Years ago God placed a plan in my mind and I sketched, then transferred the images to illustration board with ink and water colors…all the while writing.

But when you’re new at something, sometimes you don’t have the back-bone to see it through. That was me back in the late ’80’s and ’90’s. I wrote this four book series, illustrated it, and like any other newbie author sent it off… expecting to be the latest Joel Rosenberg. What a surprise when my manuscript was rejected.

Broadman Publishing told me it wasn’t scriptural…animals didn’t talk. Hmm, how about Baalam’s donkey in the Book of Judges? Like any other inexperienced author, I thew the manuscript in the drawer where it would sit for the next years, grabbed a box of Kleenex and proceeded to sob my heart out…all that work…for nothing.

But God had a plan I couldn’t begin to imagine.

I continued to write…hit and miss…suffered the loss of mother, dad, and mother-in-law, and finally in 2001 our 28 year old daughter died suddenly from a hemorrhagic stroke, and writing was put on the back-burner while we cared for our grand-babies.

However, God walks with us through seasons of life to accomplish His purposes in us. I finally registered with ACW (American Christian Writers), went to a conference, met two wonderful encouragers, Frank Ball and Jan Brand, and began my journey learning to write. I met six other very serious writers and we formed a group, calling ourselves the Literati, and for the next few years set aside every Wednesday evening from 5:30 ’til 9 p.m. to meet and critique and learn to write.

The fruit of this venture was a contract with Prism, then Pelican Book Group for the first two books in The Roped Series ~ Roped and Twisted. Third book,  Untied, is a work in progress.  But this year God laid The Master’s Plan on my heart and because of the talented work of my first publisher, Joan Baer Alley, helping this computer illiterate writer,  the first, The Master’s Plan Revealed Through Creation will be released…

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 11, 2019

I am so excited! God opened doors and finally, even after the loss of my husband of forty-two years, two months ago,  God has given the courage to walk through the doors He’s opened. The next three will be released in hopefully six month intervals: The Master’s Plan Revealed Through The Word, The Master’s Plan Revealed Through the Life of the Master, and The Master’s Plan Revealed Through You.

These books are written and designed to help parents develop a devotional time with their children to learn the Word of God…and you can do this even if you, parents, don’t know the Word yourself…it becomes a place of bonding of your family with the truth of God and His Word.

The first two release days, The Master’s Plan Revealed Through Creation will be reduced in price. I pray God will speak to your heart about children, grandchildren, and neighbor children who need to hear these truths. Friday morning, October 11th, you can go to http://www.Amazon.com/books and type in my name in the tool bar…”DiAne Gates, The Master’s Plan Revealed Through Creation, and the page will pop up. You can also scroll down to click on my Author Page to see my other books.

And, of course, like any other writer, we thrive on reviews. Let me know what you think. We have arrived at a time in the history of our country where the Lord God Almighty is the only one who can save our families and our nation…but we must be on our knees repenting and asking. Where better to begin than with your family teaching them The Master’s Plan!

                                                                                                                                                                        DiAne N. Gates

P. S. Here are two more illustrations to tickle your attention from Books Two and Three of The Master’s Plan Revealed Through the Word…and Through You.

Beans, beans—pintos, kidney, black beans. Southern brides learn to cook big ole’ potful’s of every kind of dried beans. It’s part of our culture. Add a ham hock or ham seasonings, chopped onions, four or five cloves of chopped garlic, a chopped jalapeno (without the seeds, of course, unless you want to sweat), 3 or 4 bay leaves, a teaspoon or more of cumin (I love cumin), pepper, and a bunch of chicken stock. And you’ve got the makings of a traditional favorite South of the Mason-Dixon.

Don’t salt those little darlings yet though. Salt makes ‘em tough. Sprinkle on a couple of teaspoons of salt just before serving this tasty meal, and you might want to add lime juice and zest if you’re cooking black beans, topped before serving with a generous dollop of sour cream and a sprinkle of chopped cilantro—my favorite!

Bring the beans to a boil, reduce heat, and simmer while you’re stirring up a batch of jalapeno-honey-cornbread, slathered in butter. Dinner’ll be ready in a few hours!

Unless your attention’s diverted—

One sniff of something’s burning brings a harsh reality.

Now a new cook might rush to the kitchen, grab a spoon, and stir those scorched, burned beans off the bottom of the pot. But never stir a pot of scorched beans! ‘Cause beans are like kids—little sponges—just like us—absorbing the flavor of their surroundings.

Grab a clean pot and a strainer. Scoop the good beans off the top, rinse ‘em good, replace the water and spices, and begin again. Just like Jesus does with us when we mess up.

 But never stir the good and bad beans together—the whole pot of ‘em will smell and taste nasty.

BUT ISN’T THAT WHAT’S HAPPENING IN AMERICA?

Everyone and everything’s being stirred and smushed together—the good, the bad,           and the ugly, all mushed and mashed into a pot of scorched tolerance. No black or white, just putrid gray.

The lies of the world chant, we’re all God’s children—No. We’re not. The Book of Jude tells us—“…some have long ago been marked out for this condemnation, ungodly men, who turn the grace of our God into lewdness and deny the only Lord God and our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Only those who’ve been purchased and redeemed by the blood of Christ are God’s children, because they’ve chosen to trust and obey the Lord Jesus Christ. America has reached a time in history when good is called evil…and evil called good.

“Thus, says the Lord: ‘Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his strength, whose heart departs from the Lord. For he shall be like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see when good comes, but shall inhabit the parched places in the wilderness. In a salt land which is not inhabited” (Jeremiah 17:5-6 NKJV).

SIN’S BURNT BEANS

• Contagious anger that destroys unity and love
• Liars who spread deception
• People lacking God’s wisdom, who cannot discern His Truth
• God cannot hear our cries until His people repent and return to Him
• Families and cultures are destroyed by divorce
• Parents fail to teach children truth, so the world teaches them its lies
• Blood shed of innocent, aborted, babies pollutes our land
• Homosexuality—God gives them over to their unbelief
• Stench of sin contaminates everything it touches—just like burned beans
• Crimes flourish when God’s laws are forsaken
• Rejection of the Lord Jesus Christ brings destruction and ruin

 “Any kingdom divided against itself is laid waste; and any city or house divided against itself shall not stand” (Mathew 12:25 NAS).

AMERICA—A DIVIDED NATION  

Since 1963 we’ve been so busy stirring the godless scorched pots in our homes, our churches, our schools, and our government—stirring in whatever wandered by or was tossed into the American mix with little thought to consequences. Overwhelmed with what we deemed urgent, we failed to discern the important. We lost the ability and failed to edit and condemn the content and context of deception that has crept in among us.

In 1962 and 1963 we kicked prayer and Bible reading out of public-school and statistics record the casualties. SAT scores dropped, divorced exploded, and ten years later we decided it was okay to murder babies in the womb cause our teenagers, deprived of God’s truth, being taught in public schools they were nothing more than animalistic in nature, were having bumper crops of babies they didn’t want out of wedlock. And money-hungry haters stood armed and ready to alter our population.

And today drag queens entertain our precious children at the local library. While public school teachers require elementary age children to explore if they think they are male or female. And we all sit silent.

We’ve forsaken the absolute truth of the Word of God preferring seeker-friendly churches who bend to offer the insatiable buffet of lies the world finds pleasant. And church members, either ignorant or rebellious of the Word’s plumb-line, refuse to filter everything through the lens of God’s truth, choosing instead to gobble enemy lies. And our children have reaped the consequences of our willful slothfulness, ignorance, and rebellion.

At least two or three generations of our kids were bamboozled into believing this amazing, incredible Universe came together by an explosion and all the exquisite creation evolved from a single blob. And those who believe God is the Sovereign, the Master Designer and Creator of the Universe and His Son, Jesus Christ is the Messiah and soon coming King of Kings and Lord of Lords, are ridiculed and threatened and persecuted…in this nation once under God.

“By this you know the Spirit of God: every spirit that confesses that Jesus Christ has come in the flesh is from God; and every spirit that does not confess Jesus is not from God; and this is the spirit of the antichrist, of which you have heard that it is coming, and now it is already in the world” (1 John 4:2-3 NAS).

GOD’S PEOPLE PRODUCE FRUIT 

In light of today’s hostile environment, is it fruitful for believers to slug it out with those who don’t agree on Facebook? I don’t believe that’s what God instructs. And I’m learning to ask Him to teach me what He commands… “Go and Tell.” So, in today’s pagan climate, how are we to obey His command to carry the Gospel to everyone?

Jesus instructs believers to allow His Spirit to produce the fruit of self-control in all our responses. But I don’t always stop and allow the Spirit to control my responses—which is sin—and when my tongue slices and dices, I must repent, ask forgiveness, and choose to obey.  Because the Word of God tells me I will reap what I sow…more than I sow…and later than I sow.

Mama used to say, “Your actions speak so loud I can’t hear what you’re saying.” She was right.

God instructs us, “…to be imitators of God. To walk in love.”  We are to bear the fruit of His Spirit in our lives. These fruits are not multiple choice. The Spirit of God grows and produces these fruits as each believer chooses to desire and allow this transformation—love, joy, peace, longsuffering (patience), kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control—into our spirit.

Without His fruit we are like those fruitless autumn trees Jude talks about:

“These are spots in your love feasts, while they feast with you without fear, serving only themselves. They are clouds without water, carried about by the winds; late autumn trees without fruit, twice dead, pulled up by the roots; raging waves of the sea, foaming up their own shame; wandering stars for whom is reserved the blackness of darkness forever” (Jude 12-13 NKJV).

We must be diligent to assure our words and our lives are constantly being rinsed and cleansed by the pure water of the Word; then seasoned with the mercy and grace of God, and instructions and love of our Lord Jesus. Always allowing the Holy Spirit to stir our hearts and minds to hear what God wants spoken and acted upon in the lives of those He brings to us. Each day we are to clothe ourselves in the complete armor of God (Ephesians 6:10-18), lest we begin to taste and smell like a pot of burned beans.

“Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, nor can a bad tree bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Therefore, by their fruits you will know them. Not everyone who says to Me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ shall enter into the kingdom of heaven, but he who does the will of My Father in heaven” (Matthew 7:17-21 NKJV).

Friend and author, ANITA KLUMPERS, has written a most appropriate blog on the Heartwings Blog for Wednesday Words. With her permission, I am reposting this blog to my Moving the Ancient Boundaries spot today and pray many of you read, contemplate, and answer her question.

DiAne

http://www.heartwingsblog.com/2019/07/moloch-arms/