AFTER the SHADOWS is Book 1 in the secrets of SWEETWATER CROSSINGS series by Amanda Cabot. I chose this book from Revell to read and review because I loved the previous stories I read by her, and this one didn’t disappoint me. It works fine as a stand-alone, but I do look forward to the next books in the series to see what happens to familiar characters.
Emily is a likable main character, returning to her hometown and large family home as a young widow after an abusive marriage. She ends up using the house and her hospitality and cooking skills to board several people who need a home. Without giving spoilers, I’ll say there are a series of suspicious deaths that occur, eventually turning the plot into a murder mystery. Craig, the new schoolteacher, helps her solve the mystery.
Cabot’s writing is a nice balance of characters and plot, intriguing without stressful suspense, and an enjoyable pace. Not to mention the thought-provoking principles of life sprinkled in. I’d recommend it to those who want a relaxing yet captivating book to read. I liked that the characters span all age categories and friendship and compassion for all kinds of people are central. Emily and Craig step up to the plate and fight for what’s right.
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19 I hope in the Lord Jesus to send Timothy to you soon, that I also may be cheered when T receive news about you. 20 I have no one else like him, who will show genuine concern for your welfare. 21 For everyone looks out for their own interests, not those of Jesus Christ. 22 But you know that Timothy has proved himself, because as a son with his father he has served with me in the work of the gospel. 23 I hope, therefore, to send him as soon as I see how things go with me. 24 And I am confident in the Lord that I myself will come soon. 25 But I think it is necessary to send back to you Epaphroditus, my brother, co-worker and fellow soldier, who is also your messenger, whom you sent to take care of my needs. 26 For he longs for all of you and is distressed because you heard he was ill. 27 Indeed he was ill, and almost died. But God had mercy on him, and not on him only but also on me, to spare me sorrow upon sorrow. 28 Therefore I am all the more eager to send him, o that when you see him again you may be glad and I may have less anxiety. 29 So then, welcome him in the Lord with great joy, and honor people like him, 30 because he almost died for the work of Christ. He risked his life to make up for the help you yourselves could not give me.
WORD MEANINGS–Match the words with the correct definitions. 1.cheered __a person you work with 2.genuine __sick 3.welfare __nervous, worried, 4.proved __comfort & support 5.necessary __wellbeing 6.co-worker __demonstrate the truth 7.messenger __needed 8.ill __feeling deeply sad 9.sorrow __authentic and real 10.eager __one who brings news 11.anxiety __really wanting to do CHRISTIAN IDEAS 1.Gospel __other Christians 2.brother (or sister) __what we do 3.co-worker __serving in our faith 4.fellowship __our community friends 5.in the Lord_ __The Good News 6.work of Christ_ __who we serve with PAUL: An apostle and missionary TIMOTHY: pastor at Ephesus trained by Paul EPAPHRODITUS: co worker of Paul and Timothy
Do you follow movie stars? Or music stars? Sports stars? Who is your favorite? Would you like to be a star?
Did you know that God wants us to be stars? Paul wrote in his letter: … you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. Philippians 2:15-16 (NIV)
Being a Star
Paul tells us that if we want to live like stars on God’s stage, we must live a different lifestyle. He says: …my dear friends, as you have always obeyed—not only in my presence, but now much more in my absence—continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling, for it is God who works in you to will and to act in order to fulfill his good purpose.
Do everything without grumbling or arguing, so that you may become blameless and pure, “children of God without fault in a warped and crooked generation.” Then you will shine among them like stars in the sky as you hold firmly to the word of life. Philippians 2:12-16 (NIV)
What Paul is telling the Philippians when he says, work out your salvation, is simply keep on living out your faith. Don’t give up or become lazy. For Paul, faith in Christ means obedience to Christ. Not just by following rules or commandments, but by becoming completely devoted to Him.
Being a star takes work
If you read the biography of any “star”, whether it’s a musician, an actor, or an athlete, you’ll see that their success didn’t come without hard work and effort. They might have immense talent, but for most it takes years or even a lifetime to become all that they are.
Someone once said, “It’s easy to become a Christian, but being a Christian is hard work.” Would you agree?
Becoming a Christian is about believing in Jesus, but being a Christian is about following Jesus. I don’t know about you, but for me it’s easy to believe but a lot harder to follow. It’s about not just knowing but doing God’s Word. It means learning how to love God with mind, body, and soul, and learning to love others in the way that Christ loves. That’s hard work!
Not grumbling or arguing
Paul says: …. Do everything without grumbling or arguing…. Philippians. 2:14 We all find something to complain about. The weather, the government, your job, your spouse, your kids, your friends, your church…. Being grumpy and complaining is more common for many of us than being joyful, positive and up-lifting.
God sometimes uses difficult situations in life to develop our character and grow our faith. So, when things don’t go as you’d like them, instead of complaining about it, maybe we should be asking God what He wants us to learn though it. As followers of Christ, we should be acting like members of God’s family, living with an attitude of hope and joy, treating each other with love and respect, instead of complaining and arguing.
What do you grumble or argue about? How can you change your attitude? What can you do instead?
It was Paul’s hope that he would someday stand before God and hear Him say to the Christians at Philippi, “Well done my good and faithful servants. You have represented me well. You have been stars on my stage, reflecting my light and my glory to the world. Now come and receive your reward!”
May He say the same to us.
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Today would have been my dear Sid’s 80th birthday. Maybe we’d have put on a party. He sometimes said he’d like to have a big birthday party, but we never got around to doing that. His life was cut short in 2020 by cancer.
But Sid left a godly legacy in words and songs for all of us. This book was the first present he gave me, the second time we got together. He’d written it several years previously, during a period between a tree-falling career and a semi-retirement job as a commissionaire.
He had loved his years in the logging industry–out there in nature, alone with God. It comes through in his thoughts. I share with you the Introduction to the book today.
A tree is a tree is a tree… and not other than a tree shall it be.
In all the years I’ve worked in the logging industry (as a faller) I have never seen a spruce tree re-create itself into a cedar – or a fir. And if you know, or are familiar with, commercial fishermen, you know that they would know – a cod is not a salmon, nor could a salmon become a whale. Everything is designed by God to create after its kind. It’s called order.
Try to imagine… a fish jumps too high. “Oops! I landed on the beach, I must be a lizard. Maybe I’ll climb up this tree. Hey! I must be a monkey… maybe I’ll climb back down. O.K., I’m a man (not a very smart one… but a man nevertheless).” I don’t think so.
God made everything to create “after its own kind”. That’s the way it was in the beginning and that’s the way it’ll stay. No less than ten times in the first chapter of the Bible, the phrase, “after its own kind” is used. Do you suppose, just maybe, God is trying to tell us something? And then in v26-27 He decides to make man… “in His image“. Wouldn’t you say this is… “after His kind“?
So all of God’s good nature creates “after its kind“.
So-called science gone haywire.
And when roses are hybridized, they’re still roses… but the fragrance is gone. Same thing with carnations. Thanks but no-thanks. You may say, “Well they’re just for looks anyway.” Well then, let’s just get silk… you don’t even have to water those.
After God had created everything (to bring forth of its kind) and had put His man in charge, He said “it is very good.” But science (so-called) doesn’t seem to appreciate what is. No-o-o-o, they would like to change everything they can. Can you believe… men who want to be women. And women getting changed into men. What’s this world coming to?
And I think I know why these ‘so-called’ scientists like to add countless zeros onto the millions (even billions) of years they’ve dreamed it would take to put all this together. Now there’s no way for us ‘so-called’ lay people to dispute their theories. Would someone please write a book called “Zeroes for Dummies”. I’m sure they fancy to impress each other, when in actuality they make themselves to be fools. Romans 1:22. It’s amazing how a little thing like a zero [0] can negate an Almighty Creator. This gives a whole new meaning to 1 Corinthians 14:38… “but if any man be ignorant, let him be ignorant.” Seems to me as though they’re embalmed with speculation.
But for now, let’s take another look at this nature thing. You take a donkey and breed it with a horse. What do you get? Mule. If it’s male, it’s ‘mule’. If it’ female, it’s ‘jenny’. Either way… it’s kaput. No longer is this animal able to reproduce. When it’s God’s will for a ll His creation to keep ‘its kind’ going.
The natural and the spiritual
In Genesis 8:22 the LORD told Noah… “as long as the earth remains, there will be seedtime and harvest.” Seedtime and harvest is a Biblical principle… or law, which will work, in the natural AND in the spiritual.
First, let’s talk about the natural. 1 Corinthians 15… first that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.
A law, to begin with, is an established principle; something that works a certain way each and every time. This ‘law’ we’re talking about here is not what we know as ‘civil law’ or ‘custom’ or in the sense of ‘law of the land’ e.g. criminal law… or even the ‘law of Moses’. We’ll call this ‘natural law’… and we’ll transpose this into ‘spiritual law’.
The LORD had told Noah… “as long as the earth remains, there will be seedtime and harvest.” Then when we come over to the New Testament, we hear Jesus saying in Mark 4:26… “the kingdom is like if a man cast seed into the ground.” Cast seed. How does one cast seed? What does it even mean… cast seed? We know that if we sow a natural seed, the ground will cause the seed to grow. And that seed will produce what it is. After its kind. This is a ‘natural law’. Let’s call this “the Law of Genesis“. The ‘law of Genesis’ is such that everything creates after its own kind.
But Jesus wasn’t talking about natural seed… in natural ground… with a natural harvest. He was talking about ‘seedtime and harvest’, but He referred to it now, as how it worked in the kingdom. When Jesus talked about trees, houses, lands or mountains, etc., He was usually talking about kingdom stuff.
First, we have natural… now we have spiritual.
Words are like seeds.
Words are like seeds. That can be sown. Sown in the heart of man. Received and conceived in the heart… to be brought forth ‘after their kind’. Law of Genesis.
Thoughts and knowledge work the same way. Thoughts create ‘after their kind’. One may think they’ve come up with a briliant revelation, but the Spirit of Truth will never ‘bear withness’ to perverted knowledge.
Let me give you an example from Genesis 6:4. Someone picked up a thought, went along with, and expanded upon the idea that sons of God (angels) came in unto the daughters of men (women). Angels and women? Spirit and flesh… reproducing? When God had already said “everything will produce… after its kind“. That which is born of the flesh is flesh, and that which is born of the spirit is spirit. Spirit can motivate, influence, even possess, but could never create. Without blood? Give me a Pentecostal break. No blood, no sperm, no way. We know, of course, that there is life (zoe) apart from the blood, but Satan doesn’t have that kind of life (or his demons) because he’s a DEAD spirit. Not dead as we think of, as in graveyard dead, but dead in the sense of being cut off from God. Even Adam, and we ‘in him’ (Adam, that is) were cut off until Jesus made a way BACK. There is NO WAY back for Satan… or his own.
It never ceases to amaze me how a story like this can take on a life of its own. Sounds like a bad plot, for an even worse movie.
There is nowhere that I’m aware of, that anything like this actually happened. There were instances in the Bible where demons possessed people, and angels visited (even to this present day), fought for, and even protected ‘heirs of salvation’, but never even once did a spirit being create a body of flesh. With the exception of Jesus, being born of the Holy Spirit. God is the only One capable of doing such a thing. God is life; Satan is death. God is a creator; Satan has no creative ability, so can only pervert what is already there. Satan can only counterfeit and/or destroy.
This has to be a real stretch for even the most graphic imagination–to suggest that a ‘fallen angel’ would have (or ever has had) creative ability.
We’ll stay with the word of the Lord, that… everything creates ‘after his kind’.
This goes for natural AND spiritual.
EVERYTHING CREATES… ‘after its kind’.
A tree is a tree is a tree…
Me-thinks this may border on poetic… perhaps even prophetic. “A tree is a tree is a tree… and not other than a tree shall it be.”
Let’s get back to what Jesus said when explaining the parable of ‘the sower and the seed’. Jess said, “If you don’t understand this… HOW WILL YOU UNDERSTAND ANYTHING.” (Concerning the kingdom.) Illustrations of the kingdom of God were always given in parables. We need to understand the principle of ‘sowing and reaping’ or shall we say, ‘seedtime and harvest’.
The seed is the word.
The sower went forth to sow.
The sower went forth to sow “the word”.
The word ‘brings forth’… ‘of its kind’.
Our words will bring forth… after their own kind.
This is the purpose of this writing. I’m hoping to bring something forth… after its kind.
So, let’s work at keeping things running parallel. A continuity of thought. As the law of seedtime and harvest applies to the natural… the same law (sowing and reaping) or we could say, ‘saying and doing’, applies to the spiritual. First natural… then spiritual.
Don’t mix it up. Keep it straight. The LORD is very straight-forward when He says in Isaiah 5:20 “Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter.” And back in Leviticus 19:19 we read… “don’t sow your field with mingled seed.” I understand this to be natural but we’re remembering the words of Jesus, when He said… “the KINGDOM is as if a man were to cast seed.” Cast seed where? Into your heart. Your heart is your field, and the type of seed (good or bad) determines the type of harvest. And we don’t need a P. D. in Plant Biology to realize that the ‘growing’ will be greater than the ‘sowing’.
So, we translate or transpose, from the natural to the spiritual. We can do that. Jesus did it all the time. And the Apostle Paul said that the things that happened to Israel “in the flesh” happen to us “in the spirit” and again in 1 Corinthians 15:46… “that was not first which is spiritual, but that which is natural; and afterward that which is spiritual.”
Think about it. Disobedience will lead to defeat and captivity, while obedience will lead to victory and liberty.
EVERYTHING CREATES AFTER ITS OWN KIND.
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Photo by Monstera on Pexels.com Does your family need ‘attitude adjustments’?
Family
What’s your family like? Do your family members RESPECT one another? Or do they need an ‘attitude adjustment’? RESPECT is important in families, including God’s family, the church.
But respect is earned by behavior that is WORTHY of it. Good behavior is worthy of respect. Bad behavior is not.
Some Bible verses about behavior worthy of respect are:
let your manner of life be worthy of the gospel of Christ…Philippians 1:27
…walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called…Ephesians 4:1
…walk in a manner worthy of God, who calls you into his own kingdom and glory.1 Thessalonians 2:12
Attitude Adjustments
To live in a manner worthy of God, we need to have a good ATTITUDE. An attitude is how we feel inside. As Christians, we must follow the behavior and attitude of Jesus. Often, we forget to do that, and we need ATTITUDE ADJUSTMENTS.
Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect. Romans 12:2
Instead of having attitudes and behaviors like the world has, we need our minds renewed to live in God’s ways. We need to have a completely different attitude than the world. We need the attitude of Christ.
So if there is any encouragement in Christ, any comfort from love, any participation in the Spirit, any affection and sympathy, complete my joy by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind. Philippians 2:1–2
Paul wrote this while he was in prison. Remember, Paul is writing to people who are like family to him. And so he reminds them of what they share as family, saying if you really belong to the family of God; if you find your encouragement in knowing Christ; if you know God’s love and have God’s Spirit in you; if you have any real love for the church and for me; if these things are true–if you really are Christians, then you can please me and make me happy, by being of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind.
Must we all be the same?
This doesn’t mean we all have to agree on everything and have the same opinion about things. It’s about having a good attitude and living in unity with respect for each other.
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit—just as you were called to the one hope that belongs to your call—one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all. Ephesians 4:1–6
What does this mean to you?
Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus, who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped… Philippians 2:5–6(ESV)
Jesus is our example. He didn’t show off his power. He respected his father, God.
Love and Humility
be of the same mind, having the same love… Phil. 2:2
LOVE is what we need to hold us together as a family. Loving each other is an attitude that we must choose.
Finally, the change of attitude that Paul encourages is one of HUMILITY.
Do nothing from selfish ambition or conceit, but in humility count others more significant than yourselves. Let each of you look not only to his own interests, but also to the interests of others. Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus…Philippians 2:3–5
… being found in human form, he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Philippians 2:8
Therefore, Paul declares, God has highly exalted him and bestowed on him the name that is above every name, so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, in heaven and on earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father. Philippians 2:9–11
Because Jesus humbled himself to even death on the cross, we must honor and respect him.
Let’s have attitude adjustments. Let our attitudes be adjusted to the attitude of Christ, an attitude of unity, love, and a humble spirit.
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