Stealing Fruit

Bella feeding the birds scraps from her lunch.

God gives to all who ask believing and in accordance with His holy will.  The fruit of God's word is ours if we want it and while we should always be in want of it, so often that is not the case.  Our fruit baskets are empty and are given little regard or attention, because we aren't hungry enough.
How can we gain an appetite for scripture?  By reading it.  How can we gain an appetite for the Lord? By spending time with Him.  When I fell in love with  Tommy, I wanted to be with him all the time. And I wanted him to want to be with me, too.  And he did. I wanted to know all about him.  I was fifteen and he was eighteen. (His history really didn't matter that much. We made our history together.)
God is waiting for His children to quit choosing other activities and choose instead to know Him better. We are supposed to ask Him to help us love Him more...because we are unable to manifest this great love on our own.
Mark 12:28-34  And one of the scribes came up and heard them disputing with one another, and seeing that he answered them well, asked him, "Which commandment is the most important of all?" Jesus answered, "The most important is, 'Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. And you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength.' The second is this: 'You shall love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no other commandment greater than these." And the scribe said to him, "You are right, Teacher. You have truly said that he is one, and there is no other besides him. And to love him with all the heart and with all the understanding and with all the strength, and to love one's neighbor as oneself, is much more than all whole burnt offerings and sacrifices." And when Jesus saw that he answered wisely, he said to him, "You are not far from the kingdom of God." And after that no one dared to ask him any more questions. 
This term 'stealing fruit' took on a different context when I read it recently.  An author likened it to stealing truth and fruitful things from God's word.  Let's covet the truths of His word to the point of grabbing them and owning them at any cost.  It isn't stealing if it is freely offered.
God gives us His word that we might know Him.  That is really all we have.  Taking something that is already mine sounds absurd, but I forget how much I need it and neglect it.  My fruit basket is empty.
Let's open our bibles and steal some fruit.  Our Father wants us to have it.
Romans 6:22  But now that you have been set free from sin and have become slaves of God, the fruit you get leads to sanctification and its end, eternal life. 

Matthew 6:26  Look at the birds of the air: they neither sow nor reap nor gather into barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not of more value than they? 

Feed on the Word He has given us.

Lies I Believed, Ruling My World, and First Place

The desire to rule is big among women.
Genesis 3:16   To the woman he said, "I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be for your husband, and he shall rule over you."
That's what we get from the fall in the garden.  That word desire means that we desire to rule over our husbands, to be the boss, to be in control and then the verse goes on to say that he will rule over us. But...what if he's no good at it?  What if we are better rulers?  What if he yields his throne to us out of laziness?
All that glitters in that crown isn't gold.  While learning to be more of an Indian and less of a Chief, my desire to rule can quickly creep back in out of sheer fear. Yielding control is a very scary thing. (As I am typing this, it strikes me that rule rhymes with fool and mule. Sheer and fear rhyme, too. I'm just saying.)
Being a somewhat educated woman (I can rhyme words), my own logic had served me well for most of my days. I thought I knew how to best maneuver through my child-rearing years. Living for Christ to me meant that appearance mattered.  That was the first lie I told myself. If looks are what mattered, then I could make that happen, but doing it without regard to issues in the heart is fatal. Why did I think that good works came from pure hearts? Why did I believe that the cover of a book really told the story inside?
The second lie was that my kids would know by osmosis all that I knew - from my own mistakes - and would thus make good choices.  Conviction is from the Lord.  It is a good and righteous thing.  If you keep someone from feeling guilt or experiencing the consequences of his/her sin, you are only prolonging pain and hindering his/her ability to feel remorse and come to repentance.  You are enabling him/her to repeat the offenses without regret.
The third lie I believed was that I loved God more than anything.  I had been taught and had read books that listed what my priorities should be: First - God. Second - husband, third - children, church and ministry next and on down the line, as I weighed out all the things in my life. So often we catagorize our manmade agendas with little regard to the One we set in first place.  It all looks great to us and our lists have merit based on our human reasoning. However, there really needs to be but one entry on the list: God - first, last, and everything inbetween.
Isaiah 44:6  Thus says the LORD, the King of Israel and his Redeemer, the LORD of hosts: "I am the first and I am the last; besides me there is no god." 
If God is first in our lives, then all else falls into place and those places will change from time to time. People get sick, people die, children grow up and leave home, emergencies occur, jobs are lost, our attentions are required in all directions, and any number of unwanted expectations can force our perfect agendas into complete chaos.  If however, first place belongs to God, we can handle the changes that come...all of them, all the time. The problem is, we are not sure what first place really means.
Nothing takes priority in our lives without love being at the center...whether it's love of self, or love of another, or better yet, the love of the Lord Jesus.  So, where is your love? Jesus teaches us in Matthew that where our treasure is, there our hearts will be.  We say with our lips that we love Him first, when actually our actions speak volumes against that claim. So I had to ask myself if I really loved God the way I said I did. Was He my treasure? The Holy Spirit began to pierce my soul with conviction and truth. Christ was not my number one priority. I wanted it to be true so I could believe the best of myself, but there is no best of myself and it was not true...not all the time.
Admitting this was the first step in being honest about my relationship with the Lord. In repentance I asked God to help me love Him more and to know Who He is.  Jesus saved me with His great and perfect love from God's great and perfect wrath and I gave Him bits and pieces in return. I wanted with all my heart to know God.  He was/is my Savior, but believing that does not automatically mean that I knew Him and loved Him as I should.
My friend Marcy suggested that I read Psalms and write down the attributes of God that I found in each chapter.  So I bought a notebook and grabbed a pen.  I started in the fall of 2014.  I finished Psalms and went on to read Hosea, then 1,2,3 John, and Jude, writing down God's attributes in each book. I am currently in Isaiah. God of the universe is teaching me about Himself.  He wants me to know Him. He wants you to know Him, too.
Luke 10:27  And he answered, "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." 
I am saving that neighbor part for another post.  I'm still learning to love my Lord with all my heart. It is working, though. It's amazing that He loved me in the first place...so I will return the love and give Him first place, and the middle, and the last.

Sparrows

Let me preface this by saying it was written a couple of months ago...before the heat hit.
Each year a family of sparrows makes their home on my back patio.  I know I should clean out that birdhouse, but I am never sure when it is empty.  In the fall and winter months, my yard gets ignored and by the time Spring arrives, tiny peeps let me know to keep away so Mama can return with food. When I do sit ourside as I did today and read, Mama is in a nearby tree waiting for me to leave.  She swoops down to see if I am still there and then lights on the roof or in the nearby cedar bush.
I snapped some pictures of their house: close, then closer, then closer still.

Their cries stopped as I drew near.  It's beginning to get hot and the temperatures will only rise from here on out.  My bird bath is small, but I filled it with water...just in case.  There is an imprint around the rim on the inside. "His eye is on the sparrow and I know He watches me."  I don't remember seeing it before, but of course I must have. (Every day is new when your memory goes.)
Anyway, it is a perfect reminder that God sees the sparrow and He also sees me.  I am eternally grateful that He does.  Reading on my patio is pleasant right now.  It is shaded in the afternoon before the setting sun overtakes the concrete. Days like this are few as summer heat approaches.

The mama was not coming around anymore and her babies were silent.  I looked over to see the intruder nearby.

He thinks I can't see his fat body hanging over that limb and he allowed me to get very close.

And then he bolted for the fence.

His eye is on that squirrel as well. 

We often miss the surprises under our noses. Look for them. 

So....what's in your backyard?

Daily Grace

Hosea 14:5-6  I will be like the dew to Israel; he shall blossom like the lily; he shall take root like the trees of Lebanon; his shoots shall spread out; his beauty shall be like the olive, and his fragrance like Lebanon. 
Albert Barnes' commentary says of this verse: "The grace of God, like the dew, is not given once for all, but is, day by day, waited for, and, day by day, renewed.  Yet doth it not pass away like the fitful goodness of God's former people, but turns into the growth and spiritual substance of those on whom it descends."
1 Corinthians 3:9-10  For we are God's fellow workers. You are God's field, God's building. According to the grace of God given to me, like a skilled master builder I laid a foundation, and someone else is building upon it. Let each one take care how he builds upon it. 
As our grace is renewed daily, let us continue the work here on earth, building on the foundation that was laid by Christ's work on the cross and Paul's work in establishing the churches that continued in faith and spead throughout history.  There is history yet ahead of us.  Be diligent to do all that He has called you to do, and keep asking for more grace.
2 Corinthians 4:15-16  For it is all for your sake, so that as grace extends to more and more people it may increase thanksgiving, to the glory of God.  So we do not lose heart. Though our outer nature is wasting away, our inner nature is being renewed day by day. 
Barnes: "Grace abounding, or overflowing.  God's rich mercy should be manifested by these means. It is implied here, that grace would abound by means of these labors and self-denials of the apostles. The grace referred to here is that which would be conferred on them in consequence of these labors."

God gives us grace to press on in our endeavors that honor Him and bring Him glory.
So, let's ask for grace and continue to press on.

My mom (rt) and her friend Edith - both in their 80's - taking a stroll and pressing on.

Rain...and the Beatles

One Friday while we were in the midst of torrential rains in south Texas, we packed a picnic, grabbed our grandkids, and drove to Galveston - hoping for an hour or two inbetween raindrops.

The horizon was a deep shade of gray and I knew it was only a matter of time before we would be driven to shelter. The kids could run free for a bit.  The beach was virtually empty, barring a few guys with surfboards.  We drove down the seawall till we found the right spot.
Singing songs in the car is our usual habit while listening to Tommy's downloaded list which stems from bluegrass to oldies, classical to hymns.  He's a versatile guy.

When a remake of a Beatles tune popped up, Emma asked, "Who are the Beatles?"
I turned to her and said, "Don't ever let anyone hear you ask that question."
"Why not?" she replied and suddenly I felt very old.
The Beatles were never my favorite, but that isn't the point.  My grandchildren will likely never know the mayhem and all of the revolutions that took place in the Sixties.  I guess unless you lived it, you couldn't know.
We recently watched a documentary on that decade and while parts of it rang a sweet bell, most of it brought back to life the rebellion that went on.  Riots, drugs, heavy rock and folk ballads, music in the park, the war draft, and peace emblems attached to anything that didn't move and some things that did.
They say you can't go back and they are right and I am glad.  Things that make history become history.  And so it goes...
My thoughts were jarred back to the present as we drove down East Beach where roads were impassable, though we saw a soul or two making the most of the beginning of summer.  I love the beach.  I went there in the sixties and every decade since. Memories do stand the test of time...for most people.  I am making some history for those following in my steps.

Random shots of fellow beach lovers.

Emma says, "Bye y'all!"

It's Unbelief

Hebrews 3:18-19   And to whom did he swear that they would not enter his rest, but to those who were disobedient?  So we see that they were unable to enter because of unbelief.
From the moment we are born, our sin nature is right there with us. We are born with it because we are born in Adam.  It would be easy to blame Eve, too for the grief caused us, but the names don't really matter here.  It could have been me and Tommy and the results would have been the same. Sinful me. Sinful you. Sinful mankind.
Right from birth, we start piling on the sin, stacking it up like there's no tomorrow.  We are aware of it, but just not sure what to do with it and it grows daily at a rapid pace. It doesn't take long before we recognize the sins attached to us and we try to hide our ugly labels - slanderer, liar, hater, judge, murderer, adulterer, abuser, homosexual, blasphemer - all the while trying to look as normal as the next guy. The problem is, the next guy is doing the same, so who and what does normal look like really?
Everyone is just trying to be accepted for who they are, but only we ourselves know the blackness beneath the surface.  What we fail to remember is that everyone holds this blackness inside.
We can cover up pretty good when we wear the right clothes, put on the right make-up, listen to the coolest music and hang with the in-crowd. "There now," (we tell ourselves) "I can make it through this day."  We were not made to just make it through each day, we are to be more than conquerors every day...overcomers and champions.  
Except...all of this 'wretchedness' is attached to us. We are unable in and of ourselves to be rid of it. Often we fall into the 'easily fallen into' trap of comparison.  "Next to so-and-so, I look pretty good." Well, guess what?  So-and-so is saying the same thing about you.
God warned Samuel as he tried to choose a king for His people -
1 Samuel 16:7  But the LORD said to Samuel, "Do not look on his appearance or on the height of his stature, because I have rejected him. For the LORD sees not as man sees: man looks on the outward appearance, but the LORD looks on the heart." 
We see ourselves as better than the ones we have decided do not have God's favor.  There are those who fall into the category of the hell bound.  We read it in black and white and quietly seal their fates without even telling them about the love of Christ.  We sentence them without batting an eye.  We point fingers and turn our heads away because it feels holy at the time to reject.  Shame on us.
At the core of all sin is unbelief.  Sins are just hidden by the clothing we wear while trying our best to look our best.  The problem is, before a holy God it is impossible to hide anything.  He is the only One able to judge the heart and the intent of the heart.
So I challenge us all to put down our judgment pounding gavels and open our hearts and mouths to speak of God's great love for His people.  There are no innocents here; we have all been marred and scarred by our own decisions to rebel against God.  The only hope we have is the grace given by Him as we repent and believe.  Unbelief is the root.  After that it blooms into all manner of evil. Thank the Lord there is an Answer to all of it.
Christians must drop their precious guards and reach out to others. If we want to put someone's hand into the hand of God, we are going to have to get close enough to do it.

Just reach for the heart.

2 Corinthians 10:11-13  Let such a person understand that what we say by letter when absent, we do when present. Not that we dare to classify or compare ourselves with some of those who are commending themselves. But when they measure themselves by one another and compare themselves with one another, they are without understanding. But we will not boast beyond limits, but will boast only with regard to the area of influence God assigned to us, to reach even to you. 

Application is Proof That You Know What You Say You Know

Wisdom is the right use of knowledge.  To know is not to be wise.  Many men know a great deal, and are all the greater fools for it.  There is no fool so great a fool as a knowing fool.  But to know how to use knowledge is to have wisdom.  Charles Spurgeon.

I have lived much of my life with men who love to debate.  My husband is a pastor.  My firstborn can reason logic right out the window and down the street and be right.  My second born is a college professor with a love for music and must reason with the 'educated' on how important it is to keep the arts in the world of academia.  My third son should have been a lawyer.  He could state his case for anything, and spot the hypocrisy in his opponent (usually me), leaving him/her/me with mouth open in speechless defense. (Darn it.)
Thus said, life has taught me that knowledge is not really knowledge until it is applied.  Application is everything. Without it, there is no proof in that pudding and no leg to stand on...so I guess without application you are hopping around in a bowl of ignorant pudding. (I know that makes no sense, but it's funny.)
Those days of iron sharpening iron on a regular basis have slowed.  My comeback skills have become dull and most days I wonder just how long I have before dementia sets in.  The books I am reading have driven home one distinctive truth and while I'm encouraged by the author's words, it is the attachment of scripture to his/her thoughts that cements the point.  If we are not applying God's word in our every day lives, then we do not really know what we think we know.  Knowledge is textbook. Wisdom is application.
I can walk around all day, every day, nodding at the truths in scripture as if I've got them nailed.  If however, I'm not practicing what I know, it's all for NOTHING.  It profits me zero.  And if it is true that what I know is just hidden inside me and not flowing out, then I fall into the trap James warns us about.
James 1:22  "But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves."
Paul also writes to us:
Romans 2:13  "For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified."
I don't want to just know what Jesus said.  I want to live what Jesus said.  This means I will change. It means not measuring myself against anyone to see if I am capable of the job in front of me.  It means doing it, knowing that God said He would equip me, ready me, and that I must embrace any weaknesses I have and be thankful for them, because it is then that Christ takes over with His strength.  I am going to love my weaknesses from now on.  God gave them to me on purpose.  They are gifts to demonstrate His great ability, not mine.
2 Corinthians 12:9-10  'But he said to me, "My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness." Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong.'
Christians must wake up and smell the coffee.  (I'm always telling you to smell something. Sorry.) We are at war and our weapon is God's holy word and...yep, that's it really. Couple that with your faith in Jesus and His righteousness and you are ready for battle. The war begins when we start applying what we learn in scripture.  Don't be unarmed because you can't quote the verses.  Learn them.
This isn't a challenge; it is a warning.  Life is going to get tougher and we will all be believing small lies if we can't speak what we know is true. We can boast of nothing before the Lord.  We are the hands and feet of Christ and He has given us this huge responsibility.  We can do it because He is alongside us and will help us. He promised.
Hebrews 13:20-21  Now may the God of peace who brought again from the dead our Lord Jesus, the great shepherd of the sheep, by the blood of the eternal covenant, equip you with everything good that you may do his will, working in us that which is pleasing in his sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen.