From the Home Place

February 4, 2026

Good morning. It’s a cold, white beast out there right now. The temperature is at 18 degrees this morning, looking to make it to 53 before the day’s end. A WSW breeze will add a bite.

Fifty years ago, today Miss Deb was headed for the hospital. It wasn’t an emergency, but we sure enough needed to make our way there rather quickly because my bride had just declared, “It’s time!”. Before the day was over, Miss Deb would give birth to a beautiful baby girl, who would soon join her big sister at home. Over the next few years these two beautiful girls would spend many hours being an amazing blessing; along with several “incidents” that we haven’t the room, nor the time to get into today. We shall just close this paragraph with the words, “Happy Birthday Sis!”

Yesterday, I spent my day attempting to make a batch of jerky. Because I was unable to harvest an elk this fall, I cleaned every kind of “old” meat out of our freezer, ran it through the grinder, mixed it with a pile of spices and smoked it into jerky. It seems that no matter how many different spices I used, it still tastes old.

In many ways that is an illustration for the faith journey of so many folks. These folks have most likely attended church for years. Over those many years, they have seen a plethora of changes in what their church experience looks like. Changes in the pastorate, changes in music styles, changes in electronics being used and Bibles being left home, changes in those who used to attend their fellowship, and changes in their family structure. Yet, too often, little has changed in their personal belief system.

Most likely this person is still living under the same belief system that they have held for many years. Though they have attended hundreds of hours of Sunday School, sermons, studies and special events, their faith is still the same “old” faith. The newness of life is often crowed out by the oldness of life, and the same can be said of their faith, it too has grown old and stale.

You see my friends, America appears to be full of churches that are full of old people living on old faith that says as long as you go to church each Sunday, you are mature Christians. It would appear that over the last 100 years there hasn’t been significant spiritual maturity within those faithful church attenders, or this nation would not be in the condition that it is in!

Had church attendance been producing mature Christ-followers, biblical Christianity would be the norm instead of the spurned. No matter how we try to spice it up, the faith of most American’s still tastes old!

That is why the Bible clearly states that a person must be “born again,” not just a church attender. Alright, pump the breaks – there are many Bible-based churches today. Churches where the application of the truths learned is strongly encouraged and facilitated. For you see my friends, if our claims of being spiritual don’t play out in our day-to-day lives, we are simply stale tasting religious people.

Just as giving birth to a child changed our family dynamics, spiritual re-birth means that old habits and attitudes will be done away with. No amount of spiritual “spices” (church attendance) can ever make sinners pleasing to the taste.

Oh, but the amazing thing is that a true relationship with Jesus Christ does make the old become new! Grab your Bible and start reading through the Gospels. Discover how often Jesus invited those who had been steeped in religion, to come to Him for newness of faith, resulting in newness of life.

It appears to this writer that coming to Jesus is the difference between putting new meat in my freezer, vs attempting to spice-up the old, stale meat that I have been protecting for too long. Friends, if my belief isn’t changing my life in a positive way, then it’s time to change how I live my faith. On the other side, if my faith is helping me to grow in Christ likeness, pushing me to live a real biblical based life within my community, then just a little salt is all the spice needed to make things very palatable. In Matthew 5:13 Jesus stated, “You are the salt of the earth.” Suggestion, get rid of the old meat of religion and fill your life with the salt of Jesus.

Celebrating new birth with you, Neal