Good afternoon, Zane.
Here comes a new year—ready or not! What do you think you want to do with this new one? Wow! This could be the last time I talk to you this year.
Mama (grandma) Becki and I decided to take a drive yesterday—as part our 54th anniversary. We chose to drive Highway 101 up the North Oregon Coast to the South Washington Coast and eat some fresh oysters at the little DOCK OF THE BAY RESTAURANT on the shore of Willapa Bay. We made it—but getting over the mountain range before reaching Seaside was a taxing challenge with all the snow, ice, and traffic. Along the way, we drove out onto the sand at Long Beach. I’ll try to stick on a photo. If you zoom in on it, you can see the clam diggers out near the surf.
Love and prayers—Tua/Ray.
I have reason to believe that dogs, in general, are a special gift of God to humans—thus the typical description, “man’s best friend”—and the bumper sticker I’ve seen that says, “The more I’m around people, the more I love my dog.” Anyway, we would be hard-pressed to find any other creature within the animal kingdom more capable of being totally devoted to their human masters—displaying sadness when they leave—and giddy delight when they return. I, for one, find that very therapeutic—especially surrounding those unavoidable difficult times of being hassled by people. However, it is clear that God did not make dogs in His image and likeness and place them on an equal plain of moral responsibility with humans. It is, therefore, a perversion of His design to ascribe equality to dogs. And when men abandon their moral responsibility to their Maker, they become dog-like in their approach to living—managing their course by instinct and feeling rather than by principle, objective truth, and belief.
Within verse 15, Jesus amplifies His use of the term “dogs” with five descriptions that bar people from the heavenly state here described:
I would judge that the most subtle of all these disqualifying sins is number five—“falsehood.” According to Jeremiah 17:9, falsehood is part of our human DNA: “The heart is deceitful above all things and beyond cure. Who can understand it?” Therefore, I would urge that we individually give very careful attention to this popular human weakness and be intolerant of every form of deception and dishonesty that we find within ourselves. According to Kingdom standards, that’s very bad stuff! We may even reason that it is at the core of all the other four disqualifiers—magic arts skirt the truth of God, sexual immorality violates the truth about sex, murder violates the truth about human life, and idolatry can be any psycho-spiritual deception that impairs or substitutes for the worship of the true God.
Besides this reference to “falsehood,” please take note of the emphasis given to this form of sin as this book of Revelation comes to a close. “…all liars—their place will be in the fiery lake of burning sulfur. This is the second death” (Revelation 21:8). “Nothing impure will ever enter it (heaven, the New Jerusalem), nor will anyone who does what is shameful or deceitful…” (Revelation 21:27).
Finally, be reminded of Jesus’ words to the Samaritan woman: “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth (total honesty), for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks. God is a spirit, and his worshipers must worship in spirit and in truth” (John 4:23-24).