Bittersweet Farm

Bittersweet Farm

Ken

In My Humble Opinion…

Filed Under: Current Thoughts

IN MY HUMBLE OPINION.
—Invest in black Eddie Bauer T shirts. Short-sleeved in spring and summer. Long-sleeved in fall and winter. One less decision every day. “Legend-wash.”
—Stretch Levi’s or stretch Wranglers. You look manly but you are really wearing jammies. They are wonderful.
—Keen shoes. Nothing better for a guy built like a Clydesdale. They are not pretty but they are comfortable as Crocs on crack.
—Carhartt makes a thick flannel shirt. Invest in a couple, or one for every day of the week. They are not cheap. You will use your old ones for oil rags.
—Don’t sub-tweet. It makes you look petty. No, it shows you are petty. If you have something to say to everyone make it clear. If you have something to say to one person, send a private message. You know who you are. (See what I did there?)
—Out of a box of mixed donuts the mouse will eat the chocolate one.
—If you want a close family, buy a small house.
—Never use tobacco. It’s expensive and too hard to stop. If I ever smoke it will be a pipe but I’m not gunna’ do that unless a sheet comes down from heaven and I get direct orders from Headquarters.
—Wean yourself off food that is not food. If you are overweight see overeating as idolatry and set a goal to lose a pound a week. Cut your portions in half. Eat better food. Eat less food. Drink water. I’m starting this today ? Slow and steady.
—Bud, you’d be wiser not to drink. IMHO. No, I’m not condemning those who do. No, I don’t want to argue about it.
—Water is the beverage and an occasional strawberry lemonade bought from children on the street.
—Be clear. In the absence of Information people usually assume the worst.
—Keep a journal with a long list of good reasons to get up in the morning.
—Know your Bible. Meditate on it every day. Every Sunday go where they teach it in-depth. Build your whole life on the promises of God.
—Life is too short to use cheap pens. Discover quality fountain pens. Pilot. TWSBI. Wing Sung 699. LAMY 2000.
—When lacking inspiration talk a walk and drink cold brew and sweet vanilla cream.

The Sacrament of the U-Haul Trailer

Filed Under: Current Thoughts

There was a time I could put everything I owned in a VW Beetle and still have room for a passenger. That was a few years in many thousands of blessings ago. The spring of our first year of marriage Lois and I started back to college—everything we owned fit in a small U-Haul trailer behind our Plymouth duster.

(PS if you ever try that be sure you put a cooler on your transmission or you may end up beside the road someplace like Effingham Illinois)

Since then Lois and I have accumulated a few things—a house a barn and a driveway full of blessings—so many things that it has become a problem we worry about some.

Storing, maintaining, organizing, and ensuring the things we own requires genuine effort and expense. We have valuable things to insure. We have more clothes than we can wear, more books then we can read, more cars then we can drive at one time, and more antiques then we can sell. Lots more. Lots lots more. And did I mention thousands of books? And no one ever has to wait to use the bathroom because we have one each.

For this reason it occurred to me as I watch from my writing loft for the last stubborn yellow leaf of autumn to waft down from the maple east of the house, that one day is not enough for us to give thanks for our material blessings alone—for our comforts and our conveniences— to say nothing of the things that are ours that you could never put a price tag on or ensure, the love of family, the mercy of God, a home in heaven.

So here’s my suggestion. Here is something to go with your coffee on a brisk November morning. One day thank God for your coffee. Thank God for your ability to taste and smell. Not everyone can. Thank him for a home. Thank him every morning and throughout the day every single November day. Make November a month of gratitude. This will lighten your heart. This will sweeten your day. This will deep in your joy. This will strengthen your soul. Nothing but good will come from this. Be thankful every day all month long. People will notice the difference. It will put a spring step and a smile on your face even if you do end up scraping some snow off the windshield this month.

I’m grateful for you, Bethel family. Grateful every single day.

Is My Heart the Temple of the Holy Spirit?

Filed Under: Bethel Church-Jackson, Village Parson

If you know me, you know I love the outdoors. It is a place where I meet God and have a powerful sense of the presence of God. I have had some of my most meaningful worship experiences outdoors. Sunday I preached a Christmas message about wandering under the night winter sky and wondering about Jesus and what he did. I believe God meets with people in the most unusual places. Some of them are very dark and unusual. He can do anything. But there is a truth of Scripture, a major theme that fore most of my Christian life I did not understand. Read on:

What we need most only God can do. And the Scriptures are clear that to experience what God has for us we have means—means of grace, ways that God works his gifts into our lives. We need change—and not just shallow, surface, temporary change. We need inside-out change. We need transformation. We need miraculous change that comes from God and such change is promised in the Bible for those who follow God and walk in his ways.

One of God’s appointed means to do the beautiful things he wants to do to transform you is church—the regular assembly of the saints. This is much, much more important than most Christians realize. This is the truth I really had not seen.

Church—the assembly is the place of God’s special glory-presence. It is the place where God has especially promised to manifest his presence and power. God works in a special way when the saints assemble.

A few years ago a brilliant and godly pastor and professor now gone to be with the Lord showed me this theme in the Bible. I had never understood it before. We had some conversations and exchanged correspondence and he recommended three books to me.

The major work was by Dr. Gregory Beale, a book called the The Temple and the Churches Mission: A Biblical Theology of the Dwelling Place of God. Here is the key truth of the book. God has always had a place where he especially manifests his glory-presence, a place of his dwelling (though He is omnipresent) he has always chosen to manifest his glory-presence in a place. From the garden of Genesis to the New Jerusalem in the Eternal Kingdom of God in Revelation and at all points in between. The garden, the Tabernacle, the Temple of Israel, the person of Jesus on earth, in the past were all places of God’s manifest presence-glory where willing believers would experience powerful transformation. The Day of Pentecost was a powerful example of this. God manifest his glory in the faithful assembly—the church.

Now here is the very heart of it that matters much to you and to your family. Today the church is the place of the manifest glory-presence, dwelling of God. It is among the gathered redeemed, no matter how humble and apparently simple the gathering that God has promised to make his glory-presence known.

Paul often wrote of this. In 2 Corinthians 3:18 he explained the process of transformation and the glory presence of the Spirit.

“And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.” (2 Corinthians 3:18, ESV)

We have often heard, “I am the temple of the Holy Spirit.” The emphasis is usually on the individual believer being the temple of God. The Scriptures say that but not often. Not nearly as often as they appear to, because most of the references are plural, though it is not apparent in our modern English Bibles. The Temple of God in the current age is the assembled church. We are the temple of the Holy Spirit. This language is throughout the Bible. G. K. Beale’s book describing this covers the entire Bible and it is nearly 500 plages long. Let me show you one powerful example from Ephesians. Notice the temple, glory, presence of the Spirit language in this passage:

“So then you are no longer strangers and aliens, but you are fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Christ Jesus himself being the cornerstone, in whom the whole structure, being joined together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord. In him you also are being built together into a dwelling place for God by the Spirit.” (Ephesians 2:19–22, ESV)

This is why faithfulness to gathering to assembling and the means of grace, the preaching and teaching of the word, prayer, giving, worship, followship, conversation, communion are so indispensable to Christian flourishing. It is the plan of God. It is God plan for transformation. It is the way he displays his glory and makes his transforming power available for out needs.

This is my appeal for believers to renew their devotion to the assembly of the saints, to faithful church attendance and renewed church participation. God works his inside-out change, his miraculous transformation in the lives of those who a devoted to assemble and worship and employ the means of grace appointed for the purpose of that transformation.

When Jesus came to earth he brought a whole new expression, a beautiful, simple, fast-moving expression of his kingdom—the church of Jesus Christ. He conceived of the church. He loves the church. He died for the church. He manifests himself still in the assembled church.

That is way Hebrews 10:25 says; “And let us not neglect our meeting together, as some people do, but encourage one another, especially now that the day of his return is drawing near.”

God came down to be with men and women… to manifest himself among men and women and thus to transform men and women. That’s what Christmas is all about Charlie Brown.

See Ya’ Sunday.

Bittersweet Farm Journal | December 8, 2021 | And Christmas Came

Filed Under: Bittersweet Farm

Out on Bittersweet tonight there is a light dust of snow on the ground an it is cold outside. Lois is listening to the news and weather and pouring candles and intermittently singing. I love it when she is happy. It warms the whole house. I’m up in the corner of my cozy room in a circle of warm light writing to you, whoever you are. The drive home from the church study was beautiful tonight. I took the back roads and watched the sun poking through the silver clouds. The rest of the world has turned gray. Today it was dusted with powdery white, a muted beauty. I enjoyed the warmth of my truck and some Christmas music as I made my way out to Bittersweet and supper.

Do you have a moment every December when the “Christmas Feeling” arrives? I have a simple Christmas story for you today. I hope it warms your heart.

…And Christmas Came

It’s early December. I’m sitting in my favorite window nursing a good black coffee and looking out on my truck through the early morning snow. Sometimes the ambient noise of a small-town restaurant lends itself to the concentration needed to write. I’m working on a Christmas sermon.

I know of a pastor who was once one of the most productive writers in the nation. He summered in West Michigan because he loved to sail. I heard him say more than one that he wrote sermons and whole books sitting in a molded fiberglass booth at a Burger King restaurant in South Haven, Michigan.

So I’m writing and keeping my mind focused on my work when I pick up a bit of conversation among the workers. Most of what they had been saying all morning had been silly, empty banter but their tone changed. That captured my attention.

Someone said warmly “O, look, they’re paying for the car behind them“

“Why are they doing that,” another asked.

“You know, they are paying it forward.”

“I thought you said they are paying for the car behind them.”

“Yes, but that’s called paying it forward… You know, instead of paying it back to find someone else and do something kind for them… pay it forward.”

It was quiet for a minute while the workers just stood and watched the cars in the drive-thru lane paying it forward.

I smiled and took a sip from my seasonal cup and I looked out toward my truck. It is green. Flakes of snow drift on the cold air. Christmas music wafts out into the restaurant and right then, at about ten a.m. the Christmas spirit arrived in my soul.

I know Christmas is much, much more than the warm feeling that comes when people extend kindness to each other, but it is nothing less. God became a man to die for our sins. He would rise again and return to heaven. He is coming again to judge all mankind. It’s the stuff angels sing about and old women talk about and old men cry over and the story of Christ is so powerful that even people who don’t fully understand it are stirred to acts of good will.

I say, “God bless it. Merry Christmas.” Has it come to your heart yet? When? How?

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