I have finally arrived at my kind of perfection in my garden.  Something has been in full bloom since the last of March.  Just as one kind of flower stops blooming, another starts.  I go out every morning and pull weeds and kill poison ivy and yank our tree sprouts,  turn on the hose and water, not because anything needs it (I have a sprinkling system) but just because I like to do it.  I am a 5:30 AM kind of gal and it is still cool enough at that time in the morning to go outside.

I picked asparagus for months, then spinach and now I am overrun with squash.  The okra is two feet high and the tomatoes are almost ready to pick.  I love it.  But then, I love Oklahoma food.

Didn't God do a wonderful job when he created our world.  So much variety.  So many colors.  Just think about it: if we didn't have music, color and variety, the world would be dull and drab.

God is our provider.  He gives us what we need and more.

Revelations 2:7  "To him that overcomes will I give to eat of the tree of life, which is in the midst of the paradise of God.  ( The Tree of Life was also in Eden.)

 I wonder what that kind of fruit is going to taste like.  I can't even imagine anything better than fried okra.  I hope heaven has green things growing,  and good things to eat.  However, since God did such a fabulous job on this earth, I'm sure he can create something that I can't even imagine that will far surpass what we know here.

He says we are going to eat in that verse.  That's good.

As I have been thumbing through my Bible to prepare what I am going to write, one of the things that I had not really paid much attention to before is how worn out it is.  The edges of the pages are tattered.  Some pages are torn.  The binding is loose.  The cover looks like mice got to it.  But it is filled with notes in the edges.  Dates.  Underlining.  It's like a diary of my life.

But the most notable thing is how some pages are still white and others are yellowed and stained with whatever I spilled on them when I was reading and rereading.  Some parts of my Bible are just simply worn out.  Obviously, some parts of the Bible have been more important to me than others.

One year when I was teaching High School seniors at a Cristian camp called Falls Creek--which incidentally is the largest Christian camp in the world--I realized that I had packed everything except the above mentioned Bible.  Maybe it is a security blanket, but whatever, I had to have it.  I had too many notes in the edges.  So I called Ken, and he and a Christian friend who is also a pilot  got in a plane and flew it down to me.  They landed on a strip the size of a postage stamp,  handed it out the door and then took off to go home.  That is how important this particular Bible is to me.  It's the one I am using to blog.  It's a Thompson's Chain Reference Bible, and it's been with me since 1964.

When I memorize a verse, I underline it in green.  So as I have been flipping pages, I have been refreshing some of those "Green" verses in my mind.

"Thy word have I hid in my heart that I might not sin against thee."  Psalms 119: 11.

 I doubt if packing all my shoes, clothes, toothbrush, makeup and pajamas, but forgetting my Bible was a sin.  If it was, I sure got punished.  The anxiety and stress alone were pretty horrible.  There I am ready to teach hundreds of High School Seniors the next morning--without my Bible.

I was thankful for two guys who were carrier qualified who could get it to me.  "No problem." they said.  "Piece of cake."

I have been toggling from the Old Testament to the New, and I've reached the book of Ruth.
     Ruth 1:16 "And Ruth said, (to Naomi, her mother in law)  Intreat me not to leave you, or return from following after you; for wherever you go, I will go: and where you lodge, I will lodge: your people shall be my people, and your God my God:"  This verse is usually heard at weddings, but it isn't a verse about marriage, it is a verse about love.  A woman, Ruth, who loved her mother-in-law.

What a great verse.  Ruth loved her mother-in-law Naomi so much that  she was willing to leave her own  country, her town, her family.  Everything.  And go to a place that she had never been.  To a people that she didn't know.

One of the greatest joys of my life is my two daughter-in-laws.  What a blessing to have two daughters of my own and two daughters by marriage.  All four of them overlook my faults (most of the time!) and love me.  In law relationships can be wonderful.  Mine are such a blessing.

I really cherish the fellowship of women.  The most fun I have in my life is to travel to some far away place with women.  To laugh, eat, see fun places and just get to know each other better.  My second daughter speaks Italian and French.  She arranges our trips and plans what we will do.  It's like having your own personal tour guide.  We always leave the beaten path and have an adventure. We always do something that  no one else normally does.  She pushes me out of my comfort zone and it is always fun.


 I will never forget the first time I left America.  I got a passport, got on a plane and left.  That was 25 years ago, and I was scared.  I was all by myself.   I didn't know what would happen when I landed.  I had never done anything like that before.  I couldn't speak the language.

So I understand Ruth. She was willing to step out of her comfort zone because she trusted and loved her mother-in-law.  She had someone she loved to be her guide.   Because of Naomi, Ruth accepted the one true God.   What a great story about Godly influence that changes another woman's life.


                                                                                                                            

 When my children were teenagers and left the house, I would always tell them to remember what their name was.  I wanted them to remember that wherever they went, and whatever they did,  it reflected on the entire family.  It wouldn't have been so bad if we had had a common name like 'Smith' or 'Brown', but we are the only family in town that has our name.

I wrote about being changed from the inside yesterday.   Everyone in this town knows that I am a Christian.  When I leave the house and go out into the world, I carry God's name.  I truly don't want to embarrass God.  That feeling about my behavior comes from inside me somewhere.  Not from some church or religious doctrine.

Proverbs 20:11 "Even a child is known by his doings, whether his work be pure, and whether it be right."

We need to be sure our "doings" don't embarrass our Father.  We need to be sure that our desire to do what is right comes from the inside out, not the outside in.

Last week I told you that the people wanted to "…do what was right in their own eyes…" and chaos was the result.  You may have missed the first part of the verse:  (Judges 21:25)  "In those days there was no king in Israel."

After the people did evil under their leaders, Moses and Joshua, God gave them judges.  That didn't work either, so the people begged for a king.  They promised that they "would be good" if they had a king.  So God let them have a king.  Which was not what God had wanted, but I suppose that his plan may have been to show them that nothing was going to work.  They had to be "good" from the inside out, not from the outside in.

Ken taught Sociology at a college after he retired from the USMC.   Yes, I know, strange combo. Fighter pilot, Sociology Prof.   But as he was finishing a degree at OSU in Aerospace Studies, he took a class in sociology and loved it.  It was right after the Viet Nam war and hippies filled the Sociology classrooms.  Their mantra was  "Make love, not war."  That was to be the new social order.

When he was teaching, he used to tell his students to think of the human social behavior as a circle within circles within circles, and drew a picture on the board.  "When you are pushed from the outside, you will accommodate some changes in your behavior.  You discard the outside circle and conform to some of society's demands.  Stop at stop signs, etc.  But as you are pushed and discard circles, there comes a point--call it your inner core--that won't change anymore.  You've had it."

But with God, all the pushing comes from the inside out.  Our inner core has been given over to His will and we change by the power of the Holy Spirit to conform to His Image.
Ephesians 4:16, 17a  "That he would grant you…to be strengthened with might by his Spirit in the inner man;  That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith…"

We change not because we have to.  Not because of some law.  We change because we've been changed.  

In Judges 21: 25 we find the end result of all that happened to Israel in the first seven books of the Old Testament.  The people had followed a number of leaders.  Moses and Joshua were two.  But the people kept refusing to do as God told them to do.  And then God would punish them.

The people would cry to God and beg him to rescue them.  He would, and then the cycle would begin again.  When things went bad, when things went wrong, the people cried to God.  When things went according to their desires, they forgot Him.  Same-o, same-o today.

So the people begged for Judges.  God gave them judges.  But the people didn't want to follow the judge's rulings.  They disobeyed the laws.

Judges 21: 25 "In those days there was no king in Israel: every man did that which was right in his own eyes." 

That is what people want.  To do what they want to do.  To ignore laws that they don't like.  You've heard people say, "Don't tell me what to do."  We hate authority.  We want to be our own boss.  We don't want to conform to any rule we don't like.  As the verse in Judges says, we want to do what we want to do with total disregard to others.  They can like it or lump it.

Chaos.

  I remember a platoon of Marines I once saw at Paris Island, S. Carolina (boot camp) who were marching in perfect step.  With buckets on their heads.  Now that's unity.  They were in perfect form, counting cadence, yelling in perfect harmonic time. ( I won't tell you what they were yelling!!!)  Nobody was going his own way.  It was really wonderful to watch.  It made me very proud of them.

Things work better if we follow a leader.  Your life goes better if you follow God's commandments.

 

My oldest son is off the wall funny.  You would never in a million years think that there was a serious side to him.  He is a hoot.  But he is also a serious student of the Bible.  He comes up with some of the most interesting things--things that I have never thought about.  He is a great Bible teacher because he studies, makes it fresh and real to life instead of dry and dusty.

Which makes me think of Proverbs 17:22  "A merry heart does good like a medicine: but a broken spirit dries the bones."  He certainly was endowed with a merry heart. Out of the dozens and dozens of people in my family, he is our only comic.

Last night he shared an interesting thought.  I had all the facts in my head that he had, but I had not put those facts together.  He said: "God revealed himself in only three ways.  As the cloud and fire that led the Israelites through the wilderness,  as the voice--the great "I AM",  and as the Holy Spirit--Jesus.

I think that might be right, (!!!)  but I am going to have to study some more.  That is what is so neat about Christian people.  They bounce ideas off of each other and then they go dig.   In 1965, a friend pointed out this verse:  Proverbs 27: 17  "Iron sharpens iron; so a man sharpens the countenance of his friend."

It's, true.  We sharpen each other.  That's what a "church" is.  People who gather together to sharpen each other. We mustn't let church simply become a ritual that we endure because it's the "right thing to do".

Keep on keeping on……but laugh a little.

Children never have to learn to do all the wrong things.  It is their natural behavior.  They bite, spit, kick, throw tantrums, cheat, lie, sass their parents, etc., etc.,….  (Yes, I know, your kids didn't.)

You spend an awful lot of our parenting energy teaching them to do right.  To be fair.  To be kind.  To share, etc., etc.,...  Those are not their natural inclinations.  We want them to be responsible members of society, but it is an uphill battle.  We are born selfish, self-centered--you name it.  We have to learn to be good, to do good.

The Bible says, "Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it."  When my children were young, I took comfort in the word "old".  Maybe there was hope!!!

And even then, we never make it.  If you are like me, there are some things that I wish I could undo.  But they are done.  Our only hope is that because Christ died for our sin, that God will forgive us and blame Him.  Sacrifice Him.  Put our sin on the cross.  Put the nails in his hands for us.

Greater love has no man than to lay down his life for his brother.  Ken has said that although you join the Marine Corps to serve your country, you don't think about your country when you are in a fire fight.  You think about the men who go in to fight with you.  Your Marine brothers.  They are the ones you are willing to die for.

"Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."  John 15: 13.

That's what Jesus did for us.

Ken and I have five children.  They love their father.  One of them sent us lobster, live, from Maine for Father's Day, so even though he didn't get to see any of them, he was well fed and happy.

I worked with young people in our church for years.  Had a friend, Bill S. that taught 17 year old young men,  Juniors in H.S.  He still works with young people--45 years and counting.  He is loved by hundreds and hundreds of young men who counted him as a second father.   Many of them are now fathers themselves and some of them grandfathers.  A good father is a legacy.

 We went to Falls Creek (Youth Camp) as sponsors any number of years and I loved to hear Bill interact with teenagers.  I remember him telling them, "You have to keep in mind that sin is fun.  If it wasn't any fun, you wouldn't be tempted to do it.  It may seem to pay off in the short term, but in the long term it will kill you and ruin your life."

Fathers, biological, adopted, step, friend or any other kind of father you may have,  are such a blessing.  I had the perfect father.  If I had been choosing from all the fathers in the world, he would have been my choice.  I could use every good adjective in the dictionary to describe him and still not do him justice.

Then there is The Father.  It's hard to believe that He is better than my dad, but I know that He is.  He must be awesome.  For those of you who didn't have great fathers, there is One.  And he loves you.

Deuteronomy 5:29b "…Seek the Lord your God (your Father), and you shall find him, if you seek him with all your heart and with all your soul."  Everyone needs a father.  This Father had only one son, but he is willing to make you and I joint heirs with Christ if you seek Him.  In Romans 8:16-17b,  Paul tells us, "The Spirit itself bears witness with our spirit, that we are the children of God:  And if children, then heirs; heirs of God and joint-heirs with Christ…"   We can have the same Father.

 

In the midst of His suffering on the cross, Jesus asked God,  "My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?" Mark 15:34.

When something bad happens in your life, people always tell you that you shouldn't ask, "why".  I always thought that was true until I read this verse in Mark.

Jesus asked "Why?"  So it wasn't wrong.  He never did anything wrong. 

So I don't ever feel bad anymore asking God, "Why?"  I want to know.  It doesn't mean I will get an answer, but it also doesn't mean I shouldn't ask.  

Remember when you were a kid, you always asked your Mom "why?"  And she would say, "Because I said so".  That drove me nuts.  But truth was, I wouldn't have understood the reason behind her edicts until I was older anyway.  i didn't have the wisdom or the experience to understand.

God has his reasons as well.  He can see the big picture.  He is the one with the plan for humanity.  He is the one who created us.  He is the one that "intended" our purpose.

Every now and then He lets me in on it.  So when there is something I don't understand,  I just keep asking, "Why",  hoping I'll get an answer.   But I certainly don't let the questions that I haven't got an answer for get in the way of keeping on keeping on.  

The big thing in the middle of suffering is not to get bitter.  Or angry.  Maybe God will give you some answers to your questions when you grow up.  I guess I haven't gotten there yet.

Ken and I drove to Moore yesterday to see our children--first time since the tornados.  There are no words in the English language to describe it.  I looked at it on CNN, local stations, and Oklahoma stations and I thought I knew what it looked like.  I didn't.  The human suffering is horrible.  Miles and miles and miles of concrete slabs where there were once houses.  Everything is flat.

On the subject of suffering, Christ is in the garden praying.  He is about to be betrayed and die on the cross, when in Matthew 26: 39b, "…he fell on his face, and prayed, saying, O my Father, if it be possible, let this cup pass from me:  nevertheless not as I will, but as you will."

Plan A is about to happen and Jesus wants to know if there is a Plan B.  Some other way to redeem all of us--you and me.  Some other way that God could look on all of us and find us acceptable without a sacrifice for the sins we have committed.  Without the cross.

Jesus was human.  He didn't want to suffer.  I don't either. Neither do you.   But this is what he had come for,  and if that was the price for your and my redemption, He would do it.  Whatever God's will was.

Two things.

1.  Jesus wanted to do God's will.
2  He was willing to die for us.

"Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."   John 15: 13

Today I figured out how to get your comments!!!  Now maybe I can learn how to respond.

One thing I have found in reviewing the Old Testament is that I remember so much of it from my childhood.  The stories of the Exodus, the Flood, etc.  It is interesting.  Everyone should read it if only for the literary and historical value.  So much of the knowledge that we have about the past is found there.  In one way or another it has affected the entire world.  This year is 2013 because of the Bible.

My friend Carolyn is an English and Drama major.  She has been teaching my class for me because we are in the book of Job and she is an expert on this book.  It is considered one of the great books in literature and is occasionally included in High School and College literature classes.

It is a story of all the questions that we have about why good people suffer.  Three of Job's friends and a young man that is with them give their opinions on why all these horrible things have happened to Job.  Job lost his sons, all his cattle, sheep and goats, his health...everything.  He is covered in sores and in terrible pain.  Job's wife tells him to curse God and die.  But Job leaves it in the hands of God--however, Job wants God to tell him why.  

Finally in Job 13: 20a, Job tells God:  "Only don't do two things unto me.."  Then he asks that God not take His hand far from him, and not to let him be afraid.  I hate to be scared.  It is the worst thing in the world.  Fear is a terrible task-master.  

In the end, Job never found out why he was suffering.  It is one of the age old questions we have that goes unanswered.  When I suffer I always tell God, "I hope someone is getting a blessing or something out of this, because I'm certainly not."  God in the end lets Job know that He is God and that Job isn't.

If you are a person of faith, you just have to let God be in charge of it all.  It's easier that way.

Did you know that tithing is never mentioned in New Testament.  We really don't like to talk about money anyway.  But it was a law for the Israelites in the Old Testament and the rules were clear.  When you brought all your cattle, sheep, goats, etc… they were herded through a gate and the tenth animal was the Lord's.  If you tried to arrange them so that the weak and old animal was the tenth, then  that animal and the one that should have been next in line were both taken.  Cheating is never right.

The Israelites had twelve tribes.  The Levitical tribe were priests.  They owned no land or cattle.  They were scattered among the other eleven  tribes to care for the needs of the people.  The tithe allowed them to do this and also maintain the places of worship.

In the New Testament, the best lesson on giving occurs when Christ was watching people bring their gifts to the temple.

 Mark 12: 41-42,  "And Jesus sat over against the treasury, and beheld how the people cast money…and many that were rich cast in much.  And there came a certain poor widow, and she threw in two mites, which make a farthing." Verse 45, "For they all cast in of their abundance; but she of her want did cast in all that she had, even all her living."

The point of it all is that we are to have generous hearts.  During this tornado season, people have been amazed at the generosity of the people of Oklahoma.  Everybody gives.  A very large group of Oklahoma Baptist men, not clergy,  always arrive immediately, usually the same day, when we have a disaster here.  They use their vacation days and their own resources to do this.  You may have seen them on CNN during the Moore tornado.

When we had an ice storm a few years ago, dozens of them showed up where I live with chain saws and trucks,  asking where we needed help.  They took down trees and broken limbs, loaded it all up and took it away.   Not just Baptists.  All of the Oklahoma churches play a huge role in disaster relief.   It's just something People here have always done.  When people need something,  God  expects us to help.  But it isn't a law.  It's a blessing.

Neither my mother nor my father were gardeners.  My grandmother was. During the depression, she fed "train hoppers".  Families who were leaving the East heading West.  They would jump off at my grandparent's farm because the word had been passed along among the "hoppers" that you could get a meal at Gran Wilson's house.

Every summer Gran put up hundreds of every possible fruit and vegetable in jars and stored them in the cellar, so that there would be plenty to eat for anyone that came to that way.  In Oklahoma, everyone had a storm cellar filled with the produce of their gardens.  When a storm came, we would all go down into the cellar and try not to jiggle any of the jars.  Which was hard sometimes because the cellar would be packed with people.  Memories like that are filled with a kind of yearning for what you remember as being so happy.  Even in the middle of a tornado.

Well, I have always wanted to grow things.  But in the Marine Corp you were always moving and if you planted anything, you probably wouldn't be there when it was ready to harvest.  So, I planted pecan trees. I figured pecan trees would always be appreciated.  I hope someone is enjoying my pecans.

All that to say this:  Nine years ago, I finally planted a garden.  I had no idea what I was doing, but I guess God took pity on me because I have more asparagus than we can eat.  I now know what motivated my grandmother to plant more than they could possibly eat.  It is so much fun to give it away.  I have squash, tomatoes, kale, parsley, lettuce, peppers, and okra.  In Oklahoma everyone eats fried okra.

John 15: 5, "I am the vine, you are the branches.  He that abides in me, and I in him, the same brings forth much fruit:  For without me you can do nothing."  That's the truth.  It's by the grace of God that anything grows in my yard.  It's all clay.  I don't think that's the kind of fruit John was talking about, but it works for me.

Matthew 25: 34b-36  "…Come, you blessed of my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world:  For I was hungry and you gave me meat: I was thirsty, and you gave me drink: I was a stranger, and you took me in: Naked, and you clothed me:  I was sick, and you visited me: I was in prison, and you came to me."  (There's that word "kingdom" again. )

Those kinds of things are the mark of Christian people.  When I went through chemo,  (two more months and it will be 5 years, Praise God) I was one of those people who had a terrible time.   People showed up at the door with food who had never even been in my house before.  For months and months, the food kept coming.  I was overwhelmed with gratitude and promised God that when this was over I would never again fail to take food to the sick.  To be honest, I had only taken food when the church committee called and told me what they needed for me to do.  No more.  I take food.

And in April of 2006, the pastor asked me to organize a jail ministry.  I had never been inside a jail, but I agreed to do it.  I found 28 women who were willing to go with me and try to do this ministry-- alternating every two weeks during the year.  We split it up to cover the 52 weeks.

What a shock.  I had probably lived a sheltered life.  The women in the jail were definitely not people I would have met otherwise.  There were no windows.  The walls were concrete, and the reception was never predictable.  Some of them were so lonely they would weep when we came in.  Some were so bitter that they cursed us explicitly.  I thought I would be afraid, but I wasn't.  We would take a couple dozen doughnuts in, share the gospel, listen to their stories, share ours, and in the end realize that we were not all that different.  They had just made different mistakes than we had.

What Christ was telling us was that we could "Come on in."  When he said, "…you blessed…", he was stating a fact.  We are blessed.  All the kindnesses that we have done may have blessed others, but the truth is that the greatest blessing is the one you, yourself, get for helping others.   It feels good.

Yesterday I visited the Apple store for a "One to One" session for some help because many of you have wanted this blog to go straight to your EMail and I didn't know how to do that.  I still don't.  So all of you out there who  have ever sent us an EMail got transferred to my blog.  Sorry.  If you are military, you might enjoy some of the things I have written, but you would have to wade through a lot to find them.  I've been doing this since October.


D Day.  Every Saturday Ken and I eat breakfast with Jim Long and his wife.  Jim landed at Normandy on D Day.  He is well up in his eighties.   Those Normandy heroes are vanishing.  It's America's loss.


Thinking about all the ones who have passed on brings reminds me of the verses in Matthew13: Christ mentions "The kingdom of God" over and over again as he tells parables.  In this one chapter we hear hear "The Kingdom of God" in verses 11, 19, 24, 31, 33, 38, 44, 45, 47.  Jesus also tells us in the Lord's prayer to pray, "Thy Kingdom Come…"

I am ready for His Kingdom.  I am tired of war.  I am sickened by all the young men who have have to die for freedom.  Ken was the commanding officer of a squadron in Beaufort, S.C. and I will never forget the concern he had for the men that he knew would get orders to go to Vietnam.  He knew some of them would die.  We prayed they wouldn't.  But some did.  It broke his heart.

I remember him saying, "JP4.  If I just had more fuel I could give them more hops.  Maybe they could learn enough to survive."

I hope we see them all again in the kingdom of God.

Back to the book of Matthew.  Matthew 12: 34b, "…for out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks."  I think about this verse every time something comes out of my mouth that shouldn't.  Garbage in, garbage out.  The things you think about,  and the words you make a habit of saying,   that is what comes out of your mouth.

That's one reason I make such an effort to memorize scripture.

Matthew 12: 35, "A good man out of the good treasure of the heart brings forth good things: and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things."  Ken says that your life experiences are like pictures that are hung in the gallery of your mind.   And when you least expect it, those pictures appear.  Some pictures return to convict us.  But there they hang.  Stuck on the wall.

Only God is able to paint over those canvases.  And when Satan would defeat us with past sin, we can appeal to Christ who covers our sin.  Painted in blood.

Our actions are the mark of our obedience.  Our reactions are the mark of what we have put in our mind.  When you drop a hammer on your foot, what comes out of your mouth?  I have been appalled by the way the world uses God's name so lightly.  "Oh, my God" is no longer a prayer.  Stop saying it.  Just because the world uses His name irreverently doesn't give you or I the right to use his name vainly.

Ken also says,  "Tell me who you are running with and I'll tell you what you are doing."  I married a very wise man.

Change what you do and you will change what you think.  Change what you think and you will change what you do.  Habits are very powerful.

It is hard to get the true, full perspective of what "Welcome, come on in" means unless you read the last part of the book of Exodus.  From chapter 25-40 God gives instructions on how to build a tabernacle.  It is a very detailed description down to the last cubit.  In Ex. 25: 8 God says, "And let them make me a sanctuary ; that I may dwell among them."

In Ex. 40: 34, after they had done what God commanded concerning a zillion details, We finally find, "Then a cloud covered the tent of the congregation, and the glory of the Lord filled the tabernacle."

And every time the Israelites moved on the backside of the desert, they had to strike the tent, move it, and put it up again.  Getting close to God was very difficult.  You were totally dependent on what the priests told you.  If you were a woman, I'm sure you got most of your information from your husband.

As a woman trying to feed your family, can you imagine what it might have been like fixing "Manna" every day and trying to disguise it.  Manna with catsup?  Fried, smoked, pickled, baked, pureed…there is an end to what you can do with manna year after year.

When I got married, Ken said, "I'll eat anything you put in front of me.  Except Spam.  When he was in Korea, the supply ship was destroyed and the only thing the cook had for the pilots to eat was Spam three times a day for a month.  Sweet and sour Spam, Spam sandwiches, Spam and eggs, Spam loaf, etc., etc., etc…  I digress...

"And let them make me a sanctuary; that I may dwell among them."   1 Cor. 6: 19-20, "What?  don't you know that your body is the temple of the Holy Ghost which is in you, which you have of God, and you are not your own?  For you are bought with a price;  therefore glorify God in your body and in your spirit, which are God's."  So now we have God within us, not in a tabernacle.

"Christ in you, the hope of glory."

I am moving through the Old and New Testaments.  Toggling from one to the other, giving you verses that have been important to me.  Yesterday I gave you the verse that said, "...Shake the dust off your feet."  To me, it means that if someone doesn't accept what you share with them, that you shouldn't get discouraged, you should just keep on going on with whatever it is that you are doing in Gods service.  Using whatever your gift is to share Christ.  Go on to the next task.  Go on to the next person.

In Exodus God tells the people of Israel exactly how to build a sanctuary so that He could dwell with them.  (Ex 25: 8)  He describes an area called "The Holy of Holies."  We know that the Levitical tribe would cast lots once each year so that one of them could be chosen to enter this holy placed and make sacrifice for the people.  In verses 21-22, God says "…put the mercy seat above upon the ark; and in the ark you shall put the testimony that I shall give you.  And there I will meet with you."  No one but the chosen 'High Priest' from the Levitical tribe could ever enter this place.  And only once a year.

I have read that they (the other priests) would tie a rope and a bell around the high priest so that if he touched the ark (which would condemn him to death) the bell would stop ringing  and they would know that he was dead and could pull him out.  (They were forbidden to enter the Holy of Holies.)

Then God gives detailed instructions concerning the curtains that would separate  this holy place from the rest of the sanctuary.  Ex. 26: 1-6  The curtains were huge.  Wide.  I read somewhere that they were two or three stories tall.  And they were very thick and heavy.

I gave you all that background so you would know why this next  verse is so very, very important.  Matthew 27: 50-51a,  "Jesus, when (as he was dying) he had cried again with a loud voice, yielded up the ghost. And behold, the veil of the temple was rent in two from the top to the bottom…"  God ripped it from  the top down.  Men would have ripped it from bottom to top--if it hadn't been too thick to rip.

 God was saying to us all, "No more sacrifices.  Jesus has paid it all.  You are all now welcome to come into me.  I will fellowship with you, and you with me.  You don't need a priest any more, Jesus is your high priest.  Come to me through him.  Welcome.  Come on in."