Why?

The Purpose of This Site

No matter how you reached this site you need to know that its purpose is to communicate the faith of Lynn McCormack to his descendants. I am Lynn McCormack. All my life I have wondered about my ancestors for a number of reasons. The faith of my immediate family has been apparent to me. What of the ones who came before? We can learn from various sources when they were born, when they died and perhaps their education and where they lived. There is one trait about people in general that seldom gets documented. That is the information about the faith of that person. Yet it is the faith or lack thereof that informs every decision and personal interaction of that person throughout life. The faith of every individual impacts those who follow. The faith of fathers and mothers impact their children down through the generations. This site and its components are dedicated to your knowing something about what I believe and why so that you have some idea of where you came from.

Why would I do this? The most basic reason is that we exist for a purpose and most human beings on this planet never find out what that purpose really is. In the scriptures God tells us that he created and why. He created in order that the Father would have a love gift of his people to give to His Son, Jesus.

Titus 1: 1 - 3 "Paul, a servant of God and an apostle of Jesus Christ, for the sake of the faith of God's elect and their knowledge of the truth, which accords with godliness, 2 in hope of eternal life, which God, who never lies, promised before the ages began 3 and at the proper time manifested in his word through the preaching with which I have been entrusted by the command of God our Savior." (ESV)

What was it that God promised before the ages began and if it was a promise who did he make this promise to? What He promised is the faith of His elect and their knowledge of the truth mentioned in verse one.

If you continue reading the different sections of this site one thing will be made clear to you. That thing is that if you continue to study the scriptures you will learn that before anything was made God was. God was before he made anything as Father, Son, and Holy Spirit. They existed before they created and were perfectly content and happy and self-sustaining and they needed nothing outside themselves in order to be. They loved each other with a perfect love.

2nd Timothy 1: 8 - 9 Therefore do not be ashamed at the testimony about our Lord, nor of me His prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, 9 who saved us and called us to a holy calling not because of our works but because of his own purpose and Grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began,"

Here in verse 9 Paul tells us that our holy calling is not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began. In other words, he had us earmarked for Himself before he ever created.

From Jesus' own lips as John tells us in his gospel Chapter 6 verse 37 that "All that the Father gives me will come to me, and whoever comes to me I will never cast out." There is that love gift that I was mentioned earlier. It's those people that the Father chose before He created.

And again in John 10:27-30 "My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. 28 I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand. 29 My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of my Father's hands. 30 I and the Father are one."

Although I was raised in a family of believers the faith of two people in particular stand out in my memory. Those two people were Callie Bullock Holleman and Miriam Satterwhite McCormack. Callie, known to me as Gran, was my mother's mother. I did not know her well because she had been ill most of my life and died when I was only seven. I was told that her favorite song was "The Lord's Prayer." They sang it at her funeral. We also sang it together in the back of Roger Jones's station wagon as we traveled from Lubbock to Cushing for her funeral. I came to understand what that meant when I was older. Miriam, known to me as Grandmother McCormack, was my father's mother. We would visit Grandmother and Granddaddy McCormack at their home in Cushing Texas. Their home was a great wooden structure built in an older style that had one central hallway. However, on one side of the house, in order to go from the front living room to the kitchen all the way in the back one had to go through two bedrooms which had doors on either side. As I would wander through there as a child at night I would often find that, while others in the house we're visiting together, Grandmother McCormack would be in a chair in her dimly lit bedroom with the Bible in her lap. At the time, I didn't know what the Bible was really. But I've never forgotten how she would put her finger on the scriptures and her lips would move. In her later years, dementia set in. She might not have remembered whether she had breakfast or what it was. Yet every Sunday when the church bells rang she would walk that one block to the Landmark Baptist Church for the service. These memories stick with me to this day. These were my earliest memories of God's drawing me to Himself.

As you wander through this site and read what I offer is my understanding about the different doctrines of the Christian faith you may also take pause to recall your own memories of God drawing you to Himself. I hope so. You have been prayed for by me.