“OF GOD”

1 John 3: 1-9; Romans 8: 9-15; 1 Corinthians 1: 1-3, 27-31

P.M. I have been thinking a little as to this reference in 1 Corinthians 1. “But of him are ye in Christ Jesus”, and I wondered if we might get some help together by looking at what is of God. We are conscious constantly of what is of ourselves and what is of nature, but to get some impression of what is of God is important in the day in which we are. What is of God is perfect; it must be so; it was so in the creation. What God created was perfect; you could not think of it being otherwise. It is so too in new creation. We are in mixed conditions, because what is in ourselves according to nature is not perfect, but what is of God is perfect. John speaks as to the children of God, “now are we children of God”. The footnote helps us – it is not the diminutive thought, it is character, what takes character from God. We are here in the scene of testimony as the children of God. He says, “what we shall be has not yet been manifested” – I think we would get some impression of how Christ in His excellence and perfection will give character to that which is according to God when He is manifested. Then he goes on, “Whoever abides in him, does not sin” – I believe we shall get some impression of the glory of Christ as we speak of these things. You can never say that He was a child of God, scripture does not say that, but He was of God and as of God gives character to all that God is securing for His own pleasure as here in the scene of testimony.

In Romans 8 we are “sons of God”, we are not living according to flesh (they that live according to flesh are about to die), but according to the Spirit, and he says, “for as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”.

When we come to Corinth it is the “assembly of God”. We need hardly say that we could not claim to be the assembly of God, but the character of it remains, “the assembly of God”. It is not presented here as Christ’s assembly – that brings out His ownership – but the character of God is seen in the assembly of God. It may be basic but I wondered if the Lord might just help us because sometimes when seeking to aim for the heights of the truth we need to be brought back to what is fundamental; we can never leave it behind.

P.L.J. I suppose as children of God it would not only be derivative, but moral character. Sonship is more established.

P.M. That is helpful. The children of God brings out the character of what we are, not exactly in the Father’s house, but what we are in the scene of testimony. It is really the moral features coming into expression which are in keep with the holiness of God.

P.L.J. Sonship would be more in connection with what we are in the house of God, would it not? That is not so much as to what we are as to moral character in this world, but it is what we are as to our status.

P.M. In relation to our heavenly portion, the bondman abides not in the house for ever, but the son abides for ever. Sonship relates to our place in the Father’s house. From one point of view we are never outside the Father’s house, we live in the enjoyment of it. The children of God relates more to the testimonial sphere. So he says, “See what love the Father has given to us, that we should be called the children of God. For this reason the world knows us not, because it knew him not”. There is that character in men and women here that is like Christ that the world does not know.

P.L.J. I think the important feature is that as children of God we are derived from God rather than human nature. In other words an unbeliever has nothing other than what is derived from human nature, but we have a different character derived of God.

P.M. We might ask how that has been formed because in verse 9 he speaks as to “his seed abides in him”. He says, “Whoever has been begotten of God does not practise sin, because his seed abides in him, and he cannot sin, because he has been begotten of God”.

P.L.J. There is that in every believer that cannot sin.

P.M. Yes, and the practical entrance into and enjoyment of that is dependent on our abiding in Christ.

D.M.W. Does the thought of representation enter into the children of God?

P.L.J. That would be involved in it, do you think?

P.M. Representation in the scene in which everything is against God morally, but there is that here in men that is representative of God, there is that in them that cannot sin.

D.M.W. Is it the life of God coming out in them?

P.M. I wondered that. That is why we have the reference to what is yet to be manifested. John is looking on to what we shall be actually when Christ comes, but morally that is already here in expression. Is that what you are thinking?

D.M.W. I was wondering too if we could relate to what is natural. We come from the house and carry it with us, the character of the family and what is normal, the love of the Father would motivate us in remaining in the character of what we honour in the house.

P.M. As linking on with the family side which John develops in this epistle. The family side is most important because John’s presentation of it relates to the moral work of God in the souls of the saints so that there is that here which is really taking character from God Himself and disseminates in relationships in the family of God.

H.G.H. The word “called”, would involve the thought of calling, our calling?

P.M. I think it is more than that. It is what God Himself is pleased to own as His own, that we should be called the children of God. You get a similar thought as to the sanctified, “not ashamed to call them brethren”, Heb 2: 11. I think that is more what is involved here. God loves to claim His own work because it is perfect here.

P.L.J. What would you say in regard to the fact that in scripture we do not have ‘child of God’, it is always “children of God”? I know in Christendom it is a common expression, ‘child of God’, but I do not think that expression occurs.

P.M. No, because John presents it in the family. It involves what God is working out collectively in men. We are children of God. We are not just taken up here as individuals, although we come into everything individually in Christianity. But what God has in view is the collective representation of Himself in moral character.

P.L.J. In a sense it could not be just an individual.

P.M. No. It requires more than that. There is that here in the family side in John. John is not giving us the teaching of the assembly, he does not give us the doctrine of things. We were saying this privately the other evening, John does not give us the teaching of the assembly, but he gives us the character of it. It seems to me that there is moral character coming out in men and women here collectively that is representative of God Himself and finds its expression in the assembly.

D.M.W. Could we think of one another as belonging to this family? It is right to refer to one another as beloved, not as child.

P.L.J. As being the children of God?

D.M.W. Yes, it says “Beloved, now are we children of God”; we are together in it. Is it a representative thought more of the family as referring to one another as beloved?

P.M. And it would help us in the respect that is due to one another. We would look round a company like this and men would say, ‘what a mixed bunch’, but what is here is of God. We look at one another, we are not looking at what is natural, we are looking deeper than that – “the children of God”. There is what is great in the work of God. What could be greater? It would help us to respect one another, how we speak to one another, how we hold one another.

K.A.K. Is that really what caused Israel to miss Christ? They observed a lowly man and saw Him as someone who was nobody, even seek to look at His origin, “Can anything good come out of Nazareth?”, John 1: 46. They missed that moral character and what underlay it, not looking at that side of things. God looks at the heart.

P.M. That is helpful. Isaiah 53 “there is no beauty that we should desire him” (v.2).

K.A.K. We have to look at one another that way. We have to view the work of God in every person.

P.M. I think it would help us to hold the saints at the true level. The Lord sees fit to pass us through exercises collectively and individually and if we are not careful we may lower our view of the saints, but the Lord would raise it. What He is working out is of Himself. The reason that those exercises arise and tests arise is because the work of God is here. If it was a company of persons in whom there was no work of God, the enemy would not seek to touch it, but it is because what is of God is here that the enemy is intent on spoiling it, because he is seeking to rob God. That should help us in the way that we face things and the way we speak of one another, in our homes particularly, that we are speaking of those that are the children and the sons of God.

D.M.W. It would help us, not only in our conversations, but when perhaps we might disappoint one another, to look through that, in a sense, and know that the work of God is there. We may not have measured up to that, or perhaps not maintained that moral character of the family, yet we would know in our minds and in our hearts that the work was there. Would that help us elevate our thoughts and not just be critical of the failures or the disappointments that we might have of what persons might do or not do?

P.M. If I could just give something of my own experience, when I was a young man we were going through a difficult time, and my father said to me, ‘speak to the Lord about the brethren, and speak to the brethren about the Lord’. There is safety in that and there is safety in that in our homes. It would help us in what you say. You cannot criticise the brethren to the Lord because he says they are mine, “now are we children of God”. What moral dignity is marking the saints of God, “now are we children of God”; what we shall be has not yet been manifested, but the moral character is already here in expression.

K.A.K. I remember a time when there were certain hymns that were not sung because perhaps of the status of the person, but the hymn was written in the appreciation of the person’s love of the Lord and even though the person may fail, that hymn goes through. I am just using this as a practical illustration of what you are drawing attention to.

P.M. When the temple was being built and the tabernacle constructed, what individuals brought was consecrated in view of that. The persons themselves failed. You see that particularly in relation to the tabernacle; those that brought the offerings of gold and silver failed afterwards, and in fact their bodies were strewn in the wilderness, but what was consecrated remained there for God. I think that bears on what you say.

K.A.K. There is something that is to be found in us of that character, “of him are ye in Christ Jesus”, coming back to what you started with. Do you think that would go through even though we may fail outwardly?

P.M. I think so and who of us does not find that? Some of us can look back at our histories – what failure there has been, privately, and collectively, and yet you can come back to that verse, “of him are ye in Christ Jesus, who has been made to us wisdom from God”. We will come to that, if the Lord helps us. That there is that here which is in the work of God which cannot fail, “because his seed abides in him”.

D.M.W. I think it has been said, and I repeat it because I believe that it is right, that this is the greatest thought that there is on our side because it is a generation of God. You cannot get anything greater than that.

P.M. I think we need just to dwell on that for a moment, that there is what is here that is of God and it is morally in conformity with what He had in Christ. Now, could there be anything greater? It touches our walk as we go out into the world in which we are, we are going out as children of God, and there is that in each believer that is unable to sin because His seed is there. We need just to dwell on that for a moment and make way for the work of God that has been put into ourselves. It is God’s seed, it is there, it has come from Himself and is not dependent on man, and it cannot sin. What a triumph!

T.v.d.H. I was thinking of how direct it was that when the Lord said to them, “ye are of your father”. It is a question of the right seed. I think what you are bringing out is very helpful in order to manifest what there is now that is of God.

P.M. It is derived from God and is divinely maintained in the believer as we abide in Christ, but it is directly from God. No one has put it there but God Himself, “his seed abides in him”. It is what God has put there. It is more than new birth.

T.v.d.H. I think you are touching on something very helpful and important to us. New birth is the beginning of this coming into the fulness of being the seed, is it not?

P.M. Yes. I think new birth is like the farmer, he turns over the soil and prepares the soil for the reception of the seed. I think it is the preparation in view of the seed that I begin to find in my soul a longing that was never there before. That longing can only be satisfied by His seed being implanted and therefore it leads on to being born of God in that passage in John 3. I think this is more than new birth, it is what is substantial in the believer that has been put there of God and is formed by the Spirit as abiding in Christ so that He is able to stand here in the absence of Christ, morally in conformity with Him.

S.S. Is character connected with the seed in the sense that that fruit is the same in the next generation, you might say? A seed planted would be a seed of particular fruit, the seed would bring forth that fruit.

P.M. It can only bring forth that fruit and therefore in John the need for abiding in Him that we might bear fruit. That underlies the truth of deliverance. Man according to the flesh can never be fruitful for God. The fruitfulness to God is abiding in Christ and being led by the Spirit of God. There is another order and it links with this, that the seed is in him. We need to locate that in ourselves.

S.S. If I might pursue the thought I had as to the fruit being characteristic, relating back to the testimony being manifested. The thought that was expressed earlier as to the fruit being a testimonial thing, the children of God, that the fruit would bear what is characteristic of that seed.

P.M. I think that is right, what has been begotten of God can only display what is of God morally. There is no mixture attached to it – the mixture we find in ourselves, but I need to locate what God has put there that is of Himself and locate it in my soul and find that that needs building up and it needs nurturing and it comes through abiding in Him. I believe it is important what we are touching because it would preserve us from lower thoughts as to what God is doing in the present day.

S.B. I was wondering about the verse in John 1, about “the right to be children of God” (v.12). How would that fit in to this for us?

P.M. That helps because, “He came to his own, and his own received him not” (v.11). They could not receive Him according to nature, but “as many as received him, to them gave he the right to be children of God to those … who have been born, not of blood, nor of flesh’s will, nor of man’s will, but of God” (vv.11-13). It is a similar to thought to what we have here and it came into expression there that persons were born of God, because they received Him.

S.B. I was thinking as to what you have said as to being “in Christ”, I wondered whether it would be helpful to see that the right there is not the right as we know it, that we are familiar with, ‘my rights’, and so forth, but more the right to take a place.

P.M. “To them gave he the right to be children of God”.

S.B. Taking a place of dependence, a right?

P.M. Yes, it is not anything attaching to us according to nature. As you say, men are claiming their rights all the time, but He gave them the right to be called children of God.

S.B. I was thinking as to “being in Christ”. We have that and it is a great matter to be able to take that place with God, to be dependent and to be sure, to be steadfast in the matter.

P.M. Yes, and to see that what God has done in us is of Himself and will remain. The danger I find in myself is that if I lose sight of the seed that God has placed, I say anything will do, I will do the best I can; but the seed must remain faithful to the One who has put it there. It is of that character and it cannot change and that would hold us, not just to follow our thoughts and our desires and longings, but also to answer to the One who has put the seed there and to represent Him in the scene of the absence of Christ.

D.M.W. It is interesting in that particular reference, God is coming out in Christ, it is received from God in Christ. People speak of God, but unless we receive God in Christ, it is a false God, but as we receive God in Christ, God coming out in Him – that is the thought in John especially – then we have the right to take the place of being in that family, the family of God.

P.M. Yes, there are many religions that claim God as their source. John’s epistle helps us to prove the spirits, and the unction would help us to distinguish, but it is seems to me that in this section the very reference to “when he is manifested” is reference to the One in whom everything is centred, but it is now shining morally in men in whom God has put His seed. It must take character from Him. As we have said, you could not speak of Christ as a child of God, that is not scriptural, but He is the Lamb of God. Everything must take character from that blessed Person so that as abiding in Him that is maintained in us.

D.M.W. Would you explain abiding in Him?

B.S. Are these the things that are going through to the end?

P.M. That must be so because it is of God, it cannot be destroyed. I might lose my way because I am no longer abiding in Christ, but the seed remains and if I am not faithful to that seed in myself and in what I do, God may discipline me to bring me back to recognise what that seed is and to appreciate it and to bring me back to abide in the One who is able to maintain what God has put in the soul.

D.M.W. Abiding in Him is an important matter, it indicates dependence and association.

P.L.J. And restfulness?

P.M. It does, and would it not mean that I prove that I am deriving everything from another source? We were touching last weekend as to the reference in John, “because I live ye also shall live” (14: 19). I think abiding in Christ is really living in the power of His life where He is. Everything that I have I am deriving from another Man. It is dependence, but it is not dependence in relation to our circumstances only, it is that one order of things has been set aside. That is involved in this section that we have read – one order of things has been set aside; what is natural will never sustain God’s work. Everything is being derived from another Man, so John says, “abide in Him”. It is complacency in the presence of One who is able to sustain us in life.

D.M.W. I think the thought of generation is derivative. As we continue in that character of being born of God, we would have always to refer to its source, the derivative side of things. Would you think that association was the practical side of it?

P.M. I think so. In secret and in company, association with Christ, but what is secret must come first. Where the weakness begins in our responsible histories is in secret. It does not begin in public, it begins in secret, it is because I have let go of the One in whom I am to abide. Abiding in Him is that Christ eclipses everything and becomes so precious to my heart that I just want to be entirely in His company and deriving from Him. What we are has not yet been manifested, but when He is manifested we shall be like Him, for we shall see Him as He is. How wonderful! I think it helps us in the abiding, that we are looking on to that which is actually going to be manifested in Christ. We shall hear His voice first, and then we shall see Him.

H.G.H. And in the fruit is peace. I was linking on with what has been said, peace is with Him – if there is not peace in your conscience, peace in your spirit, you are not abiding in Him.

P.M. No. That would lead on to how we come out – am I a son of peace? That comes out in our relations with one another and the way we move through this scene. We are to go into a house and enquire whether there is a son of peace there. You might come to Colchester and ask if there is a son of peace, or I might come to Chicago, Is there a son of peace? If there is I can abide there. It is an important thing that we are to convey that, because abiding in Christ there will be that expression in our relationships with one another. We would be morally superior to all that is proceeding here.

P.L.J. Son of peace – that would be what would characterise one. I think when you are son of something, you are characterised by it.

P.M. That is helpful. So it is not just overlooking things, but it is the character of the person, that in all his movements he would be characterised by peace.

I wondered whether in Romans we might get some impression as to “ye are not in flesh but in Spirit, if indeed God’s Spirit dwell in you”.

T.v.d.H. You referred to this as an inside position. Would you explain that?

P.M. Only what we have been taught that sonship is in relation to the Father’s house, it is the enjoyment of relationships with the Father. It is not that we are no longer sons here in the scene of testimony – that dignity marks us – but sonship belongs in relation to the house and it comes into expression as we move here in that heavenly dignity.

T.v.d.H. Would we see that in Luke 15, how the son returned to his part and place with the Father? Was it full liberty and joy in the house? So it is all inside, in that sense, it was not outside testimonially.

P.M. It was what he was for the father. Even while we are moving here the Father is looking for that which would satisfy His own heart, so that we do not live two lives. The believer does not have two lives, he has one; Paul says, “the life that I now live”, Gal. 2: 20. What is inside is to be commensurate with what is outside and if we are moving in the enjoyment and dignity of what belongs in the Father’s house, it will find its expression in the way we live.

P.L.J. “For as many as are led by the Spirit of God, these are sons of God”. This is not saying how they become sons of God, but it is what is characteristic of sons of God.

P.M. In that they are led by the Spirit.

P.L.J. It is not how one comes into sonship, but that is what characterises those who are in sonship. So that if we are not led by the Spirit of God we are not characteristically sons.

P.M. This is different from Galatians. In Galatians we have “that we might receive sonship” (4: 5), but here it is what the sons are, that we are sons of God as being led by the Spirit of God. It is coming out. There is a witness of it, it is seen. The dignity of it is seen in persons who are led by the Spirit of God. The importance of making way for the Spirit is something I am sure we feel, not just for the opening up of light, we often appeal to Him as to that, but the communion with the Spirit is in view of the features of the sons of God being seen.

P.L.J. So they can only be seen if the Spirit is working.

P.M. That is just it.

P.L.J. That is what I see in this, and it is only by the Spirit, that it would characterise us in sonship.

P.M. It is how it comes into expression.

P.L.J. If we are not motivated and moved with the Spirit sonship will not characterise us.

P.M. We are all sons through faith in Christ Jesus, that is our standing, but what is in view is that we might come into the enjoyment and practical expression of what sonship is through making way for the leading of the Spirit.

K.A.K. Would you say then that the seed is guarded by the Spirit of God? I was thinking of the Lord speaking to His own in John’s gospel about the sending of the Spirit, “the world cannot receive him” (John 14: 17); they would not have the need for it, the seed was not there. The Spirit has come to lead us and guide us into all the truth which is what the development of the seed has in view.

P.M. That is helpful because in these chapters there is the sorting process which is so necessary in our own experience in order that we might locate that seed. When you come to chapter 8 there is the power for that seed to be maintained in life. Chapter 8 has often been spoken of as the Spirit’s chapter in relation to the believer, that I have come to appreciate what the seed is. Then He says, “There is now then no condemnation to those in Christ Jesus. For the law of the Spirit of life in Christ Jesus has set me free from the law of sin and of death” (v.1). There is there now what the believer has located in himself which is of God. That is the seed that you are speaking of, but the Spirit immediately comes in that that might be maintained and strengthened and able to stand in relation to all that is from God Himself.

K.A.K. So the Spirit joins His help to our weakness and in that sense is supporting and guarding what is there.

P.M. Yes. How much we feel the need of that! We do not know what to pray for as is fitting, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession with groaning that cannot be uttered. It is in that setting.

K.A.K. It is remarkable that God so thought to encompass the whole creation, not to allow anything to develop apart from His own work, His own overseership of every aspect of it, the development of that in the believer. We can trust that, can we not?

P.M. Yes, we can, and what is of God in the believer here is entirely dependent on divine activity and power which we get in Romans 8. It is not dependent on anything else. We were saying in the house this morning, and I feel it keenly for myself, I am in danger of being only dependent on what there is in the company without dependence on divine Persons personally. If I am only dependent on the company, I shall not survive, and I will be a drain on that company, but I must come back to my own links with Christ as abiding in Him and with the Spirit and then I shall rightly take up my part in the company and be a contributor in the company.

K.A.K. So the woman in John 4, in that sense, is able to move apart from dependence on an outside source, she derives her source of power from the Lord Himself and the Spirit. She leaves her water pot and is able to be an influence in the company.

P.M. In that section for a moment she is superior to what was there in the disciples. They had gone to buy food – the Lord had not told them to do that – and they came and wondered that He spoke with a woman. But she had left her water pot; the resources that they were looking for she had left entirely behind because she had found the One of whom she could say, “a man who has told me all things I had ever done: is not he the Christ?” (v.29). What a Man!

K.A.K. The evidence of the seed in that woman must have been striking especially in view of the course of history of that she had had. Someone looking naturally would have missed that.

P.M. It was completely apart from all that had been there, and that woman may have had a very public history. We may not have had such a public history, although we have all had a public history of some kind, but what has been placed in us of God is completely apart from all that that was according to nature, and is dependent on God Himself, on the Spirit, and on the One in whom we are to abide. Unless I am grounded in my personal links with divine Persons I shall not know what it is to be in the enjoyment of sonship; indeed what will happen, and we know it from our own experience, is that I just become a critic of those in whom the work of God is.

S.B. I was thinking of what you mentioned in Corinthians, the things that are not esteemed, the things that are not well thought of, that we are brought into that intelligently to see the wisdom of God and He would bring forth such things (see 1 Cor. 6: 4).

P.M. How thankful we are for the Spirit to open up to us the things that God has prepared.

S.B. It is an amazing matter to consider that a few have an understanding of God’s mind and His thoughts, a few insignificant persons, who can see the whole matter from beginning to the end, His wisdom and His grace.

P.M. Yes, and the Spirit would open up for us the whole vista of what has come out from God. It has been said that in Romans 8 the whole extent of the land is on your view. You are led by the Spirit of God. You have come out from Egypt, gone through the wilderness and you are caught up to get a view of the land as Moses had it. He could not go into it, but we have been brought into it and the whole scope of it is on our view. We can go right from there into Ephesians because the Spirit is the power for it and He is opening up the greatness of what has come out from God.

S.B. And the amazing part of what was mentioned is to see the Spirit protecting what is according to God, to see the Spirit bringing it forth and bringing us into the intelligence of it to see the wisdom of God.

P.M. I wondered if we might get a touch of that from Corinthians, “But of him are ye”, that is of God, “are ye in Christ Jesus”. How dignified! What a heavenly calling!

D.M.W. The leading of the Spirit in this connection is a constant thing as to the scope of all that has come out in Christ. He is leading us always in that direction?

P.M. I thought that. It is not just one hour a week or so, He is moving onward leading us into the purpose of God! It is not just to help us to get by in the scene of testimony, He has brought the witness of the land into our hearts and He is leading our hearts in relation to the land, He is bringing us right in, and the movements of the Spirit are in view of our moving with Him into the purpose of God.

D.M.W. I wanted to grasp for my own soul the thought of being led by the Spirit. I think He has things in mind and He is always moving in that direction. It would be an exercise not only to identify in ourselves the work of God, but to move with the Spirit in the way that He is leading. He is leading us through things; it is not exactly how you get along in the wilderness, but He is leading us with something on the horizon. Perhaps we arrive at that experimentally as we sit down at the Supper and begin the service of God. Christ would be leading us at that point, but the Spirit is always leading us into this, is He not?

P.M. He is. I am glad you have referred to it because it would keep us in exercise in our links with the Spirit as to where the Spirit is leading. I believe there is a great deal of exercise among the saints in relation to that very matter. Where is the Spirit leading? Not that we are here without direction, we are never here without direction, He is leading the company, He does not lead one believer in a different direction from another. The exercise that I have is as to whether I am conscious of His leading so that we can move forward together. I think that every time the enemy attacks it is at the point where the Spirit would lead us further into the purpose of God. Often we find that we become more occupied with the attack of the enemy – it has to be met – than we are with the direction in which the Spirit is leading. I believe the Spirit would touch our hearts in the consciousness that He is moving forward and that we would be exercised to be with Him.

H.G.H. And in that company, the assembly, the Spirit has given gifts.

P.M. Why do you say that?

H.G.H. It is Ephesians. You took us back to Romans, but we need the gifts and we need to appreciate them, and to value them. They are given to the assembly, all in view of the perfecting. The history of the assembly is going to end in that perfecting, in a sense.

P.M. We need the gifts. We should pray for the development of gift, and pray that there might be right exercise that gift might be given.

H.G.H. It could be given to any of us.

D.M.W. The gift would lead us to Christ, not to men.

P.M. I thought that, “who has been made to us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and holiness”, and in being conscious that we are of God in Christ Jesus we have all the resources in that blessed Man. He is the Man who has given the gifts, He has ascended up on high and given gifts, but the resource is in Himself and the gift is, if one might say carefully, a channel through which the mind of Christ can be known and the power of Christ known, but everything derives from Him. In Corinthians they came short in no gift, they had it all, but they did not realise that the resource was in the One in whom they were established. We have known a time when we have depended on gift and have not traced the source right back to the One who has been “made unto us wisdom from God, and righteousness, and holiness”. What resources we have!

H.G.H. That is true, and because we have failed in that way the danger is to go the other way, not appreciating the gift.

P.M. I think if we are held in relation to Christ we shall recognise and value what He gives.

 

 

DENTON

26 October 2002

 

Key to Initials

S.Barela, Denver; P.L.Johnson, Denton; H.G.Holt, Chicago; K.A.Knauss, Indianapolis; P.Martin, Colchester; B.Selman, Denton; S.Selman, Denton; T.v.d.Hoek, Denton; D.M.Welch, Denton