We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

I am aware that modern wheat is problematic for digestion. I read all the stuff about it, how wheat was the first GMO, in that gluten has radically changed composition and prevalence, and all about gliadin is the real danger as part of the complex of elements under the general term "gluten." You can study that for yourself, but the reason it comes back to the fore these days is the global wheat shortage heading our way. I'm not sure how bad it will be, but I've decided to reacquaint myself how to cook with other grains. I used to make pancakes from whole rye flour; I need to dig up that recipe again. There was a period of time when a low-gluten diet was unsustainable for me; I'm still struggling to find the old German style rye bread, thin-sliced in a dark brown brick. Still, I think it's time to switch back to that diet.

Side note: If you like rice as much as I do, consider sticking with Basmati rice. The other varieties tend to pull more arsenic from the soil, brown rice being the worst offender.

Also, I still love grits. Sometimes I make breakfast in a bowl with everything chopped up and mixed into some kind of hot cereal. For me, it tends to digest more easily than baked bread of any kind.

We continue with the narrative of Jesus spending his last months of life in Judea. Luke recounts how Jesus would welcome those who were ostracized by the Pharisees. Those who engaged in gambling, prostitution and other vices were rejected as "sinners" and could not participate in synagogue or Temple worship. They were just one step from being Gentiles. The same goes with tax collectors.

Note in passing: There were two types of tax collectors. The Roman-style tax-farming (publicanus) was restricted mostly to Roman citizens, but they could hire local Jews to handle the actual daily business of collections. Pharisees regarded this as treason. There were also customs agents who collected import taxes and fees for the local Jewish rulers. In Judea at the time of Jesus, the taxing authority was Roman, since the Herodian heir who had received the throne for Judea and Samaria was deposed by Rome and replaced with a Roman procurator, Pilate. While the bulk of what he collected went back to Rome, he was obliged to maintain Jewish royal legacies, such as the palace and troops, etc., as another legitimate king might be recognized by Rome later.

Jesus had no qualms about socializing with these folks, whereas the Pharisees typically treated them with contempt; it was a life sentence. Jesus told parables about His Father's attitude on the matter. First He mentions again the parables of the Lost Sheep and the Lost Coin, which we've already covered. Jesus notes that Heaven rejoices when sinners repent, never mind whether their repentance is recognized by the Pharisees and Scribes.

Then He talks about the Prodigal Son, or Lost Son. Under the Covenant of Moses, the firstborn son inherited two shares of estate. The man with two sons would divide his estate into thirds, and the younger son got one share. It was legitimate that a younger son would ask for an early bequest so as to go off on his own and not compete against the elder brother. In this case the father granted the request. The younger son sold as much as he could of his share, packed up and left. Chances are he went off to Egypt or some other place with a large Jewish colony.

The younger son lived like a spoiled rich boy without any kind of investment to maintain his wealth. Eventually he was broke. When famine struck, he was at risk of starving to death. So he took a job with a native Gentile there feeding pigs. In the minds of Jewish listeners, the image is someone who has sunk as low as Jew could, completely defiled in every way, bereft of any trace of shalom. At the point where he envied the pigs of their carob husks, it finally dawned on him that he would have been better off as a Gentile servant in his own father's household.

He was ready to crawl back home and rehearsed his speech over in his mind all the way. As soon as he recognized the ragged young man approaching, the father could not resist running to meet him. After his prepared speech, the father insisted this fellow was still his son. He had him clothed properly and ordered a feast to celebrate his return. While his inheritance was gone, nothing prevented the father from treating him as an honored guest.

The elder son came home from his dutiful labors and was wondering just what the commotion was all about. Standing outside, he asked a nearby servant, and was advised his younger brother had returned. He wanted no part of welcoming someone who had bailed out on the rightful duty of sons. But the father came out to him and begged him to join the celebration. The elder insisted that this whole thing was unjust, since he had been so relentlessly circumspect and never wasted anything. How could his father reward sinful dissipation like that?

The father reminded him it had nothing to do with stuff. Everything the man had belonged to the elder already. He needed no special permission to enjoy it reasonably. But they had given up on the younger son as effectively dead, and here he was, back in their lives again. There is nothing now the younger could do to harm what the elder would inherit. If he was going to be so bitter toward his own blood kin, why was he still living? Had he lost sight of the purpose for material prosperity? The elder forgot that, in Hebrew society, a man's greatest treasure was his people, not stuff.

It should be obvious the sinners were like the prodigal son, and Pharisees were captured in the attitude of the elder. The former knew they needed to repent and were quite humble about it, but the Pharisees took themselves too seriously, focused entirely on the mechanics of life without understanding life itself.

As portrayed here, the father figure represents the attitude of God the Father going all the way back to the Garden of Eden. Was it so hard to see the mercy and compassion written into the Covenant of Moses?

I learned that some portion of the Russian oligarchs being threatened by sanctions happen to be pro-Western Jewish thugs. Putin is glad to see them flee.

The Ukro-nazi Azov Battalion is actually for the most part Russian-speaking Donbass people. It appears they are largely criminals who left Donbass to avoid any further legal hassles. They really do consciously copy the German Nazis and love Satanic imagery.

Putin isn't smart about everything. His chief economic advisor is a Western trained fool who seems totally unaware of the power they have if they simply disengage the Western economic system altogether. Simply cutting off the West totally would do massive damage to the West, and boost Russian fortunes. It only needs a policy to require investment inside Russia. Russia could easily win the economic conflict, but has avoided the tactics guaranteed to work.

We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

The last wedding I performed some years ago was marrying my mother to my stepfather, Doug. Like most marriages, it came with built-in sorrows. Doug is declining in health, and my mother carries a heavy load as his chief nurse. In her favor is her years as an RN. Against her is her own aging.

Recently Doug fell and cut his head. It appeared he was nearly gone with hallucinations and non-responsive behavior. Then he seemed to recover, but not completely. The hospital will be testing whether a therapist can help him with walking in the coming days. My Mom got a much needed break when Doug's family showed up to help a bit.

So the request is for Doug to recover and for Mom to know how to carry on. They reside in Harlingen, TX -- very far away from us. May the Lord provide.

Most people don't seem to understand that we are entering an apocalypse. It's going to be very unpleasant for a very long time, and only the hand of God can shorten our suffering. It's not easy to understand this stuff. Sometimes it helps when you can find someone who understands economics to spell it out for you. I like this article for simplifying why inflation is not temporary.

The quick summary is that our past few decades of low priced production was based on off-shoring the production of certain items that would cost too much to manufacture here. We took advantage of lower production costs in places like China, Mexico and Pakistan. Well, after decades of that kind of thing, those countries are no longer so cheap on production costs. Hosting our production has raised their internal prosperity greatly, but that means raising prices on us. In other worlds, our western prosperity has crept into every corner of the world, except those places where the population simply won't work in factories reliably.

At the same time, political instability is shutting down a lot of trade. Furthermore, the culture here at home isn't very conducive to bringing the production back. Today's kids aspire to be social media stars and influencers. We have a serious labor shortage in the US, as the lock-downs have convinced the older folks to not bother. This won't change until the market begins to offer better wages, and even that might not help. Either way, the cost of production here is through the roof, so a lot production is going to grind to a halt.

The market for comfort goods has already begun to collapse. More and more of the available labor and resources will go to bare necessities. This is going to roll back all the prosperity of the last century all over the world. Sometimes you need to understand how it works; it's not enough to plaster blame on the evil elite. Yes, a lot of this is according to plan, but making too much of that can distract you from considering how you will survive. It keeps you from thinking about how you can glorify the Lord in the midst of tribulation.

Oh, and we are headed for a mega-drought in the next few years, according to NOAA. Most of the western states, central plains, and parts of the southeast will feel it.

Jesus was invited to a Sabbath meal at the home of a Sanhedrin Pharisee. It would have been a rather large crowd in a fancy mansion somewhere in or near Jerusalem. Before they had taken their places, the guests would have chatted a bit with formal greetings and so forth. Among them was a fellow who was bloated with excess fluid in his body. Jesus faced this issue often: Was it proper to heal on the Sabbath? He handled it the same as He always did, mentioning how the Covenant people of God were at least as valuable as good livestock that was taken care of on the Sabbath. Nobody could argue with Him.

Meanwhile, the fellow hurried away from this social occasion to release the water. Would this embarrass him or his host?

The Pharisees were obsessed with social ranking. The guests at this particular event would have spent some time discussing who ranked above whom, and seated themselves accordingly, as if the host had little to say about the matter. Jesus warned them that if they failed to consult the man who invited them, they might end up deeply embarrassed. Perhaps he had a special guest whom he wished to honor on this occasion, and whomever presumed to take the most honored seat would be forced to move down to a lower place. Instead of making everyone shift, this fool would end up near the bottom. Meanwhile, the guests more valued by the host would be promoted in front of all.

This is a divine principle. Never presume to know what God has in mind for you in any situation. Humility means you count yourself fortunate just to be involved, and you'll cheerfully take a seat next to anyone. People who take themselves too seriously would balk at this rubbing elbows with nobodies, always competing for favor from those who outrank them. Everyone loves the big shot who acts like he's just a regular Joe, and this typically reflects a strong moral frame of reference. You never know what divine treasures God hides in unimportant people.

To their host, Jesus made the comment that he should consider organizing a dinner for the social outcasts. If you invite only your social peers, they'll repay you in kind, and still likely be considering how to stab you in the back, as it were. If you invite nobodies and treat them with respect, they'll have the time of their lives and be awfully grateful, because they could never repay you. Rather, it is God who will take notice and reward you in the Day of Judgment.

Someone among the guests was triggered by this. We can only guess at his motive, but he spoke up with a socially approved gusto about how wonderful it would be to find oneself invited to the Messianic Kingdom, often depicted as a great supper like this one. The Pharisees regarded themselves uniquely worthy, and had built up a teaching about Messianic Expectations. The Gentile nations of the world would come rushing to Judea dragging all their wealth, each begging to be made the slave of a Jew. Whatever else he meant, the man was referring to this notion.

Jesus told this man a parable in the hearing of others. The business of healing the fellow with dropsy had already gotten everyone's attention. This was an illustration He used often. It would have been painfully obvious to everyone that this was about the just mentioned Great Supper at the inauguration of the Messianic Kingdom.

God would invite His Chosen People to come to the Great Supper, but the leadership would all beg off. All of them would have too many other concerns, going on with life as if nothing had really changed. So His servants could come back to tell God that the Jewish leadership had turned Him down. Then God said He wanted the nobody Jewish peasants brought in and seated. That done, there was still room, so He had His servants go out and invite the rest of the world to come join Him.

Jesus declared that God would see to it the Jewish leadership would never taste the eternal blessings of the Messianic Kingdom. Instead, it would be all they people they despised. Obviously, they didn't have a clue what God considered important.

We are participating in our weekly prayer time at 5pm EST. Check out the prayer request forum for some prayer topics, but feel free to lift up your own.

You may also fast. There's no obligation or guidelines to how you should do it, or if you should do it at all. Just fast as the Lord leads and speaks to your convictions.

Rejoice with me.

It's been roughly a year since I bought that used car so cheaply, knowing I'd have to fix a lot of things. During that whole time, I never could figure out where it was leaking. I was pretty sure it was the manual transmission, because it was too thick to be motor oil and it smelled like gear lube to me. Still, it bothered me. It wasn't just the mess of the leak, but it made me uncomfortable worrying that it would get too low and ruin the transmission.

I've been praying about this ever since I noticed the leak. So when our tax refund turned out to be pretty good, I finally took it to a shop. It took a big bite out of that tax refund. Turns out it wasn't the transmission leaking, but a compressor. I guess I took it to the right place, because they also cleaned off the previous leak splash so I could keep an eye on things and see that it wasn't leaking any more. Nice touch. I also got a nice clue about other problems I couldn't afford to have them fix.

The thing that is such a blessing is that I no longer have cause to worry about the transmission fluid level. I'm not nervous about taking off on longer drives now. Glory to the Lord!