Nothing aggravates me much more than listening to someone claim to be religious, claim to love the Lord, claim to have the utmost faith in Him, and then live like the Devil. It is false advertising at its worst. Then our women’s Bible study reached James 2 in our study of faith and suddenly, it got a little personal.

Although I am grateful for the convenience of chapters and verses that the scholars have added, it is obvious that they sometimes had their minds on other things when they threw them in. And throw them it appears they did, like sprinkling salt on a plateful of food. So what if a verse is divided in the middle of a sentence or a chapter in the middle of a thought? The “what” is this—you forget to check the entire context because your eyes tell your mind that it started and ended right there, not on the page before or after.

So we backed up into chapter 1 and found this: “If anyone thinks he is religious…” in verse 26. Another two verses back we found, “If anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer…” verse 23, which directly connects to the whole point of chapter 2: “Faith without works is dead.” Chapter 2 itself begins with, “Show no partiality as you hold the faith of our Lord Jesus Christ.” So from all that we easily concluded that being a doer of the Word (1:23), being religious (1:26), and holding to the faith (2:1) were all synonymous, and that it was easy to tell if a person fit the bill.

Follow along with me. A person who merely thinks he is religious but in reality is not: does not bridle his tongue, 1:26; does not serve others, 1:27; lives a life of impurity, 1:27; does not love his neighbor as himself, 2:8; shows partiality, 2:9; does not show mercy, 2:13.

I am happy to point out that those celebrities who claim faith in the Lord hop from bed to bed, and carouse at every opportunity. Their language is foul and a criminal record of drugs, DUIs, and assaults follow them around like a noxious vapor trail.

But how about the rest of us, the ones who don’t have the paparazzi following us? Do we serve those in need or are we too busy? Do we love our neighbors, or only the friends we enjoy being with? Do we talk about “them,” whoever they might be in any conversation, as if they were somehow “other” than us because of their race, their nationality, their lifestyle, their politics, even the clothes they wear? If I do any of that am I any more “religious” than the Jesus-calling, promiscuous drunk I abhor?

This discussion also led us to another defining characteristic of a true faith. Look at those qualities again—someone who says the right thing at the right time, whose words are extremely important; someone who serves others; someone who is pure and holy; someone who loves as himself; someone who treats everyone the same, even the lowest of the low; someone who shows mercy—who does that best describe? Isn’t it the one we are supposed to have faith in, Jesus, and ultimately God?

Adoration equals imitation. If I am not trying to become like the one I have faith in, my faith is a sham. How can I claim to believe in a God who sends rain on the just and the unjust while holding back on my service to one I have deemed unworthy of it? How can I have faith in a merciful God and not forgive even the worst sin against me? How can I have faith in a God who is holy and pure and a Lord who remained sinless as the perfect example to me and make excuses for my own sins?

Do you think you are religious? Do your neighbors? Sometimes what we really are is a whole lot clearer to everyone else.

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. James 1:22-25

Dene Ward

Florida has some strange weather. As a teenager in Tampa I remember
looking out the front door to sunshine and warm breezes, then out the backdoor to rain. Honestly--raining in the backyard and sunshine in the front. At our place now we can look up to the gate and see rain while the garden is still wilting in the sun. 
 
I thought about that recently when Lucas told us how his little strip of land two blocks from the beach seemed to be a dividing point in weather systems as they passed through the panhandle from the west. He could walk outside and look south to sunny blue skies, puffy cotton ball clouds and palm trees waving in the sea breeze. Yet if he looked north, he saw billowing black clouds lit up by lightning that occasionally streaked its way to the ground. Take your choice of weather: look north or look south; go out the front door or go out the back.
 
Which reminds me about the essential truth of happiness: it’s a choice you make regardless of the conditions you find yourself in. “I have learned in
whatever state I am in to be content,” Paul says in Phil 4:11. The disciples
rejoiced that they were “counted worthy to suffer,” Acts 5:41. If that doesn’t prove that happiness is a choice, what can?
 
That doesn’t mean I can face every day with a smile—I haven’t gotten there yet. But it does mean that when I am not in a good mood, I understand it’s
up to me to change myself not my circumstances. “I can do all things through him who strengthens me;” that old timeworn citation immediately follows Paul’s
assertion that contentment is a learned behavior. He understands that although
happiness may be a choice, it isn’t always an easy one—it takes some help to
manage when the outward man must face pain or illness or persecution or other suffering, whether physical or mental. If it takes the help of Christ, it must
be a difficult task.
 
But it can be done, and while the doing may be difficult, the how isn’t. All you have to do is face in the right direction, “looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith,” the Hebrew writer tells us in 12:2, and then goes on to tell us how our example did it: looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, Hebrews 12:2. He looked ahead to the joy, not around him to the shame and pain, the hostility and the weariness. 
  
What do they teach us in our Lamaze classes, ladies? You focus on something besides the pain. How many of you took a picture with you that they tacked on the wall? Then you chose to look at it. Even then you needed a little help — that’s what those men of yours were there for. They helped you keep your focus and count your breaths. You chose to listen to them and follow their instructions (when you weren’t grabbing them by the collar and telling them through gritted teeth not to ever touch you again!), but yes, it worked and you got through it, and you even wanted it again before much longer because you remembered the joy when that precious little bundle was placed in your arms, John 16:21.
 
Do you want a happy marriage? Do you want a good relationship with your family and your brothers and sisters in Christ? Do you want to greet life every day with a smile instead of a sneer, laughter instead of tears? The weather you can’t change, but you can change which door you leave by and which direction you look.

We look not at the things which are seen, but at the things which are not seen: for the things which are seen are temporal; but the things which are not seen are eternal,. 2 Corinthians 4:18.
 
Dene Ward

“Do it myself!” What parent has not heard these words from his toddler with mixed feelings? Yes, he is learning to do things for himself, all by himself, without my help. Good for him! Yes, he is learning to do without me. Some day he won’t need my help at all. Some day he will experience his own Independence Day, and we will face it with pride in his accomplishment and tears for our own loss at the same time.

And don’t we prize that independent feeling ourselves? I have a good friend who is 93. She and I have often bemoaned the fact that people no longer seem to understand the word “need.” What they think they “need” is usually just
something they “want.” It worries us that we are becoming more and more
dependent on wealth and the technology it buys. We have said to one another, if someday there is a great catastrophe, most of the country won’t know how to
survive at all. She has a colorful way of putting it: “They won’t even know how
to go to the bathroom!”
 
We have lived in the country for a long time, and I have learned a lot about doing things myself. I don’t know when was the last time I bought a jar of
jelly at the store. Or pickles. Or canned tomatoes. Or salsa. Or any sort of
frozen vegetable at all. I do it myself.
 
For awhile we had chickens. Until we finally figured out that we were barely breaking even between the cost of feed and the “free” eggs, we gathered
jumbos every day, half a dozen or more. Keith milked a cow, and I often had a
sour cream pound cake sitting on the countertop, made with our eggs, our
homemade butter, and our homemade sour cream. I mashed potatoes we grew with our fresh cream and homemade butter. The ice cream we churned was so rich we often saw flecks of butter in it.  I think maybe we gave up the cow the day we actually started feeling our arteries clog as we looked across the table at one another.
 
A lot of people can and freeze vegetables, jams, and pickles, but it always gave me a little extra pride when I made things that most people never even thought about making, like ketchup from the tag ends of the tomato crop, and chili powder from the cayenne peppers I grew and dried. Lots of folks made applesauce, but not many can their own apple pie filling to use later in the year. Another friend I have makes her own laundry starch. If anything dire does happen in the next few years, my two special friends and I promise to share. I am sure the 93 year old will be happy to tell you how to dig an
outhouse.

 But that sort of pride and independence can get in the way of our salvation, can’t it? There really is nothing we can do to save ourselves. And we must learn to depend upon God—he demands it. He is to be the one we trust, the
one we rely on, the one we go to for every need we have, even if our definition
of need is really “want.” 
 
As long as I think I can manufacture my own salvation and experience a
spiritual Independence Day, I will never find myself in God’s good graces, or in
His grace. This is one case where self-reliance is disastrous. This is one case
where we celebrate Dependence Day instead. Have you celebrated yours yet?
 
By grace have you been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God,  Eph 2:8
 
Dene Ward

Keith loves tomatoes, which accounts for the fact that we have 95 tomato plants in our garden. In the summer, his supper is not complete without a heaping platter of sliced tomatoes, assorted colors and varieties—Better Boy, Celebrity, Big Beef, Golden Girl, Golden Jubilee, Cherokee Purple—all full sized, some even the one-slicers: large enough for one slice to cover a piece of bread.

So when the first tomato ripened this year and he let me have the whole thing to myself everyone was amazed. “What a generous husband!” some exclaimed. Then I told them the rest of the story. It was a Sungold Cherry tomato, more like a grape tomato, less than an inch in diameter.

“What a generous husband!” they again exclaimed, with a slightly different inflection on the “generous.”

It was a joke and everyone knew it, including Keith. How sad that so many do not see the joke when it’s the tomato they’ve been offered.

Do you want wealth and fame? Here, have the whole tomato.

Do you want career, status and power? Here, enjoy this, it’s all yours.

Do you want pleasure of every kind, fun, and excitement? Here, it’s ripe and ready and yours for the taking. Eat every bite.

Isn’t life wonderful? Isn’t the world an amazing place? Isn’t the ruler of this world the most generous being there is? Don’t bet on it.

Look at the size of that tomato again. Now look at what you lose when you accept it: family, love, redemption, hope, your soul. My, how generous that offer was—one measly little bite that is gone in an instant for the price of everything eternal.

That tomato may taste pretty good. It may be the best one that ever grew in any garden anywhere. But I’d rather take my Father’s offer—He has a whole garden to give me.

And he showed me a river of water of life, bright as crystal, proceeding out of the throne of God and of the Lamb, in the midst of the street thereof. And on this side of the river and on that was the tree of life, bearing twelve manner of fruits, yielding its fruit every month: and the leaves of the tree were for the healing of the nations. And there shall be no curse any more: and the throne of God and of the Lamb shall be therein: and his servants shall serve him; and they shall see his face; and his name shall be on their foreheads. And there shall be night no more; and they need no light of lamp, neither light of sun; for the Lord God shall give them light: and they shall reign for ever and ever, Revelation 22:1-5.

For what shall a man be profited, if he shall gain the whole world, and forfeit his life? or what shall a man give in exchange for his life? Matthew 16:26.

Dene Ward

As a former adjudicator for a couple of different teaching organizations, I spent several spring weekends judging competitions at the University of North Florida. Being a piano and voice teacher, my students were often in similar competitions. A young man once questioned me on the wisdom of this. Wasn’t I creating undue stress on my students? Didn’t I think that this emphasis on competition would take the joy of music away from them? 

I could go on and on about that one, but suffice it to say, I would never have done anything that I believed harmed those children. I never forced any of them to participate in any competition, but I can make this observation from over 30 years of teaching: the ones who never competed never advanced as
quickly, and always quit after two or three years—no exception. The others made rapid progress and the majority of them stuck with it long enough to give a senior recital. 

That spurred thoughts of the negative and positive aspects of “judging” in the scriptures. Usually all we hear is Judge not that you be not judged, and usually from someone who is doing something they ought not to be doing. There are many more occasions where we are either specifically told to judge or to do something that requires making a judgment.       
 
Mark those that are causing the divisions and occasions of stumbling, contrary to the doctrine which you learned, and turn away from them,  Rom 16:17.

If a man be overtaken in a fault, you who are spiritual restore such a one in a spirit of gentleness…Gal 6:1.

Shun profane babblings for they will proceed further in ungodliness, 2 Tim 2:16.

Believe not every spirit, but prove the spirits whether they are of God, for many false prophets have gone out into the world, 1 John 4:1.

 Making judgments is essential to protecting those we love and saving those in error. I could go on and on, filling up page after page with scriptures like these. Sometimes judging is required. The trick is to do it properly. Jesus said in John 7:24, Judge not according to appearance, but judge righteous judgment. If I read the context of most of those passages above, I will see the guidelines the Holy Spirit has carefully laid out in how to judge righteously. 

Being quick to judge others’ lives when I do not know the facts, when I am judging only by “how it looks,” and when I have never been in their shoes, flies in the face of the love I am commanded to have toward others. In that case, Judge not that you be not judged fits me to a tee. But using the excuse “I don’t want to judge their situation” when someone is lost in sin, is a cop-out that will not please the Father who watches over us.

Deliver them that are carried away unto death; and those that are ready to be slain, see that you holdback. If you say, Behold, we did not know this, does not he who weighs the hearts consider it? And he who keeps the soul, does he not know it? And shall he not render to every man according to his work? Prov
24:11,12

 Ordinarily, I stay away from The Message. It is a paraphrase that takes far too many liberties with the scriptures; but I must say, I like its interpretation of the above, with my own added phrase—if he can paraphrase, so can I! “Rescue the perishing; don't hesitate to step in and help. If you say, ‘Hey, that's none of my business,’ [I don’t want to judge], will that get you off the hook? Someone is watching you closely, you know-- Someone not impressed with weak excuses.”

So there it is—I must judge, but carefully, wisely, righteously. 

Dene Ward

(Today’s post is by guest writer Keith Ward.)

Too often, we limit our thinking concerning the meaning of this bread to the sacrifice of Jesus on the cross. When we do so we cannot comprehend fully the breadth and depth of what did occur on the cross. Jesus’ sacrifice of his body began so much earlier: “In the beginning was the Word and the Word was with God and the Word was God…A body thou didst prepare for me…to do thy will, O God … and the Word became flesh and dwelt among us and we beheld his glory,” (Jn 1:1, 14; Heb 10:5-7).

Jesus spoke, "This is my body,” and soon he gathered his disciples, sang a hymn and left for the garden of Gethsemane. He left the eight, and even went a stone’s throw beyond Peter, James and John, and began to pray in an agony so great that drops of sweat poured from him as drops of blood. We can imagine his prayers:

Father, I came to do your will. I left heaven and emptied myself to take the body you prepared for me, to become a servant. I thirsted and hurt and sweated and was sore and tired so that I could be human and intercede for them. Now, it is the time to die; the cross, horrendous pain for a long time, beatings, mockery and humiliation. “My Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me…but, thy will be done,” (Mt 26:34).

Then Jesus returned and found the disciples asleep. He wakened them and rebuked, where were you when I needed you (Mt 26:40)?  He again went forward to pray.

Father, I left the holiness of your presence to take a body and live in a world saturated with sin. My life was surrounded by the ugliest, vile wickedness against the joy of the life you decreed; My senses were assaulted by the constant rebellion against your righteous ways; My ears were assaulted with curses and filth from lips you created for praise. Yet, I kept myself unspotted; I maintained the same holiness I enjoyed with you from before the beginning. Now, I must bear their sins in my body (1Pet 2:24). The purity I have never compromised is to be stained with the ugliness we never even imagined. For their sake, I must become sin (2 Cor 5:21). “Father, let this cup pass from me, nevertheless, not my will but thine be done.”

And he came again and found the disciples sleeping. He reproved them and returned to pray a third time.

            Father, we have always been together. Before time was, before the world was, we shared plans and thoughts and ideas and feelings, and have never been apart. But now, on the cross, my holy body will become sin; all the evil from all humanity laid on me. You cannot be where sin is; You cannot accept sin in your presence. You must withdraw from me, and the fellowship that is without beginning will be broken. Alone. I will be separated. Hell. “Father, let this cup pass from me. But, thy will be done in my body.

And, again, the disciples slept.

Then Judas betrayed him.

In his body, Jesus sacrificed his position and became flesh; Jesus sacrificed his holiness and became sin; Jesus sacrificed his fellowship: “My God, My God, Why hast thou forsaken me?”

“This is the bread which comes down out of heaven, that a man may eat thereof, and not die. I am the living bread which came down out of heaven: if any man eat of this bread, he shall live forever: yea, and the bread which I will give is my flesh, for the life of the world. The Jews therefore strove one with another, saying, How can this man give us his flesh to eat? Jesus therefore said to them, Verily, verily, I say unto you, Except you eat the flesh of the Son of man and drink his blood, ye have not life in yourselves. He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood has eternal life; and I will raise him up at the last day. For my flesh is meat indeed, and my blood is drink indeed. He that eats my flesh and drinks my blood abides in me and I in him. As the living Father sent me, and I live because of the Father; so he that eats me, he also shall live because of me. This is the bread which came down out of heaven; he that eats this bread shall live forever,” (Jn 6:50-58).

Many have read this passage over the Lord’s Supper with little comprehension of the meaning. Jesus is not referring to his coming sacrifice in any way. Instead, his words demand an absolute commitment to his incarnation—that he is God in the flesh. Who he is must be the food that sustains the inner life of Jesus’ disciple. He cannot include any other philosophy; worldly ambitions cannot be on the menu; family obligations may not be considered. Jesus’ incarnate life must be one hundred percent of his sustenance. Taking the emblems at the Lord’s Supper is a token reminding every disciple of that commitment and a renewal of it. “This is my body.”

We are the body, he is the head. As we take the bread we must question our commitment to the purity of his body, the church. Do we pray in agony to maintain our personal purity? Will we give our position, our lives, even all that we were, to do God’s will? People say, “That is just the way I am,” or, “I’m doing the best I can,” while their lives demonstrate so little of the sacrificial attitude, “A body thou hast prepared for me, to do thy will O God.” No wonder some are sick and some have died (1 Cor 11:30).

When we take this bread, this memorial to his body, we are also partaking in a re-commitment to be his body. We made that commitment at baptism—crucified with Christ, put to death, raised to a new life, “To do thy will, O God.”

Keith Ward

 While I have kept three or four potted herbs on my steps for several years, it has only been a short while that I have grown an herb garden—two kinds of parsley, three kinds of basil, plus thyme, oregano, marjoram, dill, sage, cilantro, rosemary, fennel, mint, and chives.

I’m still learning some things the hard way. Dill must be planted in late fall because it cannot tolerate the heat of a Florida summer. Basil will stop growing when the weather cools, whether you protect it from the frost or not. Oregano is a ground runner and needs a lot of room. You must snip your chives from the bottom—not just trim off the tops—if you expect them to replenish. One recipe for pesto will decimate a basil plant for at least two weeks. Always give mint its own separate bed, or better still, pot, because it will take over the joint if you don’t.

And, Keith hates cilantro. Although I am not exactly sure how he knows this, he says it tastes “like stinkbugs.” We discovered this when I sprinkled chopped fresh cilantro over a turkey tortilla casserole. Now cilantro does have a distinctive flavor. While it bears a close physical resemblance to Italian flat-leaf parsley, the strongest flavored parsley, its flavor is probably ten times stronger than that herb. There IS such a thing as too much cilantro. On the other hand, a lot of people like it in moderation, including me. I guess there is no accounting for tastes.

 And that is why some people reject Jesus. To some people life tastes sweeter when we do things His way. The difficult times become easier to bear, and the good times more than we dared hope for. But other people see in Him a restrictive cage denying them all the pleasures of life. Their focus on the here and now keeps them from seeing the victory of Eternity, but even worse, they are blinded by Satan to the true joys a child of God can have in this life as well. …And exercise yourself unto godliness; for bodily exercise is profitable for a little, but godliness is profitable for all things, having the promise of the life that now is, and of that which is to come. 1 Tim 4:7,8. We can have joy, peace, hope, love, and fellowship with both God and the best people on earth, while on this earth.

 But they just can’t see it. I guess to them, godliness tastes like stinkbugs. Truly, there is just no accounting for tastes.

For we are a sweet smell of Christ unto God, in them that are saved, and in them that perish; to the one a smell from death unto death, and to the other a smell from life unto life…2 Cor 2:15,16

Dene Ward

            
I have always spent a lot of time planning my family’s meals.  In the first place, I had a limited budget.  In the second place, I had to use what we grew, and here in Florida that,  too, is somewhat limited.  The  climate may be warm, but for some things it is too warm, and too humid, and too  buggy. Root cellars, for example,  don’t work, not just because of the heat, but because the ground water lies only  three or four feet below the topsoil.
             
I did my best to provide nutritious meals with the resources I had and that often meant several hours a week combing through recipes and grocery ads, clipping  coupons and sorting them while not falling into the coupon traps, and keeping an eye on the pantry and freezer. After awhile you develop a working knowledge of which store has which brands and their everyday price. If I buy this piece of meat this week while it’s on sale, I can divide it and freeze half for another week.  At the same time I have something left from a few weeks ago that I bought extra then.  This recipe makes enough for two nights, and I can get away with very little meat in that one because of the [beans, cheese, etc] it also uses.  I should buy the milk at that store this week because it’s on sale there, while that brand is not available at the other store and I also have a coupon that makes it a dollar cheaper. Some days I feel like I have put in a full day’s work when I pack the  coupon box, throw away the clippings, and stow my precious list in my bag.  I don’t know what the boys would say about the meals they grew up on, but they turned out healthy so I must have done all right.  
              
We did have dessert often, but we didn’t have ooey-gooey Mississippi Mud
Cake every night, nor Elvis’s [hyper-fat artery-clogging] brownies, nor any of
the other super-rich desserts. Those were for special occasions. More often it was a blueberry pie, or an apple pie, a homemade chocolate pudding (made with skim milk), or a dish of on sale ice cream. Even dessert was a tempered affair.
             
We didn’t eat much in the way of junk food and hardly any processed food
at all.  I bake from scratch.  I cook with fresh food or food I put up from my own garden, blueberry patch, grape arbor, apple trees, or wild blackberry thickets.  Even those canned soup casseroles were few and far between. (But they did come in handy and were not banned completely.)  I was careful what I fed my family.
             
I am a little worried about some younger Christians these days, who seem
to feed their souls on things besides the Word of God. The same women who almost arrogantly boast that their families never  touch anything with high fructose corn syrup or hydrogenated vegetable oil in  it, will swallow whole a book of spiritual marshmallow fluff.  Sometimes “inspirational” writings are nothing more than junk food, processed with so much spiritual salt and sugar in them that we develop a taste for them and use them not with the Bible, but instead of the Bible.  I know that’s the case when the Bible way of doing things is considered “too harsh.”  When something sounds saccharin sweet, it’s easy to indulge.  When it’s warm and fuzzy, you want to cuddle right up, not realizing it’s a wolf about to make you his dinner.
             
What does God say about all this?  The wisdom of the world cannot “know God” (1 Cor 1:21; 2:6-10).  The wisdom of the world will “take you captive” (Col 2:8).  The wise men of the world have “their foolish hearts darkened” (Rom 1:21,22).  Even what I am writing can do these things if I am not telling you what  the Bible says accurately.  It’s  your business not to gobble something up just because it tastes good--even my “something.”
             
Some of the stuff out there is good and wholesome and may well help you
live your life.  But a lot of it is junk food.  It will not only cause you spiritual health problems, it will fill you up so that you cannot take in the real nutrition you need.  Stop and read the ingredient label before you buy it—develop critical thinking skills instead of just blindly slurping up the syrup.  Don’t fall head over heels for the writings of men who are handsome and have a way with words, or women who make you laugh or bring a tear to your eye, especially if they are not even following  the Lord accurately in their own lives.
             
Watch your spiritual diet and avoid the junk.
 
Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise. For the wisdom of this world is folly with God. For it is written, "He catches the wise in their craftiness," 1 Corinthians 3:18-19.
 
For the Elvis Brownies recipe, go to “Dene’s Recipe” page. 
  
Dene  Ward

I have been clipping and redeeming coupons since we got married.  I have a file box and a system.  I search ads faithfully and use them to  plan both my shopping trip and my meals.   And I don’t fall into the coupon traps—if I don’t need it or won’t use  it, or did not want to try it anyway, I don’t buy it.  We got by for 50% less than most families with teenage  boys.

 I seldom have one of those shopping trips you hear about, where the
woman buys $100 worth of groceries for $2.98, primarily because I do not buy a  lot of processed, prepared foods. I  have a garden; I bake from scratch. My grocery bill rarely includes anything but staples, meat, paper goods,  and the few produce items we do not grow, like onions, potatoes, and   garlic.  You don’t find many coupons for those things, but occasionally I make a “coupon coup.”  There was the jar of mustard, regularly $1.29, on sale for 99 cents.  A 50 cent coupon brought it down to 49 cents.  There was the week Publix
actually put their bakery’s key lime pie on sale for $4.50.  I had a $2.50 coupon PLUS they gave away a free loaf of French bread with every pie.  So for $2.00 I got a  key lime pie (regular $7.49) and a loaf of French bread (regular $1.99). I couldn’t have made a key lime pie alone for any less than $4.00, and theirs is nearly as good.

 Then I raided the drug store, the popular hang-out for those who are aging.  Keith needed glucosamine chondroitin.  $30.00 a bottle.  It was buy one get one, plus I had a $3.00 coupon.  We needed vitamins, regular $6.00 a bottle. 
They were buy one get one, plus I had a $2.00 coupon.  They also had my favorite shampoo on sale, one I hardly ever get to buy  because it is usually $4.29 a bottle.  They had it for $3.00, plus I had a coupon for $2.00 off 2, plus, for  buying two, they automatically gave me another $1.00 off anything in the store at the check-out, effectively making the price $1.50 a bottle. Finally we needed some low dose aspirins--$4.69 a bottle.  I had a $4.00 coupon, making that 69 cents.  Are you keeping track?  I bought $86.29 worth of items for $38.19.  Don’t  tell me the time I spend clipping and sorting isn’t worth it.  
  
Redeeming coupons brings to mind another sort of redemption.  I am always thrilled when I get a high  quality item for a low price. I would never pay full price for a crushed box of crackers or a dented can of tomato paste; nor would I for wilted produce—maybe half price for overripe bananas because they still have some use.  But top dollar?  Forget it.

 I am so glad God was not as stingy as I am!  He redeemed me, paying full price not for dented cans, crushed boxes, or even overripe bananas.  He got the culls, the totally useless, rotten, spoiled produce; he paid top dollar for
something no one else would have even considered buying.  
 
I think, when you have “been good” all your life, perhaps “raised in the church,” as we are prone to say, it is hard to realize our worthlessness, and really appreciate what has been done for us.  An old song goes, “Alas and did my Savior bleed and did my Sovereign die; would he devote that sacred head for such a worm as I?”  I noticed that in  one of the newer hymnals that last line has been changed to “such a one as I.”  Unh-unh. We need to get the “worm” back in there, because that is how low we were—totally worthless and disgusting--when Jesus redeemed us, not with corruptible things, with silver or gold…but with precious blood, as a lamb without blemish and without spot, even the blood of Christ, 1 Pet 1:18,19.  Truly the Lord is gracious.  In fact, we got the real bargain—precious grace for irregular, damaged merchandise!

 For while we were weak, in due season Christ died for the ungodly. For scarcely for a righteous man will one die, maybe for a good an someone would dare to die.  But God commends his own love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us.  Rom 5:6-8       
 
Dene Ward

Our study of faith on Tuesday mornings continues to amaze us.  When I first handed out this 68 page, 15 lesson study that had taken me an entire summer of toil and sweat to produce, the women looked at me a little dubiously.  Faith is supposed to be easy, a first principle, so to speak.  How could you possibly come up with this much?

Did you ever look up “faith” in a concordance?  All I did the first three days was write down scriptures.  I wound up with twenty pages.  I spent the next two weeks reading those scriptures and jotting notes about them that would jog my memory when it came time to organize them, which took another two weeks.  Then another week’s study gave me possible lesson titles, and in a few more days I sorted the scriptures I had found into those lessons.  Then I finally started writing lessons.

In the process things changed.  Some lessons were divided in two.  Shorter ones were merged to create one longer one.  Questions were constantly in flux, created, edited, sometimes deleted altogether, other times expanded to two or three. 

As I worked it became clear to me that we have shortchanged “faith” in our Bible studies.  It has become simply the first stairstep in the Plan of Salvation chart so many of us grew up memorizing.  When you really study it—I mean, twenty pages of scriptures, folks!—it is far more important.  In fact, I wound up calling our study, “Faith:  Stairstep or Staircase?” 

As we ended lesson 8, “Faith in Hebrews 11,” which I bet you have never in your life studied the way we did, something else became apparent to me.  I had inadvertently put these lessons in a good order.  “Inadvertent” is not really accurate though; I did think about the order and rearranged them more than once, but as we have continued, it has become clear that the sequence has worked out beautifully.  I was certainly not inspired, but God’s providence has worked in its usual wonderful way, and through no fault of my own, these things are fitting together like the pieces of a puzzle.

Can I share one “for instance?”  The lesson right before the Hebrews lesson was actually two, “Faith in the Book of Romans,” parts 1 and 2.  (Keith wrote those since Romans is one of his specialties.)  At the end of the lessons we drew this conclusion: our faith is not in a what but a who.  It is not in the promises of God, but in the God that made those promises.  Abraham believed God and it was counted to him for righteousness, Rom 4:3. 

Do you see how much better that is?  When you believe in the who, the what automatically follows.  Of course the promises will come true—God made them!  [Abraham was] fully convinced that God was able to do what He had promised.  That is why his faith was counted to him for righteousness, 4:21.  Believing in the “Who” leaves no doubt at all about “what” you will believe.

Then as we moved on into Hebrews 11 we took it a step further.  Our faith in God must eventually become a personal faith—we don’t just believe God; He becomes “our God.”  That increased depth in our faith makes God not only proud of us, but willing to be “our God,” and to have that personal relationship with us.  Therefore, God is not ashamed to be called their God, the writer says in 11:16. 

And what does that do for you?  It effects every action, every word, and every decision you make when the relationship between you and God is personal.  What did Joseph say to Potiphar’s wife?  “How can I do this great wickedness and sin against God?” Gen 39:9.  He may not have said “sin against my God,” but you get the feeling nevertheless.  To sin against God would have been a personal affront.  You don’t get that motivation to stay pure if your faith has not reached that level of closeness with your Creator.

Instead of just ripping through the list in Hebrews, we really looked at the actions of those great heroes. “By faith” Enoch walked with God, Isaac blessed Jacob and Esau, Jacob blessed his sons, Joseph mentioned the exodus before he died.  Wait--those are courageous and daring feats of faith?  No, they are just the words and deeds of men who believed God when He made His promises, and whose belief imbued every part of their lives.  Isaac, in recognizing that God had been in control when he (blindly) wasn’t, refused to change his blessing.  Jacob in his blessings to his sons embraced the entire promised future of Israel, from the conquest of the Promised Land to the coming Messiah.  Joseph spoke assuredly of the future exodus and his desire to be laid in that Land.  And Enoch?  He just lived every day as his God wanted him to, walking with his God in a personal relationship that made every action and decision obvious instead of an internal struggle.  Faith is believing God; faith is believing my God.

And so we will continue on in our study.  It has become exciting to see each new aspect of an old and neglected issue. 

“Faith only?”  Well, that depends.  Is it one step in your life, one instant of “Now I am saved,” or even, “Now I can move on to the next step,” or is it, as it was for those ancient patriarchs, the entire staircase that lifts you to Eternity?

For all the peoples walk each in the name of its god, but we will walk in the name of the LORD our God forever and ever. Micah 4:5

Dene Ward