Set Apart For Destiny

Grandmother claimed she was a quarter Cherokee, but her family was not on the Indian Dawes rolls of 1894-1914. Grandmother Hightower looked like an Indian—black hair, brown  eyes, high cheekbones, but we were her little blond white grandchildren.

We have been working on our family tree since 1973, athought our uncle worked on the maternal line before that. While Grandmother was still alive,  Daddy and we questioned her at length and began the search, which continues to this day. One of my sisters has been “into” genealogy all these years, with my other sister and me taking it in spells. Right now we are all three “into” it.

I am so thankful that I was born into a Christian home. Thank God, I had parents and grandparents on both sides who were faithful Christians. However there came a day when I had to put my faith in Christ Jesus as my own personal Lord and Savior. I could not inherit eternal salvation.

Frequently the question comes up about what Paul wrote about genealogy. In I Timothy 1:4, Paul said, “Neither give heed to fables and endless genealogies, which minister questions, rather than godly edifying which is in faith. . .” Does Paul say not to research genealogies? No, the ‘endless genealogies’ spoken of by Paul were the Jews’ claim to salvation. You were nobody in that society if you could not trace your family tree back to Abraham.

The Jews as a matter of great pride pointed to their family tree to show that they were descendants of Abraham, God’s chosen people. Their genealogy represented salvation to them, because as Jesus said to the woman at the well, “Salvation is of the Jews.” John 4:22.

The Jews depended on their genealogy and keeping the law for their salvation rather than depending on faith alone, as their father Abraham did, according to Romans chapter 4. However the Jews’ genealogy gave them an identity among the heathen as a special people set apart by God for a purpose.

Romans 5:1 “Therefore having been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.”  

Your genealogy gives you an identity.  Who you are in this natural life and who you are in Christ Jesus sets you apart for your destiny.