Obvious and Simple

"Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given, for its purpose is to keep people from having excuses, and to show that the entire world is guilty before God. For no one can ever be made right with God by doing what the law commands. The law simply shows us how sinful we are." Romans 3: 19-20, NLT

Simply. "The law simply shows us". We human beings love to complicate the Gospel in an effort to justify our own existence. We want to make our good works the thing that the Gospel is all about, when the Gospel is way more scandalous than that. The Gospel is about blood sacrifice that speaks of a shouted grace, freely given, and vigorously appropriated by those who can see simple things clearly.

Our good works are the cosmetics...the adornment...the accessorizing, if you will, of the One Work that Matters...the finished work of Christ. Look up your Greek in Titus 2, where it says that we are to adorn the Gospel with our good behavior.

Kosmeo. Yeah...we get our English word "cosmetics" from that Greek word. I need nothing else, in the way of proof text, but there is a lot more than that...however, it is September, it is Labor Day, and I am feeling mellow.

So if you wanna keep believin' that your works are anything more than (beautiful, significant, because all that is truly beautiful is significant) adornments to beautify the message of Scandalous Grace...go right ahead. One of us is wrong, and it isn't me.

Obviously. How about that word? "Obviously, the law applies to those to whom it was given..." (um, and that would be Old Covenant Hebrew People...)

Unfortunately, that darn veil obscures the obvious for many believers. What should be obvious....ain't. It is satan's Grand Scheme. To obscure the obvious. He's very, very good at it. Every day, I uncover some small (or large) truth he has managed to minimize, distort, or obscure in my understanding. And I get to happily repent and change my mind.

"After all, repentance is a gift...an opportunity...an invitation to The Good Life." And, by the way, that is a quote from The Preacher's message in church yesterday. It was - no bull - the best message on repentance I have ever, ever heard. Foundational. In the context of the Gospel. You do not want to miss it. And "obviously", repentance is part of the Gospel, and has always been preached at Harvest Church.

(I know, right? We are so "imbalanced"...)

But it's September. It's Labor Day, and I am feeling really mellow, so I'll save the fullness of all the past weeks and months of Romans study for another post.

Summer's last gasp. I am enjoying it. I am loving these days of simple dinners and detailed desserts, and the four or so pounds I've gained be hanged, I truly do not care...

...of waiting for the green beans I planted late to come in...of grandsons and first football games of the season. Of breakfasts at Burger King with the goal if discipleship and the attainment of so much more. Days of ridin' with my baby in his Ford pickup, listening to a Kenny Chesney tune. Days of takin' the back roads. The long way home. Puttin' a little gravel in our travel.

All my ducklings are in the nest, for today. It is Labor Day, friends. Let us rock it together, shall we? Some things really are so simple and obvious.

Simply Rock This Day. With Obvious Grace.

Worship Gone Wrong

Octavius Winslow

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places.” Ephesians 6:12

"Let us inquire what is that which Satan desires to assault? It is the work of God in the soul. Against his own kingdom not a weapon is raised. It is his aim and his policy to keep all there undisturbed and peaceful. But against the work of the Holy Spirit in the renewed mind, his artillery is brought to bear; not a part of this work escapes him.

Every grace comes in for its share of malignant attack; but especially the grace of faith. When, for example, a repentant and believing soul approaches Christ with lowliness and hesitancy, and with the tremulous hand of faith attempts to touch the border of His garment, or with a tearful eye looks up to His cross, then comes the assault upon faith in the form of a suggestive doubt of Christ’s power and willingness to save. “Is Jesus able to save me? Has He power to rescue my soul from hell? Can He blot out my transgressions, and redeem my life from destruction? Will He receive a sinner, so vile, so unworthy, so poor as I? Has He compassion, has He love, has He mercy sufficient to meet my case?”

In this way Satan assails the earliest and the feeblest exercises of faith in the soul. Does this page address itself to any such? It is Satan’s great effort to keep you from Jesus. By holding up to your view a false picture of His character, from which everything loving, winning, inviting, and attractive is excluded, by suggesting wrong views of His work, in which everything gloomy, contracted, and repulsive is foisted upon the mind; by assailing the atonement, questioning the compassion, and limiting the grace of Christ, he would persuade you that in that heart which bled on Calvary there is no room for you, and that upon that work which received the Father’s seal there is not breadth sufficient for you to stand.

All his endeavors are directed, and all his assaults are shaped, with a view to keep your soul back from Christ. It is thus he seeks to vent his wrath upon the Savior, and his malignity upon you.

Nor does he less assail the more matured faith of the believer. Not infrequently the sharpest attacks and the fiercest onsets are made, and made successfully, upon the strongest believers. Seizing upon powerful corruptions, taking advantage of dark providences, and sometimes of bright ones, and never allowing any position of influence, any usefulness, gift, or grace, that would give force, success, and brilliance to his exploit, to escape his notice, he is perpetually on the alert to sift and winnow God’s precious wheat.

His implacable hatred of God, the deep revenge he cherishes against Jesus, his malignant opposition to the Holy Spirit, fit him for any dark design and work implicating the holiness and happiness of the believer. Therefore we find that the histories of the most eminent saints of God, as written by the faithful pen of the Holy Spirit, are histories of the severest temptations of faith, in the most of which there was a temporary triumph of the enemy; the giant oak bending before the storm. And even in instances where there was no defeat of faith, there yet was the sharp trial of faith.

The case of Joseph, and that of his illustrious antitype, the Lord Jesus, present examples of this. Fearful was the assault upon the faith of both, sharp the conflict through which both passed, yet both left the battlefield victorious. But still faith was not the less really or severely sifted."

~Octavius Winslow.org

Harvesting the Seeds of the Gospel

Our entire church is beginning to experience a great harvest, on the seeds of the Gospel that have been faithfully sown from the pulpit for over two years running now.

Does that sound like I am giving the credit to my Preacher? If you think so, you still don't get how grace works...nor the apostolic gift. That isn't what I am doing at all.

Paul said, in a teaching about the apostolic gifting, that some plant, and some water. There is a "planting" apostolic man...and there is a "watering" apostolic man.

God alone gives the increase.

However, this is where you get into the concept of the believer's cooperation with grace. Had The Preacher not planted the Gospel seed courageously, in the face of much (and very personal) opposition, there would be no increase today. And had he not faithfully watered, lo' these two years straight, there would be no increase.

Someone else would have had to be brought in to re-plant, plow and re-plant, plow and re-plant...you get the idea. Without the watering, the planting has to be done over and over and over, because seeds die without water.

They just do.

So now...ask me again why my Preacher has stuck with the grace-Gospel like a dog on a bone. Or like a water hose on grace-seed. And heck yes, I am proud of him.

And without the saints eagerly receiving, being good Bereans, and tending the gospel-seed sown and watered in their hearts, there would be no increase.

But God alone gives the increase. Grace, grace.

And if one word could describe what is happening in Harvest Families, it is I-N-C-R-E-A-S-E.

Physically. (better health for many, and out-and-out supernatural healing for some!)

Financially. (Oh. Mah. Weeeeerd. Some serious increase going on. With more on the way.)

Um....."gynecologically". Need I say more? Harvest Church is the proud haven to seven new babies. Count 'em.

Spiritually. Harvest has increased and advanced spiritually by light-years. This means more to me than all the others put together. Because when people are increased, fat and flourishing in spirit, the rest comes in time, and when it comes, it usually stays. Because the roots run so deep into the love of God, you see. The blessing that comes with revelation comes to stay.

To stay.

Do you hear me Baileys? Kears? Howes? Buycks? McConnells? Cooks? Ewings? Jernecjics? Cantrells? Fanchers? Damrons?...and all the many others who have experienced great increase and miraculous blessing recently, some even just this week?

Your God establishes you. He makes your steps sure. He keeps you from falling. Which means you move forward, not backward. Forward, not backward. (Remember that word?)

Your blessings aren't going anywhere. Because you didn't earn them. Be glad you didn't earn them. What you earn, you have to maintain. Your blessings? They came by the grace of God, and remain by the same Power.

But you already know that.

Which brings me back to this post's very first sentence.

Preserving the Harvest - Drying Tomatoes

Put some parchment paper on the bottom of a rimmed cookie sheet. Slice your tomatoes, about a half inch slices. Spread them in one layer on the baking sheet. Sprinkle with coarse salt, some fresh ground pepper, and add some basil from the garden. (Basil not necessary, but it sure looks pretty and tastes amazing...)


Set your oven to a low temp...I did these tomatoes at 200 degrees.


200 degrees for "up to" twelve hours. It is the "up to" that will get you, if you aren't careful. This particular day, the humidity was very, very low for my area for this time of year. So this batch of tomatoes only took about three hours! But it can take up to twelve.


All the moisture will dry out, and the tomatoes will shrink and darken. By the time they are done, they will be akin to tomato "chips"...almost crispy. Their flavor is intense, but delicious. You want them to be quite dry, but not burnt. They should peel off the parchment paper pretty easily.


Store these dried tomatoes in a freezer bag, and put them in your freezer. They are great for pizza, for homemade herb breads like foccacia, and soups. They retain their intense flavor and all their vitamins for about six months.


And now, for your viewing delight, I toss in yet another totally unrelated, cute grandson picture:

Be. Still. My. Heart.

Words...Worn

Most of you know - I am all about words. I decorate my home and I garnish my inner world with the best of them.

And now...I decorate myself and others with words!

This is my demo - my very first bracelet. Hannah has already claimed it as her own, and she says she'd buy more. I trust her fashion sixth sense. If Hannah loves it, others will too.

I will be designing different widths of bracelets, different words, different colorways, some with embellishment, some not.

This very first demo is a hand sewn bracelet, with antiqued metal closures on the other side (OOPS! I'll get a picture of the pretty clasp, when I put one like this up in my shop. When I finally get my shop up and running, that is.) The "Grace" bracelet is hand embroidered (by me) on burlap (burlap won't fray, because of the special sewing treatment I gave it) , and the embroidered burlap is attached securely to the fabric bracelet. The fabric for this bracelet is in a mustard yellow/teal blue colorway.

More ideas and designs are on the way....even a few collections are in the works - a "Spring, Summer, Autumn, Winter" collection of four, a Christmas holiday collection, a Good Word collection(based on a Scripture), a French collection, a Romantic collection, perfect for Valentines, and a colorway collection.

I am having such fun designing and creating these. I'll let you know when I have hand- sewn enough of these bracelets (and other things!) to put up a little online shop. I already own the domain I've chosen - I just wish very much that I had the computer skills to design a nice, marketable website...if anyone knows of a web designer who charges reasonable prices, do let me know!

My Grandbay-bay is Eight Months Old

...above, you see his seven month picture...and below, his picture from today:


He's been eight months old for some days, now, but his momma has been busy. Today was his eight month picture day, and we could. not. keep. him. still.

Those two up there? They are both my cuties. I love them beyond words.

I am sloppy blessed...or, in King James English, "my cup runneth over."