Members

I am grateful for yesterday’s safe and successful trip!

Colossians 3 (esp. v3 and v5)

For you died, and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Therefore put to death your members which are on the earth: fornication, uncleanness, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry.

Me: Good morning, Holy Spirit!

Holy Spirit: Good morning, Jon!

Me: Would You clarify these passages for me? I note the KJV and NKJV are more word-for word with the Greek, while some other translations make it clear the translators considered it to be more figurative language. Also verse three says we have already died while verse five talks about putting our “members” to death, which is more of a process, I think.

Holy Spirit: Many tend to look at the example list of “earthly things” as a checklist. You should hear their personal observations, “Well, I’m not doing that!” Paul in no way intended the list to be exhaustive, and it is only a small part of his letter. Look at Col 1:9-14.

For this reason we also, since the day we heard it, do not cease to pray for you, and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all wisdom and spiritual understanding; that you may walk worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing Him, being fruitful in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all might, according to His glorious power, for all patience and longsuffering with joy; giving thanks to the Father who has qualified us to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in the light. He has delivered us from the power of darkness and conveyed us into the kingdom of the Son of His love, in whom we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of sins.

Colossians 1:9-14

You see, this entire letter is explaining that the perspective of the world, self-serving almost exclusively (and serving Satan’s destructive purposes) does not belong in a fruitful life that is “hid in Christ”. Rather, a totally new focus is required:

Set your mind on things above, not things on the earth.

Colossians 3:2

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience,

Ephesians 2:1-2

Colossians 3:3 is clearly not speaking of being physically dead (yet), else one would not be capable of walking according to any course, either good or bad.

I Am sent to guide into all Truth (John 16:13). None of this transformation of a mind focused on self – and the dark things of the prince of the power of the air – to a mind renewed by the washing of the water of the word, “putting on the mind of Christ”. None of that change happens without Me being invited to do it. Even so, the “made alive” reference in Ephesians 2:1, is speaking of the perfect spiritual state of the one who is “in Christ”. This is an instantaneous transformation at salvation, while the “put to death your members” of Colossians 3:5 is the progressive transformation of the mental/physical/soulish part of your being by continued and consistent obedience to the Truth.

The Christian life/or walk in the process of bringing the soul into conformance with the fully redeemed spirit, one decision and resultant act at a time. Human effort is going to fail at this, for it equates to trying to pull oneself up by one’s own bootstraps. This is why I Am sent to guide and empower those who decide to yield to My prompting and rely on My power instead of their own (dead) efforts. Those who think they must “get straightened out” first to be “worthy” to come to Me are mistaken. If they come to me, they will get straightened out.

There is a better list than the one in Colossians 3:5. It is one I Am sure to enable:

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.

Galatians 5:22-26

Aren’t those better members?

Me: Thank you, Holy Spirit! I love you!

Holy Spirit: You are welcome! I love you!

Comprehension

I am grateful for a good sweet potato harvest and most of the garden cleanup done!

In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

There was a man sent from God, whose name was John.  This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.

He was in the world, and the world was made through Him, and the world did not know Him. He came to His own, and His own did not receive Him. But as many as received Him, to them He gave the right to become children of God, to those who believe in His name: who were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And of His fullness we have all received, and grace for grace.

John 1:4-5, 6-13, 16

Me: Good morning, Father!

Abba: Good morning, Jon!

These opening passages of the Gospel of John are stirring, no matter how many times I read them! And yet, I know those walking in the darkness do not comprehend it. So Sad!

Abba: In Him is life. The dead comprehend nothing of light. Just as life is light, so darkness is death. Light comes in relationship with Me. Darkness is just absence of a relationship with Me. Just as John the Baptist was called by Me to bear witness in the darkness, so everyone who has come into the Light is called to bear witness.

And you He made alive, who were dead in trespasses and sins, in which you once walked according to the course of this world, according to the prince of the power of the air, the spirit who now works in the sons of disobedience, among whom also we all once conducted ourselves in the lusts of our flesh, fulfilling the desires of the flesh and of the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, just as the others.

But God, who is rich in mercy, because of His great love with which He loved us, even when we were dead in trespasses, made us alive together with and raised us up together, and made us sit together in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, that in the ages to come He might show the exceeding riches of His grace in His kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace, you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. For we are His workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.

Ephesians 2:1-10

Me: Thank You Father! How marvelous is Your gift! I love You!

Abba: You are welcome! I love you, as should be clear from these truths!

Part of the 2025 Sweet Potato Crop – 15 of these tubs total.

Northern Lights from Southern Iowa

11/11/2025 9PM

Vertical Rack

The new shop now boasts a new vertical storage rack for lumber.

The 4″ casters allow it to be pulled out for access on the back side. That is a full sheet of 3/4″ plywood on the back. The 2x4s on the front right are 12′. The total footprint is 4’x5′.

The casters are mounted on 2x6s and the 3/4″ plywood base is stiffened by 2x4s on edge around the perimeter and across the center. The remainder of the plywood sheet provides rigidity side to side for the tower. You can see the top edge of it in the center behind the short stuff. Front-to-back, the tower is braced by 6′ long 2×4’s.

The front casters swivel, while the back ones are straight.

Grateful…

…to be moving equipment into my new shop space.

Light and Darkness

I am grateful for sight! What a marvelous gift!

22 “The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good, your whole body will be full of life light. 23 But if your eye is bad, your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!

Matthew 6:22-23

And He said, “Go, and tell this people:
‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand;
Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
 “Make the heart of this people dull,
And their ears heavy,
And shut their eyes;
Lest they see with their eyes,
And hear with their ears,
And understand with their heart,
And return and be healed.”

Then I said, “Lord, how long?”

And He answered:
“Until the cities are laid waste and without inhabitant,
The houses are without a man,
The land is utterly desolate,
The Lord has removed men far away,
And the forsaken places are many in the midst of the land”

Isaiah 6:9-12

In Him was life, and the life was the light of men. And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it.

John 1:4-5

Me: Good morning, Holy Spirt!

Holy Spirt: Good morning, Jon!

Me: I wrote “life” instead of “light” when writing down Matthew 6:22.

Holy Spirit: As you see from John 1:4, there is a sense in which they are equivalent.

In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth. The earth was without form, and void; and darkness [a]was on the face of the deep. And the Spirit of God was hovering over the face of the waters.

Then God said, “Let there be light”; and there was light. And God saw the light, that it was good; and God divided the light from the darkness. God called the light Day, and the darkness He called Night. So the evening and the morning were the first day.

Genesis 1:1-5

And the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it. There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. This man came for a witness, to bear witness of the Light, that all through him might believe. He was not that Light, but was sent to bear witness of that Light. That was the true Light which gives light to every man coming into the world.

John 1:5-9

And this is the condemnation, that the light has come into the world, and men loved darkness rather than light, because their deeds were evil. For everyone practicing evil hates the light and does not come to the light, lest his deeds should be exposed. But he who does the truth comes to the light, that his deeds may be clearly seen, that they have been done in God.”

John 3:19-21

Then Jesus spoke to them again, saying, “I am the light of the world. He who follows Me shall not walk in darkness, but have the light of life.”

John 8:12

 “A little while longer and the world will see Me no more, but you will see Me. Because I live, you will live also. At that day you will know that I am in My Father, and you in Me, and I in you.  He who has My commandments and keeps them, it is he who loves Me. And he who loves Me will be loved by My Father, and I will love him and manifest Myself to him.”

John 14:19-21

 “You are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hidden. Nor do they light a lamp and put it under a basket, but on a lampstand, and it gives light to all who are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven.

Matthew 5:14-16

Me: Thank You Holy Spirit for leading me though these scriptures! I love You!

Holy Spirit: You are welcome! I love you!

Mahaska Morning

Calling of Levi

I am grateful to have the new yard hydrant installed and some of the dirt back in the hole.

Therefore if there is any consolation in Christ, if any comfort of love, if any fellowship of the Spirit, if any affection and mercy, 2 fulfill my joy by being like-minded, having the same love, being of one accord, of one mind. 3 Let nothing be done through selfish ambition or conceit, but in lowliness of mind let each esteem others better than himself. 4 Let each of you look out not only for his own interests, but also for the interests of others.

Philippians 2 New King James Version

Me: Good afternoon, Father!

Abba: Good afternoon, Jon!

Me: Do we do such a poor job of communicating the Gospel, that instead of being drawn by the tender mercies named in this exhortation, many non-believers see judgmentalism, which they interpret as hatefulness?

Abba: Do you recall from the Scriptures when Jesus called Levi (later called Matthew) from his tax-collector’s booth?

Me: Yes, Luke 5, Matthew 9, and Mark chapter 2.

Abba: Levi was operating what you would call a toll booth today, on the Via Maris (meaning “way of the sea”). It was an ancient trade route that ran along the costal plain of the eastern Mediterranean. Levi’s tax collection was under the authority of Herod Antipas with the collected duties shared by Herod and Rome. The heavy fees collected were viewed by Jews as burdensome and ceremonially defiling, as the Jews chafed under their Roman occupation. Therefore, those who were making their living as tax collectors were viewed with the utmost contempt by the Jewish religious leaders, and by the Jewish populace who were subject to these taxes.

Me: From the passage in Luke, when Jesus called him, Levi got up and left everything behind and followed Jesus. Then, apparently, Levi put on a banquet to introduce all his tax-collector friends to Jesus (Luke 5:29). This caused the religious leaders to complain that Jesus and His disciples would stoop to eating with such “tax collectors and sinners”(v30).

Abba: And what was Jesus’ response to this charge?

Me: Verses 31 and 32 are well known: Jesus answered and said to them, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance.”

Abba: The religious leaders considered themselves above reproach. Though if you read the Scriptures diligently, it becomes plain that their righteousness was only self-righteousness. Levi, on the other hand, jumped up and followed immediately at the grace extended to him.

And that is the crux of the matter, so to speak. Those who consider themselves righteous are often judgmental, seeing themselves as superior. Those who understand their need of grace, are open to receive My righteousness.

Notice that Jesus did not say it is OK to keep on sinning. His call is to repentance. However, judgment is Mine.

Finally, some have mistakenly assumed that I can’t deal with sin as though it would pollute My holiness. If that were so, I would have ceased speaking to man entirely after the fall in the garden. What I can’t stand about sin, is the damage it does to My children. They even misinterpret My reaction to Jesus bearing the sin of the world on the cross. They will say I couldn’t look upon that sin. What was rending My heart was that My Son had to endure it.

Me: Thank You Father! I love You!

Abba: You are welcome! I love you!

picture of new yard hydrant installation.

Holey Work

When we bought the place we live in 2012, we had a yard hydrant that was seized and couldn’t be turned on. With a new garden plot on that side, near the barn. That would have proven to be inconvenient, had we not had more than our share of rain this summer.

I have been working lately to dig up the offending hydrant to replace it with a new one. Here in Iowa, the “extreme” freeze line requires the water lines to be five feet deep to avoid having your water freeze up on the coldest winters.

The rusted, formerly galvanized pipe, leads me to believe this hydrant has been in the ground a long time!

I can tell you tonight I am feeling every shovelful of dirt I have thrown out of the hole. We bottom two feet was definitely still plenty wet (and heavy and gummy) from the earlier rains.

The block structure is a previously used well pit. The blocks are merely stacked and not mortared. When the water was converted to supply by the local rural water supply, the metered water was connected in the existing pit and the well was retired (I was told the well was sulfurous, which might explain the bad drain and waste yard hydrant). There are cut-offs in the pit, which I will need to access when the new hydrant is installed.

Right now I am looking for a source for a stainless tee than can insert into the poly pipe and provide a 3/4″ NPT (normal pipe thread) to attach the new hydrant.

These hydrants have a drain hole near the bottom that allow them to empty when shut off so they don’t freeze in winter. It seems to me the four-inch drain tile and handful of rocks (still on the ledge next to the block wall) was a pretty poor installation, given that the level of the drain hole is in a pure clay strata.

Out of Chaos…

…Order

Substance

I am grateful to have the small chicken coop moved under the trees, where the chicks will be cooler in the summer heat!

1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.

3 By faith we understand that the worlds were framed by the word of God, so that the things which are seen were not made of things which are visible.

Hebrews 11

Substance, here, in the NKJV, is hypostasis; a compound of hupo and histemi; a setting under (support), i.e. (figuratively) concretely, essence, or abstractly, assurance (objectively or subjectively) — confidence, confident, person, substance.

I note that we get our English word stasis from the Greek word histemi, meaning – in this context – equilibrium or a stable state. The Strongs exposition, above, incorporated the word concretely, which we equate with stability.

In the third verse, the writer speaks of the worlds being framed by the word of God as a basis for understanding faith. The word of God is surer as a foundation than is concrete! Concrete will eventually decay, but the word of God stands forever (Isaiah 40:8).

Lord, thank You that Your word is faithful and true, a sure foundation for life! Thank you that our relationship with you is by faith in You, and not by our always-inconsistent performance.

Small Chicken Coop