Loving Not Just In Word But In Deed and Truth

Loving not just in word but in deed and truth

1 John 3:18 - Little children, let us not love in word or talk but in deed and truth.

We llit the advent candle of love. We prayed about love. We have thought upon 1 Corinthians 13 for years.  I even wrote pages and pages on love.  Jesus' love is a love that lays his life down so we can have life here and forever. Love is God with us. God gives the abundant life and not that get up and make the donuts life. During the second week of Advent, God who is love, revealed himself in a broken stable half eaten by our dog.

While preparing for our day of school ahead, my son, Nehemiah who is five, said he was going to make something. In a few minutes, he made a beautiful Jesus in a feeding trough/manger. Within another couple of minutes, he had constructed a well designed stable. He had no pictures, no pinterest, and no magazines before him. He does however have a God given creative talent and he had a thought, and he went with what he saw in his mind. He then made a Joseph and a Mary out of foam paper. You can not see from the picture below but he also designed a head wrapping that is sitting behind Mary's head. During the creation of the stable, he was praising and singing songs to God. This made me rejoice to see him taking his faith and making it real. He was working out his faith not from someonelse's ideas but from his own idea that God gave him. Our family is intentional about our faith by planning devotionals, reading the Bible, and making crafts while we talk of Jesus, however as I have seen for many days, our God takes the unplanned and unintentional moments and shows Himself.

I was so proud of my son. I was rejoicing in God for this talent and for the blessing I have to be his Mommy. After this, the day got messy, real-life messy! I will spare you from the details but it was a day filled with too many errands, breaks, spills, training struggles and invasions of personal space. By the end of the day, it was discovered that the stable was eaten by our dog, yes, our sweet and lovable lap dog.

Mopsie chewed the whole stable and broke it to pieces and it was about to break my peace. Even the star was chewed. The one thing that made me rejoice the most and made me thank God this morning, was now in pieces on the living room floor. Mary, Joseph, and baby Jesus still sleeping in the feeding trough, were untouched. I was so focused on the broken peaces, I just set Mary, Joseph, and Baby Jesus aside.

Our son was sleeping when we found the broken and chewed popsicle stick stable. Right before I found the broken stable, my husband and I were talking about training in Godliness. Specifically, we were talking about how to teach our son to respect boundaries. We were just agreeing that we both want to compile a resource of training based on what God says. When we are facing trials, tests and stress, we could have a resource from God's word that we had prepared for specific intent, as we prayed in that moment. Sometimes we are praying when something happens and sometimes chaos is happening all around and we cannot hear, breathe or remember what to train. I recommended ABC I Believe by Sally Hunt contains many Bible verses and stories about practical and real scenarios.

Seconds after our conversation, I found the partially chewed stable all over the living room floor. I hurried to pick up the pieces and find the fresh replacement sticks and hot glue. I was going to remake it with the help of my husband before Nehemiah woke up. Then, the still small voice stopped me. Yes, I could make this easier for my son and try to replicate it but I realized this would be lying to him and cheating him of responding how God would want him to respond. We were just about to look at a photograph from earlier in the day to try to replicate this masterpiece but instead I said "we can't do that, it would be lying."
In this very hard moment, God gave my husband the wisdom to ask "Do we have anything on forgiveness to read to Nehemiah." I thought I would have time to come up with something, to plan a lesson and then to train. "No, there is no time". We hear Nehemiah call from the top of the stairs "Mommy". Time was up. I said a quick prayer and asked God to help me with a resource based on His word to train.

God quickly brought me to a story on forgiveness. The story is about a girl that attempted to try on a girls necklace when all the beads fell off braking the necklace to pieces. Time was short. We leaned on God and not our own understanding of how to handle this dilemma. Tom read the story and recommended scripture to our son. Then I read something from ABC I Believe by Sally Hunt and a verse from the Bible about loving, not just in word, but in deed and truth. Not knowing the stable was destroyed by the dog, Nehemiah says he is going to go get his manger now. My heart thumps. The moment was here!!!! We said "Nehemiah that is what we wanted to talk to you about. We found in on the floor all broken. Mopsie broke it." I was praying for peace but almost thinking chaos would envelop us and threaten to take our joy. Joy remained. Peace remained. Our Hope in God remained. Love remained. God gave wisdom to ask Nehemiah to show us how to rebuild it. Nehemiah did not show any anger and he responded in a God glorifying way. He said "no problem. I didn't think the other stable was high enough anyway." He made a new one for us at home and made one for Daddy to take to work.

While our son made the new manger, we talked. I knew that dealing with our hurt and pain wasn't as easy as making a new stable. Something he loved and my husband and I enjoyed was destroyed and in peaces now. We talked about forgivness and not just loving in word but in deed and truth. Our son very calmly said "I am angry at Mopsie but I wanted a taller one too." He was able to express anger but in a calm, respectful way. Instead of retaliating, Nehemiah was able to see the situation as an opportunity to rebuild and to experience how God loves and forgives us.  We recognized in that moment Mary, Joseph, Jesus and the feeding trough were not bitten, yet only the stable and star were broken. Both Nehemiah and Tom said "we are glad Jesus, Mary and Joseph are ok." Nehemiah also remained self controlled which we do not always see when we try to handle situations through control, reason or our own understanding of how life works. He then said "I forgive Mopsie." We saw love in a family not just in word but in deed and truth. We also saw love from a Savior.

Again, I remember that the stable was destroyed but Mary, Joseph and Jesus were perfectly fine. Only the "temple", "building", "structure", "house" or "stable" can be destroyed. God in me cannot be destroyed. God with me cannot be taken. Thank you God that everything around us might fall down but you eternally protect us. 

Here is the new manger Nehemiah constructed.

Our God is a God of new beginnings. He resurrects things that are dead. He makes all things new. When things are eaten, destroyed, forgotten and lost, Our God remembers and redeems.  With eyes of hope, we focus on the eternal and unseen promises of God.  God gives us His power, the same power that raised Jesus from the dead, to live as He wants us to live. No, we do not live according to rules for gaining favor with God but we instead live by the Spirit out of a heart that has been cleansed and made righteous by the blood of Jesus. He gives us the power and the love to obey not just in word but in deed and truth. At the end, my heart experienced God when Nehemiah took the broken pieces and offered a gift to Mopsie. The gift was a cross. The broken pieces turned into the cross - a symbol once again that God takes death and turns it to life. Broken pieces always have to go to the cross to turn to life.  May you take your broken pieces and broken heart to God, He promises you life.

Lessons Learned from A Dog Eating Our Son's Manger:
1. Although it may be easier to clean up messes for our children like rebuilding a half eaten manger set, it is better to speak truth and to allow the child to work through the seemingly hard things in life;
2. Pray first, call on Jesus' name and He gives wisdom;
3. What could have been chaos turned into peace and much learning because God gave wisdom and we chose to walk on what we thought was a hard path, only to find out it was easier than a path of doing what seems reasonable in our own eyes;
4. God took our feeble efforts at training and turned them into His glory;
5. God protects us. The whole stable around Mary, Joseph and Jesus were chewed, eaten and shredded but Mary, Joseph and Jesus remained untouched. This is quite a lesson since Mary, Joseph and Jesus would have been easier for our dog to chew. Likewise, our God has us in his hands. God is with us, His children, forever. Although we face much pain in this world, we will remain whole and protected by Him.
6. We cannot only say "I love you." We need to show love in deed and truth. In deed would be by our actions and in truth is by what God says is loving.

Scriptures to Medidate on:
Psalm 91
1 John 3:18
1 John 1:9
1 John 3:18

ADVENT-WAITING FOR HIS COMING!

Advent is a latin word that means COMING.  Jesus, Immanuel - God with us. He came but He is coming again. We wait with joy and expectation of His second coming and at the same time we rejoice that He came in the flesh as the baby in the manger. We live not by what is seen in this world but what is unseen for what is unseen is eternal. God has always been. He was in the beginning. He is the Alpha and Omega - the beginning and the end. The same God who was intimately creating us from His affection and not just speaking us into existence like He did the rest of creation is the same God who intimately came into the world as a baby to be with us and die for us to have eternal life.

These last 3 1/2 years have been a time of waiting.  A time of waiting on God. All my other support systems have not been able to be there to rely on. Friendships waxed and waned. The ministry visions have not come to pass. One child allive, 4 children died in my womb. My family church has gone through so many changes and losses. Family has had misunderstandings. Career as a lawyer on hold. All the years of hospitality, dinners and people constantly over non-existing. My husband facing his own struggles at work and where God wants him.  My Mom's lupus getting worse. My sister's fiancee dies to cancer at a young age. Lots of deaths in her family. Betrayal of trust.  It has been a time in which all my trust muscles had to be strengthened. I could go on about loss and death and what looks like a stump - death. However, with Jesus despite the darkest days, we have HOPE!  God is with me through it all. He comforts me and I am seeing shoots of His hope. 

Today, December 1, 2013, we light the candle of HOPE. In this season of waiting, Hope is what I know God has taught me. Hope is not hope if it is seen. If it is seen, no longer need to hope.  Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.  Romans 5:3-5 - 3 Not only so, but we[a] also glory in our sufferings, because we know that suffering produces perseverance;4 perseverance, character; and character, hope. 5 And hope does not put us to shame (disappoint), because God’s love has been poured out into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, who has been given to us.  We lived sealed by our inheritance, the Holy Spirit our Seal of the Promise, God with us forever.

In this waiting, I am reminded that the Holy Spirit is the seal of our inheritance. Hope does not disappoint because God poured out His love through the Holy Spirit. God does not live in a temple made by human hands but in human hearts that trust and believe in Him.

God's first creative act, In the Beginning found in Genesis, is that he spoke "LET THERE BE LIGHT". Light dispels the darkness. We speak God's Word (the Word that was in the beginning, Word was with God and the Word (JESUS) is GOd in John 1:1-4). Light, a light that does not just dispel physical darkness to light our path that we physically walk on, but a spiritual light that gives hope and wisdom in our darkest days. Our God is the God with us not the God that just says something. I read once from Ann Voskamp's Jesse Tree Experience that God spoke all of His creation into existence by His authority but His creative making of us humans was by his affection. He intimately created Adam from the dust and Eve from Adam's rib. He formed us and His design on all human life is that He is intimately involved. He knew us before He formed us in the womb. His speaking and His presence is our HOPE. He is our Hope.

Today, we made a candle/light ornament to remind us that God is our Light and that He wants us to see the springing forth of hope/the shoot of hope coming from the cut off stump. We read of the Assyrians raiding Jerusalem and in God's judgment to cut down all the great trees of Jerusalem.  God does not leave his Nation without Hope. In the destruction there is always hope. We will be like trees planted by the waters bearing forth fruit in its season. Our roots in Him will be strong. We have a new family and new family roots. We have been grafted into this family by Jesus' death on the cross. He did what we couldn't do. We couldn't earn or be good enough to have a relationship with God. Jesus died and made available to all of us - HOPE, Hope with Him here and now and forever more. We don't have to worry, fret and live in fear. We can live in HOPE, LOVE, JOY and PEACE. Believe on His name and we will be saved. Trust in Him!

Going back to what I thought was cut off stumps and death in my life, I am seeing that life and light even in dark times. God is speaking life, light and hope. God has allowed me to pour into Nehemiah and Nehemiah is bringing many into His Kingdom. Everywhere he goes, He asks "Do you know Jesus?" His heart's cry is to be a fisher of men and he is sharing God's hope wherever he goes.  Our other four children are with God. They have eternal souls and I believe I will see them one day.The career on hold as been good because I am now able to be home with Nehemiah and focus on sharing the Lord and being with family.  Homeschooling has been wonderful to me t his year. Being home where God has me has been the biggest delight in my life but I didn't know this 6 years ago when I was pregnant and my job ended.  I see roots growing deeper in other's life because God is doing it (not me).   I do cry out to God and emotions are still there showing me hurt but God is strengthening me to see light in the darkness and speak out life to myself, family and others. LET THERE BE LIGHT!!!!  There is a light in the darkness, His name is Jesus.

His Word My Hope Secures

Week One - BELIEF AND PRAISE

My prayer this week was "May the words of my mouth reflect belief in you and your promises rather than unbelief." The song Amazing Grace kept coming to me especially the part "The Lord has promised good to me, His word my hope secures."

We just finished our first week of the Living Like Jesus Study (Living Like Jesus (GMG Study - GoodMorningGirls.Org) - Leaving our Comforts and Walking in Faith)

I like using Saturdays to review the Scriptures,  observations, applications and prayers from the previous week's reading. This week I noticed a huge connection between believing what God says in our hearts and the outpouring of our belief/faith through praise. Belief leads to praise and praise leads to a fulfillment of promises told to her from the Lord. It is as if we realized the fulfillment in the spiritual realm when we believe and praise.

Luke started out with  stating that he wanted to set in order an orderly account of what occurred when Jesus came. He followed up on all things carefully and diligently to provide an orderly account. The purpose was to let Theophilus and others know the certainty of things. I see faith written all over these accounts. Faith is the substance of things hoped for the evidence of things not seen (Hebrews 11:1). I think faith sees the certainty of things that God says.  As we read about John the Baptist, we see his purpose was to make the people ready/prepared for the Lord. In order to believe and praise, John the Baptist was to turn hearts toward God.

Also in Chapter 1, we read Mary's response to the Angel Gabriel's message to her about the birth of Jesus. She said "Behold the maid-servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word." This response carried a cross with it - a cross of Jesus, a cross in her own life to have to tell her soon to be husband that she is already pregnant, the sneers and comments from other people who think she was unfaithful, the suspicions, her reputation. She would one day watch her son be crucified. However, Mary said she was God's servant to to let it be according to His Word.  We then read how Mary magnifies God. She makes God bigger (like using a magnifying glass) and herself smaller. He increases, she decreases as she praises Him.

Next in Chapter 1 of Luke, we see a Priest, Zechariah who did not believe the Angel Gabriel who tells him that his wife, Elizabeth is going to have a son, John the Baptist.  His response was not like Mary's and thus he is made mute. He can't speak until after the birth of his son.  Gabriel tells Zechariah "you did not believe my words which will be fulfilled in our time." After birth of John the Baptist and Zechariah speaks the words His name shall be John. We read that Zechariah's mouth opened, tongue loosed and he spoke praising God. After speaking words of belief, Zechariah'praised God.  Again, we see belief and praise connected.  The praise continues from Zechariah at the end of Chapter 1.  God is magnified in our belief of what He speaks.  Zechariah talks about God's salvation through Jesus, to show mercy, to serve God without fear.

When I look with my physical eyes and recall the many years that have gone by without a certain promise  being realized, I can start to try to make it happen on my own rather than wait on God so he can renew my strength. I am learning to wait on God and be able to say let it be as you spoken. Elizabeth said to Mary "blessed is she who believed for there will be a fulfillment of these things which were told her fromt he word." Although this message was spoken for Mary, I believed God was saying this in areas of my life, especially
my marriage. With Zechariah, Gabriel says the words he spoke will be fulfilled despite Zechariah's unbelief. This word fulfilld also spoken to Mary by Elizabeth who says that blessed is Mary who believed because there will be a fulfillment of these things spoken. Belief in what God says does bring a blessing of peace and words of praise to magnify God and encourage others.

Our hope can be secured by God's Word in what He says will happen. If you have an area in your life where you have unbelief and hopelessness, let God be yoru anchor and hope. Step by step, I am learning to do that in my marriage. My husband and I have worked on "issues" for 11 years of marriage and 6 years of dating. There is improvement then a period of time where the same issues come up over and over. There are times I say "not again". There are times where I feel hopeless or want to give up. There are many times where I just don't feel like be loving or intimate. However, in the last month, I am learning to take the promises in God's word about how nothing is impossible for God and that what God joins let no man separate. I am warring against Satan, the real enemy who tries to destroy our marriages. I have taken a stand and put on the armor God provides (Ephesians 6). We are in a spiritual war. For though we walk in the flesh, we do not war according to the flesh. 2 Corinthians 10:4 - For the weapons of our warfare are not carnal but mighty in God for pulling down strongholds, ⁵ casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ, ⁶ and being ready to punish all disobedience when your obedience is fulfilled.

God is helping me and giving me strength to overcome feelings of hurt, betrayal, lack of trust, pain and pour out love, forgiveness, grace, humility and intimacy to my husband. The only reason for this is God's word above about the spiritual war going on. I am aligning myself with God and saying I want my marriage and that my husband is not my enemy. Satan uses lust, attractive ads, other women in the workplace to feel emotional needs, pornography, busyness, tv, computers or any other weapon he can to come against us. I too am learning my own pride in my own heart. I don't want to live a life of thinking I am more righteous or better than anyone. I am not. It is only through Jesus robe of righteousness and His power that sin is defeated.

In believing God's word about the spiritual war this last week, I have had much praise despite feelings of lack of trust and fatigue. God is our overcomer. This belief and praise has helped me to see with my spiritual eyes the fulfillment of God's promises. The more I respected my husband because God said so and pointed him to Jesus, I have seen my heart feel much closer to my husband.

"BLESSED IS SHE WHO BELIEVED FOR THERE WILL BE A FULFILLMENT OF THESE THINGS WHICH WERE TOLD HER FROM THE LORD."