Cookies Are Best When Denied To Us

Cookies!

I ate a cookie Yesterday and it tasted pretty good. It was a peanut butter cookie. However, it didn’t taste as good as it did  in the 1930’s. Times were hard then, and sugar was just one of the rationed items but the one we kids missed the most. There wasn’t enough sugar to bake very often. When Mama brought out the rolling pin, I knew she was about to make cookies!  The very aroma carried from the oven to me was delicious.

First, she divided the cookies into two piles, Then she wrapped the one pile very carefully, put in a note, and wrote on the top, ” For one Sailor Boy in the Navy of the United States”. The rest of the cookies were put in the cookie jar, except for the one she handed to me. Oh, the wonderful taste of that cookie! I hoped the Sailor Boy would enjoy his cookies as much as I did. Mama always sent cookies to the men in the Navy because my Daddy served there during World War I.

It’s the same as going to church. I remember one guy, his name was Orin, who came to Daddy’s church every Sunday, hitch-hiking 50 miles to do it! He told my Daddy how much it meant to him, and that he would bring every bit of the service back to his family. Daddy was the pastor of the church and he would often say, “I guess when it’s easy to get to church, it’s easy to stay home.”

That is true with everything. When we have a difficult time to do things or go anywhere it means so much more to us when we are able to do it. So. why not remember the 30’s and Orin and get out that Bible to read, and go to church this Sunday. You never know when you can’t do these things!

Our God Given Will To Choose

God has given us the freedom to choose good or evil. Just look with me at the beginning, in Genesis, chapter two, where God told Adam, “You are free to eat from every tree in the garden, but you must not eat from the tree of Knowledge of good and evil.” They did though, and from that time on, we have the freedom to choose good or evil. Does that mean God won’t love us anymore if we choose evil? The Bible tells us that after they sinned, God made clothes for Adam and Eve out of the leaves of the fig tree. To me, this tells me a little about God’s love. After all, don’t we dress our children in warm clothes when it is cold outside even though they are naughty?

When we choose evil, does that mean we cannot ever come back to God? Of course not! He will gladly take us into his arms when we tell Him we are sorry. Still, we say,  “I could never be as good as the folks in the Bible. They always did the right things.”

Well, let’s look at a few of the people we read about in the Bible. Abraham had his wife lie to the leaders in Egypt, telling them that she was Abraham’s sister, not his wife. In order to be sure that Jacob would get the blessing from his father, which should go to the oldest son, Their mother had Jacob dress in the furry skin like Esau’s, and had him wear some of Esau’s clothes and even made Esau’s favorite stew. Then Jacob went into his father, who was ill and blind, to get his brother’s blessing.

We all know David, who is listed in the Bible as the man of God’s heart, took the wife of one of his fighters and made love to her. Then, he put her husband in the front of the battle so he would be killed and he could marry her! And, we know that Peter, in the New Testament, lied, telling the people he didn’t know Jesus when Jesus was being tortured.

All of these people and many more were richly used by God even though God forgave them. If you made the wrong choice, God still loves you. He will forgive you too. Isn’t it awful the wrong choices people are making today? But God will still forgive them. Why? because He always loves us, every one of us, even though we make the wrong choices He stands ready to forgive us.