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

My grandmother crocheted a lace tablecloth for me many years ago.  She was quite a lady, my grandmother.  She was widowed in her forties, left behind with two of her five children still at home.  She met the bills by doing seasonal work in the citrus packing sheds of central Florida, standing on her feet 10-12 hours a day, 6 days a week in season, and then working in a drugstore, a job she walked to and from for nearly thirty years.  She delivered prescriptions, worked the check-out, even made sodas at the fountain.  
             
It was a small town and once, a woman whom my grandmother knew was not
married, came in looking for some form of birth control. My grandmother told her, “No!  Go home and behave yourself like a decent woman should."  No, she did not lose her job over that.  She merely said what every other person there wished they had the nerve to say back in those days.  She lived long enough to see the shame of our society that no one thinks it needs saying any more.
             
As to my tablecloth, most people would look at it and think it was imperfect.  She crocheted with what was labeled “ivory” thread, but she could never afford to buy enough at once to do the whole piece.  So after she cashed her paycheck, she went to the store and bought as much as her budget would allow that week and worked on it.  The next week, she went back and did the same, always buying the same brand labeled “ivory.”  Funny thing about those companies, though—when the lot changes, sometimes the color does too, sometimes only a little, but sometimes “ivory” becomes more of a vanilla or even crème caramel.  The intricately crocheted squares in my tablecloth are not all the same color, even though the thread company said they were.
             
Some people probably look at it and wonder what went wrong. All they see is mismatched colors. What I see is a grandmother’s love, a grandmother who had very little, but who wanted to do something special for her oldest grandchild.  I revel in those mismatched squares because I know my grandmother thought of me every week for a long time, spent the precious little she had to try to do something nice, and, as far as I am concerned, succeeded far beyond her wildest dreams.
             
If it were your grandmother, you would think the same I am sure.  So why is it we think Almighty God cannot take our imperfections and make us into great men and women of faith?  Why is it we beat ourselves to death when we make a mistake, even one we repent of and do our best to correct?  Do we not yet understand grace?  Are we so arrogant that we think we don’t have to forgive ourselves even though God does? Yes we should understand the enormity of our sin, repenting in godly sorrow, over and over, even as David did, but prolonged groveling in the pit of unworthiness can be more about self-pity and lacking faith in God to do what he promised than it is about humility.  The longer we indulge in it, the less we are doing for the Lord, and Satan is just as pleased as if we had gone on sinning. Either way helps him out.
             
The next time you look into a mirror and see only your faults, remember my tablecloth.  When you give God all you have, he can make you into something beautiful too.
 
And God is able to make all grace abound unto you, that you, always having all sufficiency in everything, may abound unto every good work,
2 Cor 9:8.  
  

Dene Ward

It is a culinary fact that fat tempers acid. That is why some of the world’s favorite dishes combine a good helping of both. Melted mozzarella offsets a tomato-y pizza sauce. A cheese-stuffed calzone is almost unbearably rich without a small bowl of marinara to dip it in. A homemade pimento cheese sandwich SCREAMS for a homemade dill pickle on the side. The South’s favorite summer treat, a drippy tomato sandwich on high quality white bread, simply must be slathered with a glop of mayo. Fat and acid—the perfect combination; it’s why we dip French fries in ketchup and chips in salsa; it’s why the favorite toppings for a hot dog are ketchup, mustard, relish, and chili. It’s why we put whipped cream on strawberries and why a Key lime pie is just about the perfect dessert.

Trials, tribulations, sufferings and afflictions are the acid tests for Christians. No one wants to go through them, yet we all understand that is what makes us stronger, builds up our faith, keeps us able to endure till the end. All of us would be spiritual wimps without them.  

What we fail to realize is that God gives us plenty of fat to offset them. How many blessings can you count in your life today, not even considering the most wonderful one of all, your salvation? How many good things happened to you just this morning? Did your car start? Did you make it to work safely? Are your children safely ensconced in a safe place? Do you still have a roof over your head? Is there food in your refrigerator? Is the electricity on, the water running and the AC humming away? Are their flowers blooming in your yard and birds singing in the trees? Do you have pleasant memories to calm you in the midst of sorrows? Is there a Bible in your home and are you free to read it whenever you want to? Did you pray to a Father who loves you more than anything else? How many more “fat” items can we come up with? Probably enough to fill even the gigabytes of memory in our computers if we just took the time to think of them. If you have trouble, just ask a three-year-old—they are pros at this.

I don’t mean to make light of people’s problems with this little analogy—but then again, maybe I do. Paul calls them “light afflictions” in 2 Corinthians 4, and he was including persecution to the death in that context. Compared to the end result, compared to the reward, compared to our Savior’s sufferings so we could have that reward, our trials and tribulations are light indeed.

So today, if you are in the middle of a struggle, if the acid is burning your soul, look for the fat God gave you to temper it. Look for everything good in your day, in your life, no matter how small it may seem. If that doesn’t work, and sometimes it doesn’t, remember the good that will result from your testing, and don’t let it be for nothing. Don’t let Satan win. The bigger the tomato, the more mayo God smears on, if you only know where to look.

Wherefore we faint not, for though our outer man is decaying, our inward man is renewed day by day. For this momentary light affliction works for us more and more exceedingly an eternal weight of glory; while we look not at 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 Cor 4:16-18.

 Dene Ward 

Whew!  It’s over for another year.  Some of it is in the freezer—blueberries, strawberries, tomato sauce, corn, pole beans, white acre peas, blackeyes, and limas—but quite a bit sits on the shelves of the back pantry in those clear sturdy Mason jars: two kinds of cucumber pickles, squash pickles, okra pickles, pickled banana peppers, pickled jalapenos, tomatoes, salsa, tomato jam, muscadine juice, and muscadine jelly.

The first time I ever canned I was scared to death.  First, the pressure canner scared me.  I had heard too many stories of blown up pots and collard greens hanging from the ceiling, but once I had used it a few times without incident, and really understood how it worked, that fear left me.  I still follow the rules though, or it will blow up.  No amount of sincerity on my part will keep that from happening if I let the pressure get too high. 

I also follow the sterilization rules and the rules about how much pressure for how long and how much acidity is required for steam canning.  Botulism, a food poisoning caused by foods that have been improperly canned, is a particularly dangerous disease.  Symptoms include severe abdominal pain, vomiting, blurred vision, muscle weakness and eventual paralysis.  You’d better believe I carefully follow all the rules for home canning.  I give away a lot of my pickles and jams.  Not only do I not want botulism, I certainly don’t want to give it to anyone else either.

Some folks chafe at rules.  Maybe that’s why they don’t follow God’s rules.  They want to take the Bible and pick and choose what suits them.  “Authority?” they scoff.  “Overrated and totally unnecessary.”  Authority does matter and a lot of people in the Bible found out the hard way.  Whatever you do in word or in deed, do all in the name of {by the authority of} the Lord Jesus…Col 3:17.  You might pay special attention to the context of that verse too.

God’s people were warned over and over to follow His rules, to, in fact, be careful to follow His rules, Deut 5:1.  I counted 31 times in the Pentateuch alone.  Not following those rules resulted in death for many and captivity for others.  When Ezra and Nehemiah brought the remnant back to Jerusalem, once again they were warned, at least five times in those two short books.  Maybe suffering the consequences of doing otherwise made the need for so much repetition a little less.

David had a way of looking at God’s rules that we need to consider.  For I have kept the ways of the Lord, and have not wickedly departed from my God.  For all his rules were before me, and from his statutes I did not turn aside, 2 Sam 22:22,23. Many of David’s psalms talk about God’s rules, but the 119th mentions them 17 times.  David calls those rules good, helpful, comforting, righteous, praiseworthy, enduring, hope-inducing, true, and life-giving.  How can anyone chafe at something so wonderful?

People simply don’t want rules, especially with God.  God is supposed to be loving and kind and accept me as I am.  No.  God knows that the way we are will only bring death.  We must follow the rules in order to live.  We must love the rules every bit as much as David did.  I will praise you with an upright heart when I learn your righteous rules…My soul is consumed with longing for your rules at all times…When I think of your rules from of old, I take comfort, O Lord…Great is your mercy O Lord, give me life according to your rules, 119:7, 20, 52, 156.

I get out my canning guide and faithfully follow their rules every summer.  I never just guess at it; I never say, “That’s close enough.”  I know if I don’t follow those rules someone could die, maybe me or one of my good friends or one of my precious children or grandchildren.  I bet there is something in your life with rules just as important that you follow faithfully.  Why then, are we so careless with the most important rules we have ever been given?

For this is the love of God, that we keep his commandments. And his commandments are not burdensome, 1 John 5:3.

Dene Ward

A long time ago my sister gave me a recipe for “Congo Bars.”  Congo bars are basically a blondie, extra gooey, with two kinds of chips in them, butterscotch and semi-sweet.  The recipe makes not a 9 x 13 pan, but a 10 x 15, and when I need a whole lot of something, I still go to that recipe.

I have added a few twists of my own, though.  First, I toast the nuts.  The pan doesn’t stay in the oven but 15 minutes, which is not quite enough time, enrobed as they are in all that batter, for the nuts to really brown.  Believe me, the flavor difference is obvious. 

The other change I made began as a desperation move when I didn’t have one cup each of butterscotch and semi-sweet chocolate chips.  Instead, I had about half a cup each of those bagged up in my freezer from previous recipes, and also the remains of a bag of peanut butter chips and one of white chocolate chips.  Together they made just over the two cups total I needed, so I threw them all in.

I have never received so many compliments on a homely looking bar cookie in my life.  Things like, “Wow!  This is so interesting,” and, “I get a different flavor with every bite.  How did you do that?”  So now I do it on purpose.  Whenever I see those pieces of bags stacking up in my freezer, Congo bars are on the menu that week as the dessert I take to a potluck, or the bars I take camping, or the cookies in the cookie jar when the kids come home.  Weeks after they first taste them, people are still talking about these things, and all I did was stir a bunch of different flavored chips together in the batter.

That is exactly what God expected from the church.  He never intended us to be homogenous groups, some all middle class, some all lower class, some all black, some all white, some totally blue collar workers, and some nothing but white collar workers.  “All nations shall flow in,” Isaiah prophesied in chapter 2, and it becomes obvious when you read about those first century churches that Jew and Gentile weren’t the only differences.

But even in the first century, the people rebelled against such a notion.  “We can’t worship with them,” the Jewish Christians whined about the Gentiles.  “Come sit up here,” they said to the rich visitor, and gave the lesser seat to the poor man. 

Hadn’t Jesus paved the way?  Even among the chosen twelve, there were differences—blue collar Galileans and urbane Judeans, men with Aramaic names and men with Greek names, some disciples of John and others not, fishermen, publicans, and Zealots.  They too had trouble with the notion of equality among them, but they overcame it.

I worship with a congregation of nearly 300.  You know the wonderful thing about that?  Whatever I need, someone there can help me.  I have a physician, a plumber, a computer whiz, a chiropractor, a financial advisor, a legal consultant, an electrician, a carpenter, and a pharmacist.  As far as the church’s needs, we have an accountant, a couple of computer techs, lawn workers, housekeepers, teachers, photographers, several Bible scholars, and a host of others who step up when the need arises in their specialty.  We have babes in arms and folks in their nineties.  How likely is that to happen when there are only 30 of you?

Sometimes you cannot help there being only 30 of you—at least for awhile.  That should be changing too as each fulfills his obligation to tell others about his faith.  But sometimes churches are small because people do not want to worship with other types of people.  Why should there be a small black group and a small white group in the same town except that people do not want to be together?  Shame on us for letting our comfort zones become more important than the good of the Lord’s kingdom in that particular locality. 

The power of the gospel is seen not only in the changes in our lives, but in the way people of different backgrounds, cultures, and classes love one another.  Jesus prayed that we would all be one “so the world may know that you sent me.” 

We have people who raise their hands when they sing, and people who don’t.  We have song leaders who lead more modern, syncopated music, and those who stick with the old standards.  We have people “raised in the church,” and those who are new to it; some who grew up knowing right from wrong before they were knee-high, and others who came to us from rehab.  There may be a different flavor in every bite, but we all get along.  To do otherwise would make a mockery of the plan of salvation. 

“All have sinned,” and we are all saved by the grace of the same God.  That’s the only sameness about us that really matters.

May the God of endurance and encouragement grant you to live in such harmony with one another, in accord with Christ Jesus, that together you may with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. Therefore welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you, for the glory of God. (Romans 15:5-7)

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

Dene Ward