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

It is a danger, even for people who love Christ, that we not become so concerned with doing things for Him that we begin to neglect hearing Him and remembering what He has done for us.  We must never allow our service for Christ to crowd out our worship of Him.  The moment our works become more important to us than our worship, we have turned the true spiritual priorities on their heads.
            In fact, that tendency is the very thing that is so poisonous about all forms of pietism and theological liberalism.  Whenever you elevate good deeds over sound doctrine and true worship, you ruin the works too.  Doing good works for the works' sake has a tendency to exalt self and depreciate the work of Christ.  Good deeds, human charity, and acts of kindness are crucial expressions of real faith, but they must flow from a true reliance on God's redemption and His righteousness.  After all, our own good works can never be a means of earning God's favor; that's why in Scripture the focus of faith is always on what God has done for us and never on what we do for Him (Rom 10:2-4).  Observe any form of religion where good works are ranked as more important than authentic faith or sound doctrine, and you'll discover a system that denigrates Christ while unduly magnifying self.  

from Twelve Extraordinary Women by John MacArthur.

Does he thank the servant because he did the things that were commanded?  ​Even so you also, when you shall 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.   (Luke 17:9-10).

Dene Ward

In the fall we took a vacation, our first in three years.  We rented a cabin in the mountains of North Carolina and proceeded to have one adventure after another—none of which we had planned on, and none of which anyone would have planned on.
            We got lost four times, despite following written down directions as carefully as possible.  We locked ourselves out of the cabin—a very remote cabin, nowhere near the rental office.  We had to have our ailing twenty-two year old truck towed twenty miles to a mechanic in the middle of Tourist Town, then take a taxi drive that same twenty miles to pick it up two days later.  Then a tropical storm blew over us the morning before we were to leave.  Floridians, mind you, hit by the remnants of a hurricane in North Carolina!  We never did do any of the things we had actually planned on doing.  But, oh, it could have been so much worse.
            I guess I was an adult before I realized that prayers did not have to wait for some formal occasion.  Just like an earthly father, our Heavenly Father is willing to listen whenever we call.  Believe me, we called that week again and again.  Another thing I have learned is that God will bless people who are not necessarily His children simply because of their connection to His children, Potiphar, for example (Gen 39:5).  And so that week I found myself again and again thanking God for the good people He sent our way and asking Him to send them blessings.
            Good folks like these:
            The two or three people who took the time to send complete strangers on their way in the right direction.
            The kind woman on the phone at the rental office who helped us find the hidden lock box with the extra key to the cabin in it, gave us the code to that box, and would not hang up until she was sure we had gotten back in.
            The fellow tourist at the neighboring cabin who offered to look at our truck and when he couldn't fix it, looked up a mechanic with the highest ratings and called him for us, giving him details he needed because Keith,, being deaf, cannot function on a cell phone.
            A tow truck driver, a mechanic, and a taxi driver who were not only friendly, but refused to price-gouge a couple of desperate tourists, who were honest and fair in their business dealings instead.
            Again and again we asked our Father to shower these people with blessings as He had done for us by sending them our way.  The greatest blessing for us was seeing, in the middle of a tumultuous year, when it's so easy to believe our nation is going down the tubes in a headlong plunge, that there are still good people out there, people who will help strangers, who will do the right thing when the wrong thing would have been so easy and much more profitable.
            Look around as you go about your daily life.  Find the good people.  Thank God and ask Him to bless them as well.  Don't be selfish with the grace He gives, but as a child mimicking his father, spread it around as He does every day, giving the sun and the rain to all.  And who knows?  Maybe you will have somehow, some day, made it possible to share with them the greatest gift of Grace there is.
 
I exhort therefore, first of all, that supplications, prayers, intercessions, thanksgivings, be made for all men…That your way may be known upon earth, your salvation among all nations. Let the peoples praise you, O God; let all the peoples praise you.  (1Tim 2:1; Ps 67:1-3).
 
Dene Ward

My two grandsons love to go to the park.  They love to swing and slide.  I’m not sure they have discovered the joys of my own childhood favorite—the seesaw.  Back then I was always looking for someone else to sit on the other end, and seldom found the perfect playmate.  She was always either too heavy or too light to balance it out, and one of us always hit the ground with a bang.  As for the boys, I usually put both of them on one side while I sit on the other, carefully balancing things with my own legs so they don't bounce off the top and I don't hit the ground with a bone-jarring thud.
            Over the years I have come to see that God requires His own kind of balance.  Nearly every major fault of His people has come with that old pendulum swing—from one extreme to the other.  From undisciplined emotionalism to empty ritualism, from faith only to works salvation—we struggle all the time to get the balance just right.  “Obedience from the heart,” Paul calls it in Rom 6:17.  And it has been so for thousands of years.
            In our Psalms class, we came upon another passage recently that emphasized yet again the problem of balance.  Over and over and over you read things like this:
            …you have tested me and you will find nothing; I have purposed that my mouth will not transgress, 17:4
I have kept the ways of the Lord and have not wickedly departed from God, 18:21.
            Vindicate me, O LORD, for I have walked in my integrity, and I have trusted in the LORD without wavering, 26:1.
            It always bothered me a little when I saw passages like this, especially the ones written by David, as these three are.  Isn’t he being a little arrogant?  Especially him?
            But, as with all the Bible, you have to put things together to find the balance point.  Psalm 130, one of the Psalms of Ascents, certainly shows the opposite feeling:  If you, O Lord, should mark iniquities, O Lord, who could stand? v 3.  After that, another quickly came to mind:  Enter not for judgment with your servant; for in your sight no man living is righteous, 143:2.
            The psalmists all seemed to understand the balance.  No one deserves salvation, but yes, we can be righteous in God’s eyes when we do our best to serve Him, when obedience is offered willingly, when adoration, reverence, and gratitude are the motivations behind every thought and action, when we don’t just do some right things, we become righteous.  The author of Psalms 130 goes on to say, “But there is forgiveness with you…” and “with Jehovah there is lovingkindness and…plenteous redemption.”          
            These men saw that salvation was a matter of a relationship with God, not ritualistic obedience nor self-serving obsequiousness, both of which are more about “me” than the God I claim to worship.  They proclaimed the balance that would fall before the Lord in reverence and service and yet stand before a Father singing praise and thanksgiving. 
            And I love that they did not feel required to offer qualifications to what they said.  “I am righteous,” they said, not bothering to add, “but I know I have sinned in the past, and may sin in the future.”  They never let the false beliefs of others compel them to soften a strong statement of faith in their Lord to do what He says He will—be merciful.  Why are we always dampening the assurance of our hope by pandering to the false teaching of others?  Let’s strive for perfect balance with this long ago anonymous brother:  With Jehovah there is plenteous redemption, and he shall redeem us!
 
Blessed is he whose transgression is forgiven, Whose sin is covered. Blessed is the man unto whom Jehovah does not impute iniquity, And in whose spirit there is no guile, Ps 32:1-2.
These things have I written…that you may know you have eternal life, 1 John 5:13
 
Dene Ward

A few Sundays ago I listened to some wonderful prayers in our group worship.  However, something struck me that day and not for the first time.  In our Bible study prayer we prayed for “forgiveness of sins.”  In our “opening prayer” we prayed for “forgiveness of sins.”  In our “closing prayer” we prayed for “forgiveness of sins.”  I suddenly looked around me and thought, “What in the world has everyone been doing in the past two hours?”

            I think in our efforts to avoid any resemblance to the doctrine I grew up calling “the impossibility of apostasy,” we   have done ourselves a grave disservice and a very discouraging one as well.  As a child I saw good men who often prayed, “Lord forgive us, because we know we sin every day.”  Or “all the time.”  Or “so often.”  I used to look at them and wonder what it was they were doing.  I never saw them sin, or heard anyone else say they saw them sin either.  I began to feel like sin must be some sort of miasma that follows you around and then, bang! when you least expect it, it infects you like some kind of airborne germ.

            That is not the Bible definition of sin.  Everyone who does sin, does lawlessness, and sin is lawlessness, I John 3:4.  No, I am not gong into some heavy theology.  I don’t think I need to.  John plainly teaches that sin is something you do.  Now sin may involve wrong thinking, too, but still it is a specific thing.  It is not some sort of germ you catch without ever knowing it.  By making it into that sort of thing, we make ourselves miserable, living a life of despair instead of hope.  God said you can control yourself.  He said you can overcome.  He said you can live a godly life.  Give yourself a break!  God does. 

            Does that mean we won’t sin?  Of course not.  But why in the world do we feel so compelled to always add the negative, especially when we are talking to one another, to those of us who know the truth that we can fall from grace?  We should be encouraging one another, not trying to build stumblingblocks of cynicism and pessimism.  Of course, using the correct definition of sin, something we actually do and can quantify verbally, forces us to specifically repent of actual things we have done, instead of being able to say, “Lord, I know I sin a lot, and probably don’t even know it when I do, so please forgive me.”  Maybe that is the real problem—too much pride to admit the wrong we do, and actually try to become better people.  If you never know when the germ is going to get you, it’s not your fault right?  But that’s not the way it works, at least not to someone sincerely trying to grow as a Christian.

            I know that when I sin and realize it, I feel so heartbroken and ashamed that, like David, I ask for forgiveness again and again, but.should someone who has been a Christian for a decade, who is supposed to have grown in strength, need to pray for forgiveness three times for three different sins in two hours’ time?  I hope not.    If we really are “sinning all the time,” we need to take a serious look at our lives.  Theologians have a name for that doctrine too.  It’s called “total depravity.”  When a society became totally depraved, “sinning all the time,” God destroyed it.  Sodom, Assyria, Babylon, Rome, even the whole world in Genesis, except for one man who walked with God, and found grace in the eyes of the Lord.  If Noah could do it, so can we.

Let not sin 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, Rom 6:12-14.

Dene Ward

Today's post is by guest writer Keith Ward.

I read my New Testament volume of Bibliotheca every morning with breakfast. For those unaware, Bibliotheca is a revision of the American Standard Version of 1901 that updates all its  “ests, ” “eths,” “thous,” etc. The ASV was a more literal translation than any current one, but its readability was hampered by its inauthentic attempt to be Shakespearean like the KJV.  Bibliotheca also leaves out all chapter and verse numbers so one reads it in the same form as the original readers. (If you are interested, look it up on Wikipedia, I ordered on Kickstarter.)
 
At some point, I decided that since the gospel is Jesus I would read the four gospels exclusively at this breakfast reading, so I start over with Matthew when I reach the end of John. Recently, I noticed a wording in a passage I had not noticed in the 5-6 (?) previous readings. Of course, I had to stop and get a Bible with numbers to learn that my passage was Lk 6:32-36, “And if you love those who love you, what grace have you? For even sinners love those who love them. And if you do good to those who do good to you, what grace have you? For even sinners do the same. And if you lend to those of whom you hope to receive, what grace have you? Even sinners lend to sinners to receive again as much. But love your enemies and do good, and lend, never despairing; and your reward shall be great and you shall be sons of the Most High, for he is kind toward the unthankful and evil. Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful.”
 
Did you notice? Instead of saying “What thank (KJV) have you?” Jesus asked, “What GRACE have you?”  (ESV—“benefit,” NASV, NET & CSB—“credit.” We normally think of God only as the one who gives grace. In the other translations, Jesus clearly tells the audience that if they will behave the right way, they will have a reward. In the above, he is telling them that if they behave the correct way they will be showing grace, they will be dispensers of grace.
 
So, which translation is correct? Bibliotheca is definitely in the minority, but the word being translated is charis, so “grace” is the more exact translation. But, since “thank” is a valid translation for charis (though a distinct minority), we should let the context determine.
 
The context can go either way. Jesus’ next words are, “and your reward shall be great” where reward definitely means payment for a service as in Mt 5:46. But then, Jesus wraps up, “Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful” right after he said, “He is kind toward the unthankful and evil.”  This urges us to give grace like the Father does.
 
I tend toward the concept of us as children of the Father passing on grace just as he has shown us grace. As Jesus said, it is normal to be good to those who have done good to us or whom we like. And, if I paid you enough, you would even do good to people who are mean to you or those you do not like. But, offering grace simply because we are God’s is a greater calling and in line with the teaching of those who heard Jesus, "And who is he that will harm you, if ye be zealous of that which is good?  But, even if you should suffer for righteousness sake, blessed are you” (1Pet 3:13-13).
 
What grace have you when you get behind the wheel of your car? When you don’t feel well and it was a bad day at work and the kids are acting up? What grace have you when “he” gets exactly what he deserved? What grace have you toward someone unliked? Someone ugly? Someone socially ostracized?
 
And, above all, what is our attitude when we (rarely?) do these things? Self-satisfaction? A looking to the time you will be paid back for this distasteful behavior? Or is it as Jesus said, “never despairing?”
 
"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. " (2Cor 3:18).
 
 Keith Ward

While I was teaching music I was a member of several professional organizations.  My favorite was the local group which met seven times a year in members’ homes for business, some high-spirited performances, and a potluck lunch.  Once we met in a house just off the highway, down a lime rock road.  In the middle of the meeting, a rain came up—not just any rain, but one we around here call a “toad strangler,” several inches in less than an hour—they happen all the time in Florida. 
            The rain had stopped when it was time to leave and we took off down the dirt road shortcut in a caravan of cars headed to our various studios to meet the students for the day.  Suddenly, the cars ahead of me came to a halt, and ladies started climbing out, gathering together and peering up ahead.  I turned off the engine and joined the milling crowd at the head of the line. 
            Water had run across the road.  It had not cut a deep rut, and in fact, was a nice shallow-looking, easily fordable stream, but we had all lived in the country long enough to know you don’t just drive through water running across an unpaved road.  “Someone needs to walk out there and check the road,” was the consensus. 
            Have I mentioned that at 35 I was the youngest in the group by about thirty years?  Instantly, all heads turned toward me.  Having been silently elected, I slipped off my shoes and started across the newly created waterway.  I took five firm steps only to have to grab my skirt and hike it up over my knees as I sank exactly that deep on the sixth.  Instantly I had visions of those jungle movies I used to watch on Saturday afternoons as a kid, where the first one in the safari line sinks in the quicksand because, in spite of everyone telling him to be still, he wiggles and squirms and sinks before anyone can even think to cut a vine and use it to pull him out—or if some bright fellow does think of it, twenty people on the other end cannot out-pull the suction of a big mud puddle.. 
            A good minute later it dawned on me that my name was being called, and I still had not sunk any farther.  My feet had found a solid layer of hardpan about two feet below the surface so Tarzan swinging to the rescue was totally unnecessary.  I made my way back to the group with the most unladylike thwock, thwock, thwock noises as the suction released with each step.  We all carefully backed our cars down the one lane road, turned around in the driveway from where we had started and went the long way home, down the paved state highway.
            Hopelessness in the scriptures is often pictured as “sinking.”  Jeremiah prophesies that Babylon will sink and shall not rise again because of the evil I will bring upon her, 51:64.  Amos warns Israel that they are in for the same punishment: they shall sink again like the River of Egypt, 8:8; 9:5.  And all because of sin.  Even Peter, when he tried to walk on water, began to sink because of little faith and doubt, Matt 14:31.  And truly, just like sinking in the quicksand (at least in the old grade B movies), there is nothing we can do but hope a savior happens along.  Praise God, he has!
            The Psalmist pleads in 22:8 Commit yourself to Jehovah, let him deliver you; let him rescue you, seeing he delights in you.  In spite of the fact that, like an ignorant city slicker, we walked out into that mud on purpose, in spite of the fact that we ignored warning after warning, and kept right on wiggling and squirming, and even when we have been pulled out before, but keep stepping right back into the same pool of quicksand, Jesus is ready to hold out a hand and save us. 
 
Deliver me out of the mire and let me not sink… Let not the waterflood overwhelm me and swallow me up…Answer me, oh Jehovah, for your lovingkindness is good.  According to the multitude of your tender mercies, turn to me; and hide not your face from your servant, for I am in distress; answer me quickly. Psa 69:14-17
 
Dene Ward

When my boys were young they were enchanted with a movie called “The Never-Ending Story.”  You see, when the movie ended it started all over again, and then again, and again. 
            Maybe it’s because I am a woman that I never saw the appeal.  All I could think of was housework—laundry that needs washing over and over, shirts that need ironing again and again, dust that keeps settling, meals that need cooking three times a day.  Oh for something that when I finish with it will stay finished!
            I think the Old Testament Jews understood a little.  Have you ever read the complex procedure for the Day of Atonement?  You should sometime, and then think about the promise of a forgiveness that lasts forever.
            Every year the sins that were forgiven the year before were once again remembered against God’s people, and every year the pile grew bigger and bigger.  At least when I do the laundry, I know a shirt that I washed and ironed will not be back in the hamper until it has once again been worn.  Imagine if everything you ever washed got dirty again the next week just because clean would not stay clean! 
            The first century Jewish Christians surely appreciated the blessing of forgiveness far better than we can.  They had been waiting for that promise to be fulfilled for hundreds of years.  Behold the days come, says Jehovah, that I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah, not according to the covenant that I made with their fathers in the day that I took them by the hands to bring them out of the land of Egypt…But this is the covenant that I will make…says Jehovah:  I will put my law in their inward parts and in their heart will I write it, and I will be their God and they shall be my people, and they shall teach no more every man his neighbor and every man his brother saying, Know Jehovah, for they shall all know me, from the least of them unto the greatest of them, says Jehovah; for I will forgive their iniquity and their sins will I remember no more, Jer 31:31-34.
            A high priest was coming who would offer himself, a perfect sacrifice that would cleanse each sin forever.  That pile of guilt would no longer build up on each one, becoming heavier and heavier, needing yet another sacrifice every year.  Think what that must have meant to a people who through the years had seen oceans of blood pouring down that manmade altar, knowing that next year, the same thing must happen again, not only for new sins, but for exactly the same old ones as well.  What a relief.
            And what a relief for us to know that God forgives and forgets, and that because of that wonderful blessing we can enjoy another “Never-Ending Story” that will remind us of a blessing, instead of a burden. 
 
And they indeed have been made priests many in number because by death they are hindered from continuing; but he, because he abides forever, has his priesthood unchangeable.  Wherefore also he is able to save to the uttermost those who draw near to God through him, seeing he ever lives to make intercession for them.  For such a high priest became us, holy, guileless, undefiled, separated from sinners, and made higher than the heavens, who needs not daily, like those high priests to offer up sacrifices, first for his own sins, and then for the sins of the people, for this he did once for all, when he offered up himself,. Heb 7:23-27.
 
Dene Ward

“Do you love me, Peter?”
            “Lord, you know I love you.”
            “Feed my sheep.”
            Most of us are familiar with the scene on the seashore recorded in John 21.  I think we make a lot of fuss over the word “love” in its various permutations because we have read a Greek dictionary and think we have suddenly become scholars with great insight.  In reality there is considerable disagreement about what Jesus and Peter may or may not have intended. 
            However, most people agree that Jesus repeats the question three times because of Peter’s three denials.  Peter had already repented in bitter tears and was surely forgiven, but this gave him the opportunity to make amends in another, more direct way.
            Peter takes a lot of grief for his failings.  I have heard many say, and have more than likely said myself, “Peter gives me hope.  If the Lord will take him, surely he will take me.”   Why do we think we are any better than Peter? 
            Is it any less a denial of the Lord as the master of my life when I fail to act as He would?  Is it any less a denial when I fail to speak His word in an age of political correctness?  Is it any less a denial when I fail to follow His example in forgiving my neighbor, my brother, my spouse, or simply the other driver or shopper or the waitress or store clerk?  Is it any less a denial when my life matches the world instead of my Savior’s?  I may stand up and confess His name on Sunday morning, but it’s how I live my life the rest of the week that truly tells the story, and neither the circumstances nor the provocation matter.  All of my reactions to the circumstances of life and to other people are either a confession or a denial of Jesus as the Lord of my life.
            How many times should the Lord ask me, “Do you love me?”  How many second chances do I need?  How many will I need just today?
 
But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities; the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned every one to his own way; and Jehovah hath laid on him the iniquity of us all. Isa 53:5,6.
 
Dene Ward