ADVICE TO GRANDCHILDREN

            The biggest mistake people make regarding education is they think of education as a finished product. “I have finished my education” is an example of what you hear people say. Education is a process and never an accomplished fact. Instead of a graduation exercise a commencing exercise is better. When you finish High School you are just commencing a life -long learning process.

            When you are born the first four things you learn are the most important to you. They are foundational to you as quality of life issues. The four vital lessons are:

1. Learning to talk

2. Learning to walk

3. Learning to feed yourself

4. Potty training

           

            There are four learning issues that are vital to you as far as eternity is concerned. Without a proper relationship to God all learning will be of no eternal significance. These four are:

1. Learning of your need for salvation

2. Learning of God’s love for you

3. Learning of God’s provision for your salvation

4. Learning the proper response to receive God’s salvation

           

 This general advice I give to you:

1. Be a lifelong learner.

2. Learn from others. It is said that experience is the best teacher. This is not true. I don’t need to break my leg to know that it is not a good idea. Learning by experience is the most painful way to learn.

3. Learn to postpone pleasure. You do not need to have all the latest gadgets today. If you cannot pay cash wait until you can make the purchase with cash.

4. Pay your tithes and taxes first. Divide the remaining money into a ten-twenty-seventy plan. A. Save ten percent. B. Save twenty percent until you have an amount that is six months of your yearly salary. Invest some of the twenty percent.; then save the twenty percent to buy the things  you want to purchase – go on a cruise, etc. Bless others with some of the twenty percent. C. Live on the seventy percent. Never buy on credit anything except a house to live in and no more than one automobile at a time.

5. Live today for life does not allow practice days in preparation for future days.  ^"This is the day the Lord has made; we will rejoice and be glad in it. (Psalm 118:24, NKJV)”

MAKING DECISIONS

            Sometimes when you make a decision you don’t know you are making a change for all time. At other times you know you are making a decision that will not be revoked. When I went to California I thought that I was going there to work for a time and did not know that I would not return to Arkansas to live. When I committed my life to Christ Jesus I knew that that would be a permanent decision. Of course I did not realize how it would affect every area of my being. I did not think this will determine where I work, what kind of work, where I would live or even what amount of money I would receive for my work. But all of these things were affected by my decision to make Christ the Lord of my life. You cannot say truthfully say, “No Lord”. You can tell God no. However, if God is the Lord of your life, you can only truthfully say, “yes Lord.” The reason is simple when you say “no” you are denying His Lordship over your being. By saying, “no” to the Lord you are saying, “You have no right to tell me what to do.”

            When, as a young boy, I repented of my sin; I confessed to God. “I am a sinner; I ask you to forgive me of my sins and come into my life and be my Lord”. I gave up my right to direct my life. The bible says that if you will confess Jesus as Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead you will be saved. Sometimes we say to someone you need to accept Christ as your Savior. The Bible never says that. The Bible says you accept him as Lord. The result of accepting him as Lord is that He then becomes your Savior. There is something fundamentally wrong when you want to be saved for all eternity but not want to have to love Christ enough to accept his Lordship over your life. What woman or man would accept a marriage proposal when the proposal was “I want you to be my lifetime mate but I also want you to know that I will have sexual relationships with other persons when I have the opportunity?”  No one in his or her right mind would consent to such a proposal. God offers salvation on his terms and not ours.

                  I came to Christ as a sinner. Even the good things I did were sin because I was a sinner by choice. My nature was that of a sinner. When I accepted the Lordship of Christ over my life I became, in the Apostle Paul’s words, a saint. This did not happen overnight but the instant Christ entered into my life I became a saint. Paul writes in 1Cor 1:2, “Unto the church of God which is at Corinth, to them that are sanctified in Christ Jesus, called to be saints, with all that in every place call upon the name of Jesus Christ our Lord, both theirs and ours…” (the underlined words are my underlining) As you read the book of 1 Cor you became aware of the sins that this church was struggling with, but Paul did not write to the sinners in Corinth.  He wrote to the saints. He did not call them saints because they lived perfect lives, but because they had been, “sanctified in

Christ Jesus.” There is a difference between a saint who commits a sin and a sinner who can do nothing to please God because of his sin nature. I am a saint who sometimes commits sins for which I am sorry and for which I repent. Our problem with someone saying he is a saint is because of the modern day definition of the word saint. We define the word today as a person who is perfect is his actions. The biblical definition is a person who has been sanctified in Christ Jesus. He is not perfect in himself but has been declared perfect by God because of what Christ did on his behalf.