Thoughts from Mark "Hat" Rackley

John said to the crowds coming out to be baptized by him, “You brood of vipers! Who warned you to flee from the coming wrath? Produce fruit in keeping with repentance. And do not begin to say to yourselves, ‘We have Abraham as our father.’ For I tell you that out of these stones God can raise up children for Abraham. The ax is already at the root of the trees, and every tree that does not produce good fruit will be cut down and thrown into the fire.”

• Luke 3:7-9

To the Jews who had believed him, Jesus said, “If you hold to my teaching, you are really my disciples. Then you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free.”
They answered him, “We are Abraham’s descendants and have never been slaves of anyone. How can you say that we shall be set free?”
Jesus replied, “Very truly I tell you, everyone who sins is a slave to sin. Now a slave has no permanent place in the family, but a son belongs to it forever. So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. I know that you are Abraham’s descendants. Yet you are looking for a way to kill me, because you have no room for my word. I am telling you what I have seen in the Father’s presence, and you are doing what you have heard from your father.”
“Abraham is our father,” they answered.
“If you were Abraham’s children,” said Jesus, “then you would do what Abraham did. As it is, you are looking for a way to kill me, a man who has told you the truth that I heard from God. Abraham did not do such things. You are doing the works of your own father.”
“We are not illegitimate children,” they protested. “The only Father we have is God himself.”
Jesus said to them, “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I have come here from God. I have not come on my own; God sent me. Why is my language not clear to you? Because you are unable to hear what I say. You belong to your father, the devil, and you want to carry out your father’s desires. He was a murderer from the beginning, not holding to the truth, for there is no truth in him. When he lies, he speaks his native language, for he is a liar and the father of lies. Yet because I tell the truth, you do not believe me! Can any of you prove me guilty of sin? If I am telling the truth, why don’t you believe me? Whoever belongs to God hears what God says. The reason you do not hear is that you do not belong to God.”

• John 8:31-47

My mother was into genealogy in a big way.  For my Dad’s side of the family, she found someone who was writing a book and searching down the branch of the family tree that she was climbing.  In the process, my father’s family line dates back to the first settlers of the Jamestown colony, long before Plymouth Rock.

On my father’s mother’s side of the family, my mother found an interesting court case.  One of my ancestors was the sheriff of Albemarle County in Virginia.  Working for the British, he was put on trial after the revolution for aiding the enemy.  But his first cousin, Thomas Jefferson, was his lawyer in the trial.  Jefferson, the third president of the USA, showed evidence that his cousin, my ancestor stored gunpowder in his basement to support the revolution, and in cases that Sheriff Henderson brought before the court, a Tory was given the maximum sentence while the ones sympathetic to the revolution were given light sentences or the case was dismissed.  The charges were dropped.

Oddly, my mother never found anything about her father’s family line and much of her mother’s family line went up in smoke – multiple courthouse fires.  Her father said, “Don’t look.  You might find a horse thief.”  And they found someone from Scotland with the same name.  They wrote to him and he said the same thing.  So, the warning had been around for centuries.

So, why look?

John the Baptist said that God can turn rocks into descendants of Abraham.  Jesus talked to the Jews who claimed to be descendants of Abraham, but Jesus said they were slaves of sin, and their father was Satan.

So, what?!  I have a first cousin of one of my ancestors who was the third president of the United States, and my family line dates back in this country to May 13, 1607 when the Jamestown Colony was founded.  But as the saying goes, what have you done for me lately?  I once set up a training department, developing all the rules and procedures, reviewing and approving every textbook, etc.  And the boss came by my office after basking in the glow of a job well done for less than a week and he asked, “What have you done for me lately?”

When you haven’t done something monumental during any given week and you are considered falling short, why do we look at something that happened to someone in our family tree 250 years ago or even over 400 years ago?

I think Casting Crowns said it best in Only Jesus.

Even if my grandchildren do great and wonderful things, I would want them to have the same desire that I have.  Do not see my accomplishments.  Do not look at my ancestry (or you might find a horse thief).  I want them to see Jesus.

Soli Deo Gloria.  Only to God be the Glory.