2018 Newsletter archives

January
Loving My Friend by Cynthia Saladin
Will It Take a War? Christians in Winter, Part 5 by Diane Kleeschulte
Domino Effect by Jeff Reagan, Editor, Patriot Health Alliance
Yes! There is Good News by Bill Rollins

February
Yes! There is Good News by Bill Rollins
An Old Enemy by Patricia Manning
Whack-a-Mole by Cynthia Saladin

March
No Distractions by Cynthia Saladin
Yes! There is Good News (Part 3) by Bill Rollins
What is the Opposite of Love (Part 1) by Bill Rollins

April
What is the Opposite of Love (Part 2) by Bill Rollins
One Poking Daffodil by Dan L. White
Preparing for Passover by Cynthia Saladin

May
What is the Opposite of Love (Part 3) by Bill Rollins
Barnacles and Suckers by Jim O'Brien
Creatures of Habit by Cynthia Saladin

June
What is the Opposite of Love (Part 4) by Bill Rollins
For Your Good by Cynthia Saladin
An Honest Day's Work (www.sermoncentral.com)

July
There is Good News (Part 4) by Bill Rollins
Can a Man Mock God? by Jim O'Brien
American Minute by William Federer
Fourth of July: Independence Day by Cynthia Saladin

August
Yes, There is Good News (Part 5) by Bill Rollins
Put It Somewhere Safe by Cynthia Saladin

September
Pleasing the Master by Cynthia Saladin
A Visit from the Pastor from cybersalt.org
Yes, There is Good News (Part 6) by Bill Rollins

October
Tabernacling by Cynthia Saladin
Yes, There is Good News (Part 7) by Bill Rollins

November
The Power of Reason by Jim O'Brien
Yes, There is Good News (Part 8) by Bill Rollins
Getting Back to Normal by Cynthia Saladin

December
The End of the Matter by Cynthia Saladin
Yes, There is Good News (Part 9) by Bill Rollins

January 2018

Loving My Friend
by Cynthia Saladin
   Do you ever have a hard time figuring out exactly what loving someone else should look like? Perhaps it’s just me. Oh, like most people, I have little trouble loving people I like. Or do I? Our society has promoted an image of what love should look like and act like . . . and in many cases, it has little resemblance to the love of God.
   1 Corinthians gives us a great definition of love: patient, kind, long-suffering, forgiving, etc.. For those people I love, this is not a problem . . . for the most part. I’m not perfect, but I am more than willing to go the extra mile for them, sacrificing for their well-being. But I’m talking about the true, deep love which is willing to risk the friendship for their well-being.
   Is it love to allow someone to continue in harmful behavior without saying anything? If your child is about to touch a hot stove, is it love to let him touch it? Of course not. You don’t want him to suffer pain needlessly. So you scold him. Or maybe you administer a swat, just to get his attention, so he learns to listen to and obey you. Suppose your child is learning to cook in the kitchen. If he is learning to cook doughnuts in a deep fryer, are you going to tell him that hot oil and water don’t mix? Or do you figure it’s more loving to let him experience exploding hot oil, leaving blisters all over his face and hands? Suppose your teen is learning to drive. Do you give him advice? Or do you figure that experience is the best teacher - even if it means he loses an arm or a leg in a serious accident because you didn’t tell him something that could have prevented the tragedy? All of these situations seem ludicrous! Of course, we’re going to do what we can to help our children avoid unnecessary pain.
   But that doesn’t mean that consequences are suspended. If our child breaks the rules, he needs to know that the consequences are not negotiable. That is, if you tell your kid that he has to be home by midnight or he will be grounded, you can’t tell him to “do better next time” when he misses curfew for no good reason!
   So if God teaches us how to love our children with godly love and wisdom, why do we have such trouble loving other people? Why do we hesitate to lovingly point out where a behavior is ungodly and will cause pain needlessly? Or is it just me?
   I know that part of the problem is that I don’t like conflict. I don’t like making people unhappy with me. But am I really loving my friend if I say nothing? In the short term, our relationship may appear to be good. But if I believe she is engaging in behavior that is ungodly and displeasing to the Father, then my first loyalty is to God. And I must make a choice. I can’t participate in ungodly behavior because then my relationship with God is impaired. But if I don’t participate with her, then my relationship with that friend will grow more distant. It’s so very hard to be courageous enough to speak up when it’s not popular, but if I wish to have healthy and mutually beneficial friendship long-term, what choice do I have?
   Genuine love for my friend means speaking the truth in love, even when she doesn’t want to hear it. I may offend my friend, and, in the short term, it may look like I’ve lost her. But if she truly loves God, I will have gained a closer friend in the end . . . because I have pursued loving her with God’s love.

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Think about It:

Why do psychics have to ask you for your name?

Do Lipton Tea employees take coffee breaks?

What hair color do they put on the driver's licenses of bald men?

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Will It Take a War? Christians in Winter, Part 5
By Diane Kleeschulte

There is a way that seems right to a man, but its end is the way of death. (Proverbs 14:12)
   Is this a familiar scripture for you? When we as Christians forsake the way of the Lord, calamity will follow, and that calamity is of our own making, or undoing, as the case may be. This is the premise of the next installment of Ronald L. Dart’s Born to Win radio program’s series, Christians in Winter- Will It Take a War?
   Where in the world are we? How did we get here? What comes next? Faced with these questions about 10 years ago, I would guess, Mr. Dart turns to two places for answers - history and the Bible. He explains that history has a tendency to repeat itself: economic boom, then bust; hard times, and, too often, war; generally, he says, these cycles run in 60 year cycles. The answer to the first question could lie in where we are economically. Are we experiencing extremes of wealth and poverty? Will it take a war to relieve us of these economic woes, as happened in December 1941 when the Japanese bombed Pearl Harbor?
   But how did we get to a place like this? And what in the world comes next? To answer these two questions, Mr. Dart turns to the Bible, specifically Deuteronomy 28. This is a chapter of great contrasts, of blessings and cursings. But if you understand the conditional statements of the first two verses it should also be a chapter of instruction. God gives clear instruction that if we are obedient and follow His ways, we will reap blessings. If we choose to walk in our own way, there will be cursings. This is where Mr. Dart is his best as he points out that where we are today can be traced back to choices we have made as a nation over a period of time. Now that we know where we are and how we got here, though, what comes next?
   Again, as Mr. Dart explains, what comes next depends on us and the choices we make. Human nature does not change but how we react when we are faced with hard times can change our circumstances. Two things that tend to change people are hard times and war. Since we’ve experienced hard times, will it really take a war for us to turn to God, or to turn back to Him? Will it really take a war to bring us to our knees in repentance and live according to His standards?
   You will not want to miss how Mr. Dart brings to our attention Zephaniah’s prophecy and the reign of Josiah, the contrast of Iran and how it came to power in 1979 with Hitler’s rule in 1930’s Germany and England, and the role and responsibility of a Christian in hard times. This is a very powerful 28-minute message that you will want to hear and remember for whatever hard times you may be experiencing personally, or to draw on a clearer understanding of how we should respond as Christians during a national or world calamity.
   Born to Win can be heard at 8AM each Sunday morning on 1010 KXEN AM or 104.5 FM, simulcast.
Extend Your Learning - Good companion chapters to read are Deut 28 and Proverbs 3. For background understanding on Josiah, read 2 Kings 22 and Zephaniah. For a contrast scripture to Proverbs 14:12 at the opening of this article, I recommend to you Proverbs 3:5-7: Trust in the LORD with all your heart and do not lean on your own understanding. In all your ways acknowledge him, and he will make straight your paths. Be not wise in your own eyes; fear the LORD, and turn away from evil.

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Domino Effect
   When my grandpa and his friends would get together, they’d often play dominos. To this day, I’ve never played with dominos as they’re intended. Or, at least not like my grandpa did. But I would sometimes set up elaborate patterns of dominos and watch as I knocked over one - and dozens would fall in turn. We’ve all heard of a “domino effect.” One action causes another. You can use this same principle in your life. Focus on a small “win” each morning, and your day will inevitably get started on the right foot. And with one victory often comes another.
   I thought of this when I first saw Admiral William H. McRaven’s speech at commencement for UT Austin (it gets talked about a lot down here). The way he was taught to start the dominos falling each day was by doing something simple . . . by making his bed. I’ll turn it over to Admiral McRaven here:
   “Every morning in basic SEAL training, my instructors, who at the time were all Vietnam war veterans, would show up in my barracks room, and the first thing they would inspect was your bed. If you did it right, the corners would be square, the covers pulled tight, the pillow centered just under the headboard, and the extra blanket folded neatly at the foot of the rack. It was a simple task, mundane at best. But every morning we were required to make our bed to perfection. It seemed a little ridiculous at the time, particularly in light of the fact that we were aspiring to be real warriors, tough battle-hardened SEALs, but the wisdom of this simple act has been proven to me many times over.
   If you make your bed every morning, you will have accomplished the first task of the day. It will give you a small sense of pride and it will encourage you to do another task and another and another. By the end of the day, that one task completed will have turned into many tasks completed. Making your bed will also reinforce the fact that little things in life matter.
   If you can’t do the little things right, you will never do the big things right. And, if by chance you have a miserable day, you will come home to a bed that is made - that you made - and a made bed gives you encouragement that tomorrow will be better. If you want to change the world, start off by making your bed.”
   Powerful stuff. What would change in your life if you started each day feeling like you’e accomplished something, within minutes of waking up? How will you “win small” tomorrow . . . so you start winning big the rest of the day? Something to think about as the weekend wraps up.
   God bless, Jeff Reagan, Editor, Patriot Health Alliance

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Bill Rollins does a weekly column in their local paper entitled “Yes, There is Good News!” We’re breaking into the middle of his series, but I thought you’d enjoy chewing on his thoughts. Enjoy! (BTW, if you like this, let me know; we can include it each month.)

Yes, There is Good News! - By Bill Rollins
       We have been talking (alright, so - I’ve been writing, you’ve been reading) about the topic of “righteousness.” It is a term that means “acting in an upright manner,” and being “faithful to another’s expectations so as to form a good relationship.”
       On the one hand, God is perfect in righteousness and is always faithful to fulfill whatever promises He has given to us. (In other words, He is faithful to fulfill our expectations.) The problem here is, as I see it, can we be righteous so as to fulfill what God expects of us?
Perhaps we should look at a couple of scriptures. In Matthew 5:20, Jesus says,“For I tell you, that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the pharisees and the scribes, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of Heaven.” But hey, we all know that the pharisees and scribes were self righteous, and Jesus was always berating them for their hypocrisy. (“Woe to you scribes and pharisees, you hypocrites ...” See Matt 23:13, 15, 16, 23, 25, 27 and 29.) So let’s examine ourselves, and check our own hypocrites. Perhaps in that respect, we just might be better than the pharisees.
   But in Matthew 5:48, Jesus says, “Be perfect, therefore, as your Heavenly Father is perfect.” UH-OH! Really? Are we to be perfect as God is perfect? I think I can speak for all of us in saying that this is way too tall an order. What’s a believer to do?
   Well, herein lies our first true view of what we’ve been striving to see, this is our introduction to the “good news!” Because there is no way for us to attain this perfection, as God is perfect. There is no way for us to try and put any of our righteousness up against God’s righteousness. We lose every time, and we lose in a huge way. In Isaiah 64:06, it says, “ All of us have become like one who is unclean, and all our righteous acts are like filthy rags.” Indeed, we have no way, in and of ourselves, to stand in the presence of God. We need a redeemer.
   What does it mean to redeem? We may take our pop cans, for which we paid a nickel, back to the grocery store to have them redeemed. The store will buy them back. They redeem them. So, redeemed is to buy back. Our lives, wrapped up in sin, are like the empty pop cans. They are not worth anything until they are redeemed! And where do we find redemption? Ephesians 1:07, “In Him, (Jesus Christ) we have redemption through his blood; the forgiveness of sins, in accordance with the riches of God’s grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.” Can I get an Amen?! But wait, there’s more …

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Grammar Police: Just here to ensure proper sentencing.

February

Yes, There is Good News!
- By Bill Rollins

In the last article, the word we were looking at was “righteousness,” which we saw was a relationship word and then ended the article by realizing the only way to a relationship with God was through “redemption” and that this redemption can only come by way of the Son of God. Ephesians 1:07, told us that we have “redemption through His blood.” I must emphasis, at this point, that the only way we can find this redemption is by the blood of Jesus Christ. In the book of Acts, chapter 4, verse 12, we read, “Salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under Heaven given to men by which we must be saved.”

And of course that name is Jesus Christ; I believe we understand this.

But just in case there are some questions about this, let me add a few thoughts. I have heard some say, “We all serve the same God, some just call him by different names.” This scripture in Acts 4:12 should dissolve that idea, for there is only one name! Another comment that I have heard before is that Jesus was just a good teacher. “He was a prophet of God. But so was Buddha, or Vishnu, or Mohamed.” This comment can only come from someone who has never read the Bible. Indeed, they have never even read the gospels concerning Jesus Christ.
Logically, if one reads the gospels, there are only two conclusions that can be drawn from them about Jesus: First, He was who the gospels said He was, (See Matthew 1:22, the virgin will be with child, will give birth, and His name will be Emanuel, that is “God with us.” Also, Matthew 16: 15-17, Jesus is the Messiah, the Son of the living God, and Matthew 17:5, the voice came out of the cloud, “This is my Son, whom I love ... ; Or, the second conclusion would be that Jesus was just a man but was quite insane (See Jesus’ conversation with Pilot just before His crucification in John 18:36, “My kingdom is not of this world.” See also in Luke 22:67 when speaking of himself, he said “The Son of man will be seated at the right hand of the mighty God.”).

We could go on, but I think you get the point. If ones wants to reject the Bible, they do so at their own peril. But you cannot combine the sayings of the Bible and especially the statements of Jesus made about himself with any other religious material. Logic will not allow it.

So, what am I saying? It’s just Jesus alone. There is no other who can bring us the “good news.”

To be continued ... stay tuned!

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An Old Enemy
by Patricia Manning

Recently at Winter Family Weekend, we heard a talk or two about the military nature of our fight against evil. The bible is indeed full of fighting references like “Resist the devil and he will flee from you” or “Put on the full armor or God.” As the Geigers put it, through our relationship with God we have the power, by prayer, to call in an airstrike. Someone else put it this way, “Ninety-eight percent of all people are sheep, one percent are wolves, and just one percent are the protective sheep dogs (that’s us).”
Before we can fight though, we need to know our allies and know our enemies. Hezekiah made this mistake. He thought Merodach-baladan, the king of Babylon, was his friend. Thus he showed the envoys of the one who would become his enemy all the treasuries in Jerusalem (Isa 39:1-2), and thereby drew criticism from God.

Working toward identification then, may I suggest that our oldest enemy is death. It was the first to arrive, “but of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil you shall not eat, for in the day that you eat of it you shall surely die” Gen 2:17. It will be the last to be vanquished by God, “The last enemy to be destroyed is death” 1Co 15:26. Here in the middle, between its creation and destruction, we know that the first death is a losing battle. Despite our best efforts we will weaken and die unless Christ returns first. Death surrounds us. This fall we had a family member who died. Friends have died. Brethren have died.

Death has two deadly captains in its vanguard though. One, named fear, walks on its right hand and the other, called distraction, walks on its left. Herein lies our fight. Jesus instructed us not to fear the first death, “And do not fear those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul” Mat 10:28. Maybe this is because fear is the antithesis of love. “There is no fear in love, but perfect love casts out fear” 1Jn 4:18. Also fear can keep us out of God’s Kingdom, “But as for the cowardly, the faithless, the detestable…their portion will be in the lake that burns with fire and sulfur, which is the second death” Rev 21:8.

Secondarily, through fear, we are distracted from redeeming the time we have, and opening the eyes of our heart. We all are given just a few short years to come to know God and His laws. Indeed, God calls death the covering that is cast over all people, “And he will swallow up on this mountain the covering that is cast over all peoples, the veil that is spread over all nations” Isa 25:7-8. When I read this I think of a heavy shroud preventing our freedom. I also am reminded of the veil that was torn in two at the advent of Jesus’ death.

What a blessing that we can look to our heavenly Father for the solution to death. When God rules, sickness will be gone “… For the LORD is our judge; the LORD is our lawgiver; the LORD is our king; he will save us. …And no inhabitant will say, ‘I am sick’; the people who dwell there will be forgiven their iniquity.” Isa 33:20. Death will be gone, swallowed up by life. “And … on this mountain … He will swallow up death forever; and the Lord GOD will wipe away tears from all faces, and the reproach of his people he will take away from all the earth, for the LORD has spoken” Isa 25:7-8. God will vanquish this old enemy on our behalf, and in His promise, we find the weapons we need to fight our enemies of fear and distraction.

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Whack-a-Mole
by Cynthia Saladin

Have you ever played “Whack-a-mole?” It’s a game where you whack a mole on the head whenever it pops up. In the beginning stages, the moles pop up slowly. Gradually the pace increases and tests your skill of detecting and whacking popped-up moles. I looked up “whack-a-mole” on Wikipedia. Here’s the definition: “Whack-a-mole” is used colloquially to denote a repetitious and futile task: each time an adversary is “whacked," it only pops up again somewhere else. I can imagine starting out at a reasonable pace, leisurely whacking the pesky, persistent moles with a smile on your face as if to say, “Is this all you’ve got?” About that time, the pace starts to accelerate. This might require you to use both hands, and to put both feet solidly on the floor, and to quit listening to the tv. It’s a challenge, but it’s still fun because you’re still keeping up. But almost imperceptibly the pace continues to increase. Those moles are undaunted and if you take your attention away for just a second, you’re behind the curve and trying to play catch up. Then, hair wild and eyes wide, you whack at a frenetic pace, closely resembling a cartoonish wheel of dust, out of which sparks fly along with the occasional fist and hammer and mole.

I have a pretty good imagination, but maybe it’s because that’s how my life feels lately. I was thinking today of the phrase, “I’m so busy I’m meeting myself coming and going.” Today’s to-do list is going to take me until Thursday next month to get it all done. There’s negotiating the contract for the feasts and making feast plans; homeschooling - teaching three different grades simultaneously; participating in 4H meetings and field trips, teaching projects and attending others; planning a graduation ceremony (invitations, programming, photos, music); doing taxes; reviewing house and car insurance; putting out a church newsletter; making plans for a garden (read: getting a seed order ready); looking for a good deal on a car for youngster going off to college this fall; scholarship applications and essays; preparing a seminar (and gifts) for the women’s retreat; bookkeeping for personal and church accounts; and then there’s the normal: laundry, meals, dishes, cleaning house, paying bills, collecting firewood. I think you could say I’m meeting myself coming and going these days.

What happens when you’re so busy you don’t know whether you’re coming or going? I’ve noticed several things: 1) You make more mistakes because you’re distracted by all of the mental activity. And I don’t care what anyone says; no one multi-tasks well for long periods of time. 2) You take short cuts. There’s not enough time to do everything well, so you start doing what you have to do just to be good enough. 3) You sacrifice taking care of yourself like you should. You don’t take the time to make nutritious meals, grabbing whatever is handy. You don’t watch your fluid intake, or worse, you drink too much caffeine to keep you going. You don’t get enough sleep. And tests show that you are as impaired when sleep-deprived as when intoxicated from alcohol. You don’t feel well. You’re not at the top of your game. Long term, you’re ruining your health. 4) You let slide the tasks which aren’t screaming at you for completion. And yes, you’re right. Prayer time and Bible study are among those tasks which seem less urgent. Once you’re on that path of short-changing your relationship with God, everything starts to spiral out of control.

There has to be a happy medium, a healthy balance. We can’t completely check out from being a responsible adult, actively serving God. What a huge insult to God to tell people we are bored! There are too many things to do, valuable things to do, interesting thing to do, profitable things to do - to ever say that you’re bored. And yet, the other end of the spectrum is not God-honoring either! You can’t be so busy that you can’t do any of your tasks well, and worse, you have so many things to do that you neglect the relationship with God. I can’t help thinking about Jesus withdrawing to a quiet place to pray. There were always demands on His time, people wanting His attention. But you never read that Jesus hurried. Rather, He kept His eyes on His goal. His mission was from the Father and He stayed in close communication so that He never got side-tracked from what was important and necessary and Godly.

Do you remember watching those cartoons where someone gets into a fight and pretty soon all you can see is the dust wheel with arms and legs and fists flying in the ball of mess? Do you remember that sometimes one of the participants would simply step out of the dust mess and would lean nonchalantly against the wall while the other continued to punch and kick and wear himself out doing nothing? I couldn’t help thinking of that as I was envisioning the dust mess in my whack-a-mole game. What if, in becoming so intent on whacking that you don’t know whether you’re coming or going - or even if there are moles being whacked.

I’m whacking a lot of moles these days. But there’s still time in every day for prayer and Bible study. And yet, my desire is for more things of God and less of the time-wasters and unimportant. Discerning the value of tasks, balancing everything, whacking only the moles which really need it ☺︎, that’s the goal. How’s your mole whacking going?

March
No Distractions
by Cynthia Saladin

Pepper loves running ahead of me when we’re walking. Unlike my labs, who go exploring without a backwards glance, Pepper often stops to make sure I’m still coming. Oftentimes he’ll go check out a particularly delicious smell and then coming almost all the way back to me, as if to say, “Why are you walking so slowly?”

One day this last week, he was a good way down the hill into our lower pasture, so I stopped and crouched down. Velvet (on the leash) was delighted that I was down where she could wash my face. She trotted back almost immediately. Pepper glanced back, saw that I was crouching, saw that Velvet (with giant tail plumes waving) was coming to me, and immediately started for me. His ears went back flat against his head and he was running flat out. That made it all the more hilarious when suddenly, almost as if a string had caught his nose and pulled him off the path, he turned at almost a 90º angle to his original route. The pull of his nose was not as quickly communicated to his legs, however. As he made the turn, his ears went up, his nose went down to the ground and he cast about trying to pick up whatever that delicious smell was. It had to be something pretty enticing because his distraction was immediate!

I knew it was going to take a little while for him to find what it was that distracted him, so I resumed my walk. But I couldn’t help thinking about our walk with Jesus Christ. We have every determination to keep our eyes on our Master. We have singleness of heart and mind. We have great intentions . . . until something enticing catches our nose, our eye, or our attention. How quickly we are diverted from that direct route towards Jesus!!

Seriously! We are walking down the road of life and something unexpected crosses our path - a health issue, a problem with our job, a bad choice by a family member - and suddenly our thoughts and energies are focused on that problem. Oh, we have to give the problem our attention, but we should always keep our eyes on Jesus. Remember the line in “What a Friend We Have in Jesus?” Oh what peace we often forfeit. Oh what needless pain we bear! All because we do not carry, everything to God in prayer.

Daniel was thrown into the lions’ den. But he kept his eyes on God. He trusted God regardless of what his situation looked like.

Joseph was taken captive to Egypt, thrown into prison, falsely accused - many, many years later he credited God with working all things together for good.

We could cite so many examples of God’s hand guiding, protecting, and providing for His people. We know God is good all the time - even when we don’t see what He’s doing. We trust Him.

Or at least I’m supposed to be trusting Him. I’m supposed to have already learned that lesson. So why is it that these are the thoughts that are running through my mind, convicting me, as I’m walking my dogs? Perhaps God knows that I am not quite there yet. So then He throws in the pièce de résistance. Do you know what the delectable smell was that so effectively pulled Pepper off his path to me? Coyote poop. Yep. Poop. How many things distract me completely from being at peace walking with my Master - and turn out to be dung? Just poop? Far too many, I’m afraid. They just turn out to be not even worthy of further consideration. But they sure managed to get my attention and take it off my Master in short order!

Maybe I’m just a slow learner. At some point in the near future, I’d like to be able to tell you that I am no longer distracted from the Master by what amounts to poop.

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What is the Opposite of Love? PART 1
by Bill Rollins

Some time ago I was given an article on neuro-plasticity and how science has determined that we, humans, can change the way we think and thereby act. I remember putting this together with Paul’s admonition in Romans 12:2, “Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind”. The renewing of our minds is possible – but how do we go about it? Ah! Paul gives us the answer in Philippians 4:8 as he gives us eight concepts to think upon.

At that time I developed this idea into a message and delivered it at several venues, i.e. church services and festivals. I felt that this understanding was given to me by the hand of God. And indeed it was well received with ensuing discussion.

More recently within our local congregation, I began looking into this same subject with a series of bible studies, keeping in mind the thought that Paul did not write this admonition to the church in Rome and then expect them to send a delegation to Philippi so as to read their letter and find out how to renew their minds. Paul must have given the Romans the answer within their letter. And it must have been located somewhat shortly after this admonition in Romans 12:2. Let’s take a look at this possibility.

“Therefore I urge you, brothers, in view of God’s mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and well pleasing to God – this is your rational act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this age, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and discern what God’s will is – His good, acceptable and perfect will.” (Rom. 12:1-2)

Does this process of renewal have anything to do with our “offering our bodies as living sacrifices”? The short and obvious answer is, yes! For what shall we say, “Do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit … you are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.” (1 Cor. 6:19-20) Whatever God requires of us is His right; for when we entered into covenant with Him, we gave our lives over to Him.

But it has been my experience that being a “living sacrifice” to Him is not an easy concept to grasp, never mind an easy activity to put into practice each and every day. Paul elsewhere says, “I die daily.” Here he proclaims that he means what he says and puts it into practice. We must understand that Paul either had renewed his mind or was well along the way to doing so.

OK! Let’s set this daily “living sacrifice” aside for the moment (we shall come back to it) and move on to some of the other things Paul tells us to do in Romans 12. Verse 3, “For by the grace given me I say to everyone of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgement in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.”
Oh my! It is such a human, fleshly and “old manish” thing to do, to consider oneself better than others. We seem to always want to put ourselves first. Knowing this, Paul goes so far as to reiterate it in verse 10, “Honor one another above yourselves”. And then again in verse 16, Paul says “… Do not be proud, but be willing to associate with people of low position.” Do you want to renew your mind? This is a good place to start!

At this point Paul starts talking about the body with many members, each having a different function. He says, “Just as
each of us has one body with many members, and these members do not all have the same function, so in Christ we who are many form one body, and each member belongs to all the others. We have different gifts according to the grace given us.”

(Verses 4-6) The word translated “gifts” here would better be translated as “graces”. It is the Greek word, “charisma”. It is the same word Peter uses in 1Peter 4:10, “Each should use whatever grace he has received to serve others …” The word “grace” is indeed a gift, but the nuance is that one receives it without any merit of his own. And the other concept here is that “each” of us has received a grace/gift. In other words, when God calls His children, He gives each one a grace/gift, or it may be that He takes a look at us, sees what we have been born into and thereby raised with the aptitude of a certain personality and so calls us accordingly – we all must then take a look at Paul’s list of graces and see just what God has given to us or seen in us. Let us not lose sight of the fact that we are striving to understand how we might renew our minds. Understanding these gifts and where we fit into them will play a part of our renewal!

Let me briefly say that these graces or gifts listed here in Romans 12, are sometimes called motivational gifts as opposed to the gifts listed in 1 Corinthians 12 (manifestation gifts) and Ephesians 4 (ministry gifts). If you are interested in learning more about this, please see the book by Don and Katie Fortune entitled Discover Your God Given Gifts. Don and Katie explain that we all have motivational gifts and they help us discover which gift is tops in our individual personalities and what other gifts we may have that complement this top gift.

For our purposes here, knowing which is our dominant gift, (prophesy, service, teaching, exhorting, giving, leading and compassion) will lead us to the greatest gift, which we all know and understand is love. The very next thing Paul tells us here in verse 9 is that “love must be sincere.” Our love must be honest, genuine and without pretension. We must consider these graces, these gifts from God and we must pursue them. But we must do so in love. We must apply them with love. We must prophesy in love, we must serve in love, we must teach in love, etc. “Let no debt remain outstanding, except the continuing debt to love one another, for he who loves his fellowman has fulfilled the law. … Love does no harm to its neighbor. Therefore love is the fulfillment of the law.” (Romans 13:8-10)

Some time ago an individual confessed to me that they did not feel they had a love for their brothers and sisters in the church. After some conversation and consideration it became obvious that this person, whose “top tier” gifts were leadership and service, loved others through these gifts. They were able to organize church services. They made sure there was a place in which to worship and that the room was clean and ready. Their observation was that they didn’t love like those who were compassionate or giving. But the reality here is that we must learn to love within the gift (or grace) with which God has endowed us.
(. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . To be continued next month.)

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Yes, There is Good News! (see January and February issues for two previous articles)
- By Bill Rollins

In the previous article, I mentioned there were only two conclusions one could logically come to concerning Jesus Christ. Either He was who He said He was, or He was insane. Incidentally, there were some who thought that Jesus was insane. In Mark 3:21, it says, “When His family heard about this, they went to take charge of Him, for they said “He is out of His mind.”And later in that same episode in Mark, the scribes said He was demon possessed.

Let me state right here that I believe Jesus was who He said He was. Near the end of the fourth Gospel, John tells us his reason for writing the book: John 20:31, “But these are written that you may believe that Jesus is the Christ, the Son of God, and that by believing, you may have life in His name.” Yes! That is my position, and I know that is the good news!

Okay, so we have this as good news, but is that the entirety of the good news that we are looking for? If you are like me, you like to ask questions. (Might I suggest that God, our Father, will never mind us asking Him questions. It is how we learn.) So, my question at this point might be, “Why did God Almighty create a universe wherein is a planet that is populated by beings that have a free moral agency to reject Him, and go after all manner of evil?”

I have a friend who likes to joke and say God just didn’t have enough problems in His life. But I believe that we know there is much more to it than that silly idea!

The reality, as I see it, is that when the Bible says, “God is love,” it implies that His whole being filled with this love needed a place to express it. It is in the first letter of John that it says, “God is love,” and that is an interesting statement. Note that he does not say God shows love, or that God produces love, or that God gives us love. It is quite specific, “God is love.” You and I have the ability to love on several different levels. The love we have for a spouse is different than the love we have for our children, and that love is different than the love we might have for a friend. And all of these loves come in different degrees. A married couple of 50 years has a much deeper love for each other than when they were first married, etc. But we are not “love.”

God alone may be called love. That is most difficult to get one’s mind around. Another example to consider concerning God’s love is from the book of Exodus. In chapters 33 and 34, Moses asked to see God’s glory. God told Moses that He would pass by and proclaim His name, but no one could see the face of God and live. Exodus 34:5 says. “The LORD came down in the cloud and stood there with him, and proclaimed His name ... “Yahoveh, Yahoveh the compassionate and gracious God, slow to anger, abounding in love and faithfulness, maintaining love to thousands ...” Our God is abounding in love and that is good news!
To be continued ... stay tuned!

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"God's primary objective is not to make our lives easy but to make our lives matter."- Unknown

April
WHAT IS THE OPPOSITE OF LOVE? PART 2
by Bill Rollins
Are you a living sacrifice? Are you renewing your mind? And are these two concepts related? In Romans 12:1, Paul urges us to do one thing (offer ourselves) and to do it in view of one other thing. “Urge” is a word that means “to beseech” and has the connotation of inviting to one’s side. Paul is beseeching us to walk beside him in this matter. And he wants us to do this “in view of God’s mercy”. Has he just shown us something of God’s mercy? Well, yes! In chapter 11:32 we read, “For God has bound all men over to disobedience so that He may have mercy on them all.” But it can be argued that chapters 9, 10 and 11 are an inset and so chapter 12 can follow chapter 8. OK …., “For I am convinced that neither death nor life, neither angels nor rulers, neither the present nor the future, nor any powers, neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.” God’s mercy is found at the end of chapter 8!!
And perhaps Paul here is talking about the entire letter; chapters 1 – 11. In any event, one thing we know for sure; God is merciful!! Would you agree? God is merciful. Paul then urges us to do something; “present your bodies as living sacrifices”. Earlier in this letter he says that we have been baptized into the death of Messiah. Shortly thereafter he tells us to reckon ourselves as dead (Rom. 6:4 & 11). And what was a sacrifice to be? Over and over in the Torah we see that it was to be “without blemish”. Paul tells us our living sacrifices are to be “holy and well pleasing to God”. And then we read that this is our “rational act of worship”. Yes, the word for “rational” is the Greek word “logicos” and we get the English word logical, thus rational, from that.
I’d like to have my worship of God to be logical and rational, wouldn’t you? And when we consider God and His ways, shouldn’t we make sure we are not conforming to the pattern of this age but that we should be transformed by the renewing of our minds?
OK, so we have made our way full circle to the start of Part 1 of this discussion, but what does all this have to do with the title, “What is the Opposite of Love?” I’m glad you asked!
Let us first take a look at love. It has been said that the most powerful force in the universe is love. I suppose that one might debate this point. But there are two scriptures in 1 John 4:8 &16 that state, “God is love”. And in my mind this would shift the balance of any debate concerning the power of love.
First a few facts about the word love: I believe we are all familiar with the Greek word “agape,” sometimes labeled as the highest form of love. The word “agape” is a noun and the related word, “agapeo” is the verb form. Together these two words are used in the New Testament some 258 times. In the five chapters of 1 John they are found 46 times and if we add to that John’s use of the words in his gospel we can add 47, plus the other two letters of John and the book of Revelation adds another 12 uses. So, of the 258 uses of these words, 105 (or about 40%) are found in John’s writings. May we conclude he placed much emphasis upon these words and leaned heavily upon them to get his message across?
We have already looked at Romans 13:8-10 which ends up letting us know that “Love is the fulfillment of the law.” Now that’s some power!
1 John 4:7-21; this whole passage needs to enter into our discussion here. I urge you to read it in its entirety. I will refer to parts of it. “Beloved, let us love one another, for love comes from God.” Might we see the renewing of our minds beginning to take place with the implementation of this directive?
“Everyone who loves has been born of God and knows God.” Do we understand that this statement is a word of fact? This isn’t a “maybe” or a “kind of” statement. John’s is a factual statement and implies the question, “Do you know God?”
John goes on to tell us that God’s love is manifest through His Son and that His love came a long time before our love. And so, “God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in him.” Are we beginning to start to see an answer to our title question? Let’s go a little further here: “In this way, love is made perfect among us (why?), so that we will have confidence on the day of judgement, because in this world we are like Him.”
Let’s go back in 1 John to see the antithesis of this love for God. In chapter 2:15 we read, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.” Please note that the word for “love” here is “agapeo” – so we see that John has not wandered from his use of this particular word. Going on in verse 16 we read, “for everything in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes and the vanity (or pride) of life – comes not from the Father but from the world.”
Some time ago, I asked a gathering of God’s children, what is the opposite of love? I basically received four answers: 1) hate – this word would probably appear in a dictionary as an antonym or in other words “an opposite” for obvious reasons; 2) apathy – this is an interesting thought because as someone said, both love and hate are emotions and show forth that an individual is at least alive. Apathy on the other hand shows a lack of human interest and fits in with Jesus statement in Rev. 3:16, “Because you are neither hot nor cold, but are lukewarm, I will spew you out of my mouth.” A person who is hateful may be persuaded to love. But a person who is apathetic has no hope; 3) pride or egotism – perhaps this would also be an obvious answer because of our venture into 1 John 2:15-16, especially the phrase, “the pride of life”; 4) fear – on this answer let me quote from 1 John 1:18, “Perfect love casts out fear”. These four answers are very good and might cause us to end our discussion here. But I find that there is, possibly, a fifth antonym of the word love and it lies in the idea of “idolatry”.
Let us look at this idea further next time.
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One hundred years ago everyone owned a horse and only the rich had cars.
Today, everyone has a car and only the rich have horses.
Oh, how the stables have turned.
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Homeschool Helpers Newsletter
Issue #364 - March 3, 2018

One Poking Daffodil   By Dan L. White
The end of winter is such an ugly time.
No denying it, no getting around it, no escaping the tedium of it.
The bright colors are long gone. There’s no green at all, except on a few evergreens sagging from the ice they have carried. The gray of the barren trees’ bark seamlessly melds into the gray of the sky, and it seems that the sky does stay gray, day after day after day. The grass is not gray, of course, but limp brown, which is but little better. Not a blooming flower is to be seen. The orange of the tabby cat stands out in the bleakness, but even he huddles miserably with damp, chilled paws tucked under his furry belly.
Winter has its place, with sledding parties and snowball fights. Winter’s end, though, is like a dirty old snow that has worn out its welcome. Perhaps the best thing about a tiresome winter is that it makes spring so lovely.
The four seasons are a direct parallel of life. I suppose the yearly cycle was deliberately planned that way, to help us learn a lesson.
And here is my lesson.
I am now in the winter of my life. My grass is limp, my bark is gray, and my flowers have stopped blooming.
In the other three seasons of life, we’re always looking forward to something in this life. What we look forward to changes with the season. In spring, we look forward to graduating or getting married. In summer, we anticipate building a family and a home place. In autumn, we are interested in getting our children up and out on their own.
Finally winter comes. But winter inevitably means the end of life.
What do I look forward to then?
The whole of humanity faces the same quandary. We are seeing that now. The human race is in the winter of its year. They don’t know it. They think they are near the apex of human accomplishment, with an endless flow of information, machines to take care of Adam’s brow, and freedom from Bible laws and inhibitions.
We can see what they can’t see. The iniquity of the Amorite is almost filled up.
Gen 15:12-16
12) When the sun was going down, a deep sleep fell on Abram. Now terror and great darkness fell on him.
13) He said to Abram, “Know for sure that your seed will live as foreigners in a land that is not theirs, and will serve them. They will afflict them four hundred years.
14) I will also judge that nation, whom they will serve. Afterward they will come out with great wealth,
15) but you will go to your fathers in peace. You will be buried in a good old age.
16) In the fourth generation they will come here again, for the iniquity of the Amorite is not yet full.”
Israel was stuck in Egypt for a long time, four centuries, just as long as America has lasted since the Pilgrims first came to these shores. I can trace my ancestors back in America – Roy, Tom, Archibald, Reuben, Joseph White – for only about half that time. Yet Israel lived in Egypt for four hundred years, spending many of those years in slavery, waiting for the time of the Amorite to be over. Finally, the iniquity of the Amorite and the tribes of Canaan was filled up and Israel took their place in the Promised Land.
We watch what is happening today in America and the affluent western world and we are stunned, stirred and stupefied. Everything is changing before our wide wondering eyes. We are losing what we have loved, where we have loved, and in many cases whom we have loved. We are living in the times of Sodom, where even the churches preach the Gaymorrah gospel.
This is the winter of the world. We don’t know how long this woeful winter lasts, but this is it.
So what do we look forward to now?
At some point, this situation takes away everything we looked forward to here. Everything. This cannot be quickly accepted, any more than the Jews in Europe could accept what the socialists were doing there, but that is the reality we now face. There is little to look forward to in the here and now.
And that is the same situation as an old man, like me, near the end of his life. I recall seeing an even older man in his upper 80’s making an impulse buy in a hardware store of a small LED flashlight. No big deal, everybody can use a flashlight, especially in the dark, but as I watched him do that, for some reason I was struck by it. My impression was -- ‘Why are you getting more stuff? You can barely walk. The time for stuff is past.’ And sure enough, he ran out of time before the batteries in that light did.
At this point, I am forced to look beyond my years, because I’m about out of years. In the same way, Christians are now forced to look beyond this world, because this world is about out of years. Everything we see happening now is just a harbinger of Har Meggido.
To look beyond this world is difficult for us to do. I want to plan for something here and now. I want to work on something concrete, to fix this, to build that. But I know now more than ever that all those plans pass out of season, like spring blossoms and like me. It’s so hard for us to accept that this world is not worth wanting. But I in my old age and Christians in this long-toothed world must now look forward to the world to come, that we have studied about, prayed to enter, and whose King we follow. This is what we must plan for, work on, dream of.
Just as the daffodil pops up at the end of a miserable winter and foretells the spring to come, so we must look beyond the ice storms and chilling wind to the springtime of God’s Kingdom.

One Poking Daffodil
I grumbled with myself as I stepped outside --
The end of winter is such an ugly time!
The bad weather has hung on for so long.
Has the old farm place changed its clime?

The glaring sky is full of something.
Just what, I fear to know.
But another storm is well on its way,
With rain, or ice, or snow.

The soft boggy ground beneath my feet,
Thawing from its latest freeze,
Gives way tiredly as I take each step.
The whole squishy yard seems to wheeze.

Winter has washed all color away.
Only a few cedars still hold their green.
From the sky above to the woods below
Gray on gray is all that’s seen.

Nowhere for squirrels to hide themselves now.
All leaves have surrendered their hold
on the trees over in the westward wood,
Succumbing to the everlasting cold.

I gaze up at the far forest line
On the hills over a ways
And see nothing but skinny, bedraggled trunks,
Like they’re near the end of their days.

The end of winter is such an ugly time.
It almost breaks my spirit and my will.
Until my curmudgeon trudge is stopped short
When I spot one poking daffodil.

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Preparing for Passover
by Cynthia Saladin
All around us, our world is preparing for spring. We still have two Canada geese on our pond, but they’ll be gone in another week or so. I just checked the hummingbird migration map for 2018. The hummingbirds will probably be here in another week! The daffodils are valiantly trying to keep their heads up, but in another week or so, we’re going to see the forsythia and Bradford pear trees blooming. The trees have buds; the grass is starting to green; we’ve been hearing spring peepers for a while.

In a similar way, we should be using these last weeks before Passover to not only clean the leavening out of our homes, but also clean the ungodly out of our lives. We should be examining the couch cushions for crumbs, but also our lives for anything that contaminates body and spirit. It’s easy to see some crumbs when you go looking for them, but it takes some work to find all the crumbs. Similarly, we need to spend the extra time in prayer, Bible study, fasting, and meditation in our self-examination. Spend some time intentionally thinking about your actions and your thoughts. What is really inside? Consider this post I saw recently on Facebook:

You are holding a cup of coffee when someone comes along and bumps into you, making you spill your coffee everywhere. Why did you spill the coffee? You spilled the coffee because there was coffee in your cup. Had there been tea in the cup, you would have spilled tea. The point is whatever is inside the cup, is what will spill out. Therefore, when life comes along and shakes you (which will happen), whatever is inside you will come out. It’s easy to fake it, until you get rattled. So, we have to ask ourselves, “What’s in my cup?” when life gets tough, what spills out? Joy, gratefulness, peace and humility? Or does anger, bitterness, harsh words and reactions come out? You choose! Today let’s work towards filling our cups with gratitude, forgiveness, joy, words of affirmation, kindness, gentleness, and love for others.

I love that God gives us His holy days each year - to draw us closer to Himself, to bless us, and to mold us into His image. I pray your preparation for these days is fruitful!

May

WHAT IS THE OPPOSITE OF LOVE? PART 3  by Bill Rollins

Idolatry is a huge subject in the word of God. So let us enter in (not into idolatry, but to the study of the topic!).

We have already established the fact that the little book of 1 John uses the word agape, in the noun and verb forms, a disproportionate amount of times when compared with the rest of the New Testament. And so my observation here is that John closes this letter, which is devoted to love, with a very cryptic statement, “My dear children, keep your selves from idols”. (Oh, you did not think this closing statement was cryptic? Cryptic: “Hidden, mysterious or baffling.”) I believe John ended with this statement in order to get us to think. So what do YOU think? Let’s reflect upon this. The main consideration of this letter is embodied in the word “love” and so therefore we are to keep ourselves from idols. These two words, love and idolatry, travel in opposite directions.

In this same vein, Paul tells us in 1 Cor.10:14, “Therefore, my dear friends, flee from idolatry.” In other words, run from it!

Let’s take a moment here to see where we began so that we can continue in a straight line. We began with Romans 12, where we are urged to offer ourselves as living sacrifices; we are to not conform to this world; we are to be transformed by the renewing of our minds; we should understand our gifts (graces) given from God; and our love must be genuine. Will love transform your mind or will idolatry?

I guess if we are to flee from idolatry, then in what direction should we flee? In the direction of God!! In other words, seek His face. We are told in scripture that our love for God is to be perfect; in other words we are to love Him with all of our heart, strength and life. This is a tall task but we need to pay attention to how we are progressing. This type of love for God is not attained in an instant. It is learned over the course of our relationship with Him; it happens over many years. In fact, (and I might be mistaken, but), I believe we may never accomplish this perfect love until we see Him face to face! For when the weight of His glory and His holiness are fully revealed to us, what shall we say, but – “Holy, Holy, Holy is the LORD God Almighty; the whole earth is full of His glory.” (Isaiah 6:3)

In the meantime, what shall we do? “Keep ourselves from idolatry.” Let us consider a few thoughts about this vast subject.

So what, intrinsically, is idolatry? In one sense it is nothing. One word used for “idol” in Hebrew is #457 “eliyl” and it literally means “nothing” and can be thought of as vanity. It is used for and translated “idol” in almost every case. The first use of this word is in Lev. 19:4, “Do not turn unto “nothing” (idols) or make gods of cast metal for yourselves.” Some versions of the bible use the word “vanity” to translate the word eliyl. This definition is helpful because I would suggest that the concept of idolatry has nothing to do with statues of stone and blocks of wood. But it has everything to so with the mind and heart of the idolater. Today, the notion of having carved images, from the view point of our tradition in Christianity, seems far-fetched. But as one author stated, we will always try to “carve upon” those around us when we desire to influence them toward our opinions and motives. We may go to extreme lengths to coerce someone to think or do as we want without regard to God’s will.

Case in point and an unusual example of idolatry may be found in Matthew 16:21-25. In verse 13 of this chapter, Jesus sets up this interesting scenario. He first asks the disciples, “Who do people say that the Son of Man is?” They answered; John the Baptist, Elijah, Jeremiah or another of the prophets. He then asks, “But what about you? Who do you say I am?”

At this point they may not repeat this litany of answers. Jesus already drew out of them what everyone else said – they now had to think for themselves and be quite honest with their answer. We know the story; Peter spoke up and said, “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.” Peter answered correctly and received a “pat on the back” from Jesus. He said, “Blessed are you Simon son of Jonah”. But then it says that Jesus began to explain that He must suffer many things, He would be killed and would be raised the third day. It is at this point that Peter slips from his blessed state (verse 17) in the eyes of his Lord and falls into idolatry. Verse 22: “Peter took Him aside and began to rebuke Him. ‘Mercy upon you, Lord; for this shall never happen to you!’ Jesus turned to Peter and said, ‘Get behind me adversary! You are a stumbling block to me; you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.’”

First of all, knowing what you know about our Savior, the Messiah, could you honestly rebuke Him? Peter had just called Him the Messiah, the Son of the living God and yet he rebuked Jesus! We have here a very good definition of idolatry, “you do not have in mind the things of God, but the things of men.” Jesus goes on to say, “If anyone would follow me, he must deny himself and take up his cross and follow me.”

I will let this lesson of Matthew 16 speak for itself at this time. But I must ask the question; do you have in mind the things of God in everything you do and in everything you say?

Don’t go away folks, there’s still more to come!!
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Barnacles and Suckers by Jim O’Brien, Church of God Cincinnati

This is a special time of the year. At least 3,500 years ago God chose leavening as a symbol for sin and told the Israel of old to live for one week without it. Every person would benefit by setting aside time to examine himself to look for sin. Some things can't be seen until we focus on them. There is "stuff" that accumulates in a person's life and takes on a life of its own. It grows to become the proverbial 'elephant in the living room' to which we are blind.

At our house the cleaning process includes throwing away out-of-date foods. Every jar is checked for dates and a large black industrial strength garbage bag is filled with half used jars and cans. At other times of the year these jars are given a cursory glance but during Unleavened Bread we look for the offending date on the bottom of the container. Every so often Donna announces "I can't believe we don't come down with ptomaine poisoning. If it wasn't for the Days of Unleavened Bread we would never get rid of this stuff." This is often followed by a look that says "You, who would eat anything, wouldn't have made it to your fortieth birthday if I didn't throw this poison away." She may be right.

Physical possessions cling to us like barnacles on a ship's hull. They won't leave without a fight. My office has enough paper flowing through it to fill the city dump.

A path has been worn from the mailbox to the garbage can to keep junk mail from overrunning the house. And
clothes threaten to overflow the closet. "That's my varsity letterman jacket!" I shrieked as it landed in the garbage bag. "You know," said Donna with one raised eyebrow, "you got that in High School at the same time Elvis Presley was performing on the Ed Sullivan Show.”

It is the very act of getting rid of items we want to keep that makes us more productive. At Passover we read John 15:2, "...every branch that bears fruit He prunes, that it may bear more fruit." Those little extraneous leaves that grow on the side of plants and trees are called suckers. A good gardener makes the rounds each Spring and clips them off. Suckers get their name because they sap the nutrients out of the plant. They stunt the good growth.

Man has a way of letting suckers take the productive time out of life leaving us with half completed tasks that lead to faded dreams.

Jesus gave a parable about a fig tree that did not produce fruit for three years. "Cut it down;" the owner commanded, "why does it 'waste' the ground?" (Luke 13:7 NKV)

So it is with things we allow into our life that don't produce. They render us ineffective and anemic. Only when we rid ourselves of these useless drains on energy does growth occur in the important areas of life. Treat them as Jesus treated the money-changers. The temple was too important to allow suckers to sap away the life.

So is your life.
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"Hope has two beautiful daughters: anger and courage. Anger at the way things are and courage to ensure they don't stay that way." - Augustine

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Creatures of Habit by Cynthia Saladin

Ebony, Velvet, and I get a head start on Pepper each morning. The hope is that he will run off some of his energy before he catches up to us. Otherwise, he will stand in my way, barking. He won’t let me pass. And when he does, he nips at the labs. So Ron waits until I’m across the dam and out of sight before he lets Pepper out of the side gate on the porch. Now, keep in mind that Pepper is frantically barking the whole time. He wants to go with me . . . NOW. And he lets everyone know it in no uncertain terms!! But considering he wants to get to me so badly, Pepper does one very odd thing: each morning, he barks loudly at Ron. Ron opens the side gate. Pepper goes through. Then he turns around and barks at Ron - as if chiding him for not letting him out sooner. Ron fastens the latch on the gate, turns to Pepper, and tells him to go. At that point, Pepper turns around and races madly to catch up with me. But every day, he stops, turns around, and barks at Ron until Ron latches the gate and tells him to go.

Until this morning. Today I chose to walk the labs up the road instead of down into the lower pasture. I knew that there were some turkey hunters out in the back fields, and I was reluctant to chase the turkeys towards them or to encounter them on our walk. So Ebony, Velvet, and I went the opposite direction from our normal route.

Pepper was frantic. And when Ron opened the gate, he flew out of the gate, not even stopping to tell Ron he was so slow today. Pepper just wanted to catch up with us. All of the dogs were excited that we were doing something different, and we were literally halfway through the walk before Pepper finally calmed down enough to come grab Ebony’s leash and tell me that we were walking the wrong way today.

What habits do you have? Are they habits that make no sense? Are they habits that don’t really belong in the life of a Christian? God’s holy days are the perfect opportunity to examine our lives. Get rid of those things that are ungodly. Throw out the sinful. Eschew the time wasters. Check the habits to see if they glorify God. Keep your eyes on your Master and the path He wants you to follow.

June

WHAT IS THE OPPOSITE OF LOVE? PART 4
by Bill Rollins

I must share with you that since I have started looking into this topic, God has shown me again and again how I fail to have in mind the things of God. In my dealings with co-workers, brethren, family and even the kids on my school bus, God has shown me the deviousness of my wanting to have my way! It is not that I must give way to the will of those around me – for that would also be idolatry – but the will of God is my prime directive.

In the previous installment we looked at a curious example of idolatry found in Matthew 16:21-25. Let’s consider another – perhaps unusual – example of idolatry found in the bible. This one is found in 2 Samuel 6:6. King David wants to move the ark of God and Uzzah has the task of guiding the cart that is hauling the ark. The oxen stumble, Uzzah reaches out to steady the ark and he meets with death. Is he guilty of idolatry in this action? Uzzah had the things of man and not the things of God in mind. His work met with death. I’m going to go with idolatry. But let’s not forget David. In 1 Chron. 13 we read that David conferred with “his officers, the commanders of thousands and commanders of hundreds” – uh oh! He did not consult the word of God for this endeavor which commanded that only the Levites may carry the ark of God. This is a good example of the scripture, “There is a way which seems right to a man but in the end it leads to death.” There is here a spirit of idolatry that can influence our decisions. These examples have nothing to do with idols of stone and wood but with flesh. It is a spirit of idolatry that resides within the human nature.

And so let us look at David’s act with Bathsheba. Was it his sin with this woman or his sin with her husband that might be considered idolatry? It was both. Remember, we have spoken of the fact that the idol is “eliyl”, it is nothing. David did not idolize Bathsheba or Uriah the Hittite. His idol was his own will; his ego and vanity.

We could go on and discuss Saul and his failure to obey God’s command to destroy the Amalekites and all their livestock. He did not have the things of God in his heart. All of these examples have one thing in common – they failed to have that perfect love for God in their heart, their strength and their life. These examples show forth a love of the world that John tells us to avoid in 1 John 2:15, “Do not love the world or anything in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him.”

Many times a brother or sister in Christ will refer to a certain scripture in Proverbs as a hallmark for their life. Proverbs 3:5-6, “Trust in YHVH with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding; in all your ways acknowledge Him and He will make your paths straight.” Note the emphasis on the word “all”.

Trust in YHVH with all your heart (Prov. 3:5); love YHVH with all your heart (Deut. 6:5); serve YHVH with all your heart (Deut. 10:12); seek YHVH with all your heart (Deut. 4:29) – throw in the fact that you should do this with all your strength and all your life and you have a recipe for avoiding idolatry.

Simply put, this life is not about us. It is wholly and totally about the God we serve. It’s funny, isn’t it? We are toward the end of a four part article and I just stated the gist of it in two short sentences. If we find ourselves with a spirit of idolatry, we cannot love. We cannot love God and we cannot love our neighbor, pure and simple! And indeed, it is not always easy to see. A brother or sister may be in some kind of trouble and we rush in to help. Was God testing this person in some way and we just overstepped our bounds because we decided to help? I’m sure that Uzzah felt that he was just doing a good deed in steading the ark – his work was a dead work.

So, perhaps you’ve been wondering, “Is this series of articles about the opposite of love, as the title suggests; or is it about renewing your mind so as to have the mind of Christ, as the start of this article seemed to indicate, or is it about keeping ourselves from idols, as 1 John 5:21 warns us?” And the answer is …. YES!!

Allow me to quote Paul in his letter to the Romans (Ah, the very letter where we began this study). Romans 8:5-8 says, “Those who live according to the flesh have their minds set on the flesh; but those who live in accordance with the Spirit have their minds set on the Spirit. The mind set on the flesh is death, but the mind set on the Spirit is life and peace; the mind set on the flesh is hostile to God. It does not submit to God’s law, nor can it do so. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God.”

If we have our minds set on the things of the flesh, we cannot love God. If we have our minds set on the things of the flesh, we are not renewing our minds. If we have our minds set on the things of the flesh, we are not keeping ourselves from idols.
Paul goes on to encourage the Roman church in verse 9, “You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if the Spirit of God dwells in you ….” Oh my, you might as well read the entirety of this chapter. It all fits here.

I must assume that all of you who are reading this are striving to have your minds set on the Spirit and not on the flesh. But sometimes the “old man” gets in the way. After all, we know how some things should turn out for the best. We should have our own way. The Boss, the neighbor, our relative, our spouse, etc.; they just do not know how it should work and we need to have our opinion served. And maybe we are right; but to what cost?

“Continue to work out your salvation within fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to desire and to work according to His purpose. Do everything without complaining or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, children of God without fault in a crooked and depraved generation in which you shine like stars in the universe.” (Phil. 2:12-15)

So, perhaps you have read this far and you are wondering, “Where do I go from here?” Simply put; down on your knees. How should you conduct your life with this info in mind? I don’t know, but God does! Ask Him to show you. And when He places a contrary spirit in your path, in your life – do not plead for deliverance, pray for insight. Let Him lead and direct your path. “In all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your path straight.”

P.S. You might just begin with Psalm 115. May God bless you with insight!

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Don’t use a big word when a singularly unloquacious and diminutive linguistic expression will satisfactorily accomplish the contemporary necessity.

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For Your Good
by Cynthia Saladin

Pepper doesn’t particularly like our vet. He is in a strange place where there are lots of animal smells. The vet draws blood - or rather has tried to draw blood. The vet gives Pepper shots. Two years ago, it was a major battle to accomplish what we needed to. So two weeks ago, when I took Ebony in, the vet gave me a sedative in a syringe to shoot into the back of Pepper’s mouth before I took him in today. You can imagine how much fun that was! I managed to accomplish it, and we were amazed at his resulting sluggishness. The sedative took the edge off Pepper’s high spirits, enough that our vet could give him both vaccines (distemper and rabies). There was no way Pepper was going to allow him to draw blood to do the heartworm test!

My normally high-spirited dog is very subdued this afternoon. He is not only sleepy, he also had no interest in food or in going on a walk with Ron. He doesn’t feel very well. He crept over to me earlier and just leaned up against me after pushing his face into my leg. Poor little doggie. I just wonder what’s going through his mind. The day started out really well with a walk, but it went downhill from there: sedative shot into his mouth, a trip to the vet, two shots that HURT, and now a tummy ache. Yep, it’s been a horrible, terrible, no good, very bad day.

Sometimes it’s like that for us, as Christians, too. We’re blithely going about our business, it looks like it’s going to be a very good day, and suddenly some terrible, horrible, no good, very bad stuff happens. We don’t like what has happened, and we’d very much like to hit erase.

The only thing is: we were bought with a price (1 Cor. 6:20); we now belong to God (1 John 4:6). Futhermore, God is sovereign. There is nothing that happens that He doesn’t allow. Even Nebuchadnezzar had to learn this lesson (Daniel 5:21)! Add to this the fact that God loves us so much (John 17:23) that He gave His only begotten Son that we might be saved and adopted into the very family of God (John 3:16, Romans 8:23).

In the end, if you have a relationship with the Sovereign God of the universe, if He is your God and you are His, then there is nothing that happens to you that He does not control (Romans 8:28, Genesis 50:20).

I love Pepper. I want the best for him. And today, the best meant giving him a sedative, taking him to the vet, and having him stuck with a needle twice - because I want him to be healthy.

God loves each of us so much more than I love this dog. So the next time you’re having a rough day, stop and consider if maybe, just maybe, it was for your good. Maybe you needed it so you’d be a healthy Christian.

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"Things that upset a chihuahua may pass virtually unnoticed by a Great Dane."
Smiley Blanton
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An Honest Day’s Work

The USS Astoria (C-34) was the first U.S. cruiser to engage the Japanese during the Battle of Savo Island, a night action fought the 8th to 9th of August 1942. Although she scored two hits on the Imperial flagship Chokai, the Astoria was badly damaged and sank shortly after noon, on 9th of August.

About 0200 hours a young Midwesterner, Signalman 3rd Class, Elgin Staples, was swept overboard by the blast when the Astoria's number one eight-inch gun turret exploded. Wounded in both legs by shrapnel and in semi-shock, he was kept afloat by a narrow life belt that he managed to activate with a simple trigger mechanism.

At around 0600 hours, Staples was rescued by a passing destroyer and returned to the Astoria, whose captain was attempting to save the cruiser by beaching her. The effort failed, and Staples, still wearing the same life belt, found himself back in the water. It was lunchtime. Picked up again, this time by the USS President Jackson (AP-37), he was one of 500 survivors of the battle who were evacuated to Noumea.

On board the transport, Staples for the first time closely examined the lifebelt that had served him so well. It had been manufactured by Firestone Tire and Rubber Company of Akron, Ohio, and bore a registration number.

Given home leave, Staples told his story and asked his mother, who worked for Firestone, about the purpose of the number on the belt. She replied that the company insisted on personal responsibility for the war effort and that the number was unique and assigned to only one inspector. Staples remembered everything about the lifebelt and quoted the number.

It was his mother's personal code and affixed to every item she was responsible for approving.

SOURCE: Commander Eric J. Berryman, U.S. Naval Reserve, Proceedings, U.S. Naval Institute, vol. 15/6/1036 (June 1989), P. 48.   (as found on www.sermoncentral.com)

July

Yes, There is Good News!           By Bill Rollins

In the last article I made the statement that because God’s entire being is love, He wanted to have somewhere to express that love. So, He created a universe, then a solar system within, a planet - perfectly placed from the sun so as to sustain life - and finally He created life; first the plants then animals and at last, mankind. We look around and marvel at the awesome beauty that God has placed us in. From a small and dainty flower in the spring to the majesty of a snow capped mountain that can bring forth gasps of wonder. Wow! That’s a lot of love! I could go on for a long time about the beauty of creation and perhaps in the future I may.

What is the greatest joy you find in the love that you have for another? I suppose we might list the many joys but perhaps the greatest is having that love returned from the object of our love. There are many sayings concerning unrequited love but the true happiness of being able to share love with another human being is quite exceptional. It indeed brings fulfillment, not to mention excitement in our lives. A love shared is a love fulfilled.

We are created in the image of God! Do you not think there is excitement for our heavenly Father when His love is returned to Him by one of His children? In the gospel of Luke 15:10 Jesus says, “I tell you, there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels of God over one sinner who repents.” And why do the angels rejoice? I think it is fair to say that when God is happy, the entire heavenly realm is happy!

Yes, God wanted to share His love, His great love His infinite love and so we were created. Remember a couple of articles ago I asked the question, “What does God expect of us?” Perhaps we have come upon the answer. I mentioned that He desires a relationship with us and enables us to enter that relationship because He has provided redemption for us through the righteous life of His Son. Righteousness has been imputed to us because of the death and resurrection of His Son.

Not only has God created a universe, a planet and the air we breathe, the food we eat, the water we drink, and the beauty we see, hear, taste, touch and smell, but He has created a pathway for us to fellowship with Him, He wants us to come to know Him and visit with Him and so learn to love him.

Wait - did I say “Learn to love Him?” What is there about love that we have to learn? Well, much in every way. Continued next month!

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"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it."
~unknown, although it has often been sourced to the Talmud, and refers to Micah 6:8

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Can a Man Mock God?
by Jim O’Brien
Job was at the lowest point of his life. In addition to the loss of his children and the loss of wealth, he was afflicted with terrible sores. If it could be worse his friends came to tell him that God had cursed him for good reason.

Job challenged that judgment by asking, “Will you speak wickedly on God’s behalf? Will you speak deceitfully for him?” (Job 13:7) The King James Version interprets that as asking, “Will you mock God?” (verse 9). In other words, “Will you turn His words into something He does not intend to say?”

King David asked much the same question in the Psalms when he pleaded, “Rise up, O God, and defend your cause; remember how fools mock you all day long.” (Psalm 74.22)

Those scriptures came to mind this week when it was reported that Pope Francis shocked the world and traditional Catholics by declaring that God made homosexuals the way they are. Without parsing words the pope went on to say that God approves of homosexual behavior.

Columnist Patrick Buchanan wrote, “That joking retort we heard as children, ‘Is the pope Catholic?’ is starting to look like a serious question.”

A few years ago former President Jimmy Carter declared that if Jesus were here today he would approve of homosexuals.

These statements by religious and national leaders strike at the heart of both our country and religion. One leg of the Judeo Christian ethic is law. When God led Israel out of bondage to Egypt He did something unique in the history of man. God spoke the Ten Commandments to three million people gathered in the desert.

It is important to note that God referred to the Law as the Testimony. We use that term in legal matters to refer to events we have witnessed. “I saw it with my own eyes!” In other words, God is a witness from an eternity of history about what comprises justice.

To change God’s testimony to say something He never intended it to say is to mock God.

What is the purpose of law?

It does more than govern behavior, else there would not be so many people in jail. Law defines who we are as a people. For example, some nations don’t allow women to vote, drive a car or hold a passport. They are misogynist. Some countries don’t allow citizens to own private property. They are communists. They’re also poor.

Laws are a primary factor to determine how long a civilization will last. Bad laws inevitably lead to revolutions. The United States has the longest running continuous government in the world, which testifies to the profound wisdom of the founders.

What happens when leaders inherit good laws and won’t enforce them?

A pundit recently wrote “If a state, or nation, has laws it will not enforce for political reasons, it mocks both the law and politics, to say nothing of the cultural order. If the language of laws has no meaning other than what lawmakers assign to them after a law is enacted, it is proof that we have arrived in a kind of legal “Wonderland” in which Alice is told by Humpty Dumpty, ‘When I use a word ... it means just what I choose it to mean — neither more nor less.’To which Alice responds, ‘The question is ... whether you can make words mean so many different things.’”

Is Humpty Dumpty sitting in the Judges seat? Does he occupy the seats of Congress? Is he in the pulpits?

At the core of our national crisis is a disrespect of law. If religious leaders taught obedience to God’s Law, maybe we wouldn’t be in this mess. Rather than blame blasphemers, atheists and pagans for the shape the country is in, maybe Christians and Jews ought to look at our own houses of worship. After all, over 70 percent of this country is Christian. If Christians upheld the law of God maybe we could require Congress to uphold the laws of our nation.

At the core of law is God. Law stretches back to God for the right to exist. It looks for a moral basis on which to rest. It transcends temporal desires of politicians. In the end good laws make for a great civilization. As Moses said to Israel “What other nation is so great as to have such righteous decrees and laws as this body of laws I am setting before you today?” (Deut. 4:8 NIV)

If Job were alive today he might ask our religious leaders, “Will you speak wickedly for God, And talk deceitfully for Him?...can you mock Him as one mocks a man? (Job 13:7-9 NKJV)

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American Minute by William Federer

38-year-old King George III ruled the largest empire that planet earth had ever seen. The Declaration of Independence, approved JULY 4, 1776, listed the reasons why Americans declared their independence from the King:

-He has made judges dependent on his will alone ...
-He has erected a multitude of new offices, and sent hither swarms of officers to harass our people and eat out their substance.
-He has kept among us, in times of peace, standing armies ...
-To subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution ...
-For quartering large bodies of armed troops among us ...
-For imposing taxes on us without our consent ...
-For depriving us in many cases, of the benefit of trial by jury ...
-For ... establishing ... an arbitrary government ...
-For ... altering fundamentally the forms of our governments ...
-He has plundered our seas, ravaged our coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
-He is at this time transporting large armies of foreign mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation, and tyranny ...
-He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian savages whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions …"

The Fourth of July: Independence Day
by Cynthia Saladin

Next week we’ll be barbecuing hamburgers and hotdogs, eating potato salad and ice cream, shooting/watching fireworks, and generally enjoying a day off. But the greatest gathering of Godly men on this continent weren’t kicking back and enjoying a day off. When John Hancock, the 39-year-old President of the Continental Congress, signed the Declaration first, he reportedly said, ”The price on my head has just doubled.” Many of the 56 signers sacrificed their prosperity for their posterity. 38-year-old signer Thomas Nelson had his home used as British headquarters during the siege of Yorktown. Nelson reportedly offered five guineas to the first man to hit his house. Of the Signers: 11 had their homes destroyed; 5 were hunted and captured; 17 served in the military; and 9 died during the war.

John Adams wrote to his wife of the Declaration,
"I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated, by succeeding generations, as the great anniversary Festival. It ought to be commemorated, as the Day of Deliverance by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shews, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires and illuminations from one End of this Continent to the other from this time forward forever more.”

So next week we’ll have pomp and parades and games and fireworks and barbecues from one end of the U.S. to the other. But let’s not forget the God who gave us this country and the godly men who pledged their lives, their fortune, and their sacred honor.
-quotes taken from William Federer’s American Minute

August 2018

Yes, There is Good News!           By Bill Rollins

One time when Jesus was being tested by those pesky Pharisees one whom of asked Him, “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” This episode is found in Matthew 22:36-38. “Jesus replied, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This was not just something Jesus came up with off the top of His head. No, He was quoting from the book of Deuteronomy (Deut 6:4), one of the first five books of the Bible sometimes known, from the Hebrew word for law, as Torah.
In the previous article I mentioned that God “wants us to come and know Him and to visit Him, and so to learn to love Him.” What does it take to “learn to love” someone?
Unfortunately, in our society, we have somehow been taught that love is as easy as “falling off a log.”
Two young adults are attracted to each other, and they falsely assume that they are in love. We mistake the feeling of attraction for the reality of love. Love is so much more.
Have you ever realized that when Jesus was asked “Which is the greatest commandment,” and he answered, “To love ...” He was establishing the love we must have for God as a requirement? Can you command anyone to love you? Can you command an emotional response from another human being? God is the Creator. He knows our make-up, and knows that we have an emotional side and an intellectual side. And yet He commands us to love Him. In fact, He tells us that this is the greatest commandment.
Two articles ago, I mentioned that we are capable of loving on several different levels. One of those levels is that of a parent to a child. This is one level of love that does not have to be taught.
When a mother gives birth and first holds the child in her arms, there is a tremendous outpouring of love for the baby. That is a natural occurrence. It is this type of love that God has for us. His love is that for a child. In fact, we are sometimes called, “The children of God.”
But we, the babes that He loves, must learn to love Him with all our heart, strength, and life (or soul). God is so far above us that we really cannot understand all that the nature of God entails. Our five senses - those things that God has given us to interact with and learn from in the world around us - will never begin to allow us to comprehend how to love an infinite being. So He teaches us to love Him. Jesus tells us we are to call God, “Father.” This allows us to begin to grasp the relationship we are to have - we have all had a father.
But perhaps I get ahead of myself. Perhaps we should go back to the beginning and see with what gentleness He instructs us to love Him.                         (to be continued)

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Put It Somewhere Safe                   by Cynthia Saladin

Have you ever found yourself picking up and putting away stuff and thought, “I’ll put this here so it’ll be safe?” Then later, you remember putting it away; you just don’t remember where that “safe” place was. Consequently, you spend [read: waste] hours looking for that thing you knew you would need - the original thought which caused you to put it in a safe place.
I recently looked for something important on and off for three weeks. I looked in places where the thing couldn’t possibly be, simply because I’d already looked everywhere else - twice! I thought I’d lost my mind! Where in the world did I think that
thing would be “safe” anyway!?! My family was sure I’d lost my mind.

Incidentally, you know the best way to find the thing you can’t find is to buy a new one! Then suddenly you either remember where you put the original one or you stumble on it when you’re looking for something else that’s in a safe place.

All of this search for the lost thing reminded me of how grateful I am that I am safe in God’s care. The apostle Paul writes to Timothy, “For I know whom I have believed and am persuaded that He is able to keep that which I’ve committed unto Him against that Day” (2 Timothy 1:12, KJV).

Philippians 1:6 (ESV) says it this say: “And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.”

I am comforted by the knowledge that my errors, my mistakes, my sins are forgiven in Jesus Christ when I repent. Just because I have messed up again, I don’t have to worry that God won’t forgive me. As long as I am not arrogantly, intentionally sinning, 1 John 1:9 says, “If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness” (ESV).

How precious we each are to God! How much He loves us! To give us His Son! To provide a way for us to be reconciled to Him! To show the way of sanctification that we might be changed into the image of Jesus Christ! Oh praise God that I’m safe in His care!

And that thing I put in that “safe” place? I found it right where I thought I’d put it in the first place - I just overlooked it when I first began searching. Oh how fallible and distracted I can be at times. I have a long way to go to be made into the image of my Elder Brother! Praise God that He is faithful and more than able to finish the work He began in me!!

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Parting Thoughts - Quotes from Winston Churchill

*You will never reach your destination if you stop and throw stones at every dog that barks.

*A nation that forgets its past has no future.

*One man with conviction will overwhelm a hundred who have only opinions.

*The best argument against democracy is a five-minute conversation with the average voter.

*A lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has a chance to get its pants on.

September

Pleasing the Master by Cynthia Saladin

I don’t normally take dog treats with me when I walk the dogs in the morning . . . for a couple of reasons. When Velvet knows I have treats, she stands right in front of me and won’t let me walk. She has the idea of “toll” down really well. Secondly, the thought of bits of dog treat in my pocket is yucky. And talking about yucky, having dog slobbers all over your hands is . . . well, yucky. But the other day, I took a couple of dog treats with me because I’ve been trying to keep the labs closer to me on our walk. We had walked around the pond, through the trees, and up the far side of the field. The dogs had periodically gotten little bits of the treat. But as we walked along the upper field, I lost sight of Pepper for a few minutes. Suddenly he popped out of the treeline on the far side of the field. He stopped and looked back at me to make sure I was still coming. So I stopped and crouched down, calling his name. He started at a high gallop towards me, and then, when he realized that I was still waiting, he laid his ears back against his head and put his heart into running for all his worth. Now, in my experience, if I stay in a crouch when Pepper gets to me, he’ll knock me over. I become his braking (breaking?) mechanism. So I stood up as he got close to me. He ran into my legs. I told him he was a good dog. And he turned around to continue the walk. I was amazed. I had thought he was motivated by the treat. He wasn’t. He was simply motivated by a desire to do what his master wanted him to do. And he did it with all of his heart.

I couldn’t help thinking about our walk with God. Do we do His bidding because we think we’re going to get a treat, a reward? Or do we joyfully, eagerly, whole-heartedly obey simply because He has asked us to? Do we keep God’s sabbath, thinking all the while it’s a burden and so hard. Do we keep God’s sabbath because it’s good for us? Or is our primary motivation in keeping God’s sabbath because He commands us to? Do we simply see it’s His will in our lives? Similarly, do we love and serve each other because God asks us to - or because we’re trying to get something from other people? Or are we simply doing what our Master has asked of us?

I was literally stopped in my tracks by Pepper’s attitude. He wasn’t obeying me because of a treat. Oh, he didn’t reject the treat, but it wasn’t his motivation. It’s not that way with Velvet. If I don’t have a treat in my hand, then my command is viewed by Velvet as an optional suggestion. What is our motivation for doing what God says?

I don’t want to be like Velvet - unwilling to move down the path until God blesses me.

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I had a dream last night that I knighted an electric fish…
It was Sir Eel.
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A VISIT FROM THE PASTOR
collected from cybersalt.org

     A member of a certain church, who previously had been attending services regularly, suddenly stopped coming to church. After a few weeks, the Pastor went to visit. The Pastor found the man at home alone, sitting before a blazing fire.
     Guessing the reason for his Pastor's visit, the man welcomed him, led him to a comfortable chair near the fireplace and waited. The pastor made himself at home but said nothing. In the grave silence, he contemplated the dance of the flames around the burning logs.
     After some minutes, the Pastor took the fire tongs, carefully picked up a brightly burning ember and placed it to one side of the hearth all alone. Then he sat back in his chair, still silent. The host watched all this in quiet contemplation. As the one lone ember's flame flickered and diminished, there was a momentary glow and then its fire was no more. Soon it was cold and lifeless.
     The Pastor glanced at his watch and realized it was time to leave, he slowly stood up, picked up the cold, dead ember and placed it back in the middle of the fire. Immediately it began to glow, once more with the light and warmth of the burning coals around it.
     As the Pastor reached the door to leave, his host said with a tear running down his cheek, "Thank you so much for your visit and especially for the fiery sermon. I shall be back in church next Sunday."
     We live in a world today which tries to say too much with too little. Consequently, few listen. Sometimes the best sermons are the ones lived rather than spoken. What message would God have you share with someone today?

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Yes, There is Good News!   - By Bill Rollins

     In the previous article, I suggested we go back to the beginning to see with what gentleness God instructs us to love Him. So let’s go there. In Genesis 1 and 2, we find the story of creation. I believe we all know something of Adam and Eve. In those days, God saw that there was no real need for a lot of commandments. There was no one else to steal from, no wives to covet, etc. You get the point. He did tell them that He provided many trees to eat from but when they came into the midst of the garden there would be two trees; one of which they were forbidden to eat. So, one commandment was given to our first parents - do not eat from the tree of the knowledge of good and evil.
     As they say, the rest is history. The serpent deceived Eve and she ate. She tossed the proverbial apple to Adam and he ate and now they are banished from the garden. In eating what was forbidden, did they express their love for God? I think we can agree they did not. Lesson number one; when God tells us to do, or not to do, something, we show our love to Him with obedience.
     In the Gospel of John, just before Jesus was crucified, He sat at the Passover meal and taught the disciples many things. One of which is found in Chapter 14, verse 21, “Whoever has my commands and obeys them, he is the one who loves me. He who loves me will be loved by my Father, and I too will love him and manifest myself to him.” In keeping with the topics of the articles, let me just say, “That is good news!” But wait a minute - do you mean to say we have to obey Him?
     Okay, let’s go back to the beginning. Only this time it’s not the book of Genesis. Let’s go back to when you were born. The doctor, midwife, or perhaps your father was there to help deliver you; you were cleaned up and handed to your joy-filled waiting mother. Were you so filled with love that you couldn’t wait to learn to talk and let your parents know? No, that’s not how you reacted. You were attracted to you mom because you recognized her smell, but you knew nothing else. In short, you were a blank slate and you had to learn not only how to love, but what love was all about.
     When Adam and Eve were created, what did they know? Well, they didn’t even know that love for God was wrapped up in their obedience. It was something they had to learn and it was not an easy lesson. Sometimes I wonder about all the bad news we hear today. Could it be because our society has moved so far away from God and have forgotten that we must be taught to love our heavenly Father.
     Do you know how to love your heavenly Father?
     Let’s consider the answer.
     We began this topic of God’s love by considering the scripture, “Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength.” (Deut. 6:4). And we noted that this was Jesus’ answer to the question of “Which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Let us note that Jesus didn’t stop there, He went on to mention the second great commandment also, “Love your neighbor as yourself.” This second great commandment is also very good news! But before we get into that, we must understand the first. How do we apply it, and why is it good news?
     This type of love is the act of the will. We have the free will to love God, or not to love Him. It is within our power to bring ourselves to love Him; to love him first and foremost, with all of our hearts, all of our life (soul) and our minds. When I look at this scripture and contemplate its implications, I become awed. This commandment is not at all like “Do not steal, do not lie, do not commit murder.” This is in a category by itself. To utilize all my heart, all my life and all my mind in forming a loving relationship with my heavenly Father is pretty heavy stuff. Perhaps we must take a closer look at this.
     Let’s start with the first item on this list, “the heart.” What does it mean to you to put your whole heart into something? We use this word, “heart” to mean many things. We say things like “I had my heart broken,” or “he stole my heart,” and it is used as a symbol of romantic love. We also say, “let’s get to the heart of the matter,” and so desire to get to the core meaning. We say that an athlete “played their heart out.” And I guess we get the point.
     So, if we could put our whole heart into loving the Creator and Sustainer of the Universe, the one who gave us life itself, how would we be blessed by Him? Do you believe that God is our provider and protector? Do you believe it when the Bible says every good and perfect gift is from the Father above? And this “whole hearted” love is only the first of three prerequisites.
In Matthew 22:37 we find second item mentioned is to love God with all our “soul.” Many people believe this word “soul” has some mystical, ethereal, or spiritual quality that separates it from our bodies. But that is not the case. A simple study of the word from the Bible will show that the soul can and will die. This word “soul” is not limited to humans, in fact the first time the word appears in the Bible it is applied to animals. (It is in Genesis 1:20, “...let the waters teem with living creatures.” The word translated “creatures” from Hebrew is the same word that is translated “soul” everywhere in the Bible.) The Hebrew word here is “nephesh” and its basic meaning is “breath of life.” Ezekiel 18:4 says, “The soul who sins will die.” In the New Testament, the Greek word for soul “psuche,” has mush the same meaning - “the breath of life.”
     Okay so what are we learning here? This second aspect of loving God, to love Him with all of our soul, actually means we are to love him with all of our life. The life we have in us is a gift from Him and we are capable of doing many things. We may take a walk on a beautiful summer morning with the sun shinning on our faces. Because we have life we can smell the fresh scent of flowers and behold the array of colors that surround us.
     Yes, the life we live is a gift from God. We can show him your love when we enjoy the gift and give him the glory for all we have and all we do. The key here is to give Him all the glory. To love God with your whole life is to appreciate each day you have and to give the credit to God for all you are able to do, no matter how great or how small it may be.
     God’s love for us is unconditional - our love for God must be with all of our heart, and also with all of our life. In other words, with the whole-hearted love that encompasses all our lives.
     And so we come to that third aspect of the love for God that was given to us in the book of Deuteronomy and was quoted by the Son of God in Matthew 23:37: you must love the Lord your God with all of your mind.
     Have you ever thought of loving someone with your mind? How could we go about doing this?
     We often think of the mind as the center of intellect.
     This is where all thought processes take place. We perform calculations in the mind; we memorize dates and numbers, and we store all of the information that we gather during our lives. How then do we love with our minds?
     Let us take a few minutes and consider this complicated device. Have you ever ridden bicycle? The coordination that takes place between the eyes that see where we are going, and the hands that steer, the legs and feet that pump the pedals, the inner ear that keeps the body and the bicycle in an upright position ad the lungs that pump air through a correctly formed mouth so as to whistle a sweet melody, are all controlled by what we call the mind. And while all this is going on, you are thinking about what you will have for lunch, not at all paying attention to this complicated coordination process.
     Wow! Are you able to contemplate what you mind can do and thereby praise the One who created the mind? Your brain has trillions of connections that operate without you having to do anything. Dr. Paul Brand, in his book In His Image, says this about the brain: “During each second of life, the brain performs about five trillion chemical operations. When we are awake, only a few reach our level of consciousness and those so quickly we hardly are aware of the process.” Five trillion connections every second - receiving input and sending messages that regulate every aspect of the human body. What a marvelous piece of creation we are! I think we can label that as good news.
     What is there around you in the world that does not fill you with awe when you consider it deeply? If we are to consider loving God with all of our mind, the process starts when we consider His creation and thereby give honor, glory and praise to Him. So much of what God has done for us is just taken for granted. We see a beautiful flower garden and perhaps remark about the one that planted and cares for it, but do we ever “love God with our whole mind” by thanking Him for the diversity of color, scent and patterns that are His design and creation?
     We take for granted that every spring the leaves on the trees will appear and turn the landscape into a verdant expanse of peaceful joy. We all have a sense of awe and wonder when this happens, but as we come to know and love God in His creation, we come close to loving Him with our whole mind.
To be continued ... stay tuned!

October

Tabernacling
by Cynthia Saladin

“This world is not my home; I’m just a-passin’ through.” If we belong to Christ, we identify with this sentiment. We confess that we are aliens and strangers in this world (Hebrews 11:13). We are here temporarily, looking towards the kingdom of God (2 Corinthians 5:1-4). And that’s a very comforting concept and promise to remember when we find ourselves in the midst of health problems, financial stress, relationship issues - troubles of many kinds. We know that this is all temporary. We’re just tenting - tabernacling - here. This is not going to last forever. And if we’re truly His, we wouldn’t really want it to.

And yet, we get distracted.

When my black labs were young, I would let them out of the house. They raced each other out of sight within seconds. It didn’t take very long before I realized I couldn’t let them do that. They would stay gone for hours, chasing rabbits and squirrels and investigating the myriad of delicious smells out there. Many were the days that I went looking for them. How disgusted I often was to find them (albeit relieved). Oh, they’d lift their heads to acknowledge that they saw me and heard me calling, but they were much too busy to actually come when I called.

Do you know people like that? Life is so good that they don’t really have time for God. They are happy doing what they’re doing. They have the misconception that a relationship with God is going to make their life less enjoyable, that they’ll be restricted from having fun. They think they are fine where they are; they don’t need God.

There is a contingent of people out there like that. But on the continuum, there are also people who know, intellectually, that God is good and that He is to be worshipped and obeyed. They just make one little choice here and another small choice over there - and building the relationship with God is not the priority. It’s more important, to them, to do this thing on the Sabbath. It’s more important to choose this activity over Bible study and prayer. They believe that life is good and their relationship with God is okay.

But all of us are tabernacling in this life. That means that we do experience problems. The car breaks down. Our bodies don’t work as well as they used to. We have unexpected money demands. We run into conflicts with the people around us. We have trouble. That’s life. Sometimes those troubles are a result of our sin. And sometimes they are part of living in a sinful world. Regardless, there’s stress.

When the labs were young, I could count on one stress that would cause them to return home as fast as their legs could carry them - if they heard a gun shot. Similarly, there are times in our lives when we experience something so terrifying that we immediately turn to God for help - regardless of the state of our relationship with Him. If, however, the stress isn’t too overwhelming, sometimes we just determine to persevere and to push through the trouble in our own strength. It might not even occur to us that our troubles would not seem so bad if we had our eyes fixed on the Master and had the confidence of a close relationship with Him.

All of these thoughts flashed through my head yesterday morning when I was walking the dogs. You see, now when I walk the dogs, I just open the door and let them all go. The labs still take off as if they were puppies, but they have aches and pains, and they don’t go so far anymore. They still want to smell all the smells and bark at the squirrels and the rabbits. But their bodies keep them more grounded. They end up walking most of the route with me each morning. The side benefit of that is the reception of treats from my pocket as we walk along the way. Furthermore, once the walk is over, they are content to lie on the front porch or in the front yard, on guard duty with each other. They may not have the bodies, energy, or wildness of youth, but my labs are happy.

I couldn’t help thinking of how much Christians are like that too. As these tabernacles, our bodies, slow us down with aches and pain, and as we experience the troubles of life, we realize that there are wonderful rewards in walking with Him. We have learned that a relationship with God is worth more than what we thought were the pleasures of this life. This maturation in our relationship with God means we are less likely to go our own way; we are more likely to heed His call to obedience. We find that there is contentment and quiet pleasures in an ever closer relationship with our God - regardless of the troubles we experience.
As we prepare for the upcoming Feast of Tabernacles, I’m going to be thinking about tabernacling in this life. I’m going to be contemplating how God has provided for me and led me along the way. I’m going to be considering my relationship with Him and how much I long for it to be more intimate. And I am going to remember to thank Him for being with me, being my God, as I tabernacle.

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Yes, There is Good News!   - By Bill Rollins

We have given some thought to the three aspects of how we are to love God. Someone may say, “Now I know something about loving God; how is that good news?”

I believe that is a fair question. But in asking the question, one must assume that good news comes only from receiving something, and not giving something. And from a purely human standpoint, I must disagree with this assessment. True joy comes to us when we can give of ourselves to another. It is only a child that believes comes from receiving. The anticipation of a gift on the part of a youth can be delightful to watch. Why? Because we can understand the maturity level held by a child.
When an infant is born, the maturity level stands at a flat zero. There is only room for growth. How much love does the baby have for others? The answer is also zero. A newborn has many needs, one of the greatest needs it has is for love. The love a mother and father have for the infant is inherently great enough to make up for the lack of love in the child. One might say the “love” that a human has is directly proportional to the level of maturity that exists in a human. Allow me to make another formulaic statement: The level of maturity that exists in a human is directly proportional to the joy he or she receives in giving of self to another. Maturity and love for others travel hand in hand.

Okay - so let’s not get too out of hand. We are talking about love for God, and how that can be the good news we are looking for. But we also made the analogy of an infant’s love for a parent. The love of a parent will teach the infant how to love. And so it is with our Father in Heaven. The scripture leads us to this same conclusion. The epistle of 1 John is said to be the “love book” in the Bible. And the topic of love comes to an apex in the fourth chapter. As we make our way down this chapter, we come to the nineteenth verse where we read, “We love because He first loved us.”

Can we just stop here and ponder the fact that even before we understood that there was a God, even before we knew who that God was, He loved us!

In the proceeding chapter of 1 John, Chapter 3, we read, “How great is the love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are.”

Now, don’t get me wrong, I cannot as of yet place everyone on the Earth as being called children of God. But you ... you are reading this column and I pray you are being led to see God’s love for you and so are coming to see what manner of love you are to have for this Father of ours.

In considering God’s love for us and our response to Him, we come to July 4th, Independence Day. Think about the thousands of men and women who shed their blood on the battlefield of the American Revolution some 240 years ago. We, today, get caught up in all the celebrations and can forget that this day is a memorial of what our forefathers accomplished in winning freedom from tyranny of the king of England.

Oh, it is a day to celebrate all right - parades, picnics, cookouts, and of course the day’s end fireworks celebration. The victory, of the somewhat rag-tag colonists over the world’s best equipped fighting force, set in motion one of the greatest political experiments on this planet. Our nation became a worldwide symbol of freedom and we, today, still stand in the afterglow that made this nation great.

I do not believe this to be a circumstantial coincidence that somehow just fell into the “laps” of men like John Adams, Benjamin Franklin, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, etc. I believe (as they did) that the hand of God was involved. Excuse me while I quote from the book “The Thousand Year Leap” by W. Cleon Skousen, “ ... they (the framers of the Constitution) declared that the formation and the adoption of our new system of federal government represented a political achievement unprecedented in human history. They looked upon it, moreover, as an event that was actually ‘influenced, guided and governed’ by the hand of God.” In my words, “It was a blessing of extreme importance.”

Are you with me on this? What happened 240 years ago was indeed “Good News.” But you, like I, have seen the sometimes gradual, sometimes precipitous slide this nation has taken. We have fallen away from these freedoms that were won for us.
So as I pondered these freedoms through the shedding of blood, my mind swung around to another event that took place almost 2000 years ago, to grant all men freedoms that will never fade, never grow old and can never be taken away. These freedoms were also won by the shedding of blood, not on a physical battlefield, but on a spiritual one. They were won by the Son of God as he hung on a cross; Jesus Christ came to Earth to set men free. He came to redeem us from our sins, He came and died to set us at liberty.

There is good news . . . to be continued.

November

The Power of Reason
by Jim O’Brien
"And war broke out in heaven: Michael and his angels fought with the dragon..."

One of the greatest gifts God has given to man is the ability to communicate verbally. The power of words to convey ideas was given to no other creature on earth-only to those made in the image of God.

Even so, that gift is worthless without a greater gift-the gift of a rational mind. Isaiah appealed to that sense when he attempted to convince his listeners, "Come now, and let us reason together," (Isa. 1:18). The rest of the verse reads, "Says the Lord". It was God who wanted to reason with man-not just Isaiah. In fact, all the Prophets of both the Old and New Testaments appealed to the same quality of mind-otherwise their efforts were useless. Their very words assume that God designed a receptor in the mind of man for rational thought, the purpose of which is to change the behavior of man. No other creature has such an ability for self-analysis.

That this process was used to establish a nation is the rare blessing given to citizens of the United States of America. No other nation in the history of man was formed by a group of men sitting down in a room and reasoning together to form a civilized government. The possible exception would be Ancient Israel during the period of the Judges. There was no king and only a sprinkling of an army. The people were ruled by a commitment to a common set of values enumerated in the Ten Commandments. Both governments appealed to the spirit of citizens to submit to a rational standard of conduct.

Ironically, it is NOT God that chooses to change the behavior of man by force-tyrants take that route. God sent prophets to reason with man. When that didn't work He sent His Son to bear witness of His goodness.

And that is what is so frightening about the current political climate in America. Thoughtful and educated men and women are refused the right to speak on college campuses, presumably the cradle of respectful dialogue, because political opponents don't want to either hear them or allow other students to.

It is not too strong a statement to say that without that right we no longer have a civilized society.

One wonders if we aren't reaching the sort of political climate experienced by the Apostle Paul. He testified of the oppression he had suffered, he had "been in prison more frequently, been flogged more severely.... Five times I received from the Jews the forty lashes minus one. Three times I was beaten with rods, once I was pelted with stones...." He continued, saying he had been "in danger from my fellow Jews, in danger from Gentiles...and in danger from false believers." (2 Cor. 11:23-26)

Had Paul committed a violent crime, stolen or murdered? Was he bringing an army to overthrow the government?
No! He was making a reasonable argument for belief in God and Jesus Christ! He lived in a culture that would murder a man for teaching the concepts of a peaceful
religion. In fact, every apostle of Jesus Christ suffered the same fate.

Once when Jesus was teaching there were opponents in the audience who objected to a statement that, for them, was controversial. He said, "I and the Father are one." It is understandable that some people would not agree with such an astounding statement. But Jesus allowed them the freedom to disagree. He didn't come with an army to enforce His teaching, even though it was truth. He didn't call down fire from heaven.

The violence came from the intolerant people who, "picked up stones to stone him, but Jesus said to them, 'I have shown you many good works from the Father. For which of these do you stone me?' 'We are not stoning you for any good work,' they replied, 'but for blasphemy, because you, a mere man, claim to be God.'" (John 10:30-33)

Imagine, religious people attempting to murder a man because he said something they did not like to hear.

Is America on the verge of losing a fundamental value of Christianity? Have our university presidents, our mayors and politicians lost confidence in the ability of citizens to come together using the God-given gift of verbal communication to achieve justice? Are we witnessing the loss of belief that man is a rational being?

One of the highest creations of God is the rational mind. Maybe the worst sin is rejecting such a gift in favor of anarchy. And that is the loss of civilization.

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Yes, There Is Good News
by Bill Rollins

Last time we met, we were discussing the topic of freedom. We swung from our national freedoms won for us 240 years ago to the freedoms won for us almost 2000 years ago by our redeemer Jesus Christ. And those freedoms, the latter ones, are immeasurably more important than the former.

The Good News is that if we have personally come to our savior and have accepted His blood as a sacrifice for our life, then we have freedom that is far beyond anything any government could ever promise. The things of this world, this society, this physical life are subject to certain laws of physics that cannot be changed. All physical things are subject to the concept of entropy. There is no way out; we will all die.

So what am I saying? No man-made government has or will last forever. All of the world’s empires have crumbled. But there is one government and only one government that is eternal. “For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given, and the government will be on His shoulders. And he will be called Wonderful, Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace ... Of the increase of His government will be no end.” (Isaiah 9:6-7) And this is why the freedom given to us through and by the Son of God is immeasurably more important than the transitory freedoms granted through the Constitution.

In the gospel of John, Chapter 8, Jesus said two things concerning this freedom; “If you hold to my word you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth and the truth will set you free,” and “If the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed.” But what is it that we will be set free from? “Through Jesus Christ, the law of the Spirit of Life set me free from the law of sin and death.” (Romans 8:2) You see, Jesus did not set us free from keeping the law, for Paul has already said in Romans 7:12 that “the law is holy, and the commandment is holy, righteous and good.” We still find that stealing and coveting, etc. are sin. John in his first letter confirms this when he defines sin for us by stating, “Everyone who sins breaks the law; in fact - sin is the transgression of the law.” So again, what is this “law of sin and death” that we have been set free from?

Simply stated, scripture tells us that the penalty for sin is death; we sin, we deserve to die! But our freedom from this law is that Jesus paid the penalty for our sin and went to the cross for us. This is a big subject!

There are many “threads” that run through the Bible, weaving a multi-colored tapestry and one of those is the concept of freedom. The freedom from “the law of sin and death” as Paul stated in Romans 8:2 only comes through choosing Jesus Christ as ones personal savior. Oh, really! ... Just what does it mean to have a personal savior?

Let me begin to answer by stating that, “God so loved the World that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life.” This is probably the most quoted scripture. And many people misread it. Yes, He gave His Son for the World, but in order to not perish and to have life and thereby to have this freedom we have been talking about, one must do something. One must believe in this “sacrificial Son of God.” (A little side note is that this word “perish” comes from a Greek word that means “to destroy fully.”)

You want a personal Savior? You must believe! You say you believe in God, good, even the demons believe that and shudder (see James 2:19). Do we really think we can just pay lip service to the Creator of the Universe and all will be well with us? Can we just give a nod and wink of the eye to Him who gives us life itself; who has written the entire DNA code for our bodies, and expect life eternal with him?

No. “Belief” as we read it in the Bible, is so much more than that. The Greek word for belief is “pisteuo” and by definition means, “to be persuaded of, and to place confidence in; to trust, and place significant reliance upon, not just belief. May be translated as ‘commit unto,’ or ‘commit one’s trust.’”

So, do you have faith in a personal Savior? Have you really accepted Jesus as your personal Savior? Are you “persuaded of” Him?

Have you committed yourself so as to place your trust in Him? He gave His life for you; have you given back that life to Him for safe keeping? A lot of questions here to answer in order to get the good news of that freedom.

When I began writing these articles, I really only had one goal, one desire, and that was to help you, the reader, to come to a closer relationship with our heavenly Father and with His Son. I wanted to, perhaps, highlight the joy and the good things I have felt as I strive to draw near to my God.

I am excited about knowing my God. I am excited about seeking Him with my whole heart and my whole life and so I wish that others can taste of the good things that God has brought to my life. It is good sometimes to just speak from the heart, to pour out for all to see the wonders of His love. I hope and I pray that my words here on this page will help all to long for a deeper understanding of just how much God wants to be a part of your life. God’s desire to have you seek Him, to have you come to Him in prayer, to have you open up and read His book of love, the Bible, really is beyond our comprehension.
A line from a song I enjoy says this - “You’re wanted, you’re precious, you’re the love of His heart and the old rugged cross was for you ...” I believe that says a lot! Oh, how He wants us to know Him so that He may shower His love upon us whom He has made. My friends and brethren, do you really know how precious you are in His sight?

And so to pick up our present theme, let me say that our God has desired to give us true freedom. It is the world, society, and Satan that wants to put us in chains of bondage. The bondage that comes from sin can seem so enticing. Satan tries to turn things upside down and deceive us into thinking God’s ways are somehow chains of bondage.

“God doesn’t let us to have any fun,” is the broadcast Satan promotes. But the truth, that is the truth that sets us free, allows us to experience the depth of joy that only God can provide. In John 14:27, Jesus says, “Peace I leave with you; my peace I give you. I do not give to you as the world gives.” His peace is true peace and His joy and His love is true love.

I speak here from first hand experience. I have known that peace, joy and love. It is real and it is beyond our measuring by human means. It is I that slip and fall - not God. It is I that err and fail - not God. His ways are perfect. He is a Father, a parent if you will, like none other. His love is perfect. His instruction is perfect. He is an awesome God, and He offers us true freedom.

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Getting Back to Normal
by Cynthia Saladin

Suitcases to store away. Mountains of laundry to conquer. Piles of mail to sort through. Bills to pay. Menus to make. Groceries to buy. Errands to run. The return to every day life. Your job to do. Your co-worker’s questions to answer. The place where God has placed each of us to accomplish His will for His glory. Amid the chores and jobs and everyday tasks, there’s an awareness than we have just experienced a watershed event life - marvelous and life-changing — celebrating the Feast of Tabernacles. Or did we?

As we drive home from the Feast, our thoughts bounce back and forth between thinking about what we’ve just heard and learned and thinking about what we have to do when we get home. We go to bed thinking about the slave girl’s faith and her impact on Naaman and undoubtedly countless people or thinking intentionally about our goals. We wake up thinking about beating a path, seeking God’s face or being disciple gumshoes. As we start into our day, we consider our dedication to holiness, our heart’s condition before God.

But in the midst of our reflections on the feast, we are interrupted by the present tasks, vying for our attention. The second day, we are pulled a little back into our lives. The importance of Christ living in me and me living in Messiah is crowded out with needing a new water heater and firewood for the winter.

We’ve just had an incredible Feast!! I don’t want to get pulled back into “before.” I want to hold on to those messages of hope and encouragement and exhortation! It wasn’t just a vacation! It wasn’t just a good time. It was rejoicing and worshiping before our Great God, in His presence for eight days. It was listening to well-prepared, God-inspired messages. It was engaging in meaningful conversations. It was God’s gift to us for our obedience to worship Him at His Feast of Tabernacles. He meant it to be a time of drinking in the Living Water. He meant it to be life-changing, and I have no intention of letting things get back to normal.

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Parting Thought:
Millions who long for immortality don’t know what to do on a rainy Sunday afternoon.

December

The End of the Matter       by Cynthia Saladin

The end of the growing season. The end of the harvest season. The end of the holy days for this year. The end of man’s calendar year.

Most of the leaves have fallen from the tree branches. The late root vegetables are done. The busy-ness of going to the Feast of Tabernacles and then getting caught up again is past. There is still plenty to do. There’s always plenty to do. But there’s a slower pace to the days. There’s more time spent sitting in front of the fire, more time spent on projects that were put away last spring when we really got busy. There’s more time to think, more time to reflect, more time to consider.

That’s good. One of the things which works against an ever-increasing intimacy with our Lord and Savior is the craziness, the busy-ness in which we engage ourselves. It’s very good to sit and think and contemplate. It is not a coincidence that God tells us to celebrate the Feast at the end of the harvest. It is not just happenstance that we’re told to remember to thank God for what He has done, lest we somehow think that we’ve accomplished these blessings by our own efforts (Deuteronomy 8:11-20). And God, in His great mercy to us, makes it easy! It is natural, when the work is done, to celebrate. It’s a natural extension to celebrate and praise and honor the One who has made these blessings possible, Who gave us the strength and wisdom to accomplish the goal, the One Who blessed us in the first place.

But is that it?

Do we just thank God and then merrily go about our business, pouring over seed catalogs for the next planting season and drawing up plans for the next project?

Oh, I hope not!

I hope that we spend some time thinking about what God has taught us during this past season. I hope that we think, not only about new ways to improve our physical lives, but also concrete ways to draw closer to the One who blessed us. I hope we prioritize and get rid of activities which are not profitable for the kingdom. I hope we have learned, really learned, something this year - enough to have made a significant difference in our relationship with God!

I think that’s what Solomon did. He sat down and contemplated his life, what he’d done, the choices he made, the lessons he learned. At the end of it all, the wisest man (outside of Jesus Christ) determined this: fear God and keep His commandments for this is the whole duty of man. Fear God. Reverence Him. Show Him respect and awe and unquestioning loyalty. And how do you do that? You do what He says. You obey Him. You keep His commandments. Those commandments are for your good. They help make life work smoothly. They are given to you by God for your benefit. And when you do what God says to do, you demonstrate your reverence and fear for Him.

So then, when you fear God and keep His commandments, you are doing your duty. . . . which makes you an unprofitable servant, according to Jesus (Luke 17:10). Fearing God and obeying Him is only what you’re supposed to do. Maybe we’d better spend some more time thinking about what it is that makes us profitable servants of our God.

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"I didn't go to religion to make me 'happy.' I always knew a bottle of Port would do that. If you want a religion to make you feel really comfortable, I certainly don't recommend Christianity.”
-C. S. Lewis

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Yes, There Is Good News (Part 9)     by Bill Rollins

I was raised in a church organization that discouraged the lay people from reading the Bible. Having left that church some 46 years ago, I find it somewhat ironic that today I am striving to encourage people to pick up God’s word, read and study it, so as to be comforted, edified and instructed by these words of life.

From Genesis to Revelation there is an abundant joy and amazing wisdom to be found. Would you please pick up God’s word and read it? And as you commit yourself to do this, may I suggest that we look at one particular scripture together?

Zechariah 3:10 “In that day each of you will invite his neighbor to sit under his vine and fig tree, declares the Lord Almighty.” Let me invite you, my neighbor, to sit under your vine and fig tree with me! For perhaps we are in “that day” today - that day of “invitation.”
“But I don’t have a vine or fig tree,” you say? Oh! Let us see if we can locate them for you.

This symbol of the vine and fig tree can be reckoned as an idiomatic expression. In other words, these things stand as a type of something else - something the Israelites would have recognized and understood right away. Let’s ponder the question, “What was of utmost importance to these people who lived several thousand years ago?”

The answer is simple - food and water! One only has to look at the Israelites in the wilderness for 40 years - what did they worry and grumble about? “Where will we get water to drink and food to eat?” (See Exodus 16: 1 - 3 and 17: 1-3). These people were not so concerned about cable TV or Internet reception back then. Physical life itself was bound up in their concern for food and water.
God promised Moses that He would rescue the Israelites from their bondage to the Egyptians and take them to “a good and spacious land, a land flowing with milk and honey.” “Milk and honey was another expression to say that they would have an abundance or fertile land for the cattle and plenty of flowering fruit trees for the bees to make honey. Food was important.

Okay! So Let’s get back to the “vine and fig tree” of Zechariah. This expression is used to indicate what kind of life
the people would have under the rule of King Solomon. “During Solomon’s lifetime, Judah and Israel, from Dan to Beersheba (i.e. from the northern border to the southern) lived in safety, each man under his own vine and fig tree.” Ah! So we have safety and everyone’s eating grapes and figs. Sounds like good news for the people under Solomon’s rule.

So, I began this article by stating that today “I strive to encourage people to pick up God’s word, read it and study it, so as to be comforted, edified and instructed by these words of life.” Why? I suppose this is one of those curious cases were the answer to the question is sort of stated within the question.

If you were the winner of some $100 million lottery, wouldn’t you want to share it at least with the ones you love? Well, I have something worth more than a paltry monetary figure and, of course, I would like to share it with those I love. The second great commandment is to “love your neighbor as yourself.” I find more than “comfort, edification and instruction” in these words of life in the Bible; I find joy and I find “the fear of the Lord.” You are my neighbor and I desire to share the fear of the Lord (which is a great treasure) with you. How do I do that?

Well, let’s piece some things together - Proverbs 9:10 says, “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom.” Okay, so what does the Bible say about wisdom? Proverbs 8:11 says, “Wisdom is more precious than rubies, and nothing you desire can compare with her.” So if I put 2 and 2 together, I find that this $100 million jackpot can’t compare with the wisdom I may obtain from fearing the Lord! And where do I find this wisdom? The scriptures are replete with wisdom. From one end to the other wisdom may be reaped.
Let us take a look at one chapter in the book of Proverbs - chapter eight. Here we find Solomon personifying the idea of wisdom. Would you please read this chapter? And while you are at it, please read chapter one. Chapter one gives us the whole reason for Solomon penning this book of wisdom.

I think that we are all intrigued with the idea of winning the lottery. What could we do with multiple millions of dollars? Yet we all know what the odds are of winning. And we have all read the stories about those who have won and have in some way destroyed their lives. Earthly riches never bring true happiness. Yet God says that we can have great gain! It is more than riches and wealth. We can have a close relationship with the One who created the Universe, the One who is life itself and who gives this life unto us, His creatures. And yet, this physical world is not all He wants to give us. He has more! And just as any engineer includes a set of instructions with the product he created, God gives us a manual for life - the Bible - wherein we may seek wisdom and true riches.
In this book of Proverbs, in Chapter 3, verse 5 and 6 says: “Trust in the Lord with all your heart and lean not on your own understanding, in all your ways acknowledge Him, and He will make your path straight.”

It goes on from there with some beautiful instruction but let’s start with just these two verses. “Trust” comes from a Hebrew word that means “to be reliant, to trust, to hasten toward refuge.” And the word for “heart” literally means “the center of something.” To go a little further with this word, we can see that the organ that pumps blood is somewhat at the center of our bodies. But this word also includes the center of who we are. By definition in Hebrew, it includes our “motives, feelings, affections, desires principles and thoughts.” This is really a huge word. It encompasses the entirety of our personality.

This suggestion that we “trust the Lord with all our heart” looms large in our devotion to the Creator. At what point do we leave His understanding out of our lives? When do we not accept His instruction, or wisdom? Does he not know all things?

Does He not see all things? In Psalm 139:4 it says, “before a word is on my tongue you know it completely, O Lord.” If we desire to have a relationship with the Creator and Sustainer of all things and He tells us to “trust in Him with all that we are,” I believe we shall find this to be a good thing. Oh, and by the way, if you find this to be news to you, then let’s just call it “good news.”

This is a powerful statement, my friends and neighbors. Let me say that it takes guts and determination to put all of your trust in God. So what does the second part of this statement in Proverbs say? “In all your ways acknowledge Him ...” The words “all your ways,” is another way of saying “with all your heart.” Once we have put our trust in Him and asked for His advice and guidance, as we come out the other side of that situation, I do believe we must acknowledge His leading, and help.

Then what happens? The next part of this scripture states “and He will make your paths straight.” This word straight has the sense of being smooth, pleasant or prosperous.

Doesn’t it seem obvious that we would want our paths to be pleasant or prosperous? Why would we want it any other way? Our God desires good things for those who trust and acknowledge Him. And that, of course, is “good news.”

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Poster found in a church in France (translated)
“When you enter this church it may be possible that you hear “the call of God.” However, it is unlikely that He will call you on your mobile. Thank you for turning off your phones. If you want to talk to God, enter, choose a quiet place and talk to Him. If you want to see Him, send Him a text while driving.

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"While it looks like things are out of control, behind the scenes there is a God who hasn't surrendered His authority."   - A. W. Tozer

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