14,15.
 
Dene Ward