Just Another Day

Well today was going to be different. I was going to start doing morning chores again the way I did last year since that worked out really well for me. But the key to morning chores is to decide that they have to be completed before turning on the computer. The problem is that I woke up before 5:00 and had to get up to go the bathroom and in doing that my back seems to have gone out (it's been an on-again-off-again thing for the better part of 3 weeks now) so I decided not to go back to bed and just lay there and hurt. I decided to stay up and hurt, lol! But because my beloved is still asleep and I don't want to wake him I can't do my morning chores because 1) he's still asleep in the bed so I can't make it up, and 2) my other chores will make too much noise. So it looks like I'll start my new chore routine tomorrow.

I am so close now to having my big Bible study finished that I'm getting antsy. You must understand that this was a major undertaking. It's a 30-day study, using a 500+ page textbook, that I will finish up on Friday. Yea! Don't get me wrong; I've enjoyed every lesson it's just that it's been such a massive undertaking that if I'd know how all encompassing it was going to be I probably wouldn't have decided to do it. The lessons average about 2 hours a day, every day. There's about an hour's worth of reading in the Bible and then another hour's worth reading in the textbook. I don't really have questions to answer with every lesson, well, I mean, I do but they are thought questions. Things to ponder and figure out how to apply what I've learned to my daily life. This study has taken me from Genesis through to Revelation by Friday. I've looked fairly closely at every book in the Bible and I feel I have a whole new appreciation for it. This study has given me a better overall sense of the Bible and how all it's parts are actually well-connected to each other. Anyway it's been an incredible journey but I will be glad to get it all done and have all that work behind me. I have several options left open for me to do when I finish this study: I have a Bible study book on Philippians and Colossians and another one on Romans that I could start. I also want to go back through the Prophets and look at them more closely. I looked at all of them in this current study but that just made me thirsty for more of them. And finally I want to start a long-term project to create my own paraphrase of the Psalms. That is something that would take me months if not years to do. So I have plenty of things to do but I think I will take a week off and spring clean my house before I tackle another study. My house could really use that and I think I could use the mental break. My brain's a bit boggy lately from so much reading. Actually I think my brain was pretty boggy on it's own before I took on this latest study.

I have had several readers to my blogs which gives me a thrill. It's so much fun to hear the comments of others. I haven't thought of my recent blogs as anything but rambling conversations for the entire month of May (while I've been wrapped up in this study) but I keep writing every few days so people won't think I've decided not to blog anymore. I will get back to my own devotional creations after this study. I hope. That's my plan anyway. Some people blog so sporadically that you get tired of checking their blog just to find out that there's nothing new for the last week or so and you can easily get out of the habit of checking their blogs or just flat out give up. I don't promise to write every day but I rarely let more than 3 days go by without something. When I first started blogging I wrote every day, Monday thru Friday. But that took the fun out of it. So I backed off and gave myself a little breathing room and it has worked out better for me. Of course I used to write more creative stuff like devotionals and I hope to get back to that but for the time being my mind is too boggy.

You know, God is so good to us. It boggles my mind to wrap my brain around this incredible God we have. He is just so big!!! And I can't for the life of me see how people can make it through this life without God leading them. When we open ourselves up to God and at the same time deny self amazing things happen. If I dedicate my time to Him, He will come in and fill me with His presence. Isn't that amazing? It just blows me away that God, the very God of the universe, is interested in little insignificant me. He's got galaxies to run and He cares that my back hurts. Why would He care about me? Because He created me. Because He's a relational God. He desires to have a relationship with me. But I can't help asking why? Why would He care about me? And all I can come up with for an answer us because He wants to. Isn't that amazing? It leaves me speechless when I stop and think about it. Why would He come into my life and sanctify me, set me apart as His own chosen vessel? Why would He bother when He has the entire universe to sustain? It just blows me away.

Looks like it's going to be another sunny day outside. Yesterday was a strange day. It was bright and sunny all day and then just before dark it clouded up and rained for half an hour, giving us .12 of an inch. It is so beautiful living up here in the foothills of the Sierra mountains. I mean most of the spring green has turned early to the browns of summer and it's easy to miss the beauty up here. I just love the fact that it's not wall-to-wall parking lots and office buildings like down in the Valley. When I sit at my computer and look to my right I can see out my sliding glass doors and view Hogback mountain covered in trees and shrubs. I actually have 3 "layers" or ridge lines, I guess is a better way of saying it, and each one is a million shades of green. During the afternoons there are always carrions, hawks and vultures mostly, gliding through the thermal up-drafts looking for prey on the ground. A tasty little rodent maybe. You see so much life up here that you don't see down in the Valley. I wouldn't trade living up here for any other place in the world. Oh I have my problems when July hits us with the 110 - 114 degree afternoons. That's too hot in anybody's book. But that usually lasts no more than a week. A very long and miserable week, I agree, but it's certainly worth enduring one week of misery for the rest of the year. We have the disadvantage of not having the shopping available to us but we do fine with what we have. It's an entirely different life up here. Slower. Quieter. More intimate.

I want to take up walking again. I need the exercise and walking is so good for you. I always feel like a million dollars when I'm walking several miles a day. I don't know what it is but there's just something to it that makes me feel good. Of course one thing is that when I used to walk (4-6 miles a day) I spent the entire time praying out loud to my Savior. That always made it a special time. But before I can do that I have to let my back heal. It's so inconvenient to try to live with a bad back. It affects everything you do or want to do. And bad backs seem to be going around, lol. My beloved had a bad back for a few days and my sister said her back has been real touchy for a week or more. Oh well, grin and bear it, I guess. It certainly doesn't do any good to fret about it.

It's so much fun to have the Holy Spirit active in your life. You never really know what He's going to do next. But every day is an opportunity for Him to teach us and direct us down new and exciting paths. His "job" is to prune us and shape us into the persons God wants us to be. We all are being transformed into the image of His Son. As adopted children we are entitled to the same kind of instruction and guidance that Jesus had while He was on earth. The Holy Spirit empowers us to live the Christian life. Without Him it's impossible for us to live the kind of life, the abundant life, that God wants us to have. Although we're adopted, we have all the rights of a natural-born son. Jesus gladly shares His inheritance with us and we are blessed beyond words. Having been a JW I've come to appreciate this truth in every way possible. There is no personal relationship for the average JW. The Holy Spirit is God's "active force" like electricity. He's not a person. And Jesus was not divine. Jesus was the first thing God created and then through Jesus every thing else was created. Jesus was Jehovah's master worker and nothing more. Jehovah was the architect and Jesus was the contracted builder.

Such an empty cult. I was dry and thirsty at all times although I pretty well had myself convinced that I was doing just fine. See the thing is, with the JWs you have all these rules you have to keep. And the idea is to fool yourself into thinking that you're keeping all the rules. And you can do pretty good as long as you stay away from rules like: Do not covet. On that you have to pretend. You have to try and fool yourself. When Jesus came, He dealt with all our "want tos." Through Christ we find forgiveness for our sinful cravings. With the JWs you just tried to pretend you're keeping all the rules and hope that Jehovah will forgive you because you do keep so many of the rules. But see the thing is, God requires that we either keep 100% of the rules, 100% of the time, or we rest in the work that Christ has done and ask for forgiveness and then relinquish our lives over to the Lord. We know it's impossible to keep all the rules all the time so that leaves us with one option; accepting the free gift of grace in exchange for our "old man." No one can keep all the rules all the time because Jesus explained that it's the "spirit" of the laws that matter. You don't kill anyone? Well, good for you, but even murderers know killing someone is wrong. You don't steal from anyone? Great, but have you ever wanted to? Have you ever wished it would be okay just this once to take this one little thing that the other person has more of than he needs anyway. You haven't committed adultery? That's good but have you ever been tempted to? You don't swear? How about silently that time your thumb got in the way of your hammer? So see, all JWs and other cults like them are only superficially clean. That's what irked Jesus so much with the Pharisees. They were spotless on the outside but inside they were full of dead man's bones. It is humanly impossible to live the type of life that God requires us to live and that's where grace comes in. Grace bridges the gap between our fallen selves and our holy God. Grace is the Magic Rub eraser that cleans up all the smudges.

But JWs and those like them have no grace in their theology. It's all nothing but a man-made religion and it's one that God won't honor. It's thumbing your nose at what Jesus did on the cross. It's saying I don't need your grace, Jehovah, because I keep all the rules. I mean, when have You seen me murder or steal or commit adultery? It's all so sad. There are millions of Jehovah's Witnesses in this world and they are to be pitied. They have no real hope. Their hope is bound up in crossed fingers and closed eyes. Oh, I hope I make it! I hope I make it! Jesus said we cannot get to the Father except through Him. He is our saving grace. He set aside all His rights to His Godship, emptied Himself, and took on human flesh. He lived and obey and died in our place, paying the price to buy us out of the bondage to sin. And He freely puts Paid in Full on our account and all we have to do is accept this incredible gift and give our lives over to Him. And He requires 100% of our lives. We can't keep a little bit of it for ourselves. We can't hang on to those "works" because the only "work" that matters is the work Jesus did at Calvary. We must say to ourselves and to our God that we can't do this work and in faith accept Christ's work on our behalf. What an astonishing God!! He is so good. He gives us all this and all He asks is our faith, which He gladly supplies us, and the turning over of our lives to Him. It's letting Him make all our decisions and it's us letting Him have total control of every aspect of our lives. It's holding nothing back but surrendering our all to Him.

So the next time a JW comes to your door, don't be rude. You are a representative of Christ and His love even to them. If they want to study with you tell them you'll study the Bible with them but only the Bible. No "study aids" and see how they do. Take them through Romans verse by verse and teach them. They cannot study the Bible that way. That's totally foreign to them. They are so doctrinally oriented that they can only function by using the study aids that spell out all the rules and regulations. My guess is that they will turn away and say it must be done their way or they want no part. But how do you know that you won't find the one soul secretly searching for the fulfillment that only a life in Christ can give them. You just might be able to open their eyes. But never, never study doctrine. It will just turn into an argument and no body benefits.