But solid food is for full-grown men, even those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern good and evil, Heb 5:14.
 
            I was amazed to find out that “full-grown” is more often translated “perfect,” at least in the ASV.  That is ironic to me, because while I will quickly say, “I am not perfect,” I would find myself a little miffed if I were called “spiritually immature.”  At my age?  Surely I am a mature Christian by now.
            So I looked up that Greek word and the places it is translated “perfect.”  It quickly became apparent that the word does not mean “sinless.”  While we understand that the meaning of a word varies according to its context in English, we seem to forget that when it comes to reading the Bible and talking about those Hebrew and Greek words.  Yet, in any language, the meaning of a word is limited by its use.  And so I read “mature” in every passage I found that word translated “perfect,” and found out how to recognize a mature Christian. [When you read all these passages, be sure to read “spiritually mature” every time you see “perfect.”]
            The maturity level of a Christian is shown by how he treats his enemies (Matt 5:43-48), by how he controls his tongue (James 3:2), by how attached he is to his earthly possessions (Matt 19:21).  A mature Christian is not easily deceived, not changeable from day to day, and speaks from a motivation of love, even when correcting someone, not from a desire for revenge, or from a feeling of arrogance, and certainly not to cause controversy for the sake of controversy (Eph 4:13-15).  A mature Christian will endure, (James 1:4), and in fact, stand fully assured of his salvation (Col 4:12).  When I look at those characteristics I can see that I have a way to go before I finally grow up, but at least I have some detailed areas to work on now instead of blindly aiming for some sort of vague idea of maturity or perfection.
            One of the residents at the medical school recently told me that I did not look as old as my chart said I was.  That was a nice moment in the day, one totally unexpected.  Wouldn’t if be awful though, if he had said that I didn’t act as old as I was?  That is where the test comes—not in how long I have been a Christian, but in how much I have grown as one.
 
So we have come to know and to believe the love that God has for us.  God is love, and whoever abides in love abides in God, and God abides in him. By this is love [made mature] with us, that we may have confidence in the day of judgment, because as he is so also are we in this world, 1 John 4:16,17.
           
Dene Ward

I am still walking on that elliptical machine I told you about a few years ago.  With another measureable loss of vision lately, it becomes more and more the only safe way to exercise—you don’t step in any holes or trip over limbs or vines on an elliptical machine

            I stepped off one day a couple of months ago and looked at the read-out.  It informed me that I had “walked” three and a half miles in 30 minutes.

            “Wow,” I thought.  “Not bad.”  And then I thought to myself, “Wait a minute.”  Thirty years ago I only managed five miles in 48 minutes JOGGING.  That’s over nine minutes a mile.  And thirty years later I am supposed to believe I beat that rate WALKING?

            “Hmppph,” I muttered with my new perspective, “If that’s true, I’m a Martian.”

            Looking at myself through the eyes of cold clear logic, I cut the read-out figures almost in half.  Maybe I managed two miles—maybe.  I don’t have much faith in that read-out now.

            But—can I be just as clear-headed when I examine my heart?  Can I see with cool logic that my words and thoughts give me away?  For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks, Matt 12:34.  Can I see the flaws, the weak spots, the chinks in my armor?

            Believing the best about myself may seem “healthy. “   It may feel good.  It may give me a boost, and surely it’s more important to be encouraged than depressed, isn’t it?  Spiritual buoyancy is not the way to Heaven.  In fact, it will lead you the other direction quickly. 

I need to see clearly.  Deluding myself about my faults won’t fix my soul any more than walking two miles will burn the same calories as walking three and a half.  And one is a whole lot more important than the other.
 
Let no one deceive himself. If anyone among you thinks that he is wise in this age, let him become a fool that he may become wise, 1Cor 3:18
 
Dene Ward

Not too many weeks ago when I had a check-up with the cornea specialist, she discovered that my vision had decreased markedly and my eye pressure had more than doubled.  My other doctor, the one who deals with the rare things, was away, so she made an appointment for his next available opening, less than a week from then.  They gave me the time and day and said, “Will that work?”

            This has been a long journey with a lot of pain and anxiety, but I was relatively calm.  If I became hysterical every time I received a bad report, I would have completely worn myself out by now.  But maybe that is why they felt the need to ask—to make sure I was taking things seriously.  “I will make it work,” I told them.  If it had meant canceling a dozen other plans or walking the whole thirty miles I would have made it work.

            Too many times we don’t take our sin seriously.  We act like it is no big deal, except big enough to get mad at anyone who might actually point out our faults.  We know enough to say “I am not perfect,” but certainly let us not admit a specific fault under any circumstance.  Do we think it will simply go away?

            If I had ignored my appointment, the pressure would not have gone down.  It would have risen to the point that I lost my vision almost immediately, instead of over the long haul.  So why do we think ignoring our sins will make them go away?

            Israel did the same thing in the Old Testament.  Though there were priests and prophets who could heal their spiritual ailments, they not only ignored them, they persecuted them and even killed them.  Along came the later generations of the New Testament, and they killed their Physician too. 

            How ridiculous is it when people will not take their medicine just because it tastes bad, and so they become sicker, or even die?  And how ridiculous is it when we will not take care of our spiritual illnesses just because we are too proud to admit we might be wrong about something?

            Yet they both happen.  I would say, though, that most of us take our physical lives far more seriously than the spiritual.  One day we will understand how misplaced those priorities are.  I hope that bit of wisdom comes soon enough.
 
For the wound of the daughter of my people is my heart wounded; I mourn, and dismay has taken hold on me. Is there no balm in Gilead? Is there no physician there? Why then has the health of the daughter of my people not been restored? Jer 8:21,22.
 
Dene Ward

Leprosy was the most feared disease in the Bible.  It wasn’t just the impending death.  Other diseases were terminal.  But leprosy was the disease that killed your life before you ever died.
 
           The first mention of leprosy in historical documents was about 1500 BC.  The Bible mentions it as early as the book of Leviticus where its description and treatment are listed in chapters 13 and 14.  As the centuries progressed, most doctors considered leprosy a genetic disease.  Finally on February 28, 1873, Dr. Gerhard Henrik Armauer Hansen of Sweden discovered the bacillus that caused leprosy, proving once and for all that it was indeed an infectious disease, and eventually giving his name to it: Hansen’s disease.  The Bible seemed to realize from the beginning that it was infectious.

            A leper was considered ceremonially “unclean,” Lev 13:46.  That means he was no longer fit to even stand before God, much less serve Him.  If he were a priest, he could not partake of the sacrifices, Lev 22:4.  But no matter who he was, he was banned from the Temple, 2 Chron 26:21, and expelled from the people because his mere presence defiled the entire group, Num 5:2,3.

            He lived in isolation with others who shared his doom, and was required to warn anyone who might come near him with the shout of, “Unclean!  Unclean!” He had to make his disease obvious by his appearance, wearing torn clothes and leaving his hair loose and disheveled, with his upper lip covered, Lev 13:45.

            Leprosy became a metaphor for sin in the Bible, as should be obvious from the verses cited above and their spiritual significance-not fit to serve God, not fit to enter into His presence, not fit to be with His people, in fact, one who would defile the whole people.  God sent leprosy as a punishment several times—on Miriam, on Gehazi, on King Azariah/Uzziah.  The progress of the physical disease begins with an invisible infection, leading to disfigurement, deterioration, and death.  Surely you can see the progress of sin in a person’s life in parallel.

            And that leaves us with two profound lessons.  First, for Jesus to actually touch a leper and heal Him showed not only his power but also his mercy.  And Jesus is the only one who can cure us of that disease called sin.  He was the one who loved us enough to come down among all of us spiritual lepers, regardless of the danger of infection, and make us clean.  How many of us are like the nine lepers instead of the Samaritan, who was so profoundly grateful for being cleansed that he would fall on his face in gratitude to the one who cleansed him, even if it delayed his symbolic entrance back into the fold?

            And second, we should view sin as we view that awful disease.  Too many times I see Christians who flock to other diseased (sinful) people, heedless of the risk of infection, in fact, hoping for it, rather than treating it like the life-endangering disease it is.  Yes, we need to serve the sinners--by leading them home to the Great Physician, not by trying on their clothes, eating from their bowls, and rolling around in their beds. Sin, like leprosy, will make us outcasts from God, the only source of a cure.  Don’t we realize that, or is it that we long to be lepers like the rest of the world?
 
And behold, a leper came to him and knelt before him, saying, “Lord, if you will, you can make me clean.” And Jesus stretched out his hand and touched him, saying, “I will; be clean.” And immediately his leprosy was cleansed, Matt 8:2-3.
 
Dene Ward

I was a teenager and remember the drama well.  On Dec 3, 1967, Dr Christiaan Barnard performed the first human heart transplant.  Louis Washkansky, a grocer from South Africa, received the heart of Denise Darvall, an automobile accident victim who had been declared brain dead.  The transplant was a success.  Mr. Washkansky’s body did not reject the organ and it functioned well.  However, 18 days later he died of complications, in this case double pneumonia.  Still, it was a medical milestone and that operation has gone on to become a viable treatment for many heart patients.
 
           Heart transplants, though, have been going on for thousands of years.  God has always required them.  What is repentance but the removal of an old sinful heart and the replacement of a completely new one?  . And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them.  I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them.  And they shall be my people, and I will be their God, Ezek 11:19,20.

            Too many times repentance is only skin deep.  We force ourselves to stop the old life and struggle every day to live the new one.  God wants us to rip out that old, stony heart and replace it with one that not only performs righteous deeds, but wants to perform them, wants to please Him, and wants to live as a follower of His Son.  It is so much easier to do right when the motivation is righteousness itself.

            But let’s be practical.  Sometimes the zeal wanes.  Sometimes we hit rough spots in the road and our desire to do right falters.  Temptation can overtake even the strongest.  Does that mean I have not made a new heart within me?  Not really.  How does that heart feel when it realizes it has fallen?  Maybe that is the telling point.  In his psalm of repentance after his atrocious sins David says, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: A broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise,” not long after he begs God to, “Create in me a clean heart,” (Psalm 51:17 and 10).  It seems even a completely new heart can gather a little grime once in awhile, so do not be conquered by depression when you fail.

            If, however, you have not replaced that old heart with a new one, if you find yourself not only giving into temptation often but looking for the chance to and caring only whether or not you get caught, maybe you still have an old heart.  Maybe your soul rejected the new one. 

            God knows whether you had a heart transplant or not, and whether that surgery achieved its goal.  It may often be a painful operation, but it has a great record of success.  Lots of folks live forever.
 
Cast away from you all your transgressions, wherein you have transgressed; and make you a new heart and a new spirit: for why will you die, O house of Israel?  For I have no pleasure in the death of him who dies, says the Lord Jehovah: wherefore turn yourselves, and live, Ezek 18:31,32..
 
Dene Ward

Many years ago a young doctor decided to try contact lenses on my nanophthalmic, hyperopic/aphakic, corrugated, football-shaped eyeballs.  Everyone told him he was crazy, that it was impossible.  Somehow, amid all the discouraging words, he managed to make it work.  For the first time in my life I could see more than the fish-eyed tunnel in front of me. 

            These were the original hard contact lenses.  He had sat me down and told me that the only way I could possibly wear them in my “special” eyes was to want to wear them.  I did not realize till much later how wise he had been.  They were incredibly uncomfortable, especially on my deformed eyeballs, but I saw so much more that I knew I would never give them up regardless the pain.

            Seven years later rigid gas-permeable lenses became available through overseas channels.  They were a tiny bit more comfortable, but more important, they kept my eyes healthier.  I wore those for thirty-five years.  Finally a type of soft lens has been developed that I can actually wear with no ill-effects.  Not only that, but they cause no strange visual effects either—no starbursts, no fish-eyes, no distortions at all.  It seems ironic that they have come now when my vision is failing and when only one eye can tolerate wearing one, but I am not complaining.

            I have had to learn different methods of insertion, removal, and overnight care.  This thing is so much more comfortable that sometimes I am not certain it is in.  The many surgeries I have had have changed me from hyperopic to myopic, and my vision, even with the lens, is not perfect.  That is why I did not realize for about an hour that I did not have the lens in my eye the other morning. 

            At first, when the usual blur did not clear up right away, I thought it was just one of those days when I was not going to see well.  They happen often enough.  Finally I put my finger to my eyeball and touched only eyeball—I knew the lens had not made it into my eye.  So where was it?

            I ran back to the bathroom, got on my hands and knees and felt across the floor from the door to the vanity cabinet, the only way I could possibly find it down there.  No lens.  At least I knew I wasn’t going to step on it.  So I stood up and I felt across the entire vanity countertop.  No lens. 

            Finally I took the hand towel off the rack.  I always open the lens case over a towel because of the fluid in it.  I felt one side of the towel and then turned it over.  Still no lens, but when I picked up the towel again, there was the lens under it, finally having fallen off the towel with a tiny little “clink.” It was as solid as one of my old hard lenses.  That nice soft lens material had dried up even in the humid bathroom air.

            I soaked it in saline a couple of hours and it came back to life.  Finally I could see again, at least as well as I ever do these days.

            I came across a passage the other day. The light of the wicked shall be put out, and the spark of his fire shall not shine. His strength shall be hunger-bitten, and calamity shall be ready at his side. His roots shall be dried up beneath, and above shall his branch be cut off. His remembrance shall perish from the earth, and he shall have no name in the street, Job 18:5, 12, 18, and 19.

            Trying to live your life without Christ will dry you up.  I do not understand how people who do not have the hope He offers can handle life’s problems, and especially how they can handle dying.  They have nothing to live for, and certainly nothing to die for.

            We have said it over and over.  The grace of God not only gives you salvation, it helps you overcome temptation, bear tragedies, and face death.  If I turn into a dried up, bitter old woman, it is because somewhere along the line I refused to make use of that grace. 

            I wince, thinking about the pain I would have felt if I had tried to put that desiccated contact lens into my eye.  We sometimes go about with pain that we needn’t bear.  A good long soak in the grace and goodness of God makes it possible to live this life to the fullest and look forward to the one to come.
 
Jesus stood and cried, saying, If any man thirst, let him come unto me and drink. He that believes on me, as the scripture has said, from within him shall flow rivers of living water, John 7:37,38.
 
Dene Ward
 

Has life left you a few mementos?  For me it’s silicone lenses, a capsular tension ring, a fifty micron ophthalmic shunt, a metal anchor in each heel, plus the usual stretch marks, wrinkles, gray hairs, numerous surgical scars, and quite a few missing parts.  For Keith it’s a plastic eye socket, five bullet wound scars, a few wrinkles (very few, dear), and a loss of hair.  Our battle scars make our lives sound far more interesting than they actually are.
 
           We live in a culture that wants to erase those marks of life at any cost.  I still don’t understand why anyone would want to get rid of laugh lines.  Does she want people to think she has lived a miserable life?  I remember a couple of little boys who were thrilled to death whenever they had a “booboo” to display.  I suppose it all depends on how we got those “booboos.”  I am never quick to show off a bruise I got for being downright stupid.

            Paul was proud to mention the scars he earned for the Lord, Henceforth, let no man trouble me; for I bear branded on my body the marks of Jesus, Gal 6:17.

            What about spiritual battle scars?  If we are fighting “the good fight,” we ought to have quite a few.  I wonder, though, if we have fallen into the trap of our culture.  No scar is a good one because no fight is a good fight.  Love everyone and accept everything they do.  We might as well take the scissors to our Bibles.

            If I don’t have any spiritual scars, why not?  Is it because I run from the fight, too ignorant of the Sword to do battle? Am I too concerned with the opinion of my neighbors to stand up for something unpopular?  Is it because I give into temptation too easily?  Satan only tempts those he has not caught.  Maybe I am just a POW too cowardly to try to escape.

            On the last day, we had better have a few battle scars to show the Lord.  We enlisted in an army that fights all day every day.  Deserters will not receive the reward.
 
But we have this treasure in jars of clay, to show that the surpassing power belongs to God and not to us. We are afflicted in every way,  but not crushed;  perplexed,  but not driven to despair; persecuted,  but not forsaken;  struck down,  but not destroyed; always carrying in the body the death of Jesus,  so that the life of Jesus may also be manifested in our bodies. For we who live are always being given over to death for Jesus’ sake, so that the life of Jesus also may be manifested in our mortal flesh, 2 Cor 4:7-11.
 
Dene Ward

That’s what my doctor asked a couple of weeks after one of my eye surgeries.  He is a very proper Englishman and has an odd way of phrasing things at times, at least to my American ears, but that one still caught me off-guard.
 
           “May I prod you?”

           “With what?” I blurted out, nonplussed.  Since I am a country girl I suppose all I could think of were cattle prods.

            As it turns out, the scleral flap he had placed inside my eye to control the drainage through the shunt was not situated exactly right.  He needed to move it, and the only way to do so was to “prod” my eyeball. 

           He took two six inch long cotton swabs, eased them into my eye socket over the top of my eyeball and, while watching the progress through a lighted scope, proceeded to mash down on that eye for all he was worth.  At least that’s what it felt like, but perhaps that was because that eye still had a fresh incision.  As you can imagine, I sat as still as I could.  Doctors always tell you not to put Q-tips in your ears.  I wonder what my other doctors would have thought about two big ones sticking out of my left eye socket.  A friend was with me and witnessed this a little uncomfortably.  “Almost lost my lunch,” I think was what she said, “but the young resident watching the procedure looked grayer than I felt.”

            Eventually the internal flap moved a millimeter or so and he was pleased.  “Sorry,” he said.  “I know that was uncomfortable.”  Indeed, I thought, somewhat “Britishly.”  After all these years he is wearing off on me.

            We are prodded often in our lives, and like me at that moment, it is always our choice whether or not to allow it.  Too many times we make the wrong choices.  “He made me mad,” is inaccurate.  What happened is, I let him make me mad.  I allow the words and actions of others to create wrong reactions in me.  I allow the pressures of society to push me into bad decisions.  I allow temptation to overcome me, instead of me overcoming it.  And in every case it is no one’s fault but my own, because the choice was mine.

            How do I know?  Because when there comes a time of good prodding, good provocation--let us consider one another to provoke unto love and good works, Heb 10:24—then I ignore it when it is not what I want to do.  If one is my choosing, then so is the other.

            Satan prods us all the time.  Sometimes he uses circumstances; sometimes he uses people; sometimes he uses ideologies.  It is always up to us to recognize the true source of those things and choose to ignore it.  Instead we must find those who urge us toward the good, encouraging proper attitudes and actions through example or teaching.

            Just like those cotton swabs pushing on the outside of my eyeball affected what was happening on the inside, provocation works on the heart and the attitudes.  In the final analysis it is up to us to make the right decisions.  Just who is asking, “May I prod you?”  Is it the Lord, or is it Satan?  To which one will I listen?  What will I choose to do?
 
[Love] does not behave itself unseemly, seeks not its own, is not provoked, takes no account of evil, 1 Cor 13:5.
 
Dene Ward

            I wish I had a dollar for every hour I have sat in waiting rooms in the past ten years, especially at the eye clinic.  I had a 3:30 appointment once, and finally saw the doctor at 7 pm.  Then there was the time we discovered that I needed an emergency procedure.  My appointment had been at 11:00.  I was finally pronounced fit to leave at 5:30. 

            The shortest amount of time I have ever spent at the clinic is two hours.  Sometimes the doctor is overbooked because he has critical patients who simply must be seen that day; I have been one of those patients.  Sometimes he runs late because an emergency arrives that must be worked in; I have been one of those emergencies.  I can hardly complain when someone does it to me.

            Yet, even the night I had to wait until 7:00, I never doubted that I would be seen.  I have never worried that someone would forget I was there and the doctor would leave.

            It makes no sense to doubt God either.  Sometimes we must wait a long time for the answer to a prayer, but it will come.  Sometimes we must endure a trial far longer than we ever expected, but He has not forsaken us.  How long did those faithful Jews wait for their Messiah?  I have never waited that long for God, have you?

            The world thinks that because the promised second coming has not happened in 2000 years it won’t happen at all.  They think that proves God doesn’t even exist, completely ignoring the evidence of His existence all around them.  That makes about as much sense as me deciding my doctor doesn’t exist because I have been sitting here waiting for three hours now, and my fellow patient in the next seat has waited four.

            My doctor is worth the wait.

            If ever anyone was worth a longer wait, it’s God.

Knowing this first, that in the last days mockers shall come with mockery, walking after their own lusts, and saying, Where is the promise of his coming? For, from the day that the fathers fell asleep, all things continue as they were from the beginning of the creation. For this they willfully forget, that there were heavens from of old, and an earth compacted out of water and amidst water, by the word of God; by which means the world that then was, being overflowed with water, perished: but the heavens that now are, and the earth, by the same word have been stored up for fire, being reserved against the day of judgment and destruction of ungodly men. But forget not this one thing, beloved, that one day is with the Lord as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.  The Lord is not slack concerning his promise, as some count slackness; but is longsuffering to you-ward, not wishing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance, 2 Pet 3:3-9.

Dene Ward

From my journal:  Monday, June 13, 2005.
This is the big day.  “Terrified” pretty well says it all.  We began it with a prayer and that prayer continued on silently through the day for both of us.  
    Today I will undergo a surgery that has never been done successfully before, using a newly invented device that has never been used before.  If it works, my vision will be saved for awhile longer.  If it doesn’t, I will be blind in that eye.  If we don’t try it, I will be blind in both eyes, probably before the year is out.
  
 We arrived early, expecting a wait, but they took me straight in, after I signed some special consent forms upstairs.  Since the FDA had not approved this, “you will have to sign your life away,” the doctor told me, but what choice did I have?  I signed page after page, and then initialed some handwritten lines added along the side of the form.  One of them said, “I understand that no one knows how this material will interact with human tissue.”  Finally they sent me back downstairs to the surgical floor.  

    When the nurse called me in, Keith and I shared a long hug.  I am sure that no one else there understood why we made such a big deal out of this, but it was possible that I would never see him out of that eye again, and maybe not the other before much longer.

    That was quite a day and quite an experience.  I was, as noted above, terrified.  You don’t sign your life away like that unless you are desperate, unless the only other choice is a bad one.  I did it, and it gave my left eye another year and a half of vision before we had more difficult and painful surgeries to go through, which have spared me yet again.  The right eye, the one that took the plunge first on this day ten years ago, is still hanging in there.  Signing my life away has given me ten more years of vision so far, years no one expected even if the surgery worked, and who knows how much more to come before the medications stop working and the shunt is compromised.

    That level of desperation is the level you must feel in your spiritual life before you will “sign your life away” to God.  

    And suddenly there was a great earthquake, so that the foundations of the prison-house were shaken: and immediately all the doors were opened: and every one's bands were loosed. And the jailor, being roused out of sleep and seeing the prison doors open, drew his sword and was about to kill himself, supposing that the prisoners had escaped. But Paul cried with a loud voice, saying, Do yourself no harm: for we are all here. And he called for lights and sprang in, and, trembling for fear, fell down before Paul and Silas, and brought them out and said, Sirs, what must I do to be saved?  Acts 16:26-31.

    Do you think that jailor wasn’t terrified?  Do you think he wasn’t desperate?  Imagine how that plea sounded coming from this trembling man who thought his life was over.  “What must I do to be saved?”

    Desperate people do desperate things—like commit their lives to God.  If you never felt that desperation, chances are your commitment was not real.  Chances are you will fall when times get tough, when sacrifices are demanded, when you lose more than you bargained for.  Desperate people do not bargain.  They take the first offer and take it immediately.

    How desperate were you when you were offered salvation?  If you “grew up in the church,” you may never have felt it.  Doing what everyone expects of you is not desperation.  Wanting the approval of others, especially one particular “other” is not desperation.  “Just in case” is not desperation.  You have to recognize a need and know there is no other way of taking care of that need.  You have to know what it means to stand a sinner before a holy God—and it doesn’t mean you feel guilty because you stole a cookie from the cookie jar.  But Simon Peter, when he saw it, fell down at Jesus' knees, saying, Depart from me; for I am a sinful man, O Lord, Luke 5:8.  That, standing a sinner before a holy God, is the recognition you must come to.

    Signing your entire life away to God is exactly what He expects of you.  So therefore, any one of you who does not renounce all that he has cannot be my disciple, Luke 14:33. Nothing and no one can be more important to you than Him.   I have been crucified with Christ, and it is no longer I who live but Christ who lives in me, Gal 2:20.  Your entire life is no longer yours to do with as you please, but since you know that is your only hope, you do it gladly.
    
    How desperate were you?  How desperate are you now?

If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things that are above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God. Set your minds on things that are above, not on things that are on earth. For you have died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ who is your life appears, then you also will appear with him in glory, Col 3:1-3.

Dene Ward