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            “Lose up to ten pounds the first week!  No dieting!  No exercise!  Eat what you like.  One pill a day will give you the body you have always dreamed of!”

            It’s sad how many people believe those ads.  But it is understandable too.  No one wants to change his lifestyle.  No one wants to go hungry and sweat.  Everyone wants to eat the good stuff and take a magic pill to cure their obesity.

            I know a few people who have that problem with sin too.  They don’t want to change their lives.  They don’t want to admit they even need to change.  They certainly don’t want to make the effort in study, prayer, self-examination, and true repentance.  They think they have the “magic pill,” and here is what it is.

            I can go merrily along if I remember to pray for forgiveness every night, especially for my “secret sins.” 

            I can live my life as I wish as long as I show up Sunday morning and take the Lord’s Supper.

            I can even play at repentance by talking about my imperfections and making statements like, “I know I am a sinner,” so no one can quote 1 John 1:8 at me.

            I have seen it too many times over the years.  I have even done it myself.  I know I am not perfect so a quick prayer for forgiveness every day should take care of the problem.  Far be it from me to actually admit anything specific and work on it.  Have you noticed this about people like that?  Sooner or later they make a statement like this, “If I’ve sinned, I’m sorry.”  They’ve taken yet another diet pill and expect a 15 pound loss of sin in one short minute.

            The real weight loss programs out there are all about accountability.  You show up, you weigh in, you talk about exactly what you have eaten and not eaten, and how much exercise you have or have not had.  Those people tend to lose the weight and keep it off longer.  They understand that this is a lifestyle change, not a magic pill.  And they take responsibility for their actions, both good and bad.

            That’s exactly the way overcoming sin works.  “Confess your faults one to another,” James tells us, “and pray for one another” (5:16)   Everyone participates and everyone helps.

             “Bring forth fruit worthy of repentance,” John told the masses (Matt 3:8).  A quick little prayer or a ritual offering was only the beginning of a lifestyle change that was supposed to be obvious to everyone from then on.

            I’ve heard brethren criticize the Catholic religion as one of convenience.  “You can live as you like as long as you confess every week and do penance.”  Some of us don’t even want to do that much.  Confession is humiliating.  Doing penance is hard work.  It’s far easier to pray for forgiveness every night and show up every Sunday for those few magic bites.  Don’t tell me we aren’t as bad they are—we’re worse!

            Satan is the one who puts out those ads for sin’s magic pills.  Don’t be a “patsy.”  No one is sure where the term came from.  Some suggest it is from the Italian word pazzo.  Do you know what that word means?  “Fool.”  Sounds to me like the perfect word. 

For godly sorrow works repentance unto salvation, a repentance which brings no regret: but the sorrow of the world works death. For behold, this selfsame thing, that you were made sorry after a godly sort, what earnest care it wrought in you, yea what clearing of yourselves, yea what indignation, yea what fear, yea what longing, yea what zeal, yea what avenging! In everything you approved yourselves to be pure in the matter. 2 Corinthians 7:10-11.

Dene Ward       

My brother-in-law has finished his long journey.  Maybe it was because both of us were the in-laws, but for some reason he was especially kind to me, and I felt comfortable with him.

            Mike came a long way in his life, all the way from atheism to Christianity.  Keith had a special hand in turning him around.  Unfortunately, discouragement set in and he lost his way again for awhile.  When this illness hit him, with some words from his wife and Keith, he made the determination to come home.  Unfortunately, he never had the chance to sit in a pew again and commune with his spiritual family after he made that decision.  Things progressed too quickly and he was gone far sooner than anyone expected, including the doctors.

            When I read the parable of the prodigal son in Luke 15, I notice something important.  The Father was out there looking for his lost son.  It wasn’t just a casual glance—he saw him “afar off.”  This was a Father who wanted to see his son coming home, who wanted to welcome him back.  He stood there looking long and hard for the first sign of that figure trudging down the road.

            Mike’s Father was looking for him too.  Mike had made that determination—he was well on the road home, even having mentioned it to some brethren who visited.  Who is to say that he wasn’t close enough for God to see him coming?  Who is to say that God hadn’t already started running down the road to welcome him home?

            Probably some older brother, that’s who.  I have some of those—brethren who not only expect that long march down the aisle (as if there is a verse requiring that in the New Testament) before they will even consent to forgiving, but who won’t even look down the road in the first place.  I have brethren who are not thrilled with the return of a lost brother but just as grieved as the prodigal’s older brother was.  I have brothers and sisters in Christ who actually seem to enjoy being cynical—“it’ll never last.” 

            But I praise God that He is a Father who is merciful, who wants to forgive, who actually looks for reasons to forgive, instead of reasons to condemn.

            None of us deserves God’s mercy.  Perhaps if we remembered that, we would be eagerly looking to forgive too.

Be merciful, even as your Father is merciful, Luke 6:36.

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 3:9.

Dene Ward

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            “That was your kind of game!” Lucas texted a few weeks ago when the Gator basketball team tromped its opponent by nearly 30 points.  Indeed it was, my favorite kind of game.

            The boys have taught me well, not only strategies and terms, but who to root for in football, basketball, and baseball.  The Gators, the Rays, the USF Bulls, the Miami Dolphins, the Buccaneers, sometimes the Jags if they aren’t thoroughly embarrassing themselves, and any SEC team that is not playing Florida at the moment. 

            But if any of those teams are playing, I do not enjoy what most people call “a good game.”  Why would anyone enjoy something that causes heart-burn, heart palpitations, and heart-ache?  I cringe until the score becomes outrageously unbeatable, and then sit back and enjoy the rest.  That’s my kind of game.

            And though it certainly isn’t a game, that’s the way I like my contests with the Devil too.  It ought to be that lopsided a score.  We have a Savior who has already taken care of the hard part.  We are already so far ahead, even before we start, that a comeback by the opponent should be unthinkable.  We have an example how to overcome.  We have help overcoming.  We have a promise that we CAN overcome if we just try.  We have every possible advantage, including coaches and trainers and all-star teammates, and a playbook that is infallible. 

            We have the motivation too.  As we said, this isn’t a game.  There is no next season, and defeat is an unthinkable consequence that should spur us on to adrenalin-boosted, nearly superhuman feats.  And the trophy is far better than anything offered us in this life.  Every athlete exercises self-control in all things.  Now they do it to receive a perishable crown, but we an imperishable one, 1 Cor 9:25.  That crown is called a “crown of life” in several passages—an eternal life with our Creator. 

            Do not make your game a close one.  Don’t sit back and let the Adversary make a comeback.  Don’t fumble the ball, or commit an error, or make a turnover out of carelessness and apathy.  Victory is not handed to you on a platter.  You still have to want to win, and fight like that every minute.  My kind of game may not appeal to you when you watch your favorite teams play, but it should be the only kind you want when your soul is at stake. 

            We are “more than conquerors” with the help of God (Rom 8:37).  His game plan involves a rout, running up the score, and rubbing the enemy’s nose in defeat.  And it can go exactly that way with just a little effort on your part.

For this perishable body must put on the imperishable, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written: "Death is swallowed up in victory." "O death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting?"...But thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ. 1 Corinthians 15:53-55, 57

Dene Ward

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          A few years after we moved to this spot of country, I was startled one morning by a low rumbling that, over the next few minutes, grew louder and louder.  It seemed to come from above, but could not be a plane, I reasoned, because it was taking so long to pass by.  I stepped outside and there, to my amazement, flew the Budweiser blimp, so low over our field I felt like I could hold a conversation with the pilot. 

            We must be on a regular flight path because we have seen that blimp several times, along with all sorts of planes from props to airliners, and helicopters galore.  The military also uses our area for drills of some sort, sometimes in groups and other times a lone pilot putting his jet through the routine loops, leaving a tangled skein of contrails behind.  Except for the military planes, they all follow the same southerly course across our field, almost as if there were lane markings in the sky.

            I have spent a lot of time sitting on the shaded carport, itself in the deep shade of live oaks, killing time, day after day, waiting to see if this latest surgery has worked, and knowing that even if it has it will only last a couple of years.  This disease has a regular flight path, just like all those flying machines that pass over us.  The optic nerve in the left eye is now 60% destroyed.  Once gone, those nerve endings can never come back. That led me to contemplate the notion of fate or, as theologians call it, predestination.

            Despite what the majority say, the Bible does not teach that God has already decided which of us He will save, and is now resting easy in His recliner watching the show He set in motion.  But one thing has been predetermined for a couple of thousand years now—the victory has already been won.  It is up to me to follow the flight path that my Savior created, that will inevitably lead me to share in His glory.  I must not be detoured by this world, either its pleasures or its problems.  Either one could lead to a crash landing far short of the goal.

For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive, that are left till the coming of the Lord, shall in no way precede those who have fallen asleep.  For the Lord himself shall descend from Heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel, and with the trump of God, and the dead in Christ shall rise first; then we who are alive, that are left, shall together with them be caught up in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air; and so shall we ever be with the Lord, 1 Thes 4:15-17

Dene Ward

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            I remember folding diapers one day when Lucas was 2 and Nathan just a few weeks old.  I had not had a full night’s sleep in the three or four weeks since Nathan’s birth—an emergency C-section, which while routine, was still major surgery.  The garden was at its height, and laundry was a daily chore along with the usual cooking and cleaning. 

            During Nathan’s morning nap I gave Lucas as much attention as possible.  We were learning the alphabet, going through magazines to find pictures of things beginning with that week’s letter, practicing how to draw it, and finding it among the words of the book I read to him that day.  Our daily Bible lesson included a song I had composed if no ready-made one came to mind, and a dramatic re-creation, either by us or handy stuffed animals which assumed new identities at his command. 

            Lest anyone think Keith was not doing his share, he was preaching part-time as well as holding down two other part-time jobs and finishing up a degree at the university 20 miles down the road.  Then he came home and became Goliath or the “big fish” or whatever large character he needed to be as Lucas recounted his Bible lesson to Daddy.  He always gave Lucas his evening bath and watched Nathan while I cleaned up supper dishes.  After the babies were in bed, he studied.

            On that particular day I was making those intricate folds of bleached white cotton robotically.  Nathan was cooing and gurgling on a blanket in the floor, and Lucas was lining up his assorted toy cars and trucks on the other end of the sofa from my stack of diapers.  A wave of weariness hit with such force that I leaned my head over on the sofa arm for a second’s rest.

            Ten minutes later I woke up to little grunts from Nathan.  This meant I had approximately fifteen seconds to start nursing him before a full-blown howl erupted from that deceptively small set of lungs.  What amazed me, though, was that Lucas was in the middle of running a fire engine up my arm and parking it next to my head.  Was this what woke me?  Obviously not, for there were already five other vehicles parked by my nose.  It was my baby’s impending distress that woke me from such a deep slumber, not the arm traffic.

            That was not the only time exhaustion struck so strongly.  Young mothers, I believe, live in a perpetual state of weariness, at least the ones who understand their God-given duties and try to fulfill them.  There have been nights when falling into bed and relaxing actually hurt for a few seconds.

            There are other things that make me weary, not in body but in spirit.  A relative’s foolish words or actions can cause hurt and turmoil throughout the family.  Two supposedly mature brothers or sisters in the Lord who behave like three year olds; an argument over scripture that is punctuated not by “This is what the scriptures say,” but rather, “This is what I think, this is what I feel about it, this is what I am comfortable with;” people who take your much prayed about words and actions in the worst possible light, making petty comments that pierce your heart, and spreading their thoughts to others, who then bring them back to you.  Then there is the evening news.  These things make you throw up your hands in defeat and say along with the apostle John, “Lord, come quickly.”

            Rest—if there is anything about Heaven I look forward to more than anything else, it is rest—rest to my soul.

            God had promised his people rest when he took them out of Egypt.  All they had to do was trust him and obey him, but despite the great signs and wonders done before their eyes, they could not manage that.  So God said, As I swore in my wrath, they shall not enter into my rest, Heb 4:3.  They did enter Canaan, but they did not enter The Rest.  They had troubles constantly, from within and without, simply because they did not have the faith it took to obey God.  There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God, 4:9, a rest like God’s rest.  The Hebrew writer is careful that we understand the difference.  God did not rest because he was tired; he rested because he had finished his work, 4:4. 

            And we have that promise.  If we can get past the times that cause us to throw up our hands and shake our heads, the people who make our burdens heavier instead of lighter; if we can manage to stay strong and finish the course, we can rest too.  Oh, what a wonderful promise!

For if Joshua had given them rest, he would not have spoken afterward of another day.  There remains therefore a Sabbath rest for the people of God.  For he who has entered into his own rest has himself also rested from his work as God did from his.  Let us therefore give diligence to enter into that rest, that no one fall after the same example of disobedience, Heb 4:8-11.  

Dene Ward

            I inherited my hair from my Grandma Ayers.  As a teenager I hated it.  The style then was long, sleek and straight.  Some girls even ironed their hair to remove any hint of natural wave.  I never went that far, but twice a week I spent 2 hours washing it, wrapping it around huge rollers, and sitting under a bonnet dryer trying to get the kink out of it. 

            The biggest problem with naturally curly hair is that it does what it wants to do.  I have never been able to take a picture to a stylist and say, “I want my hair to look like that.”  If it doesn’t already do that, it never will.

            The biggest blessing with naturally curly hair is that it does what it wants to do.  I can shower, wash my hair, blow it dry, dress and go in about 35 minutes.  There is no sense wasting time on hair that will only do one thing on any given day, depending upon the humidity.

            Humidity is the bane of naturally curly hair.  I can walk outside on a foggy day and hear it going, “Scrinch!  Scrinch!  Scrinch!” as each wave turns into a fuzzy ringlet.  As a friend once said, I wear a barometer on my head.  If I have to go to town on a high humidity day (most days in Florida), I stay away from mirrors.  If I were to see what had become of my hair since I left the house I would probably still be in hiding and never make it back home.

            During last summer’s nomadic tropical storm, an unwelcome guest we thought would never leave, I stepped outside one morning onto the carport to check on the dogs.  About a half hour later I looked in the bathroom mirror.  My head was covered with corkscrews the size of earthworms dropping onto my forehead, crawling into my ears, and dangling down my neck.  The bad part, though, the thing that no one ever understands no matter how many times I try to explain it, was the frizz.  A halo of gray fuzz stuck out all around the curls a full two inches, like that annoying fuzz around a mohair sweater.  This was by far the most extreme “do” my naturally curly hair had ever given me.  My head looked bigger than a basketball, and nothing I did could change it.

            Most of the time now, I count my hair a blessing, but after all these years of dealing with hair that predetermines how I will look on any given day, I have a special appreciation for the free will God has given us.  What I do is my choice not something forced upon me.  It doesn’t matter who my ancestors were, how I was raised or where, I can still choose to serve God.  God reminded his people in Josh 24:2, Long ago your fathers lived beyond the Euphrates, Terah, the father of Abraham and of Nahor, and they served other gods.  Abraham’s ancestors were idolaters, and he grew up in an idolatrous society, but God still expected his service and devotion.  His upbringing and culture were not valid excuses for a lack of faith.

            Free will also places a huge responsibility on me in my every day life.  It doesn’t matter how anyone else treats me, I must treat them in the right manner.  It doesn’t matter if someone aggravates me, I must not be provoked.  It doesn’t matter if everything goes wrong today, I must still keep a good attitude and behave like a follower of Christ—a Christian.  I now have no excuse for the sin in my life because God gave me the ability to choose otherwise.  I cannot blame anything or anyone else.

            The thing to do then is decide what I want.  A loving Father went to a lot of trouble to make salvation available.  A loving Son went through a lot of pain to make it possible to overcome sin.  A comforting Spirit went to a lot of work to reveal it all.  Now it is up to us—it is our choice one way or the other. 

For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ so that each may receive what is due for what he has done in the body, whether good or evil, 2 Cor 5:10.

Dene Ward

            I was born and raised a city girl.  We never had a mouse in our house.  Cartoons like “Tom and Jerry” and “Pixie and Dixie” seemed like fairy tales to me.  Then we moved to a farming community in Illinois.  Our house sat on the last street on the edge of the small town, right next to a cornfield.  One morning in September I got up to find that our dog had had a playmate all night long—one who was much the worse for wear, and who, unfortunately, had brought several friends in with him. 

            One of the farm wives in the church told us to stuff steel wool beside every pipe coming up through the floor--the kitchen sink, bathroom lavatory, hot water heater, washer, etc.  Pipes are the main highway for mice entering a home, and steel wool is the only flexible thing they cannot chew through.  I bought the small town out of steel wool and frantically stuffed it all down those offending holes.  Our mouse problem suddenly improved.  Once in awhile in the years that followed we had an interloper, but he was usually a lone pioneer in what we tried to make a hostile frontier.

            How much sense would it have made, though, for me to say, “Steel wool won’t take care of them all, so why bother?”  About as much sense as it would to say, “A criminal can always find a way into your home if he wants to, so why bother locking the door?”  There are some occasions where the word “stupid” legitimately applies.

            So why do I hear my brethren constantly harping on the inevitability of sin?  “We will all sin sooner or later no matter how hard we try.”  When I ask why, I hear, Let him who stands take he lest he fall, (1 Cor 10:12).  Translation:  the minute you start thinking you can overcome, you have become proud and before you know it, you will be down the tubes!  Surely there is a difference in recognizing, “With the help of my Savior, I can overcome,” and spouting, “I’m such a strong Christian I’d never do anything like that!”  Whatever happened to I can do all things through him who strengthens me?  Sometimes it sounds like we think that Divine help is at best, anemic, and at worst, impotent.  Or is it just that we don’t believe what we say?

.           Why can’t I use the fact that I overcame one temptation as an encouragement to overcome some more?  Are we denying that God expects us to grow and get stronger every day?  None of us would allow our children to play for a team whose coach told them they could never win, that even if they managed a win, they would lose sooner or later.  Yet we are so afraid of sounding like we believe in that Calvinistic notion of “once saved always saved,” that we openly discourage one another and wear it as a mark of soundness. 

            Paul was ever mindful of his status as a sinner, “the chiefest” in fact.  But he was not afraid to tell the Corinthians about his successes.  “I set an example for you by foregoing my rights for the sake of my brother’s soul.  Now do what I did,” (the context of 1 Corinthians chapters 8-10, concluding with 11:1).  He did not mean it as a boast, but someone surely could have taken it that way.  And when his life was over he said, I have fought the good fight, I have finished the course, I have kept the faith.  Henceforth there is a crown of righteousness waiting for me, 2 Tim 4:7,8.  Was he bragging?  Of course not.  It was a declaration of hope for a job well done.  Let’s not stand on the sidelines just waiting to jump on a brother and accuse him of a lack of humility when he sees his own progress and is encouraged by it, daring to say, “With the Lord’s help, I can win.”

            Instead, let’s stand with the apostles and their view of things. 

            For the death that he died he died unto sin once, but the life that he lives, he lives unto God.  Even so, reckon also yourselves to be dead unto sin, but alive unto God in Christ Jesus.  Let not sin reign in your mortal bodies that you should obey the lusts thereof, neither present your members as instruments of unrighteousness, but present yourselves unto God as alive from the dead and your members as instruments of righteousness unto God, Rom 6:11-13.

            There has no temptation taken you but such as man can bear, but God is faithful, who will not let you be tempted above what you are able, but will with the temptation make also the way of escape that you may be able to endure it, 1 Cor 10:13.

            Stand therefore, having girded your loins with truth, and having put on the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet with the preparation of the gospel of peace, and taking up the shield of faith with which you shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one, Eph 6:14-16. 

            The Lord knows how to deliver the godly out of temptation, 2 Pet 2:9.

            My little children, these things I write unto you that you may not sin, and if we sin, we have an Advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous, 1 John 2:1.

            Get out the steel wool.  Plug the holes where you can.  Don’t let the fact that a sin here and there may find its way into your life cause you to roll out the red carpet for every temptation that comes along.  Take advantage of the encouragement God meant you to have and don’t give up the battle before you even start fighting.

Dene Ward

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

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

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

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

Paul said a few other things about Christ’s death and resurrection in Romans 6: Or are you ignorant that all we who were baptized into Christ Jesus were baptized into his death?   We were buried therefore with him through baptism unto death: that like as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, so we also might walk in newness of life. For if we have become united with him in the likeness of his death, we shall be also in the likeness of his resurrection; knowing this, that our old man was crucified with him, that the body of sin might be done away, that so we should no longer be in bondage to sin; for he who has died is justified from sin. But if we died with Christ, we believe that we shall also live with him, Rom 6:3-8.

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

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

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

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

Dene Ward

At the end of the garden season, I dry out my hot chili peppers and make chili powder.  I have found a good formula, one part chili pepper, two parts ground cumin, one part dried oregano, and two parts garlic powder.  The first few times I made it, I used a blend of Anaheim and cayenne peppers.  Last year Keith shopped for the chili pepper plants and came home with habaneros.  If you know anything about the Scoville heat scale, you know that cayennes, while not at the mild end of the scale, are a couple hundred thousand units removed from habaneros which sit at the hottest end.

To make chili powder, you must first dry the chili peppers, then remove the stems and grind them up.  A lot of the heat is in the seeds, so I, being a wimp when it comes to hot peppers, shook out the loose seeds as well—habaneros are hot enough as is.  I had enough sense to wear latex gloves while handling these babies, but that is where good sense stopped.  When I took the lid off the grinder to see if any pieces remained intact, the cloud of chili powder, totally invisible to the naked eye, rose up into my face.  How did I know?  My nose started running, my lips started burning, and I sneezed nearly a dozen times.  I had pepper-maced myself.  I am so very glad I had reading glasses on.  I do not know what might have happened to these poor eyes!  I know people who don’t even use gloves to work with hot peppers, but next time I will reach for a gas mask!

Sin and conscience work the same way.  Especially nowadays when sophistication is judged by how little one allows sinful behavior to shock him, we have a tendency to think we can sin indiscriminately and feel just fine about ourselves afterwards.  What was it Paul said about the idolatrous pagans?  For when Gentiles who do not have the law, by nature do what the law requires, they are a law to themselves even though they do not have the law.  They show that the law of God is written on their hearts, while their conscience also bears witness, and their conflicting thoughts either accuse or even excuse themselves, Rom 2:14,15.  You can’t get away from your conscience no matter how sophisticated you think you are.

The scriptures are littered with people who suffered pangs of conscience.  Adam and Eve hid themselves after they had sinned.  The brothers of Joseph twice confessed their sin against their brother, attributing all the bad things that happened in Egypt with the hostile “Egyptian” ruler as their just recompense.  Pharaoh, of all people, said to Moses and Aaron, This time I have sinned.  The Lord is in the right, and I and my people are in the wrong, Ex 9:27.   David sinned more than the once we often focus on.  His “heart smote him” after he numbered the people in 2 Sam 24 and his psalms of repentance after the sin against Bathsheba and Uriah abound with overwhelming guilt. 

Herod was so wrought with guilt after killing John that he thought Jesus was John coming back from the dead.  Peter’s denial caused him to “weep bitterly,” while Judas’s betrayal led to suicide.  Even Paul, a man who surely knew he was forgiven, called himself “the chiefest of sinners” to the end of his life.

And we think we can get away with sin and have it not affect us?  Guilt is like that burning chili pepper cloud.  You can’t see it, but your conscience will still feel its effects, and if you don’t deal with it, you will lead a miserable life--at least until you burn that conscience out as if you had “branded it with a hot iron,” 1 Tim 4:2.

Do you know how to get rid of the pain of burning chili peppers?  Dairy products.  If you forget your gloves and those oils get under your nails or in a nick or cut, soak your hands in milk.  That is also why there is usually a dollop of sour cream on most Mexican dishes. 

Do you know how to get rid of the pain of a burning conscience?  Soak it in the blood of Christ.  It works wonders.

For if the blood of goats and bulls and the ashes of a heifer sprinkling them that have been defiled sanctify unto the cleanness of the flesh, how much more shall the blood of Christ who through the eternal Spirit offered himself without blemish unto God, cleanse your conscience from dead works to serve the living God?  Heb 9:13,14.

Dene Ward

            Doesn’t it seem to you that we are hearing less of those alien abduction stories these days?  I enjoy science fiction, especially Orson Scott Card, The X-Files, and Star Trek in all its various forms, but the fact that these kidnapping tales no longer seem to be en vogue, goes a long way to proving that they are more fiction than science.  I always wondered about those alien abductors anyway.  They seem to practice some sort of “catch and release” program.  Is it because they are concerned with the ecology of Homo sapiens on the planet Terra, or are they just having trouble finding a specimen worth keeping?  Maybe we no longer hear these stories because they have just given up on us.

            What about you?  What about me?  Would we be a good catch for some E.T.’s fishing expedition?  What sort of bait would it take?  Seems to me that the cheaper and more primitive the bait, the dumber the fish.  This space traveler would want a fish so smart he would really have to work at it to catch him, wouldn’t he?  He would want a healthy specimen with no diseases or rare abnormalities.  Maybe that’s why they stay away from me. 

            We could go all sorts of directions with this analogy.  For example, what sort of bait does it take for Satan to snare you—a cheap, obviously rubber worm, or an expensive, artfully made lure for a really smart fish? 

            But there is another application I find a lot scarier and more motivating.  Does God have a “catch and release” program?  I think so, though not like that of the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.  Size doesn’t matter to God, nor does health, wealth, status, or any other physical or economic characteristic.  But if we start flip-flopping in God’s hands, desperately trying to get back into the waters of sin, he will let us go.  Yes, we have the promise, no one is able to snatch them out of the Father’s hand, John 10:29, but that does not preclude God opening his hand so we can walk right out of it if we so choose.  Too many scriptures talk about falling away for me to think I have no choice in the matter.

            So my prayer every day is that God will be patient with me as a child who sometimes rebels against his parents’ rules simply because he does not have the experience and wisdom to see the big picture; that he will chasten my flip-flopping until I finally submit to Him who knows what is best; and that He will never throw me back.  Even Jesus used as an analogy for conversion “fishing for men.”  I don’t want to be “the one that got away.”

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world.  If any one loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.  For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh and the lust of the eyes and the vainglory of life, is not of the Father but of the world.  And the world passes away and the lusts thereof, but he who does the will of God abides forever, 1 John 2:15-17.

Dene Ward