My dogs brought me a present the other afternoon.  I walked out onto the carport and there by my chair, where I like to sit in the evening, lay a dead possum.  Not just any dead possum—this one they had buried for awhile so it would age properly, then dug up to lay before my “throne.”  I imagine that when the wind blew the right way, my neighbors knew about my present too.
            I have had cats bring me equally lovely gifts before, but this was a first for dogs.  As you can imagine, I did not jump for joy.  In fact, I hardly expressed any appreciation at all.  I had not felt very good that day—these medications do a number on my stomach, and this gift, no matter how sincerely it may have been meant, did not help.
            These two small creatures rely on me for everything.  I feed them, make sure they have their vaccinations and medications, care for them when they feel bad, and play with them when I have the chance.  And for that little bit they want nothing more in this world than to please me.  Red heelers are often called “Velcro dogs” because they stick next to their masters’ sides.  Magdi and Chloe will even turn their noses up at a treat just so I can pet them.  Loving is much more important to them than food. 
            And if for any reason I am displeased with them, their ears go down, their heads bow, their tails are tucked and they practically crawl on their knees to me.  Magdi will rub her head against my leg over and over.  I know she is saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m so, so sorry.”  If she isn’t, she certainly has me fooled.
            So how do I treat my Master?  Do I want nothing more in the world than to please Him?  Do I repent on my knees in abject sorrow when I know I don’t?  Or am I too proud for that?  Do I truly understand that any gift I give is really no more to Him than that dead possum was to me?  Do I appreciate that I can never repay what He has done for me, and therefore try my best to show gratitude and reverence with the gift of obedience and faith, a gift that still falls far short of repayment? 
            Sometimes I wonder if dogs show more respect for their masters than we do for ours, and their masters are anything but perfect, holy, and awesome.  Maybe we should take a lesson.
 
For we are all become as one who is unclean, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf, and our iniquities, like the wind, take us away…
Even so you also, when you have done all the things that are commanded you say, “We are unprofitable servants.  We have done that which it was our duty to do,” Isa 64:6; Luke 17:10.
 
Dene Ward

Although I found more than one date in several different sources, finally I saw in a post from the Library of Congress, a photo of a notice for the trial of the British soldiers involved in what the American colonists referred to as the Boston Massacre.  With a little magnification, one can clearly see the date:  November 27, 1770.  Those eight men had been held in jail for seven months once the murder charges were filed.
            Most of us learned about that event in high school history classes, including the name of at least one of the men killed, Crispus Attucks.  But do we really know what happened?  The actual trial transcript still exists, and therefore the testimony of all those involved, including a deathbed statement by a colonist who was shot but lingered a bit before he died.  He stated that he understood why the soldiers fired.  Somehow, no one gave me that tidbit in high school.
            The times were already tense and edgy.  An eleven year old boy had been accidentally killed by an American when he entered his yard at night, evidently acting suspiciously.  Then on March 5, 1770, a lone British sentry was standing guard in Boston.  A group of colonists either led by or incited by a group called the Sons of Liberty began heckling him.  Before long, snowballs were thrown.  Captain Thomas Preston heard about what was going on and fearful of how the situation might escalate, gathered eight men and went to his sentry's defense.
            The situation did indeed escalate.  The crowd grew larger and the snowballs became chunks of ice and oyster shells.  The colonists crowded in until one soldier was separated from the others and hemmed in by a wall.  Finally his elbow was jostled and fearing that the worst was about to happen, he fired.  Another soldier hearing the shot, assumed the order to fire had been given and that in the shouting he had not heard it, so he fired, too.  According to the trial notice, five colonists were killed.  The British soldiers were charged with murder.
            John Adams led the defense.  Yes, one of the Founding Fathers, the second president of the United States of America, and the cousin of Samuel Adams who is thought to have founded and led the Sons of Liberty, defended the British soldiers involved in the Boston Massacre.  Why would he do such a thing?  Because, he said, it was about law and justice and whether the upstart new country that many were hoping for, would begin their claim of liberty and justice for all with a failure in exactly that regard.
            And so the trial began.  Witness after witness reported the facts, unadorned with the passion and emotion that fed the mob that night, including the deathbed statement given by the doctor on behalf of the slain man, one exception to the hearsay ban in courtrooms.  Then Adams patiently, and completely, led the jury through the law, including the definition of murder, which involved "malice."
            Captain Preston and six of his men were found "not guilty" of murder.  The other two soldiers, the two who had fired, were found guilty of manslaughter rather than murder.  The people of Boston were somewhat confused, but they accepted the verdict without demonstration of any kind.  America had passed its first test, five and a half years before it even became a country.
            Isn't a fair judgment what we want from God?
            But the LORD sits enthroned forever; he has established his throne for justice, and he judges the world with righteousness; he judges the peoples with uprightness  (Ps 9:7-8).
            Let the heavens be glad, and let the earth rejoice; let the sea roar, and all that fills it; let the field exult, and everything in it! Then shall all the trees of the forest sing for joy before the LORD, for he comes, for he comes to judge the earth. He will judge the world in righteousness, and the peoples in his faithfulness (Ps 96:11-13).
            ​The King in his might loves justice. You have established equity; you have executed justice and righteousness in Jacob (Ps 99:4).
            God is a fair and righteous Judge.  The Psalms are filled with praise for his justice.  But when it comes right down to it, fair is not really want we want from God, folks.  If God were being fair, we wouldn't stand a chance.  On the scales of justice, nothing we do can counterbalance the weight of our sin.  Our salvation does not come from equity but from mercy. 
            It's a downright shame when a Christian faces a downturn in his life, no matter how severe, and shouts, "This isn't fair!"  Our salvation certainly is not fair to either God, who gave His Son, or Christ, who made the sacrifice.  Stop talking about fair because if suddenly you received fairness, you would never again experience anything good in your life at all as the evil simply overwhelmed and crushed you.  Now that would be fair.
            Somehow, in America, we still believe in fair trials.  That's the way it's supposed to be.  But be careful what you wish for on Judgment Day.
 
But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away (Isa 64:6).
 
Dene Ward        

David said to Nathan, “I have sinned against the LORD.” And Nathan said to David, “The LORD also has put away your sin; you shall not die.” 2Sam 12:13.
            I imagine you recognize the above scripture.  David’s statement immediately follows Nathan’s indictment, “Thou art the man.”  But do you know what immediately follows David’s confession?
            Because God through Nathan declares that David’s punishment will be the death of his child, David immediately begins a week long vigil asking God to spare his son.  “Who knows,” he says, “whether the Lord will be gracious to me that the child may live?”
            How many times have you found yourself sorrowing over a sin in your life, even after a heartfelt repentance, but then felt it presumptuous to even ask God for the smallest thing in your prayers that same day?  How many times have you said, “Not now.  I need to show some real fruit of repentance before I ask God for anything at all.”   How many times have you thought, “Surely He won’t listen to me yet?”  Or even worse, “How can God forgive me?”
            David knew better than that.  He not only recognized his sin and his utter unworthiness (Psalms 32 and 51), he recognized the riches of God’s grace.  We may sing about “Amazing Grace,” but David knew about it.  Maybe it takes just as much faith to believe about grace as it does to believe in God.  I know this:  if you deny that God will forgive you and answer your prayers, you may as well deny Him.
 
But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ— by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. Eph 2:4-7

Dene Ward
 

Could there be a more obvious lie in all of retail sales?  “One size fits all.”  Of course it does, if you call fitting one person like a circus tent around a beanpole and another like a sausage in a casing a couple of perfect fits.  There is a reason that a custom tailored suit costs about 200 times more than a one size fits all tee shirt, and it’s not just the material.
            Yet there is one instance where the phrase is as apt as can be.  Sin is a “one size fits all” commodity.  For we before laid charge both of Jews and Greeks, that they are all under sin…For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, Rom 3:9,23.  And we do not get that sin from some mystical contagion.  Therefore as through one man sin entered into the world, and death through sin, and so death passed unto all men for that all sinned, Rom 5:12.  We are under the charge of sin, because we sin, every one of us, no matter how good we think we are. 
            And sin is sin is sin:  For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is become guilty of all.  For He who said, You shall not commit adultery, also said, You shall not kill.  Now if you do not commit adultery, but kill, you have become a transgressor of the law, James 2:10, 11.  And in that context, James was talking to people who discriminate against others.  Bigotry, he meant them to understand, is as bad as adultery and murder.
            Even righteous men in the Old Testament understood that the Law could not save them.  As sinners, they counted on the grace of God.  David wrote a Psalm about it, the fourteenth.  Jehovah looked down from heaven upon the children of men to see if there were any who did understand.  They were all gone aside; they are together become filthy; there is none that does good, no, not one, v2,3.  We are all in the same boat—none of us deserve salvation.
            But Christ came to offer us a salvation that would fit all of us, too, no matter how many times we have sinned, no matter the heinousness of our sins, as men would categorize them.  Christ does indeed fit all, and not only that, His one size is available to all as well, no matter who we are or what our stations in life.  All we have to do is put it on.  The grace of God will always be a perfect fit.


For the love of Christ constrains us because we thus judge that one died for all, therefore all died; and he died for all that they that live should no longer live unto themselves, but unto him who for their sakes died and rose again, 2 Cor 5:14,15.



Dene Ward

On a recent camping trip, we had one full day of rain.  Twenty-three hours in a tent went faster than we had expected since we had taken books to read, crossword puzzles to do, and a Boggle game.  But at supper time we needed more room and a table to cook on, so we carried our food and our propane stove under the shelter of an umbrella through the steady drizzle and down to the pavilion in that State Park to prepare our meal. 
            A nine year old girl pulled her bike into the shelter as the rain picked up.  She talked for a few minutes, and then we asked her name.
            “Grace,” she replied.
            “”Hmmm,” began Keith, “that means full of mercy and compassion.  Is that you?”
            She gave a wry grin beyond her years and said, “I don’t think so.”
            We talked awhile longer, and then she politely excused herself.  Later I thought, “How incredibly honest.”  Could I look at myself and give such an assessment without making qualifications and rationalizations?  I doubt it.  And woe to anyone who tries to do it for me.  No grace to him!
            But here is the irony—as an innocent child, this little girl Grace is a whole lot closer to the ideal of grace than I am.  Yet as a child of the God who gives grace abundantly, I must strive the harder to emulate my Heavenly Father, giving grace to all I meet just as He does for us—even though, as the very definition of the word states, we do not deserve it. 
Today let us all remember to be as generous as our Father, giving grace where none is due.
 
By grace are you saved through faith, and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God. Eph 2:8
 
Above all things be fervent in your love among yourselves, for love covers a multitude of sins…minister among yourselves as good stewards of the grace of God. I Pet 4:8, 10

The modern pencil was invented in 1795 by Nicholas-Jacques Conte.  Those of us who grew up thinking the black in the middle of a pencil was lead, at least until we discovered the dangers of that material, are wrong.  It has always been graphite, one of the softest minerals there is.  Graphite itself was discovered in Bavaria in the early 1400s, but centuries earlier the Aztecs had used it in chunks to write with.  It took this French scientist, who was serving with Napoleon's army, to construct the first wood-enclosed stick of graphite we call a pencil.
            Erasers were invented after Charles Goodyear invented the process called the vulcanization of rubber.  And finally, on March 30, 1858, Hymen Lipman received the first patent for attaching an eraser to the end of a pencil.  Another piece of trivia for you:  the metal piece holding that eraser is called a ferrule.
            This morning I brought four pencils in here by the desk to sharpen.  I gather them up from here and there, all colors, all brands.  Ticonderoga yellow may be the most famous brand, but I haven't a one of those to my name.  The erasers are all in different levels of use.  A couple already sport one of those separate ones you put on the top because the one they came with is totally flat.
So I will grab my old fashioned school sharpener, the one with the hand crank, and get them all back to their pointy selves and ready for use.  Then I will carry them back to the windowsill next to my chair to use with my crossword puzzles.  No, I do not do my puzzles in ink.  Well, if it's a Los Angeles Times Crossword, even their Sunday crossword, I do.  But a New York Times Crossword—no way.  It will wind up a mess if I try.
            The Los Angeles Times Sunday Crossword is so easy I can do it in ink in just about 15 minutes.  Once in a great while it will take 20.  I might have one or two squares where I have had to go over a mistake in darker ink to correct it, but most of the time it is clean and legible, without a single blotch.  But the New York Times' puzzle takes me nearly an hour and quite a bit of erasing.  If I tried it in ink, I probably wouldn't be able to read it for the mess I made.  I may love to do those puzzles, but I am not an expert by any stretch of the imagination.  You know those people who finish the marathon three hours after everyone else, coming in while the banners and signs are being taken down?  That's me doing a New York Times Sunday Crossword.  All I can say is, I get it done.  And hurray for pencils and, especially, erasers.
            Jesus is my pencil and God is my eraser. 
           The Lord's sacrifice is far larger than we usually give him credit for.  Not to diminish it in the least, but he didn't just die for us and rise from the dead for us, a process that took no more than three days.  He lived a lifetime for us as a human being, experiencing the same trials and sorrows we do.  God, mind you--and he did it without the failings we so often want to excuse because we are "only human."  When we do that, we insult that sacrifice, because he became human and made himself susceptible to sin so he could show us how, to demonstrate that we most certainly can do it, especially with his  example and his help—or will we insult those, too?
            No, life is not a Los Angeles Times Crossword puzzle.  God never told us it would be easy.  He promised us "thorns and thistles" and "sweat of the brow."  He said we would have to kill our old man (crucify it) and become something brand new.  He may have said, "My yoke is easy and my burden is light," but it's still a yoke and a burden.
            But then he tells me that all is not lost if I do fail.  After all, this life is written in pencil if we just repent, get back on our feet, and try again, determined to go farther than the last time, determined to improve—not to make excuses.  If we are not using the pencil the Lord gave us, is it because we have just given up?  Have we lost our confidence and just decided to do nothing at all so we won't make a mistake?  Have we lost our trust in the eraser God uses, the one that will erase that error like it never happened, leaving clean, white paper without even a smudge, ready for the next attempt?  And with his help, we might even get the right answer the next time.
            When we refuse to try, when we make excuses for our failure and refuse to admit our wrong, that's when we are writing in ink.  We can go over it and over it and over it, making it darker and uglier with every try, and everyone will still see the obvious error.  Maybe everyone but the one who needs to see the truth the most--me.  And it can never be erased, if that is the attitude we have.
            Far better to follow the Lord's example.  Far better to be tough and work hard and try again and again and again.  Pencil is, after all, easily erased.
 
If we say we have fellowship with him while we walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.  (1John 1:6-7).
 
Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

It seems to be popular to make comments about the old church of Christ attitudes as though the last generation knew little of grace and faith and focused only on obedience, exact obedience.  I have made a few of those comments myself and can point to sermon outlines from 35 years ago where I endeavored to change such attitudes. However, when the comments become disparaging and self-serving (look how much better I am), then perhaps it is time to consider.
 
They grew up in tough economic times, faced tough spiritual battles to be allowed to exercise their faith in the way God commanded, and they did not express emotions as readily as today’s generations. They did not talk a lot about God’s grace for that was God’s business. Their business was to obey God.
 
That they did understand that obedience must proceed from faithful trust and was founded on God’s grace can best be understood by the songs they sang:
 
“True hearted whole hearted, faithful and loyal…..
“My faith looks up to thee……
“Looking to thee from day to day, trusting thy grace along the way….Sure of thy soul redeeming love….
“Trust and obey, for there’s no other way
“I know whom I have believed….
“He will give me grace and glory…where he leads me I will follow, I’ll go with him, with him all the way
“Faith is the victory….
“Is thy heart right with God?
“To Christ be loyal and be true in noble service prove your faith and your fidelity, the fervor of your love
“What a friend we have in Jesus….
“Purer in heart O God….
Take time to be holy….
“Only in thee….trusting, I’m cleansed from ev’ry stain, thou art my only plea….
 
And it was in those days and by one of those men that “Lord I believe” was written.
 
And, the list could go on and on.
 
 Because some treated service like a checklist and may not have expressed as much heart as some do today, please do not mark them all as empty. In fact, if a checklist religion was the spiritual ceiling for some, “who art thou that judges the servant of another?” (Rom 14).  More people should fear minding God’s business about God’s servants!
 
And, if all the expression of heart and trust and faith and grace today makes one careless toward obedience, then how is that one any better before God?
 
These were our parents and grandparents, our spiritual fathers in the faith.  Most knew more about the grace of God than many today who spout fancy words, but they just tended to their own business of serving faithfully.
 
But thanks be to God, that you who were once slaves of sin have become obedient from the heart to the standard of teaching to which you were committed, and, having been set free from sin, have become slaves of righteousness (Rom 6:17-18).
 
 
Keith Ward
 

I was flying back from a retreat in Pennsylvania where I had spoken twice to a great bunch of sisters from all over the Northeast.  My traveling companion, a good friend and also a sister in the Lord, sat next to me and we were laughing yet again about something that had happened at that fun and edifying event.  We had left snow on the ground in the heavily wooded hills of the Poconos that April morning, but now it was full afternoon and we sat on the west side of the plane, already feeling the Southern heat as we crossed the Mason-Dixon line. We both reached up to adjust the small round overhead vents to blow away the warming, stale air around us.  Out the small window the cloud shadows painted the rolling landscape and then the waters of the Chesapeake Bay as we flew on over the Washington Navy Ship Yard. 
            About forty-five minutes north of Atlanta, our stop to change planes, the pilot came over the intercom.  "Ladies and gentlemen, we have just declared an emergency.  Please follow the directions of your flight attendants as we will need your cooperation."
            Suddenly, all talking ceased.  We looked at one another as did many of the other passengers in the seats ahead of us.  As I recall, the flight attendants walked up and down the aisle once to reassure everyone that we had great pilots and were in good hands, never losing the smile on their faces, then sat down and strapped themselves in.  We heard a cough or two which seemed like a signal because once again people began to talk, in a much quieter and calm way than I would have expected after such an announcement.  I even heard a chuckle or two from somewhere behind us.
            A lot of things ran through my head in the next forty-five minutes, but as my friend said, "There really isn't anything we can do about this. If we go down, we go down."  Airliner crashes seldom leave survivors.  So we sat and continued our talk as we had before, and so did everyone else.  No tears, no screams, no panic of any kind at all.  And on we flew.
            Just before we reached Atlanta, the pilot spoke again.  All other planes had been told to circle and wait until we were safely on the ground.  We were to all keep our seat belts fastened and remain in our seats as the plane landed and came to a stop.  (If we made it down safely, he did not say but most of us were thinking) we would not be taxiing to the gate.  Instead, an emergency crew would circle the plane.  When we were deemed "safe" to be in close contact with other planes and passengers, we would approach the gate and disembark.  And that is exactly what happened.  We landed in a normal manner and came to a complete stop in the middle of the runway.  We all watched out the windows as three or four trucks, including a fire engine, circled us at a snail's pace.  Then they moved off to the side and we taxied to the gate and unloaded.  Somewhere along the way we heard that it had all been because of a faulty indicator light that showed that the plane was on fire.  Evidently, it was not.
            But what if it had been?  Let me tell you something, folks.  When you have a near miss, you get real serious about your life.  Even though you think you have been doing just fine, suddenly every mistake you ever made comes to mind.  And you find yourself thinking this, "Have I done enough?"
            And the unequivocal answer is, "No.  I haven't."  Not because I don't try.  Not because I don't do the best I can every day.  But because the best I can do is still not good enough.  At some point, we have to learn to trust God's grace.  Too often, young people "raised in the church," listening to prayers about how "we sin all the time," have been made to feel that there is no hope.  That they must try and try and try and no matter what they will still fall short and they just might not make it to Heaven.  Well, you know what?  You will fall short, but that does not mean you won't make it to Heaven.  God did not leave us in a hopeless situation, and He certainly didn't dangle an unreachable carrot in front of us for His own amusement.  In fact, His word speaks of hope constantly--one of the biggest differences between Christianity and other religions.  We consign grace to Jesus on the cross and fail to see it in his example of overcoming, of praying, of knowing the Word so well it springs to our lips constantly.  We fail to see it in the help of the Spirit as we live and the offer of mercy when we fall. 
            You will not be perfect, but you can overcome, you can grow and get better, and even when you slip, you can be forgiven.  If the plane starts falling out of the sky, you don't have to scramble around trying to ask forgiveness for every single thing you think you have done wrong lately before it hits the ground.  Let the "God of hope" fill you with peace.  Trust Him and say, "I tried, Lord.  I did my best.  Please take me home."
 
May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope (Rom 15:13).
 
Dene Ward