Good morning Y'all!!! It's been a while again, but I've been busy here lately. Trying to stay busy is more like it, and I have been succeeding in that endeavor. I think of my blog often, but feel I don't have much to share anymore. Mostly I have started using it to write my feelings down for me and then I share it with y'all. It seems my heart is full of mixed emotions and aches and longs to see our fellow beings, being a little more caring and compassionate. More on that in a minute.
I hope and pray that wherever Y'all are that you are enjoying this beautiful day. It is an amazing day to be alive. This is a unique day in the life of this world. Up to this particular day in history, there has never been another day quite like this one. And tomorrow will be uniquely different from today. So, while it is today, enjoy this day.
The sun is shining in my neck of the woods, but it's still a wee bit chilly. I don't remember how much I have said on here about my little greenhouse sitting on my deck, but it got way down below freezing this past weekend and a couple nights early in the week and it took out my pot of tomatoes and my pot of peppers which had blooms. I would have had tiny peppers by now, but they are gone. All I had to do was take them to the garage, but I really didn't think it would get cold enough to hurt them. Was I ever wrong!!!!! Well, I know that I can grow them, so I will start them early next year and get my starts ready to transplant as soon as the weather permits. I have some fresno and shishito pepper seeds that I really to hope to be able to grow. I love them both and will try to have both of them.
I have been baking lots of bread this year. Dehydrating lots of veggies and fruit also. If you haven't done any dehydrating, I would encourage you to try it. It is a wonderful way to preserve food, even for long term storage. I have just started my hand in fermented foods. I am loving that too. I make kombucha on a weekly basis. I also make my own yogurt. I make fire cider every 3 or 4 months. I also make elderberry syrup, which is so good to have on hand this time of year. So, all of this keeps me busy and I am loving it. I would encourage y'all to try any or all of these methods of food preservation or making some of your own foods, and also some of your own medicines. You would be surprised how simple and easy some of it really is. As I type this, I have lemons, mango, papaya, and pineapple in the dehydrator right now. The lemons are good to put in hot teas. I also use them in the making of my fire cider. There is a lot to learn and a lot to do. I look forward to adding more skill and knowledge to my skill sets. Learning is a good thing no matter what age you are. I am also trying to eat better and lose a little weight. Story of my life. So, there's that. hahaha We'll see how it goes.
There is something that has been on my mind as of late. Look back at the title of this post. Are you lost or are you a hypocrite??? Strange question I guess. But it's one that needs to be addressed and I figured it was as good a time as any to pose my question here and then deal with it. I know I'm not lost. I got that settled over 40 years ago. Jesus died on the cross for me, He rose again in 3 days, and He sits by the Father even now, continually covering me with love, mercy and grace. I feel like I need to keep reminding myself that I belong to Him and NO ONE can change that fact, because this world is in a mess. It is!!!!! And we can't deny that anymore. I'm not gonna quote scripture here today. I just want to get something that I know for sure out there. And this is it: Jesus loved and loves the lost or as scripture puts it, "sinners", but He hated and hates hypocrites.
So, who are the lost, or "sinners"? They are those people who have not trusted in Christ as their Savior and Lord. They have not accepted Him into their hearts and lives yet. They maybe don't even know they need Him. They are not necessarily "bad" people, just people without the influence of Jesus in their lives. These are the people that Jesus has always loved. Praise God for that!!!!! Jesus dined with the "sinners" in the Bible. Jesus loves them!!! Again I say, Praise God for that, because He loves me!!!! How can I say that????? I can say that because I have accepted Christ as my Lord and Savior. That doesn't make me perfect. It makes me a saved sinner. As long as I'm in this bag of bones and flesh, I will still sin. I know that, because I know me. But with each sin, Jesus loves me thru it while I find my way back to the foot of the Cross. You see, as long as I'm in this earth suit, I still have the ability to sin, even though I wish I didn't, but I do. I struggle with my sin on a daily basis. I struggle thru each day, realizing that I've let my Savior down again and again. It truly breaks my heart, that I keep sinning. But I'm so thankful and appreciative that Jesus keeps forgiving and covering me with His love and mercy and grace each day. And each day is another opportunity to praise Him and ask Him again, to help me be better today than I was yesterday. If you have accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior, you know all about my struggle.
Who are the hypocrites??? In short order, hypocrites are church people with a holier than thou attitude. That my friend is who a hypocrite is. Just so you know, Jesus despised the hypocrites of His day. They were the church people of His day and they were jealous of Him to the point that they actually killed Him. If you don't believe me, get your Bible out and look it up. It's all there. The hypocrites were always trying to trick Him or catch Him in a lie and always tried to use Old Testament Laws against Him. They didn't get it. They accused Him of all kinds of things. It's all there, look it up. Jesus despised the hypocrites. The hypocrites put more faith in their own words and works than they did in Jesus and who He claimed to be. Although these people had a form of being religious, they didn't know God. Their people had long abandoned the word of God and believed that it was more important to wash their hands than to wash their hearts. Everything that a church person done, was to be seen by everyone and they would make fun of people.
There was one account where a lady put every thing she had in the coffers, and it didn't even make a sound when it hit the other money already given. The hypocrites would put in their money so it would jingle and jangle till it landed and then gloat over how much they gave. Understand, I am paraphrasing and making it simple to understand, but that's what happened. Jesus told those people that the lady that gave everything gave more than the hypocrites. She gave all she had which was a few cents, they gave a little of what they should have given and thought they had given much. Jesus said the lady gave way more than they did, because she gave all and they gave just a pitiful little bit.
Basically, she gave her whole life. She trusted Jesus with everything she had. The hypocrites are wolves in sheeps clothing. They want you to think they are everything and a piece of cake, where as they are actually imposters. They live make-believe lives. As the saying goes, you can fool some of the people some of the time, but you can't fool all the people all the time. We can NEVER fool God either.
How does that fit todays world???? Easy. If you claim to have Christ in your life, you will not be perfect, but you WILL have some compassion in your heart for others. You just will. If you don't have compassion for others, then very doubtful if you have Jesus in your heart. People don't want to hear that. They want to go to church, hear a sermon that doesn't apply to them, make fun of their neighbors, make fun of any situation that would put them in the hot seat for their attitude towards others, plot and scheme of ways to get rid of people that will call them on their hypocrisy and make everyone else out to be the bad guys. Does any of that sound familiar???? It does to me!!!! The hypocrites of Jesus's day are the same today. The church is full of hypocrites!!! Why? Because the church is made up of imperfect people. But there also a lot of imposters that have been allowed to sneak in and gain a foothold. Those are "wolves in sheep's clothing". Those are the ones setting snares and traps and literally tearing the kingdom of God down right before our very eyes. It's painful to say it, but it's true.
Again, how does this apply to today??? If you have a facebook account or any other account with the various platforms on the internet, you can see people spewing forth all kinds of filth. Participating in all kinds of filthy acts, immoral and disgusting acts. There are people making fun of covid 19!!! Calling it a hoax and every time someone says something about it, what they will say is that it has a 96 to 98 percent survival rate. That my friend, is a statement right from the pits of hell being made by hypocrites in the church who are wolves in sheep's clothing!!!!! If you don't have compassion for others, this is how you might feel.
Another difference between "sinners" and hypocrites is this: most sinners have compassion for others, they just haven't found Jesus yet. Hypocrites have no compassion for anyone. Oh, they may act like they do, but in reality, if it doesn't benefit them, they won't have anything to do with it.
If you want proof of what I'm saying, just watch your face book feed and see who says what. If you pay close attention, you'll see a lot and it's pretty disgusting. especially when it comes from people that profess to be a christian but obviously having no form of godliness in their lives. This is to call them out!!! I have shared a couple of things recently on my face book page about it and you would be surprised at who DOES NOT acknowledge it. I always have 3 or 4 long distant friends that will acknowledge it, but not the people in my life that I know personally or any of my own family. So, what does that say? I know people will look at this and think this is being hypocritical. Maybe it is. I just pray that if it is, God shows it to me, and I will do an addendum to this post and share what He will show me. What I do know is this, I struggle every day when I see people that claim to be Christ followers, sharing what would be considered hurtful, hateful, critical posts on their face book pages. I don't understand how a true Christian would be inclined to say something like "it only has a 2-4% death rate"!!!!! It may be easy to say if you haven't lost someone to it. Praise God, I haven't yet, but I have friends who have, and my heart bleeds a little bit every time I see this. Because I know my friends will see others saying the same thing and it could not hurt any worse than a dagger to the heart. People with true compassion and the love of Christ in their lives, could not be party to such heinous and hurtful and hateful words.
There it is, in a nutshell! Are you lost or are you a Hypocrite? Only you can truly answer that, but let me remind us, that our actions show a whole lot more than we may think. People are always watching. You either make a good impression or a bad impression. Remember that. God loves us all, but He certainly doesn't love the way we act sometimes. If you have compassion in your heart, please show it. The world needs to see it. The world needs to see godly people loving others.
Please forgive any typos in this, I just typed as the words came, and I did very little correction.
I pray that you have a blessed day and that you will tell someone today that Jesus loves them. I know He loves us and I love y'all. hugs, mercy and grace be yours today, patty
