Dear Family and Friends,

 It’s December 12, 2023 as I write this letter, the temperature is currently 38 degrees and rain is on the way. According to my weather app, there is a 57% chance today, 91% tomorrow and 82% on Friday! Actually, we are going to have a mild and possibly wet Christmas with highs in the lower to high 50’s, if Accu Weather is correct. What a wonderful blessing from Heaven! Hopefully this land is on the way out of a 3 year+ drought!

 Kids are growing up and families are branching out, yet we still take the time to honor our Oak Family Christmas. This year on Saturday, December 16, 2023, it will be the 65^Th year we have celebrated it in this house! Our celebration is much like the old TV show, The Waltons. Everyone brings a covered dish to share... so much food... from lasagna to every dessert one can imagine!

 While a slide show of past Oak Family Christmases plays on the TV in the background, we enjoy the memories as we visit. Some are playing Ping-Pong, others a game of cards but the highlight is the reading of the story of the Christ Child from Luke chapter 2 out of the Holy Bible. After the reading of the scriptures, we join our voices together as we sing old familiar Christmas carols. It is partly tradition and partly love of family that brings us together. What an amazing legacy for our children, grandchildren and great grandchildren to witness in this broken world!

 Yes, God is LOVE and families were His idea...His best expression of LOVE! He was the first Father to give away the bride. According to Psalm 139, Father God wrote a book about every person ever conceived BEFORE He created the universe and then the worlds! The title of each book is that person’s name! (So, even if you think your name came from your parents...it really was implanted in their minds by Father God!) these books were placed on a shelf in the Heavenly library along with the books about the creation of the lands, the boundary’s where each person would live, the time and season of their life. Nothing is random.

 We can read a short story in the book of Genesis about creation. When God took a pile of earth and formed a human being, just as a sculptor would form a piece of art, He made the human being in His image... the human actually looked like His Father God! When God blew His Holy Breath, a part of His Spirit, into the human being... it became a living, breathing man!

 We know from the scriptures that evil has been present in this world for thousands of years... it’s a broken world. If we continue to read the Holy Bible, we get a picture of history and why we are here on this present earth. When we believe the WORD of God, repent from our sins, and receive Jesus Christ as our personal savior and are born again, baptized in the Spirit, then God gives His angels instructions to get our book down off the shelf.

 God has written in each book all of His hopes, dreams and desires for our life here on earth.. every detail and not one thing was bad! We activate His divine help, His ministering and warring angels when we accept Jesus as our Savior and are obedient to His WORD. He instructs them to come to earth and help us get on the pathway He has written about our life. We must remember that God equates LOVE with obedience. (John 14:15: If you love me, then obey me)

 Three things Jesus said were important. The first are the two greatest commandments... we are to love the LORD our God above all things and to Love our neighbor as you love yourself. The second is to confess our sins and repent...turn away from repeating the things we are repenting from. The third is to forgive those who have caused us harm in any way. If we do not forgive others God will not forgive us.

(Matthew chapter 6: 14-15: “For if you forgive men their trespasses, your heavenly Father will also forgive you, but if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses.”)

 It was the price of the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ ... it was His shed blood on the cross that caused God to forgive all human beings for their sins. That is why the angels sang “Glory to God in the highest... Peace on earth and good will to man”, when they announced the birth of the Savior to the shepherds. God was no longer angry with all humans because His only begotten Son was come to earth as a human being to redeem us back into the Family of God!

 Our time here on earth is only a very thin line in eternity. I guess you could say that we are actually qualifying for our position in the coming 1000-year reign of Jesus Christ here on earth... as it is written in the book of Revelation.

 Revelation 20:1: “And I saw an angel come down from heaven, having the key of the bottomless pit and a great chain in his hand. And he laid hold on the dragon, that old serpent, which is the Devil, and Satan, and bound him a thousand years, And cast him into the bottomless pit, and shut him up, and set a seal upon him, that he should deceive the nations no more, till the thousand years should be fulfilled: and after that he must be loosed a little season.”

 Time is short...much shorter today than it was 2000 years ago! Someday very soon Jesus will return for His brothers and sisters who have believed in Him. My prayer for you all is that if you have not received Jesus as your Savior... that you consider the cost and choose wisely. We cannot change the past, but God says that when we repent of our sins, He does not remember them... they do not exist. Today exists, and the future is waiting for us. In the Holy Bible, Romans chapter 8:1, it literally says that there is NO file anywhere of your sins.. repented sins are erased and there is no evidence against you in the courts of Heaven! Jesus’s precious blood has covered every sin! It is as if they never were! You are clean and holy because of Jesus’ blood shed for the remission of all sin in every age known to man...past, present and future!

 What an amazing gift! Glory, Honor and Praise to the God of Abraham, Issac and Jacob! Thank you Jesus for laying aside your kingship in Heaven and coming to earth to redeem us back into the Family of God! Surely, our God is a God of compassion, LOVE, Peace, Joy, Mercy and Grace! He is also the God who repays our enemies for the bad, unlawful and unfair things done to His children. He does this in His own timing. He says that vengeance is His to repay, we are to love our enemy and pray for them to come to know Jesus... because every human being was formed with great love in the image of our Awesome God and He loves everyone... not desiring that anyone should perish, but that everyone would be saved and live with Him forever as His Family.

 Merry and Blessed Christmas from my house to your house and a Happy and prosperous New Year!!!

Many Blessing, Much Love, 

Karen

 

 

 2023 - Loui and me

The LORD has been good to me!  I will be 72 in April and Loui will be 1 year and 4 months old.  We make a good team.  When I pray and shout Hallelujah.... Loui walks on his hind feet and jumps up with his front paws in the air barking his own hallelujah!  Loui was a birthday gift last year from one of my sons and his family.  What a surprise he was!  

Love and blessings from my house to yours!

Karen

Which Bible Version???

 Hello Friends!  

It's been quite the ride for the past several years!  I hope you are all blessed in every way!  We have all gone through trials and tribulations as the world around us has dramatically changed in a very short amount of time!  Many of us have lost family members and friends in this season of COVID and other illnesses. 

As we search for answers in this brave new world of technology.... we find that facts change as knowledge increases.  We also find that absolute truth does not change!  For example; if you toss a rubber ball in the air, it will come down...somewhere... because gravity pulls it down. That is truth.  There are books classified as fiction and nonfiction plus various other sub-classifications.  The division of books is made by what the written material applies to... does it apply to the imagination, to the application of a principle or project and so on.

A friend and I were talking the other day about Bible versions.  My friend had the Bible which the LORD brought to her attention.  It wasn't the same version I had, so I was wondering how many others are wondering which Bible version is the right Bible?  

The first Bible God led me to was "The Way". Then a friend bought me a KJV, like hers.... which I had trouble understanding, but I finally got it! I just kept reading until it finally made sense to me! It was quite a process, as I had to unlearn “religious” ideas in order to understand what I was reading!

Then, I became a KJV only for many years. I started using other versions, mostly online... mainly the Amplified because I was digging deep into Genesis, and I had a lot of questions! All of that deep digging led me to the other history books that did not make into the Bible.

 A very dear friend wanted me to get “The Passion Bible” for a couple of years before I actually bought a copy. Then, as I began to read it, I started to understand why. Much of it is translated from the Aramaic, which was the street language of the area in which Jesus lived and taught. It would probably have been the language he spoke in the most. The whole Bible is not taken from one language, but several. Some words have no English translation and many Hebrew idioms have more than one meaning! It takes time to do early language studies, Hebrew, Greek, Aramaic and probably the best version we have today is the KJV. A lot of men paid with their lives to have it assembled and printed!

 It has been my experience that God brings us to the Bible version we need at exactly the right time! When we are ready to expand our mind to different concepts, it seems He brings us to the versions we need to understand what He is showing us. It’s important to remember, we look at the Words of the Bibles we are reading through the filter of the knowledge we have at the time.

 The WORD says when you ask for wisdom & knowledge... ask for understanding. So, there are times, when one version just doesn't help get the point across. Sometimes we need to do research... using a concordance and other reference books, history books, other Bible versions to get the context of the portion we are reading in relation to the time it was written and the time we are living. God speaks to us in many ways, but we can only know Him through our relationship with His only begotten Son, Jesus the Messiah. God gave us Jesus and Jesus gave us His Holy Spirit. It is written that the Holy Spirit will give us understanding of the Holy Bible and... without the guidance of Holy Spirit, the Word of God does not make sense. If we seek Him with all our heart, we will find Him! HE is Jesus, who actually is The Way, The Truth and The LIFE.

 As we get a better understanding of God's intentions, we ask different questions, just as a child asks simple questions, but more complicated as they grow up in understanding.

I think, there is enough information in most Bible versions... even in the NIV, to give people the basic concepts of God, Jesus and Holy Spirit. This is probably enough to lead them to the point of salvation. But there is so much more! In the book of Proverbs, it is written:

(King James Bible)

Proverbs of Solomon:

Proverbs 25:1,2

 1. These are also proverbs of Solomon, which the men of Hezekiah king of Judah copied out.

2. It is the glory of God to conceal a thing: but the honour of kings is to search out a matter.

 God really does hide things in His Word to be revealed to those who love Him enough to search it out!

 When I was KJV only... I didn't realize that I had made it "the Law"... I would not listen to or read any other version because I had been deceived by the religious rules of different churches. I thought I now had the only truth with the words written in the King James Version. Sadly, may of the rules of the religious churches I had belonged to did not line up with the written word of the KJV. I wanted to know the TRUTH! 

 I wanted to know the truth because I was tired of being lied to or led astray by a wrong interpretation. I thought the KJV would be that TRUTH. But I was making it a "letter of the law" to live by and putting it above the real TRUTH, WAY & LIFE... who is JESUS! I was not baptized in the Holy Spirit early on in my life. I guess that is why I thought I needed to live by the law of the word! Without realizing it, I had become as religious as the religious rulers I was trying to get away from!

The BIBLE says the letter of the law kills, but the SPIRIT gives life.

Where the Spirit is there is freedom! We have the freedom to love and with the help of our GOD, to live our lives in peace, joy and grace... no matter what is going in the world during our time here on this present earth! What an amazing gift we have been given... the freedom to choose eternal life with our Father GOD through the redemptive sacrifice of Jesus!

If you do not know about Jesus and what He did. You can read about Him in the book of John. The book of Hebrews is another excellent portray of what Jesus did.  The Passion Bible is a good easy to read way to start learning about Jesus. The numerous footnotes are especially helpful. There are other versions that are easy to read... even the King James Version isn’t too difficult, once you get over the old-style English! We don’t talk in the words of “Thee & Thou, thy and thine”... our English language has changed and so have the meaning of many words. There is no Bible version translated perfectly by man because not all of the original transcripts have survived intact. However, in recent years, with the discovery of the Dead Sea Scrolls, there is absolute confirmation of some of the books of the Bible. There are hundreds of Bible Versions today.  It is sad that many have taken away and/or added to the Bible in order to copyright that particular version.  

When GOD speaks, stuff happens!  We are instructed by GOD not to add to or to take away from His WORD!  (There is a most severe penalty for doing so). GOD has promised that Holy Spirit will guide us in all truth.  Holy Spirit will show us the way to go. We must trust Him.  It is impossible for GOD to lie. 

We must have the guidance of Holy Spirit to choose which Bible we should begin to read.  It is Holy Spirit that gives the understanding. Every WORD in the Bible was absolutely inspired by GOD and given to His prophets and Apostles to record! Every WORD of GOD is a LIVING WORD.  I sometimes think of my Bible as having layers.... each time I read the WORD; my understanding is enlightened a little more.  Many times, Holy Spirit will tell me to "look up or search out" a single word or even a passage to get a better understanding of what I am reading. 

I will leave you with this:  If you are not sure about GOD, JESUS and HOLY SPIRIT, GOD says to ask Him.  He is more ready to answer your questions than you are to ask.  Sometimes, we don't even know the questions to ask.  In this case... one word will suffice.  HELP!  GOD hears you because HE loves you with an everlasting love... there is no place where HE cannot find you or help you.  

Love and Blessings to All,

Karen