Renew Your Strength In the Lord

Grandpa died last week. This has been a very difficult time for us.

On the morning of Grandpa's funeral, I was not sure if I could go on. I had to wake up very early and I had not gotten much sleep since his death. I knew I was going to need strength and lots of it and I felt that I had none.

The Lord immediately sent me to Isaiah 40:28-31:

Have you not known? Have you not heard? The LORD is the everlasting God, the Creator of the ends of the earth.
He does not faint or grow weary; his understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the faint, and to him who has no might he increases strength.
Even youths shall faint and be weary, and young men shall fall exhausted;
but they who wait for the LORD shall renew their strength;
they shall mount up with wings like eagles;
they shall run and not be weary; they shall walk and not faint.

I thank God for getting me through that day and so many other difficult days.
If you are facing difficult days, pray this passage of Scripture to the Lord and wait for him to help you.

Discipleship in the Church

These thoughts were sparked my a post on the Ezekiel Blog which I found through Twitter.com.

My (rather lengthy) thoughts are below:

As a fairly new Christian, I have been frustrated at the lack of discipleship in the church as a whole especially for new believers. For some reason, there seems to be the belief in the church that American believers are uninterested in or unable to learn more about this faith to which we have been called.

The truth is that many of us new believers came to the Lord out of the "New Age" movement and we are tired of fluff. We are ready to learn to learn the weighty truths of Christianity in their wholeness.

On my own, the Lord has led me to learn about church history, historic church creeds, origins of the Bible and various other aspects of Bible study as well as prayer. I was blessed that the Lord led me to Bible-believing preachers online (such as Chuck Smith, Greg Laurie, John MacArthur, R.C. Sproul, John Piper and others) who little by little, taught me in the ways of the faith.

I agree with you that the focus of the church should be on discipleship. How frustrated I would become as we visited churches and were admonished to evangelize without being given the knowledge, tools or guidance to do so!

My recommendation is that every church, no matter how large or how small, focus on making disciples as we are commanded in the Bible. Instead of just a new member's class, perhaps a book, e-book, website or podcast with all the pertinent information needed to start the journey, including excellent references for further study, be offered to all in the church.

Church members, then, will have to prioritize our lives to make time for learning the faith. I believe that if we were told it were important to do so, more of us would be likely to make our faith the center of our lives instead of an afterthought.

I am sorry to have rambled on but this topic is very near and dear to me.

If you can actually stand any more of my opinion about the importance of studying the word of God, go to my blog at http://www.BibleMomsBlog.com.

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In our last lesson, we learned of our need to put our faith in the foundation, the only sure foundation, Jesus Christ, that we might not be put to shame. (From 1 Peter 2:6)

So we know that we will not be shamed but what will we get for our belief? Does anything await us as believers in the Precious Cornerstone?

Amazingly, the answer is yes. We are promised fellowship with God and a place of honor with the Lord Almighty Himself, Creator of heaven and earth! How exciting as Peter goes on, possibly almost breathless with excitement, to tell us what our rewards in the next verses:

But you are a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God, that you may declare the praises of him who called you out of darkness into his wonderful light. 10Once you were not a people, but now you are the people of God; once you had not received mercy, but now you have received mercy. 1 Peter 2:9,10

Mom, could you use some mercy today? Are you stumbling about in darkness? Do you feel that you do not belong, that you are not a part of any "people"? Do you feel disposessed, all on your own, alone?

The good news that if you are a believer in Jesus Christ today, you are in fact part of a chosen people, a living stone that God is using to build his spiritual temple here on earth.

I know what it is like to be in a big group and still feel alone. I know what it is like to walk in darkness. All the years I walked in spiritual darkness, I had recurring nightmares about being trapped in darkness. I even sought professional counseling our of desperation to rid myself of the terrors that often befell me at night.

The dreams only ended after the Lord drew me to himself in his mercy and grace. Once I believed, truly believed in the Creator of Light himself, the darkness was lifted from my life. Sometimes life is dusky, but never the pitch black that it once was.

I am here on this blog today to "proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness and into his marvelous light." Hallelujah!

Jesus Christ is the only foundation worth standing on and I praise his holy name forever!

Is Your Foundation Sure?

So this is what the Sovereign LORD says:
"See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a tested stone,
a precious cornerstone for a sure foundation;
the one who trusts will never be dismayed. Is. 28:16

The prophet Isaiah foretold of the coming of one who would provide the basis of and the most important piece for the foundation of the building up of God's people.

Peter tells us in his letter that Isaiah's prophecy was fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

For in Scripture it says:
"See, I lay a stone in Zion,
a chosen and precious cornerstone,
and the one who trusts in him
will never be put to shame." 1 Peter 2:6

Do you believe that Jesus Christ is your sure foundation?

A foundation is a wonderful, essential part of the building for the occupants of a house. But for one wandering in the dark, the foundation is a source of injury, pain and suffering. If I do not believe the foundation is there, I will not recognize it even if it is in front of me.

Peter admonishes readers that we must be careful lest we walk along blind, not seeing, not looking and trip over the foundation that was laid down for us.

But to those who do not believe,
"The stone the builders rejected
has become the capstone,[b]"[c] 8and,
"A stone that causes men to stumble
and a rock that makes them fall."[d] They stumble because they disobey the message—which is also what they were destined for. 1 Peter 7b, 8

The only way not to stumble dear moms is to know the word of the Lord as spoken through the prophets and believe in it, clinging to it tenaciously, as if your lives depend on it for indeed they do.

No matter how busy we are, we must stay in the word of God, our foundation.

Keep Sin From My Heart

Continuing our discussion on Psalm 119:11 from yesterday, we remember

I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

The heart in ancient Hebrew writings signified the innermost being of a person. According to the Holman Bible Dictionary the heart refers to "The center of the physical, mental, and spiritual life of humans".

It is significant that we are not only to keep God's word in our head but so much deeper. Head knowledge alone is not enough. We must allow God's word, the living sword, to penetrate our very being. We can not do this on our own. Our only hope is in Jesus himself as we pray to him that his will be done in our lives.

It is surely his will to have us hide his word in our heart. Lift up your desire to be faithful to his word and he will be faithful to answer you.

The Hidden Word of God

Today's Verse: Psalm 119: 11 I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you.

God's word tells us how important it is to use his word to help us resist sin. But we can not just have a vague or superficial knowledge of his word. Rather, we are to dig deep, to hide God's word in our innermost being. I want to hide God's word so deeply within me that it can neither be shaken loose nor ripped away by the winds of life or the Enemy who tries to rob me.

I am reminded of the parable of the sower.

Matthew 13:5,6 -Other seeds fell on rocky ground, where they did not have much soil, and immediately they sprang up, since they had no depth of soil, 6but(A) when the sun rose they were scorched. And since they had no root,(B) they withered away.

The seeds that were not hidden away in the soil were not safe and snug. They had no protection from the merciless scorching rays of the desert sun. That is the bad news.

Later in the passage, we get the other side of the story. Jesus describes what happens when the word is properly seated and understood by telling us the fate of the seeds that were properly deeply planted and hidden in the soil:

Matthew 13: 8,9 -Other seeds fell on good soil and produced grain, some a hundredfold, some sixty, some thirty. He who has ears, let him hear.

The fruit of God's word is obedience that we might not sin against God.

Prayer- Thank you for your mercy Lord and keep me from all temptation and sin. In Jesus' name, Amen.

Motherhood: The Highest Calling?

Amy over at Humble Musings had a very well-written post on the subject of the role of motherhood in the life of the Christian woman. I will add my experiences as I write some thoughts on the issue.

I love being a mom. From the moment I first became pregnant, I knew that I loved being a mom. I read everything that I could about mothering, became a devoted follower of attachment parenting and my role as mother the focus of my life.

At the same time, the Lord began to nudge me, no pull me, closer and closer to Him. I was writing lots of poetry after my first child was born but it became harder and harder to write about anything without mentioning Him. I made a note of this (it is still in my journal) but I continued to struggle to write more secular works that might be more easily accepted in poetry journals.

By the time I had my second baby, the Lord had worked on me enough that I fully gave my life to Him after she was born.

What I have come to see since then, as I have strengthened my walk with him, is that motherhood had become an idol to me. Just as the ancient Israelites worshipped their wooden gods in the high places, so I had let motherhood eclipse my primary role as a child of God, designed from inside out just to glorify Him all the days of my life and into eternity.

Motherhood is indeed a very high calling. God himself ordained at the beginning of the world that mankind live as family units and be fruitful and multiply. We see in the Bible how much Jesus cared for his own mother even as he was dying on the cross.

Many notable mothers are discussed in the Bible.

None of this changes the fact that we are primarily called, all of us, to love the Lord our God with all our hearts. We are to first and foremost pursue the Kingdom of God and his righteousness, not the kingdom or calling of motherhood.

The way I have come to see it, some of us are blessed to be called to motherhood as the vehicle through which we are called to glorify him and spread the Gospel.

We would all do well, especially me, to remember to put God first always and all created things, including family, after that.

I become the mother God wants me to be once I completely surrender my life and desires to him.

Lord, I pray that you would help to live for you and only you today. Amen.