The Grands Letter

Dear Grands,

Ezra 7:6-10, “This Ezra went up from Babylon, and he was a scribe skilled in the law of Moses, which the LORD God of Israel had given; and the king granted him all he requested because the hand of the LORD his God was upon him.
7 Some of the sons of Israel and some of the priests, the Levites, the singers, the gatekeepers and the temple servants went up to Jerusalem in the seventh year of King Artaxerxes.
8 He came to Jerusalem in the fifth month, which was in the seventh year of the king.
9 For on the first of the first month he began to go up from Babylon; and on the first of the fifth month he came to Jerusalem, because the good hand of his God was upon him.
10 For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the LORD and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel.”

Have you ever wondered why some people seem to get all the breaks? Could it possibly be that they are skilled and ready to undertake the tasks that lay before them?
If you said, “Yes,” I think you’re on the right track and may have discovered something.

Has it also come to you attention that the name Ezra is mentioned 13 times in the seventh and tenth chapters of the book that bears his name, as well as 12 times in Nehemiah, the book that follows Ezra in the canonical structure? That surely tells us that the product of a life controlled by the LORD and is using the dedication of that life to the LORD is precisely what the LORD desires.

Ezra set his heart to study the law of the LORD, to practice the law of the LORD, and
to teach the “statutes and ordinances” that governed the lives of those in Israel.

Sad to say, there are those who study the law, but fail to practice it. Those who then teach, fail their students because their teaching is not from the LORD. Furthermore, those whom they presume to teach, fall short in learning the laws of the LORD.

It is one thing to study intellectually, quite another to put into practice what is learned from that study. Stated simply, our study and our practice are our teachings. Do you
recall my mention of my second grade teacher, who taught us how to hold our pencils for writing, but was observed not holding her pencil as she had taught us? I learned something that day: we must be what we say. So it is with us when others observe our lives living contrary to what we have taught them.

May the LORD bless us as we undertake to model His Life daily. Our students are
diligently watching. And don’t forget: so is the LORD!

Heartily in Christ Jesus,

(Dado III)

Gene L. Jeffries, Th.D.
Springdale, Arkansas 72764
United States of America

“We never know that Christ is all we need until He becomes all that we have.” – Corrie ten Boom