We sit on the carport most spring mornings with a last cup of coffee, looking for the first sign of spring green in the trees, patting Chloe on the head, and planning our day.  This morning a light breeze ruffled my hair and I shrugged my shoulders against the bit of chill left from the last cold front that had blown through earlier in the week.  A light tinkle made my eyes wander up to the new wind chimes hanging above my head, not your ordinary bong-y wind chimes, but a delicate, more musical note that had gotten my attention the first time I heard them.

            I have a new friend, a sister in Christ, who crafts these things herself from antique flatware, glass jar lids, beads, and anything else she can find as she wanders through flea markets and small dusty shops.  Mine has all these beauties hanging from an antique silver salt cellar, something I must explain to anyone younger than 60.  All of her creations are beautiful and unique, and mine has that particularly melodious sound that made me choose it from its fellows.

            Outward beauty does not determine the sound that a wind chime produces.  It can only make the sounds that its various elements make.  You won’t get the same sound from iron bars that you will from silver and glass.  Ever do the trick with your glassware, pinging an empty one to see if it’s truly crystal or just ordinary glass?  That’s the way it is with wind chimes, and that’s the way it is with you and me.  A stony heart will not produce the same fruit as a soft one.  An iron heart will not act the same way a heart of gold will.

            You also know this:  the harder the wind blows, the louder the chimes.  When it seems like the storms of life blow us about the most, those are the times that what we are becomes most obvious.  Those are the times that people see what we’re made of.  Even if they don’t really care about the faith you may have tried to share, it becomes so obvious they cannot miss it.  The wind blows where it will, and you hear the voice thereof, but know not from where it comes, or where it goes; so is every one that is born of the Spirit, John 3:8.  People will not see the Spirit within you personally, but they will see its effects on you.  You cannot disguise whether or not you are filled with the Spirit of God.

            If you would like one of these beautiful chimes, just get in touch and I will share my friend’s contact information.  But today think about this far more important thing—you are God’s wind chimes.  People will not be satisfied with your appearance.  The point of the chimes is the sound they make.  What sound does the Wind produce in you?

And they that are in the flesh cannot please God. But you are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if so be that the Spirit of God dwells in you. But if any man has not the Spirit of Christ, he is none of his. And if Christ is in you, the body is dead because of sin; but the spirit is life because of righteousness. But if the Spirit of him that raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, he that raised up Christ Jesus from the dead shall give life also to your mortal bodies through his Spirit that dwells in you, Rom 8:8-11.

Dene Ward

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            It must be a sign of age.  I find myself reminiscing a lot more lately.  When we walked the property with Lucas last Thanksgiving we talked more about the past than the present.  Certainly more than the future—which for us is suddenly so much smaller than the past.

            “Remember the wild myrtles by the fire pit?”
            “Yes, we sometimes hung a tarp on the branches so we could scoot under it and have a hot dog roast even in a drizzle.”

            “Remember the pine tree in the field?”
            “Yep.  That was first base.”

            “Remember how small these oak trees used to be?”
            “Yes.  I used to climb up limbs that are too rotten to trust any longer, what there are left of them.”

            I remember wondering what it would be like after the boys were grown, when we were living here alone in a quiet house and an empty yard.  No more wondering, only remembering.

            I have said to more than one who came seeking advice that looking back on our past can be helpful.  If you despair at ever becoming the Christian you ought to be, look where you were ten years ago.  Can you see any improvement?  Can you say to yourself, “I don’t act that way now,” about anything at all?  God meant for us to be encouraged, and I find nothing in the scriptures telling me I can’t take a moment every now and then to check my progress and use it as a gauge, both to spur myself on if I see none, and to invigorate my growth with any positive impetus it gives me.

            Many times we quote Paul’s comment to the Philippians, “Forgetting the things that are behind…” (3:13). In fact, I have heard preachers say we shouldn’t think about the past at all.  But Paul didn’t believe that.  He remembered all his life where he started, “the chief of sinners,” 1 Tim 1:16.  He used that memory to keep himself humble before others and grateful to God for the salvation granted him. It bolstered his faith enough to endure countless hardships and persecutions.  As a “chief sinner” he could hardly rail against God for the tortures he suffered when he knew he deserved so much more.

            God has always wanted his people to remember the past.  I lost count of the passages in Deuteronomy exhorting Israel to remember that they were slaves in a foreign country, and that God loved them enough to deliver them with His mighty hand.  Here is a case, though, where the reminding didn’t work as it did for Paul.  Still, God tried.  What is the Passover, but a reminder of their deliverance from Egypt?  What is the Feast of Tabernacles but a reminder of His care for them in the wilderness?  What was the pot of manna in the Ark of the Covenant, the stones on the breastplate of the ephod, and the pile of rocks by the Jordan but the same?  “Remember, remember, remember!” God enjoined.  It’s how we use that memory that makes it right or wrong.

            Paul says we are to remember what we used to be.  “And such were some of you,” he reminds the Corinthians in chapter 6, after listing what we consider the worst sins imaginable.  You “were servants of sin” he reminds the Romans in 6:17.  You once walked “according to the course of this world,” “in vanity of mind,” “in the desire of the Gentiles,” and in a host of other sins too numerous to list (Eph 2:2; 4:17; 1 Pet 4:3; Col 3; Titus 3.)  Those memories should spur us on in the same way they prodded Paul.  Nothing is too hard to bear, too much to ask, or too difficult to overcome if we remember where we started.  Be encouraged by your growth and take heart.

            And then this: let your gratitude be always abounding, overflowing, and effusive to a God who loves us in whatever state we find ourselves, as long as that growth continues.

Therefore remember that at one time you Gentiles in the flesh, called "the uncircumcision" by what is called the circumcision, which is made in the flesh by hands-- remember that you were at that time separated from Christ, alienated from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers to the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ, Ephesians 2:11-13.

Dene Ward

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            A few weeks ago I got out the dust rags and the polish and went to work.  It had been over two months since I had dusted anything at all and it was showing, not just on the furniture, but in my nose and lungs—I have a dust mite allergy. 

            I knew it would take awhile and it did, dusting every flat surface and every item on them, including a large dinner bell collection, vases from Bethlehem and Nicaragua, and those shaped like bootees that flowers had come in when the boys were born, figurines inherited from grandmothers and great-aunts, a wooden airplane Keith’s grandfather whittled inside an empty whiskey bottle, candles, telephones, a small piano collection, a metronome, fan blades, jewelry boxes, and beaucoup picture frames.  I dirtied up four rags in an hour and a half, sneezed a couple dozen times, and required a decongestant in order to breathe the rest of the day.

            When I finished I looked around.  The pictures all reflected brightly in the wood they sat on, the porcelain shone, the candles looked a shade brighter, and the brass gleamed.  What a difference it made to dust things off.

            So what do you need to dust off in your life?   Sometimes we become satisfied with our place in the kingdom, happy with where we are in our spiritual growth, comfortable in our relationships with others and our ability to overcome.  Sometimes we sit so long in our comfortable spot, be it a literal pew or a figurative one, that we soon sport our own layer of dust.  Maybe we aren’t doing anything wrong exactly, we have just stopped stretching ourselves to be better and do more. 

            “Dusting off” seems a good metaphor for “renewal.”  Paul tells the Colossians we have “put off our old selves” (past tense) but that the new self is “being renewed” (present tense), Col 3:9,10.  Being renewed has not stopped and never should.  Every day is a new beginning for the child of God.  When we forget that, the dust starts to settle, and our light is dimmed with a layer of uselessness that builds every minute.  Soon, as the light weakens, no one will notice us, or is that the point?

            When did you last dust yourself off and get to work, “transforming yourself by the renewing of your mind?” Rom 12:2.  The longer it’s been the more rags you will dirty, but it will only get worse if you don’t start now.

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me, Psalms 51:10.

Dene Ward

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            I happened to think the other day, what if someone followed me around with a tape recorder all day, on any given day, and then made me listen to it in the evening?  It popped into my mind after I had said something I should not have said to someone, and they wisely stood there and said nothing back.  You know what happens when someone does that?  All of a sudden you actually hear yourself.  And boy, are you embarrassed.

            So just imagine for a moment that you answer a knock on the door late one evening, just after you brush your teeth and put on your pajamas, and there on the welcome mat lies a tape of everything you have said all day long.  Exactly how welcome would it be?  What would you find yourself listening to?  Griping?  Gossip?  Slander?  Nagging?  Petty arguments?  Insults?  Snide comments?  Bitter resentment?  Boasting?  Cruel comments?  Foul language? Deceit?  Insincere flattery?  Excuses for all the above?  Just who are we trying to fool?  …for out of the abundance of the heart, the mouth speaks, Luke 6:45.

            How loud would it be?  How cold would it sound?  What would come after each thing I said?   Someone laughing, or someone crying?    

            I have a feeling that no one is really aware of exactly how he sounds.  We do not realize that the things we say are as often and as whiny as they are, that most of our complaints are petty and selfish, that the majority of our comments about others are negative instead of positive, that the impression we give others about our marriages, our families, our church brothers and sisters would make those around us want to avoid those relationships altogether. 

            Maybe this idea is not so horrible after all.  Maybe we all need to pretend today that the tape recorder is running, and do our best to make it “good listening.”  Someone is listening after all.  For there is not a word in my tongue, but lo, O Jehovah, you know it altogether, Psalm 139:4.

Dene Ward

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            Keith grew up in an old farmhouse on a hill in the Ozarks--no running water, a light bulb dangling in each room, and for heat, a woodstove in the kitchen and a fireplace in the living room.  The kids slept in the unfinished (and un-insulated) attic.  In the winter they shoved the foot of each bed against the brick chimney that rose through the attic to the roof so they could get whatever warmth might seep out, and they always made sure they were comfortable before his mother laid on the quilts.  She piled so many on he couldn’t move from the weight of them afterward.  So he knows a lot more about getting the heat out of a fire than I do. 

            We had a fireplace once in our married life, three years which were also our worst financial span.  We used that fireplace as much for heat as beauty and atmosphere, and to keep the winter fuel bill down. 

            One especially cold evening he stood two large oak logs on end behind the fire, something he remembered from his childhood.  Immediately the heat began pouring into the room instead of shooting up the chimney, and within an hour those logs had coaled up on their fronts, radiating yet more warmth, like the coils of an electric heater.  Because they weren’t actually in the fire, they stood all night long without burning up, and we were much warmer than before.  Backlogs, he called them, reflectors of the heat in front of them, and eventually of the heat they had absorbed.

            We began using them when camping too, once the boys left home and we were no longer consigned to summer camping only.  In October the temperature can drop precipitously in the mountains and even in Florida in January.

            Paul says, Seeing it is God, that said, Light shall shine out of darkness, who shined in our hearts, to give the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ, 2 Corinthians 4:6.  He and the other apostles reflected the glory of God to their listeners.  He called it “a treasure in our earthen vessels…of God and not from ourselves,” v 7.  God must have seen in those men a clean and shining surface to reflect His glory or He never would have chosen them.

            Earlier in the chapter Paul speaks about people who are so blinded by “the god of this world” that they cannot see the light.  Do you think God can be reflected in people who are materialistic and unspiritual?  Do you think His love will be emanated by those who are unkind and impatient, unforgiving and lacking in compassion?  Can we mirror His glory when we are tarnished by an impure lifestyle?

            The back logs we used did nothing in an empty fireplace or fire ring.  They only functioned when they stood behind the fire, soaking up its heat, turning the same colors as the coals themselves, and exuding their warmth from all they had absorbed.  We will never truly be “the image of God” if we are not standing next to Him, soaking up His word and the glory it reveals about Him. 

            We must become back logs, reflecting God’s glory just as those apostles did, realizing it is not we who shine, but He who shines forth from us.  Like those logs, we should eventually change, so that the reflection becomes truer and the image clearer in every word and every deed, and in every place.

 
But we all, with unveiled face beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit, 2 Corinthians 3:18.                                                                                          
Dene Ward

            It was one of those recuperating days I have had so many of the past few years, so I sat in my lounger outside, the early morning autumn breeze ruffling my hair, a sweet little dog snuffling for a pat at my side, looking out over our domain, such as it is.  The east sun was filtering through the woods fifty yards in front of me, not yet high enough to cause me any trouble. 

            I had carried a pair of binoculars to do a little bird-watching, but saw on the northeast corner of the property what looked like a giant orange bloom.  So I lifted those heavy lenses and got a surprise.  The bloom did not really exist.  What I saw was the sun shining on a clump of dried out pine straw hanging on a low, dead limb.  I pulled down the binoculars and looked again.  I much preferred the big orange bloom.

            Then I started looking around and saw some more.  The dull green leaves near the top of the tree glinted like small mirrors in the few rays of sun that had pierced through to them.  Even the gray Spanish moss resembled icicles.  I knew in a few minutes the effect would all be gone.  The sun would have risen high enough not to perform these magic tricks.  Still, it reminded me of something important.

            All by myself I am nothing, I can do nothing, and I have nothing to hope for.  But the light of the gospel changes everything.  Through that light, we are able to see the glory of Christ and believe (2 Cor 4:3-6.)  When we are raised from the waters of baptism, God’s glory gives us the power to walk “in newness of life” (Rom 6:4).  We transform ourselves into the image of His Son by the renewing of our minds (Rom 12:2, 8:29).  When the glory of the Lord shines on us through our submission to his gospel, what looks plain and ordinary becomes beautiful, what looks dead and repulsive becomes glorious.  That’s us we’re talking about—you and me.  We can be beautiful.

            Look at your life today.  Would someone see a beautiful bloom, a sparkling mirror, a glittering icicle?  They only will if you have allowed that light inside you, if you have let it have its way, transforming you into the person God meant you to be from the beginning.  Some will not do this.  They fight it, and offer excuses of all sorts.  “I’m only human after all.”  “No one is perfect.”  “Someone has to have common sense around here and not be such an innocent babe!” “It’s my right after all.”  None of those will give anyone a beautiful view of a child of God.

            Peter reminds us, As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, "You shall be holy, for I am holy." 1 Peter 1:14-16.  If we are not submissive to his will, we will never be transformed to his image.  We will look like nothing but dried out pine straw on a dead limb, and all the excuses in the world will never change it. 

            “What would Jesus do?” may be an old denominational catch-phrase, but is it any different than, “Be ye holy as I am holy?”  God desires nothing more than for us to be exactly like Christ, “conformed to the image of his son” Rom 8:29, “that you might follow in his steps” 1 Pet 2:21.  If you find yourself looking through the world’s binoculars and seeing nothing but your old self, the light of the gospel has not reached your heart.

            Conform yourself today.  In every aspect of your life, in every action you take, and every word you speak, “be ye holy in all your conduct.”  You can do it, or God wouldn’t have asked it of you.

But we all, with unveiled face reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord the Spirit. 2 Cor 3:18.

Dene Ward

           My neighbor, who has aggravated me with his inconsiderate behavior since he moved in, once again seems to go out of his way to provoke me.  So what do I do?  I find some way to return the gesture.

            This past Sunday morning in Bible class we had discussed Roman 12, including verses 18-20:  as much as in you lies, be at peace with all men. Avenge not yourselves for…vengeance is mine, says the Lord… 

            I nodded in agreement as the teacher explained the behavior a Christian should exhibit, and eventually became bored and impatient.  We all know this.  Why is he spending so much time on it?

            Now it is Monday, or Wednesday, or some other weekday, and I have left my religious cubbyhole behind.  This is real life, we are dealing with, not some ideal that always works out fine.  So, despite the fact that I know the “right” answers, I behave the “wrong” way.  This is different, I rationalize.

            Oh, really?  The only difference is that it is me, and I give myself a free pass whenever possible.  Besides, the vengeance thing is about serious matters, not some minor annoyance, so this does not count.  I am not a vigilante, after all. 

            So if it is so minor, why do I allow myself to be upset by it?  Well, because they did it to me.

            Reading the Word of God is not difficult.  Understanding it is sometimes more difficult.  But applying it to my life is the most difficult thing of all.  I make excuses for myself, (“It’s been a rough day”); I flatter myself with good intentions, (“I just want him to learn how it feels”); I try to make my actions seem normal and forgivable, (“It was just an accident, I meant no harm”), all while denying the other person any benefit of a doubt at all. 

            What I have really done is lower myself to his level.  What was that my brain just screamed out at him?  Jerk, idiot, lowlife? 

            I think I hear it echoing back to me.

Be not a witness against your neighbor without cause; and deceive not with your lips.  Say not, I will do so to him as he has done to me; say not I will recompense evil; wait for Jehovah and he will save you, All the ways of a man are clean in his own eyes, but Jehovah weighs the spirit.  Prov 24:28,29; 20:22; 16:2. 

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

Lynchpin—1) the pin inserted through an axletree to hold a wheel on; 2) something that serves to hold together the complex.

If the lynchpin is removed, the wheel falls off and the vehicle can longer move; it is useless.  Paul tells us that resurrection is the lynchpin to Christianity.

But if there is no resurrection of the dead, then not even Christ has been raised.  And if Christ has not been raised, then our preaching is in vain and your faith is in vain.  We are even found to be misrepresenting God, because we testified about God that he raised Christ, whom he did not raise if it is true that the dead are not raised.  For if the dead are not raised, not even Christ has been raised.  And if Christ has not been raised, your faith is futile and you are still in your sins. Then those also who have fallen asleep in Christ have perished. If in this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all people most to be pitied, 1 Cor 15:13-19.

I think we understand that.  If Christ has not been raised from the dead, why should we care anything about how he tells us to live?  His resurrection is the reason we believe in his Divinity, in his right to tell us how to live, and ultimately in the hope of our own resurrection.  Our whole belief system stands or falls on the resurrection.

Paul said a few other things about Christ’s death and resurrection in Romans 6: 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 unto 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 who has died is justified from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, Rom 6:3-8.

Did you catch that?  If we were united with him in the likeness of his death, we should also be united with him in the likeness of his resurrection.  That new life to which we are resurrected is not the one in the future, but the one we live now, no longer enslaved to sin.  Keep on reading in Romans 6.  Christ died once and will not have to die again because death no longer has dominion over him.  The life he lives now is a life lived “unto God.”  What does that mean for me? Even so reckon you also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus. Let not sin therefore reign in your mortal body, that you should obey the lusts thereof:  neither present your members unto sin as instruments of unrighteousness; but present yourselves unto God, as alive from the dead, and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God. For sin shall not have dominion over you: for you are not under law, but under grace.

Now that I have been raised in the likeness of his resurrection through my baptism, sin should no longer control me; I should control myself because through Christ I can.  If I insist on making excuses for myself, “That’s just the way I am,” I am denying the power of my resurrection with Christ.  If I take Rom 7:15 out of its context, using it as Satan misused scriptures in Matthew 4, saying, “See I want to be good, I just can’t help it,” when Paul clearly states at the end of this passage that a solution has been found, Who shall deliver me from this body of death?  I thank God through Jesus Christ.. There is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in Christ Jesus, I have denied that very deliverance. 

When I continue to sin and do nothing to improve myself, I have denied the effects of the resurrection as surely as if I no longer believed in it.  It is the same lynchpin, the pin that keeps the wheels from falling off the cart, the pin that keeps my hope in salvation upright and rolling, even on rocky ground or muddy tracks. 

Remember the first time you were raised from the dead, that the life you live now you live unto God because sin no longer controls you; you, with the aid of Christ, control it. If you deny the power of the resurrection with ungodly living, then “your faith is futile and you are still in your sins.”   Live instead like a resurrected creature, and you will make it to the ultimate resurrection. 

Dene Ward

            When we first moved here, the land was a pristine wilderness.  We were the only ones back here in the woods, half a mile off the highway.  People often asked, “How in the world did you even find this spot?”  If it hadn’t been for the sign on the highway, we never would have.

            Fast forward to the last few years.  The deeds on the rest of the parcels of acreage are finally clear and others have bought and moved in.  Oh, for the money to have bought it all way back then…

            As you come down our drive now, you pass one plot in particular where you wonder if you missed the “Junkyard” sign.  Empty fertilizer sacks, empty feed sacks, broken buckets with all their pieces, torn potato chip bags and candy bar wrappers, shattered plastic milk jugs, toys in various states of disrepair, gardening tools, rusty tractor parts and old horse trailers, torn screen segments, pieces of hose draped over fences, broken down appliances, seldom- or no longer-driven vehicles including a burnt-out semi tractor, and piles of pure garbage dot the landscape.  I knew we were in trouble the first week these folks moved in, when a used disposable diaper sat in the yard for days, and then they mowed over it, scattering it to the winds. 

            When you say anything to them, the standard reply is, “This is our land.  We can do with it what we want.  It’s no business of yours.”

            But it is, and do you know why?  Because every time the wind blows I must go around with a trash bag and pick up the litter than blows over or through the fence onto our property.  Every time a strong rain comes, more is washed down around the gate.  And should we ever decide to sell, the mere fact that any prospective buyer must go past that mess to get to us, will lower our property value.  Keith explained this last fact to them one day, and they said, “Huh?  Why?”

            Do you know what?  Sometimes I also fail to see how my life is anyone else’s business.  It’s easy to say, “This doesn’t hurt anyone, so why can’t I do it?” or, “Why does it matter how I let my attitude show?  They can just ignore me.”  In real life, that is impossible.  I do affect everyone who comes into contact with me.  I can make their days better or worse.  I can say something that will help or hinder.  I can do something that comforts or hurts.  What I cannot do is something that has no affect at all—it is simply impossible.

            My trashy neighbors have actually done me a lot of good.  I find myself thinking about these things more and more, wondering whom I am affecting every day, and hoping it is for the good.  I hope hearing about them will help you today too.

Your boasting is not good.  Do you not know that a little leaven leavens the whole lump?  Clean out the old leaven that you may be a new lump, as you really are unleavened.  For Christ, our Passover Lamb, has been sacrificed.  Let us therefore celebrate the festival, not with old leaven, the leaven of malice and evil, but with the unleavened bread of sincerity and truth, 1 Cor 5:6-8.

Dene Ward