We have been passing a lot of things down lately, and that includes a lot of our garden paraphernalia.  Keith has reached the age that he no longer feels safe working for hours in the heat and humidity of an oppressive Florida summer.  One of the things he gave away was his backpack garden sprayer.  Before, he had two sprayers—one for herbicide and one for insecticide.  The backpack sprayer has become extremely uncomfortable to his shot-up shoulder so that is the one that was passed on to a couple who are just discovering the joys of gardening.
            So the first time he went out to spray the tomatoes and peppers for bugs, he forgot to rinse it out from the time before when he sprayed for weeds around the fence.  He never had to do that before.  That is why he had two sprayers.  So he went right out and sprayed my miniature rose and his first tomato.  That's when he smelled the herbicide.  Uh-oh.  Even if he had rinsed it out, the wand still had plant killer in it.  And that is exactly what happened.  The next morning I went outside and my little rose was brown and dead.  So were the tomatoes, but the rose had been a gift from a voice student 20 years before. 
            I doubt that will ever happen again, but that doesn't change the results.  Or so I thought.  A few weeks later I went out to water my flower beds during the unseasonable dry weather we were having, and as I bent over the rose I saw it—one tiny red leaf, the color of new growth on a rose.  A day or two later, another showed up.  And today I had two small rose blooms.  The rose had risen from the dead.  Not two weeks ago I had snapped off all but one brittle brown stem, and now it is thriving once again.
            Do you realize that is exactly the figure the New Testament uses of a person who becomes a Christian? 
            Or are you ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death? We were buried therefore with him through baptism into death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection; knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin; for he that hath died is justified from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him; knowing that Christ being raised from the dead dies no more; death no more hath dominion over him. For the death that he died, he died unto sin once: but the life that he lives, he lives unto God. Even so reckon ye also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. (Rom 6:3-11).
            Too many times we use this to teach our neighbors that baptism is an immersion.  What we need to focus on is that we are supposed to have died to sin and now live a new life, raised from that death to live a life unto God.  Paul was writing to believers when he wrote those verses.  I have no right to make excuses when I sin, not when I have the power of Christ's resurrection in my life.  Speaking of which:
            And you did he make alive, when you were dead through your trespasses and sins, wherein you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the powers of the air, of the spirit that now works in the sons of disobedience; among whom we also all once lived in the lusts of our flesh, doing the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, even as the rest:— but God, being rich in mercy, for his great love wherewith he loved us, even when we were dead through our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ (by grace have you been saved), and raised us up with him, and made us to sit with him in the heavenly places, in Christ Jesus (Eph 2:1-6).  Just as in Romans, you were dead, but now you have been made alive.  Live like it.
            We could go on and on with verses like these.  You may never have realized how many there are, in fact, but that in itself tells us how important this is.  It is also says, "There's no valid reason for having missed this, people!"  Just like my little rose, we were supposed to have come back to life at our baptism.  If we are still wallowing in the grave of sin, something is dreadfully wrong.
 
If you died with Christ from the rudiments of the world, why, as though living in the world, do ye subject yourselves to [them] (Col 2:20).

I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I that live, but Christ lives in me: and that life which I now live in the flesh I live in faith, the faith which is in the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself up for me (Gal 2:20).

…having been buried with him in baptism, wherein you were also raised with him through faith in the working of God, who raised him from the dead. And you, being dead through your trespasses and the uncircumcision of your flesh, you, I say, did he make alive together with him, having forgiven us all our trespasses (Col 2:12-13).
 
Dene Ward

I have a problem.  I believe that life is a book and I am the hero of the story.  Everything anyone does is done with me in mind because I am the central character.  Any time I rub shoulders with another person in my daily life, that person did it solely because he wanted to hurt me, or inconvenience me, or insult me, or otherwise bother my life. 
            What is really happening is that person thinks his life is a book and he is the hero, and I am the one causing him trouble.  The things I often get so upset about are nothing more than an accidental crossing of paths or an idiosyncrasy that, in my own self-centeredness, I have decided to take as a personal offense when the other person was not directing it toward me at all.
            And in the same vein, I think everything is supposed to turn out wonderfully, a happily ever after for all my goodness and faithfulness, because I am the hero after all.  Admit it:  you have the same problem, and it can cost us our souls if we are not careful.
            I think of John the Baptist, a man whose birth was announced by the same angel who announced Jesus’ birth.  He gave up any semblance of a normal life to fulfill the mission God gave him.  If not for John’s preaching, what would have become of Christianity?  If it took several years for the men who actually walked with Jesus to figure things out, what of the masses if John had not worked so hard to prepare them for the coming of the kingdom?  The thought of 3000 being baptized on the Day of Pentecost would have been nothing more than a pipe dream.
            John also gave up what others might have expected in the way of glory.  He watched Jesus begin his ministry and gradually take away many of his own disciples.  For all his sacrifice this is the thanks he gets?  John did not look for thanks.  Indeed, as his ministry waned and an unjust death at about the age of 31 loomed, his remaining disciples came to him complaining about Jesus’ growing popularity as if it were an affront to John.  John answered and said, A man can receive nothing, except it have been given him from heaven. You yourselves bear me witness that I said, I am not the Christ, but, that I am sent before him. He that has the bride is the bridegroom: but the friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly because of the bridegroom's voice: this my joy therefore is made full. He must increase, but I must decrease. John 3:27-30.
            It may have been written many years after his death, but John understood the true meaning of to them that love God all things work together for good, Rom 8:28.  He understood because he recognized the part that we ignore:  according to his purpose. For whom he foreknew, he also foreordained to be conformed to the image of his Son that he might be the firstborn among many brethren: and whom he foreordained, them he also called: and whom he called, them he also justified: and whom he justified, them he also glorified, vv 29,30.  John knew he was not the hero of the story.  He knew that he need not expect this life to be a bed of roses with a happy ending. 
            He also knew that the purpose of God for which he worked was to give everyone the opportunity to be saved, and that was the good for which all things worked together.  If it took his not being able to have a family, if it took living a meager existence in the wilderness, if it took his murder, he was willing to bear it.
            If John could have that attitude, a man who lived a short, strange, sacrificial life and died a martyr by the hand of a ruthless woman and her weak husband, why can’t we who live relatively normal, happy, safe lives? 
            There will be trials.  There will be moments of grief.  The life we live here may not have the happy ending we always dreamed of, but the purpose of God will make it seem like a mere trifle if we just stop thinking everything is about us, and remember who the real Hero is. 
 
Therefore let us also, seeing we are compassed about with so great a cloud of witnesses, lay aside every weight, and the sin which so easily besets us, and let us run with patience the race that is set before us, looking unto Jesus the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy that was set before him endured the cross, despising shame, and hath sat down at the right hand of the throne of God, Heb 12:1,2.
 
Dene Ward

The last time we went to visit, four year old Judah made up a game.  He had a pile of "buddies" (mainly stuffed animals) and picked up two.  These he carefully carried behind his back as he walked across the floor.  As he reached what must have been a predetermined point in his little mind, he suddenly dropped the two buddies, one at a time. 
            "Drop one, drop two," he said.  Then he turned around and looked.  Number two was placed in a "keep" pile, while number one was discarded across the room.  Then he picked up two more and did it again.  Before long he had two piles, each half the size of the one he began with.  Then he started the process all over again with the "keep" pile, adding yet more to the discard pile and leaving a smaller "keep" pile.  He did this several times until he had finally whittled it down to two buddies.  When he finished, he looked at the buddy who had "won" the game—the final "drop two" buddy.  He was not entirely pleased, so he gathered all the buddies from both piles together and started over again.
            This time, instead of carrying the buddies behind his back where, I suppose, he couldn't always remember which hand held what, he carried them in front of him.  He could see exactly who he was dropping when.  Occasionally he even hesitated before deciding which to drop first, the buddy which would then be discarded altogether.  Because he could see what he was doing, he was happy with the end result, which was Lucky the Tiger, his favorite.  Obviously, he had rigged the game.
            I began thinking about how he had made his choices.  If one was his brother's buddy and the other was his, his brother's was the first to go to the discard pile.  If one were a newer buddy, and the other an old favorite, the newer one fell victim to "Drop one."  Once he had culled it down to only his old favorites, life became a little more difficult.  In fact, the third time through the game, Leo the blankie actually displaced Lucky the Tiger.
            Now let's put feet on this little story.  Do we ever do the same thing?  Yes, we adults have been known to determine Truth not by what the scripture says but by who says it.  Did Brother Big Name Preacher say this, or some poor old nobody you never heard of?  Did my best friend in the congregation take this side and the guy I can hardly tolerate take the other?  Is this the view my blood family takes while someone I am not related to takes that one?
            Or maybe we make our choices based on how it affects us.  Would this view mean I need to admit wrong and change my life and that other one leave me to live as I want to?  Would it mean that my parents died in sin and I just can't bear to think such a thing?  Would it mean I need to disfellowship my good friends?  Would it mean my children are no longer considered faithful Christians, so I just won't consider the possibility that this scripture actually means that at all.  I've known more than one preacher whose views on divorce and remarriage changed when family was suddenly involved.  Honestly considering the scriptures with rational, logical thought had nothing to do with it.
            Our first allegiance is supposed to be to God and His revealed Word, not family, not best friends, not famous people or those with more wealth or status.  We are not four years old.  We are supposed to have matured enough to make the hard decisions regardless the fallout.  "Drop one, drop two" is not a meaningless game with God.  He watches who and what you drop and why.  He knows how to play the game too, and He will not let His love for sinners influence His decisions about who to drop first if they refuse the Truth.
 
​Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. (Matt 10:37)

​If anyone comes to me and does not hate his own father and mother and wife and children and brothers and sisters, yes, and even his own life, he cannot be my disciple. (Luke 14:26)

Dene Ward
           

We were hiking a mountain trail, sometimes straight up, sometimes straight down.  A babbling brook ran to our left at the bottom of a fifty foot ravine, making miniature waterfalls over rocks and roots long before we reached the larger and taller falls, weeping into a pool and running on down the hill.  As we made our way over another rise and around a bend, the leaf-strewn trail suddenly dipped and we found ourselves in a cypress swamp.  What?
            Oh yes, I remembered, we were not in the mountains after all; we were in Florida.  Yet it would have been easy to have fooled a person who had slept through the trip over rivers with names like Suwannee and Ocklockonee, traveling deep into the piney woods of the Big Bend, down to the swamplands.  If they had wakened in the campground on the ridge overlooking the river valley below, and walked the first mile of the path, they would have thought they were on the Appalachian Trail somewhere.
            But the sight of those huge cypresses, the bottoms of their trunks billowing like the folds of a skirt in the water, their knees standing two and three feet high around them, would have given pause.  Suddenly they would realize the shrubbery beneath the trees in the woods wasn’t rhododendron and mountain aster, but palmetto and needle palms.  The ground wasn’t hardwood leaf mold over rock, but pine straw matting over red or yellow clay and sand.  This is Florida—perhaps different from most other places in the state, but Florida nevertheless. 
            Where are you spiritually?  Are you where you think you are?  Or did you sleep through the first half of your life, and when your spirituality awakened, look around and at first glance think, “Yes, this is the right place,” when it was only a close facsimile?  Did you find yourself among people who seemed to be doing the right thing and so fail to take a really close look at your surroundings? 
            Why are you where you are?  Is it just because this is where Mom and Dad put you, or because you checked the map and stayed awake for the trip, knowing why you made which turns, and not only how to tell others to get here, but why they should be here with you?
            If you are in the mountains of Appalachia, you will need to look out for a few rattlesnakes and copperheads, but those are shy reptiles that will usually run if given the opportunity.  In a Florida swamp you will also need to watch out for cottonmouths and alligators.  Cottonmouths are notoriously aggressive—they will charge from cover, and then chase you.  And alligators move faster than anything that ungainly has a right to.  If you are wary of the wrong dangers, you are much more likely to be taken unawares. 
            God expects you to know where you are spiritually and why you are there.  He doesn’t want people who are where they are simply out of convenience and family tradition.  Where is the service in that? 
            He expects you to look out for the dangers that might surround you.  How can you be alert if the dangers you expect are not the ones in that area?
            And how will you ever find God if you are not where you thought you were?
 
From there you will seek the Lord your God and you will find Him if you search after Him with all your heart and with all your soul, Deut 4:29.
 
Dene Ward

Neither will I offer burnt offerings unto Jehovah my God which cost me nothing.

            2 Samuel 24 relates the numbering of the Israelites as commanded by David.  To make a long story short, this sin caused a pestilence sent from God as punishment.  God then told David to offer up a sin offering at a threshing floor owned by Araunah. 
            Aranauh saw the king’s entourage headed his way and went out to greet them, wondering what he could do for his king.  When David explained and asked to buy the property so he could offer the sacrifice, Araunah said, “Oh no, lord.  Everything is yours for the taking, including the oxen for the burnt offering.”
            Then David uttered those words above, “I will not offer burnt offerings to the Lord which cost me nothing.”  It isn’t worship, David meant, when it isn’t mine to give.  It isn’t worship when it’s an extra I keep on the shelf for emergencies.  It isn’t worship if it isn’t something I need for myself.  Service to God should cost me something.
            I wonder what David would say were he alive today.  I bet I know some things he would not say.
            “We have a gospel meeting this week?  I’ll go if it’s convenient.”
            “The price of gas has gotten too steep to make that extra Bible study this week.”
            “That’s just too early for me to have to get up in the morning.”
            “It’s a song service tonight?  I don’t like to sing anyway.”
            “It’s on the way to my activity, so I can stop by the hospital for a quick visit, otherwise...”
            “My neighbor mentioned wanting to ask me about some problems he is having, and I wanted to watch that ball game.  Maybe tomorrow night.”
            It doesn’t have to be inconvenient to count as service; if it did, the most pious time to assemble would be 2:00 AM.  However, if convenient service is all we ever give, you wonder if it truly deserves that description, “service.”
            Did you ever offer assistance and have someone say, “Well, only if it isn’t any trouble?”  Have you said it yourself?  Don’t deny someone the right to “pay” for the offerings they give.  It is often trouble to help someone out—it’s supposed to be!  How much trouble they go to for someone else is a measure of their commitment to the Lord (Matt 25: 40).  The same standard is a measure of your commitment as well. 
            Since we do operate our assemblies on a system of expedients, it is too easy to think that everything should be convenient.  Surely God doesn’t really expect our service to Him to cost us time, money, or pleasures and recreation that are good and wholesome.  We may understand the concept of sacrificial giving on the first day of the week, but how much do we understand the concept of sacrificial giving every day of our lives?
            Because of all He has done for me, I should be willing and anxious to say, “I will not offer to the Lord that which costs me nothing.”
 
Wherefore, receiving a kingdom that cannot be shaken, let us have grace, whereby we may offer service well-pleasing to God with reverence and awe: for our God is a consuming fire. Heb 12:28,29.
 
Dene Ward

"That's where I draw the line."
            I suppose you are wondering about context.  Context doesn't really matter here.  This was a Christian who, in the course of a class discussion, let everyone know that when it came to serving the Lord—it didn't really matter what area--there was a line she would not cross.
            The problem is that Jesus does not allow his disciples to draw a line.  He expects us to give him a blank check.  We are to choose him over family, over wealth and status, even over our own lives.  Again and again he tells those who won't put him first that they are "not fit for the kingdom."
            ​Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me (Matt 10:37).
            No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and money (Matt 6:24).
            As they were going along the road, someone said to him, “I will follow you wherever you go.” And Jesus said to him, “Foxes have holes, and birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.” To another he said, “Follow me.” But he said, “Lord, let me first go and bury my father.” And Jesus said to him, “Leave the dead to bury their own dead. But as for you, go and proclaim the kingdom of God.” Yet another said, “I will follow you, Lord, but let me first say farewell to those at my home.” Jesus said to him, “No one who puts his hand to the plow and looks back is fit for the kingdom of God” (Luke 9:57-62).
            And he said to all, “If anyone would come after me, let him deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me " (Luke 9:23).
            Jesus does not want half-hearted disciples.  They had to be fully committed to him.  He expects them to eat and drink him, i.e., live on him, survive on him and him alone—the true meaning of John 6.  And that means there must be no drawing of lines.  Just to be plain about it, if I won't give him that, he doesn't want me.  When everyone left after that difficult sermon, Jesus turned to his disciples and asked, "Are you going, too?"  He wouldn't even cave for his favorites.  They understood that when you commit to Jesus, that's that.
            I have a theory about all of this.  If there is a line I will not cross when it comes to my service to the Lord, sometime or other in my life, he will make sure I come up against it.
 
…But if you remain faithful even when facing death, I will give you the crown of life, Rev 2:10, NLT.

Dene Ward

On June 15, 1215, on the banks of the Thames River at Runnymede, England, King John of England was forced by a bunch of rebellious barons to sign the Magna Carta.  Although it was annulled by Pope Innocent III two months later, it set the foundation for the future English legal system and influenced our founding fathers in the writing of the Constitution and the Bill of Rights.  Precisely because of the Magna Carta we have freedom from unlawful search and seizure, the right to a speedy trial, the right to a jury trial, the writ of habeas corpus, and protection against the loss of life, liberty, and property without due process of law, among other things.  For a "failed" document, it certainly accomplished a lot.
            However, as we often point out, while we should be grateful for our rights under law, claiming our rights at the expense of souls is wrong, not right.  For instance…      
            When Covid began its ugly reign, we had a problem.  Wearing a mask was everyone's handy-dandy solution.  Not in this house.  When one of you is deaf and needs to read lips, it simply won't work.  And then there is the issue of claustrophobia I have had my whole life.  Warm stale air equals suffocation to my mind.  HOWEVER…
            When we go out, when we buy groceries, when we have a doctor appointment, when we assemble with the saints, if we are asked to wear a mask, we do.  Some people think that makes us "sheep."  Why would we act this way?  It's simple if you read your New Testament.
            When one of you has a grievance against another, does he dare go to law before the unrighteous instead of the saints? Or do you not know that the saints will judge the world? And if the world is to be judged by you, are you incompetent to try trivial cases? Do you not know that we are to judge angels? How much more, then, matters pertaining to this life! So if you have such cases, why do you lay them before those who have no standing in the church? I say this to your shame. Can it be that there is no one among you wise enough to settle a dispute between the brothers, but brother goes to law against brother, and that before unbelievers? To have lawsuits at all with one another is already a defeat for you. Why not rather suffer wrong? Why not rather be defrauded? But you yourselves wrong and defraud—even your own brothers!  (1Cor 6:1-8).
            No, masks have nothing to do with suing one another—at least that I have heard of yet.  (But give it time.)  The passage is not really about that.  The prohibition against making lawsuits against a brother is just one specific example of ceding my rights because the mission of the church and its reputation in the community around it is more important than anyone's rights!  It is the Lord's church and the mission He gave that body of believers that matter.  Notice what Paul says:  "Why not rather suffer wrong?"  When I demand my rights about anything that hurts the cause of Christ, I have forgotten not only who I serve, but the very definition of being a disciple—following in your Master's footsteps.  What if he had claimed his rights as Creator instead of climbing up on that cross?  Where would we be then?  He suffered wrong, and was defrauded, to save us.
            Paul goes on to say in that passage above, that when I claim my rights regardless of the consequences, I am actually defrauding my brethren because of how I have made them look to the outsiders around us.  I am the one who has wronged them.
            When I do wear a mask, I am being the follower of the Suffering Servant, who, by the way, was called the Lamb of God.  If voluntarily wearing a mask makes me one of His lambs, I am happy to be called a "sheep."
 
A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master. It is enough for the disciple to be like his teacher, and the servant like his master. (Matt 10:24-25).
 
For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.  (1Pet 2:21-24).
 
​To one who strikes you on the cheek, offer the other also, and from one who takes away your cloak do not withhold your tunic either.  (Luke 6:29).
 
Dene Ward
 

I’ve done it and I bet you have too.  You turn to Acts 2:38 and read, “Repent and be baptized for the remission of sin.”  It’s a simple math equation.  Repent + be baptized = remission of sin.  I’ve shown it to my classmates in high school, to my neighbors, and even to my bosses.  It amazes me that they can say, “I don’t see it that way,” just as it amazes you.  I shake my head and say, “I’m not seeing it any way.  I’m just reading scripture,” and still they ignore it and go on their way.
            Guess what?  We do the same thing.
            Religion that is pure and undefiled before God, the Father, is this: to visit orphans and widows in their affliction, and to keep oneself unstained from the world. Jas 1:27
            Here’s the math in that one:  visit the fatherless and widows + keep yourself unstained from the world = pure religion.  Let’s simplify it even more:
            Take care of the needy + live a moral life = pure religion.
            Do you know what we do?  We go to church on Sunday.  If we are especially spiritual, we don’t do the big bad sins—we don’t lie, cheat, steal, or commit adultery.  But when was the last time you just spent an evening visiting, for example, a lonely widow?  Yes, “visit” in that passage stands for more than just dropping by.  It means seeing to their needs too, but let me tell you something.  They need a visit a whole lot more than we seem to think they do.  Not a call, not a card—a visit.  They need companionship, something you take for granted and even try to get away from occasionally. 
            Older people love to have someone to talk with.  They love to have someone actually sit and listen to them as if they were more than something taking up space.  They love for young people to ask them questions, to ask for advice, to ask about the “olden days.”  Young people make them feel young again too.  They will talk about that visit for weeks, that’s how much it means to them.
            They used to be young.  They lived every bit as exciting and busy a life as you do.  They’ve been through things you never experienced and have come through with their souls and sense intact.  You would do well to take what they say with more than a grain of salt, and use it.
            So remember your math.  No matter how many sins you successfully overcome, no matter how “unstained” you are, if that’s all you have, you still do not have pure religion.  No more than your unbaptized friends and neighbors have remissions of sins!
 
But if anyone has the world's goods and sees his brother in need, yet closes his heart against him, how does God's love abide in him? Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and in truth. 1John 3:17-18
 
Dene Ward

God has tried again and again to give us the perfect place.
            It started with Eden.  All of our physical needs were met in a place of perfection.  And the God who loved us came to walk with us every night "in the cool of the day."  But what happened?  We messed it up.  We listened to the one who did not love us and believed his lie.
            Then God took us to a land flowing with milk and honey, the place he had promised Abraham 400 years before.  And what happened?  We messed it up.  Even though God had shown us His power again and again—the plagues, the Passover, the Red Sea—we failed to trust that He would help us win the land.
            So forty years later, God tried again.  The Jordan parted.  The walls of Jericho fell.  And what happened?  We messed it up.  We failed to drive out the sin and the sinners, but took it all into our bosoms and nurtured it.  Once again we discarded His perfect Plan A and drove God to Plan B, judges to deliver us when the oppression got so bad that we actually repented.
            And you are saying, "What?  That was them, not us."  Really?
            One more time God has given us the perfect place.  A kingdom that cannot be shaken.  A King who is King of kings, who sacrificed himself for us, and ever lives to make intercession.   A place of righteousness, joy, and peace in the Holy Spirit.  And what happens?  We mess it up.  We fail to "be of the same mind," to do "nothing of faction or pride," to "each count the other as better than self" (Phil 2:2,3).  We forget to "be kind, tender-hearted, and to forgive" (Eph 4:32).  We certainly never "take wrong" for the good of the kingdom and its mission in this world (1 Cor 6:7).  We ignore God's authority because, "God wouldn't mind if…" and "God wants us to be happy! (Col 3:17)"
            Every time we misbehave in this ideal kingdom God has blessed us with, we are Eve taking a bite of the forbidden fruit, we are the 10 craven spies shaking in our boots, we are the unspiritual men who failed to drive out the pagans and their worship from the Promised Land.
            But this time, we can still be part of that perfect kingdom.  God is gracious and forgiving.  His lovingkindness endures forever.  And even in Sardis, there were …a few names…that did not defile their garments: and they shall walk with me in white; for they are worthy (Rev 3:4).  I can be one of those few, even amid a crowd of the others, and so can you.
            God is giving us one more chance with his perfect kingdom, the one his Son died for and now rules over.  Don't mess up again.
 
​The nations shall see your righteousness, and all the kings your glory, and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will give. You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God. ​You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate, but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the LORD delights in you, and your land shall be married. For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your sons marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you (Isa 62:2-5).
 
Dene Ward

I hear an awful lot these days about people being “stuck in a rut,” especially when it comes to their religious practices.  For some reason that is supposed to excuse every departure from the scriptures.  Some groups, for instance, have decided that the first century practice of taking the Lord’s Supper every Sunday must be changed to monthly, quarterly, or only on certain holidays.  When one does it too often, they say, it becomes merely habit and loses its meaning.
            Others, who claim to understand the importance of following the pattern God set for group worship, still want to change things around on a regular schedule, the incidental things that scripture does not regulate.  That’s fine.  I am the last person to bind where God has not bound, but consider a few things with me.
            The way we are doing things now in my church family, while still scriptural, is not the way we did them when I was a child.  It is not the way my grandparents did them.  It is not even the way we did them fifteen years ago.  Society and culture have changed and so have the various expedients we use to fulfill God’s requirements.  So what is this about ruts?
            When Jesus appeared on the scene in the first century, the Jews had been practicing the same law, including a Sabbath every Saturday, for 1500 years by a much more exacting standard than we have under the new covenant.  “Aha!” some will say, “and look what happened.  Along came the Pharisees to whom the Law was nothing but a set of rules to keep.  It had totally lost its meaning to them as a religion of the heart.”
            Had it?  What about Nicodemus and Joseph of Arimathea?  What about Saul of Tarsus who “lived before God in all good conscience,” Acts 23:1?  Surely they were not the only Pharisees to whom the Law still meant something.  And what about the rest of the people?  Did Anna, Simeon, Zacharias and Elisabeth, Mary and Joseph, Salome and Zebedee, Mary, Martha, and Lazarus practice a religion out of habit that had totally lost meaning to them because they had been stuck in a rut for a millennium and a half?  How in the world did Jesus manage to find 12 apostles if everyone practicing Judaism was “stuck in a rut?”
            It seems to me that when someone complains that his religion no longer has meaning for him because he is “stuck in a rut,” it says more about him than it does about the religion he practices—or doesn’t practice.  While babes in Christ may need special care, mature Christians should be past the need for coddling.  It is my responsibility to keep my heart and my attitude right in my service to God and to keep myself out of the rut of rote ritual, even if God tells me to do exactly the same thing in exactly the same way for ten thousand years.  Exactly who is it that is being worshipped anyway?  It certainly isn’t me and my likes and dislikes—at least it shouldn’t be.
            If we need to change the things we can change, by all means, let’s change them.  But when the reason becomes “how I feel” instead of what is best for the body of Christ and the mission God gave us and always--always—according to God’s Word, we need to stop and take a better look at ourselves.
            Today I will strive to put my heart into my service to others and to God, even if that service is the same as yesterday’s, or last week’s, or last year’s.  That is, and will always be, my responsibility and no one else’s.
 
And now Israel, what does the Lord your God require of you but to fear the Lord your God and to walk in all his ways, to love him, to serve the Lord your God with all your heart and all your soul, and to keep the commandments and statutes of the Lord, which I am commanding you this day for your good, Deut 10:12,13.
 
Dene Ward