This time of year I usually try to make a batch of chocolate fudge.  I say “try” because I usually fail.  Peanut butter fudge I have down.  19 out of 20 times it will turn out right, but not the chocolate variety. I am talking about real fudge, not the newer recipes that add things like marshmallow crème, and wind up changing the texture just so it won’t flop on you.  If it shines, it isn’t fudge; if it’s soft, it isn’t fudge; if it’s grainy, it isn’t fudge; if it must be kept refrigerated, it isn’t fudge.  Real fudge is matte to the eye, firm to the touch, creamy in your mouth, and sits just fine on the countertop without changing consistency. 

            So a couple of years ago I found a recipe for foolproof fudge in a cooking magazine that I ordinarily trust implicitly.  I made their recipe, and indeed it did just fine, but it was shiny, it was soft, it had to be stored in the fridge.  It wasn’t fudge, and I was disappointed beyond measure.  However, in the article accompanying the recipe, the author stated that fudge is a tricky thing.  If the temperature and humidity are not just right, if your ingredients have sucked up too much moisture from the kitchen atmosphere any time recently, if your candy thermometer is just a degree or two off, your fudge will not “fudge.”  He went on to say that even seasoned professionals feel frustrated when trying to make this unreasonably difficult recipe.  While I am sorry those folks feel that way, it certainly made me feel a lot better.  It helped explain my 1 in 10 record of success over the years.

            Aren’t we glad salvation is not so difficult?  Just follow a few simple directions and suddenly you have a relationship that will help you in the trials of this life, and lead you to the joys of the next, the sweetest of treats anyone could possibly enjoy.  Why is it that some people feel so obligated to make it more difficult?

            My brother-in-law was nearly run out of a church on a rail once because, using the Philippian jailor of Acts 16 as an example, he dared to say that there really is not all that much we have to know before we submit to baptism.  Oh no, he was told, we must know all about the plan of God through the ages, about the true nature of the first century church, about the false teachings on salvation and how to combat them, about the “correct” definitions of faith, baptism, and grace, among other things.

            Just what was it Philip asked that Ethiopian proselyte when he wanted to be baptized?  If you believe with all your heart, you may, and he said, I believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, Acts 8:37.  Funny that Philip never gave him a list of things to memorize and recite before he was allowed in the water.  Isn’t it wonderful—and amazing!—that our Lord will accept our obedient faith the moment we realize our need for Him?

            Yes, there are many things we must all learn.  All these years after my baptism there are still many more.  That’s what the rest of your life is for; that’s why Peter said to grow in the grace and knowledge of the Lord and Savior Jesus Christ, 2 Pet 3:18.   We never finish that part.  Maybe the problem is, we make this arbitrary list and think once we know it, we are finished.  Just who made the list in the first place, if God didn’t?

            One of Satan’s most powerful tools is frustration and hopelessness.  Let’s not help him do his work by making salvation so difficult that people give up before they even get the chance to start.

And [the jailor] called for lights and sprang in, and trembling for fear, fell down before Paul and Silas and brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?  And they said, Believe on the Lord Jesus and you shall be saved, you and your house; and they spoke the word of the Lord unto him with all that were in his house, and he took them the same hour of the night and washed their stripes and was baptized, he and all his immediately, Acts 16:29-33.

Dene Ward   

A young woman is making biscuits for her new husband  When she tries to roll them out she has a problem—they keep falling apart.  It is all she can do to
make them stick together long enough to get them on the baking sheet.  And when she tries to take them off, they fall to pieces.  Her husband tells her, “That’s all right. It’s the taste that matters,” as he gallantly takes a bite, and a little bite is all he can get.  They crumble so easily he cannot even butter them.  Before long, his plate is filled with crumbs and he has not managed to eat even half a biscuit’s worth.
             
The next morning she calls her mother. “Too much shortening,” her mother
says.  So that evening the new bride tries again.  If shortening is the culprit, she reasons, maybe no shortening at all would be even better.  
 
That night, as she slides the biscuits off into the basket, each lands with an ominous thud.  Her husband gamely takes a bite, or at least tries to.  They might as well be hockey pucks.  
 
I imagine that even non-cooks can see the point here. Each ingredient in the recipe makes a difference; each one is important and must not be left out—the shortening makes the biscuits tender, the flour gives them enough structure to hold together. Why are we smart enough to see that here, but forget it when it comes to spiritual matters?

One group says faith is the only thing we need. Another says strict obedience is the only thing we need.  One of them bakes crumbs, the other hockey pucks.  
             
Every generation reacts to the past generation’s errors by overcorrecting.  Each group is so afraid of making the same mistake that they make another one, and worse, usually sneer at their fathers for missing it so badly, thinking in their youthful arrogance that they have discovered something brand new. 
What they have usually discovered is the same error another generation
made long ago, the error their fathers tried to correct and overdid as well.

Why is it so hard to stop that swinging pendulum in the middle?  Why do we arrogantly suppose that the last group did everything wrong and we are doing everything right.  

Does God want faith? Yes, the righteous shall live by his faith, Heb 2:4.  
Does God want obedience? Yes, to obey is better than sacrifice, 1Sam 15:22.
Does God want our hearts? He always has, and why can’t we put it all together?  Thanks be to God…that you became obedient from the heart, Rom 6:17.

The Hebrew write equates disobedience with a lack of faith. 
And to whom did he swear that they should not enter into his rest but to them who were disobedient?  And we see that they were not able to enter in due to unbelief, Heb 3:18,19.

Can God make it any plainer?  He doesn’t want crumbs; He doesn’t want hockey pucks; He wants a nice tender biscuit of a heart that is firm enough to hold the shape of the pattern used to cut it.  Follow the recipe God gave you.  When you go about your day today, make sure you have all the ingredients.

Woe to you scribes, Pharisees, hypocrites!  For you tithe mint, anise, and cumin, and have left undone the weightier matters of the law.  But these
[matters of the heart] you ought to have done, and not left the other [matters of strict obedience] undone, Matt 23:23.

Dene Ward

I opened the cooler and looked down into the plastic bin inside and saw a bloody mess.  Immediately my mind went into salvage mode.  We were camping, living out of a cooler for nine days, and couldn’t take any chances, even if it did cost us a week’s worth of meals.  As it turns out, the problem was easily solved.

Whenever we camp, because space is short for that much food and eating out is not an option, I take all the meat for our evening meals frozen.  The meat itself acts as ice in the cooler, keeping the temperature well down in the safe zone, and we use it as it thaws, replacing it with real ice.  I learned early on to re-package each item in a zipper freezer bag so that as it thaws the juices don’t drip out and contaminate the other food and the ice we use in our drinks.  We also put the meat in plastic tubs, away from things like butter, eggs, and condiments—just in case.  That’s what saved us this time.

Somehow the plastic bag in which I had placed the steaks had developed a leak, but all those bloody red juices were safely contained in the white tub, and the other meats were still sealed.  I removed the bin from the cooler, put the steaks in a new bag, dumped the mess and cleaned the bin and the outside of the other meat bags, then returned the whole thing to the cooler, everything once again tidy and above all, safe.

We all do the same things in our kitchens.  After handling raw meat, we wash our hands.  We use separate cutting boards for meat and vegetables meant to be eaten fresh.  And lately, they are even telling us not to wash poultry at all because it splashes bacteria all over the kitchen.

We follow all these safety rules, then think nothing of cross-contaminating our souls.  What do you watch on TV?  What do you look at on the internet?  Where do you go for recreation?  No, we cannot get out of the world, but we can certainly keep it from dumping its garbage on the same countertops we use to prepare our families’ spiritual meals.  There is an “off” button.

Maybe the problem is that these things are not as repulsive to us as they should be.  The Psalmist said, I have not sat with men of falsehood; Neither will I go in with dissemblers. I hate the assembly of evil-doers, And will not sit with the wicked. I will wash my hands in innocency: So will I compass your altar, O Jehovah; Psalms 26:4-6.  Can we say our hands are clean when we assemble to worship God after spending a week being titillated by the sins of others?

If we followed some basic spiritual safety rules as carefully as we do those for our physical health, maybe we would lose fewer to cross-contamination of the soul.

And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather even reprove them; for the things which are done by them in secret it is a shame even to speak of. Ephesians 5:11-12

Dene Ward

At the end of the garden season, I dry out my hot chili peppers and make chili powder.  I have found a good formula, one part chili pepper, two parts ground cumin, one part dried oregano, and two parts garlic powder.  The first few times I made it, I used a blend of Anaheim and cayenne peppers.  Last year Keith shopped for the chili pepper plants and came home with habaneros.  If you know anything about the Scoville heat scale, you know that cayennes, while not at the mild end of the scale, are a couple hundred thousand units removed from habaneros which sit at the hottest end.

To make chili powder, you must first dry the chili peppers, then remove the stems and grind them up.  A lot of the heat is in the seeds, so I, being a wimp when it comes to hot peppers, shook out the loose seeds as well—habaneros are hot enough as is.  I had enough sense to wear latex gloves while handling these babies, but that is where good sense stopped.  When I took the lid off the grinder to see if any pieces remained intact, the cloud of chili powder, totally invisible to the naked eye, rose up into my face.  How did I know?  My nose started running, my lips started burning, and I sneezed nearly a dozen times.  I had pepper-maced myself.  I am so very glad I had reading glasses on.  I do not know what might have happened to these poor eyes!  I know people who don’t even use gloves to work with hot peppers, but next time I will reach for a gas mask!

Sin and conscience work the same way.  Especially nowadays when sophistication is judged by how little one allows sinful behavior to shock him, we have a tendency to think we can sin indiscriminately and feel just fine about ourselves afterwards.  What was it Paul said about the idolatrous pagans?  For when Gentiles who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law.  They show that the law of God is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts either accuse or even excuse themselves, Rom 2:14,15.  You can’t get away from your conscience no matter how sophisticated you think you are.

The scriptures are littered with people who suffered pangs of conscience.  Adam and Eve hid themselves after they had sinned.  The brothers of Joseph twice confessed their sin against their brother, attributing all the bad things that happened in Egypt with the hostile “Egyptian” ruler as their just recompense.  Pharaoh, of all people, said to Moses and Aaron, This time I have sinned.  The Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong, Ex 9:27.   David sinned more than the once we often focus on.  His “heart smote him” after he numbered the people in 2 Sam 24 and his psalms of repentance after the sin against Bathsheba and Uriah abound with overwhelming guilt. 

Herod was so wrought with guilt after killing John that he thought Jesus was John coming back from the dead.  Peter’s denial caused him to “weep bitterly,” while Judas’s betrayal led to suicide.  Even Paul, a man who surely knew he was forgiven, called himself “the chiefest of sinners” to the end of his life.

And we think we can get away with sin and have it not affect us?  Guilt is like that burning chili pepper cloud.  You can’t see it, but your conscience will still feel its effects, and if you don’t deal with it, you will lead a miserable life--at least until you burn that conscience out as if you had “branded it with a hot iron,” 1 Tim 4:2.

Do you know how to get rid of the pain of burning chili peppers?  Dairy products.  If you forget your gloves and those oils get under your nails or in a nick or cut, soak your hands in milk.  That is also why there is usually a dollop of sour cream on most Mexican dishes. 

Do you know how to get rid of the pain of a burning conscience?  Soak it in the blood of Christ.  It works wonders.

For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling them that have been defiled sanctify unto the cleanness of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?  Heb 9:13,14.

Dene Ward

You can find a million diets out there, but there is one thing none of them can get around:  your calorie intake must be less than your calorie outflow if you want to lose weight.  That doesn’t mean it is easy or that other things do not play into it. Just ask a middle-aged woman about the difficulties of losing weight, and you will get an earful.  I can vouch for those “other things” myself, having gone through middle age and now arrived at “old age.” It’s true—several million women could not make this up and it not be valid.  Be that as it may, you still must count those calories and burn up more than you take in.

Keith and I do more calorie counting these days.  Our activity level has decreased due to illness and just being too old and tired to do as much.  That
means we have to be much more diligent than before when Keith was riding his bike 50-75 miles a week and I was jogging 25-30 miles a week. Something about being in your 60s slows you down a bit.

The other morning I was making a light version of baklava—half the calories and a third the fat of the ordinary Greek pastry.  I had phyllo dough leftover that I needed to use up and a brand new jar of raw honey. Such was my excuse that day—but at least I had found this lighter version.  After I poured the honey
syrup over the baked dough, Keith came along behind me with a spoon and started scraping the pan.  In between licks he said, “This doesn’t count, right?”  Oh, if only…  

I heard a chef say one time that he had to work-out about two hours a day
to burn off the estimated 6000 calories he took in just tasting the dishes he
made before sending them out to his customers.  I get it.  My local brethren have so many potlucks (at least two a month for some of us), plus company meals and family meals, wedding and baby showers, that I am sure most of my extra calories come from that tasting.  No way will I send something out there that I don’t know is good. And if I took diet food to a potluck I might just be excommunicated.

Yes, those calories count.  And so do those little bitty sins—you know, the little white lies to keep yourself out of trouble, the little bits of gossip that you just can’t seem to keep to yourself, the pens and paper clips you “borrow” from work, that side job you did for a little extra cash that doesn’t get reported the next April.  We seem to think that because we assemble on Sunday mornings and don’t do the big bad sins—the ones in the Ten Commandments—that nothing else counts. The fact that our language makes people think less of the body of a Sacrificed Savior never seems to cross our minds.  
 
The Treasury of Scriptural Knowledge states that the Jews believed that “he who observed any principal command was equal to him who kept the whole law.”  Their example was idolatry.  If you didn’t worship an idol, you were good to go!  The little stuff didn’t matter.  All you have to do is read about Jesus’ dealings with the Pharisees in the gospels and you can see the results of that doctrine.

First century Christians must have had the same problem.  “He who keeps the whole law but fails in one point has become accountable for all of it,” James said in 2:10.  The context? People who said they had faith but didn’t take care of the sick and needy, or visit the fatherless and widows, or welcome the strangers to their assemblies.  The same God who said, “Do not kill,” also said, “Do not commit adultery,” he reminds them.  All sins count in God’s eyes.

This is not new with God.  Ezekiel said in chapter 33:12,13, “The righteousness of the righteous shall not deliver him in the day of his transgression…if he trust to his righteousness, and commit iniquity, none of his righteous deeds shall be remembered, but in his iniquity which he has committed, therein shall he die.”

Yep, all those calories count, no matter how small the spoon or how tiny the taste.  And so do all those sins.  The only cure for the problem is to quit sampling the goods.

Whosoever therefore shall break one of these least commandments, and shall teach men so, shall be called least in the kingdom of heaven: but whosoever shall do and teach them, he shall be called great in the kingdom of heaven. Matthew 5:19

Dene Ward

What busy mother doesn’t love a one dish meal?  Whether a casserole, a Dutch oven, or a crockpot, that dish satisfies all the nutritional needs of the family, leaving little mess and full tummies. 

Soups and stews, pot roasts, and pot pie may be the stuff of one pot wonders, but there are many others in the pantheon of gustatory delights that I have used.  If I have time, I may add some homemade bread, or maybe a salad, but those are redundant when the meat, starch, and vegetables are already included inside that single beautiful piece of steaming kitchenware.  I have a particular fondness for a half Swiss steak-half steak Creole concoction, braised in a tomato-y, herby vegetable sauce, dolloped with cheese grits.

I was reading several passages the other morning when the thought crossed my mind that God’s Word is the ultimate one-dish meal for the soul. 

It creates faith at the very outset of your relationship with God, Rom 10:17. 

It instructs and enlightens, 1 Cor 10:11; Eph 3:3-5.

It gives you a scolding when you need it, 2 Tim 3:16,17, and encourages you when you need a boost, Rom 15:4.

It reminds you when you have forgotten, 2 Pet 3:1, and comforts you when the pain is overwhelming, 1 Thes 4:18.

It can reveal your heart if you are brave enough to listen, Heb 4:12, and defeat the enemy if you wield it faithfully, Eph 6:17.

The Word of God is indeed a one dish meal, satisfying all the spiritual needs of those who partake.  The world will tell you it’s irrelevant, it’s out-dated and obsolete, that things have changed too much for it to be of any use to you at all.  Yet Jesus quoted an Old Testament that was just as far removed from him in time as the New is from us as if it were as pertinent as the latest newsflash.  For the word of the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved, it is the power of God, 1 Cor 1:18.

From the feast of Psalm 119 to the quick power snack of passages like Rom 1:16, the Word of God will strengthen your faith, purify your heart, and save your soul—“words whereby you shall be saved,” the angel promised Cornelius, and sent those words with a preacher.

Keep yourself healthy.  “Eat these words,” God told Ezekiel in Ezek 3:1, just like your mother telling you to eat your vegetables.  She knew what was best for you, and so does He.  

Your words were found, and I ate them, and your words became to me a joy and the delight of my heart, for I am called by your name, O LORD, God of hosts. Jeremiah 15:16

Dene Ward

Lines of wooden tables covered with red checked cloths, yellowed cotton cloths, handmade crocheted cloths, loaded till sagging, every square inch laden with stoneware bowls full of red potato salad, yellow with mustard, and studded with chopped celery, sweet pickle nuggets, and chunks of hard-boiled egg; bright orange carrot salad polka-dotted with black raisins; clear glass bowls of layered salads, various shades of green, orange, white, and yellow; finely chopped slaws, pale green with orange and purple flecks and dressed in a white dressing or a sweet vinegar; chipped china platters of golden-eyed deviled eggs, some bloodshot with paprika; luscious pink ham slices, and piles of fried chicken covered with a homemade breading redolent with spices and herbs, the chicken itself tangy and moist from a buttermilk brine; club aluminum Dutch ovens filled with pole beans, green beans, speckled butterbeans, and white acres, mustard, turnip and collard greens, all sporting a sheen of bacon drippings and shreds of pork; cast iron pots of bubbling baked beans spiked with molasses and the contents of every bottle in the refrigerator; others loaded with fall apart pot roast, pork roast, or chicken and bright yellow rice; others still steaming with chicken and slicker style dumplings; spoons sticking up akimbo from mason jars full of the jewel colors of various pickles, everything from deep red to chartreuse to layers of emerald green, canary yellow, and white; baskets of fluffy, tan buttermilk biscuits, soft yeast rolls, and black skillets of cornbread wedges; pies billowing with meringue, dense with pecans, or fruit bubbling from a vented golden crust; moist cake layers enrobed in swirls of chocolate or cream cheese or clouds of seven minute frosting, some cloaked in coconut, others with nuts peeking out from the coating—none of them exactly perfect because everything is homemade.

That’s what potluck was like when I was a child.  It was far superior to today’s offerings, at least half of which are purchased on the way—fold-up boxes of fried chicken and take-out pizza, plastic containers of salads and slaw, and bakery boxes of cakes and pies, all entirely too perfect to be made from scratch.  Is it any wonder that everyone rushes for the obviously homemade goodies and even snatches slices of cake early, before going through the regular line, and hides them for a later dessert?

Potluck originally referred to feeding drop-in guests or folks passing through who needed a meal whatever was in the pot that evening.  Drop-ins were not considered rude in those days.  I remember my parents thoroughly enjoying the evenings when someone just happened to stop by.  We didn’t load our lives down with extra-curricular activities back then--people were the activities.

Potluck eventually came to mean “You bring what you have and I’ll bring what I have and we’ll eat together.”  It didn’t really involve any extra work—that was the point.  When no one has enough of one thing but you pool it together, there is plenty for everyone, and plenty of time left to visit.

We often speak of “feasting on the word of God.”  I wonder what would happen if we had a potluck?  What would I have to offer?  Anything at all?  Do I spend enough time in the word of God to have thoughts on it readily at hand?  Most of us are too embarrassed to show up at a real potluck with nothing in our hands, but think nothing of showing up to a Bible study with nothing to share.

Would my spiritual table be loaded down with good food or store-bought, processed, preservative-laden grub because I had no time left in my day to cook something up?  Would my offering be fresh and nutritious or calorie-laden and fatty?  Would it be a gracious plenty mounded high in the bowl or spooned into a plastic cup barely big enough to feed one?  Would it be piping hot or lukewarm?  Would people go away satisfied or determined to avoid my table at all costs in the future?

Think about it tonight when you look at the meal you feed your family. What’s in that spiritual pot of yours should someone happen by?  Would they be lucky or not? 

Come, everyone who thirsts, come to the waters; and he who has no money, come, buy and eat! Come, buy wine and milk without money and without price. Why do you spend your money for that which is not bread, and your labor for that which does not satisfy? Listen diligently to me, and eat what is good, and delight yourselves in rich food. Incline your ear, and come to me; hear, that your soul may live; and I will make with you an everlasting covenant, my steadfast, sure love for David, Isaiah 55:1-3.

Dene Ward

            Do you know that it is practically impossible to find plain old banana ice cream in the grocery store?  You can find banana split ice cream and banana cream pie ice cream, but not plain banana.  So overripe bananas were on sale a few weeks ago and Keith bought some to make ice cream.  As we were in the middle of mashing bananas I added a splash of lemon juice and suddenly we were having a conversation about it.  He was just sure I had ruined his banana ice cream and made it sour—why the whole thing would curdle now, didn’t I know that?

            The past few weeks he has started watching me do things and asking questions for the inevitable day when he will need to take over.  In the past, he has never known that I add a splash of lemon juice to a lot of things, his favorite apple pie, his favorite blueberry crisp, his favorite peach cobbler, his favorite crab cakes, and I could go on and on.  Lemon juice is one of those things that brighten flavors and make things taste better, even though you don’t actually taste the lemon—similar to salt in baked goods.  Any good cook knows that if you leave the salt out of the cookies or the cake or the pie crust or the biscuits, none of them will be fit to eat.  You don’t know it is in there, but you sure know it if it isn’t.

            I have a feeling we treat God’s blessings that way sometimes.  We never really notice all the good things we have, but I bet if they suddenly disappeared we would.  Oh yes, we often thank God for the really big things like salvation and grace, but what if you got up to a black and white world tomorrow morning?  Have you ever really thought about the blessing of color?  We thank God every day for the food on our tables, but what if suddenly you could no longer taste it?  Let me tell you, I have had that problem with these eye medications and it is awful.  About the only thing good about it was a ten pound weight loss in two weeks, but there comes a point when even that is not a blessing.

            You see, God is responsible for everything good, even the seemingly small, unimportant things.  When your life takes a turn for the worse, it is easy to forget that and blame God.  But by remembering that there are still good things, like color and taste, like flowers and butterflies, like puppies and kittens, like rain on the roof and a breeze in the trees, like a real vine-ripened tomato, you can know that God is still there, he is still giving you blessings.  They may be blessings like lemon juice in banana ice cream or salt in cookies:  just because you don’t notice them, doesn’t mean He doesn’t care.

You visit the earth and water it, you greatly enrich it; the river of God is full of water.  You provide their grain for so you have prepared it.  You water its furrows abundantly, settling its ridges, softening it with showers and blessing its growth.  You crown the year with your bounty, your wagon tracks overflow with abundance.  The pastures of the wilderness overflow, the hills gird themselves with joy, the meadows clothe themselves with flocks, the valleys deck themselves with grain; they shout and sing together for joy,  Psalm 65:9-13.

Dene Ward

            Remember those grape hulls I mentioned, the ones leftover from making grape juice?  After sitting in that liquid for a few weeks, nothing remains but a pale, sour, seedy bag.  Still, straining them out and throwing them away was hard for me to do.  When you live closely for so long, you use everything until it has no service left in it. 

            I never throw away a plastic bag, for instance, after only one use.  I wash it and hang it out in the kitchen to dry.  After several uses it will eventually develop a hole or two, sometimes pinprick holes, but even that makes it no longer airtight.  When that happens it becomes a produce bag.  Why buy special green bags with vents in them?  I just add another hole or two with a couple of knife stabs and “re-purpose” the bag.

            So I had a hard time throwing out those grape hulls.  I certainly didn’t want to eat them—I had already tried that, but maybe the birds would, or a coon, or a possum—they eat just about anything.  So we laid them out on an old stump to see what would happen.

            Nothing happened.  Nothing wanted them.  We saw no signs that anything had even nosed around in them or pecked even once.  Somehow every animal and bird could tell just with a look that nothing good remained in those hulls.  They were simply useless.

            How about us?  Sometimes we think that because we sit on a pew we are serving God.  Maybe all we are doing is lying on a stump.  Like birds that fly past those leached out grape hulls, maybe our neighbors take a quick gander and decide there is absolutely nothing there worthwhile.  If they don’t know who and what we are by the words we say and the deeds of kindness we do, how useful are we to the Master?  If they don’t see that we handle life better than they, that trials do not deplete our faith and joy and hope, why should they care about what we do on Sunday mornings?

            In fact, they will get some use out of those empty hulls of a life we lead—they will be able to tell at a glance what they do not want to be, and they will do their best to stay away from it, just as the coons and possums probably went out of their way to go around that stump in the wee hours of the morning.  Those grape hulls will act as a perfect thermostat for judging our personal brand of Christianity.  As such, they aren’t just useless, they are actively damaging to the spread of the gospel, and the growth of the Lord’s body.

            Empty hulls are not grapes, nor empty lives disciples of the Lord. 

Go and learn what this means, I desire mercy and not sacrifice…To do righteousness and justice is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice, Matt 9:13; Prov 21:3.

Dene Ward

Every August the grapes come in, muscadines and scuppernongs in this part 
of the country. Strong flavored, thick-skinned, acidic, and seedy, they are best for jelly and juice, though true Floridians enjoy noshing on them as is.  With the boys grown now, I go through fewer peanut butter and jelly sandwiches so the jelly production has dwindled and the juice making increased, and I have discovered the easiest method for making and canning grape juice.

Put a cup or so of clean grapes in each sterilized quart jar.  Add some sugar and fill the jars with boiling water.  Process and once the lids have sealed, put them on your shelf for at least two months.  The liquid and the sugar will leach the goodness right out of those grapes.  When you open the jar, strain them out and enjoy what’s left behind.  Perhaps not as much fun as jumping into
the vat with Lucy and Ethel, but far cleaner and easier.

One day I decided to taste one of those strained-out grapes just to see what was left in it.  I should have known—it was duller and several shades paler than its original shiny purple-black, and loose as a deflated balloon. How did it
taste?  Like sour nothingness.  Maybe that’s what happens to us when we steep ourselves in the world.  
                  
Is wealth consuming your thoughts?  “Just let me have enough,” is a lie we tell ourselves.  He who loves money will not be satisfied with money, nor he who loves wealth with his income, Eccl 5:10.  If you allow thoughts of riches to flood your life—even if you don’t have them--anything spiritual will be washed out of your heart.  Notice the prediction God made about Israel:  But
[they] waxed fat, and kicked: you have waxed fat, you have grown thick, you are covered with fatness; then he forsook God which made him, and lightly esteemed the Rock of his salvation, Deuteronomy 32:15. Their wealth (“fatness”) covered them so that it was all they could think about.  Any notion of serving God was completely forgotten.  If you think we aren’t at risk, just take a minute and look around.  What used to be a God-fearing nation has become a people who worship wealth, power, and celebrity instead. 
                 
Other times we allow the pleasures and conveniences of this world to permeate our lives so that the mere thought of sacrificing anything, whether comfort, ease, or even opinion, will be smothered out of us. “Self” will leach the good out of hearts and minds, and leave nothing but the emptiness of indulgence.  If your “rights” spring to your lips every time someone crosses you, you have stifled the spiritual character of yielding to others, whether your
neighbors, the man in the car in front of you, or the brother who sits next to
you on the pew.  You have suffocated the spirit of mercy that marks us as His
children.  For they that are after the flesh do mind the things of the flesh...
For to be carnally minded is death… Because the carnal mind is enmity against God: for it is not subject to the law of God, neither indeed can be. So then they that are in the flesh cannot please God, Romans 8:5-8.

But sometimes we simply drown in “stuff.” What do you do all day long?  Run from this to that to another event, none of which is evil, but none of which is spiritual either.  How do you feel at the end of the day?  Drained, probably, and maybe even quicker to fall into the sins of impatience and intolerance simply because you are so tired.  And he that was sown among the thorns, this is he who hears the word; and the care of the world, and the deceitfulness of riches, choke the word, and he becomes unfruitful, Matthew 13:22.

What are you floating in today?  Will it make you sweet and useful to the  Master, or will it leave you an empty, useless hull of a servant, one who will be strained out and thrown away?  Let me know if you need a jar of my grape juice to sit on your shelf as a reminder. 
 
My foot has held fast to his steps; I have kept his way and have not turned aside. I have not departed from the commandment of his lips; I have treasured the words of his mouth more than my portion of food…For zeal for your house has consumed me, Job  23:11-12, Psa 69:9.

(For this recipe go to "Dene's Recipes" page)


Dene Ward