A War of Words

Every day, I get lots of emails. There are devotionals that really lift my thoughts to God. Then there are updates on websites I read frequently. Of course personal emails from friends are part of the mix. And then there's spam.

People I'll never meet share the details of their medical and financial condition. (Is everyone in Nigeria sick?) Others want to have me purchase the latest pharmaceuticals. (I rarely take aspirin, so fat chance.) Still more want me to refinance my home, take a trip, or meet new people. Thank you, but no.

But what about those spam emails you get with what seems like crazy prose or meaningless words put together out of any context? What are those about? Well, they have nothing to do with ethics - just the opposite. Those words are designed to overload your email programs spam filter with so many real words that it just gives up and lets anything through. It's a war of words.

Sometimes they use snippets from a dictionary. Other times they lift from fiction. But the idea is to so clog the spam filter with words that would be considered good - that the bad sneaks by.

Jesus was teaching His disciples one day when the Pharisees and some Sadducees walked up and asked for a sign from Him that he was real. By this point Jesus had done so many miracles which they had ignored that he told them no. Then He turned to His disciples and said:

6 "Watch out!" Jesus warned them. "Beware of the yeast of the Pharisees and Sadducees."

Matt 16:6 (NLT)

The disciples didn't understand.

It was a war of words. The yeast is the active ingredient in bread dough. Though there's a lot of other ingredients, and the quantity of those are far greater in volume than the yeast - if the yeast is bad, no matter how much other stuff you put in the mix - the result is bad bread.

At the "yeast" level, they did not believe that God's Word could change anyone. But if they threw out enough words - enough rules - then people would have to do right.

Friends, it's not about rules.

It's about relationship - about whether you are living in relationship with God through His Son. He's sinless - completely Holy. You're not. No amount of words, no amount of forced obedience, no amount of looking good - will change that. Only a heart yielded, a will surrendered, a life offered daily to Him in obedience... matters to Him.

Ask yourself how often you think about Jesus.

Are you losing the war of words?

Make your life a prayer, a running conversation with Him.

Grace!

David

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Visit with me at my blog:
http://davethepastor.livejournal.com/
Or visit New Hope!
http://www.newhopevalp.org/

Just Another Day?

On July 15th, 1920, on the wrong side of the tracks down on Roff Avenue near "Mr Willingham's Textile Mill", a little girl was born to Henry and Bertie Bowden. Her parents were millworkers who had moved from the farm to the city in search of a better life. Each had lost a spouse to death before they met each other, and the family was a blend of Fosters and Bowdens.

The little girl grew to adulthood in that shotgun house, becoming the first of her family to get a high school diploma. During those years, she saw a sister die in a fire, a brother killed when his car stalled on the railroad tracks that ran parallel to the road. When she was 12, her father was hit by a car and died the next day. Hurt came often to Roff Avenue. The family grew tight - they had to. Somehow the widow "Bertie" raised all their kids and another couple of girls besides. Lodie was the big sister now, and she went to school and worked in the mill too. Whatever it took to help, she did.

She met a young man who lived in the same mill village, and just as World War Two began, they married. He was sent away, and in a year or so, she enlisted herself. They saw each other once during the War, in Manila.

After the war, they had both changed. Everything had.

They divorced, and then love found them again, and they remarried.

One day they got the news she was pregnant with twins. Nine months later they got the news the babies wouldn't survive. Delivered, they lived less than a week. But a couple who had seen so much pain and held so much heartache, just wouldn't give up hope. One year later, I was born - the young woman was my Mother - Lodie Marie Bowden Wilson.

She passed away 15 years ago. But today would have been her 86th birthday, and I remember her on it. No other person had more influence on who I became than she. Not one day in the years we shared on this earth did I not awake knowing that my Mother loved me deeply.

When you are the recipient of love, like a Mother's love, most of the time you are blind to it. Days come and go, sacrifices are made for you. Some you might realize but poorly comprehend. Others you miss completely. When your children come along, understanding does too, and then when the giver passes away, the gifts are made visible in the loss of the one who gave them.

I cannot give her anything now. All I can do is give to others as I have been given to. When I was reading Philippians the other day, I came across this. Those of you who read it, do as I have done today and think about your life, and what someone years after you are gone will write about it in review. Will it be God-honoring? Will it be praiseworthy? What will be your legacy? Will you have pointed your family to Jesus? Can you write as Paul does here?

Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me—put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you. Philippians 4:9 NIV

Remember, we love, because He first loved us.

It's called...

Grace!

David

--
Visit with me at my blog:
http://davethepastor.livejournal.com/
Or visit New Hope!
http://www.newhopevalp.org/