The kitchen must be the favorite room in nearly every home.  It’s where the family meets to share their meals and their day, to gather important information—“Mom! Where are my good jeans?”—to pick up sustenance when the time between meals is long and the activities vigorous, and a place for sharing thoughts, dreams, and childhood troubles over chocolate chip cookies and ice cold milk.  When the kitchen is full of people and laughter, all is right with the world.

            That makes the kitchen floor a microcosm of how we all live.  All you have to do is drop something small, something that requires your face to be an inch above the floor trying to spy the odd shape or color, and suddenly you know everything anyone has eaten, spilled, or tracked in, even if you clean your floor regularly.  If I had every dustpan full of sweepings over my 38 years of marriage, it would make a ten foot pile high of sugar granules, flour, cornmeal, panko, cookie crumbs, Cheerios, oats, blueberries, chopped parsley, basil, and rosemary, the papery skins of onions and garlic cloves, freshly ground coffee beans, tiny, stray low dose aspirins, grains of driveway sand, clumps of garden soil, yellow clay, limerock, soot, and burnt wood, strands of hair from blonde to nearly black to gray and white, frayed threads, missing buttons, assorted screws, and loose snips from the edges of coupons.  If I had never cleaned the floor at all, it would be layered with coffee drips, dried splashes of dishwater, bacon grease and olive oil splatter, tea stains, grape juice, and sticky spots from honey and molasses spills while I was baking.  Put it all together and you would have a pretty good idea how we live our lives.

            Every soul has a kitchen floor, places where the accumulated spills of life gather.  We must regularly clean that floor, just as I am constantly sweeping and wiping and mopping, trying to stay ahead of the messes we make. As soon as I miss a day or a week, I have even more to clean up.  It would be ridiculous to think I could ignore that floor and no one would know about us, wouldn’t it? 

            Jesus said, “Out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks,” Matt 12:34.  You can deny it all you want, but what you speak shows who you really are.  I can say I never bake, but whoever sweeps my floor will know better.  I can pretend we don’t like Italian cuisine, but the evidence is right there.  I can tell everyone we live in the city instead of the country, but the soil on my floor will say otherwise.  It is getting harder for me to see those things now and to sweep them up perfectly, but my blindness to them will not keep others from knowing exactly what I do here all day long.

            That kitchen floor of a heart will tell on you too.  All you have to do is open your mouth.  If you don’t keep it cleaned up, if you don’t monitor the things you store in it, it could belie your protestations of a righteous life.  Sooner or later a word will slip out, a thought will take root and become a spoken idea.  I heard someone say once that you cannot imagine in others what is not already in your own heart. 

            Of course, what’s on your floor could prove your righteous life instead of denying it.  So take a moment today to examine your kitchen floor.  Let it remind you to examine your heart as well.  I had much rather people see sugar and cookie crumbs than Satan’s muddy footprints.
 
Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in your sight, O LORD, my rock and my redeemer, Psa 19:14.    
      
Dene Ward

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

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

We planted our first garden 41 years ago.  Even though Keith had been brought up with gardens, we were both tyros, especially considering the climate we were in, different from either of our childhoods.  He set me up with all the equipment I would need, and most of which I still use all these years later, canners, mason jars, jar lifters, lids, rings, funnels, sieves, lime, vinegar, canning salt, and cookbooks, I had them all.

              One of the things I knew I wanted to make was a batch of dill pickles.  I love dill pickles.  I could eat a whole jar.  So I looked all over for recipes and found one that was fairly easy.  I did exactly as the recipe said and one afternoon in July lined my shelves with a dozen pints of dill pickles.  The recipe said to let them sit a few weeks, as I recall, so I did, and did not get around to trying them yet. 

              Finally we had company one evening and Keith grilled some hamburgers.  The perfect meal for my pickles, I thought, and proudly set them on the table.  I made a point to put the mason jar on the table so our guests would know they were homemade.  Too bad for me as it turned out.  Keith’s pal took one bite of pickle and tried very hard to keep his face from screwing up, not entirely succeeding.

              “Wow!” he finally choked out.  “These are DIIIIIIILLLLL pickles.”

              I took a bite myself and resolved to not only toss the recipe but every jar in the pantry.  The recipe had called for four tablespoons of dried dill seed per pint.  That’s one-fourth cup, people.  After all these years of experience, I would have looked at that recipe and immediately known something was off, but then I was a newbie and didn’t know any better.

              Ah, but we make the same sort of mistakes as Christians.  But solid food is for the mature, for those who have their powers of discernment trained by constant practice to distinguish good from evil. Heb 5:14.

              I learned from my mistake with the pickles and tried again, and again, and again, until I finally got it right.  But I would never have gotten it right without all that practice.  That’s what it takes with the Word.  No, it doesn’t take a college degree to understand the Bible and knowing exactly what to do to begin your relationship with Christ is pretty simple, but the Word of God is a profound book.  If all you do is read a chapter a day, you are missing 90% of its power.

              I have seen too many young people, especially those “raised in the church,” spout off simplistic definitions and explanations and think that’s all there is to it, completely missing the depths that can be plumbed with some diligent work.  I’ve seen too many older Christians who have relied on those same one-dimensional catch-phrases instead of growing to the height they should have after all those decades as a Christian that they are so proud of.  And I have seen too many old chestnuts that are patently wrong passed from generation to generation. 

              If reading Hebrews 7 doesn’t send you immediately back to Genesis 14 and Psalm 110, if seeing the word “promise” doesn’t make you instantly check for a reference to the Abrahamic promise, if reading the sermons in Acts doesn’t make you realize exactly how important it is to know the Old Testament, you have not been “exercising your senses” in the Word. 

           Please be careful of anything that sounds too pat, that makes arguments based on simplistic definitions or the spelling of English words (“Godliness is just a contraction of God-like-ness”).  Do not repeat anything you did not check out with careful study yourself.  And if you are still quite young, please check out your understanding with someone who is not only older, but well-versed in the scripture, and be willing to listen and really consider.  Do you know who I have the worst trouble with in my classes?  People who were “raised in the church.”  They are far less likely to even consider that they might be wrong about something and to change their minds than a brand new Christian, converted from the world with a boatload of misconceptions.

            You cannot know too much scripture.  It is impossible to be “over-educated” in the Word.  The more you know, the more motivation you will have to live up to your commitment to God, the better person you will be, and the fewer embarrassing mistakes you will make when you open your mouth. 
 
…put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator. Col 3:10
 
Dene Ward

We first discovered pluots three or four years ago when we set about to try one new fruit or vegetable a week.  We have discovered many yummy treats, most too expensive to enjoy regularly or in any volume, but pluots, a cross between plums and apricots, are reasonably priced in season, and delicious.

            Hybrids can be a good thing, increasing size and yield, and creating resistance to certain plant diseases.  Hybrids can also be a bad thing, dulling flavor distinctions and, of course, making it impossible to save the seeds for next year, thus increasing the cost of gardening.  Heirloom varieties are becoming popular for a reason.

            Sometimes when we sow the seed, instead of creating “heirloom Christians,” we wind up with hybrids.  The best way to avoid that is to make sure we are good old fashioned New Testament Christians ourselves, with no trace of sectarianism in us. 

            Do any of the mainstream “isms” show up in your language and thinking? 

              “Lord, we know we sin all the time.”  Sounds like total depravity to me. 

            “I know I’m not living right, but at least I’ve been baptized.”  Am I hearing once saved always saved?

            “The preacher didn’t visit me in the hospital.”  You did say “preacher” didn’t you? Or do you mean denominational “pastor?”

            Allowing denominational practices to warp our understanding of the simple gospel can lead to all sorts of problems, not the least of which is a congregation that becomes far more like its denominational neighbors than like its first century sisters.  When we expect a preacher to spend more time holding hands than holding Bible studies, when our traditions and our language show signs of various manmade doctrines instead of the simple elements found in the epistles, we need to check our bloodlines.

           I pointed out how a certain activity was performed in the New Testament once, only to have someone say in a startled tone, “That would never fly here.”  If it’s simply a matter of expedience, fine.  After all, it is 2000 years removed.  But if it’s because we’ve allowed faulty understanding from a past of bad theology to taint our thinking, it’s not.

            God doesn’t want hybrid Christians, not even pluots.  He wants a people who approach His word and His divine institution with pure hearts and minds, unadulterated from years of false teaching.  In God’s eyes, there are no good hybrids, just defiled pedigrees.
 
Moreover all the chiefs of the priests, and the people, trespassed very greatly after all the abominations of the nations; and they polluted the house of Jehovah which he had hallowed in Jerusalem, 2 Chron 36:14
That he might present the church to himself a glorious church, not having spot or wrinkle or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish, Eph 5:27.
 
Dene Ward

A few days ago, I used up several items at once that normally sit on the bottom shelf of the refrigerator door—the cranberry juice, the ketchup and the mustard.  Suddenly a third of that shelf was bare and I was horrified.  How in the world did it ever get that dirty?

            I pulled out the mayonnaise, the tahini, the Worcestershire and soy sauces, the maple syrup, the sesame seed oil, and the hoisin and was even more appalled.  Black rings, sticky smears, and brown drops covered the narrow plastic ledge.  I always wipe things off before I put them up, don’t I?  Well, maybe not always.  Sometimes we’re in a hurry, sometimes my hands are full, sometimes I leave the putting up for someone else.  Needless to say, I cleaned that shelf immediately, and the next day the whole refrigerator.
 
           That sort of thing happens far more often than we like to think and in far more important places than refrigerators.  Relationships come to mind.
 
           I think wedding anniversaries are important, and not because I am a woman with unrealistic expectations.  We have never been able to afford expensive gifts or excursions.  Most often we stay at home and have a quiet dinner together.  Sometimes it isn’t even on the same day as our anniversary.  A long time ago we stopped making the calendar our taskmaster.  We celebrate birthdays on weekends, and holidays around work schedules.  We have even celebrated our mid-June anniversary in July.
 
           No, the thing about anniversaries is the re-connecting.  You talk, you remember, you plan.  You remind yourselves why you wound up together in the first place, and the place you want to eventually wind up together for eternity.  In doing so every year, or even more often, you get that shelf cleaned up before the stains have a chance to set, before the caked on residue of life builds to the point that only a hard, painful scrub can remove it.

            The same thing can happen among brethren.  Why do you think God expects us to go to one another instead of letting things fester?  Most problems between good-hearted people are simple misunderstandings that can be cleaned up with a quick wipe.  You only need harsh abrasives when you let them sit awhile.

            When was the last time you checked your relationship with your God?  The last time you talked to him?  The last time you let him speak to you by opening his Word?  When was the last time that communication actually effected a change in you?  When did you alter plans for the day or the attitude you presented to your family, or friends, or even perfect strangers because of your relationship with God?  Maybe the grunge on your shelf has gotten too thick to penetrate.

            Pay attention to the things you seldom think to look at, the things you take for granted.  Wipe off your shelves once in a while, whether you think they need it or not.
 
Who shall ascend the hill of the LORD? And who shall stand in his holy place? He who has clean hands and a pure heart, who does not lift up his soul to what is false and does not swear deceitfully. He will receive blessing from the LORD and righteousness from the God of his salvation, Psalm 24:3-5
 
Dene Ward

After reading them for so many years, I can skim a recipe and garner all sorts of necessary information in that quick once-over.  Not just whether I have the ingredients, but how long it will take, what I can do ahead of time, what equipment I will need, the substitutions I can make if necessary, and whether I can cut it in half or freeze half of it.  Sometimes, though, a recipe needs a closer reading.

            I made a vegetable lasagna once that turned out well, but was way too big.  I took over half of the leftovers to my women’s class potluck and it got rave reviews and several requests.  So I went home and started typing the two page recipe containing at least two dozen ingredients.  The typing required a careful reading of the recipe so I wouldn’t give anyone wrong amounts or directions, and as I did so I discovered that I had completely forgotten one ingredient and had missed one of the procedures.  Just imagine how good it would have been if I had done the whole thing correctly.

            Too many times we try to read the Bible like I read that recipe, especially the passages we think we already know.  I have said many times to many classes, the biggest hindrance to learning is what you think you already know.  Today I am going to prove it to you.

            Have you ever said, or even taught, that turning the water to wine was the first miracle Jesus ever did?  I know, it’s what all the Bible class curricula say.  Well, it’s your job to check out those lessons with your own careful reading.  Most of the time that means reading far beyond the actual lesson text.  This isn’t even hard to see, but you do have to think about what you see.  Some time today when you have the time—okay, make the time—read the following verses.
 
John 1:45-51—Jesus tells Nathanael that he saw him before it was possible for him to see him.  This was enough of a miracle that it brought a confession from Nathanael: “Rabbi, you are the Son of God, you are the King of Israel”, v 49.

2:11—“This is the first of his signs” (water to wine)

2:23—“Now when he was in Jerusalem at the Passover Feast, many believed on his name when they saw the signs that he was doing.” (Notice, this is an unknown number of signs,)

4:16-19—Jesus tells the woman at the well all about her life, a life he could not have known about except miraculously.  She would later tell her neighbors, “Come see a man who told me all that ever I did.  Can this be the Christ?” v 29.  She certainly thought she had seen a miracle.

4:46-54—Jesus heals the nobleman’s son, which John labels “the second sign that Jesus did.”  What about John 1?  What about 2:23?  What about Samaria?
 
            For years I read “first” and “second,” knowing full well about the other signs before and between them, and didn’t even think about what I was reading. I was reading it like a recipe, a quick once over because I already knew the story.  Now, having seen all the passages together, you can see that “first” and “second” in John 2:11 and 4:54 obviously do not mean the simple chronological “first” and “second” you might think at first glance.  You need the entire context of John to figure it out.

            Now Jesus did many other signs in the presence of the disciples, which are not written in this book; but these are written so that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing you may have life in his name, John 20:30,31.  Right there John tells you not only why he wrote his book, but that he simply chose certain signs to discuss in detail.  If you do a careful study of the entire book, you will discover that he chose seven, each making a particular point about the power of Jesus that proves his Deity.  No, I am not going to list them for you.  You need to take up your Bibles and figure it out for yourself so you know firsthand.   

            When John says “This is the first,” and “this is the second,” he is simply referring to the list of seven he intends to discuss more fully.  Turning the water to wine was the first on his list, NOT the first miracle Jesus ever did, and all you have to do is read earlier in the book to see at least one more—Nathanael’s.  In fact, you cannot even count the number he did in between the “first” and the “second,” 2:23.

            So, be careful what you believe.  Be even more careful what you teach because that could affect many others.  Pay attention to the details and don’t pull events and verses out of context.  Do you want to know why so many false doctrines spread?  Because people read the “proof texts” like a recipe, a quick scan instead of a careful reading, if indeed they read them at all.

            Don’t skim the Word of God.  Give it the attention it deserves.     
 
And we have something more sure, the prophetic word, to which you will do well to pay attention as to a lamp shining in a dark place, until the day dawns and the morning star rises in your hearts, 2 Pet 1:19.
 
Dene Ward

Pecan pie is a staple at our holiday table.  I found a great (and easy) recipe years ago and have not changed it a bit, which itself is notable.  Yet when I found a recipe recently for “the very best pecan pie,” I decided to give it a try.  Pecans, sugar, syrup, eggs, butter, and vanilla—how can you mess it up?

            I dutifully followed the recipe in every detail.  The only real difference was the syrup.  “Corn syrup is tasteless,” the author said, so she switched to real maple syrup.

            “This had better be good,” I thought as I shelled out seven dollars for one small bottle. It wasn’t.  No, that’s not fair.  It did not taste awful, but it wasn’t pecan pie.

            I reread the article.  I should have known when I saw the line, “All you can taste are the pecans,” referring to the standard recipe using corn syrup.  Well, it is called Pecan Pie.  It is all about the pecans to us Southerners.  This magazine was based in New England.  What the chef had created was a Maple Nut Pie because suddenly it was all about the maple syrup.  You could have added walnuts, hazelnuts, or almonds and not have known the difference.  She had completely changed the focus of the pie.

            The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath, Mark 2:27.  Over and over during his ministry, the scribes and Pharisees plagued Jesus with accusations of breaking the Sabbath.  Their many rules and regulations, not found in the law, had turned what God designed to be a blessing for man into a burden. 

            The Sabbath was a day of rest for God’s people, while the pagan world worked seven days a week just to survive.  It was a day when they could see to their spiritual needs, and renew their relationship with God.  It was a day of “holy convocation,” Lev 23:3.  The many rigorous—and ridiculous—traditions had made it a day to dread instead. 

            Jesus reminded them many times that man should be blessed by the Sabbath, that his good should come because of and sometimes even at the expense of the Sabbath.  They pulled their oxen out of the ditch.  Why shouldn’t he heal?

            When you change the focus of a law, you often lose the blessing God intended from that law.  Staying with the idea of a special day, what about our Lord’s Day?  Is it necessary to make it inconvenient in order for it to be sincere worship?  Yet, I have heard people argue about changing the times of service in exactly that way.  If we have many who come from a distance, and the price of gas has become prohibitive, why can’t we meet one time for longer instead of two shorter services without being accused of losing our faith? 

            Can’t you hear Jesus’ reaction?  The Lord’s Day is made for man, not man for the Lord’s Day. If inconvenience is what makes it true worship, let’s meet at 3 am. 

            To make another application, each one of us is responsible for how we view our assemblies, for our focus when we meet.  If instead of being a blessing it is nothing more than a rule to follow, then I need to change my focus to God’s intended one.  We are told that our assembling should “provoke one another to love and good works.”  Too many times all we get is provoked, and that is our own fault. Let all be done unto edifying, Paul tells those assembled in 1 Cor 14:26.  You can’t edify a person who sits there like a rock, who listens to find fault, or who wishes he were somewhere else. 

            Don’t change the focus of God’s laws.  He made them to bless us and help us.  When we can’t find the blessing, it’s because we are focused on ourselves, our own bad attitudes and evil motives, instead of on serving a Creator who loves us and blesses us, and on brethren who count on us for encouragement.
 
For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments, and his commandments are not grievous, 1 John 5:3.
 
Dene Ward

Over forty years ago Time-Life put out cookbooks containing authentic recipes from all over the world.  I picked up some of them at a used book store in the 70s and several recipes have found a permanent place in my repertoire.  From the Chinese book I cook Pepper Steak, Sweet and Sour Pork, and Egg Rolls that are as good as any Chinese restaurant’s I have ever had.  From the Italian one I use the Pasta Fagioli, the pizza dough and the marinara most often.

            That marinara may, in fact, be the recipe I use more than any other.  From it I make pizza sauce, spaghetti sauce, and the sauces for eggplant parmagiana, chicken parmagiana, and anything else you can parmagiana.  I use it with meatballs, ground beef, and Italian sausage on pasta, and as a dipping sauce for calzones.  You can change it up with various herbs and extra vegetables like mushrooms and peppers.             

            Whenever I serve it, I get remarks like, “Wow!  This tastes so—Italian!”  Indeed, and why shouldn’t it when it is made the way Italians like it—olive oil, onions, garlic, tomatoes, basil, salt and pepper, and a little tomato paste if your tomatoes are extra juicy.  It is simple.  I can put it together in ten minutes and let it simmer for 30-40 with only a stir here and there.  It has thoroughly spoiled my family. 

            Once, because it was on sale and we were in a hurry, I picked up a canned sauce, one of the better ones as I recall, not simply Ragu.  After the first bite, Keith looked at me and said, “What is this?  Tomato syrup?”  You see, Americans have become so addicted to sugar that nearly all the processed sauces are full of it. 

            I watched a blind taste test on a television show once, a homemade tomato sauce made by a trained chef, an authentic Italian sauce a whole lot like mine, against a national brand in a jar.  The majority preferred the jarred one.  They said the homemade one wasn’t sweet enough.  Why doesn’t that make people sit up and take notice?  Pasta and sugar?  Yuk.  It even sounds awful.  But that’s what Americans want it seems; not the true, authentic sauce, but the syrupy one they have grown accustomed to.
 
            I think the same thing has happened with religion.  It doesn’t matter to
us how the first century church did things.  What matters is the hoopla, the spectacle, and the histrionics we have grown accustomed to.  If it excites us and makes us feel good, that’s what we want.  If I can compartmentalize the corporate part of it into a once-every-week-or-so pep rally, and then live as I prefer with no one bothering me about it, then religion has served its purpose.

            That religion--mainstream denominational religion--has totally changed its focus.  It is nothing but a religion of self.  Authentic religion is about God.   It wants only what God wants.  It lives only for Him and his purpose.  It understands that whether I am happy or comfortable or excited has nothing to do with faithfulness.  In fact, faithfulness is often shown best when those things are lacking. 

            Authenticity in religion does matter if you mean to be worshipping someone besides yourself.  I remember the days of old; I meditate on all that you have done; I ponder the work of your hands. I stretch out my hands to you; my soul thirsts for you like a parched land, Psalm 143:5,6.  When David was in trouble, when it mattered how God received him—he thought back to the old days.  The prophets often told the people to repent and go back to the old ways, the times when they worshiped God truly, instead of pleasing themselves in hedonistic idolatry.

            If you find yourself dissatisfied with your religious life, if you see differences in how your group attempts to worship God and how the original Christians did, maybe it’s time for you to go on the hunt for some authenticity.  Do it before you become addicted to the noise and excitement.  It is possible to worship in simplicity and truth.  It is possible to be encouraged by like minded brothers and sisters who want to please God instead of themselves.  In the end, they come far closer to the selfless ideal of their Savior than those who are determined to have what they want “because that’s how I like it,” instead of caring anything at all about how God might like it.
 
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.' I set watchmen over you, saying, 'Pay attention to the sound of the trumpet!' But they said, 'We will not pay attention.' Therefore hear, O nations, and know, O congregation, what will happen to them. Hear, O earth; behold, I am bringing disaster upon this people, the fruit of their devices, because they have not paid attention to my words; and as for my law, they have rejected it, Jer 6:16-19.
 
Dene Ward
 

In the old days buttermilk was simply the liquid left over after churning butter.  It was thin and watery, and not sour at all, unless you allowed your cream to “ripen” a few days before churning, something high end butter makers still do today.

            Nowadays buttermilk is skim milk to which cultures have been added to develop flavor and to thicken consistency.  Buttermilk has its place in the baker’s refrigerator.  It adds tang and helps the rise, especially when used with baking soda.  You will have the highest and fluffiest biscuits and pancakes you ever made.

            The word “culture” has several meanings.  A culture can be a special nutrient in which things are grown, usually in laboratories.  In agriculture it can refer to tillage to prepare the land for planting.  It can apply to a specific community of people and their shared beliefs and customs, and also the things they produce like art, music, and literature.  Can you see in all these cases a relationship to growth and improvement?  In the kitchen it certainly produces better baked goods.  But culture can be negative as well.  The culture of Sodom and Gomorrah produced a sinful lifestyle that led to its destruction.

            Ruth understood the effects of a culture.  This brave young widow was willing to leave behind her culture and embrace another just so she could worship Jehovah.  In her world, no matter the culture, widows could look forward to only two things—either a new husband to support her, or poverty for the rest of her life.  “Orphans and widows” were the symbol of helplessness throughout the scriptures.  Ruth’s best bet for a happy and prosperous life was to stay in her homeland among her own people and find that new husband. 

            But something was more important to her than her comfort zone, as we so often call it.  She completely changed her culture.  She left home for a place where she had to learn a new language, new customs and traditions, and new laws.  She left her family and her friends for a people not known for accepting strangers with open arms.  Why do you think the law is full of reminders to take care of “strangers and sojourners?”  We know the end of the story, but Ruth didn’t.  She had nothing to look forward to but a life of hard work and poverty, dependent upon whether or not these new people she was willing to claim as her own followed the laws God set up to support widows.  I think it is obvious that even if they had not, her conversion was to Jehovah, not them, and she would have continued on anyway.

            How about us?  Do we have the strength to give up our culture?  Language, fashion, music, literature, entertainment, and what passes as art these days is often completely opposed to the righteousness God expects of his people.  Can you give it up?

            I find it helps to think of it like this:  I am not giving up my culture to stand alone.  I am giving up one culture for another.  Our citizenship is in Heaven, Paul reminds us in Phil 3:20.  Just as Ruth was willing to embrace a new culture, we should too, and in that embracing we find support from those who are just like us.  We are no longer standing alone against the crowd.

            Which culture do you live in this morning?
 
But Ruth said, "Do not urge me to leave you or to return from following you. For where you go I will go, and where you lodge I will lodge. Your people shall be my people, and your God my God. Where you die I will die, and there will I be buried. May the LORD do so to me and more also if anything but death parts me from you." Ruth 1:16,17.

Dene Ward