The Story

The story of Bethlehem is an exhaustless theme.  In it is hidden, 'the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God.'  Romans 11:33.  We marvel at the Savor's sacrifice in exchanging the throne of heaven for the manger, and the companionship of adoring angels for the beasts of the stall.   Human pride and self-sufficiency stand rebuked in His presence.  Yet this was but the beginning of His wonderful condescension.  It would have been an almost infinite humiliation for the Son of God to take man's nature, even when Adam stood in his innocence in Eden.  But Jesus accepted humanity when the race had been weakened fy four thousand years of sin.  Like every child of Adam He accepted the results of the working of the great law of heredity.  What those results were is shown in the history of His earthly ancestors.  He came with such a heredity to share our sorrows and temptations, and to give us the example of a sinless life.

Satan in heaven had hated Christ for His position in the courts of God.  He hated Him the more when he himself was dethroned.  He hated Him who pledged Himself to redeem a race of sinners.  Yet into the world where Satan claimed dominion God permitted His Son to come, a helpless babe, subject to the weakness of humanity.  He permitted Him to meet life's peril in common with every human soul, to fight the battle as every child of humanity must fight it, at the risk of failure and eternal loss.

The heart of the human father yearns over his son.  He looks into the face of his little child, and trembles at the thought of life's peril. He longs to shield his dear one from Satan' power, to hold him back from temptation and conflict.  To meet a bitterer conflict and a more fearful risk, God gave His only-begotten Son, that the path of life might be made sure for our little ones.  "Herein is love."  Wonder, O heavens! and be astonished, O earth!.

This just makes you want to love Him more, doesn't it?  Knowing what He gave up in heaven to come here to this wicked world to save us from destruction.  And to know that we can have the same power to overcome as He had, if we just submit ourselves to Him and let Him have our lives so that He can live in us 'to will and to do of His good pleasure'.  Aren't you thankful there is a way out of this mess?  This condition of this world tells us that Jesus is coming soon to take us home to heaven with Him.  Let's be ready by letting Him live within us and we will be safe in His keeping.  If you are elderly like I am, then let Him carry you when you can't seem to carry yourself.  He loves each of you, don't spurn His love, accept it and be ready to meet Him.   Grandma Joan

These thoughts were taken from 'The Desire of Ages' chapter 4.

God's Law of Love

Since Jesus came to dwell on this earth with mankind we know that God is acquainted with our trials, and sympathizes with our griefs.  Every son ad daughter of Adam may understand that our Creator is the friend of sinners. For in every doctrine of grace, every promise of joy, every deed of love, every divine attraction presented in the Savior's life on earth we see 'God with us.'

Satan wants us to see God's law as a law of selfishness.  He declares that it is impossible for us to obey it's precepts.  When Adam and Eve sinned and brought all the troubles into this world, Satan charges it all to our loving Creator.  He wants us to see God as a vengeful God and not as a loving, merciful God.
He wants us to think that God is the author of sin and suffering and death.

Jesus came to prove Satan wrong and that God is a God of love, mercy and kind towards us and so He sent Jesus into this world to prove Satan wrong.  The Bible says that, 'He took upon Himself our nature and it behooved Him to be made like unto His brethren." Hebrews 2:17.  He endured every trial to which we are subject, and He exercised in His own behalf no power that is not freely offered to us.   As a man He met temptation and overcame in the strength given Him from God.  He said, 'I delight to do Thy will, O My God, Thy law is within My heart.'  Psalm 40:8.

By His humanity, Christ touched humanity and by His Divinity, He lays hold upon the throne of God. As a Son of man He gave us an example of obedience; as the Son of God, He gives us power to obey.

And He says: 'I AM the Good Shepherd'.  'I AM the living Bread'.  I AM the Way the Truth and the Life.' 'All power is given unto Me in heaven and in earth.'  John 10:11; 6:51; 14:6; Matthew 28:18.  He is our assurance of every promise.  I AM; be not afraid, 'God with us' is the surety of our deliverance from sin the assurance of our power to obey the law of heaven.

Friend, Jesus is really our Savior, Good Shepherd, the Living Bread, the Way the Truth and the Life.  If we want life then we must allow Jesus to be to us what He wants to be.  His greatest priority is to save us from sin to everlasting life.  Let's let Him do it. It is our choice.  Grandma Joan

(Thoughts taken from the Desire of Ages p. 24.)

Receiving to Give

Right now we see what sin has done to God's perfect world.  Our world was created in beauty and perfection, even now we can still see the beauty of His created works. The air is filled with the song of the birds, the grass of the field is many times filled with flowers of many sorts.  Still we can see that His created things declare His glory, there is nothing except the selfish heart of man that lives just for itself. The birds in the air, the animals on the ground live to minister to some other life.  The leaves in the forests, the little blades of grain all minister to life, the flowers breathe fragrance and unfold their beauty in blessing to our world.  The sun gives light to gladden our hearts and warm the earth.  The ocean receives the streams and fountains of waters to give back to the earth showers that water and keep everything beautiful.

The angels of glory find their greatest delight in giving love and watch care to sinful beings.  They woo the hearts of men and bring light from the courts above and by patient, gentle ministry touch our hearts and bring us into fellowship with Christ.  When we look to Jesus we see that it is the glory of our God to give.  Jesus said, 'I do nothing of Myself, the living Father hath sent me, and I live by the Father.'  'I seek not My own glory, but the glory of Him that sent Me.'  John 8: 28; 6:57; 8:50; 7:18.  Everything that Christ received from God, He took to give.  That is how the Father's life flows out to us.  Everything we receive, comes from our God of love.

In return it is our privilege to give of what we have received from our Father in heaven through Jesus His Son.  We can give of ourselves, our time, our love, our money, whatever God has bestowed upon us we can give in blessing to others.  Specially, we can give the message of God's love to man in every opportunity that comes our way.  There are so many hurting people now, more than there ever has been and the world needs to see that God loves them and cares for their every need through the blessings that He has bestowed upon us.  What a privilege is ours to be able to give of our time and love and emotional support to others.  Let's share God's wonderful blessings with those around us today.  Grandma Joan

A Divine Promise

2 Peter 1:2-7  "Grace and peace be multiplied unto you through the knowledge of God, and of Jesus our Lord, according as His divine power hath given unto us all things, that pertain unto life and godliness, through the knowledge of Him that hath called us to glory and virtue; whereby are given unto us exceeding great and precious promises; that by these ye might be partakers of the divine nature, having escaped the corruption that is in the world through lust.  And beside this, giving all diligence add to your faith virtue; and to virtue knowledge; and to knowledge temperance; and to temperance patience; and to patience, brotherly kindness, and charity."  Then it goes on to say, 'if ye do these things you will never fall.'

This promise, I cling to, it is such a powerful promise for us today.  It is God's word and full of meaning.

If we want 'grace and peace', what should we do?  Get all the knowledge of God and of Jesus that we can get.  His divine power has given unto us all things, that pertain unto life and godliness.

If we want to be a partaker of 'His nature', then we need to study all His promises that pertain to His nature, and we will escape the corruption that is in this world and become a partaker of His divine nature.

I call these next characteristics, 'Peter's Ladder'.  It lists the things that we need to be diligent in.  First we have faith in God and we need to add to that faith virtue, (virtue means power, moral excellence and chastity)  Most of us would like this to be added to our faith.  Then there is knowledge, we all know what knowledge is, studying to learn more about a subject. Temperance is moderation in good things and abstaining from bad things that ruin our lives.  Patience is long suffering and I know we can all use more long suffering.  Brotherly kindness and love kind of go together, if we love others we will be kind to all people, just like Jesus was kind to all walks of life.  Charity means love.  Read the 13th chapter of 1st Corinthians, it is all about love or charity.

This is such an important promise, I can't let it slip by without bringing your attention to it.  I love it and want to have a nature like the divine, don't you.  Let's study to have the knowledge of God that we need in order to develope His divine nature into our character, what do you think?  Great idea?  Yes, I think so.  Grandma Joan

What shall I do?

A lot of people ask this question, What shall I do?  or What shall I do to be saved?  The answer to this question is 'to lay aside all our preconceived opinions and our hereditary and cultivated ideas at the door of investigation.  If you search the Scriptures to validate your own opinions you will never find what truth is.  We need to search the Scriptures to see what Christ says and if our learning doesn't match up with what Christ says, then what should we do?  We should throw out the preconceived learnings and take what the Scripture says. It's really that simple.  But of course, when we have been ingrained in certain theological teachings, it is hard to let go but we must obey God rather than man.  Isn't that right?

If you are convicted of truth as you search, open your mind and your heart that you may see wondrous things in the Word of God.  It is sooooo worth it!!!!!

Faith in Christ as the world's Redeemer calls for an acknowledgement of the enlightened intellect controlled by a heart that can discern and appreciate the heavenly treasure.  To have this faith means to find and accept the gospel treasure, with all the obligations which it imposes.  This is what we must do to be saved.  "Except a man be born again, he cannot see the kingdom of God." John 3:3.  Without the eye of faith we cannot see the treasure hidden in God's word. Christ gave His life to secure for us this inestimable treasure; but without regeneration through faith in His blood, there is no remission of sins, no treasure for those who do not want it bad enough to search for it.

I pray that God will abundantly bless you as you search for these hidden treasures as we would search for hidden gold or silver or costly pearls.  Please don't give up, keep moving forward in your search for truth as it is in Jesus.  Grandma Joan

Hidden Treasure

Hidden Treasure, when I was a girl, our school would have what they called a Treasure Hunt.  They would hide notes all over the place, down the alley, in the school yard and where ever there was a good place to hide them.  As I recall there were two teams and each team had a chance to find the treasure at the end of the hunt.  One team was sent one way and the other the opposite direction.  It was so much fun to see what the treasure was at the end.  I really don't recall what it was that we were so excited to get but it must have been worth all the energy and excitement.

Well, you probably know where I am going with this one, don't you?  The Bible is full of hidden treasures, we have to dig for them as we would for anything worthwhile.  The treasures are Truth from God's word.  There are so many fables out there to lead us away from the truth as it is in the Bible.  Some ministers speak fables, and then their congregations take up on it and so on until people really believe what they have heard.  If you remember the story in the Bible when Paul was preaching, the certain class of people called Bereans who went home and studied it out for themselves to see if the things Paul had said were truth.  If they needed to do that in Bible times, what do you think we need to do in this day and age.  Satan has so clouded our minds with fables that we believe most everything we hear and don't go to the Scriptures to see if those things are so.

For example:  By being careless about the laws that govern our being, we end up destroying ourselves, by wrong habits we lose the power of self-appreciation.  We lose our self-control.  We cannot reason correctly about matters that closely concern us.  We make ourselves a wreck.  We cannot find happiness because our neglect to cultivate pure, healthful principles places us under the control of habits that ruin our peace.  By wrong habits we will destroy ourselves.

The Word of God is to be our study.  It is an inexhaustible treasure: but we fail to find this treasure because we do not search for it until it is within our reach.  Christ is truth and His word is truth.  All the sayings of Christ are  valuable and we need to hide them in our heart so that we do not become careless in obeying all His laws.  There is so much wisdom in the Bible that there is no excuse for us to be careless in our life.  There is something for every need, we just need to search for it as we would for hidden treasure.  My son and I are memorizing Scripture, and it is difficult to start with but it becomes easier, the more you do it.  Start with the promises of God that meet your need and your faith will grow as your knowledge of the Word grows.  Try it, you just might like it.  Grandma Joan

Secret Ingredient

It's not really a secret but it could be to a lot of people.  So just in case you haven't heard of it, let's continue on.

I don't know how many of you bake bread, but I know most of you probably bake cookies, rolls etc.  If you forgot to put in the leavening, what would happen?  Your bread, cookies etc, would be flat as a pancake.  The leaven works secretly, you don't see it but you see the results, so it is with our spiritual life.

The spiritual leaven is 'truth', it works in our lives silently, steadily,  to transform the soul.  The natural inclinations are softened and subdued.  New thoughts, new feelings, new motives, are implanted.  A new standard of character is set up, 'The Life of Christ'.

Why do we see so many harsh words,  why are there so many that can not bear opposition to their plans and purposes?  There is seen in their lives the same anger, the same hasty speech, the same love of self, as is seen in the unconverted person.  They are the same selfish person they have always been.  Why is this?  The reason is they have not let the leaven of truth permeate their lives and convert their hearts.  God speaks through His word and His word is truth, so listen carefully when you read His word and ask to be filled with the Holy Spirits fullness and the leaven will begin to work and transform your life into a life full of blessings, like Christ's life.

Do you want your life to be a blessing?  I do, so let's listen to God's word because His word is truth and truth is the leaven that transforms our life.  Without the truth (leaven) our life will not be transformed into something beautiful like Christ's.  Grandma Joan