For this reason also, since the day we heard of it, we have not ceased to pray for you and to ask that you may be filled with the knowledge of His will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so that you will walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, to please Him in all respects, bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might, for the attaining of all steadfastness and patience…
—Colossians 1:9-11
Having completed Job, our Sunday school class is now studying Colossians. Most of today’s discussion centered on the passage above. I was especially blessed by our discussion of verse 11. Our teacher, Jim, pointed out that the purpose for which we have been “strengthened with all power, according to His glorious might” is for “the attaining of all steadfastness and patience.” The ESV and NIV use the word “endurance” rather than steadfastness. Two members of the class who had notes in their Bibles indicated that the original Greek word for steadfastness/endurance refers to endurance in dealing with people, and the original Greek word for patience refers to patience in difficult circumstances.
What the passage is saying is that the power we have through Christ in us is for the purpose of demonstrating steadfastness/endurance and patience. Jim suggested that it seems like the power of God in us should be used for something seemingly more significant than in demonstrating patience with people and circumstances; but immediately, I realized that these are precisely the areas where I have the greatest struggles.
Because of said struggles, I am tremendously encouraged by this verse and the implications for my life. Knowing that the power of Christ is in me specifically to enable me to be patient with people and to endure difficult circumstances should release me to let go and enable Him do what I clearly cannot.
Showing posts with label Walking with God. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Walking with God. Show all posts
Sunday, July 23, 2006
Thursday, July 13, 2006
Feeling Guilty About Quiet Time?
I'm sure most of my Reformed friends out there read Challies.com, but for those of you who do not, I MUST direct you to one of this week's posts: "The Tyranny of Quiet Time." You must also read the article referenced: "Freedom from Quiet Time Guilt."
"Freedom from Quiet Time Guilt" dovetails nicely with what I learned reading and reflecting on The Papa Prayer (see below). And I am especially prone to thinking things aren't going well because of what I have or haven't done—vestiges of my Arminian past.
Read these posts and be encouraged in your relationship with God.
"Freedom from Quiet Time Guilt" dovetails nicely with what I learned reading and reflecting on The Papa Prayer (see below). And I am especially prone to thinking things aren't going well because of what I have or haven't done—vestiges of my Arminian past.
Read these posts and be encouraged in your relationship with God.
Thursday, June 29, 2006
Do You Know Jesus?
I opened up the proverbial can of worms this evening at Crunchy Con. I commented on the Anne Lamott thing, and they let me have it. I was asked the question:
Do *you* know [Jesus]?
Following is my answer in the context of the Anne Lamott euthanasia controversy.
A little more than two years ago, my greatly beloved maternal grandmother died of complications resulting from CLL (chronic lymphocytic leukemia). We watched her waste away for weeks, the last of which she was under the care of Hospice, so morphine was available for the pain. It was excruciating to watch her suffer. However, it never occurred to any of us to take matters into our own hands and to end her life.
Why not? Because we know Jesus. As Christians, we know that God loves us more than we could possibly love ourselves and that He has a plan and a purpose for our lives. Sometimes His purposes are accomplished through suffering. I don’t understand it, and when I am enduring it, I certainly don’t like it, but because I KNOW Him, I can trust Him. No matter what. Because I trust Him, I can submit to His authority when He says, “Thou shalt not kill.” It’s that simple.
The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us.
Romans 8:16-18
Do *you* know [Jesus]?
Following is my answer in the context of the Anne Lamott euthanasia controversy.
A little more than two years ago, my greatly beloved maternal grandmother died of complications resulting from CLL (chronic lymphocytic leukemia). We watched her waste away for weeks, the last of which she was under the care of Hospice, so morphine was available for the pain. It was excruciating to watch her suffer. However, it never occurred to any of us to take matters into our own hands and to end her life.
Why not? Because we know Jesus. As Christians, we know that God loves us more than we could possibly love ourselves and that He has a plan and a purpose for our lives. Sometimes His purposes are accomplished through suffering. I don’t understand it, and when I am enduring it, I certainly don’t like it, but because I KNOW Him, I can trust Him. No matter what. Because I trust Him, I can submit to His authority when He says, “Thou shalt not kill.” It’s that simple.
The Spirit Himself testifies with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, heirs also, heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, if indeed we suffer with Him so that we may also be glorified with Him. For I consider that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory that is to be revealed in us.
Romans 8:16-18
Wednesday, June 21, 2006
"Give to Everyone Who Asks of You"
He who shuts his ear to the cry of the poor
Will also cry himself and not be answered.
Proverbs 21:13
Give to everyone who asks of you…
Luke 6:30
In November of 2004, I was blessed beyond measure to travel to San Juan, Puerto Rico to attend the annual RZIM Founders’ Conference with a friend who supports that ministry. On our free morning, we decided to take a taxi downtown to the historic district for breakfast and some shopping. We wanted to find a local café rather than McDonald’s or the like, so we walked for a little while before we found a busy hangout. We chose pastries from the window display and ordered café con leche to go intending to find a park bench so we could people watch while we ate.
We had barely stepped out of the door of the café when we were approached by a young man who asked us to buy him something to eat. He pointed to the pastries in the window and looked at me expectantly. I can’t remember what I said to him, but I refused him, walked quickly down the street, and dashed into a drug store because I needed to buy a toothbrush.
I immediately turned to my friend and expressed dismay at what I had done. She said that she thought he looked genuinely hungry, so we decided to go back out onto the street and look for him, give him our breakfasts, and then go back and buy something else for ourselves. Unfortunately, we didn’t find him. However, we did stop and pray for him—that someone else would be used by God to meet his needs.
I was haunted throughout the day with the image of that hungry young man. In fact, when I couldn’t even put the thoughts from my mind during a wonderful presentation by Beth Moore, I knew I was being hounded by the enemy. Since I couldn’t speak out loud, I wrote on my note pad: THERE IS THEREFORE NOW NO CONDEMNATION FOR THOSE WHO ARE IN CHRIST JESUS (Romans 8:1).
I cannot adequately describe the way I felt. I don’t think it would be going too far to say that I was sick at my stomach for what I had done, and I determined never to let it happen again. Jesus makes the standard very clear in Luke 6:30 when he says, “Give to everyone who asks you…” There are no qualifiers here. He doesn’t say that we have to be sure the person’s not a swindler or that they won’t use the money to buy alcohol or drugs. The burden to act is placed upon us, and God will be the judge.
It was almost a year before God gave me the opportunity to make up for that day. Our family was on a trip and we stopped for coffee. My husband went in and left the children and me in the car. An elderly black man approached the driver’s side window, which I appreciated because I didn’t feel threatened. He told me he was a Hurricane Katrina victim from New Orleans and that he needed a dollar for bus fare to get back downtown to the Salvation Army. I joke all the time about being a banker’s wife and never having any cash, but that day, as always, God was in control. I handed the man a five dollar bill and watched as he went into Mc Donald’s before catching his bus. Thanks be to the God of second chances.
Will also cry himself and not be answered.
Proverbs 21:13
Give to everyone who asks of you…
Luke 6:30
In November of 2004, I was blessed beyond measure to travel to San Juan, Puerto Rico to attend the annual RZIM Founders’ Conference with a friend who supports that ministry. On our free morning, we decided to take a taxi downtown to the historic district for breakfast and some shopping. We wanted to find a local café rather than McDonald’s or the like, so we walked for a little while before we found a busy hangout. We chose pastries from the window display and ordered café con leche to go intending to find a park bench so we could people watch while we ate.
We had barely stepped out of the door of the café when we were approached by a young man who asked us to buy him something to eat. He pointed to the pastries in the window and looked at me expectantly. I can’t remember what I said to him, but I refused him, walked quickly down the street, and dashed into a drug store because I needed to buy a toothbrush.
I immediately turned to my friend and expressed dismay at what I had done. She said that she thought he looked genuinely hungry, so we decided to go back out onto the street and look for him, give him our breakfasts, and then go back and buy something else for ourselves. Unfortunately, we didn’t find him. However, we did stop and pray for him—that someone else would be used by God to meet his needs.
I was haunted throughout the day with the image of that hungry young man. In fact, when I couldn’t even put the thoughts from my mind during a wonderful presentation by Beth Moore, I knew I was being hounded by the enemy. Since I couldn’t speak out loud, I wrote on my note pad: THERE IS THEREFORE NOW NO CONDEMNATION FOR THOSE WHO ARE IN CHRIST JESUS (Romans 8:1).
I cannot adequately describe the way I felt. I don’t think it would be going too far to say that I was sick at my stomach for what I had done, and I determined never to let it happen again. Jesus makes the standard very clear in Luke 6:30 when he says, “Give to everyone who asks you…” There are no qualifiers here. He doesn’t say that we have to be sure the person’s not a swindler or that they won’t use the money to buy alcohol or drugs. The burden to act is placed upon us, and God will be the judge.
It was almost a year before God gave me the opportunity to make up for that day. Our family was on a trip and we stopped for coffee. My husband went in and left the children and me in the car. An elderly black man approached the driver’s side window, which I appreciated because I didn’t feel threatened. He told me he was a Hurricane Katrina victim from New Orleans and that he needed a dollar for bus fare to get back downtown to the Salvation Army. I joke all the time about being a banker’s wife and never having any cash, but that day, as always, God was in control. I handed the man a five dollar bill and watched as he went into Mc Donald’s before catching his bus. Thanks be to the God of second chances.
Tuesday, June 13, 2006
God is Not Subtle…
…and there are no coincidences in the Christian life. When God wants to communicate something to me, I will encounter it in my personal study time, we will talk about it in Sunday school, my pastor will preach on it, and I’ll hear Charles Stanley talk about it on the radio. To top it all off, I’ll encounter it again in My Utmost for His Highest (MUFHH). All of this will transpire over the course of a few days.
Do you read MUFHH? If not, you need to. I never cease to be amazed by Oswald Chambers’s wisdom and spiritual insight. He has a way of saying things you have heard countless times before in a whole new way. I don’t read it every day, but it is uncanny how when I do read it, it speaks directly to something I am dealing with. Here is an excerpt from today’s (June 13) reading:
There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself (see Romans 12:1). If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you—and His experiments always succeed. The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ. … A saint realizes that it is God who engineers his circumstances; consequently there are no complaints, only unrestrained surrender to Jesus. Never try to make your experience a principle for others, but allow God to be as creative and original with others as He is with you.
I know that an aspect of my struggles is an unrealistic expectation that my FEELINGS will go away, but surrender is doing what you do and thinking what you think regardless of your feelings. I want to be in the place where my will is always conformed to that of Christ’s and my feelings are always in subordination to my will.
Here’s something I wrote on November 19, 2004 that articulates how I feel about this process:
Last night,
As I lay in bed
Contemplating my life,
I concluded
That my SELF
Is dying a
Long,
Slow,
Painful
Death.
I realize that I’m doing this to myself because He says, My yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matthew 11:30). Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief (Mark 9:24 KJV).
Do you read MUFHH? If not, you need to. I never cease to be amazed by Oswald Chambers’s wisdom and spiritual insight. He has a way of saying things you have heard countless times before in a whole new way. I don’t read it every day, but it is uncanny how when I do read it, it speaks directly to something I am dealing with. Here is an excerpt from today’s (June 13) reading:
There is actually only one thing you can dedicate to God, and that is your right to yourself (see Romans 12:1). If you will give God your right to yourself, He will make a holy experiment out of you—and His experiments always succeed. The one true mark of a saint of God is the inner creativity that flows from being totally surrendered to Jesus Christ. … A saint realizes that it is God who engineers his circumstances; consequently there are no complaints, only unrestrained surrender to Jesus. Never try to make your experience a principle for others, but allow God to be as creative and original with others as He is with you.
I know that an aspect of my struggles is an unrealistic expectation that my FEELINGS will go away, but surrender is doing what you do and thinking what you think regardless of your feelings. I want to be in the place where my will is always conformed to that of Christ’s and my feelings are always in subordination to my will.
Here’s something I wrote on November 19, 2004 that articulates how I feel about this process:
Last night,
As I lay in bed
Contemplating my life,
I concluded
That my SELF
Is dying a
Long,
Slow,
Painful
Death.
I realize that I’m doing this to myself because He says, My yoke is easy, and my burden is light (Matthew 11:30). Lord, I believe; help thou mine unbelief (Mark 9:24 KJV).
Tuesday, May 30, 2006
Eternal Significance
I must take a break from Acts to write about something that has been on my mind in one form or another for several years now. A crisis of sorts—not significant, thankfully—has brought me to this point. But more about that in a moment.
For several years I have been praying off and on for God to enable me to care about the things that really matter and not to care about the things that don’t matter. I have asked Him to give me an eternal perspective and to help focus my attention on things of eternal significance.
Following are some verses I have memorized to help me become eternally minded.
Set you mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Colossians 3:2-3
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lost heart.
Hebrews 12:1-3
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:19-21
Despite the fact that I have been praying about it and thinking about it for some time, I still struggle desperately in this area. I am far too easily entangled in and encumbered by the things of this world. I especially struggle with (1) being controlled by my circumstances and (2) by materialism. I also have a strong tendency to obsess over a particular interest until I wear myself out over it. Hence, the crisis that has prompted this post: THE KNITTING OBSESSION HAS GOTTEN OUT OF HAND AND SOMETHING MUST BE DONE.
I don’t want to stop knitting, but knitting and related activities (such as reading knitting blogs and magazines and looking at patterns) are taking up way too much of my time and mental energy. This evening, I ripped out a project because it wasn’t PERFECT. This is the type of crisis that usually gets my attention and enables me to adjust my perspective.
A few months ago, God revealed to me the obsessive nature of my interests, and I shared this realization with my small group. I told them that now that I understood this about myself, I wanted the Word to be what I obsessed over, not other temporal things. Once again, I have gotten off track. It reminds me of one of the verses from Come Thou Fount:
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let they goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love.
Here's my heart. O take and seal it;
Seal it for thy courts above.
If the Spirit brings it to mind, please pray for me in my efforts to “set my mind on things above” and to “lay up for myself treasure in heaven.” I would be glad to pray the same for you.
For several years I have been praying off and on for God to enable me to care about the things that really matter and not to care about the things that don’t matter. I have asked Him to give me an eternal perspective and to help focus my attention on things of eternal significance.
Following are some verses I have memorized to help me become eternally minded.
Set you mind on the things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.
Colossians 3:2-3
Therefore, since we have so great a cloud of witnesses surrounding us, let us also lay aside every encumbrance and the sin which so easily entangles us, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. For consider Him who has endured such hostility by sinners against Himself, so that you will not grow weary and lost heart.
Hebrews 12:1-3
Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal; for where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.
Matthew 6:19-21
Despite the fact that I have been praying about it and thinking about it for some time, I still struggle desperately in this area. I am far too easily entangled in and encumbered by the things of this world. I especially struggle with (1) being controlled by my circumstances and (2) by materialism. I also have a strong tendency to obsess over a particular interest until I wear myself out over it. Hence, the crisis that has prompted this post: THE KNITTING OBSESSION HAS GOTTEN OUT OF HAND AND SOMETHING MUST BE DONE.
I don’t want to stop knitting, but knitting and related activities (such as reading knitting blogs and magazines and looking at patterns) are taking up way too much of my time and mental energy. This evening, I ripped out a project because it wasn’t PERFECT. This is the type of crisis that usually gets my attention and enables me to adjust my perspective.
A few months ago, God revealed to me the obsessive nature of my interests, and I shared this realization with my small group. I told them that now that I understood this about myself, I wanted the Word to be what I obsessed over, not other temporal things. Once again, I have gotten off track. It reminds me of one of the verses from Come Thou Fount:
O to grace how great a debtor
Daily I'm constrained to be!
Let they goodness, like a fetter,
Bind my wandering heart to thee.
Prone to wander, Lord I feel it,
Prone to leave the God I love.
Here's my heart. O take and seal it;
Seal it for thy courts above.
If the Spirit brings it to mind, please pray for me in my efforts to “set my mind on things above” and to “lay up for myself treasure in heaven.” I would be glad to pray the same for you.
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