The Chronicler....

 The Chronicler...

One of the ads on my computer early this morning was for a fill-in-the-blank family tree...while another was for one of the ancestry companies who will help you find your heritage....

So it only seemed fitting that when I opened my Bible, I started with 1 Chronicles....listing chapter after chapter of genealogy...

My parents, pre-computer, worked on their family heritage, their ancestors, writing many letters to find out information before putting together books of information...they found out the good, the bad and the ugly of their forefathers...birthdates, scandals, antidotes...and just plain information...

They found a soldier who fought in the revolutionary war...family who fled from the rule of Bismarck in Germany( I have a beautiful little trunk which made that journey), incarcerated  soldiers in WW2, what pattern of kilt was worn by a clan we are related to on my father’s side, a graveyard still holding an old family grave marker in Denmark... history...family lines and ties...

On my late husband’s side this was done as well...Norwegian and English ties going back to the 1700’s...

Now, we can spit into tube, send  it away, and find out exactly how much of which country we come from... or who we might be related to...two of my children have found their biological roots and family through this process...

Amazing...

The book of 1 Chronicles starts way before all of these...Adam...his sons and on down through the ages, the good, the bad and the ugly as well...antidotes about many, the names of wives of some of the men...property granted over the years, the travels, the wars..the evil, the good...the followers of God and those who fell away...some battles fought, the winners and losers...chapter after chapter of pertinent information...roots....connections...

We can have a more permanent family connection as well...not through blood lines, but Spiritual lines...we have the opportunity to be a part of God’s family through the Good News of the Gospel...through the saving Grace and gift of Jesus...who died not only for our sins, but the whole world’s...

This is an eternal family...an eternal gift...it doesn’t matter where, or when we were born, into what family...what our heritage shows or does show...the good the bad or the ugly...it is an individual gift available to all...thank YOU....

He then brought them out and asked, “Sirs, what must I do to be saved?” They replied, “Believe in the Lord Jesus, and you will be saved —you and your household.”

Acts 16:30-31

But because of his great love for us, God, who is rich in mercy, made us alive with Christ even when we were dead in transgressions —it is by grace you have been saved. And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus, in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us in Christ Jesus. For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith —and this is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God— not by works, so that no one can boast.

Ephesians 2:4-9 .

For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only Son, that whoever believes in him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send his Son into the world to condemn the world, but to save the world through him. Whoever believes in him is not condemned, but whoever does not believe stands condemned already because they have not believed in the name of God’s one and only Son.

John 3:16-18

 for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and all are justified freely by his grace through the redemption that came by Christ Jesus.

Romans 3:23-24