What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? If a brother or sister is naked and destitute of daily food, and one of you says to them, "Depart in peace, be warmed and filled," but you do not give them the things which are needed for the body, what does it profit? Thus also faith by itself, if it does not have works, is dead. But someone will say, "You have faith, and I have works." Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works. You believe that there is one God. You do well. Even the demons believe—and tremble! But do you want to know, O foolish man, that faith without works is dead? --James 2:14-20
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna and Mikayla,
The key to the understanding of this passage is in verse 14. What does it profit, my brethren, if someone says he has faith but does not have works? Can faith save him? Note here that James is not saying that this person has faith, but that he is claiming to have it. James is really asking if this kind of faith...the kind that is not evidenced in works, can save? Faith cannot be just an emotional or intellectual assent...it must be evidenced in active, committed obedience to the word.
I love the example he uses in verse 15 and 16. Many of us profess compassion for the hungry, weak and poor among us, but if we do nothing, what does that profession mean. It means that our professed compassion is a lie. It is phony...fake...not real...there is nothing of substance behind it. The same can be said for the kind of faith that is not evidenced in works...it is an empty profession. Talk is cheap, says James!
In an attempt to perhaps shock his readers James talks about the faith of demons. Yes, demons have faith...it is clear from Scripture that they believe in the existence of God and the deity of Christ. The Believer's Bible Commentary says that they also recognize Christ as judge, believe in the existence of hell and submit to the power of the word. The man with dead faith believes only in his mind but the demons believe not only with their mind but also feel their belief in their emotions...they tremble. Belief can be of the mind and the emotion but if it is not of the heart and evidenced by a change in your behavior..i.e. a changed life...it is dead. Verse 20 can literally be read this way. "that faith without the works is dead." and also calls those who are claiming to believe and do not have works, foolish. Their belief is a sham...they are not saved.
With that said, however, it is important to remember that the bible is clear...no one is saved by works. Salvation is entirely by grace.
" For by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast."--Ephesians 2:8-9
If it were by works, it would not be grace. It should also be said that a profession of belief without genuine good works (i.e. repentance and obedience to the Lordship of Christ) is dead...not real. Our belief will be expressed in the new nature we receive when we believe.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.--2nd Corinthians 5:17
These verses in James remind me of a parable Jesus told that illustrates how true faith reveals itself through doing good to others. Look at what the parable shows us about the relationship between faith and works and how the King is able to tell which are His true subjects.
"When the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the holy angels with Him, then He will sit on the throne of His glory. All the nations will be gathered before Him, and He will separate them one from another, as a shepherd divides his sheep from the goats. And He will set the sheep on His right hand, but the goats on the left. Then the King will say to those on His right hand, 'Come, you blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world: for I was hungry and you gave Me food; I was thirsty and you gave Me drink; I was a stranger and you took Me in; I was naked and you clothed Me; I was sick and you visited Me; I was in prison and you came to Me.'
"Then the righteous will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry and feed You, or thirsty and give You drink? When did we see You a stranger and take You in, or naked and clothe You? Or when did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?' And the King will answer and say to them, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did it to one of the least of these My brethren, you did it to Me.'
"Then He will also say to those on the left hand, 'Depart from Me, you cursed, into the everlasting fire prepared for the devil and his angels: for I was hungry and you gave Me no food; I was thirsty and you gave Me no drink; I was a stranger and you did not take Me in, naked and you did not clothe Me, sick and in prison and you did not visit Me.'
"Then they also will answer Him, saying, 'Lord, when did we see You hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not minister to You?' Then He will answer them, saying, 'Assuredly, I say to you, inasmuch as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to Me.' And these will go away into everlasting punishment, but the righteous into eternal life."--Matthew 25:31-46
Our actions will follow what our hearts believe. God will separate his obedient followers from pretenders and unbelievers. The proof, so to speak, is in the pudding. Our belief will be evidenced in our lives. Do we treat all those God places in our lives as if we were serving Jesus Himself? Make no mistake, your words, deeds and actions indicate what you really believe and think about Jesus' word to us.
We were created in Christ Jesus for good works which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them. We are bankrupt and without hope in and of ourselves. When we believe our Spirit is quickened to life in Christ Jesus. When this occurs, the Spirit of God takes control of our thinking and we, by faith, begin to pour out the grace that has been shown us to others. Look at one more example in Scripture...Zacchaeus and see how his life was changed when Jesus entered his heart.
Then Jesus entered and passed through Jericho. Now behold, there was a man named Zacchaeus who was a chief tax collector, and he was rich. And he sought to see who Jesus was, but could not because of the crowd, for he was of short stature. So he ran ahead and climbed up into a sycamore tree to see Him, for He was going to pass that way. And when Jesus came to the place, He looked up and saw him, and said to him, “Zacchaeus, make haste and come down, for today I must stay at your house.” So he made haste and came down, and received Him joyfully. But when they saw it, they all complained, saying, “He has gone to be a guest with a man who is a sinner.”
Then Zacchaeus stood and said to the Lord, “Look, Lord, I give half of my goods to the poor; and if I have taken anything from anyone by false accusation, I restore fourfold.”
And Jesus said to him, “Today salvation has come to this house, because he also is a son of Abraham; for the Son of Man has come to seek and to save that which was lost.”--Luke 19:1-10
Love
Mom
Friday, May 13, 2011
Refining Fire...Amy Carmichael
"One day we took the children to see a goldsmith refine gold after the ancient manner of the East. He was sitting beside his little charcoal fire. ("He shall sit as a refiner"; the gold- or silversmith never leaves his crucible once it is on the fire.) In the red glow lay a common curved roof tile; another tile covered it like a lid. This was the crucible. In it was the medicine made of salt, tamarind fruit and burnt brick dust, and imbedded in it was the gold. The medicine does its appointed work on the gold, "then the fire eats it," and the goldsmith lifts the gold out with a pair of tongs, lets it cool, rubs it between his fingers, and if not satisfied puts it back again in fresh medicine. This time he blows the fire hotter than it was before, and each time he puts the gold into the crucible, the heat of the fire is increased; "it could not bear it so hot at first, but it can bear it now; what would have destroyed it then helps it now." "How do you know when the gold is purified?" we asked him, and he answered, "When I can see my face in it [the liquid gold in the crucible] then it is pure."
—Amy Carmichael
—Amy Carmichael
Wednesday, May 11, 2011
Prayer and Importunity...by E. M. Bounds
OUR Lord Jesus declared that "men ought always to pray and not to faint," and the parable in which his words occur, was taught with the intention of saving men from faintheartedness and weakness in prayer. Our Lord was seeking to teach that laxity must be guarded against, and persistence fostered and encouraged. There can be no two opinions regarding the importance of the exercise of this indispensable quality in our praying.
Importunate prayer is a mighty movement of the soul toward God. It is a stirring of the deepest forces of the soul, toward the throne of heavenly grace. It is the ability to hold on, press on, and wait. Restless desire, restful patience, and strength of grasp are all embraced in it. It is not an incident, or a performance, but a passion of soul. It is not a want, half-needed, but a sheer necessity.
The wrestling quality in importunate prayer, does not spring from physical vehemence or fleshly energy. It is not an impulse of energy, not a mere earnestness of soul; it is an inwrought force, a faculty implanted and aroused by the Holy Spirit. Virtually, it is the intercession of the Spirit of God, in us; it is, moreover, "the effectual, fervent prayer, which availeth much." The divine Spirit informing every element within us, with the energy of his own striving, is the essence of the importunity which urges our praying at the mercy seat, to continue until the fire falls and the blessing descends. This wrestling in prayer may not be boisterous nor vehement, but quiet, tenacious, and urgent. Silent, it may be, when there are no visible outlets for its mighty forces.
Nothing distinguishes the children of God so clearly and strongly as prayer. It is the one infallible mark and test of being a Christian. Christian people are prayerful, the worldly-minded, prayerless. Christians call on God; worldlings ignore God, and call not on his name. But even the Christian had need to cultivate continual prayer. Prayer must be habitual, but much more than a habit. It is duty, yet one which rises far above, and goes beyond the ordinary implications of the term. It is the expression of a relation to God, a yearning for divine communion. it is the outward and upward flow of the inward life toward its original fountain. It is an assertion of the soul's paternity, a claiming of the sonship, which links man to the eternal.
Prayer has everything to do with molding the soul into the image of God, and has everything to do with enhancing and enlarging the measure of divine grace. It has everything to do with bringing the soul into complete communion with God. It has everything to do with enriching, broadening and maturing the soul's experience of God. That man cannot possibly be called a Christian, who does not pray. By no possible pretext can he claim any right to the term, nor its implied significance. If he does not pray, he is a sinner, pure and simple, for prayer is the only way in which the soul of man can enter into fellowship and communion with the source of all Christlike spirit and energy. Hence, if he prays not, he is not of the household of faith.
In this study however, we turn our thought to one phase of prayer-that of importunity; the pressing of our desires upon God with urgency and perseverance; the praying with that tenacity and tension which neither relaxes nor ceases until its plea is heard, and its cause is won.
He who has clear views of God, and scriptural conceptions of the divine character; who appreciates his privilege of approach unto God; who understands his inward need of all that God has for him-that man will be solicitous, outspoken, and importunate. In Scripture the duty of prayer, itself, is advocated in terms which are only barely stronger than those in which the necessity for its importunity is set forth. The praying which influences God is declared to be that of the fervent, effectual outpouring of a righteous man. That is to say, it is prayer on fire, having no feeble, flickering flame, no momentary flash, but shining with a vigorous and steady glow.
The repeated intercessions of Abraham for the salvation of Sodom and Gomorrah present an early example of the necessity for, and benefit deriving from importunate praying. Jacob, wrestling all night with the angel, gives significant emphasis to the power of a dogged perseverance in praying, and shows how, in things spiritual, importunity succeeds, just as effectively as it does in matters relating to time and sense.
As we have noted, elsewhere, Moses prayed forty days and forty nights, seeking to stay the wrath of God against Israel, and his example and success are a stimulus to present-day faith in its darkest hour. Elijah repeated and urged his prayer seven times ere the raincloud appeared above the horizon, heralding the success of his prayer and the victory of his faith. On one occasion Daniel though faint and weak, pressed his case three weeks, ere the answer and the blessing came.
Many nights during his earthly life did the blessed Savior spend in prayer. In Gethsemane he presented the same petition, three times, with unabated, urgent, yet submissive importunity, which involved every element of his soul, and issued in tears and bloody sweat. His life crises were distinctly marked, his life victories all won, in hours of importunate prayer. And the servant is not greater than his Lord.
The Parable of the Importunate Widow is a classic of insistent prayer. We shall do well to refresh our remembrance of it, at this point in our study:
And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God,neither regarded man; and there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, "Avenge me of my adversary" And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God nor regard man; yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you he will avenge them speedily.
This parable stresses the central truth of importunate prayer. The widow presses her case till the unjust judge yields. If this parable does not teach the necessity for importunity, it has neither point nor instruction in it. Take this one thought away, and you have nothing left worth recording. Beyond all cavil, Christ intended it to stand as an evidence of the need that exists, for insistent prayer.
We have the same teaching emphasized in the incident of the Syrophoenician woman, who came to Jesus on behalf of her daughter. Here, importunity is demonstrated, not as a stark impertinence, but as with the persuasive characteristics of humility, sincerity, and fervency. We are given a glimpse of a woman's clinging faith a woman's bitter grief, and a woman's spiritual insight. The master went over into that Sidonian country in order that this truth might be mirrored for all time-there is no plea so efficacious as importunate prayer, and none to which God surrenders himself so fully and so freely.
The importunity of this distressed mother, won her the victory, and materialized her request. Yet instead of being an offense to the Savior, it drew from him a word of wonder, and glad surprise. "0 woman, great is thy faith! Be it unto thee, even as thou wilt."
He prays not at all, who does not press his plea. Cold prayers have no claim on heaven, and no hearing in the courts above. Fire is the life of prayer, and heaven is reached by flaming importunity rising in an ascending scale.
Reverting to the case of the importunate widow, we see that her widowhood, her friendlessness, and her weakness counted for nothing with the unjust judge. Importunity was everything. "Because this widow troubleth me," he said, "I will avenge her speedily, lest she weary me." Solely because the widow imposed upon the time and attention of the unjust judge, her case was won.
God waits patiently as, day and night, his elect cry unto him. He is moved by their requests a thousand times more than was this unjust judge. A limit is set to his tarrying, by the importunate praying of his people, and the answer richly given. God finds faith in his praying child-the faith which stays and cries-and he honors it by permitting its further exercise, to the end that it is strengthened and enriched. Then he rewards it by granting the burden of its plea, in plenitude and finality.
The case of the Syrophoenician woman previously referred to is a notable instance of successful importunity, one which is eminently encouraging to all who would pray successfully It was a remarkable instance of insistence and perseverance to ultimate victory, in the face of almost insuperable obstacles and hindrances. But the woman surmounted them all by heroic faith and persistent spirit that were as remarkable as they were successful. Jesus had gone over into her country, "and would have no man know it." But she breaks through his purpose, violates his privacy, attracts his attention, and pours out to him a poignant appeal of need and faith. Her heart was in her prayer.
At first, Jesus appears to pay no attention to her agony, and ignores her cry for relief. He gives her neither eye, nor ear, nor word. Silence, deep and chilling, greets her impassioned cry. But she is not turned aside, nor disheartened. She holds on. The disciples, offended at her unseemly clamor, intercede for her, but are silenced by the Lord's declaring that the woman is entirely outside the scope of his mission and his ministry.
But neither the failure of the disciples to gain her a hearing nor the knowledgedespairing in its very nature-that she is barred from the benefits of his mission, daunt her, and serve only to lend intensity and increased boldness to her approach to Christ. She came closer, cutting her prayer in twain, and falling at his feet, worshiping him, and making her daughter's case her own cries, with pointed brevity"Lord, help me!" This last cry won her case; her daughter was healed in the selfsame hour. Hopeful, urgent, and unwearied, she stays near the master, insisting and praying until the answer is given. What a study in importunity, in earnestness, in persistence, promoted and propelled under conditions which would have disheartened any but an heroic, a constant soul.
In these parables of importunate praying, our Lord sets forth, for our information and encouragement, the serious difficulties which stand in the way of prayer. At the same time he teaches that importunity conquers all untoward circumstances and gets to itself a victory over a whole host of hindrances. He teaches, moreover, that an answer to prayer is conditional upon the amount of faith that goes to the petition. To test this, he delays the answer. The superficial prayer subsides into silence, when the answer is delayed. But the man of prayer hangs on, and on. The Lord recognizes and honors his faith, and gives him a rich and abundant answer to his faith-evidencing, importunate prayer.
Importunate prayer is a mighty movement of the soul toward God. It is a stirring of the deepest forces of the soul, toward the throne of heavenly grace. It is the ability to hold on, press on, and wait. Restless desire, restful patience, and strength of grasp are all embraced in it. It is not an incident, or a performance, but a passion of soul. It is not a want, half-needed, but a sheer necessity.
The wrestling quality in importunate prayer, does not spring from physical vehemence or fleshly energy. It is not an impulse of energy, not a mere earnestness of soul; it is an inwrought force, a faculty implanted and aroused by the Holy Spirit. Virtually, it is the intercession of the Spirit of God, in us; it is, moreover, "the effectual, fervent prayer, which availeth much." The divine Spirit informing every element within us, with the energy of his own striving, is the essence of the importunity which urges our praying at the mercy seat, to continue until the fire falls and the blessing descends. This wrestling in prayer may not be boisterous nor vehement, but quiet, tenacious, and urgent. Silent, it may be, when there are no visible outlets for its mighty forces.
Nothing distinguishes the children of God so clearly and strongly as prayer. It is the one infallible mark and test of being a Christian. Christian people are prayerful, the worldly-minded, prayerless. Christians call on God; worldlings ignore God, and call not on his name. But even the Christian had need to cultivate continual prayer. Prayer must be habitual, but much more than a habit. It is duty, yet one which rises far above, and goes beyond the ordinary implications of the term. It is the expression of a relation to God, a yearning for divine communion. it is the outward and upward flow of the inward life toward its original fountain. It is an assertion of the soul's paternity, a claiming of the sonship, which links man to the eternal.
Prayer has everything to do with molding the soul into the image of God, and has everything to do with enhancing and enlarging the measure of divine grace. It has everything to do with bringing the soul into complete communion with God. It has everything to do with enriching, broadening and maturing the soul's experience of God. That man cannot possibly be called a Christian, who does not pray. By no possible pretext can he claim any right to the term, nor its implied significance. If he does not pray, he is a sinner, pure and simple, for prayer is the only way in which the soul of man can enter into fellowship and communion with the source of all Christlike spirit and energy. Hence, if he prays not, he is not of the household of faith.
In this study however, we turn our thought to one phase of prayer-that of importunity; the pressing of our desires upon God with urgency and perseverance; the praying with that tenacity and tension which neither relaxes nor ceases until its plea is heard, and its cause is won.
He who has clear views of God, and scriptural conceptions of the divine character; who appreciates his privilege of approach unto God; who understands his inward need of all that God has for him-that man will be solicitous, outspoken, and importunate. In Scripture the duty of prayer, itself, is advocated in terms which are only barely stronger than those in which the necessity for its importunity is set forth. The praying which influences God is declared to be that of the fervent, effectual outpouring of a righteous man. That is to say, it is prayer on fire, having no feeble, flickering flame, no momentary flash, but shining with a vigorous and steady glow.
The repeated intercessions of Abraham for the salvation of Sodom and Gomorrah present an early example of the necessity for, and benefit deriving from importunate praying. Jacob, wrestling all night with the angel, gives significant emphasis to the power of a dogged perseverance in praying, and shows how, in things spiritual, importunity succeeds, just as effectively as it does in matters relating to time and sense.
As we have noted, elsewhere, Moses prayed forty days and forty nights, seeking to stay the wrath of God against Israel, and his example and success are a stimulus to present-day faith in its darkest hour. Elijah repeated and urged his prayer seven times ere the raincloud appeared above the horizon, heralding the success of his prayer and the victory of his faith. On one occasion Daniel though faint and weak, pressed his case three weeks, ere the answer and the blessing came.
Many nights during his earthly life did the blessed Savior spend in prayer. In Gethsemane he presented the same petition, three times, with unabated, urgent, yet submissive importunity, which involved every element of his soul, and issued in tears and bloody sweat. His life crises were distinctly marked, his life victories all won, in hours of importunate prayer. And the servant is not greater than his Lord.
The Parable of the Importunate Widow is a classic of insistent prayer. We shall do well to refresh our remembrance of it, at this point in our study:
And he spake a parable unto them to this end, that men ought always to pray, and not to faint; saying, There was in a city a judge, which feared not God,neither regarded man; and there was a widow in that city; and she came unto him, saying, "Avenge me of my adversary" And he would not for a while; but afterward he said within himself, Though I fear not God nor regard man; yet because this widow troubleth me, I will avenge her, lest by her continual coming she weary me. And the Lord said, Hear what the unjust judge saith. And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him, though he bear long with them? I tell you he will avenge them speedily.
This parable stresses the central truth of importunate prayer. The widow presses her case till the unjust judge yields. If this parable does not teach the necessity for importunity, it has neither point nor instruction in it. Take this one thought away, and you have nothing left worth recording. Beyond all cavil, Christ intended it to stand as an evidence of the need that exists, for insistent prayer.
We have the same teaching emphasized in the incident of the Syrophoenician woman, who came to Jesus on behalf of her daughter. Here, importunity is demonstrated, not as a stark impertinence, but as with the persuasive characteristics of humility, sincerity, and fervency. We are given a glimpse of a woman's clinging faith a woman's bitter grief, and a woman's spiritual insight. The master went over into that Sidonian country in order that this truth might be mirrored for all time-there is no plea so efficacious as importunate prayer, and none to which God surrenders himself so fully and so freely.
The importunity of this distressed mother, won her the victory, and materialized her request. Yet instead of being an offense to the Savior, it drew from him a word of wonder, and glad surprise. "0 woman, great is thy faith! Be it unto thee, even as thou wilt."
He prays not at all, who does not press his plea. Cold prayers have no claim on heaven, and no hearing in the courts above. Fire is the life of prayer, and heaven is reached by flaming importunity rising in an ascending scale.
Reverting to the case of the importunate widow, we see that her widowhood, her friendlessness, and her weakness counted for nothing with the unjust judge. Importunity was everything. "Because this widow troubleth me," he said, "I will avenge her speedily, lest she weary me." Solely because the widow imposed upon the time and attention of the unjust judge, her case was won.
God waits patiently as, day and night, his elect cry unto him. He is moved by their requests a thousand times more than was this unjust judge. A limit is set to his tarrying, by the importunate praying of his people, and the answer richly given. God finds faith in his praying child-the faith which stays and cries-and he honors it by permitting its further exercise, to the end that it is strengthened and enriched. Then he rewards it by granting the burden of its plea, in plenitude and finality.
The case of the Syrophoenician woman previously referred to is a notable instance of successful importunity, one which is eminently encouraging to all who would pray successfully It was a remarkable instance of insistence and perseverance to ultimate victory, in the face of almost insuperable obstacles and hindrances. But the woman surmounted them all by heroic faith and persistent spirit that were as remarkable as they were successful. Jesus had gone over into her country, "and would have no man know it." But she breaks through his purpose, violates his privacy, attracts his attention, and pours out to him a poignant appeal of need and faith. Her heart was in her prayer.
At first, Jesus appears to pay no attention to her agony, and ignores her cry for relief. He gives her neither eye, nor ear, nor word. Silence, deep and chilling, greets her impassioned cry. But she is not turned aside, nor disheartened. She holds on. The disciples, offended at her unseemly clamor, intercede for her, but are silenced by the Lord's declaring that the woman is entirely outside the scope of his mission and his ministry.
But neither the failure of the disciples to gain her a hearing nor the knowledgedespairing in its very nature-that she is barred from the benefits of his mission, daunt her, and serve only to lend intensity and increased boldness to her approach to Christ. She came closer, cutting her prayer in twain, and falling at his feet, worshiping him, and making her daughter's case her own cries, with pointed brevity"Lord, help me!" This last cry won her case; her daughter was healed in the selfsame hour. Hopeful, urgent, and unwearied, she stays near the master, insisting and praying until the answer is given. What a study in importunity, in earnestness, in persistence, promoted and propelled under conditions which would have disheartened any but an heroic, a constant soul.
In these parables of importunate praying, our Lord sets forth, for our information and encouragement, the serious difficulties which stand in the way of prayer. At the same time he teaches that importunity conquers all untoward circumstances and gets to itself a victory over a whole host of hindrances. He teaches, moreover, that an answer to prayer is conditional upon the amount of faith that goes to the petition. To test this, he delays the answer. The superficial prayer subsides into silence, when the answer is delayed. But the man of prayer hangs on, and on. The Lord recognizes and honors his faith, and gives him a rich and abundant answer to his faith-evidencing, importunate prayer.
Tuesday, May 10, 2011
Innocence Destroyed...
Then the eyes of both of them were opened,and they knew that they were naked;.--Genesis 3:7a,b
To My Sweet Daughters,
Satan had promised Eve that she would know good and evil if she ate the fruit of the tree. Satan was right...Adam and Eve gained the knowledge Satan promised would come...but at what price. They received it through disobedience so the knowledge they received was corrupted. They did not know as God knows...in perfect holiness.
Sin destroyed their innocence and guilt over their sin made them want to hide in shame. They now had to rely on their conscience to distinguish good from evil instead of God. Guilt is not a bad thing. It is your conscience's early warning signal that you have sinned and need to repent and turn and go in the other direction. It is a gift from God. The last thing we want to do is ignore a guilty conscience or attempt to placate it. Doing so will eventually cause our conscience to become hardened and seared and no longer know or care to distinguish right from wrong. I don't think we can imagine the onslaught Adam and Eve's conscience must have taken at the moment when they gained the ability to see and know evil for the first time. I can only liken it to a child's loss of innocence in learning that the world is not safe and that evil abounds. Below is an excerpt from Corrie Ten Boom's The Hiding Place that speaks to this very issue so well.
"And so seated next to my father in the train compartment, I suddenly asked, "Father, what is sex sin?"
He turned to look at me, as he always did when answering a question, but to my surprise he said nothing. At last he stood up, lifted his traveling case off the floor and set it on the floor.
"Will you carry it off the train, Corrie?" he said.
I stood up and tugged at it. It was crammed with the watches and spare parts he had purchased that morning.
It's too heavy," I said.
Yes," he said, "and it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It's the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger, you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you."
Some knowledge is too heavy for a child to carry. We need to protect what they see and what they hear. The knowledge gained is not helpful or edifying and focuses their attention on the wrong things. There is much time to learn about the evils of the world. While they are young (and have ears to hear), it is good to teach them about Jesus and allow them to grow in His grace and His knowledge.
As parents we begin to teach our children from the moment they are born how to be independent and responsible. This is our job. At the same time that we are teaching them independence from us we should also be modeling dependence on Him. In short, we are to give them Jesus. Our Father in heaven's desire for us, His children, is the opposite of what we desire for our own kids. He wants us to learn dependence...specifically dependence on Him. Jesus is our model here. Look at His life on earth. He said nothing and did nothing outside of the Father's will and depended on His Father in and for everything. While teaching our children to be self-sufficient and independent, we should also be training them up in the Lord. This is our most important job. It is our God given ministry. Knowledge and independence gained without God is deadly and leads to the sin of pride and ultimately eternal separation from the Father. Example to your children dependence on Him...their Creator...their Savior and their Lord.
Before Adam and Eve sinned they walked with God in the cool of the day and were in constant communion with Him. They depended on God to answer all their questions both large and small. This is what God wants for us. This is the intimate kind of relationship He wants to see us example to our children and to those He places in our lives. We are to walk with Him in total dependence moment by moment... to be in constant contact with Him. With the Lord we can always be a child...we can allow Him to carry our burdens, make perfect those things that concern us and rest in His arms when we are hurting, tired or afraid. The world is a big, scary place filled with sadness and anguish. We are not in control...give your children access to the One to whom they can go to boldly for grace and help in time of need. Make sure they know the One who embodies Hope...both in this world and in the next. Do not let your children leave home without Him. They will need Him to be their Savior, their Hope, their Rock, their Defender and their Strong Tower in the trials and storms of this life.
There are no guarantees that in doing this your children will walk with the Lord, but thankfully the results are not up to us. Our job is to do those works that He prepared beforehand. Obey...give them Jesus and you have given them everything they need...the rest is between them and their Lord.
Love
Mom
To My Sweet Daughters,
Satan had promised Eve that she would know good and evil if she ate the fruit of the tree. Satan was right...Adam and Eve gained the knowledge Satan promised would come...but at what price. They received it through disobedience so the knowledge they received was corrupted. They did not know as God knows...in perfect holiness.
Sin destroyed their innocence and guilt over their sin made them want to hide in shame. They now had to rely on their conscience to distinguish good from evil instead of God. Guilt is not a bad thing. It is your conscience's early warning signal that you have sinned and need to repent and turn and go in the other direction. It is a gift from God. The last thing we want to do is ignore a guilty conscience or attempt to placate it. Doing so will eventually cause our conscience to become hardened and seared and no longer know or care to distinguish right from wrong. I don't think we can imagine the onslaught Adam and Eve's conscience must have taken at the moment when they gained the ability to see and know evil for the first time. I can only liken it to a child's loss of innocence in learning that the world is not safe and that evil abounds. Below is an excerpt from Corrie Ten Boom's The Hiding Place that speaks to this very issue so well.
"And so seated next to my father in the train compartment, I suddenly asked, "Father, what is sex sin?"
He turned to look at me, as he always did when answering a question, but to my surprise he said nothing. At last he stood up, lifted his traveling case off the floor and set it on the floor.
"Will you carry it off the train, Corrie?" he said.
I stood up and tugged at it. It was crammed with the watches and spare parts he had purchased that morning.
It's too heavy," I said.
Yes," he said, "and it would be a pretty poor father who would ask his little girl to carry such a load. It's the same way, Corrie, with knowledge. Some knowledge is too heavy for children. When you are older and stronger, you can bear it. For now you must trust me to carry it for you."
Some knowledge is too heavy for a child to carry. We need to protect what they see and what they hear. The knowledge gained is not helpful or edifying and focuses their attention on the wrong things. There is much time to learn about the evils of the world. While they are young (and have ears to hear), it is good to teach them about Jesus and allow them to grow in His grace and His knowledge.
As parents we begin to teach our children from the moment they are born how to be independent and responsible. This is our job. At the same time that we are teaching them independence from us we should also be modeling dependence on Him. In short, we are to give them Jesus. Our Father in heaven's desire for us, His children, is the opposite of what we desire for our own kids. He wants us to learn dependence...specifically dependence on Him. Jesus is our model here. Look at His life on earth. He said nothing and did nothing outside of the Father's will and depended on His Father in and for everything. While teaching our children to be self-sufficient and independent, we should also be training them up in the Lord. This is our most important job. It is our God given ministry. Knowledge and independence gained without God is deadly and leads to the sin of pride and ultimately eternal separation from the Father. Example to your children dependence on Him...their Creator...their Savior and their Lord.
Before Adam and Eve sinned they walked with God in the cool of the day and were in constant communion with Him. They depended on God to answer all their questions both large and small. This is what God wants for us. This is the intimate kind of relationship He wants to see us example to our children and to those He places in our lives. We are to walk with Him in total dependence moment by moment... to be in constant contact with Him. With the Lord we can always be a child...we can allow Him to carry our burdens, make perfect those things that concern us and rest in His arms when we are hurting, tired or afraid. The world is a big, scary place filled with sadness and anguish. We are not in control...give your children access to the One to whom they can go to boldly for grace and help in time of need. Make sure they know the One who embodies Hope...both in this world and in the next. Do not let your children leave home without Him. They will need Him to be their Savior, their Hope, their Rock, their Defender and their Strong Tower in the trials and storms of this life.
There are no guarantees that in doing this your children will walk with the Lord, but thankfully the results are not up to us. Our job is to do those works that He prepared beforehand. Obey...give them Jesus and you have given them everything they need...the rest is between them and their Lord.
Love
Mom
Sunday, May 8, 2011
Discontented and Deceived - Genesis 3:6
So when the woman saw that the tree was good for food, that it was pleasant to the eyes, and a tree desirable to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate. She also gave to her husband with her, and he ate. --Genesis 3:6
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna and Mikayla,
Satan is called a liar and a murderer from the beginning. (John 8:44) These verses from Genesis 3 speak to why:
Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.' " Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." --Genesis 3:1-5
Satan's lies promise great things (look at vs 5 above) but always, always deliver death. First, Satan planted seeds of doubt about God's word saying "Has God indeed said?" Eve answered him and said that they were not to eat or "touch the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden." Eve added to the word...God had said nothing about touching the tree. In reply, Satan completely contradicts God and tells Eve that judgment will not occur and implies instead that God is perhaps holding out on her. Eve then succumbs to the temptation and eats the fruit. She then gave to her husband who also ate. Yes, Adam and Eve gained the knowledge Satan promised would come...but at what price. They received it through disobedience so the knowledge they received was corrupted. They did not know as God knows...in perfect holiness. It robbed them of their innocence and plunged humanity and the creation itself into a sentence of sickness, suffering and death.
Look at verse 6. Eve was deceived. She took the fruit and ate and then gave to her husband and he also ate. Both disobeyed but 1 Timothy 2 says that Eve was deceived but that Adam sinned with his eyes wide open. Uh oh... Adam's sin was willful...a direct transgression. It was through Adam that sin and death entered the world. I am sure this was not the legacy he wanted to leave to all of us...
And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. --1 Timothy 2:14
Romans 5 tells us that through one man sin entered the world, and that by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous. Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. How beautiful is that...out of Adam and into Christ when we believe! Grace reigns through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord!! All die in Adam, but those who put their trust in Jesus shall be made alive!
Eve fell into sin because she allowed herself to be taken in by Satan's lies...She became discontent because she looked at what she did not have rather than all the blessings of the Garden of Eden that surrounded her. THAT IS SO LIKE US!!!! We forget to be thankful. We focus on the wrong things. We doubt God's love and goodness toward us and even question His motives. Eve was not walking by faith but by sight. She succumbed to the lies of the world...the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. This is how believers are deceived and fall into sin. We get our mind on the things of the world instead of setting them on the things above.
For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. --1 John 2:16-17
Eve believed the lie. The word of God is the antidote for deception and sin. David hid the word of his God in his heart to keep from sinning. Girls, allow the Spirit of God to take control your thinking and your behavior by letting the word of God dwell in you richly. Romans 12:2 tells us not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. The word of God renews our mind. and it is by it that we know what is His perfect and good and acceptable will for us.
Be thankful...soak yourself in His word. Walk with Him by faith in surrender to His Spirit. Desire God above all things.
Love
Mom
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna and Mikayla,
Satan is called a liar and a murderer from the beginning. (John 8:44) These verses from Genesis 3 speak to why:
Now the serpent was more cunning than any beast of the field which the LORD God had made. And he said to the woman, "Has God indeed said, 'You shall not eat of every tree of the garden'?" And the woman said to the serpent, "We may eat the fruit of the trees of the garden; but of the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden, God has said, 'You shall not eat it, nor shall you touch it, lest you die.' " Then the serpent said to the woman, "You will not surely die. For God knows that in the day you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil." --Genesis 3:1-5
Satan's lies promise great things (look at vs 5 above) but always, always deliver death. First, Satan planted seeds of doubt about God's word saying "Has God indeed said?" Eve answered him and said that they were not to eat or "touch the fruit of the tree which is in the midst of the garden." Eve added to the word...God had said nothing about touching the tree. In reply, Satan completely contradicts God and tells Eve that judgment will not occur and implies instead that God is perhaps holding out on her. Eve then succumbs to the temptation and eats the fruit. She then gave to her husband who also ate. Yes, Adam and Eve gained the knowledge Satan promised would come...but at what price. They received it through disobedience so the knowledge they received was corrupted. They did not know as God knows...in perfect holiness. It robbed them of their innocence and plunged humanity and the creation itself into a sentence of sickness, suffering and death.
Look at verse 6. Eve was deceived. She took the fruit and ate and then gave to her husband and he also ate. Both disobeyed but 1 Timothy 2 says that Eve was deceived but that Adam sinned with his eyes wide open. Uh oh... Adam's sin was willful...a direct transgression. It was through Adam that sin and death entered the world. I am sure this was not the legacy he wanted to leave to all of us...
And Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived, fell into transgression. --1 Timothy 2:14
Romans 5 tells us that through one man sin entered the world, and that by one man's disobedience many were made sinners, so also by one Man's obedience many will be made righteous. Therefore, as through one man's offense judgment came to all men, resulting in condemnation, even so through one Man's righteous act the free gift came to all men, resulting in justification of life. How beautiful is that...out of Adam and into Christ when we believe! Grace reigns through righteousness to eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord!! All die in Adam, but those who put their trust in Jesus shall be made alive!
Eve fell into sin because she allowed herself to be taken in by Satan's lies...She became discontent because she looked at what she did not have rather than all the blessings of the Garden of Eden that surrounded her. THAT IS SO LIKE US!!!! We forget to be thankful. We focus on the wrong things. We doubt God's love and goodness toward us and even question His motives. Eve was not walking by faith but by sight. She succumbed to the lies of the world...the lust of the eyes, the lust of the flesh and the pride of life. This is how believers are deceived and fall into sin. We get our mind on the things of the world instead of setting them on the things above.
For all that is in the world—the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life—is not of the Father but is of the world. And the world is passing away, and the lust of it; but he who does the will of God abides forever. --1 John 2:16-17
Eve believed the lie. The word of God is the antidote for deception and sin. David hid the word of his God in his heart to keep from sinning. Girls, allow the Spirit of God to take control your thinking and your behavior by letting the word of God dwell in you richly. Romans 12:2 tells us not to be conformed to this world but to be transformed by the renewing of our minds. The word of God renews our mind. and it is by it that we know what is His perfect and good and acceptable will for us.
Be thankful...soak yourself in His word. Walk with Him by faith in surrender to His Spirit. Desire God above all things.
Love
Mom
Saturday, May 7, 2011
Spurgeon on Mothers...
O dear mothers, you have a very sacred trust reposed in you by God! He hath in
effect said to you, “Take this child and nurse it for Me, and I will give thee thy
wages.” You are called to equip the future man of God, that he may be thoroughly
furnished unto every good work. If God spares you, you may live to hear that pretty
boy speak to thousands, and you will have the sweet reflection in your heart that the
quiet teachings of the nursery led the man to love his God and serve Him. Those who
think that a woman detained at home by her little family is doing nothing, think the
reverse of what is true. Scarcely can the godly mother quit her home for a place of
worship; but dream not that she is lost to the work of the church; far from it, she is
doing the best possible service for her Lord. Mothers, the godly training of your
offspring is your first and most pressing duty. CC112
There is never a babe dropped into a mother’s bosom but it brings care, labour, grief,
and anxiety with it. 1433.506
Our fathers are all very well—God bless them!—and a father’s godly influence and
earnest prayers are of untold value to his children; but the mothers are worth two of
them, mostly, as to the moral training and religious bent of their sons and daughters. 2215.404
There is, somehow, a wonderful power about a mother’s voice, when she talks to her
children about Jesus and his love, which stamps itself upon the heart, and the heart
is a far better place for the custody of truth than ever the brain can become. 2937.256
effect said to you, “Take this child and nurse it for Me, and I will give thee thy
wages.” You are called to equip the future man of God, that he may be thoroughly
furnished unto every good work. If God spares you, you may live to hear that pretty
boy speak to thousands, and you will have the sweet reflection in your heart that the
quiet teachings of the nursery led the man to love his God and serve Him. Those who
think that a woman detained at home by her little family is doing nothing, think the
reverse of what is true. Scarcely can the godly mother quit her home for a place of
worship; but dream not that she is lost to the work of the church; far from it, she is
doing the best possible service for her Lord. Mothers, the godly training of your
offspring is your first and most pressing duty. CC112
There is never a babe dropped into a mother’s bosom but it brings care, labour, grief,
and anxiety with it. 1433.506
Our fathers are all very well—God bless them!—and a father’s godly influence and
earnest prayers are of untold value to his children; but the mothers are worth two of
them, mostly, as to the moral training and religious bent of their sons and daughters. 2215.404
There is, somehow, a wonderful power about a mother’s voice, when she talks to her
children about Jesus and his love, which stamps itself upon the heart, and the heart
is a far better place for the custody of truth than ever the brain can become. 2937.256
Spurgeon on Backsliding "Christians"
Spurgeon on Backsliding...
Chosen vessels of mercy, notwithstanding their backslidings, are brought back; but
ah! remember that nine out of ten of those who backslide never were God’s people.
It is very easy to go back in the heavenly pilgrimage, but it is very hard to retrieve
your steps.
By little and by little, as a rule, backsliding leads on to overt apostasy and sin. No,
no, so mature a servant of the devil as Judas is not produced all at once; it takes time
to educate a man for the scorner’s seat. Take care, therefore, of backsliding, because
of what it leads to. If you begin to slip on the side of a mountain of ice, the first slip
may not hurt if you can stop and slide no further; but, alas! you cannot so regulate
sin; when your feet begin to slide, the rate of their descent increases, and the
difficulty of arresting this motion is incessantly becoming greater. It is dangerous to
backslide in any degree, for we know not to what it may lead.
It is a wonderful thing, that even if you have been a prodigal, and have spent your
living with harlots, yet if you are his child, you may call him “Father.” Did not the
prodigal say, “Father, I have sinned?” There is good pleading in this fact, for you are
not unchilded even by your sin.
The Christian life is very much like climbing a hill of ice. You cannot slide up, nay,
you have to cut every step with an ice axe; only with incessant labour in cutting and
chipping can you make any progress; you need a guide to help you, and you are not
safe unless you are fastened to the guide, for you may slip into a crevasse. Nobody
ever slides up, but if great care be not taken they will slide down, slide back, or in
other words backslide. This is very easily done. If you want to know how to backslide,
the answer is leave off going forward and you will slide backward, cease going
upward and you will go downward of necessity, for stand still you never can.
It is not easy to persuade one who has been a backslider to come back to his first love.
The return journey is uphill, and flesh and blood do not assist us in it.
Devotion to God will be found to be the basis of holiness and the buttress of integrity.
If you backslide in secret before God, you will soon err in public before men.
Tell me where you lost the company of Christ, and I will tell you the most likely place
for you to find him again. Did you lose the company of Christ by forgetting prayer,
and becoming slack in your devotion? Have you lost Christ in the closet? Then you
will find him there. Did you lose Christ through some sin? Then you will find him in
no other way but by the giving up of the sin, and seeking by the Holy Spirit to mortify
the member in which the lust doth dwell. Did you lose Christ by neglecting the
Scriptures? Then you must find Christ in the Scriptures; where you lost him, you will
find him. It is a true saying, “Look for a thing where you dropped it, for it is there.”
Nine times out of ten, declension from God begins in the neglect of private prayer.
I trust that you do watch against the more coarse and vulgar sins to which others
are prone, and that you will not be allowed to fall into them; but there is such a thing
as falling by little and little.
Chosen vessels of mercy, notwithstanding their backslidings, are brought back; but
ah! remember that nine out of ten of those who backslide never were God’s people.
It is very easy to go back in the heavenly pilgrimage, but it is very hard to retrieve
your steps.
By little and by little, as a rule, backsliding leads on to overt apostasy and sin. No,
no, so mature a servant of the devil as Judas is not produced all at once; it takes time
to educate a man for the scorner’s seat. Take care, therefore, of backsliding, because
of what it leads to. If you begin to slip on the side of a mountain of ice, the first slip
may not hurt if you can stop and slide no further; but, alas! you cannot so regulate
sin; when your feet begin to slide, the rate of their descent increases, and the
difficulty of arresting this motion is incessantly becoming greater. It is dangerous to
backslide in any degree, for we know not to what it may lead.
It is a wonderful thing, that even if you have been a prodigal, and have spent your
living with harlots, yet if you are his child, you may call him “Father.” Did not the
prodigal say, “Father, I have sinned?” There is good pleading in this fact, for you are
not unchilded even by your sin.
The Christian life is very much like climbing a hill of ice. You cannot slide up, nay,
you have to cut every step with an ice axe; only with incessant labour in cutting and
chipping can you make any progress; you need a guide to help you, and you are not
safe unless you are fastened to the guide, for you may slip into a crevasse. Nobody
ever slides up, but if great care be not taken they will slide down, slide back, or in
other words backslide. This is very easily done. If you want to know how to backslide,
the answer is leave off going forward and you will slide backward, cease going
upward and you will go downward of necessity, for stand still you never can.
It is not easy to persuade one who has been a backslider to come back to his first love.
The return journey is uphill, and flesh and blood do not assist us in it.
Devotion to God will be found to be the basis of holiness and the buttress of integrity.
If you backslide in secret before God, you will soon err in public before men.
Tell me where you lost the company of Christ, and I will tell you the most likely place
for you to find him again. Did you lose the company of Christ by forgetting prayer,
and becoming slack in your devotion? Have you lost Christ in the closet? Then you
will find him there. Did you lose Christ through some sin? Then you will find him in
no other way but by the giving up of the sin, and seeking by the Holy Spirit to mortify
the member in which the lust doth dwell. Did you lose Christ by neglecting the
Scriptures? Then you must find Christ in the Scriptures; where you lost him, you will
find him. It is a true saying, “Look for a thing where you dropped it, for it is there.”
Nine times out of ten, declension from God begins in the neglect of private prayer.
I trust that you do watch against the more coarse and vulgar sins to which others
are prone, and that you will not be allowed to fall into them; but there is such a thing
as falling by little and little.
Friday, May 6, 2011
Perfect Peace...
Isaiah 26:3
You will keep him in perfect peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna and Mikayla,
This verse became my life verse very early on in my walk with the Lord. I did not know much, but I knew that this one was core. It is so practical! It is so simple! BUT its depths really cannot be fathomed. The longer I walk with Him the more I see that it truly is all about Him in every way. That is exactly as it should be. The longer I know Him, the greater my love for Him...the more I love Him, the more I think about Him and the more I love, think and know about Him the more I trust Him. Colossians tells us in Chapter 3:17 that "... whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him." Acts tells us that "In Him we live and move and have our being." Girls, your lives should be manifestations of your love for Him. He wants your single-minded devotion and love.
Every moment is Jesus....every situation is Jesus....every circumstance is Jesus and He should be the basis for every relationship we have. He is called Jehovah Shalom (God of Peace) and the Prince of Peace. He is the Great I AM. Chuck Smith has said that the name "Jehovah" can be interpreted as "The Becoming One." The One who becomes to people just what they need. I love that...the Becoming One...Wow! He becomes our peace when we focus our minds on Him.
The first peace we obtain is the peace we find at the moment of our salvation when we look to Him in faith and in His grace justifies us. We are now at peace with God...prior to salvation we were at war. (Col 1:21) Make no mistake, each one of us craves this peace with God. We live in a world filled with grief, problems and an absence of peace and each one of us searches for it. I distinctly remember the peace that flooded my soul when Jesus filled it with Himself. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced and changed me from the inside out through no effort on my part. I now had a Rock on which I could stand. Jesus is the Prince of Peace...The chastisement for yours and my peace was upon Him. Someday He, the Prince of Peace, will return and reign in Jerusalem and there will be true and lasting peace on the earth.
We can have this peace now, inside of us, when we surrender to His Spirit and allow Him to rule our hearts. As we look to Him our desires are changed and our priorities re-ordered. James 4 tells us that wars and fights come from the battle that rages inside us...we get angry when we do not get what we want. We are at war with God. Because we are at war with God we are also at war with ourselves and others. The Spirit inside of us yearns jealously. I love that...He wants ALL of me..He wants my heart to be completely controlled by His Spirit. James tells us how to do this a little further on .
James 4:7-8: Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
Girls...this kind of relationship with Jesus Christ is built over time. It is built as you abide in Him. It takes courage to take that first step and ask Him into your heart as your Lord and Savior. As you walk with Him day by day it takes courage to yield your desires to Him. But His grace is always there. You never have to worry about disappointing Him...your success is assured...He performs all things in accordance with His plan not yours. And His plan is from a heart of love. (Psalm 33:11) Again, as I have said before in other posts, stay close to Jesus, abide in Him by staying in His Word. Gaze into it...allow it to show you His good and perfect will, to convict your heart of sin, to renew your mind and to transform you into His image. As you do this you will love Him more and more with each passing day and consequently trust and obey Him more and more. Stay the course...immerse yourself in His Word...and His peace which is an outflow of the fruit of His Spirit...love...will flood your heart.
Love
Mom
You will keep him in perfect peace,
Whose mind is stayed on You,
Because he trusts in You.
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna and Mikayla,
This verse became my life verse very early on in my walk with the Lord. I did not know much, but I knew that this one was core. It is so practical! It is so simple! BUT its depths really cannot be fathomed. The longer I walk with Him the more I see that it truly is all about Him in every way. That is exactly as it should be. The longer I know Him, the greater my love for Him...the more I love Him, the more I think about Him and the more I love, think and know about Him the more I trust Him. Colossians tells us in Chapter 3:17 that "... whatever you do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God the Father through Him." Acts tells us that "In Him we live and move and have our being." Girls, your lives should be manifestations of your love for Him. He wants your single-minded devotion and love.
Every moment is Jesus....every situation is Jesus....every circumstance is Jesus and He should be the basis for every relationship we have. He is called Jehovah Shalom (God of Peace) and the Prince of Peace. He is the Great I AM. Chuck Smith has said that the name "Jehovah" can be interpreted as "The Becoming One." The One who becomes to people just what they need. I love that...the Becoming One...Wow! He becomes our peace when we focus our minds on Him.
The first peace we obtain is the peace we find at the moment of our salvation when we look to Him in faith and in His grace justifies us. We are now at peace with God...prior to salvation we were at war. (Col 1:21) Make no mistake, each one of us craves this peace with God. We live in a world filled with grief, problems and an absence of peace and each one of us searches for it. I distinctly remember the peace that flooded my soul when Jesus filled it with Himself. It was unlike anything I had ever experienced and changed me from the inside out through no effort on my part. I now had a Rock on which I could stand. Jesus is the Prince of Peace...The chastisement for yours and my peace was upon Him. Someday He, the Prince of Peace, will return and reign in Jerusalem and there will be true and lasting peace on the earth.
We can have this peace now, inside of us, when we surrender to His Spirit and allow Him to rule our hearts. As we look to Him our desires are changed and our priorities re-ordered. James 4 tells us that wars and fights come from the battle that rages inside us...we get angry when we do not get what we want. We are at war with God. Because we are at war with God we are also at war with ourselves and others. The Spirit inside of us yearns jealously. I love that...He wants ALL of me..He wants my heart to be completely controlled by His Spirit. James tells us how to do this a little further on .
James 4:7-8: Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you. 8 Draw near to God and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners; and purify your hearts, you double-minded. 9 Lament and mourn and weep! Let your laughter be turned to mourning and your joy to gloom. 10 Humble yourselves in the sight of the Lord, and He will lift you up.
Girls...this kind of relationship with Jesus Christ is built over time. It is built as you abide in Him. It takes courage to take that first step and ask Him into your heart as your Lord and Savior. As you walk with Him day by day it takes courage to yield your desires to Him. But His grace is always there. You never have to worry about disappointing Him...your success is assured...He performs all things in accordance with His plan not yours. And His plan is from a heart of love. (Psalm 33:11) Again, as I have said before in other posts, stay close to Jesus, abide in Him by staying in His Word. Gaze into it...allow it to show you His good and perfect will, to convict your heart of sin, to renew your mind and to transform you into His image. As you do this you will love Him more and more with each passing day and consequently trust and obey Him more and more. Stay the course...immerse yourself in His Word...and His peace which is an outflow of the fruit of His Spirit...love...will flood your heart.
Love
Mom
Thursday, May 5, 2011
On Prayer by E. M. Bounds
Great incentives to pray are furnished to Holy Scriptures and our Lord closes his teaching about prayer, with the assurance and promise of heaven. The presence of Jesus Christ in heaven, the preparation for His saints which he is making there, and the assurance that He will come again to receive them--how all this helps the weariness of praying, strengthens its conflicts, sweetens its arduous toil! These things are the star of hope to prayer, the wiping away of its tears, the putting of the odor of heaven into the bitterness of its cry. The spirit of a pilgrim greatly facilitates praying . An earthbound, earth-satisfied spirit cannot pray. In such a heart, the flame of spiritual desire is either gone out or smoldering in faintest glow. The wings of its faith are clipped, its eyes are filmed, its tongue silenced. But they, who in unswerving faith and unceasing prayer, wait continually upon the Lord, do renew their strength, do mount up with wings as eagles, do run, and are not weary, do walk, and not faint.
Wednesday, May 4, 2011
He Will Restore the Years the Locusts Ate
By Anna...
Joel 2:25-27 “So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust, My great army which I sent among you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; and My people shall never be put to shame. Then you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel: I am the Lord your God and there is no other. My people shall never be put to shame.”
These verses have been on my mind a lot lately, but it was just today that I actually discovered where exactly in the Bible they were. (Silly me.) And the reality amazed me. It is no coincidence that He put it on my heart to write today—and even found me this particular verse. This one, out of thousands of verses in His word. THIS one. It’s been my promise for a long time now. And every time I’ve needed it, He’s given its comfort and so much more to me…and now I know where it is. (And have underlined it heavily…no worries!)
Think about it, though. (You don’t need me; use your own head!) Time. It’s the one thing practically every human being with a brain on this planet has said, at one point or another, is irreplaceable. They often disagree on Time being nice or nasty, but nobody can restore it to anyone. Time—the amount of life you spend on this earth—is precious, the most valuable resource you have, and chose what or who you invest it in very carefully. And the reason it’s so precious is mainly because no one knows just how much of it they have. There is no predetermined length or requisite amount allotted to each person. You could have five minutes left. You could have five years, or fifty, or five seconds. You just don’t know. It’s what you do in that Time that matters.
But so often people take it—Time and Life…kind of interchangeable here—for granted. We think we have years and years ahead of us. We disregard Time’s value. We don’t live like we’re dying…but we should. Because only God knows what will happen to your Time in the next nanosecond, or the next hour, or the next day.
And yet we fritter away our Times, our Lives, on worthless things. We put off spending Time on the people—especially the Person—or the things that are really important. We think we’ll do it tomorrow. We think we’ll do it next week, or next Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, or next year.
And the next thing you know, you’re facing the King of Kings at the judgement seat, and He’ll ask you, with a voice like the thunder of many waters, just what you did with the Time He gave you. And you’ll know He knows anyway.
(Hang on…there’s good news coming in a minute.)
But occasionally there are those times when not just us but other people behave like those locusts and seem to “consume” or “chew” away at our time. Now, nobody can take away what God gives—hence the clause in the verse “My great army which I sent among you”—and what other people can do to those of us who are under God’s protection is extremely limited, but every now and then somebody (or something, such as Death) comes along and rips away those whom you loved and considered precious, who you invested your Time, your very Life, in.
Now comes the good news.
Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
God can and will work both of those “locusts” to your advantage. Whatever happens to you is under His control and therefore in your best interest. We can’t lose. Literally. It isn’t possible. The taking away of what/who you invested your Time in will ultimately prove to be what’s best for you. And—doesn’t God deal WONDROUSLY with us?—He can RESTORE the years the locusts ate. He can do far more than simply compensate for those years that were wasted by us and our years that were “wasted” by others. And as for those whom Death “took”, there’s an eternal Reunion coming up…and hopefully, you’ve RSVP’d.
Joel 2:25-27 “So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust, My great army which I sent among you. You shall eat in plenty and be satisfied, and praise the name of the Lord your God, who has dealt wondrously with you; and My people shall never be put to shame. Then you shall know that I am in the midst of Israel: I am the Lord your God and there is no other. My people shall never be put to shame.”
These verses have been on my mind a lot lately, but it was just today that I actually discovered where exactly in the Bible they were. (Silly me.) And the reality amazed me. It is no coincidence that He put it on my heart to write today—and even found me this particular verse. This one, out of thousands of verses in His word. THIS one. It’s been my promise for a long time now. And every time I’ve needed it, He’s given its comfort and so much more to me…and now I know where it is. (And have underlined it heavily…no worries!)
Think about it, though. (You don’t need me; use your own head!) Time. It’s the one thing practically every human being with a brain on this planet has said, at one point or another, is irreplaceable. They often disagree on Time being nice or nasty, but nobody can restore it to anyone. Time—the amount of life you spend on this earth—is precious, the most valuable resource you have, and chose what or who you invest it in very carefully. And the reason it’s so precious is mainly because no one knows just how much of it they have. There is no predetermined length or requisite amount allotted to each person. You could have five minutes left. You could have five years, or fifty, or five seconds. You just don’t know. It’s what you do in that Time that matters.
But so often people take it—Time and Life…kind of interchangeable here—for granted. We think we have years and years ahead of us. We disregard Time’s value. We don’t live like we’re dying…but we should. Because only God knows what will happen to your Time in the next nanosecond, or the next hour, or the next day.
And yet we fritter away our Times, our Lives, on worthless things. We put off spending Time on the people—especially the Person—or the things that are really important. We think we’ll do it tomorrow. We think we’ll do it next week, or next Monday, or Tuesday, or Wednesday, or next year.
And the next thing you know, you’re facing the King of Kings at the judgement seat, and He’ll ask you, with a voice like the thunder of many waters, just what you did with the Time He gave you. And you’ll know He knows anyway.
(Hang on…there’s good news coming in a minute.)
But occasionally there are those times when not just us but other people behave like those locusts and seem to “consume” or “chew” away at our time. Now, nobody can take away what God gives—hence the clause in the verse “My great army which I sent among you”—and what other people can do to those of us who are under God’s protection is extremely limited, but every now and then somebody (or something, such as Death) comes along and rips away those whom you loved and considered precious, who you invested your Time, your very Life, in.
Now comes the good news.
Jeremiah 29:11 “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not evil, to give you a future and a hope.”
God can and will work both of those “locusts” to your advantage. Whatever happens to you is under His control and therefore in your best interest. We can’t lose. Literally. It isn’t possible. The taking away of what/who you invested your Time in will ultimately prove to be what’s best for you. And—doesn’t God deal WONDROUSLY with us?—He can RESTORE the years the locusts ate. He can do far more than simply compensate for those years that were wasted by us and our years that were “wasted” by others. And as for those whom Death “took”, there’s an eternal Reunion coming up…and hopefully, you’ve RSVP’d.
Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Mercy Triumphs over Judgment...
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna, and Mikayla,
James 2:1-13 is meant to be read and studied together. It is a very rich section of Scripture and I have taken it a few verses at a time. To get the full import of meaning read the verses that come before as well as look at the studies done on James 2:1-4, James 2:5-7 and James 2:8-11.
With that said let's look at the last two verses of this section of Scripture. "So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment."
This entire section (2:1-13) is asking us to look at the attitudes we have towards others. Do they reflect Christ's grace or our own partiality? Are we showing mercy to others? Do we obey His word or our own deceitful heart. Do our word and deed match? Do we do as we say? Is our yes, yes and our no, no? What does the general pattern of our behavior toward others tell us when we examine it. Judgment is coming. Believers are not judged for their sins...but they are judged for their works and are rewarded accordingly. Our salvation is assured...we will however be rewarded or suffer loss based on our works.
"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life."--John 5:24
"each one's work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one's work, of what sort it is. If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad".--1 Corinthians 3:12-15
How are we judged? Believers are judged by the perfect law of liberty. What is the perfect law of liberty you ask? We, as believers, are set free from the law of Moses by our faith in Christ Jesus. Jesus is the end of the law of works to all who believe. Believers are under grace...the law of liberty...we now are at liberty to do what is right..to be all we can be in Christ Jesus. An unbeliever is judged by the law. The law tells us how we are suppose to behave, but it does not give us the power to do it and condemns us when we fail. Here is the beautiful thing about grace and the law of liberty. Grace gives us the power to obey the law and then rewards us when we do! We do not obey God out of fear or because we have to, we obey God because we want to. We obey Him out of love and gratitude for what He has done for us and not in our own strength but in His.
Look at the first part of verse 12...so speak. Our words will be judged. Every one of them. Proverbs says in the multitude of words sins is not absent. Uh oh. Our lips will reveal our hearts. Here is what Jesus tells us in Matthew.
Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." --Matthew 12:34-37
When God judges our words then, He is really examining our hearts. Listen to what is coming out of your mouth and what it says about the state of your heart and your attitude. Discern your motivations for speaking the words that you speak. You will learn much about yourself in this process. What are the general direction and pattern of your words? If you are unsure of what to say and what not to say, I find this acronym very helpful---NEGG. Is it Needful or Necessary? Is it Edifying? Is it Good? Does it give Grace? If you can answer yes to each one of those than it is probably a good thing to say. If you can't, keep your mouth closed. In fact, make it a practice to say less and what you will find is that much of what you say is not necessary, needful, edifying, good or gives grace.
The next part of verse 12 says "so do"...we will be judged by our deeds. We are not saved by good works...we are saved for good works. (see Ephesians 2) God forgives our sins when we confess them to Him BUT our sins have consequences. The decisions we make moment by moment, day in and day out affect who we are and who we will become. The consequences of our decisions not only have temporal effects but also eternal ones.
Verse 12 says, "for judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment." Not showing mercy or compassions for those in need is evidence of an unsaved life...of a life that has not responded to the God who is rich in mercy. This person will be judged by the law and condemned to eternal life in hell.
Mercy triumphs over judgment...Jesus triumphed over sin and death by His grace and mercy toward us in going to the cross and dying in our place. Mercy triumphed at the cross. If we believe, we receive mercy for our sins instead of judgment and will show mercy to others having received the mercy of God. Judgment can be a thing of the past. Instead of being under the law, you can be under grace. All that is required is a sincere acceptance of Jesus as your Savior and Lord. If you have not done this, you are under condemnation. By accepting Jesus you move from condemnation to salvation and are conveyed into His Kingdom of Light. Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart...today is the day of salvation. Accept Him now.
Love
Mom
James 2:1-13 is meant to be read and studied together. It is a very rich section of Scripture and I have taken it a few verses at a time. To get the full import of meaning read the verses that come before as well as look at the studies done on James 2:1-4, James 2:5-7 and James 2:8-11.
With that said let's look at the last two verses of this section of Scripture. "So speak and so do as those who will be judged by the law of liberty. For judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment."
This entire section (2:1-13) is asking us to look at the attitudes we have towards others. Do they reflect Christ's grace or our own partiality? Are we showing mercy to others? Do we obey His word or our own deceitful heart. Do our word and deed match? Do we do as we say? Is our yes, yes and our no, no? What does the general pattern of our behavior toward others tell us when we examine it. Judgment is coming. Believers are not judged for their sins...but they are judged for their works and are rewarded accordingly. Our salvation is assured...we will however be rewarded or suffer loss based on our works.
"Most assuredly, I say to you, he who hears My word and believes in Him who sent Me has everlasting life, and shall not come into judgment, but has passed from death into life."--John 5:24
"each one's work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one's work, of what sort it is. If anyone's work which he has built on it endures, he will receive a reward. If anyone's work is burned, he will suffer loss; but he himself will be saved, yet so as through fire.
For we must all appear before the judgment seat of Christ, that each one may receive the things done in the body, according to what he has done, whether good or bad".--1 Corinthians 3:12-15
How are we judged? Believers are judged by the perfect law of liberty. What is the perfect law of liberty you ask? We, as believers, are set free from the law of Moses by our faith in Christ Jesus. Jesus is the end of the law of works to all who believe. Believers are under grace...the law of liberty...we now are at liberty to do what is right..to be all we can be in Christ Jesus. An unbeliever is judged by the law. The law tells us how we are suppose to behave, but it does not give us the power to do it and condemns us when we fail. Here is the beautiful thing about grace and the law of liberty. Grace gives us the power to obey the law and then rewards us when we do! We do not obey God out of fear or because we have to, we obey God because we want to. We obey Him out of love and gratitude for what He has done for us and not in our own strength but in His.
Look at the first part of verse 12...so speak. Our words will be judged. Every one of them. Proverbs says in the multitude of words sins is not absent. Uh oh. Our lips will reveal our hearts. Here is what Jesus tells us in Matthew.
Brood of vipers! How can you, being evil, speak good things? For out of the abundance of the heart the mouth speaks. A good man out of the good treasure of his heart brings forth good things, and an evil man out of the evil treasure brings forth evil things. But I say to you that for every idle word men may speak, they will give account of it in the day of judgment. For by your words you will be justified, and by your words you will be condemned." --Matthew 12:34-37
When God judges our words then, He is really examining our hearts. Listen to what is coming out of your mouth and what it says about the state of your heart and your attitude. Discern your motivations for speaking the words that you speak. You will learn much about yourself in this process. What are the general direction and pattern of your words? If you are unsure of what to say and what not to say, I find this acronym very helpful---NEGG. Is it Needful or Necessary? Is it Edifying? Is it Good? Does it give Grace? If you can answer yes to each one of those than it is probably a good thing to say. If you can't, keep your mouth closed. In fact, make it a practice to say less and what you will find is that much of what you say is not necessary, needful, edifying, good or gives grace.
The next part of verse 12 says "so do"...we will be judged by our deeds. We are not saved by good works...we are saved for good works. (see Ephesians 2) God forgives our sins when we confess them to Him BUT our sins have consequences. The decisions we make moment by moment, day in and day out affect who we are and who we will become. The consequences of our decisions not only have temporal effects but also eternal ones.
Verse 12 says, "for judgment is without mercy to the one who has shown no mercy. Mercy triumphs over judgment." Not showing mercy or compassions for those in need is evidence of an unsaved life...of a life that has not responded to the God who is rich in mercy. This person will be judged by the law and condemned to eternal life in hell.
Mercy triumphs over judgment...Jesus triumphed over sin and death by His grace and mercy toward us in going to the cross and dying in our place. Mercy triumphed at the cross. If we believe, we receive mercy for our sins instead of judgment and will show mercy to others having received the mercy of God. Judgment can be a thing of the past. Instead of being under the law, you can be under grace. All that is required is a sincere acceptance of Jesus as your Savior and Lord. If you have not done this, you are under condemnation. By accepting Jesus you move from condemnation to salvation and are conveyed into His Kingdom of Light. Today if you hear His voice, do not harden your heart...today is the day of salvation. Accept Him now.
Love
Mom
Choices...
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna and Mikayla,
I am back in Genesis once again and have reached the very beginning of Chapter 3 and am thinking on choices and how God placed a test in the garden of Eden giving the residents an opportunity to exercise God's gift of free will. Would not it have been better not to have been given the opportunity? Think on that for a bit. How would you know that you truly loved Him unless you had a choice? Without free will...without a choice...love and devotion have no meaning.
God knows all things and in His foreknowledge He knew that man, when He created him, would fail and make the wrong choices. He knew that the price of our redemption would be the shed blood of His Son on a cross. And yet, God created us...you and me...to have a meaningful, intimate relationship with Him anyway. God gave man the capacity to choose because without choice man becomes a robot. How much fun is it to have a relationship with a robot. It will obey you...but..you know...it has to. Think on the meaningful relationships in your lives. How much depth is there because you know they want to be with you...it is their desire to know you and spend time with you.
But here is the thing with choices...when we make them, we show our hearts to all. Our actions will indicate to all what our heart believes. The choices that I make show me where my heart is and what it is set on.....especially those I make in regard to God and the people God has placed in my life. In much the same way I can see by the choices the people I love make in their own lives, where their heart is focused and for better or for worse, where I stand with them. Our choices reveal much.
Take a moment and do an inventory of where your time and energy is focused and what it says to those you love about where they stand...more important...take a moment and look at your relationship with the Lord. How much time do you spend with Him and His word. It has been said that couples who have spent years in each others company begin to resemble one another. Are you looking more and more like Jesus because of the time you are spending with Him or more and more like the world as a result of the daily choices you are making?
Love
Mom
I am back in Genesis once again and have reached the very beginning of Chapter 3 and am thinking on choices and how God placed a test in the garden of Eden giving the residents an opportunity to exercise God's gift of free will. Would not it have been better not to have been given the opportunity? Think on that for a bit. How would you know that you truly loved Him unless you had a choice? Without free will...without a choice...love and devotion have no meaning.
God knows all things and in His foreknowledge He knew that man, when He created him, would fail and make the wrong choices. He knew that the price of our redemption would be the shed blood of His Son on a cross. And yet, God created us...you and me...to have a meaningful, intimate relationship with Him anyway. God gave man the capacity to choose because without choice man becomes a robot. How much fun is it to have a relationship with a robot. It will obey you...but..you know...it has to. Think on the meaningful relationships in your lives. How much depth is there because you know they want to be with you...it is their desire to know you and spend time with you.
But here is the thing with choices...when we make them, we show our hearts to all. Our actions will indicate to all what our heart believes. The choices that I make show me where my heart is and what it is set on.....especially those I make in regard to God and the people God has placed in my life. In much the same way I can see by the choices the people I love make in their own lives, where their heart is focused and for better or for worse, where I stand with them. Our choices reveal much.
Take a moment and do an inventory of where your time and energy is focused and what it says to those you love about where they stand...more important...take a moment and look at your relationship with the Lord. How much time do you spend with Him and His word. It has been said that couples who have spent years in each others company begin to resemble one another. Are you looking more and more like Jesus because of the time you are spending with Him or more and more like the world as a result of the daily choices you are making?
Love
Mom
Monday, May 2, 2011
Mikayla's Bible Blog
Love vs. Anger
Jesus was rejected in His own home town. Imagine how that must have felt. People He knew and loved tried to murder Him just for speaking the truth. If I were God, I would have gotten angry and murdered them all. But God is a loving God. Do not think your sins are unforgiveable. God has already died for them. If you believe in Him, they are forgiven!!!!!!
Trust vs. Doubt
Simon trusted God and let his net down again. The leper showed trust when he cried out, Lord! If you are willing, you can heal me. Matthew the tax collector trusted and followed Him. All these things were rewarded. Simon with the fish, the leper with being cleansed and Matthew with eternal life. Not that we show trust in God just for the rewards or else we really aren't trusting in God...well at least not in the right way.
Speck vs. Plank
All of us have our own number of bad thoughts. If you had a brother and you noticed that your brother's shoelace was untied and you said to him: "Bro, let me kneel down and tie your shoe for you. But your brother says, Stupid...your whole shoe is off! First get your shoe back on and then you will be able to tie my shoe. You see the brother saw that his brother has a sin but he did not consider that his whole shoe was off!
Or if you and your sister were riding bikes and you said to your sister. Sis, your tire is a bit squishy. let's stop and I will pump it. But she says you sorry human. Do you not notice that your tire is flat? First pump your own tire before you do mine.
Both of these pictures showed that both of them having a sin. The brother and sister acted like their brother or sister couldn't do it themselves...which you know....they couldn't. But they were too puffed up and feeling they were perfect that they didn't notice that they had bigger sins on their hands! Only God can heal us of our sins and only God can say He is better than us because He is God.
Jesus was rejected in His own home town. Imagine how that must have felt. People He knew and loved tried to murder Him just for speaking the truth. If I were God, I would have gotten angry and murdered them all. But God is a loving God. Do not think your sins are unforgiveable. God has already died for them. If you believe in Him, they are forgiven!!!!!!
Trust vs. Doubt
Simon trusted God and let his net down again. The leper showed trust when he cried out, Lord! If you are willing, you can heal me. Matthew the tax collector trusted and followed Him. All these things were rewarded. Simon with the fish, the leper with being cleansed and Matthew with eternal life. Not that we show trust in God just for the rewards or else we really aren't trusting in God...well at least not in the right way.
Speck vs. Plank
All of us have our own number of bad thoughts. If you had a brother and you noticed that your brother's shoelace was untied and you said to him: "Bro, let me kneel down and tie your shoe for you. But your brother says, Stupid...your whole shoe is off! First get your shoe back on and then you will be able to tie my shoe. You see the brother saw that his brother has a sin but he did not consider that his whole shoe was off!
Or if you and your sister were riding bikes and you said to your sister. Sis, your tire is a bit squishy. let's stop and I will pump it. But she says you sorry human. Do you not notice that your tire is flat? First pump your own tire before you do mine.
Both of these pictures showed that both of them having a sin. The brother and sister acted like their brother or sister couldn't do it themselves...which you know....they couldn't. But they were too puffed up and feeling they were perfect that they didn't notice that they had bigger sins on their hands! Only God can heal us of our sins and only God can say He is better than us because He is God.
The Royal Law...
If you really fulfill the royal law according to the Scripture, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF," you do well; but if you show partiality, you commit sin, and are convicted by the law as transgressors. For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, "DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY," also said, "DO NOT MURDER." Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law.--James 2:8-11
Dear Girls,
The royal law...the law of love...is the fulfillment of all of God's laws. As we walk in beautiful surrender to the Spirit of God, His love shed abroad in our hearts sets us free from sin and selfishness and enables us to obey His word and treat people as He treats them...love them as He loves them. Hatred enslaves us. Partiality is not consistent with belief in God's Son because God by nature is impartial. James tells us quite simply that if we show partiality we commit sin and are convicted by the law as a transgressor. If we are fulfilling the royal law of love, however, we will not be committing partiality. Selfless, agape love is an attribute of our Father in Heaven. His nature loves. When we believe, He sheds His love abroad in our hearts and in surrendering to His Spirit living inside us, we can share His love with those around us. Loving others with His love frees us from the offenses that inevitably come and weigh us down and distract us from our true mission as an ambassador of Christ....glorifying in Him in our word and deed and being the very fragrance of Christ to those around us.
Look at verses 10 and 11..For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, "DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY," also said, "DO NOT MURDER." Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law." There is no grace in the law. If we break one of the laws we break them all and are guilty of all. The bible tells us that we all sin and fall short of the glory of God. It also says that the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in God's Son, Christ Jesus our Lord. The law was a tutor to bring us to Christ. The law is good in that it shows us our inability not to sin and our desperate need for a Savior, but there is no grace in the law. Grace can only be obtained by belief in God's Son. Grace involves God's sovereign choice of those who cannot earn and do not deserve salvation. "for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." Girls, we are saved by God's grace alone. To treat those around us based on anything else is utterly and totally inconsistent with the doctrine of grace and with the Lord of glory.
Let's look at the royal law. The royal law is the law of love. It is loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself.
"The first of all the commandments is: 'HEAR, O ISRAEL, THE LORD OUR GOD, THE LORD IS ONE.
AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.' This is the first commandment.
And the second, like it, is this: 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' There is no other commandment greater than these." --Mark 12:29-31
Jesus told us in the story of "The Good Samaritan" that our neighbor is anyone who needs our help. Love is the law that rules all other laws. If you are loving God supremely and loving the people around you with His love...treating them as you yourself want to be treated...then you have fulfilled the whole law. Read this passage from Romans 13.
Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, "YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY," "YOU SHALL NOT MURDER," "YOU SHALL NOT STEAL," "YOU SHALL NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS," "YOU SHALL NOT COVET," and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. --Romans 13:8-10
When we practice love, there is no need for any other laws, because love covers it all! On it hang the law and the prophets! If we love others, we will not sin against them...love does no harm to a neighbor. It is as simple as that and as impossible as that.
Think about how you treat yourself...how concerned you are about yourself...about your appearance...about your financial status.... about your health....about your social status. Whose body do you care for...whose hair do you comb...whose bills do you pay? Are you getting the picture? We are to show the same kind of loving concern we show ourselves to others. When they hurt, we are to feel their hurt as if it were our own. Uh oh...Do you see how impossible this is to do in our own strength? Do you see how far we all fall short? This kind of love is not possible outside of the Spirit of God dwelling in our hearts. Laws cannot change our hearts but the Spirit of God does...and as we surrender and obey, we are taught by Him to love one another.
Biblical love is a command. We are to love others whether we feel like it or not. Love in the Bible is not based on emotion...it is based on action. We are to meet another in love at the point of their need. Again, and this is worth repeating...if we are loving God supremely and loving others as we love ourselves, we will be automatically obeying all the other commandments. Purpose in your heart to put on love ahead of time for those God has placed in your lives. Obey His command to love. As you do this you will find yourself beginning to see the people (and some might be enemies) with His eyes and even begin to "feel" the love that He has for them because His Spirit is performing a miracle in your heart...transforming your thinking and conforming you into His image, as you surrender and obey.
This is how you reflect your God to others...by loving them with the love that He has placed in your heart. Jesus said this in John 13:35. If you do this, James says you do well.
"By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
Love
Mom
Dear Girls,
The royal law...the law of love...is the fulfillment of all of God's laws. As we walk in beautiful surrender to the Spirit of God, His love shed abroad in our hearts sets us free from sin and selfishness and enables us to obey His word and treat people as He treats them...love them as He loves them. Hatred enslaves us. Partiality is not consistent with belief in God's Son because God by nature is impartial. James tells us quite simply that if we show partiality we commit sin and are convicted by the law as a transgressor. If we are fulfilling the royal law of love, however, we will not be committing partiality. Selfless, agape love is an attribute of our Father in Heaven. His nature loves. When we believe, He sheds His love abroad in our hearts and in surrendering to His Spirit living inside us, we can share His love with those around us. Loving others with His love frees us from the offenses that inevitably come and weigh us down and distract us from our true mission as an ambassador of Christ....glorifying in Him in our word and deed and being the very fragrance of Christ to those around us.
Look at verses 10 and 11..For whoever shall keep the whole law, and yet stumble in one point, he is guilty of all. For He who said, "DO NOT COMMIT ADULTERY," also said, "DO NOT MURDER." Now if you do not commit adultery, but you do murder, you have become a transgressor of the law." There is no grace in the law. If we break one of the laws we break them all and are guilty of all. The bible tells us that we all sin and fall short of the glory of God. It also says that the wages of sin is death but the gift of God is eternal life in God's Son, Christ Jesus our Lord. The law was a tutor to bring us to Christ. The law is good in that it shows us our inability not to sin and our desperate need for a Savior, but there is no grace in the law. Grace can only be obtained by belief in God's Son. Grace involves God's sovereign choice of those who cannot earn and do not deserve salvation. "for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast." Girls, we are saved by God's grace alone. To treat those around us based on anything else is utterly and totally inconsistent with the doctrine of grace and with the Lord of glory.
Let's look at the royal law. The royal law is the law of love. It is loving the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and your neighbor as yourself.
"The first of all the commandments is: 'HEAR, O ISRAEL, THE LORD OUR GOD, THE LORD IS ONE.
AND YOU SHALL LOVE THE LORD YOUR GOD WITH ALL YOUR HEART, WITH ALL YOUR SOUL, WITH ALL YOUR MIND, AND WITH ALL YOUR STRENGTH.' This is the first commandment.
And the second, like it, is this: 'YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF.' There is no other commandment greater than these." --Mark 12:29-31
Jesus told us in the story of "The Good Samaritan" that our neighbor is anyone who needs our help. Love is the law that rules all other laws. If you are loving God supremely and loving the people around you with His love...treating them as you yourself want to be treated...then you have fulfilled the whole law. Read this passage from Romans 13.
Owe no one anything except to love one another, for he who loves another has fulfilled the law. For the commandments, "YOU SHALL NOT COMMIT ADULTERY," "YOU SHALL NOT MURDER," "YOU SHALL NOT STEAL," "YOU SHALL NOT BEAR FALSE WITNESS," "YOU SHALL NOT COVET," and if there is any other commandment, are all summed up in this saying, namely, "YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR AS YOURSELF." Love does no harm to a neighbor; therefore love is the fulfillment of the law. --Romans 13:8-10
When we practice love, there is no need for any other laws, because love covers it all! On it hang the law and the prophets! If we love others, we will not sin against them...love does no harm to a neighbor. It is as simple as that and as impossible as that.
Think about how you treat yourself...how concerned you are about yourself...about your appearance...about your financial status.... about your health....about your social status. Whose body do you care for...whose hair do you comb...whose bills do you pay? Are you getting the picture? We are to show the same kind of loving concern we show ourselves to others. When they hurt, we are to feel their hurt as if it were our own. Uh oh...Do you see how impossible this is to do in our own strength? Do you see how far we all fall short? This kind of love is not possible outside of the Spirit of God dwelling in our hearts. Laws cannot change our hearts but the Spirit of God does...and as we surrender and obey, we are taught by Him to love one another.
Biblical love is a command. We are to love others whether we feel like it or not. Love in the Bible is not based on emotion...it is based on action. We are to meet another in love at the point of their need. Again, and this is worth repeating...if we are loving God supremely and loving others as we love ourselves, we will be automatically obeying all the other commandments. Purpose in your heart to put on love ahead of time for those God has placed in your lives. Obey His command to love. As you do this you will find yourself beginning to see the people (and some might be enemies) with His eyes and even begin to "feel" the love that He has for them because His Spirit is performing a miracle in your heart...transforming your thinking and conforming you into His image, as you surrender and obey.
This is how you reflect your God to others...by loving them with the love that He has placed in your heart. Jesus said this in John 13:35. If you do this, James says you do well.
"By this all will know that you are My disciples, if you have love for one another."
Love
Mom
Sunday, May 1, 2011
Testimony of Abortion Survivor...Gianna Jessen
Testimony of abortion survivor Gianna Jessen before the Constitution Subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee on April 22, 1996.
My name is Gianna Jessen. I am 19 years of age. I am originally from California, but now reside in Franklin, Tennessee. I am adopted. I have cerebral palsy. My biological mother was 17 years old and seven and one-half months pregnant when she made the decision to have a saline abortion. I am the person she aborted. I lived instead of died.
Fortunately for me the abortionist was not in the clinic when I arrived alive, instead of dead, at 6:00 a.m. on the morning of April 6, 1977. I was early, my death was not expected to be seen until about 9 a.m., when he would probably be arriving for his office hours. I am sure I would not be here today if the abortionist would have been in the clinic as his job is to take life, not sustain it. Some have said I am a "botched abortion", a result of a job not well done.
There were many witnesses to my entry into this world. My biological mother and other young girls in the clinic, who also awaited the death of their babies, were the first to greet me. I am told this was a hysterical moment. Next was a staff nurse who apparently called emergency medical services and had me transferred to a hospital.
I remained in the hospital for almost three months. There was not much hope for me in the beginning. I weighed only two pounds. Today, babies smaller than I was have survived.
A doctor once said I had a great will to live and that I fought for my life. I eventually was able to leave the hospital and be placed in foster care. I was diagnosed with cerebral palsy as a result of the abortion.
My foster mother was told that it was doubtful that I would ever crawl or walk. I could not sit up independently. Through the prayers and dedication of my foster mother, and later many other people, I eventually learned to sit up, crawl, then stand. I walked with leg braces and a walker shortly before I turned age four. I was legally adopted by my foster mother's daughter, Diana De Paul, a few months after I began to walk. The Department of Social Services would not release me any earlier for adoption.
I have continued in physical therapy for my disability, and after a total of four surgeries, I can now walk without assistance. It is not always easy. Sometimes I fall, but I have learned how to fall gracefully after falling 19 years.
I am happy to be alive. I almost died. Every day I thank God for life. I do not consider myself a by-product of conception, a clump of tissue, or any other of the titles given to a child in the womb. I do not consider any person conceived to be any of those things.
I have met other survivors of abortion. They are all thankful for life. Only a few months ago I met another saline abortion survivor. Her name is Sarah. She is two years old. Sarah also has cerebral palsy, but her diagnosis is not good. She is blind and has severe seizures. The abortionist, besides injecting the mother with saline, also injects the baby victims. Sarah was injected in the head. I saw the place on her head where this was done. When I speak, I speak not only for myself, but for the other survivors, like Sarah, and also for those who cannot yet speak ...
Today, a baby is a baby when convenient. It is tissue or otherwise when the time is not right. A baby is a baby when miscarriage takes place at two, three, four months. A baby is called a tissue or clumps of cells when an abortion takes place at two, three, four months. Why is that? I see no difference. What are you seeing? Many close there eyes...
The best thing I can show you to defend life is my life. It has been a great gift. Killing is not the answer to any question or situation. Show me how it is the answer.
There is a quote which is etched into the high ceilings of one of our state's capitol buildings. The quote says, "Whatever is morally wrong, is not politically correct." Abortion is morally wrong. Our country is shedding the blood of the innocent. America is killing its future.
All life is valuable. All life is a gift from our Creator. We must receive and cherish the gifts we are given. We must honor the right to life.
http://www.therightscoop.com/must-watch-gianna-jessen-gives-amazing-speech-in-australia/
Christophobia: He is Not Going Away
Christophobia: He is Not Going Away: "And: “You, LORD, in the beginning laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You re..."
On Forgiveness...Corrie Ten Boom
This remarkable woman spent the first 50 years of her life living peacefully with her father and sister above their watch shop in Haarlem, Holland. When World War II broke out, this devoutly Christ-like family began providing "hiding places" for persecuted Jews. Her great faith sustained her, then, through the several months in Nazi concentration camps, and the death of her father and sister. After her release, she spent the rest of her life traveling all over the world, captivating audiences with her inspiring story.
On Forgiveness...
It was at a church service in Munich that I saw him, a former S.S. man who had stood guard at the shower room door in the processing center at Ravensbruck. He was the first of our actual jailers that I had seen since that time. And suddenly it was all there – the roomful of mocking men, the heaps of clothing, Betsie's pain-blanched face.
He came up to me as the church was emptying, beaming and bowing. “How grateful I am for your message, Fraulein.” He said. “To think that, as you say, He has washed my sins away!” His hand was thrust out to shake mine. And I, who had preached so often to the people in Bloemendaal the need to forgive, kept my hand at my side.
Even as the angry, vengeful thoughts boiled through me, I saw the sin of them. Jesus Christ had died for this man; was I going to ask for more? Lord Jesus, I prayed, forgive me and help me to forgive him. I tried to smile, I struggles to raise my hand. I could not. I felt nothing, not the slightest spark of warmth or charity. And so again I breathed a silent prayer. Jesus, I prayed, I cannot forgive him. Give me Your forgiveness.
As I took his hand the most incredible thing happened. From my shoulder along my arm and through my hand a current seemed to pass from me to him, while into my heart sprang a love for this stranger that almost overwhelmed me. And so I discovered that it is not on our forgiveness any more than on our goodness that the world's healing hinges, but on His. When He tells us to love our enemies, He gives, along with the command, the love itself.
Saturday, April 30, 2011
It's All Grace! James 2:5-7
Listen, my beloved brethren: Has God not chosen the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which He promised to those who love Him? But you have dishonored the poor man. Do not the rich oppress you and drag you into the courts? Do they not blaspheme that noble name by which you are called? --James 2:5-7
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna and Mikayla,
You cannot practice partiality and be consistent with calling yourself a Christian. You cannot hold the Christian faith which is centered with the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. God shows no partiality. (See Romans 2:6-16; Romans 10:1-13) See previous study on James. Go James 2:1-4
James asks in verse 5: "Has God not chose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love Him?" He is pointing out their inconsistency. Generally speaking, God has chosen the poor of the world. The have nots. That is not to say that there are not rich people saved but the preponderance of those who come to faith are not rich. When Jesus walked on earth, it was the common people who heard Him. When you look at the ministry of Jesus Christ, without question the great bulk of it was to poor people, people who had little or no resources, humanly speaking. Our God has a special affection and love for the poor. James is saying that they are despising the very people God has chosen. How in the world can you look down on the poor, James says, when God has chosen the poor to be the eternally rich? Not only are they looking down on them...they are despising them! He is telling them that their behavior is very much unlike their Father in Heaven. Uh oh. There are so many verses in the bible that speak to God's love for the poor as well as His plea for them. (see verses at the end of study)
Salvation is not based on merit but grace. Ephesians says "for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Grace involves God's sovereign choice of those who cannot earn and do not deserve salvation. (that would be us) Read what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1.
For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption— that, as it is written, "HE WHO GLORIES, LET HIM GLORY IN THE LORD." 1 Corinthians 1:26-31
Christ does not choose us because we are wise or rich or for any other quality. Our God is sovereign. First Samuel Chapter 2 tells us He kills and He makes alive. He brings down to the grave and He brings up. He makes poor and He makes rich. He brings low and lifts up. Our God, girls, chooses us based on the decision we make for His Son. He saves those who come to Him, confess their sin and need of a Savior and believe. He looks upon a broken and a contrite heart— these, the bible says, He will not despise. The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit. God promises the kingdom to those who love Him!!! (See verse 5.) There is the criteria. Do you love Him? If you love Him, you will obey Him. Your actions will follow what your heart believes.
James points out in verse 6 that their behavior toward the rich was not even appropriate to the reality that they were facing daily. The people we try to impress, usually are the ones that care the least about us. The wealthy were, in fact, the very people who the rulers of the Jews used to oppress the Christians and persecute them for their faith.
And the word of the Lord was being spread throughout all the region. But the Jews stirred up the devout and prominent women and the chief men of the city, raised up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region.--Acts 13:49-50
Jesus, Himself was poor and a victim of injustice and oppression by the rich religious leaders and rulers of His day. They treated the very ones who slandered and helped crucify Jesus with deference and ignored the poor...the chosen of God.
Girls, we are saved by God's grace alone. To treat those around us based on anything else is utterly and totally inconsistent with the doctrine of grace and with the Lord of glory. If we really believe that we are saved by grace and it is nothing of ourselves, than that is the basis we will relate to others. We will be good stewards of the manifold grace He has given us and show His grace to others. Jesus broke down the wall of separation between the Jew and the Gentile and brought peace. Grace keeps the wall of separation down and provides the opportunity for the Spirit of God to work. Read the following passage in Ephesians 2 and remember that it is by grace that you yourselves have been saved.
"Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands—that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. --Ephesians 2:11-22
Love
Mom
When we love the poor, the weak, the helpless and the unloved around us we reflect the very heart of our God. Read the verses below.
"Blessed is he that considers the poor, the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble and the Lord will preserve him and the Lord will keep him alive and he shall be blessed upon the earth and thou will not deliver him unto the will of his enemies, the Lord will strengthen him on the bed of languishing, thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness." --Psalm 41
"O God, thou hast prepared of Thy goodness for the poor." --Psalm 68:10
"He shall judge the poor of the people. He shall save the children of the needy and break in pieces the oppressor." --Psalm 72:4 I love that...God is the defender of the poor. He meets their need and He goes after their enemies.
"He shall deliver the needy when he cries, the poor also and him that has no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy and save the souls of the needy."--Psalm 72:12
"Whoever mocks the poor reproaches his maker."--Proverbs 17:5
"Whoever stops his ears at the cry of the poor, he shall also cry himself but shall not be heard."--Proverbs 21:13
"He that gives to the poor shall not lack but he that hides his eyes and says, I didn't see that, I don't want to get involved, shall have many a curse. But if you give to the poor you won't lack anything."--Proverbs 28:27
"The righteous considers the cause of the poor but the wicked doesn't regard it." He doesn't want to know about it. --Proverbs 29:7
"Plead the cause of the poor and needy, plead the cause of the poor and needy."--Proverbs 31:9
"She stretches out her hands to the poor, she reaches forth her hands to the needy." --Proverbs 31:20
Dear Suzanne, Rebecca, Anna and Mikayla,
You cannot practice partiality and be consistent with calling yourself a Christian. You cannot hold the Christian faith which is centered with the Lord Jesus Christ, the Lord of glory, with partiality. God shows no partiality. (See Romans 2:6-16; Romans 10:1-13) See previous study on James. Go James 2:1-4
James asks in verse 5: "Has God not chose the poor of this world to be rich in faith and heirs of the kingdom which he promised to those who love Him?" He is pointing out their inconsistency. Generally speaking, God has chosen the poor of the world. The have nots. That is not to say that there are not rich people saved but the preponderance of those who come to faith are not rich. When Jesus walked on earth, it was the common people who heard Him. When you look at the ministry of Jesus Christ, without question the great bulk of it was to poor people, people who had little or no resources, humanly speaking. Our God has a special affection and love for the poor. James is saying that they are despising the very people God has chosen. How in the world can you look down on the poor, James says, when God has chosen the poor to be the eternally rich? Not only are they looking down on them...they are despising them! He is telling them that their behavior is very much unlike their Father in Heaven. Uh oh. There are so many verses in the bible that speak to God's love for the poor as well as His plea for them. (see verses at the end of study)
Salvation is not based on merit but grace. Ephesians says "for by grace you have been saved through faith, and that not of yourselves; it is the gift of God, not of works, lest anyone should boast. Grace involves God's sovereign choice of those who cannot earn and do not deserve salvation. (that would be us) Read what Paul says in 1 Corinthians 1.
For you see your calling, brethren, that not many wise according to the flesh, not many mighty, not many noble, are called. But God has chosen the foolish things of the world to put to shame the wise, and God has chosen the weak things of the world to put to shame the things which are mighty; and the base things of the world and the things which are despised God has chosen, and the things which are not, to bring to nothing the things that are, that no flesh should glory in His presence. But of Him you are in Christ Jesus, who became for us wisdom from God—and righteousness and sanctification and redemption— that, as it is written, "HE WHO GLORIES, LET HIM GLORY IN THE LORD." 1 Corinthians 1:26-31
Christ does not choose us because we are wise or rich or for any other quality. Our God is sovereign. First Samuel Chapter 2 tells us He kills and He makes alive. He brings down to the grave and He brings up. He makes poor and He makes rich. He brings low and lifts up. Our God, girls, chooses us based on the decision we make for His Son. He saves those who come to Him, confess their sin and need of a Savior and believe. He looks upon a broken and a contrite heart— these, the bible says, He will not despise. The LORD is near to those who have a broken heart, and saves such as have a contrite spirit. God promises the kingdom to those who love Him!!! (See verse 5.) There is the criteria. Do you love Him? If you love Him, you will obey Him. Your actions will follow what your heart believes.
James points out in verse 6 that their behavior toward the rich was not even appropriate to the reality that they were facing daily. The people we try to impress, usually are the ones that care the least about us. The wealthy were, in fact, the very people who the rulers of the Jews used to oppress the Christians and persecute them for their faith.
And the word of the Lord was being spread throughout all the region. But the Jews stirred up the devout and prominent women and the chief men of the city, raised up persecution against Paul and Barnabas, and expelled them from their region.--Acts 13:49-50
Jesus, Himself was poor and a victim of injustice and oppression by the rich religious leaders and rulers of His day. They treated the very ones who slandered and helped crucify Jesus with deference and ignored the poor...the chosen of God.
Girls, we are saved by God's grace alone. To treat those around us based on anything else is utterly and totally inconsistent with the doctrine of grace and with the Lord of glory. If we really believe that we are saved by grace and it is nothing of ourselves, than that is the basis we will relate to others. We will be good stewards of the manifold grace He has given us and show His grace to others. Jesus broke down the wall of separation between the Jew and the Gentile and brought peace. Grace keeps the wall of separation down and provides the opportunity for the Spirit of God to work. Read the following passage in Ephesians 2 and remember that it is by grace that you yourselves have been saved.
"Therefore remember that you, once Gentiles in the flesh—who are called Uncircumcision by what is called the Circumcision made in the flesh by hands—that at that time you were without Christ, being aliens from the commonwealth of Israel and strangers from the covenants of promise, having no hope and without God in the world. But now in Christ Jesus you who once were far off have been brought near by the blood of Christ. For He Himself is our peace, who has made both one, and has broken down the middle wall of separation, having abolished in His flesh the enmity, that is, the law of commandments contained in ordinances, so as to create in Himself one new man from the two, thus making peace, and that He might reconcile them both to God in one body through the cross, thereby putting to death the enmity. And He came and preached peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access by one Spirit to the Father. Now, therefore, you are no longer strangers and foreigners, but fellow citizens with the saints and members of the household of God, having been built on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the chief cornerstone, in whom the whole building, being fitted together, grows into a holy temple in the Lord, in whom you also are being built together for a dwelling place of God in the Spirit. --Ephesians 2:11-22
Love
Mom
When we love the poor, the weak, the helpless and the unloved around us we reflect the very heart of our God. Read the verses below.
"Blessed is he that considers the poor, the Lord will deliver him in time of trouble and the Lord will preserve him and the Lord will keep him alive and he shall be blessed upon the earth and thou will not deliver him unto the will of his enemies, the Lord will strengthen him on the bed of languishing, thou wilt make all his bed in his sickness." --Psalm 41
"O God, thou hast prepared of Thy goodness for the poor." --Psalm 68:10
"He shall judge the poor of the people. He shall save the children of the needy and break in pieces the oppressor." --Psalm 72:4 I love that...God is the defender of the poor. He meets their need and He goes after their enemies.
"He shall deliver the needy when he cries, the poor also and him that has no helper. He shall spare the poor and needy and save the souls of the needy."--Psalm 72:12
"Whoever mocks the poor reproaches his maker."--Proverbs 17:5
"Whoever stops his ears at the cry of the poor, he shall also cry himself but shall not be heard."--Proverbs 21:13
"He that gives to the poor shall not lack but he that hides his eyes and says, I didn't see that, I don't want to get involved, shall have many a curse. But if you give to the poor you won't lack anything."--Proverbs 28:27
"The righteous considers the cause of the poor but the wicked doesn't regard it." He doesn't want to know about it. --Proverbs 29:7
"Plead the cause of the poor and needy, plead the cause of the poor and needy."--Proverbs 31:9
"She stretches out her hands to the poor, she reaches forth her hands to the needy." --Proverbs 31:20
Friday, April 29, 2011
The Great Sin by C. S. Lewis
The Great Sin
From Mere Christianity by C S Lewis
The vice I am talking of is Pride or Self-Conceit: and the virtue opposite to it, in Christian morals, is called Humility. You may remember, when I was talking about sexual morality, I warned you that the centre of Christian morals did not lie there. Well, now, we have come to the centre. According to Christian teachers, the essential vice, the utmost evil, is Pride. Unchastity, anger, greed, drunkenness, and all that, are mere fleabites in comparison: it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.
Does this seem to you exaggerated? If so, think it over. I pointed out a moment ago that the more pride one had, the more one disliked pride in others. In fact, if you want to find out how proud you are the easiest way is to ask yourself, 'How much do I dislike it when other people snub me, or refuse to take any notice of me, or shove their oar in, or patronise me, or show off?' The point is that each person's pride is in competition with every one else's pride. It is because I wanted to be the big noise at the party that I am so annoyed at someone else being the big noise. Two of a trade never agree. Now what you want to get clear is that Pride is essentially competitive - is competitive by its very nature - while the other vices are competitive only, so to speak, by accident. Pride gets no pleasure out of having something, only out of having more of it than the next man. We say that people are proud of being rich, or clever, or good-looking, but they are not. They are proud of being richer, or cleverer, or better-looking than others. If everyone else became equally rich, or clever, or good-looking there would be nothing to be proud about. It is the comparison that makes you proud: the pleasure of being above the rest. Once the element of competition has gone, pride has gone. That is why I say that Pride is essentially competitive in a way the other vices are not. The sexual impulse may drive two men into competition if they both want the same girl. But that is only by accident; they might just as likely have wanted two different girls. But a proud man will take your girl from you, not because he wants her, but just to prove to himself that he is a better man than you. Greed may drive men into competition if there is not enough to go round; but the proud man, even when he has got more than he can possibly want, will try to get still more just to assert his power. Nearly all those evils in the world which people put down to greed or selfishness are really far more the result of Pride.
Take it with money. Greed will certainly make a man want money, for the sake of a better house, better holidays, better things to eat and drink. But only up to a point. What is it that makes a man with œ10,000 a year anxious to get œ20,000 a year? It is not the greed for more pleasure. œ10,000 will give all the luxuries that any man can really enjoy. It is Pride - the wish to be richer than some other rich man, and (still more) the wish for power. For, of course, power is what Pride really enjoys: there is nothing makes a man feel so superior to others as being able to move them about like toy soldiers. What makes a pretty girl spread misery wherever she goes by collecting admirers? Certainly not her sexual instinct: that kind of girl is quite often sexually frigid. It is Pride. What is it that makes a political leader or a whole nation go on and on, demanding more and more? Pride again. Pride is competitive by its very nature: that is why it goes on and on. If I am a proud man, then, as long as there is one man in the whole world more powerful, or richer, or cleverer than I, he is my rival and my enemy.
The Christians are right: it is Pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began. Other vices may sometimes bring people together: you may find good fellowship and jokes and friendliness among drunken people or unchaste people. But pride always means enmity - it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God.
In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that - and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison - you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.
That raises a terrible question. How is it that people who are quite obviously eaten up with Pride can say they believe in God and appear to themselves very religious? I am afraid it means they are worshipping an imaginary God. They theoretically admit themselves to be nothing in the presence of this phantom God, but are really all the time imagining how He approves of them and thinks them far better than ordinary people: that is, they pay a pennyworth of imaginary humility to Him and get out of it a pound's worth of Pride towards their fellow-men. I suppose it was of those people Christ was thinking when He said that some would preach about Him and cast out devils in His name, only to be told at the end of the world that He had never known them. And any of us may at any moment be in this death-trap. Luckily, we have a test. Whenever we find that our religious life is making us feel that we are good - above all, that we are better than someone else - I think we may be sure that we are being acted on, not by God, but by the devil. The real test of being in the presence of God is, that you either forget about yourself altogether or see yourself as a small, dirty object. It is better to forget about yourself altogether.
It is a terrible thing that the worst of all the vices can smuggle itself into the very centre of our religious life. But you can see why. The other, and less bad, vices come from the devil working on us through our animal nature. But this does not come through our animal nature at all. It comes direct from Hell. It is purely spiritual: consequently it is far more subtle and deadly. For the same reason, Pride can often be used to beat down the simpler vices. Teachers, in fact, often appeal to a boy's Pride, or, as they call it, his self-respect, to make him behave decently: many a man has overcome cowardice, or lust, or ill-temper, by learning to think that they are beneath his dignity - that is, by Pride. The devil laughs. He is perfectly content to see you becoming chaste and brave and self-controlled provided, all the time, he is setting up in you the Dictatorship of Pride - just as he would be quite content to see your chilblains cured if he was allowed, in return, to give you cancer. For Pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense.
Before leaving this subject I must guard against some possible misunderstandings:
(1) Pleasure in being praised is not Pride. The child who is patted on the back for doing a lesson well, the woman whose beauty is praised by her lover, the saved soul to whom Christ says 'Well done,' are pleased and ought to be. For here the pleasure lies not in what you are but in the fact that you have pleased someone you wanted (and rightly wanted) to please. The trouble begins when you pass from thinking, 'I have pleased him; all is well,' to thinking, 'What a fine person I must be to have done it.' The more you delight in yourself and the less you delight in the praise, the worse you are becoming. When you delight wholly in yourself and do not care about the praise at all, you have reached the bottom. That is why vanity, though it is the sort of Pride which shows most on the surface, is really the least bad and most pardonable sort. The vain person wants praise, applause, admiration, too much and is always angling for it. It is a fault, but a child-like and even (in an odd way) a humble fault. It shows that you are not yet completely contented with your own admiration. You value other people enough to want them to look at you. You are, in fact, still human. The real black, diabolical Pride, comes when you look down on others so much that you do not care what they think of you. Of course, it is very right, and often our duty, not to care what people think of us, if we do so for the right reason; namely, because we care so incomparably more what God thinks. But the Proud man has a different reason for not caring. He says 'Why should I care for the applause of that rabble as if their opinion were worth anything? And even if their opinions were of value, am I the sort of man to blush with pleasure at a compliment like some chit of a girl at her first dance? No, I am an integrated, adult personality. All I have done has been done to satisfy my own ideals - or my artistic conscience - or the traditions of my family - or, in a word, because I'm That Kind of Chap. If the mob like it, let them. They're nothing to me.' In this way real thorough-going pride may act as a check on vanity; for, as I said a moment ago, the devil loves 'curing' a small fault by giving you a great one. We must try not to be vain, but we must never call in our Pride to cure our vanity.
(2) We say in English that a man is 'proud' of his son, or his father, or his school, or regiment, and it may be asked whether 'pride' in this sense is a sin. I think it depends on what, exactly, we mean by 'proud of'. Very often, in such sentences, the phrase 'is proud of' means 'has a warm-hearted admiration for'. Such an admiration is, of course, very far from being a sin. But it might, perhaps, mean that the person in question gives himself airs on the ground of his distinguished father, or because he belongs to a famous regiment. This would, clearly, be a fault; but even then, it would be better than being proud simply of himself. To love and admire anything outside yourself is to take one step away from utter spiritual ruin; though we shall not be well so long as we love and admire anything more than we love and admire God.
(3) We must not think Pride is something God forbids because He is offended at it, or that Humility is something He demands as due to His own dignity - as if God Himself was proud. He is not in the least worried about His dignity. The point is, He wants you to know Him: wants to give you Himself. And He and you are two things of such a kind that if you really get into any kind of touch with Him you will, in fact, be humble - delightedly humble, feeling the infinite relief of having for once got rid of all the silly nonsense about your own dignity which has made you restless and unhappy all your life. He is trying to make you humble in order to make this moment possible: trying to take off a lot of silly, ugly, fancy-dress in which we have all got ourselves up and are strutting about like the little idiots we are. I wish I had got a bit further with humility myself: if I had, I could probably tell you more about the relief, the comfort, of taking the fancy-dress off - getting rid of the false self, with all its 'Look at me' and 'Aren't I a good boy?' and all its posing and posturing. To get even near it, even for a moment, is like a drink of cold water to a man in a desert.
(4) Do not imagine that if you meet a really humble man he will be what most people call 'humble' nowadays: he will not be a sort of greasy, smarmy person, who is always telling you that, of course, he is nobody. Probably all you will think about him is that he seemed a cheerful, intelligent chap who took a real interest in what you said to him. If you do dislike him it will be because you feel a little envious of anyone who seems to enjoy life so easily. He will not be thinking about humility: he will not be thinking about himself at all.
If anyone would like to acquire humility, I can, I think, tell him the first step. The first step is to realise that one is proud. And a biggish step, too. At least, nothing whatever can be done before it. If you think you are not conceited, it means you are very conceited indeed.
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