A Short Testimony

I am grateful for Your faithfulness!

Through the Lord’s mercies we are not consumed,
Because His compassions fail not.
They are new every morning;
Great is Your faithfulness.
“The Lord is my portion,” says my soul,
“Therefore I hope in Him!”

Lamentation 3:22-24

“Therefore, know that the Lord your God, He is God, the faithful God who keeps covenant and mercy for a thousand generations with those who love Him and keep His commandments;

Deuteronomy 7:9

This weekend I was doing the closing shift in a fair booth at the Southern Iowa Fair. We had the usual steady stream of young folks taking the challenge of answering civics questions. Down the way, the Gideons had their booth. One of the men serving down there stopped by to chat. I told him of the part the Gideons had in my Christian life. It later occurred to me that I had not related that testimony here and that it would be good to do so.

My childhood development along the line of faith in God had been mostly laying out in the yard at night with my dad, staring up into the starry expanse. Because of that, I did not question the existence of the Creator. When I was about fifteen, I attended my first “revival” meeting. I was not a church goer. My mother, brother, and I were there because of an invitation from one of her friends. I was somehow moved by the message of the visiting evangelist and went forward at the invitation to give my life to Jesus. Sometime in the next month the pastor baptized me.

I can’t say that I received any significant follow-up or discipling at that time. My teenage life went on pretty much as before.

In 1972, after graduating from high school, the government was still running the draft for Vietnam service. I clearly misunderstood how the lottery worked. (It would have been the 1974 lottery that applied to me, and my number was above the ones that were eventually called.) Nevertheless, to avoid the perceived potential of a muddy foxhole, I joined the NAVY and reported for bootcamp in San Diego in November of 1972. And that is where Gideons International comes in.

The Gideons were presenting all new inductees with a compact New Testament that included Psalms and Proverbs. I had not previously been in the habit of bible reading, but I found that I had the five minutes before lights-out each night in the barracks to myself. I used it to start reading that Bible.

Bootcamp was really the first time I had ever been away from home for any length of time, and the program was designed to be challenging in ways that I had never been tested. As I stood in formation daily, beneath the hills of Point Loma, I remember being struck by one of the Psalms.

I will lift up mine eyes unto the hills, From whence cometh my help. My help cometh from the LORD, Which made heaven and earth.

Psalm 121:1-2

As I already mentioned, I had spent many young hours pondering the endless expanse above. I recognized Him who had made heaven and earth. And as I had come to the end of my own resources, I knew I needed His help! Day after day, I drew much comfort from that passage, standing at attention in formation.

God had placed a man in my bootcamp company (last name, Lambert. Sorry I can’t recall his first name.) who had more spiritual experience than I had. He noticed me reading that Bible which led to some fruitful conversations on the faithfulness of God.

So, if I had not missed any days. Nine weeks of five-minute readings only amount to a little over five hours. I know I used some of those intervals to write home. Nonetheless, God is faithful and He honored that small investment. The course of my life has changed and has not been the same since.

So, thank You Jesus! And thank you Gideons International! And thank you to all who have supported them.

Exclusive Predestination?

I am grateful for the immeasurable love of God!

28 And we know that all things work together for good to those who love God, to those who are the called according to His purpose. 29 For whom He foreknew, He also predestined to be conformed to the image of His Son, that He might be the firstborn among many brethren. 30 Moreover whom He predestined, these He also called; whom He called, these He also justified; and whom He justified, these He also glorified.

Romans 8

Seems there are endless arguments over Bible passages that contain the word “predestined”. I know some denominations take the idea of predestination to mean, “We are included, but perhaps not you.” The idea can be carried so far as to eliminate evangelistic outreach. Even further, that since predestined by an omnipotent God, that the actions of life are irrelevant; essentially erasing personal accountability. (Don’t hear what I am not saying. Not all Calvinist groups are this extreme.) This idea derives from the perspective that the foreknowledge of God is absolute and therefore immutable.

In the Romans 8 passage above, the idea of predestination is surrounded by divine balance. First, it is addressing the heart. Do you love God? As a result, do you want what He wants? What about evidence? Are you becoming conformed to the likeness of Jesus?

While we are here in this passage, lets talk about the foreknowledge of God (verse 29). The omniscience of God extends to continual observation of every created particle in the universe. God is Spirit (John 4:24, among many others). He sees the immaterial, from gravity to energy and attitudes and our very thoughts.

Further, God is eternal. Eternal existence is also a hard concept. I believe that time is created by God regulate the physical universe. Breathe in. Breathe out. Heart, keep beating for some variable number of seconds. Earth rotate and fall around the sun as prescribed by said gravity. Cesium, decay with a half-life of 30 years. God is regulated only by His nature and His word. What He says, is. He is not regulated by His creation, including time. The word “foreknew” in is used because human language doesn’t have a notion of observation that transcends time. Our own perception is limited to the sphere of our focus in the moment we are in. God is not limited. “Predestined” is also framed in our own limitations in the same way as “foreknew”.

The argument that foreknowledge and predestination only applies to certain ones is inexplicable to me. Our Father knows us all (Psalm 139). I defy you to read that Psalm and remain unmoved if you know God in the slightest!

As we talked about this subject today, my wife reminded me that when God answered Moses, when he asked what he should say to the Israelites about His identity, God instructs Moses to tell the Israelites that “I AM has sent me to you,” I find it amusing that Moses was cheeky enough to ask God for His ID. In so doing, though, we have Him clearly establishing His eternal, self-existent nature.

3 Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places in Christ, 4 just as He chose us in Him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and without blame before Him in love, 5 having predestined us to adoption as sons by Jesus Christ to Himself, according to the good pleasure of His will, 6 to the praise of the glory of His grace, by which He made us accepted in the Beloved.

Ephesians 1

Do you see yourself “holy and without blame before Him in love”? If we are “in Christ”, this is true in your spirit, which is now indwelt by Him who has eternally been holy and without blame. Our Father currently sees that truth in our spirit. More, He sees us being progressively transformed as His Word is allowed to work in us (Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 3:18). He sees our ultimate blamelessness. For now, let us offer praise that we are accepted in the Beloved!

11 For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men, 12 teaching us that, denying ungodliness and worldly lusts, we should live soberly, righteously, and godly in the present age, 13 looking for the blessed hope and glorious appearing of our great God and Savior Jesus Christ, 14 who gave Himself for us, that He might redeem us from every lawless deed and purify for Himself His own special people, zealous for good works.

15 Speak these things, exhort, and rebuke with all authority. Let no one despise you.

Titus 2

Titus 2:11 tells us that salvation has appeared to all men. Does that mean, as some teach, that all will be saved? That a loving God would never send anyone to hell? I have heard those who declare they couldn’t serve a deity who would allow his children to go to hell for eternity. But God has extended the invitation to all. Acceptance of the invitation is voluntary. Jesus talked about those who decline in the parable of the wedding feast (Matthew 22:1-14). Note that declining the invitation is not without serious consequence. This fact will not be a mystery to anyone with a wayward child.

6 Now the apostles and elders came together to consider this matter. 7 And when there had been much dispute, Peter rose up and said to them: “Men and brethren, you know that a good while ago God chose among us, that by my mouth the Gentiles should hear the word of the gospel and believe. 8 So God, who knows the heart, acknowledged them by giving them the Holy Spirit, just as He did to us, 9 and made no distinction between us and them, purifying their hearts by faith. 10 Now therefore, why do you test God by putting a yoke on the neck of the disciples which neither our fathers nor we were able to bear? 11 But we believe that through the grace of the Lord Jesus Christ we shall be saved in the same manner as they.”

Acts 15

Here we see the Jewish religious leaders arguing to apply the same burden on Gentile believers that they applied to a convert to Judaism: keep the law. But God (do you love that phrase as much as I do?), had already made clear His acceptance of those who come to Him in faith. Remember, we started this walk through the Scripture examining the idea of evidence of salvation. There is no stronger attestation than the presence of the Holy Spirit. This passage is one more example that God is “no respecter of persons” (Acts 10:34).

8 But, beloved, do not forget this one thing, that with the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day. 9 The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance.

2 Peter 3

God’s will is the salvation of all. He is not going to force any. But He is willing to wait until we come to our senses. The question is, whether we accept His Gift while we are still breathing. The dead have lost the opportunity.

Mom!? We’re Ready!

Barn Swallow Nestlings

Unclean Lips

I am grateful to be able to talk with You!

When the righteous are in authority, the people rejoice;
But when a wicked man rules, the people groan.

Proverbs 29:2

As it is written:

“There is none righteous, no, not one;
There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.
They have all turned aside;
They have together become unprofitable;
There is none who does good, no, not one.”
“Their throat is an open tomb;
With their tongues they have practiced deceit”;
“The poison of asps is under their lips”;
“Whose mouth is full of cursing and bitterness.”
“Their feet are swift to shed blood;
Destruction and misery are in their ways;
and the way of peace they have not known.”
“There is no fear of God before their eyes.”

Now we know that whatever the law says, it says to those who are under the law, that every mouth may be stopped, and all the world may become guilty before God. Therefore by the deeds of the law no flesh will be justified in His sight, for by the law is the knowledge of sin.

Romans 3:10-20, [Ps. 14:3, 53:3]

Me: Good morning, Father!

Abba: Good morning, Jon!

Me: Yesterday, as You know, of course, we listened to many speeches as various ones in authority exclaimed how wonderful our experience has been under their administration. I kept thinking they must be hoping their revisionist history would be accepted as gospel. Indeed, most of the ones in attendance (delegates to the political party state convention) seemed perfectly willing to applaud what was said as though it was as true as if You had uttered it with Your own mouth. With the primary election behind us, some of those talking were new candidates who had no demonstrable history in political office.

Abba: You know the tendency to read into things what one wishes to hear. It is a fundamental reality exploited by shrewd salesmen. You have also learned as an engineer that pointing out likely misrepresentations contained in a sales pitch will get you labeled as a negative naysayer. Predictions coming from long experience will be completely forgotten or ignored if you are proved right and they come to pass, just as you said. You also know the desire to say, “I told you so!” will almost always backfire on the prophet. People don’t wish to have their misjudgments brought to light when the entire cost becomes apparent.

For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then face to face. Now I know in part, but then I shall know just as I also am known.

1 Corinthians 13:12

Isaiah 6 – Unclean Lips

[One partial definition of unclean lips is speaking to elevate self and tear down others.]

See that you do not refuse Him who speaks. For if they did not escape who refused Him who spoke on earth, much more shall we not escape if we turn away from Him who speaks from heaven, whose voice then shook the earth; but now He has promised, saying, “Yet once more I shake not only the earth, but also heaven.” Now this, “Yet once more,” indicates the removal of those things that are being shaken, as of things that are made, that the things which cannot be shaken may remain.

Therefore, since we are receiving a kingdom which cannot be shaken, let us have grace, by which we may serve God acceptably with reverence and godly fear. For our God is a consuming fire.

Hebrews 12:25-29

Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles!  And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body, and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell.

James 3:5-6

Hypocrites! Well did Isaiah prophesy about you, saying:

‘These people draw near to Me with their mouth, And honor Me with their lips, But their heart is far from Me. And in vain they worship Me, Teaching as doctrines the commandments of men.’ ” When He had called the multitude to Himself, He said to them, “Hear and understand: Not what goes into the mouth defiles a man; but what comes out of the mouth, this defiles a man.”

So Jesus said, “Are you also still without understanding? Do you not yet understand that whatever enters the mouth goes into the stomach and is eliminated? But those things which proceed out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile a man. For out of the heart proceed evil thoughts, murders, adulteries, fornications, thefts, false witness, blasphemies. These are the things which defile a man, but to eat with unwashed hands does not defile a man.”

Matthew 15: 7-11, 16-20

 “The heart is deceitful above all things, And desperately wicked; Who can know it?

Jeremiah 17:9

[But God has a plan of salvation:]

I will give you a new heart and put a new spirit within you; I will take the heart of stone out of your flesh and give you a heart of flesh.

Ezekiel 36:26

Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new. Now all things are of God, who has reconciled us to Himself through Jesus Christ, and has given us the ministry of reconciliation, that is, that God was in Christ reconciling the world to Himself, not imputing their trespasses to them, and has committed to us the word of reconciliation.

Now then, we are ambassadors for Christ, as though God were pleading through us: we implore you on Christ’s behalf, be reconciled to God. For He made Him who knew no sin to be sin for us, that we might become the righteousness of God in Him.

2 Corinthians 5:17-21

Me: Thank You Father! I love You! I pray you will help me be a voice of truth and circumspect about what to speak, and when!

Abba: You are welcome! I love you! Listen to My Holy Spirit in your heart. I have promised to give you what you need in the hour you need it.

Out for Dinner

The groundhog that maintains a big earthmoving burrow in my barn is out for dinner this evening. Photo with iPhone 16 at 23X. The structure in the foreground is the top of a “shepherds crook” holding a pair of bird feeders. The critters have it good hereabouts.

ten years ago …

His Dominion

Memorial Day, 2026

Modified Repost from 2023

WWII Army War Dead, Lubbock County Texas

Casualty Codes

My Dad’s older brother John Bennett Stanford was killed in action at Saint Lo France on the 14th of July of 1944 as US troops were fighting to wrest the area back from German control. My grandmother never talked to me about his loss, and my Dad’s mention of it only told me where he was. The graphic above lists the WWII war dead for Lubbock County Texas, for the Army only. The list contains 171 names, with my uncle listed in the second set of the last column. My uncle was far from alone in his sacrifice. There are similar lists for the other branches of the military in the national archives, but I can’t comment on those since I haven’t investigated them. In 1940, the census count for Lubbock County Texas was just over fifty-one thousand.

The Germans were heavily fortified at St. Lo and the fighting was grueling in the period in July known as the Battle of the Hedgerows. There was a subsequent period called Operation Cobra in which many perished from friendly fire, discussed in the linked article.

There is a well-researched article on the battle for Hill 192 which includes my uncle’s regiment. They had failed to take the hill in mid-June with heavy casualties but succeeded July 10th-12th. The date on the John Bennett Stanford’s tombstone is July 14th. If accurate, that would indicate he may have been killed in the fighting to take Saint Lo itself.

He would have been 42 days past his 23rd birthday. I never had the opportunity to know him, as I would not arrive for nearly ten years. I do certainly know that he and the many others who made that sacrifice – to stop the hellish machinations of Hitler from progressing further than we had the power to end them – are owed more gratitude than we typically can muster.

I used to be completely bewildered how the German people would go along with Hitler in seeking to exterminate an entire ethnicity. But now I have seen it working in our own country amid impassioned chants of “from the river to the sea”. Now I know the ease with which the evil one deceives and leads the unguarded heart and unprotected mind to unspeakable ends.

There is a way that seems right to a man, But its end is the way of death.

Proverbs 14:12

And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God:

Ephesians 6:17

When we see organized hate oozing from collage campuses toward the Jews, it ought to make us all mindful of the unthinkable things they endured and the hardships of those seeking to free the survivors.

It is fitting that we should remember these fallen and that we should resist the current efforts to destroy the liberty they died defending. And so today, I remember an uncle I never got to meet. Well I know, there are families all across the land who are doing the same. I pray many will follow the exhortation of Ephesians six to suit-up and stand fast while resisting the hellish ooze.

National Archives link

Newbee

I am grateful for God’s awesome creation in all its myriad parts!

This morning, we fetched the two NUCs we ordered from Bell Farm in Runnells Iowa and did our best to get them installed in their new home. As this is the first time for us to have them we are truly newbees.

Don’t worry! Bee Happy!

Unsearchable?

I am grateful for the inch of rain overnight!

Oh, the depth of the riches both of the wisdom and knowledge of God! How unsearchable are His judgments and His ways past finding out!

Romans 11:33

Me: Good morning, Father!

Abba: Good morning, Jon!

Me: I am amazed at the prevalence of judgments that, “I know best. You, therefore, are wrong. No, not just wrong, but evil.”, that is directed against those who look to You for direction. And yet, You allow these accusations to be made. Your ways really are past finding out.

Abba: Those judgments mostly come from those who deny My existence in spite of evidence (2 Corinthians 4:4, 1 John 2:11). My ways are past finding out by the natural mind. But they are not past being revealed by My Holy Spirit.

But as it is written:

“Eye has not seen, nor ear heard,
Nor have entered into the heart of man
The things which God has prepared for those who love Him.”

But God has revealed them to us through His Spirit. For the Spirit searches all things, yes, the deep things of God. For what man knows the things of a man except the spirit of the man which is in him? Even so no one knows the things of God except the Spirit of God. Now we have received, not the spirit of the world, but the Spirit who is from God, that we might know the things that have been freely given to us by God.

These things we also speak, not in words which man’s wisdom teaches but which the Holy Spirit teaches, comparing spiritual things with spiritual. But the natural man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned. But he who is spiritual judges all things, yet he himself is rightly judged by no one. For “who has known the mind of the Lord that he may instruct Him?” But we have the mind of

Christ. 1 Corinthians 2:9-16

Now, this is the reason you are called to be “transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 4:4) such that the things which Jesus knows, and are resident in your born-again spirit, might begin to work in your physical brain.

This is a process of alignment. An attitude adjustment accompanied by learning and cemented by consistent practice. Do not miss the fact, therefore, that disobedience (sin) carries a message that is counter to the mind of Christ. The progress you make is dependent upon what you reinforce daily. In this, you now have a choice, for Jesus came to break the power of sin. [1 John 3:8, Romans 6:10, Hebrews 2:14, John 8:36]

Me: Thank You, Father! I love You!

Abba: You are welcome! I love you!

Photo by Daniel Reche on Pexels.com

Persuasion by Fear

I am grateful for Holy-Spirit guidance as well as the written word!

“The lamp of the body is the eye. If therefore your eye is good [clear, healthy], your whole body will be full of light. But if your eye is bad [evil, unhealthy], your whole body will be full of darkness. If therefore the light that is in you is darkness, how great is that darkness!
“No one can serve two masters; for either he will hate the one and love the other, or else he will be loyal to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve God and mammon [Aramaic, riches].

Matthew 6:22-24


Me: Good morning, Father!

ABBA: Good morning, Jon!

Me: You know the situation that brought this passage in Matthew 6 forward this week: the assertion from [a pastor] that, “If you think you are being fed light from another, and if it is really darkness, then it is impossible to come back from that deception.” And that following being subjected to an impassioned candidate speech that had discernment alarms going off. (Thank You for that!)

Abba: Here is a related principle:

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!
Woe to those who are wise in their own eyes,
And prudent in their own sight!

Isaiah 5:20-21

For the people do not turn to Him who strikes them,
Nor do they seek the Lord of hosts.
Therefore the Lord will cut off head and tail from Israel,
Palm branch and bulrush in one day.
The elder and honorable, he is the head;
The prophet who teaches lies, he is the tail.
For the leaders of this people cause them to err,
And those who are led by them are destroyed.

Isaiah 9:16


Me: Those are strong words!

Abba: As they should be! You have noted the speeches of those seeking to persuade are full of enumerations of things to fear; “if you don’t drop your loyalty to the candidate (and friend) you are supporting and throw in with us, then this whole fearful sequence of events will certainly occur and then you’ll be sorry!” [Quick summary paraphrase of the speech content in honor of your valuable time, dear reader.]

Me: Yes, I am certain you revealed that to me by your spirit!

Abba: “Fear not” is the most repeated command in the Scriptures. Jesus often said it. He saw it in the Scriptures He had:

Fear not, for I am with you;
Be not dismayed, for I am your God.
I will strengthen you,
Yes, I will help you,
I will uphold you with My righteous right hand.’

Isaiah 41:10 [see also verses 11 – 20]

Have I not commanded you? Be strong and of good courage; do not be afraid, nor be dismayed, for the Lord your God is with you wherever you go.”

Joshua 1:9

So, when one tries to persuade you to abandon the course you were walking with Me by citing things to fear, you can be certain they are not speaking for Me. I am not calling you to weak knees or fearful glances to the left and right. I’m calling you to be of good courage. Lean on me. Look to My way. I will never leave you nor forsake you!

Me: Thank you Father! I love you!

Abba: You are welcome! I love you!

Photo by Pixabay on Pexels.com