Category Archives: Love & Works

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September 7, 2026

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Attitudes & Behavior, Family, Friends & Fellowship, Fruit of the Spirit, Love & Works, Salvation: A New You

GOD’S SMILE

The Lord bless you and keep you; the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you; the Lord turn his face toward you and give you peace. [Numbers 6:24-26 (NIV)]

sunflowerPastor Sandi always closes the service with Numbers 6:24-26. With this blessing, she’s continuing a tradition that is more than 3,000 years old. Intended as a blessing for the people, the Lord gave those words to Moses for Aaron to pass on to his sons and successive Temple priests. In 1979, that ancient blessing was found on two tiny silver scrolls in a burial cave near Jerusalem. Known as the Ketef Hinnom scrolls, they contain verses from Deuteronomy 7 and Numbers 6 and date to around 600 BC (making them the oldest known text of the Bible)!

Granted, as spirit, God has no face as we know it. In His glory, God is too magnificent to be seen by sinful man and, when He visually reveals Himself, He does so in a way we can understand, as He did for us with Jesus. Even so, when referring to God’s presence and favor, Scripture frequently speaks of the face or countenance of God.

When God is pleased with His people, His face shines upon them and He shows them His favor. But, when He’s displeased with His people, Scripture often says He turns His face from them and withholds his favor and blessing. God even warned Moses that if Israel broke their covenant, He would hide His face from them because of their evil. [Deut 31:18] In Psalm 88, the psalmist asks, “Why are you turning your face from me and looking the other way?” and in Psalm 27, David begs God not to turn His face away. [88:14;27:9]

While most Bibles translate Numbers 6:25 as making the Lord’s face either “shine upon you,” or “smile down on you,” the Living Bible’s paraphrase of “May the Lord’s face radiate with joy because of you!” truly paints a vivid picture. I suspect God’s face radiated with joy when Mary gave birth and the armies of heaven sang their praises or when Jesus was baptized and a voice was heard to say, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased.” [Lk 2:14, Mt 3:17]

Rather than turning His face from us, can you picture God’s face literally glowing with joy because of us? What would make Him beam the way a parent does when their baby takes his first steps or that baby graduates from college with honors? What could we do to cause His face to radiate with joy the way it does when your child comes home unscathed from deployment abroad? How would we make God smile the way a Grandma does when she holds her first grandchild?

Fortunately, God, provided the answer in Scripture and Jesus summarized it beautifully with two commandments: love God with our entire being and love others as we love ourselves. If we want to put a smile on God’s face, we should love Him with the same intensity we did when we first came to know Jesus by loving Him so much that we want to spend time in His presence contemplating His word and listening for His voice. He’ll smile as we grow strong in our faith, give thanks for His gifts, become obedient to His word, and are accepting of His will.

While that sort of devotion may put a smile on God’s face, if we want Him to “radiate with joy,” we must have as much concern for other people’s well-being as we have for our own. We must be as willing to overlook their shortcomings and accept their faults as we are ready to ignore and disregard ours. We should be as attentive and supportive of others as we are self-indulgent and accommodating to ourselves. Our sincere love for Him and our fellow travelers in this world is what will make God’s face beam with joy as He looks down at us!

The smile of God is the goal of your life. [Rick Warren]

May God be gracious to us and bless us and make his face shine on us—so that your ways may be known on earth, your salvation among all nations. [Psalm 67:1-2 (NIV)]

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August 3, 2026

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Attitudes & Behavior, Bible Stories, Love & Works, Money & Wealth, Sharing Our Faith

IGNORING THE CRIES

So it came to pass, when Joseph had come to his brothers, that they stripped Joseph of his tunic, the tunic of many colors that was on him. Then they took him and cast him into a pit. And the pit was empty; there was no water in it. And they sat down to eat a meal. [Genesis 37:23-25a (NKJV)]

Back in 2015, after their Washington, D.C., home was invaded, a family of three and their housekeeper were held hostage and tortured for nineteen hours before being brutally murdered and their house set on fire. During the family’s incomprehensible ordeal, their captor had a pizza delivered and calmly ate it. Ultimately, it was DNA left on a piece of that pizza that led police to the killer. While discovering his identity was an astounding piece of detective work, what most astonished me is that, while holding four people hostage—people likely crying in pain and pleading desperately for their lives—someone could calmly eat a pizza! How could anyone have an appetite while committing such an atrocious and cruel crime? Yet, Daron Wint did! Convicted of 20 counts of kidnapping, extortion, and murder, he was sentenced to four life terms in prison without the possibility of parole.

As shocking as that story is, Daron Wint is not the only person who enjoyed a meal while his hostage pled for his life. That’s exactly what Joseph’s ten elder brothers did. You remember Joseph, the favored son of Jacob, the handsome one with the coat of many colors. When his jealous brothers conspired to kill him, thinking he could rescue his younger brother later, Reuben suggested throwing him into a dry cistern and leaving him to the mercy of the elements. After tossing Joseph like a piece of garbage into a pit, Scripture tells us the ten brothers then sat down to eat a meal.

Boys being boys, perhaps Joseph thought it was just a mean brotherly prank and his siblings would soon let him out of the well. “Come on guys, I’m hungry and thirsty,” he may have pled. “Help me up so I can have some lunch. I’ll even share my coat with you!” But, when Joseph heard his brothers coldly discuss selling him into slavery to some Ishmaelite traders and plot how they would explain Joseph’s failure to return home, it began to dawn on the boy that he was in serious trouble and his brothers weren’t joking.

Can you imagine the cries of the terrified youth once he realized what was happening and the danger of his situation? While Joseph begged for his life, his brothers ignored his cries and ate their meal. Can you imagine how he must have pled for their mercy, much as that Washington family probably begged for their lives? Unlike the pizza-eating criminal, however, Joseph’s brothers didn’t plan an outright murder. They left their brother’s future up to the slave traders. But, like that killer in D.C., they knew their victim’s anguish and refused to hear his cries.

Even though we’re not likely to invade a home and kill its occupants or throw a sibling into a pit and sell him into slavery, we’re not as different from Daron Wint and Joseph’s brothers as we’d like to think we are. Although we’re not plotting murder and mayhem while eating pizza or pita, I suspect we’re all somewhat guilty of ignoring the desperate cries of those in need.

Are we like the priest and Levite who ignored the cries of the dying man on the road to Jericho? While we probably can’t hear them with our ears nor see them with our eyes, we know they’re there. While calmly eating meals in the comfort of our homes, do we turn a deaf ear to the voices of the hungry in places like Sudan and Gaza? While enjoying an evening in our safe and cozy homes, do we turn a blind eye to the suffering and the devastation in war-torn countries like Ukraine, Sudan, Palestine, and Myanmar? Do we ignore the plight of refugees, the victims of injustice, and those whose lives have been torn apart by natural disasters?  With callous indifference, have we turned our backs on our less fortunate brothers and sisters both here and across the globe? By ignoring their cries, do we condemn them to lives of strife, suffering, or death? How can we, as Christians, ignore the desperate cries of those in need? Let us remember that knowing the right thing and not doing it is as much as sin as is doing the wrong thing! [James 4:17]

I recently saw a sign on a church that read, “Be the Church—Fight for the Powerless.” We can’t do that for everyone but, chances are, we can do it for someone!

We must never minimize the suffering of another. Scripture’s mandate to us is, “Weep with them that weep.” [Billy Graham]

Then they said to one another, “We are truly guilty concerning our brother, for we saw the anguish of his soul when he pleaded with us, and we would not hear; therefore this distress has come upon us.” [Genesis 42:21(NKJV)]

Whoever shuts his ears to the cry of the poor Will also cry himself and not be heard. [Proverbs 21:13 (NKJV)]

And just as you want men to do to you, you also do to them likewise. [Luke 6:31 (NKJV)]

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July 20, 2026

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Attitudes & Behavior, Bible Stories, Family, Friends & Fellowship, Fruit of the Spirit, Love & Works, Temptation & Sin, Today: Make it Count

LIKE SMOKE

He looked out across the plain toward Sodom and Gomorrah and watched as columns of smoke rose from the cities like smoke from a furnace. [Genesis 19:28 (NLT)]

Let’s pray that the human race never escapes from Earth to spread its iniquity elsewhere. [C.S. Lewis]

I still go online to read the newspaper from what was our hometown for over fifty years. Last week, it was filled with news about the events of Fiesta Days. With its Car Show, Big Wheel Race, Duck Derby, Beach Bash, Street Fair, Music Fest, Art Show, Parade, Fireworks, and Carnival (complete with rides and funnel cakes), the festival is one of summer’s highlights.

However, when air quality monitors reached the “hazardous” and “very hazardous” categories, all outdoor activities in the area were cancelled. Smoke from Ontario’s over 200 wildfires caused the unhealthy conditions and darkened skies. The smoke and haze from these fires spread southeast over 500 miles through Minnesota, Wisconsin, and across northern Illinois. It didn’t stop there; on Friday, it also brought hazardous air and hazy skies to Toronto, Chicago, Detroit, New York City, D.C., and across Maryland and Virginia. By Saturday, over 125 million Americans in 18 states were on air quality alerts.

Fire has a way of causing far-reaching collateral damage and so does sin. The chronology of kings in Israel and Judah is filled with stories of how a father’s sinful example was followed by his son and led the people to sinfully disregard God’s commands. Today, the abusive father is likely to have an abusive son, the adulterous spouse’s divorce hurts the entire extended family, toxic relationships poison everyone near them, and the children of an alcoholic carry emotional baggage that affects not just them but their own children, as well. When the bad stuff hits the fan, it spatters all over innocent people and rarely stops there.

Well, I’m not abusive, adulterous, toxic, or alcoholic so I can’t spread sin, pain, and sorrow, or can I? A few poorly chosen words, a sharp retort, a tidbit of gossip, a rude gesture, a bit of spitefulness, impatience, and rudeness—they all have far-reaching effects. My rudeness to a waiter or salesperson can easily cause them to be irritable with their customers, who then might be short-tempered with the people they meet later. By the end of the day, my unpleasantness may have created a negative chain reaction affecting dozens of people.

Unkindness to one person can end up spoiling other people’s days the way smoke spoiled people’s plans for the Fiesta Days’ carnival! We are connected to the people around us and to those around them. Whether intentional or not, the consequences of our sins don’t remain with us just as that smoke didn’t remain in Thunder Bay!

We talk of “paying it forward” when doing a kindness that will reverberate with more kindnesses. Unfortunately, it appears to work that way with sin (including those “little sins” like anger, rudeness, impatience, hostility, gossip, griping, and spite). Worse, it seems we’re more likely to pay rudeness forward with more of the same than to pay forward our blessings! Any time we fail to live as Jesus did, every time we allow Satan a foothold in our lives, when we forget to respond with love, or are inconsiderate of other people, our ugliness can spread far and wide as did the smoke from the fires in Ontario.

Father, guide our words and actions so that the love of Jesus is clearly seen and felt by all whose lives we touch today. Don’t let us darken someone’s day the way smoke can darken the sky!

The greatest need in the world is the transformation of human nature. We need a new heart that will not have lust and greed and hate in it. We need a heart filled with love and peace and joy, and that is why Jesus came into the world. [Billy Graham]

This wickedness is like a brushfire. It burns not only briers and thorns but also sets the forests ablaze. Its burning sends up clouds of smoke. [Isaiah 9:18 (NLT)]

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July 16, 2026

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Attitudes & Behavior, Family, Friends & Fellowship, Fruit of the Spirit, Love & Works, Salvation: A New You, Sharing Our Faith, Today: Make it Count

WHAT WOULD ROY DO?

Imitate God, therefore, in everything you do, because you are his dear children. Live a life filled with love, following the example of Christ. [Ephesians 5:1-2a (NLT)]

And since I, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you ought to wash each other’s feet. I have given you an example to follow. Do as I have done to you. [John 13:14-15 (NLT)]

Several “Nancy” comics written and drawn by Guy Gilchrist have inspired my writing.  Curious about the cartoonist, I was not surprised to learn that he is a Christian; that was not always true. As a boy, he was poor, lonely, abused, and searching for someone and something in which to believe. Missing a dad, he found a father figure in an unlikely place—television—and in a remarkable person—a radio, television and movie star by the name of Roy Rogers. When the young cartoonist was unsure how to behave, he’d look to the singing cowboy and ask himself, “What would Roy do?” He knew his cowboy hero always took the right course of action. Although Rogers was publicly vocal about his faith, Gilchrist didn’t know his hero was a Christ follower until many years later.

Since there was no difference between Rogers’ television persona and the man himself, Gilchrist chose an excellent role model in this man of integrity. Kind and honest, Rogers was a devout Christian who stood for decency, truth, and justice. Unaware of Roger’s Christian faith, the boy didn’t know that the entertainer had his own model for behavior: Jesus. While Gilchrist asked, “What would Roy do?” the star probably asked, “What would Jesus do?”

Emulating Roy’s example made Gilchrist a good person. But, following the “Roy Rogers’ Rider’s Club Rules” by studying hard, obeying his parents, protecting the weak, and being kind, courteous, brave, and neat didn’t make him a Christian. Gilchrist’s commitment to Christ didn’t happen until the cartoonist realized how much he needed Jesus shortly after his divorce.

Nevertheless, the father figure Guy Gilchrist found in Roy Rogers illustrates how each of us can influence the lives of others and have a profound effect on them. Granted, we’re not Hollywood stars. We don’t ride a golden palomino named Trigger or have a German shepherd answering to the name of Bullet. All the same, we have a responsibility to be good role models to all who know or even observe us—and, like Rogers and his wife Dale Evans, we must be open to sharing the gospel whenever possible.

Do we live by asking ourselves what Jesus would do? Do we live in such a way that we would want young people to model their behavior after ours? Would we want them to respond to disappointment, resolve problems, settle conflicts, react to insult or injury, deal with loss, and treat both pleasant and unpleasant people the way we do? Would we want them to ask themselves what we would do? Then, would we want them to do it?

A good example is far better than a good precept. [D.L. Moody]

Those who say they live in God should live their lives as Jesus did. [1 John 2:6 (NLT)]

And you should imitate me, just as I imitate Christ. [1 Corinthians 11:1 (NLT)]

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July 9, 2026

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Attitudes & Behavior, Bible Stories, Fruit of the Spirit, Love & Works, Patience & Perseverance, Salvation: A New You

INCONVENIENCED

Jesus traveled through all the towns and villages of that area, teaching in the synagogues and announcing the Good News about the Kingdom. And he healed every kind of disease and illness. When he saw the crowds, he had compassion on them because they were confused and helpless, like sheep without a shepherd. [Matthew 9:35-36 (NLT)]

My summer beach novel began with a man having a heart attack on a commuter train. For the next several pages, I was privy to the thoughts of his fellow passengers who were annoyed by the train’s unscheduled stop for medical aid. Because they’d be delayed, they saw the man’s collapse as a tremendous inconvenience to them. As passengers disembarked to find another way into the city, their thoughts were not of the dying man and his wife but of themselves and how they’d been inconvenienced.

My husband has been on a commuter train that was delayed because someone deliberately stepped onto the tracks in front of the train. His fellow passengers were like those in my novel. Their words were about themselves and how the delay negatively affected them. They seemed to forget that this person’s death had ruined more than a day for his family and friends—let alone the train’s engineer who’d become an unwilling accomplice in a suicide.

Back in the days of typewriters, my friend Gaye taught typing at the local junior college. When a student with only one arm entered her classroom, rather than empathy for the challenges he faced trying to conquer a keyboard, she thought of the problems his handicap posed for her as his teacher. Like the train passengers and Gaye, we usually see life through the eyes of self-concern. Forgetting that it really isn’t about us and we’re not the center of the world, our self-interest often undermines our compassion, patience, and understanding.

Surely all those people who followed Jesus and pled for healing inconvenienced and delayed our Lord, but we never read of Him sending anyone away because He was too busy or had better things to do. Jesus didn’t complain about walking to Jairus’ house or being delayed by the woman with the blood issue. Spotting a tax collector in need of forgiveness, He stopped for Zacchaeus and, hearing a blind man beg for mercy, He called for Bartimaeus. Rather than complain about interruptions or inconvenience, Jesus showed mercy, sympathy, patience, and kindness.

“It must be hard for you,” said a stranger to Anne as she maneuvered the walker into her car. “Yes,” she admitted, “but it’s much harder for my aunt who has Parkinson’s!” Although she was inconvenienced by the challenges of caregiving, Anne knows that Parkinson’s is no picnic for her aunt either. On the days she resents the extra weight placed on her shoulders, Anne remembers it is worse for the woman whose weight she is carrying. When she considers life from her aunt’s position, any resentment or feeling of inconvenience is replaced by love and compassion. Isn’t that what doing unto others really means? To truly do unto others, we need to put ourselves in the other person’s shoes instead of complaining about a little scuff on ours!

Christ and compassion go hand in hand but compassion doesn’t always come easily. It’s only human to have our first response be, “What does this mean to me?” or “How will I be affected?” It may be human, but it’s not Christ-like.

The first question which the priest and the Levite asked was: “If I stop to help this man, what will happen to me?” But the good Samaritan reversed the question: “If I do not stop to help this man, what will happen to him?” [Martin Luther King, Jr.]

Since God chose you to be the holy people he loves, you must clothe yourselves with tenderhearted mercy, kindness, humility, gentleness, and patience. [Colossians 3:12 (NLT)]

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July 2, 2026

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Attitudes & Behavior, God's Grace & Love, God's Plan, Love & Works, Salvation: A New You, Today: Make it Count

GOD’S MASTERPIECE

You made all the delicate, inner parts of my body and knit me together in my mother’s womb. Thank you for making me so wonderfully complex! Your workmanship is marvelous—how well I know it. [Psalm 139:13-14 (NLT)]

“It’s a masterpiece!” I would exclaim when admiring my grands’ latest creations before hanging them on the refrigerator. Truth be told, they only were masterpieces in my grandma eyes. To anyone else, they were just a child’s efforts with crayons, markers, and stickers. A real masterpiece is a work done with exceptional skill—a supreme intellectual or artistic achievement. Even then, the word “masterpiece” usually is limited to an artist’s best work. While my grands needed to hone their skills before creating a true artistic masterpiece, every one of us is a one-of-a-kind masterpiece and an example of God’s best work.

Unlike masterpieces like Rembrandt’s The Night Watch, Seurat’s A Sunday Afternoon, or da Vinci’s Mona Lisa, we are not to be hung on a museum wall or placed on a stand. We are not a beautifully painted piece of canvas or a masterfully crafted statue whose purpose is to be viewed and admired but not touched. Nor are we a masterpiece like Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath, Dickens’ Great Expectations, or Shakespeare’s Hamlet with words and ideas that, while wonderful, never change. As great as they are, masterpieces like Renoir’s paintings, Rodin’s The Thinker, Tolkien’s The Lord of the Rings and Emily Dickenson’s poems are static—the same today as they were when they were completed. As God’s masterpieces, however, we are never finished. Regardless of our age, we are works in progress. Our creator continually fine-tunes us, refines our stories, fixes the messy spots, and chisels away at our rough edges so that we look and act more like Jesus every day.

Unlike the masterpieces on display in the Louvre or the Library of Congress, it’s not enough to be God’s masterpiece and sit passively on the sidelines of life. God created us with a purpose—to do the things He planned for us long ago. Yes, we are saved by faith and not works, but we have been saved by God’s grace so that we can do His work. God doesn’t make mistakes nor does he make junk and each one of us is as much a masterpiece as are Michelangelo’s frescoes on the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel. While those beautiful frescoes were made for viewing, however, we are made for doing!

Good works are indispensable to salvation—not as its ground or means, however, but as its consequence and evidence. We are not saved because of works, but we are created in Christ Jesus for good works, good works which God prepared beforehand…and for which he has fashioned us. [John Stott]

For we are God’s masterpiece. He has created us anew in Christ Jesus, so we can do the good things he planned for us long ago. [Ephesians 2: 10 (NLT)]

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