In Praise of Homemaking
Friday, April 10, 2015
Reflections of 1 Peter 1
Saturday, November 8, 2014
Abased for His Sake
11 Not that I speak in respect of want: for I have learned, in whatsoever state I am, therewith to be content. 12 I know both how to be abased, and I know how to abound: every where and in all things I am instructed both to be full and to be hungry, both to abound and to suffer need.13 I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me.
When I first read Philippians 4:11-13, I imagined Paul speaking of being physically poor and in need versus being rich in material possessions. This verse use to speak to me about being content in my physical circumstances with little "wealth" or a lot of "wealth". As time has gone on, the more I read this living verse I see God saying this abasement has to do with my spiritual need. I am reminded of the first words of Jesus' Sermon on the Mount in Matthew 5. Jesus says, "Blessed are the poor in spirit for theirs is the Kingdom of Heaven."
I am to always be desperate for God. My spiritual walk started as a desperate need for Him, and I want to end my walk on this earth desperate for God. If I started with Grace how shall I end other than by grace. Galatians 3:3 says "Are you so foolish? Having begun [a]by the Spirit, are you now [b]being perfected by the flesh?" I am spiritually bankrupt before God. Every "good thing" that I would try to do really is a filthy rag before Him. Isaiah 64: 6 "But we are all as an unclean thing, and all our righteousnesses are as filthy rags; and we all do fade as a leaf; and our iniquities, like the wind, have taken us away."
Being abased is an emptying of self. This learning to be abased is a learning process. For me, it has come after much loss and much grief. Grief has a way of ripping off everything that covers me only to leave me naked and bare. Jesus has promised me His robe of righteousness as I stand against the winds and storms of this life.
Abased means to bring to the base (the lowest part of a column).Psalm 144:12 "That our sons may be as plants grown up in their youth; our daughters as corner-columns, sculptured after the fashion of a palace:" I, Melinda, daughter of the King, am to be a corner column sculpted after the fashion of a palace. When I think of the base of a beautiful column, I usually see a "base plate" that spreads the load over a larger area and reduces the bearing pressure so the column does not collapse. God is our base. We have to be emptied of self in order to get to the bottom of the column and see Jesus who bears all things.
In Ancient times, columns were not just decorate but also weight bearing to hold the palace up and together. Without the columns, the building would collapse. Columns also allow light to enter in and make for open spaces rather than walls to hold up the building which prevent light and air to pass. This reminds me of the need to be a column rather than a wall so God's light shines through and passes to others.
Abased means to bring low and to be humbled. It is about laying aside all pretensions. According to Psalm 73:26, God is to be my strength and my portion forever. Being abased means giving up/renouncing all other "portions" and things I put confidence in. As self dependence is cast down and I am humbled, God whispers His promese to me that He will exalt in due season (Luke 14:10). Abased is a lowering of the mind and heart as God increases, I decrease.
http://www.dailylifeverse.com/posts/2012/08/john-3-30 - picture credit to daily life verse
Sunday, August 17, 2014
30 DAY HUSBAND ENCOURAGEMENT CHALLENGE - Day 2
Saturday, August 16, 2014
30 DAY HUSBAND ENCOURAGEMENT CHALLENGE - #1
I encourage you for thirty days tonot say anything negative about your husband. If anything comes to your mind that is negative, pray and cast down every high thing that exalts itself agains the knowledge of God. In addition to not saying anything negative about or to your husband (taking off the negative) here are things we can put on and do to encourage your husband.
On Revive our Hearts in November of 2011, they posted a 30 day challenge for us ladies. You can find the challenges here : https://www.reviveourhearts.com/articles/30-day-husband-encouragement-challenge/.
The first thing we learn in Day 1 is that our husbands can trust us to have their back. We are in their corner, on their team, and one with them rather than in competition with them. We are to do good to our husbands and not harm. The things we say and the looks we give causes harm to the way that our men see God and themselves. If we doubt them, theydoubt themselves more and be more. Then sometimes they are afraid" to lead as God intended them to lead.
What really stuck out to me this morning is the way we respond to our husbands first thing in the morning. I would also suggest we pay attention to how we respond to them at the end of the day after being separated. Do we hand them the children and start complaining about how much work we had to do? Do we start telling our husbands about all the things that have to be done and all the things the children did today?
I know my husband loves to be greeted with a hug and a kiss. Yes, I really can put down that dish or stop stirring the dinner food to kiss and hug and greet my husband. Am I excited to see him or do I just say a quick hello? My husband loves to just snuggle in the morning and smile together rather than me talk for an hour. He does listen to me and care for me but many times I am the one that doesn't stop to just be with my husband.
Start today - say "I LOVE YOU and I AM GLAD TO BE YOUR WIFE." Just smile, laugh and enjoy him on the days he is full of strength and the days he is worn out. Let the praises begin.
I will be posting a challenge daily from revive your hearts.
The first day's challenge is:
Saturday, February 1, 2014
To Know God and Make Him Known
Three hours later, I asked to be released from the ER because it seems the pain disappeared as quickly as it came. After talking to the Doctor, he said that gas could have been caught in the left upper quadrant. They wanted to do more testing and x-rays after the initial EKG, blood work and preliminary testing, but I assured them I was fine. I had peace from God to deny all the x-rays at this lpoint. Praise God it is not an organ issue or a heart issue. My prayer of seeing son before he fell asleep was answered. I arrived home just as my son was falling asleep. I hugged, kissed him and praised God with him and my husband.
Todd said he was going. Todd gets to the Commander's house and the Commander lets him in. Todd immediately says "I pray that you will accept The Lord Jesus as your Savior." The Commander gives Todd a chance to leave his house, but Todd refused to leave. Instead Todd says "I beg you to believe on The Lord Jesus." The Commander goes upstairs and gets his gun. He threatens to shoot Todd unless he leaves now. Todd said before you shoot me let me pray for you. "He knelt before thee commander and prayed 'O God, here is a man who does not know you. Please save him!" He stayed on his knees while the commander towered over him with the gun. "have mercy on him, Lord!" he cried out. "have mercy on the commander." (pg. 102-103)
Song - No Turning Back
I have decided to follow Jesus;
I have decided to follow Jesus;
I have decided to follow Jesus;
No turning back, no turning back.
Though I may wonder, I still will follow;
Though I may wonder, I still will follow;
No turning back, no turning back.
The world behind me, the cross before me;
The world behind me, the cross before me; No turning back, no turning back.
Though none go with me, still I will follow;
Though none go with me, still I will follow;
No turning back, no turning back.
Will you decide now to follow Jesus?
Will you decide now to follow Jesus;
No turning back, no turning back.
Monday, January 27, 2014
TO KNOW HIM MORE
Nicodemus asked a good question, "How can a man be born when he is old?" Nicodemus was thinking of being born in the flesh. Jesus was talking about being born in the spirit. "BELIEVE" It is important to know the one we believe in or it would just be mental assent to a concept (like Jesus existed and died) or just believe in a concept of who we think Jesus is or who someone told us he is or just believing because we prayed, we believe.
The word "believe" in this and many verses, is the verb pisteuo derived from the noun pistis meaning "faith, assurance, belief". But a verb is an action word. The usage of the word pisteou means "commit unto, commit to (one's) trust, be committed unto, be put in trust with, be committed to one's trust." We need to repent for the Kingdom of God is here. Repent means complete turn in mind and heart from our ways and idols and see and agree with God that He is who He says He is and not who we think He is.
The diagram below is something I saw in my early twenties. Man on one side and God on the other. We are separated from God. We are born with inherited sin basically because of the fall of Adam and Eve. We also all have gone astray. We want our own way early on rather than God's way. We do all fall short of God's glory. Jesus Christ came and provided a bridge from man to God so that we could have a relationship with Him again. The cross did bridge the gap. We deserved death but we inherited God's life instead. His blood brought us life here and now and for eternity and our standing before Him is as white as snow because of Jesus' righteousness and not our own. We call on the name of Jesus, God answers our cries. God puts His spirit inside of us and we grow from inside out. We cannot confuse outer change with inner rebirth. We can live in confidence without shame and guilt because In Christ, we have confidence to go boldly before the throne. We overcome because the Overcoming God lives inside of us.
1 John 5:5 who is he who is overcoming the world, if not he who is believing that Jesus is the Son of God? (YLT)
Romans Road:
We may be wonder, if we are Christians, why spend so much time on what we already know about the Cross. I don't think we ever get beyond the cross. The cross should be what we are looking at daily. At the cross, all was finished. Sometimes we don't get the spiritual significance of the cross. We hear it and we know as some fact that we heard. Sometimes, we try hard to believe and trust and think we do because of our mental agreement, but do we understand? How do we have spiritual understanding? How does Jesus take the scales off the eyes to see as he did for Paul in Acts 6 (conversion of Paul). A prayer does not save you. Jesus does. We are saved by faith through grace not of our own works. How do we know God then? Once we "believe" - committed to, relationship with then God imparts His wisdom through the spirit. Remember, this wisdom is not understood by the natural man. God says:
We children of God receive the SPIRIT OF GOD and not the spirit of this world so we might know the things God has freely given us. We are then sealed by the Holy Spirit. Ephesians 1:12That we should be to the praise of his glory, who first trusted in Christ. 13In whom you also trusted, after that you heard the word of truth, the gospel of your salvation: in whom also after that you believed, you were sealed with that holy Spirit of promise, 14Which is the earnest of our inheritance until the redemption of the purchased possession, to the praise of his glory. I recommend reading all of Ephesians 1. You are sealed. You have an inheritance - eternal one that cannot be taken.
To have life in the spirit, to Know God,the working of God in you, I recommend Romans 8. One great promise God gave me was Romans 8:16-17 says 16 The Spirit Himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, 17 and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and joint heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him, that we may also be glorified together. It is important to have His Spirit bearing witness with our spirit. Without His Spirit, we would be missing Him. We would be trying to do things apart from Him (this fruit will not endure or last).
He bears witness with our spirit! This is the internal witness. You cannot believe every spirit. You have to test the spirits to see which are of God. See 1 John 4. With God Himself living in you which is the Holy Spirit which reminds you of all Jesus taught and gives you spiritual wisdom, you can obey. You have the power to Obey because of what Jesus accomplished on the cross. The same power that raised Jesus from the dead lives in you - Holy Spirit. (Romans 8:11). You serve an overcomer, a God that has overcome the world and this is why you can endure to the end and finish the race marked out before you.
RUNNING THE RACE WITH HIS WITNESS IN YOU SPURRING YOU ON
The purpose of our race - to Know God. After a whole week of studying with Good Morning Girls - goodmorninggirls.org about being intentionally focused, I am reminded that our focus is on Knowing God and not any earthly goals. We are to know God! To know God takes a commitment and belief. In the above book, God's Names by Sally Michael, we read "Soldiers must be trained so that they can fight well. They must do everything they are told. One way they train is with an obstacle course. An overcomer is someone w ho sees obstacles and does not stop." (pg. 112). God tells us that there will be a great tribulation. There will be much evil and it will seem in the end that Satan is winning. Jesus is coming back on the clouds of heaven with power and great glory. He will gather His children. (Matthew 24:29-31).
Tuesday, December 17, 2013
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.
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