Too Easy

I've been trying to trace the children and grandchildren of a man who died in 1757. He had 17 children and information on some of them is pretty sketchy. I had started working on it awhile back and then dropped it for other things. A couple weeks ago someone asked a question that made me pull it out and work on it again.

I made a fair amount of progress but could not find proof for the marriages of a couple of the girls. The genealogy books where they are found do not say where they got the names of the husbands. I made a list of things to look for and spent yesterday at the historical society at Lancaster looking for something to confirm those marriages. No luck. I gave up and went home convinced the names of those men could not be documented.

After I got home I went through things some more and finally pulled a book of abstracts of Orphans Court records off my shelf. And there they were! The husbands were listed in the distribution of the estate of their father-in-law in 1789. There is proof after all, and it was right on my shelf at home all the time.

I got to thinking----how often do we miss something because it's too easy? I'm studying John 3 to teach Sunday school this week. Nicodemus came to Jesus asking questions. He believed Jesus had come from God but did not understand the new birth and eternal life.  Just believe? Surely it can't be that easy. Don't we have to DO something first to be worthy of salvation?

The Jews missed the Messiah because He didn't come the way they expected. A poor man from an obscure village is the Messiah? A carpenter? A bachelor with no wife or children? A man who has no interest in overthrowing the Roman government? How is he going to save us if he doesn't fight the Romans?

Jesus did not come to set up an earthly government. He came to establish a spiritual kingdom that has no end. "For God so loved the world that he gave his only begotten Son that whosoever believeth in him should not perish but have everlasting life."  Eternal life is a gift from God for everyone in the whole world. But you have to accept it. It's that simple!