The Grands Letter

Dear Grands,

1 Kings 8:22-25, “Then Solomon stood before the altar of the LORD in the presence of all the assembly of Israel and spread out his hands toward heaven.

23 He said, ‘O LORD, the God of Israel, there is no God like You in heaven above or on earth beneath, keeping covenant and showing lovingkindness to Your servants who walk before You with all their heart,

24 who have kept with Your servant, my father David, that which You have promised him; indeed, You have spoken with Your mouth and have fulfilled it with Your hand as it is this day.

25 ‘Now therefore, O LORD, the God of Israel, keep with Your servant David my father that which You have promised him, saying, “You shall not lack a man to sit on the throne of Israel, if only your sons take heed to their way to walk before Me as you have walked.”’”

I’ve been reading recently of Solomon. His life would have been well, had he continued to live the remainder of it from this spiritual position. Ah, but it is not to be. His careful examination of the godly life of his father, David, was ultimately abandoned in his own later life. The end was not what the beginning had promised. It rarely is!

It’s sad to say, but that’s often the way of our lives. Reared of a godly heritage, we often feel “left out.” We simply want to discover what it’s like on the “other side of the fence.” So, we glance over there and eventually find ourselves mired there, wondering how it happened.

No, across the fence is not a good side! Yet, the discovery reveals even more. It was much easier to look exploringly at “other side,” than it is to abandon it and get back to where you came from! Sadly, Solomon never retreated to the side he had abandoned. He left the worship of the LORD for worship on the wrong side. It was not that the LORD would not forgive him; it’s just that he never asked! There’s an old children’s song that says…

“Be careful, little feet, where you go;

Be careful, little feet where you go;

For the Father up Above is looking down in love;

Be careful, little feet where you go.”

Heartily in Christ,

Gene L. Jeffries, Th.D.

United States of America

We will never know that Christ is all we need,

Until He becomes all that we have. – Corrie ten Boom

Dear Grands,

Acts 13:1-7, “Now there were at Antioch, in the church that was there, prophets and teachers: Barnabas, and Simeon who was called Niger, and Lucius of Cyrene, and Manaen who had been brought up with Herod the tetrarch, and Saul.

2 While they were ministering to the Lord and fasting, the Holy Spirit said, “Set apart for Me Barnabas and Saul for the work to which I have called them.”

3 Then, when they had fasted and prayed and laid their hands on them, they sent them away.

4 So, being sent out by the Holy Spirit, they went down to Seleucia and from there they sailed to Cyprus.

5 When they reached Salamis, they began to proclaim the word of God in the synagogues of the Jews; and they also had John as their helper.

6 When they had gone through the whole island as far as Paphos, they found a magician, a Jewish false prophet whose name was Bar-Jesus,

7 who was with the proconsul, Sergius Paulus, a man of intelligence. This man summoned Barnabas and Saul and sought to hear the word of God.”

Many fascinating experiences come to those who are devoted to ministering to the LORD. Just such an experience occurred at Antioch in the opening verses above. It’s also worthy to notice that they were so involved that they had apparently not given any thought to eating. Prayer had been their focus, and the Holy Spirit rewarded them with work He had for them to do.

Fasting should be understood as not merely going without food, but with being so devoted to prayer that eating was totally absent from their thinking. And precisely at this time, the Holy Spirit spoke to them. (Perhaps if we were more focused on spiritual things than on food, we, too, might be rewarded with the Spirit’s message. In any event, from that moment they were led by the Spirit to proclaim the Word of God both in the synagogues of the Jews and even to a magician, a false Jewish prophet. This faithfulness ultimately led to Sergius Paulus’ receiving the LORD’s Word!

How remarkably the LORD works, when we are thoroughly focused on Him! Prayer works when the LORD works; and the LORD works when we give ourselves to Him in earnest prayer!

Heartily in Christ,

Gene L. Jeffries, Th.D.

United States of America

We will never know that Christ is all we need,

Until He becomes all that we have. – Corrie ten Boom

Dear Grands,

2 Kings 14:1-6, “In the second year of Joash son of Joahaz king of Israel, Amaziah the son of Joash king of Judah became king.

2 He was twenty-five years old when he became king, and he reigned twenty-nine years in Jerusalem. And his mother’s name was Jehoaddin of Jerusalem.

3 He did right in the sight of the LORD, yet not like David his father; he did according to all that Joash his father had done.

4 Only the high places were not taken away; the people still sacrificed and burned incense on the high places.

5 Now it came about, as soon as the kingdom was firmly in his hand, that he killed his servants who had slain the king his father.

6 But the sons of the slayers he did not put to death, according to what is written in the book of the Law of Moses, as the LORD commanded, saying, ‘The fathers shall not be put to death for the sons, nor the sons be put to death for the fathers; but each shall be put to death for his own sin.’”

King Josiah was killed by the Egyptian King, Pharaoh Neco, and it was then that Joash became King of Judah. From all we know from the Scripture, he “did right in the sight of the LORD, yet not like David, his father.”

I think we’ve all experienced that kind of obedience in our children. They’ve fallen short in some areas where we would have liked to see them achieve; yet, overall, they have done well. (Doubtlessly, our parents had the same attitude about us!) We’ll have to cut Joash a bit of slack, however, because David excelled everyone who had ruled before him.

One great, spiritual oversight of Joash, however, was his failure to destroy the “high places,” where some of the people still sacrificed to pagan gods. I believe we’ll always have people like that among us. They’re good-hearted people, but they still engage in things that measure sub-standardly when laid beside Jesus Christ and the Bible. How are we to treat them? Like brothers and sisters in Christ, I should think, setting a good standard before them, as others have for us.

Heartily in Christ,

Gene L. Jeffries, Th.D.

United States of America

We will never know that Christ is all we need,

Until He becomes all that we have. – Corrie ten Boom

Dear Grands,

2 Peter 2:1-9, “But false prophets also arose among the people, just as there will also be false teachers among you, who will secretly introduce destructive heresies, even denying the Master who bought them, bringing swift destruction upon themselves.

2 Many will follow their sensuality, and because of them the way of the truth will be maligned;

3 and in their greed they will exploit you with false words; their judgment from long ago is not idle, and their destruction is not asleep.

4 For if God did not spare angels when they sinned, but cast them into hell and committed them to pits of darkness, reserved for judgment;

5 and did not spare the ancient world, but preserved Noah, a preacher of righteousness, with seven others, when He brought a flood upon the world of the ungodly;

6 and if He condemned the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah to destruction by reducing them to ashes, having made them an example to those who would live ungodly lives thereafter;

7 and if He rescued righteous Lot, oppressed by the sensual conduct of unprincipled men

8 (for by what he saw and heard that righteous man, while living among them, felt his righteous soul tormented day after day by their lawless deeds),

9 then the Lord knows how to rescue the godly from temptation, and to keep the unrighteous under punishment for the day of judgment…”

Education is just as subject to error as anything we might know or imagine. Few parents, I dare say, know little-to-nothing about the education of their children’s teachers. If the teacher himself received poor instruction, the children will hardly receive better. The same is true of religious instruction, be it formal or not. Habits are rarely formally instructed, but they are taught nevertheless. Be all of that as it may, someone has said that “children are like little sponges, they absorb what the hear and observe, often without thinking. Thus, teachers are inevitably culpable by default.

May we always be alert to the “teaching” we inadvertently share with others. Intended or not, we are constantly observed and imitated by those around us, especially admiring children. The wisdom of the Word says, “Train up a child in the way he should go, Even when he grows older, he will not abandon it” (Prov. 22:6).

Heartily in Christ,

Gene L. Jeffries, Th.D.

United States of America

Dear Grands,

1 John 1:5-12, “This is the message we have heard from Him and announce to you, that God is Light, and in Him there is no darkness at all.

6 If we say that we have fellowship with Him and yet walk in the darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth;

7 but if we walk in the Light as He Himself is in the Light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin.

8 If we say that we have no sin, we are deceiving ourselves and the truth is not in us.

9 If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.

10 If we say that we have not sinned, we make Him a liar and His word is not in us.”

It is utterly foolish of anyone to deny what is blatantly obvious to others! As small boys, we used to pretend we were cowboys or Indians or policemen. We dressed as appropriately as possible and tried to talk and act as we supposed they did. Of course, everyone who saw or heard us knew we were not whom we pretended to be.

In the passage above the Apostle John exposes as fraudulent those who pretended they are followers of Jesus, but lack His likeness in their lives. They say they are followers of Him, but they don’t live like it. How many are like that yet today!

Let me ask: Do you read the Bible every day? Do you spend some time in prayer every day? Do you recognize your sin and confess it to the LORD every day? It’s vitally necessary that we stay close to Jesus and rid ourselves of sin. Sin hinders our fellowship with the LORD. “Oh, it’s only a little sin,” you say. Yet, “little” becomes increasingly “larger” when we allow it to lie even dormant in our lives. A little here, a little there, and before we know it, prayer and Bible study have disappeared completely, and life is without nourishment and protection! At that point, we are precisely where Satan wants us! No, confession of sin is the only true answer. If we confess our sin, Jesus forgives it, and we’re “on course” again with the LORD!

Heartily in Christ,

Gene L. Jeffries, Th.D.

United States of America

We will never know that Christ is all we need,

Until He becomes all that we have. – Corrie ten Boom