A Sacred Trust

Home is the true wife’s kingdom. There, first of all places, she must be strong and beautiful. She may touch life outside in many ways, if she can do it without slighting the duties that are hers within her own doors. But if any calls for her service must be declined, they should not be the duties of her home. These are hers, and no other one’s. Very largely does the wife hold in her hands, as a sacred trust, the happiness and the highest good of the hearts that nestle there. The best husband—the truest, the noblest, the gentlest, the richest-hearted—cannot make his home happy if his wife be not, in every reasonable sense, a helpmate to him.

In the last analysis, home happiness depends on the wife. Her spirit gives the home its atmosphere. Her hands fashion its beauty. Her heart makes its love. And the end is so worthy, so noble, so divine, that no woman who has been called to be a wife, and has listened to the call, should consider any price too great to pay, to be the light, the joy, the blessing, the inspiration of a home.

Men with fine gifts think it worth while to live to paint a few great pictures which shall be looked at and admired for generations; or to write a few songs which shall sing themselves into the ears and hearts of men. But the woman who makes a sweet, beautiful home, filling it with love and prayer and purity, is doing something better than anything else her hands could find to do beneath the skies. J.R. Miller, Secrets of a Happy Home

The Priestly Blessing

We were very blessed to be able to go see John Waller in concert Friday night, we did not know much about him and was pleasantly surprised by his amazing worshipful performance. We went to see Tenth Avenue North which we have see before but John Waller stole the show for us. One of the songs that stuck with us was called The Priestly Blessing… from Numbers 6:24-26 Araon’s Blessing

The LORD bless you and keep you;

the LORD make his face to shine upon you and be gracious to you;

the LORD lift up his countenance upon you and give you peace.

It is a beautiful song. May this be a prayer said over you today… may the LORD bless you; and keep you; and make His face to shine upon you; lift up His countenance upon you and give you peace!!

It’s that time of year again

The holiday so many of us Christians struggle to understand how to celebrate in our convictions considering it’s pagan origins. I personally have struggled year after year with what I believe, my conscience uncomfortable in the midst of this “dark” day. I have prayed and meditated on God’s word concerning how we are to live out our faith in this pagan world, 1 Corinthians tells us to glorify God in everything we do… this applies of course to everyday and every holiday, including Halloween. There are so many creative way we can do this in whatever way we decide to celebrate or simply not celebrate this day… it opens many doors of opportunity to minister, display and relay the gospel. We forget that today is also the day that Martin Luther nailed his 95 Thesis to the doors of the Roman Catholic Church whether you agree with his beliefs or not he reformed the church and has given us all religous freedom. Here are 2 very good articles concerning October 31st :

Christians and Halloween: Grace to You

Celebrating Reformation Day

and a lovely post by A Wise Woman Builds Her House on Reformation Day Celebration with lots of links.

Our commission is to reach into this dark pagan world we journey through and preach the good news of Christ. We have been entrusted with the truth and power of the gospel and today like any other we are to go out and proclaim it.

Pumpkin & Spice

 

Cultivating the Rich Christian Home

Let me encourage you this morning in your high, holy and crucial calling as a wife, mother and homekeeper, enjoy some time soaking in these beautiful thoughts from A Wise Woman Builds Her Home…

Faith Like Potatoes

I am not a film critic but I personally was very encouraged by this movie and the true life story of Agnus Bucham. My faith was challenged after watching it and listening to the special features after on the real llife story. Some have criticized this movie for promoting a “prospierty gospel” and not having a well enough character progression, I disagree. I am once again thankful for my simple mindedness. The fact is this is a true story and conversion is not alway a long progress but as Paul an instant transformation of the heart. The substance for me in this movie as a believer is do I have faith like potatoes, faith that can move mountains, faith that you can feel… is my faith on fire for the Lord… fearless and burning for His heart, taking risks. I would encourage other believers and non believers to watch this movie, for God is bigger than all t he details of man in film making and can change hearts by one mans witness to the power of God in His life. Have you seen this… what did you think?

The True Vine

 

 

I find it a rather pleasant thing to sit and wade in the mysteries and captivating truths of the Almighty with the reality that I may come away with only a faint whisper from His Majesty… and I walk away satisfied. As I have been submerged in meditation over Galatians 5:16-26 in prayer, in thought and in deep study I have heard His voice loud and clear like a trumpet in the quiet stillness of my heart. I praise God! This morning as I was searching and reaching into His word and listening very carefully I heard Him silently speak… You must abide in Me… with out Me you can do nothing… It was so beautiful and I quickly began searching again, where is it Lord, lead me to your soul satisfying life breathing word… yes, John 15… the True Vine…

 Abide in me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit by itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in me. I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing. 

 John 15: 4-5

Here was my anwser to the question I had been hiding deep with in the caverns of my heart… but how Lord? How do you expect me to obtain this fruit you speak of? This fruit of the Spirit? It seems impossible for it to ever flourish, ripe out of my heart and into my life, how can this be? Put off the works of the flesh and put on the fruit of the Spirit… sounds easy until my flesh hears it and screams and gnashes violently with in me revolting in the darkness nails gripped tight with no intentions of letting go much less leaving. I come to grips with the reality as in verse 24, I must crucify him that is apart of me… wait crucify, kill that which is apart of me? How?

sweetly spoked in John by our Lord…

Abide in me.

The more we abide in Him the less our flesh can continue to survive… we must not only starve our flesh but poison it with the life giving words and wisdom of Christ. Do you want to crucify the flesh… stop feeding it what it wants! In order for us to bring death to the flesh we must read the living word of God and allow the rays of HIs wisdom penetrate deep into our hearts and souls falling upon that which lives within us to bring complacency, comfort, a lack of urgency, a slothfulness and possible death. I desperately want to be alive to God not meerly sleeping in His grace… that the reality of His love would be awakened with in me. How can my flesh survive the consuming love of Christ, the all powerful work of the Holy Spirit and the grace of God? It can not and so we must abide in Him.

It is so important that we realize in this journey that we can bear no fruit on our own… us, the branch can not bear fruit with out the true vine. Apart from Him we can do nothing it is only by abiding in Him that fruit will flourish. It is crazy to think that we could produce fruit from a garden with out every feeding it life giving nutrients, living water, so how do we expect fruit to grow forth from our hearts with out the same reality? Oh, how exciting to seek Him in this text, I can’t wait to see what else He has in store for me, to teach me and encourage me. Let us pray for understanding and the ability to not only see that the fruit is good but also taste and know it is good by how it is displayed and experienced in our lives.   

JOYfully in Him,

Kelli

Welcoming Autumn

No spring nor summer beauty hath such grace as I have seen in one autumnal face.

John Donne

Today is officially the first day of Autumn… although outside my window doesn’t yet proclaim it’s warm inviting tones but they will soon follow to my delight. I so admire this season. It is lightly raining outside over here…

“Holy, holy, holy is the LORD of hosts; the whole earth is full of his glory!”

Isaiah 6:3

Precious Lessons

Job 1:21

“The LORD gave, and the LORD has taken away; blessed be the name of the LORD.” 

Precious was our cat… precious is our time… for so many reasons… precious for the eternal purposes and glories of God, precious for the angelic beings watch and learn, precious for it is like a vapor, precious for our holiness and precious for the little hearts that we have been given. Our dear sweet Precious was suddenly taken away from us this Friday morning and with her went a piece of my heart. I loved her dearly even though she had a very bad habit of terrorizing me at times…. she brought a peacefulness into our home and a comfort to me that I can not explain… she was a precious gift that I am so thankful for today. My heart aches for her presence again in her usual daily routines, in our daily rythyms. My piece has been disturbed as I long for her… home doesn’t quiet feel the same. I ask “Why?” honestly… what is my lesson? What does He have to teach me from this?  Oh why has He taken something so sweet and good from me? I get little anwsers… mostly silence with a few  hints of a whisper here and there… “was that You God?” I don’t know.  Why do I keep crying? She was just a cat? Is there more to this that I am not getting… I seek to simply understand and grow. I ask earnestly for His direction… does He hear me? Oh I plead that He would hear me and allow me to understand. What do I do with all this sorrow? Cast it in the shallow waters of everyday work and pleasures?  It only comes back to find me sulking in my room… I continue to ask Him “what do I need to do?” I try to hand over my sorrow, my pain, my memories in exchange for His peace and comfort… I receive it at times but grab it all back, where is this going? No where.  I admit now that He has anwsered me only I have said with in my heart, “that is not enough… I need something more”. I admit my heart is not right in thinking that as if He alone is not enough, that is a lie from the pit of hell… get behind me satan.  

I consider the possiblity of my sorrow being more of a result of a brokeness over my own sinfulness and guilt of it’s leading, of being disciplined by my Father (Hebrews 12). I realize that my sinfulness the other night caused certain things to happen… she should have been inside that night as we always let her in but on that night I decided I wanted to sulk and dwell in my sinfulness instead. The interesting things is I have been praying for this, not exactly this but for the Lord to humble me and bring me to a place of brokeness that I could not bring myself… He has answered my prayer. I will miss her but I am begining to understand… my Father knew what He needed to do for my good and as hard as it is I am going to try to listen to Him when He says…

“Rejoice always, pray without ceasing, give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. “

1 Thessalonians 5:16-18

Through the pain of her absence and my sin I find a heart of thankfulness… for her life, all the many joys she brought to me over these years, the goodness of God for giving her to me (what a blessing), of brokeness, of His work with in my heart, His faithfulness and for listening to me and being so patience with me. I didn’t deserve such a good gift, such a good little furry companion and I didn’t deserve the ultimate gift of Christ on the cross taking my sins upon Himself  and drinking the cup of God’s wrath that I was meant to drink…

God is most glorified in you when you am most satisfied in Him… in the midst of loss…” John Piper 

I long for Him now to come and fill this broken vessel with His Spirit… that in this and any loss I might face in this life I would be completely satisfied in Him… that nothing would be so precious to me other than Him and Him alone… not even the gift of time. It is so easy to put our gifts above our Giver, and misplace our joy, our trust, our peace, our hunger and thirsts and our treasure on what He has given us… setting our eyes and our hearts ultimately on earthly temporal things instead of eternal heavenly things. May we protect our hearts to love… but to easily let go for the sake of His good works and eternal purposes.

Precious will be deeply  missed… and she will always hold a very special tender place in my heart and in my spiritual journey… I wonder if in the truth that all of creation will be restored if we will be reunited… a silly but pleasing thought .

Sweet Surrender

To be like Christ. To displace self from the inner throne, and to enthrone Him; to make not the slightest compromise with the smallest sin. We aim at nothing less than to walk with God all day long, to abide every hour in Christ and He and His words inus, to love God with all the heart and our neighbors as ourselves… It is possible to cast every care on Him daily, and to be at peace amidst pressure, o see the will of God in everything, to put away all bitterness and clamor and evil speaking, daily and hourly. It is possible by unreserved resort to divine power under divine conditions to become strongest through and through at our weakest point. (Bishop Handley Moule, Thoughts on Christian Sanctity)

Sanctification… the process of becoming more and more with each breath like our savior. Sometimes the breathes come slowly and with little progress though.  Especially when when we try to do it in our own power instead of with the power of the Holy Spirit who is the only one who is able to inable us to be like Christ.  Life can get overwhelming and in a second we can become convinced to take our eyes off of Christ and placed them inwardly… forget the power is not of us and be deceived into thinking we must do all of this on our own and with our own strength and then it is then that we fail and fall in the grips of a circle of dispair because we have misplaced our King from His throne in our hearts and insufficiently replaced Him with ourselves. We start to feel like everyday we are alone… folding laundry, cooking meals, teaching, correcting, cleaning… going through the Christian motions while our heart sits in a dark corner unengaged and uninterested.

I don’t know about you but I need His Spirit to fill up this old heart… to find His power working out in my life with zeal and passion that can only be of Him. More of Him less of me. Reading over the fruits of the Spirit I know that those things do not come naturally for me… I cringed inwardly at them and fear getting to close to them for the reflection I might see of my own heart, but I want to be useful to God, a servant of His grace and a faithful daughter. I must examine this old heart and it’s old ways and prune it and surrender it to Him fully and completely… I bring my heart this morning broken and lay it upon His alter… sweet surrender to His will, however humiliating it may be to deny self with each breath from person to person, if that is what it takes for Him to be seen in me then I will endure for His glory to radiate through this broken vessel, this jar of clay. I pray that with each step He will take my hand and guide me deeper and deeper into His lovingness and that I would know my Savior more intimately than before. 

Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me. Cast me not away from your presence, and take not your Holy Spirit from me. Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit. Psalm 51:10-11

Oh, this is my cry oh God.

The sacrafices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not dispise. Psalm 51:17

Oh, my God I desire for this to be real, for Your Spirit to be real… powerfully working in my heart and through my life… not another emotional experience that comes and goes… an experience that transforms this heart to live a faithful and righteous life radically for Your glory… that the fruit of Your Spirit would be evident in me, that You would give me Your eyes and let me come close to Your heart, that each day You would fill me up with Your Spirit and lead me to walk in love, in joy, in peace, in patience, in kindness, in goodness, faithfulness, in gentleness and in self control… that my flesh would be crucified and my idols smashed.

If we walk  by the Spirit we will not gratify the desires of the flesh. In this journey… let us not focus on our fleshly desires but only on the fruit of the Spirit, not on the sin but on Christ. Recognize what it is that we struggle with and then quickly with out much thought replace it… let us walk.