Hungry for Holiness

“Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness,

for they shall be satisfied."

- Matthew 5:6

What a timely verse for this holiday season, right on the heels of Thanksgiving! I sadly admit that far too often I do not hunger and thirst for righteousness with the same passion that I lavish on food. Why? Simply put, my mind is so easily set on earthly things, on experiences that my physical senses can enjoy, rather than heavenly things – those which will never fade...nor leave us with heartburn and a guilty conscience afterward. When I live to please my flesh – whether it's eating too much, not restraining my frustration, gossiping - God's warnings come true in my life, and I reap destruction (damage done to my body and relationships). However when, by His grace, I choose to live to please the Spirit, hungering after Christlikeness, then I will reap true satisfaction, peace and eternal life (Gal. 6: 7-9).

The rewards of hungering after righteousness benefit us both this life and the next. Oh, to stand at the end of my days and look back with a sense of thanksgiving that, although I was nowhere near perfect, I sought hard after holiness, not my own pleasure. To be able to do that, I must expect pain along the road – living like Christ is not comfortable; in fact, it means death to many things that my futile mind treasures. I have to stop trying to fill myself with things that do not truly satisfy so that I can finally feel the deep hunger that will only be quenched by Christ and His righteousness made manifest in my life.

This holiday season, let's make it our prayer that God would give us the grace to make an insatiable hunger for righteousness the focus of our hearts and minds. We are always looking for the “perfect gift” for our loved ones. If we profess Christ as our Lord, then He is to be our most Beloved – what more of a gift could we give Him than a heart that is hungry for purity, that desires to live as He did, all for His glory, not our own sense of satisfaction.

Are You Angry?

“Blessed are the meek, for they shall inherit the earth.”
-Matthew 5:5

We're not very familiar with the meaning of the word “meek” these days – it's one of those words whose value has slipped to the wayside along with “mild” and “lowly.” What a tragedy, as its definition encompasses such beauty: gentleness, not demanding of one's own way, not easily irritated, long-suffering, humble.

Sadly, we are all too familiar with the reality of one of its opposites: anger.

Sometimes anger manifests itself in dramatic outbursts of rage, fuming and spewing all the pent-up frustration that's been so deeply buried that we didn't even realize it was there. Sometimes we carry around in our hearts a sort of low-grade anger that just sits below the surface of our every waking moment, gradually eating up all the other life-giving feelings such as joy, compassion, gratitude, and kindness.

The response of anger can result from innumerable situations: unfulfilled longings, tragedies, disappointments, pain, physical exhaustion, not getting our own way, guilt, pressure, unmet needs...the list could go on and on. Life tackles us periodically (for some, constantly) with these things – sometimes as a result of our own sin, sometimes as a result of someone else's sin, sometimes under the direction of the Enemy – always under the sovereign, perfect, watchful, loving eye of our Omnipotent God. Nothing enters our world that is out of His control, and He ALWAYS has a plan for our good and His glory, if we will trust in Him.

So, what are we to do? I don't know anyone who actually enjoys being angry and frustrated (most of us prefer the “joy” and “peace” end of the spectrum, out of which our aforementioned quality of “meekness” flows). If anger is something we will all battle in this life, we can be sure that God has something to say about it in His Word:

“In your anger do not sin.” Do not let the sun go down while you are still angry...Get rid of all bitterness, rage and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice. Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other, just as in Christ God forgave you.”

- Ephesians 4: 26-27, 31-32

 

“Mockers stir up a city, but the wise turn away anger.” - Proverbs 29:8

 

“Do not be quickly provoked in your spirit, for anger resides in the lap of fools.”

- Ecclesiastes 7:9

 

“But I tell you that anyone who is angry with a brother or sister will be subject to judgment...And anyone who says, ‘You fool!’ will be in danger of the fire of hell.”

- Matthew 5:22

 

“[Love] does not dishonor others, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, it keeps no record of wrongs.” - 1 Corinthians 13:5

 

“But now you must also rid yourselves of all such things as these: anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from your lips...Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love...” - Colossians 3:8, 12-14a

 

“...Everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak and slow to become angry, because human anger does not produce the righteousness that God desires. Therefore, get rid of all moral filth and the evil that is so prevalent and humbly accept the word planted in you, which can save you.”

- James 1: 19b-21

Without question, God wants anger to have no hold on our lives. He is a God of peace and wants all His children to walk in consistently authentic joy. We cannot do that if we allow anger to have a stranglehold on our lives. So, if anger is common to all humanity, how are we to get rid of it?

In Christ alone.

Only He had the power to satisfy the righteous wrath of God against all humanity by living a perfect life and laying it down on the altar of the cross, then victoriously rising again three days later! He alone has conquered anger and the destruction and ultimate death it produces. He alone has overcome the power of all sin – including anger – and He freely gives this gift of victory to all who will accept it.

If you are a child of God through faith in Christ, then this victory is already yours. You must now simply walk in it by trusting every moment of every day in the sufficiency of Jesus. If we will allow ourselves to fully bathe in the healing truth of the forgiveness and acceptance we are offered because of Christ's work on the cross (not our own!), how can our hearts help but release the anger we have clung to? All our hurts and hang ups...they all find purpose when we live with a grander view of the tapestry of life, realizing that it's not about us at all – but about the beauty and glory of our Redeemer. He has so mercifully rescued us from the destruction that our wayward hearts were destined to deliver and we are now made right with Him – the God of the universe – and promised eternal life! What more could we possibly every need?

Our challenge from here forward, till the end of our days, is to continually remember that the fullness of life that we are all frantically searching for from birth has been provided for in our union with Christ. He is enough! The whole point of life is “to know God and enjoy Him forever,” for in Him “there is fullness of joy” (Psalm 16:11). Nothing else this side of heaven will ever truly bring lasting peace and joy – not a higher salary, healthy kids, a slower schedule, a cleaner house, a new mate/job/house/car. None of these things are what life is ultimately all about (and the disappointment we feel when they fail us inevitably leads to more life-smothering anger). But how easily we forget that! Our hearts are so quick to absorb the incessant lies with which they are bombarded every day.

So, how are we to stay focused on the one eternal truth that life is all about God (and not us!) and that because of Christ's saving work on the cross, God is now for us (Romans 8:31)? We fight back the darkness with “the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God, praying at all times in the Spirit, with all prayer and supplication. To that end keep alert with all perseverance...” (Ephesians 6: 17b-18). Through God's gift of His Word, we are renewed every day with such astounding, beautiful truths that anger loses its vice grip as we turn it over to Christ. If we are believers in Christ, then we can take comfort from His Word as we are reminded that:

• God is totally sovereign and completely in control and nothing is outside of His domain, so we really need never get frustrated or angry over anything, even if we miss the flight! Wow! (Psalm 103:19)
• All things (even our hurts and failures) are working together for our good and His glory (Romans 8:28)
• He will always love us even though we fail Him (Romans 8:38-39)
• He accepts us because when He sees us, He sees the righteousness of His Son, not our feeble, failing attempts at it (Colossians 3: 1-4)
• Even though we are far from perfect yet, He is giving us the desire and the power to do what pleases Him (Philippians 2:13) and will never give up on growing us into His likeness (Philippians 1:6)

I thank my Merciful Father that He saw fit to give me the free gift of salvation through faith in His beautiful Son, Jesus Christ. Only through His Spirit living in me can I have hope to conquer my struggles with anger (not to mention all the other known and unknown sins in my heart). I trust Him as my faithful, steadfast Guide through this life as He so patiently works on my “prone to wander” heart, and praise Him that although I fail continually and am not who I want to be, by His grace alone I am not who I used to be!

To read more about how you can have this same precious gift of peace with God through Christ, click here.

To Be Truly Rich, We Must Be Truly Poor

“Blessed are the poor in spirit,
for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.”

Matthew 5:3

With a trail of multitudes clamoring to hear more of His astounding message, Christ treks up a mountainside, sits down and, right out of the gate, announces to His eager listeners that if they want to be blessed, they have to be... poor. In our finite minds, these two words - “poor” and “blessed” - just don't seem to go together in the same sentence whatsoever. Instead, we naturally grate against this idea because since birth the world has sworn to us that to be “blessed” is to live a life of ease, comfort, and riches of all sorts. What the world has forgotten to tell us is that these riches can never truly satisfy and, ultimately, they will all pass away.

Christ is speaking of a spiritual poverty, of knowing deep in our core that nothing good resides inside us and that we are desperate for the power and presence of God every moment of our lives. All our self-efforts of trying to perform “good enough” to be accepted by others (including God) will without exception leave us exhausted and empty.

Instead, when we approach every day with our hearts humbled before our merciful Father, what joy we receive as His boundless store of spiritual riches are poured out onto us! No service in ministry, no amazing accomplishment, no attainment of the “American dream,” could even come close to producing the depth of peace and unshakeable joy that Jesus wants to lavish on us when we make fellowship with Him our number one priority.

In this life, if we want to be truly rich, we need to be needy. When we are beggars for more of Christ – the true Bread of Life – our hearts will perpetually cry out, as the old hymn says, “I need thee every hour.” Let us hold fast to the truth that if we but stay at Christ's feet and find nourishment for our souls as He teaches and guides us, all the treasures of His Kingdom will be produced in our lives for His glory.

Advice from Amazing Mooooooooms: "4 Moms of 35+ Kids Answer Your Parenting Questions"

There are moms...and then there are

moooooooooooooms.

These are the chosen few mamas out there who, out of deep faith and trust, have allowed God to bless their family with as many children as he sees fit, regardless of the number! For many of us, just the thought of this causes us to shake in our boots a little (ok, maybe a lot). One of my "moooooooom" friends described it this way when she said, "you've heard of extreme sports? Well, this is like extreme faith!" 

I cannot help but be inspired when I see such fearless trust in the Author and Sustainer of all life from these large families. And by and large, it seems that the Lord blesses these families with more and more grace as he adds to their number. Doubtless their store of wisdom in parenting is much larger than my own, and so I have been blessed to glean guidance from their depth of experience. Lately that has come in the form of a profound little ebook called, 

"4 Moms of 35+ Kids Answer Your Parenting Questions." 

My friend, Connie, of Smockity Frocks (one of the awesome "mooooooms" out there), and 3 of her fellow large family blogger buddies have taken the time to compile their heartfelt and hilarious answers to 17 of the most frequently asked parenting questions they get, including (but not limited to!):

• Nap Time
• Parenting styles
• Keeping Your Patience
• Church time with Children
• Grocery Shopping with Little Children
• Accomplishing big projects
• Giving Individual Attention
• Talking to Kids About Sex

It also has a master chore list divided into age appropriate chores, as well as a sermon notes printable. 

"4 Moms of 35+ Kids Answer Your Parenting Questions" is one of those truly priceless resources out there for all moms seeking, by God's grace, to raise the little ones He's given us to walk in His ways. And as a side bonus, there are some really hilarious moments candidly shared by these honest and precious mooooooms (we could all use a good laugh!). 

To order "4 Moms of 35+ Kids Answer Your Parenting Questions" for $7.99, click the following link

https://www.e-junkie.com/ecom/gb.php?cl=205259&c=ib&aff=210346" target="ejejcsingle

What You're Looking For is In Your Backyard

The gift of motherhood has proven to humble me more than any other single experience I have encountered up to this point in life (can I get an amen!? ;). That being said, I have naturally sought out wise counsel from godly seasoned mamas who have been down this road ahead of me. The light God has shed before them on his design for raising little ones has powerfully served to benefit my heart as well. I have a few favorite mama-authors, more of whom I'll mention in future posts, but one of my all-time faves is Sally Clarkson (thanks to Jen Sprayberry for introducing her to me!).

With the outburst of creative beauty swirling all around us during this Spring season, I cannot help but be confronted daily with the awesome majesty of God's vast grandeur and power. And since our primary goal as Christian parents is to, with fear and trembling and only through God's grace, teach our children the wonders of God (so that they, in turn, will learn to love and glorify him), it stands to reason that we should seek to surround our precious ones with as much of his natural creative works as possible - especially during this gorgeous time of year where every nook and cranny seems to be bursting with new life. As Sally Clarkson states in her book The Mission of Motherhood (pp.186-187),

"So many of us in our plastic, industrial world spend the bulk of our lives apart from any true natural beauty. We travel inside protected cars and feel the wind, rain, and snow on our faces only as we move from one enclosure to another. So many children in our industrial society grow up surrounded by glass, plastic, steel and asphalt. They spend most of their time with machines - televisions and stereos, game consoles and computers, and cars. They are rarely exposed to the natural elements that were meant to daily confront our soul with the greatness of God.

No wonder current generations seem to give in so easily to doubt and skepticism! They have had little opportunity to wonder at the greatness of God in the vast ocean or in the middle of a snowy blizzard or felt tiny when standing under the great canopy of stars. There is something about the direct experience of God's natural world that tends to put our human doubts and questions into perspective...That's why one of the greatest gifts we can give our children is exposure to this magnificent Creator through the wonderful things he has made. Their appetites for life need to be built on those things that reflect the image of God through the work of his fingers. Practically speaking, that means that one of the most important things I can do as a mother is get my children - and me! - outdoors as much as possible."

With this truth in mind, the next time my sweet 3-year old daughter asks for me to go outside with her to pick flowers in the yard, regardless of how full my sink is with dirty dishes or high my pile of laundry is on the living room floor, for the Lord's glory, I must go! Souls are eternal - dishes and laundry are temporary.

All things new

The coming of Spring, and I am again floored at God's limitless beauty. He truly does make all things new. The drab days of winter followed by the floods of early Spring can just about convince us that life will forever be filled with darkness. We look around and all we see is a blanket of wet, gray lifelessness. And oh, how our own personal seasons of life can mimic God's design for nature as well.

Knowing that all aspects of life on this human plane are under God's sovereign control, I think it is no accident that God ordained Easter to occur during this season of life returning once again to the earth. As we look around at the mercy of his calling forth the plants to bud and skies to blue, I am reminded in a deeper sense of his mercy in giving his Son as the ultimate remedy for darkness.

Because Christ laid down his perfect life once for all as the final sacrifice for sin, and was raised again to new life that first Easter Sunday, all who accept his offer of redemption are lavished with eternal life, abundant life, both now and forever. What an undeserved, unfathomable outpouring of grace on our sad state of affairs! We could never earn it; our attempts at goodness in our own strength fall staggeringly short every time (Romans 3:23). But because the God of Winter is also the God of Spring, he provided the Perfect Remedy on our behalf, without price on our part (Romans 6:23). My heart races at the thought of such a profound gift...especially as I remember my own wretched heart.

And so, on this day before Resurrection Day, I praise you again, merciful Daddy, for the gift of your Perfect Son. May you pour out your presence on all those who love you...and even more on those who do not know you yet, that they might come to find eternal hope from your beautiful gift of True Life (Romans 10: 9-10).

Keep On Keepin' On...

It's been a long dry spell between posts for me. Many different factors have played into the reasoning for it, but as of late I have begun to have that buzz inside me that is just calling me to write - that tingling inside my stomach, almost like butterflies that need to be set free...and certainly not because I think I have anything of any worth to say on my own. I know far too well that anything that comes from my own wicked heart is just mush. And inevitably, because I am not writing canon of Scripture (that was taken care of thousands of years ago!), whatever I write will be stained with my own messed up humanity...but I still feel led to invest whatever part of me I can for the glory of God & let Him redeem it as only He is able. (As a side, I want to just encourage all believers out there to put to use whatever gifts the Lord has given you, regardless of if you feel adequate to do so. Let's not be found guilty of burying the gifts with which He has entrusted us upon His return, much like the wicked servant in the Parable of the Talents in Matthew 25:14-28).

As a mama of 3 little bitties, I am learning more & more just how much my children were sent to teach me, & not so much the other way around. Yes, I am called by God's grace to diligently teach and train up my kids in the Word and ways of God. But, oh, how profoundly God has used my sweet kids to bring to light just how desperately I need the power of Christ in my everyday life! I do not think there is anything in my experience that God could have used so powerfully as parenthood to illuminate my utter weakness and dependency on Him for every waking moment.

Quite honestly, each day - in fact, each moment of each day - is a struggle to lay down my own selfishness for the sake of serving my kids. Some times, when I am walking in the power of the Spirit, I succeed. Often, when I let my flesh lead, I fail miserably. But what I am learning (again, by God's sweet grace), is that I need to come to understand that failure is a fact of life - it is an inevitable by-product of being born into the human race. However, the good news is, as a believer who is filled with the same Spirit who raised Christ from the dead, I do not have to accept failure as a way of life (Romans 8:11). Even though there are days when I have blown it as a parent (or just as a person in general!), I do not have to throw in the towel. I can get up in the morning, comforted by the fact that God's mercies are new each day. Praise God that,

"Because of the LORD’s great love we are not consumed,
for his compassions never fail.
They are new every morning;
great is your faithfulness."

- Lamentations 3:22-23