Thanks to everyone for the prayers. God is so good, way beyond what we deserve.

How are things? May the Lord continue to strengthen you and your family. Lifted you and your family up in prayer this morning.

BTW… Anytime you all head up to Alaska, drop in and say hi.

Let your wife know that we have received your requests and are praying for you and your family. Please keep us updated with developments and praise reports.

My wife and I have two of our boys in the hospital right now. One was amitted on Sunday and the other yesterday. We still have two at home. If some of you remember a little over a year ago Daniel, one of our boys, had a trach put in. He is one of those in the hospital now with RSV. The doctors are concerned that this might be a set back for him getting off his dependency on the ventilator.

Request:
- That God would give my wife and I the strength to endure this trial with His grace.
- That we would be given opportunities to share the Gospel with those we contact in the hospital.
- That God would give our other boys strength and understanding as we are apart from the them quite a bit right now.
- That I would be a Godly example to them as a father and train them to be mighty MEN of God.
- That God would heal them both quickly and bring them home.

Johnny B, were are you located? We should meet up sometime by grace!

Ephesians 2:1-10 “And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience–among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. BUT God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ–by grace you have been saved–and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.”

That BUT saved me a sinner. One other problem I had was I didn’t understand the depth of me sin. Once my eyes were opened to that fact I realized that only by God’s grace could this sinful man be save, not by what I would do because all I could do was sin with very breath I was breathing or should I say that God let me take. .

“In short, we have to note here that we shall never know where our salvation comes from till we have lifted up our minds to God’s eternal counsel by which he has chosen whom he pleased and left the remainder in their confusion and ruin. Now then it is no marvel that some men think this doctrine to be strange and hard, for it does not fit in at all with man’s natural understanding. If a man asks of the philosophers, they will always tell him that God loves such as are worthy of it, and that, since virtue pleases him, he also marks out such as are given that way to claim them for his people. You see then that, after our own imagination, we shall judge that God puts no other difference between men, in loving some and in hating others, than each man’s own worthiness and deserving. But, at the same time, let us also remember that in our own understanding there is nothing but vanity and that we must not measure God by our own yardstick, and that it is too excessive a presumption to impose law upon God so that it would not be lawful for him to do anything but that which we could conceive and which might seem just in our eyes.”

“You see then that the reason why some men find this doctrine hard and irksome is because they are too much wedded to their own opinion and cannot submit themselves to God’s wisdom, to receive his sayings soberly and modestly. And truly we ought to take warning from what St. Paul says, namely, that the natural man does not understand God’s secrets but regards them as stark foolishness [1 Cor. 2:14] And why? Because we are not his counsellors but must have things revealed to us by his Holy Spirit, or else we shall never know them, and we must have them in such a measure as he gives them to us.”

Now if it is demanded why God pities that one part and forsakes and leaves and abandons the other, there is no other answer but that it so pleases him. Upon the preaching of the gospel in a place, some will be affected with lively faith in their hearts and others will go away as they came without benefiting at all, or else they harden themselves against God and betray the stubbornness that was hidden in them before. What is the reason for this difference? Even this, that God directs the one sort by his Holy Spirit and leaves the other sort in their natural corruption.

You see then that the thing in which God’s goodness shines forth most to us, is that by the preaching of the gospel to us we have, as it were, a token that he has pitied us, loves us, calls us and allures us to him. But when the doctrine preached to us is received by us with heart and affection, that is yet a further and more special token by which we perceive that God intends to be our Father and has adopted us to be his children. Not without reason, then, St. Paul says in this passage that we are blessed by God even according to His election of us beforehand. For it is not that we have come to him; it is not that we have sought him. But the saying of the prophet Isaiah [65:1] must be fulfilled in every respect, namely, that God shows himself to such as did not seek him, and that such as were far off see him near at hand, and then he say to them, ‘Here I am, here I am. Although you have despised me, yet I vouchsafe to come to you because I have a care for your salvation.’ Thus we see what St. Paul was aiming at in this passage.”

Ruth, glad you were blessed! If only non-believers and those believers who avoid or reject elections really understood what was fair. We must remember that God is actively saving and revealing Himself to those whom He wills. Let us keep praying for the lost and continue declaring the gospel of grace!