We hope that you and your family had a wonderful holiday season in which you gathered together around the joy of the birth our our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. This year was special in that our first born son RJ and his wife Kelly along with our first grandson Rene-Charles traveled down from Portland, Oregon to be with us for several days. We also had a special “Facetime” on our IPads with our son Rodd, his wife Kyna and their three sons Caleb, Joshua and Alex who live in Boise, Idaho. As we lived together for those few days it was a delight to experience three different generations around our dining table. It was a rich season for us and we are so thankful to our Lord for allowing it all to happen
Living with those three generations reminded us of Acts 13:17-41 and a most interesting word about the life and death of King David. The Apostle Paul spoke to a group of unbelieving Jewish leaders concerning the person of Jesus Christ and whether He was the long promised Messiah. Paul said that David had died some 900 years earlier and was placed in a tomb and his body decayed. Jesus died on the Cross, was buried but as the prophets had said “He would not suffer decay.” (Ps. 16:10) Then Jesus was resurrected from the grave after three days and never suffered any decay. Thus Jesus was their long awaited Messiah.
At the same time Paul wrote something of great interest about the life of David in
Acts 13:36 that has enabled us to step into eternity and begin to understand God a little more about His purpose for our lives at this time in His History. “ For David, after he had served the purpose of God in his own generation, fell asleep and was laid among his fathers and underwent decay.” David lived some 70 years (1061-970 AD) and was chosen by God before the foundation of the world to be born, raised and eventually placed in a generation where he led the 12 tribes to become the nation of Israel. Within those 70 years David experienced many good times and many depressing sinful times. (Read Psalms 51 and Jeremiah 31:31-34 )“…for I will forgive their iniquity and their sin I will remember no more.” In spite of all the ups and downs of David’s life God had a plan which He was working out in and thru that life in that generation and the nation of Israel. The plan: The Gift of Salvation would be offered to this broken and sinful world thru the lineage of Abraham (2166 BC) to David (1061 BC) to the time of Joseph, son of David and Mary (6 AD) through the one and only savior named Jesus. (Matt. 1:1-17, 1:21,Luke 1:26-33, 2:8-14)
After reading these scriptures we began to think about our lives and in spite of the many ups and downs we face God is working out His purpose in and thru our lives in our generation with the same message: Salvation would be offered to this broken world thru the birth of the world’s only savior named Jesus. The Savior of the World told the Jewish Pharisees named Nicodemus that he needed to be born again, born of the Spirit, and that could happen to him if he believed Jesus was the Son of Man For God so loved the world that He gave His one and only unique Son that whoever believes in Him should not perish but have eternal life,
(John 3:16)
Meanwhile our Lord continues to empower us in our generation with the indwelling Person and power of the Holy Spirit to “Just Show Up” and by His power we are called to encourage the broken hearted, to continue to teach the Word of God at each given opportunity, to speak of Jesus to a lost and hurting community by word and good works which God has prepared for us to walk into, and to pray that God will continue to help us not to become tempted by the world, the flesh or the devil. The truth we need to continue to remind ourselves is that since we have declared Jesus as our resurrected Lord and Savior our lives are no longer our own, we have been bought with a price because of His willingness to die on a cross for our sins. Then He has made us who declare Him as our resurrected Lord and Savior new creature in Christ. (1 Cor. 6:19-20, 2 Cor. 5:17) We now live in this new life with the Trinity living within us (John 14:20). Remember our heavenly Father chose us (Eph. 1:3-4), His Son Jesus saved us (Eph. 1:7-8) and the Holy Spirit empowers us (John 14:26, John 16:26, Acts 1:8), as channels of their love and grace in our generation with the message of salvation until He comes again to this world as King of kings and Lord of lords. (Rev. 19:1-16) What an adventure! Living out God’s purpose in our generation.
Please continue to pray for us as we seek to use our lives, our spiritual gifts and our time to honor our Lord Jesus for His purpose in our generation before He lays us down to rest.
RonAnneMarie
