What a week.  Started with a visit from Wendy and Rose on their drive to Pullman and again when they came back through.

The Steven, Celinda and CeeCee stopped by and we had a nice visit with them.  CeeCee is getting so big.  She is still one of the most active kids I have been around.  She is a pretty sharp little gal.

Then Velma came by and visited us for a couple three hours today.

Deed, you coming by tomorrow??

Poor Blaze he didn’t know what to do with all these visitors, but his kennel was a nice retreat.  He got his haircut today so he looks like a schnauzer again – even if he doesn’t understand what a dog is supposed to do, he at least looks like a well-groomed one now.

1 John 4:9-10  In this was manifested the love of God toward us, because that God sent his only begotten Son into the world, that we might live through him.

¹⁰ Herein is love, not that we loved God, but that he loved us, and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins.

1 John 4:19 We love him, because he first loved us.

We read over and over again in the Old Testament of how God made His covenant with the Israelites, they agreed to His terms and then turned away from Him.

God didn’t break His covenant with the Israelites; it was the Israelites that turn away from God:

Judges 2:1 And an angel of the Lord came up from Gilgal to Bochim, and said, I made you to go up out of Egypt, and have brought you unto the land which I sware unto your fathers; and I said, I will never break my covenant with you.

Yet, we also read, over and over again, that when they came back to Him in sincere repentance, He opened His arms and accepted them.  He would raise up men to be leaders and defeat their enemies.

The Jews were His people.  Their heritage came from Abraham and while Abraham had two sons, Isaac and Ishmael, only Isaac was born to Sarah who was to be the mother of God’s chosen people.  In them He gave greatness, love and protection – as long as they obeyed Him. 

Yet, He had not forgotten the rest of the world.  When the time came – His time, which is not measured as we may understand – He sent His Son to teach and save the Jews, first, but it was also to allow the rest of us a means to salvation and eternal life with Him.

It is only because He loved us so much; it is only because He gave His Son to die for us that we have come to know God.

We could not know Him without His great love for us – and because, through Christ we do know Him we have learned to love Him.

It is an amazing thing.  God knows us.  God knows our strengths and weaknesses.  He knows who will follow Him until He calls them home and who will either reject Him or fall away from Him.

We have no conception of how this is possible, right now we have 6 -7 billion people on earth – with several billion who have gone on before us. 

How He can possibly know each individual is far beyond our comprehension.  Yet, not only does He know each and every one of us, He loves us and wants us to come to Him through His Son, Jesus.

As humans it is impossible, with God all things are possible.

It is interesting how man has developed ways to try and do what God does.  It is a far cry from what God does, but it gives us an understanding and glimmer of what is possible – much of which has occurred in the past couple of decades.

Personal computers, in one form or another, abound in this world.  In milliseconds we can have contact with anyone else in the world.

There are massive computers compiling and dissecting millions of pieces of information on people, from all over the world, in a matter of minutes. 

We shop, computers are told what we purchased, when we purchased, how we purchased it.  The computers then compare it with other things we have done and distribute to other computers that information, so businesses can better direct their advertisement to us – and who knows what else.

Businesses have access to our information, individuals have access to our information AND governments, not only ours but any other that has access to these servers.  Some people are so connected on the web that everything they do is monitored by someone.

Yet, just like the body itself, no one has been able to come close to duplicating what God gave His creations. 

Mankind is making computers and things operated by them smaller all the time.  Yet, they cannot come close to the complexity of God’s creation in even the smallest cell.

But, in all of that, He treats each of us as individuals, and He loves each of us as individuals.  How can we not but love Him?

Later, Art

From the ColumbiaRiverGorgeous
May Our Good Lord Bless and Keep YOU....’til we meet again