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The LORD said, “What have you done? Listen! Your brother’s blood cries out to me from the ground.” Genesis 4:10

Sin entered the world and changed man’s relationship with God, but from the very beginning God provided a means of atonement shown by the sacrifice given by Abel. Cain made an offering also, but it was unacceptable to God. His bitter resentment festered and eventually he took vengeance upon his brother, mankind’s first murder.

Blood speaks.  God knew what Cain had done and why he did it. The cries of Abel’s blood spoke death, an irreversible state.  Cain’s choices and his consequences were death, complete and total disconnection from God. 

Living blood, pulsing through our bodies, provides and sustains all we need to live. In contrast, blood spilled is death. In Jesus we find both a sacrifice of blood poured and a continuing source of life. He did not die. He lived!

Like Abel, Jesus was hated and murdered, but when His blood speaks, it says, “I love you and you can live!”

Happy Monday!

Gretchen

One of the great honors of my life was to teach beside an amazing woman that taught school for over 50 years.  Her name was Marie Acre and when I was ready to give up, she told me how to keep going.  I knew I could follow her footsteps, because she was my husband’s high school English teacher and if she could survive him and his friends, she had earned her bragging rights and could be trusted to lead.  Her first advice to me was, “If you don’t have a vision for your students, then you’ll never get them anywhere.” 

In the fall after my mother-in-law passed away, my husband came into the school cafeteria and sat down across the table.  He had tears in his eyes and confessed he had run home to have lunch with his mom, as he had done countless times before.  In early autumn she would keep a pot of greens and cornbread warming on the stove. This crisp cool day mom wasn’t there. The empty silence when he called her name brought reality and soul wrenching grief. I cried too and ran to Mrs. Acres’ library. I explained my husband’s sorrow and my inability to cook as his mother had. Mrs. Acre took my distress as her mission. She called her sisters, opened her freezer and pantry and by 3:00 o’clock, she had recipes and specific directions for a Rooney feast to fill our stomachs and heal our broken hearts.

Years later Mrs. Acre’s age began to show, but she was indispensable to our school and its children.  She moved from classroom to library. Well past the age when most retire, she blazed a trail, becoming proficient with the new technologies landing on educator’s desks. She was instrumental in leading our younger generation of teachers into the new world of personal computers.

There came a time when our beloved friend and mentor began to slow down. As she arrived on campus each day, in her late husband’s old Ford truck, she needed assistance getting settled in her world of books and knowledge.  My husband or our superintendent, Mr. D. Rowlett would meet her with a lending hand.  One morning her parking space remained empty and a phone call to her cell went unanswered.  Without hesitation, Keith and Mr. Rowlett headed to her home. 

Breaking and entering wasn’t easy for two law abiding men, but they managed and found the incomparable Mrs. Marie on the floor between her bed and the wall.  She said she had fallen in the night, but was content and resting because she knew, when morning came, someone would come checking on her.

ALS took the life of one of the most inspiring women I’ve ever known, but her legacy is marked by the warmth she gave to those who experienced her love for people and knowledge. She also left the greatest lesson she could have ever taught, “The night doesn’t seem so frightening when the hope of morning is only a few short hours away.”

Sing praises to the LORD, O you His saints, and give thanks to His Holy Name, For His anger is but for a moment, and His favor is for a lifetime. Weeping may tarry for the night, but joy comes with the morning.

Psalm 30:4-5

Blessings,

Gretchen

To serve as a sign among you. In the future, when your children ask you “What do theses stones mean?” Tell them that the flow of the Jordan was cut off before the Ark of the Covenant of the LORD. When it crossed the Jordan, the waters of the Jordan were cut off. These stones are to be a memorial to the people of Israel forever. Joshua 4:6-7

(Forty years earlier) The Red Sea was an ominous barrier between the pursuing army of Pharaoh, and freedom for the Hebrew children. The people were terrified, but the Creator of all things drove a strong east wind, pushed the impassable water out of the way, made a dry path on the seabed for His people and when the Egyptians pursued the waves swept over them. The man who thought he was a god lost his army. This is what happens when the Almighty God hems you in on all sides.

Forty years later, a generation has come and gone and this young nation has learned that God is faithful and they must trust and obey Him only.  It is time to enter the Promised Land, but there is another aquatic obstacle between the Hebrew children and their homeland; the Jordan River, swollen with spring snow melt.  But God was already there making a way. Several miles upstream an earthquake loosed rock that dammed the river making a dry place downstream.  Before the river banks refilled, Joshua had a representative from each of the twelve tribes retrieve river stones so an altar could be erected to remind the following generations what God had done. Why? Because we need to remember and KNOW that God will always protect and provide for those who follow Him!

As time whisks by, the excitement and crisp edged details of the miraculous things God does for us dulls to occasional thoughts and gentle smiles.  It takes deliberate action to remember and retell so that those who come behind us will persevere.

Happy Weekend,

Gretchen

Woe to those who call evil good and good evil, who put darkness for light and light for darkness, who put bitter for sweet and sweet for bitter. Isaiah 5:20

Isaiah chapter 5 refers to Israel as a vineyard. For centuries God has cared for His covenant nation. Rather than follow and obey, they became entitled, greedy and full of injustice. The rich became rich at the expense of the poor. Finally, God withdraws his protection. Israel withers, suffers and ceases to exist as a nation except as refugees, captives and exiles.

The attitude of entitlement brings us to the point of preempting God’s authority over good and evil. We want self glory, and autonomy. Money grants power……until we die….then we’re all equal in our speed of decay. Injustice follows greed. Serving others shifts to serving financial domination. Right and wrong get blurred by bias, personal agenda and passion.

With an open heart we must seek God’s Holiness. A pure heart waits for God’s provision and seeks His approval only.

Love,

Gretchen

Simon Peter answered, “You are the Messiah, the Son of the Living God.” Matthew 16:16

Outgoing, impulsive Peter, who sometimes said the wrong thing, got this right. The only way Peter could have known this was his spiritual connection to God in Heaven. Jesus had not announced Himself as God’s Son publicly.

Petra is the Greek word for rock. Jesus gave Simon, son of Jonas, this name, Peter. It was on the rock of this revelation, Jesus is the Son of the living God, that our church is built. In verse 18 of this same chapter, Jesus says, the gates of Hades will not overcome ‘it’. It is Zion, the city of God, the church triumphant, the Body of Christ. Gate keepers control the city, everything from commerce to politics. They also keep enemies out and let those who will prosper them, in. The Truth that Peter confessed is that Jesus, the Way, the Truth and the Life, The Son of God, is the gate keeper of the Body of Christ.

We live in fear of being ruined, disappointed, irrelevant, rejected, but Jesus is the Messiah and the Gates of Hell will NOT overcome any us who’s hope is in the LORD.

Love,

Gretchen

By faith Abraham, when God tested him, offered Isaac as a sacrifice. He who had embraced the promises was about to sacrifice his one and only son, Hebrews 11:17

The promise God made, and the reciprocal commitments Abraham returned, define the infinite, omniscient and omnipresent character of the Creator of all things and His intimacy with mankind. Abraham and God entered into a covenant relationship. They didn’t just meet and shake hands, they did things that mattered and would always remind us of God’s mountain moving love. An exchange of first born sons is part of covenant making. So, God asked Abraham for the son He had given Sarah and her husband in their post child bearing years. 

Obedience was the promise Abraham returned to God.  When God called, Abraham answered and from that moment forward, Isaac was as good as dead to him, but it was a long walk up the mountain.  Isaac asked, “Where is the sacrifice father?” Abraham replied, “God will provide.”  God did furnish a sacrifice and it was not Isaac.  The covenant was sealed. Many thousand years later, God gave His only Son to complete this blessing to all who would believe.

Faith is not a moment in time. It is a life’s choice to never turn back. God didn’t need to know Abraham was ‘all in’, Abraham and Isaac did and we needed to know the end of the story.  Obedience, faith in action, won! And it always will. The end.

Love,

Gretchen

“No one can serve two masters. Either you will hate the one and love the other, or you will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and money.” Matthew 6:24

Part of the Sermon on the Mount, this verse is the concluding comment Jesus makes about storing up treasures on earth. The bigger picture is Jesus’ words on generosity, attitude toward others, intimacy with God and overwhelming worry about tomorrow.

Everything on this earth passes away, just take a look at the week old produce in your refrigerator, or the once beautiful homes decaying as long gone manicured lawns return to pasture land.  We give all our resources to things that will not matter when life gets real, because only God, through His Son Jesus can GIVE real life!

There are many things that become our master but it all comes down to money, because nothing is free………..excuse me, I misspoke! Grace and Mercy are free. Get you some! Get a lot! Share with everyone! The supply is infinite!

Throw Grace Like Confetti!

Gretchen

I am the bread of Life. John 6:48

In Old Testament Law there is a very elaborate and detailed process for making a covenant. A covenant is an all encompassing agreement between two parties, binding them together with very clear boundaries and obligations. The eighth step of this mutual promise is the sharing of a meal.  By feeding each other, the covenant participants express the act of taking one another into the each other’s life so deeply they one with the other. We see this today in wedding celebrations where the bride and groom exchange pieces of wedding cake.

Jesus’ words are being spoken to the Pharisees following His feeding of the 5000. They are the leaders of the Jewish nation, but they are spiritually dull. Offended by these misperceived insinuations of cannibalism, they become outraged. Instead of comprehending Jesus is the source of endless fulfillment, and by accepting Him, life everlasting is secured, they sought an excuse for their self-righteous indignation.

Jesus completed the Abrahamic covenant. We are all blessed because He gave His life as a sacrifice and a curse breaker. By feeding ourselves with Him we receive life and power over death and THAT begins today.

Love,

Gretchen

The duration of my entire childhood was spent wishing to be grown.  Then it happened. My first real foray into ‘adulting’ began when I enrolled in Bethany Nazarene College (presently Southern Nazarene University).  In late August of 1981 my parents drove me from our home in central Arkansas, to the campus of my dreams, in Bethany, Oklahoma, just west of Oklahoma City. I remember nothing of the drive. We carried my belongings up five flights of stairs to my dorm room and I settled in.  Very soon it came time for mom and dad to depart and leave me to freshman orientation. Mom went to the car while dad hugged me close and whispered in my ear, “Gretchen, no matter what, always give God and I and chance to love you through.” 

Rainbows and sunshine were mapped out and awaited my go ahead. I am a rule follower with plans, outlines and emergency exits.  I do not cross uncharted waters. My adventures involve a great deal of kicking and screaming!  Why did my father’s final words to me, on this momentous day, hint of adversity and personal failure?

The castle in the clouds crumbled soon enough. Amidst all my good intentions, I failed. My adult decisions weren’t all constructive, some were incredibly selfish and costly.  It was ugly and bitter. At one point I had to choose between persevering and death. The outcome is obvious, but I made that choice because I had something valuable, an earthly father who modeled a Heavenly Father’s love, so faithful and enduring I could not escape from it.

See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

I John 3:1a

The promised love of my earthly father has been strained to its limits. Proven solid, constant and true, it led me to The Father’s love…… that love my dad asked me to cling to and trust, standing in the sunshine, in his warm embrace, as I was stepping into a world I knew very little of, but he knew would tempt and test my resolve and determination. 

Dad knew dreams don’t always come true, but love can bring you through. I Corinthians 13:8 says, “Love never fails.”  All you have to do is give it a chance. Love one another, it’s a game changer and let others love you too!

Blessings,

Gretchen

P.S. A life lived in God’s will far exceeds any hopes or aspirations I ever dared to imagine all those years ago when I just knew I would take the world by storm. Trust Him with everything!

“Look, He is coming with the clouds,” and “Every eye will see Him, even those who pierced Him”; and all peoples on earth “Will morn because of Him.“ So shall it be! Amen. Revelations 1:7

This book was written in the glow of burning martyrs.  Christianity was sixty some years old and growing fast and strong, even though suffering among believers was horrific. God sent words and visions to John to strengthen those being persecuted then and today.

It is ironic that the consummation of life is death.  When this earthly existence comes to an end for each one of us, we are defined, our history is complete, except for the retelling. For those who refuse to believe Jesus in the Resurrected Son of the One True God, death is the great equalizer. The will see very clearly who is God and who is not. Redoes won’t be an option then and they will mourn.

For the believer, physical death not our end, but a new beginning. Attempts to stop God’s victorious work proved a colossal failure in the early days of the church and it still does today. Jesus lives and so shall we.

Have a Beautiful Weekend,

Love,

Gretchen