TREES AND MEN, VINES AND SIN

In the last few weeks, I’ve been trying to work a little in my yard, to get it ready for spring. I moved some old broken cinder blocks that had once been at the edge of the wood line but were now in the woods because, for the last several years, I haven’t been mowing there and the woods were taking over more of my yard.

I picked up some dead limbs that had fallen off the old oak tree behind the house. I raked some of the leaves out of the yard and threw them in a low spot in the woods which needs to be filled. Maybe they will eventually rot and become dirt.

I finished taking out a stump from a small tree I had cut down a few summers ago. I cleared away some shrubs and brush from a spot at the edge of the woods where I want to plant some wild apricots, and I worked on clearing a spot for a garden. Last week, I dug up a small spot there and planted some potatoes. I’m not much of a gardener but this year I want to plant a few things and maybe get some practice.

I like having a nice, clean, well-kept yard, but I haven’t really been able to work like I need to in order to keep it like I want it. I’ve just been doing the bare minimum for the last few years, so it’s a mess. The bushes around the edge of the yard are out of control. They look terrible and they’re making my yard smaller every year. This week, I thought I would spend a few minutes pruning them. The next thing I knew it had been over an hour and I still wasn’t finished. It will take a while to get everything in good shape just doing a little at a time but maybe I’ll get there eventually.

As I was trimming the bushes, I noticed something interesting. There were vines growing on several of them. I remembered how beautiful they had been the last few summers running all over a cluster of bushes and hanging down. The leaves were a different color and a different size from the bushes and the blooms and full flowers were amazing. It made a beautiful arrangement with all the different colors.

Looking at them this week, though, a memory is all there was. The naked vines covering the naked bushes just looked like a mangled mess. The bushes that were covered with vines looked much different from the ones without them. They just looked sick. They were twisted and bowed over from being pulled and weighed down. The vines have been slowly choking the life out of them. Several of the bigger bushes were already dead.

As I cut the vines off, some of them sprang back up immediately like they were happy to be set free. Some of them took a little longer, while some of the others just stayed down. I guess they were damaged more than the other ones. Maybe they’ll liven up in the spring.

On several occasions in the Bible, you’ll find trees being used to represent humans in parables and prophecy. So often, we can draw parallels from nature that can teach us valuable lessons.

Many times, we are like those small trees and sin is like those vines. It is often beautiful on the outside, especially in the beginning. We don’t realize the negative effect it’s having on us, usually, until it’s too late.

Sin infects our lives and destroys our minds and bodies. It drags us down and holds us there. We become sick and it slowly chokes the life out of us and eventually, it kills us. I’ve seen it many times, especially with substance abuse but any sin is equally as devastating. Even if others around us don’t know what specifically is going on, they can see the effects that sin has on us.

Our only hope is in Jesus (1 Tim. 1:1). He is the only way for us to be set free from the chokehold that sin has on us (John 14:6, John 8:36, Gal. 5:1, Rom. 6:22). 

When he sets us free we’re just like those bushes that were once held down by the vines. The weight of sin is removed and we come alive. We’re so happy and grateful to be free. It’s the most amazing feeling in the world.

Are you being dragged down by the weight of sin? Are you having the life slowly choked out of you? If that’s the condition you’re in, you need to know there’s hope. Call on Jesus and he will break the hold that sin has on you and set you free. Then you can stand up straight and move forward. Don’t wait until tomorrow. Do it today.

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© 2017 Teddy Lynn – All Rights Reserved

My books are available in paperback and digital format on Amazon @ 
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THANK YOU FOR 100,000 VIEWS

I want to thank everyone who has subscribed and visited my blog. As you may or may not know, I have two hosts for this blog. I have the same content on both sites. Between the BLOGGER.COM site and the WORDPRESS.COM site, there are now over 100,000 views. Praise the Lord.

Many posts have been viewed over 100 times each. Some over 200, 300, 400, 500, 700, and 800 times. Two have over 1,000 views each. Praise the Lord. There are readers in Australia, Brazil, Canada, France, Germany, India, Iran, the Netherlands, Nigeria, Norway, Pakistan, Portugal, South Africa, Turkey, and the United Kingdom, as well as the United States.

Thank you all for reading, and sharing my posts with others. Thank you for all the encouraging words. Thank you, especially for your prayers. Please keep those coming, for my blog, my ministry, and for me, and my family as well. The last few years have been challenging for our family, but God has been so good to us. Thank you all for being so gracious when I’ve made spelling and grammar errors.

Thank you for sticking with me through all the different incarnations of the blog while it took a different direction from what I had first imagined. I don’t know how many times I changed the name, and I can’t promise I won’t change it again. Some of the content here is from my first two books; THE JOURNEY TO HEAVEN, and INSPIRATION FOR THE JOURNEY. You can find them on Amazon.

I started this blog, to share what the Bible really says on topics of controversy, such as the Worldwide Flood, The Trinity, and The 6 Literal Days of Creation versus 6,000 Years. Eventually, I posted all the studies that I had completed at the time. I was working on more Bible studies and some other ideas, but to thoroughly study these subjects takes time, and I needed to post something for my readers while I was working on the next Bible study.

I had lots of other material completed. I’ve been writing in some form or another most of my life. I’ve written songs, poems, short stories, stories of fiction, true stories, and even comedy skits. I was working on several books at that time, but this was a blog for presenting Bible studies, I kept telling myself.

That’s when I decided to start another blog to present other things I was interested in and other topics that may not deal directly with Bible subjects. I later decided to scratch that idea and do something different. I decided to change the name of the blog, and present some other stuff I had written and was thinking about writing including my Sermons. I would post more Bible Studies as I completed them, and that’s been the format since.

Of course, I’ve been praying since day one for God to bless my blog and bring people to it who would be blessed by it, and for him to lead me in what I should post. I set out to finish one of the books I had started writing but hadn’t done anything to in quite a while. It was about some of my experiences growing up in church and some of the struggles and blessings I experienced after becoming a Christian.

I started thinking that these could be the kind of stories I could write to fill in when I didn’t have a Bible study completed. I could write about things that happened while I was growing up and the lessons I learned. I prayed about it, and that’s the direction I took. I have several other things I would like to add to the blog, and different kinds of content, including my Christian song catalog, some poems I’ve written, and some drawings and other art that I’ve done, and I’m working on a Podcast for it now. I just need to find the time in my busy schedule. I want everything I do to glorify God, not me, so I’ll keep praying, and I ask you to do the same.

There’s one more thing I want to mention while I have your ear, or in this case, your eye. If you’re not already subscribed to my blog, I want to ask you to do that right now. On BLOGGER, simply click on one of the links below, go over to the right, and scroll down until you see a box that says "Subscribe by Email." Put in your email address, and click Submit. You’ll receive an email when I post a new article. You can unsubscribe at any time in the future by simply clicking the Unsubscribe link at the bottom of the email. Here’s the link to my Blogger.com site.
https://teddylynn.blogspot.com/

If you prefer using WordPress, you can easily find it by clicking on this link… 
https://teddylynn.wordpress.com/ 

It has an archive list that contains most of the past articles in alphabetical order.

I’ve tried to make it possible for everyone to have easy access to the blog, so I have it on the two most popular blog host sights. I like them both, but my favorite is the one on Blogger. I’ve had it longer, and in my opinion, it’s the best-looking one, it’s the easiest to read, and it's the easiest to edit. It has an archive list going back to my first post and a list of some of the most popular articles as well. There’s a simple search bar to make it easy to find any subject. You can use the one you like the best.

Thank you again for reading and sharing my thoughts, and studies. I enjoy sharing them with you. Thank you for your love, and your prayers, and thank you for sticking with me on this journey. God bless you and your families on your journey.

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My Blogs
https://teddylynn.blogspot.com
https://teddylynn.wordpress.com

© 2017 Teddy Lynn – All Rights Reserved

My books are available in paperback and digital format on Amazon @ 
https://www.amazon.com/Teddy-Lynn/e/B01MZDB6L6

TWO SNAKES AND A FISHING POLE

There I was, minding my own business. Fishing in the creek, anticipating that unmistakable jerk on my line that would send my heart racing as I would frantically try to grab hold of the fish before it could get off my hook. It was the middle of the day, and the sun was high in the sky. It was early summer so it wasn’t hot. The trees were green and the sky was blue with only a few small clouds. The air was fresh and clean, and there was a small breeze blowing. That’s when it happened. All of a sudden, I heard a strange noise. It sounded something like air leaking from a tire.

As I turned to see what it was, I couldn’t believe my eyes. There in the field of sage grass, bitter-weed, and cow patties was a pretty good-sized green snake with its head raised above the grass, about a foot in the air. Directly behind it was a larger black snake with its head raised up in the air. It was chasing the green snake and they were both moving pretty fast. I had never seen a snake moving that fast before, and I’ve never witnessed it again.

I don’t know what was going on in either one of their minds. I don’t know if they were playing, or if the green snake was being bullied, or if it had done something to the black snake to deserve whatever it got. All I could see was one of God’s creatures about to be killed and eaten by a larger predator. I had to help.

Everything happened so fast, I’m amazed that I even had time to think, much less time to react, but with my mouth wide open, my eyes bugged out and my heart racing, it occurred to me that there was only one thing I could do. I ran behind them and threw my fishing pole at the black snake. I missed, but I accomplished my goal of distracting the pursuer. The green snake escaped as the black one turned and slithered off into the creek. That was a day I’ll never forget.

Remembering that incident reminds me of something else. The Bible equates Satan to a snake. In a sense, he’s always chasing us, trying to compel us to sin, and ultimately lead us away from God. The Apostle Peter says Satan wants to devour us or swallow us up (1 Pet. 5:8). All he really has to do is distract us from the true path and get our attention off Jesus and on worldly things. Things like music, movies, TV, games, and other things that have nothing to do with God, but promote worldly values. He also distracts us by getting us to focus on things that cause us stress, like our finances, our health, ourselves in general, and a number of other things that can keep us from focusing on God. In verses 9-10, Peter tells us to resist the devil with strong faith, and God will give us strength and peace.

The key to life, both here and in the world to come, is Jesus. That relationship means everything, and there’s more to it than some people teach. Believing Jesus exists is not enough (James 2:19). We have to believe IN him (John 3:16). He has to be living in us (John 14:26; Titus 3:5).

For any of this can take place, we have to be born again (John 3:7). I think that’s why there are so many “Christians” still living just like they did before they were baptized. Many of them haven’t had that new birth experience. It happens more often than you would think. It happened to me. I was a “Christian” for years before I was born again and I’ve heard similar stories from others. Many are misinformed as to what it takes to be saved. It involves more than just repeating a prayer and being baptized. We have to be sorry for our sins and commit to turning away from them. That’s repentance. Without repentance, we can not be born again. If we’re not born again, we will not enter the kingdom of God (John 3:3, 5).

Have you been born again? Give it some serious thought today. That’s something you should be sure of (1 John 5:13). It’s something to seriously consider if we want to make it to heaven. For more details, read “What Must I Do To Be Saved?”

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My Blogs
https://teddylynn.blogspot.com
https://teddylynn.wordpress.com

© 2017 Teddy Lynn – All Rights Reserved

My books are available in paperback and digital format on Amazon @ 
https://www.amazon.com/Teddy-Lynn/e/B01MZDB6L6