The Grands Letter

Dear Grands,

2 Kings 16:20, “So Ahaz slept with his fathers, and was buried

with his fathers in the city of David; and his son Hezekiah reigned

in his place.”

Reading through Second Kings is not always exciting. One after

another, kings died and were replaced with their sons, who died,

and were replaced with their sons. The one significant factor was

whether the incoming king of Israel and/or Judah, did what was

right in the sight of the LORD. Even the good kings, who honored

the LORD, far too often failed to “remove the high places,” where

the people served pagan deities.

My Dad was the finest, Christian man I have ever known. He was

honest and faithful in everything he undertook. I’ve always tried

to live the integritous life I saw in my Dad. Yet, I know my life has

often fallen short of what I witnessed in him. Try as I would, his

standard always exceeded my achievement. Isn’t that how we

all fail to measure up to the life of our LORD Jesus Christ? There

are those “high places” where we sacrifice to other gods. We

seek to justify our sin by measuring it against the spiritual good

that we do. But God doesn’t measure things that way. He wants

PERFECTION! And instead of yielding to His way and His power,

we seek to justify those “high places” in our devotion.

The Commandment that says, “Thou shalt not take the name of

the LORD Thy God in vain,” can be translated, “You shall not wear

the Name of the LORD disrespectfully” nor “carry it into disrepute.”

It’s more than not swearing; it’s the failure to live “to the praise of

His glory” (Eph. 1:12).

May the LORD enable each of us to live to His glory,

Nana & Dado III

Gene L. Jeffries, Th.D.

Springdale, Arkansas

“We never know that God is all we need

until He becomes all that we have.”