Pass the Salt Please

Salt! It's sort of one of those things that sometimes you can't live with or you can't live without! Now that I have trouble with high blood pressure, I try to watch my salt intake. I know that I eat too much salt when I eat at restaurants but here at home we've cut way back on it. And I can tell you that it sure doesn't make me feel like a good cook any more! Food just tastes better with salt in it to me! Jesus said about Christians in the Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5: 13..."Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men." Just as food needs a little salt to bring out the flavor, so this world needs the witness of Christians to show them the "flavor" of Christ.

Although too much salt is bad for us there are some other good things salt does. It can be used to keep food from spoiling. My husband's father used to salt down pork to keep it all winter in the smoke house. It can also be used for medicinal purposes. The past couple of days I've had a sore tongue. Had my dentist look at it today and he said it was probably something I ate that irritated it. So I'm rinsing my mouth with salt water several times a day to heal it up.

I need to be careful to not put too much salt into my body but at the same time I need to be careful that I stay salty spiritually so that I can be a witness here in the world that I live in.

"Let your speech be alway with grace, seasoned with salt, that ye may know how ye ought to answer every man." Colossians 4: 6

Marilyn

An Everyday Chore

It's an everyday chore....sweeping my floors! Where we live we have lots and lots of sand. It seems it doesn't matter what kind of mat's at the door or how long we stand there and wipe our shoes....we always end up with sand in the floor. And there's nothing worse to walk across with bare feet than a gritty, sandy floor! Well, unless it's a sticky floor! :)

I'm trying to finish a Bible study on the family to teach to my Sunday morning ladies class. To tell the truth, it's hard getting it all together. I know the family is something that God holds dear to His heart and something that Satan hates. So I'm thinking the latter may have something to do with the problems I'm having getting it done!

In Ephesians 4: 24-27 the Bible talks about husbands and wives...the core unit of any family. "Therefore as the church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own husbands in every thing. Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the church, and gave himself for it; That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word, That he might present it to himself a glorious church, not having spot, or wrinkle, or any such thing; but that it should be holy and without blemish."

Let the wife be subject to her husband. Let the husband love his wife. So that what ? So that the church ...of which every saved person is a part...should be holy and without blemish. Or you might say, "Without any gritty sand on it!"
My husband and I have been married for 37 years. We love each other. We're happy we have been married this long. But sometimes we fuss. (Can anybody identify?)Sometimes I don't want to be subject to him!

Verse 26 said, "That he might sanctify and cleanse it with the washing of water by the word." Every day I have to be cleaned up spiritually. Not to be saved over and over again but to get out the everyday grit that accumulates just from living! And how can I get cleaned up? By the "washing of water by the WORD"! By letting God's Word wash over my soul one more time. Maybe "chore" would not be a good choice of words for this daily cleansing spiritually but sometimes it does have to purposefully done. Just as I purposefully sweep the sand from my floors into the dust pan and then into the trash can.

May God bless you as you go about all your "Everyday Chores"!

Marilyn

Picked, Processed, and Preserved

(Pear tree in our front yard)

We seem to have another bumper crop of pears this year! Just look at them hanging on the tree in our yard! I hope I can find a lot of people to share them with! My husband PICKED a five-gallon bucket full yesterday morning for me so I could can some pear halves.

It usually takes me more than an hour to peel five gallons of pears. They are tough skinned and hard to cut into quarters. Sometimes it makes a blister on my right hand where I hold the knife. Why do I go to so much trouble? Because we love the taste of the finished product so much!

After all the pears are peeled and cut up, I put them in a dish pan with some water and sugar and cook for a few minutes. Then it's time to put them in the clean, hot canning jars. I'd already inspected the jars to make sure there were no cracks or nicks in the rim which would keep them from sealing. After filling the jars with the pears and the hot sugar water then I must take a clean wet dish cloth and wash the sticky excess off the top before putting the lids on.

When the lids were screwed on tight, I put the jars in the pressure cooker and PROCESSED them for 8 minutes at 5 pounds of pressure. (As you can see by the condition of my pressure cooker, I've been doing this for many years!) Then removed from heat and let cool.

This morning I took the finished product from the cooker. Seven more quarts of pears that have been PRESERVED so that we can eat them later this winter ...long after all the other pears have fallen off the tree and rotted!

There are so many spiritual parallels that I could make from my day's work yesterday but I'll mention just a few. We are "picked" in several ways. First, we are chosen, or picked, by God. John 15: 16 "Ye have not chosen me, but I have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, and that your fruit should remain: that whatsoever ye shall ask of the Father in my name, he may give it you."

Fruit needs to be to a certain stage of ripeness before we pick it. It sometimes doesn't taste as well or even preserve as well if it is picked "green". Our spirit has to come to a kind of "ripeness" also before we can be saved. It's called conviction. We must be drawn to God before we can accept Him. John 6: 44a says, "No man can come to me, except the Father which hath sent me draw him:"

After we have been picked, then we must be "processed". This process is what the Bible calls salvation. It's available to anyone...young or old, educated or illiterate, rich or poor. Romans 10: 9..."That if thou shalt confess with thy mouth the Lord Jesus, and shalt believe in thine heart that God hath raised him from the dead, thou shalt be saved."

When God saves us, He also seals or "preserves" us! Ephesians 1: 13 "In whom ye also trusted, after that ye heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that ye believed, ye were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise," No one or no thing can take us from the Hand of God once we have been sealed by salvation. God has preserved Christians for all time.....at salvation we are given eternal life (Romans 6: 23) How much more preserved could we be than for eternity?

My pray for you today is that you have been Picked...Processed...and Preserved!

Marilyn

Don't Look Back !

"We remember the fish, which we did eat in Egypt freely; the cucumbers, and the melons, and the leeks, and the onions, and the garlick:" Numbers 11: 5

Are you ever guilty of "looking back" at where God brought you from? The Israelites did! God had brought them from a horrible life of slavery and poverty and was carrying them into the Promised Land....a land which He told them was flowing with milk and honey.

In Numbers 11 the people started complaining. Verse 1 says this complaining displeased the Lord. I'm sure my complaining in my own modern day still displeases Him just as much! In verses 4 & 5 the people began to weep and tell Moses how they longed for the meat and the fruits and vegetables they had back in Egypt.

How quickly we forget! They surely didn't miss the slavery and cruelty they had been subject to in Egypt. But that's just like the devil. He clouds our vision and warps our memory. They didn't want that old "manna" that God was feeding them with each and every day. We as humans are so prone to acting just like this aren't we! God gives us all we need: a good Christian home, a godly church family, food on the table and a roof above our heads, and we complain! God help us!

Help us Lord to not look back. Help us to not compare what we have to what the world has. God says in Proverbs 8: 19, "My fruit is better than gold, yea, than fine gold; and my revenue than choice silver."

Don't look back. What God has in store ahead for us is more wonderful than we can ever imagine!

God bless!

Marilyn