We will start the first letter of John on Sunday.  He wrote three letters and a Gospel.  This first letter is the standard for Christians on where they stand with God.  The other two letters are short personal notes of encouragement.  One to a woman and her children, another to a man who is working in a church. 

Depending on the translation used, he uses the word “Love” 52 times.  And the word “Abide” 25 times.   The word “If” appears 14 times.  That word compares one side of the issue of whether you are a Christian with the other side--that you aren’t.  

He leaves no doubt about how you can know you are a Christian.  There are definite signs in your life that are impossible to cover up. When God enters your life, you will be unable to hide it.  You will be changed into a new kind of person. 

The prerequisite to God taking up habitation within you is total surrender to Him. The purpose of Jesus taking on your sin and being your sacrifice for your sins, is to put his Spirit into your soul and change the way you live life.  John clearly explains this in his letter to the churches.  Over and over again he says you can know.  Absolutely know for a fact that you have salvation.  We Christians call it new life.

 Sunday we finally did the last chapter in Ecclesiastes.  If you have never read it, it is a description of the body as we grow old.  The first verse is an introduction to a verse that we all have heard before:  “Remember now your Creator in the days of your youth, while the evil days come not, nor the years draw nigh, when you will say, I have no pleasure in them...”

Those of us who qualify as old--I am one of them--understand the warning to young people to stay close close to God and his instruction for your life because you don’t get to do your life twice.

Verse two is an analogy of loosing your eyesight. Verse three an analogy of essential tremor, lost balance and worn down teeth.  Verse four tells of your failing hearing.  Verse five of increased fear because you are no longer strong enough to protect yourself, and your hair turning grey.  Waning sexual desire, and a realization that your time is short.

That’s where Solomon was when he wrote this book in the Bible.  Older.  You may as well accept it, because that is what happens to us as we age.

I thank God that I can type.  I may have arthritis in parts of my body, but not my hands--Praise God.  The best way to live your life as you age is to get up every morning and thank God for what you have, not angry for what you have lost.  Deal with what is wrong with you with a touch of grace.  Learn something new that you can do as you age.  Not volleyball.

I had an intruder this week.  Small, grey, and a long tail.  I knew he was around somewhere because he kept leaving little “calling cards.”  So I bought traps, set them with cheese and waited.

I hate killing things, so I didn’t want to use those sticky traps that a critter gets his feet stuck on and panics and screeches and suffers.  I wanted the old fashioned kind that you never know what hit you because it is over in a milli-second.

The hard part was that his eyes were open when I caught him.  He wasn’t even aware that he was dead it had happened so quickly.  Dispatching him to his final resting place also was unnerving. 

I pray that as it gets colder that all the critters will stay outside.  I have no idea how this one got in.  Maybe when I left the door ajar as I took the trash out to the street.  If I knew how to catch a mouse and put him back outside, that’s what I would do. 

I don’t want to catch mice in traps.  But I don’t want them in my house.  It is a puzzlement.  Maybe that will be the last one.  I’ll be more careful to close the door when I take out the trash from now on.  They are God’s creatures and I don’t want to send them to heaven before their time.

I’m glad I don’t have to navigate getting my children to school this year.  It seems like a confusing situation.  Today, they said that parents had to be notified if their child was within 6 feet of a positive covid student sometime during the day.  One more thing for teachers to do.

How would you ever keep up with tracking that, recording it, notifying parents and have time to teach???  Teacher distraction all day long.  

When we let the feds instead of the local schools make rules for the school, we lost control.  You take Fed money, you get Fed rules.  

Local schools can make those decisions.  Masks, vaccinations, no masks--what ever.  Each school board is able to decide.  And people can go to the school board meetings and be heard.  Both sides of any issue.

Personally, I don’t care which rule they make, I will honor it.  I am a law abiding citizen who wants to do what is best for my community.

What amazes me is the bitterness that has been expressed by people over the issue.  They wouldn’t have been able to make it if they lived in the 1940’s.  There were a zillion rules during WW2.  We survived not being able to buy anything without a ration stamp.  Food, tires, gasoline...you name it.  And my home town was next to a German prison camp.  Middle America where it would be hard to escape.  There were lots of rules.

I made chicken salad for a couple of my friends who were here today.  I sent the rest to the neighbors and to my grandson across the street.  He likes my chicken salad.  I make it with cranberries and pecans...

I have been editing the book I have written about my brother Bill.  I gave a copy to my pastor, Blake Gideon, to read and Sunday he told me he was really enjoying it and quoted several sections that he thought were funny.  He is going to see if he can get the International Mission Board to publish it.  

If he does, the proceeds can go to Lottie Moon.  She was a missionary who gave her life to go overseas back when very few did.  Baptists pay the salary for all their missionaries out of tithes to the church.  So missionaries don’t have to come back to America to stump for money.  

The Christmas Lottie Moon offering goes for things that missionaries need in addition to living expenses.  Such as a heavy duty bike in areas where there are no roads.  Or equipment to drill a well, etc.  Extras that you and I take for granted.

I have found out ton of stuff about my brother that I didn’t know while writing this book.  The mission board dubbed him “The Macau Mavrick.” Because he always found a way to bypass the rules.  Which almost got him “dead” a few times.  He was underground, going into China before they let people in--being a doctor, they wanted his expertise.  He started missions in Asia.    

I posted over 2000 times without missing--but in the last month or two, I’ve missed a number of days.  Sorry. I blame it on the Pandemic???

I’ve been teaching from the book of Ecclesiastes.  Solomon is old and depressed for sure.  Everything is doom and sorrow.  I told my class that if you are one of those people who open their Bible and pick one verse with no plan...and take it to heart, you are in trouble if it opens to Ecclesiastes.

He says things like obviously not true, like: it makes no difference if you are a sinner or a righteous man, everything happens by chance. There are a bunch of verses just as negative  like that.  It is a rather depressing book--at least that’s what I think.  “Vanity, vanity...all is vanity.” 

You have to know who is writing a book in the Bible to truly understand what they are saying.  Their age, nation, background, current condition--along with a bunch of other stuff.  But the class got through it.  And it has some very good thoughts. You just have to dig.  But if you are only an occasional reader, stick to the New Testament!

I would encourage you, however, to be a consistent reader.  You will get much more out of it.  Just make note of who is writing what you are reading.  It makes a difference.  Paul and Peter are different kinds of writers.  So are Matthew--and Luke.  People express things different.

Bad night last night.  Squig got up six times to go outside.  He was really sick.  Of course ‘Moi’ got no sleep.  He is calmed down a little bit this morning.  They sprayed my yard for army worms, maybe he ingested some grass that was poison?  Dogs seem to like to eat grass from time to time???

My friend Jeanette embroidered some squares to make a quilt forty years ago and never got it finished.    Little animals, giraffes, hippos, etc.  She did a beautiful job.  We went to the quilt shop to see how they would quilt around the animals and how much it would cost.

Then we went shopping for outline fabric and couldn’t find a thing she or I liked.  We are going to try again today.  Interesting that out of hundreds of bolts of cotton cloth at Hobby Lobby there wasn’t a pattern that was right.  Women!!  We are so picky.

Teachers Meeting last night.  Six men and me.  Men don’t think like I do.  They listen and take notes.  I ask questions and every one of them look at me like I’m in left field.  Maybe I am.  But last week not one of them could articulate what makes them angry, or why they get angry.  Last night they had an answer...it was what I told them last week.  You, or someone, or something you care about have been disrespected in some way.