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Born Again

I had my dna tested for genealogical purposes at ancestry.com and you’ll never guess my background. 38% Irish was the highest reading. No surprise there. Little strawberry blonde girl with freckles on her nose with white skin that sunburns easily and green eyes. Yes that’s me.

Then there is the 25% Scandinavia, 23% Western Europe, followed with Italy/Greece, Britian, Finland/Russia, and a tiny amount of less than 1% Native American, which is after all some Native American.

I am very sentimental about things like this, and I am not the only one. It was very important to the Jewish people to be able to trace their own genealogy. Now when you bring up the subject of genealogy, there is always one person who mentions the quote from the Bible about endless genealogies.

Paul tells Timothy in First Timothy 1:4, “ nor give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which cause disputes rather than godly edification which is in faith.”

As I understand this scripture, Paul is not saying we can’t trace our family tree, but that we shouldn’t base our salvation on our genealogy, as the Jewish people did. They traced their family tree back to the Patriarchs, as descendants of Abraham, and looked to that ancestry as the basis of their salvation.

On what are you basing your salvation? Do you consider yourself a Christian because you live in what has always been considered a Christian nation? Do you believe that because your family has belonged to the same church or denomination for generations then that means you are a Christian? Perhaps you consider yourself a Christian because you were born into a Christian family and reared in a Christian home.

However we must consider what Jesus had to say about it. A man came to Jesus at night and asked, “What must I do to be saved?”

Jesus answered and said to him, “Truly, truly, I say to you, unless one is born again he cannot see the kingdom of God.” John 3:3.

You were born into an earthly family and that is your genealogy; you must be born again into the family of God and that is your salvation.

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Important Keepsakes

I’ll never forget how excited I was to be buying my class ring when I was a junior at Vinita High School. I saved up my tips and paychecks from waitressing until I had the $25 it took to order one. There were no choices—you either bought a girl’s class ring or a boy’s. The Vinita Hornet blue was the color of the stone and it was rounded on top and oval shaped. On the sides were your initials and the class graduation year. My ring disappeared in the summer of 1968 and was never seen again. Someone probably pawned it.
I also bought a yearbook every year. I paid for my own yearbooks from 7th grade through my Senior year. Still have all those.
I have all the Bibles I have ever owned too. Mom gave me a Bible when I was baptized at age 9, a white leather Bible where I wrote my Baptism date and other important information I wanted to remember. She gave me one when I was in about 8th grade and another when I graduated high school along with a second-hand sewing machine.
In 1988, during church my good friend Nancy wrote me a note suggesting that I needed a new Bible since I was still using the one Mom got me in 1967. Of course, there were quite a few years in between when I didn’t use it very much, but after I rededicated my life to the Lord in 1977, I started reading my Bible every day and writing notes in a notebook that I kept. I also still have all those notebooks, year after year, where I wrote all the verses I studied and what God had shown me through those verses.
Maybe you all aren’t quite as sentimental as I am, but there are just some things that are important to keep. Now and then someone talks about giving your old Bibles to the poor in Africa, but if it’s all the same to you, I’ll keep mine and give you some money to buy those poor people their own new Bible.
“Thy word is a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path.” Psalm 119:105 KJV.