Dear Children and Grandchildren,

I have enjoyed the Word of God more than I ever have since I am no longer preaching 3 or 4 times a week and am not pressed for time. Some times I find things I'd like to share with all of you, or some of you individually. With your mother's encouragement I'd like to start a "Bible Blog" and share some of my thoughts with you. Last night I told Joanna that I opened a can of "Pork and Beans" for supper, (your mother is in Arizona helping Becky while Adam recuperates from a serious operation) but I found no pork so I renamed it "Beans and Beans". With a hearty laugh she wondered if I had "looked under every bean?' I trust what I send you will have some "pork" but if you find it to be only "beans" just push the delete button.

Ps.119:168 "I have kept Thy precepts and Thy testimonies: for all my ways are before Thee," As you were growing up one of the things I was careful to emphasize in our daily devotions was that the time would come when you would no longer be under the eye of Mom and Dad but you would never be out of sight of God's eye. What an encouragement we find here to keep God's Word. "all my ways are before Thee,"

"Experience makes many a paradox plain, and this is one. Before God we may be clear of open fault and yet at the same time mourn over a thousand heart-wanderings which need his restoring hand."--C.H. Spurgeon

"I may hide Thee from my eye, but not myself from Thine eye."--Wm. Gurnall

Wednesday, December 10, 2008

Appetite Spoilers

Dear Kids,

Your mother and I are safely back in Hoonah. Cheyne and family are busy building our "mansion on the hill.” Carey is doing the wiring, and today the in-floor propane heating system is being installed. Since the people in town can look up and see the lights at this dark time of the year, many drive up the mountain to "gawk." We hope to be in it by April. We have to be out of our rental by then.

While in Tucson I brought three messages from I Peter 2:1-3 on desiring the Word of God and appetite spoilers. I'm sure you will remember my concern about eating candy, etc., before mealtime and spoiling your appetite for the good meals your mother had prepared. I'm wondering how many of you do not "as newborn babes desire the sincere milk of the Word"--I mean a real desire to read your Bible because it is a living word and not just words lying dead on the page. Perhaps the problem is that you may not have "tasted that the Lord is gracious."

Just before I left for Parris Island in 1952, my great grandfather, Mennonite bishop James Saylor, came to see me and had me promise to read the Bible every day while I was serving in the Marine Corp. Then before I boarded the bus in Johnstown my mother handed me an armor-plated New Testament to wear over my heart to stop bullets in Korea. Then we were all issued New Testament Bibles by the U.S. government in boot camp. Plenty of encouragement to read wouldn't you think? I would pull out my New Testament, and since I didn't smoke (we were also issued cigarettes which I traded for candy), I read my New Testament when the "smoking lamp was lit." I had no desire or liking for it but read it to keep my promise.

On September 2, 1954, while returning home on the troopship General A. E. Anderson, I tasted that the Lord was gracious" (1 Peter 2: 3). I read the Bible all the next day--it had become a living book! I was "born again, not of corruptible seed, but of incorruptible, by the Word of God which LIVETH and abideth for ever" I Peter 1:23. It has been my delight to read every day these 54 years since that day. If you know you "have tasted that the Lord is gracious" but don't have a desire to read your Bible, it may be you are having a problem with one or more of the appetite killers in verse 1. This has gotten long or I would expand on each of the five listed there. Any of those will spoil your appetite for the Word of God.

By His Grace, Dad
Posted by at 10:08 PM

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