Heads up ladies!! We have a new blogger among us...please join me in welcoming my sister in the Lord, Karen Seiders to the True Woman blog!
Karen is going to be doing some book reviews for us. She will be taking over the Mondays that I recently abandoned, so feel free to start checking those out. The first one will, Lord willing, be going up this upcoming Monday.
I've also heard from a few people that they enjoy these book reviews, so I am planning to put a few up on Fridays. It won't be every Friday, but check every couple of weeks to see if one is there. I am going to try to have one for Don't Waste Your Life by John Piper up there next Friday. Jasmine is probably going to join us in this as well.
Hope you enjoy! Lord bless,
Nichole
Friday, May 29, 2009
Thursday, May 28, 2009
Respectable Sins - Part 2
Anxiety
Uh oh, you're all thinking right now, here it comes. Anxiety is a sin...we know already!! And I just want to take this opportunity to say yeah, I know too. And I'm still anxious all the time, usually without recognizing it as sin or calling it sin. So why is anxiety a sin? I mean, we're human right? Anxiety is an emotion; we live in a fallen world, for heavens sake, there is tons to be anxious about! Anxiety is a sin because it shows a distrust of God in our hearts and a lack of willingness to accept God's providence in our lives.
I had to confront this particular sin in my life a little over a year ago. I have a skin problem with my fingers. No one really knows whats going on with it, but I have some medicated lotion I have to use like crazy. Most of the time its under control and it just seems like I have really dry hands. But sometimes its really bad and my fingers get swollen and scabby and break open...you get the picture. Its gross. There have been several times when I haven't had use of my hands because of it. Once or twice this happened on a Sunday morning and I wasn't able to write on the whiteboard in class - I had to ask one of the kids to do it for me! Many times I scratched my fingers so hard that my hands were shaking from exhaustion; often times the only relief was to hold my hands under scalding water for a few minutes. Do you get the picture I'm trying to paint? This is not a pretty thing! My dad told me that he had had a similar experience when he was my age and that it happened when he was particularly anxious about something. He asked me if there was anything I was anxious about. I said no, but I thought about it. I thought and thought and thought and realized that I was an extremely anxious person! God showed me much grace and I have been battling this anxiety and winning over the last year. We serve a gracious Lord! And now I always have a very physical reminder whenever I loose trust in God...one that I can't ignore!
Not all of you (unfortunately?) have this same reminder though. Its harder to tell when you aren't trusting God. And that is all anxiety is. If we understood God for the Almighty, All-Knowing, Loving, Faithful, Sovereign God that He truly is, then we would never ever suffer from anxiety!! We wouldn't be able to!
Remind yourselves of God's promises. Learn them, memorize them, and meditate on them. Make them your own. Learn more about who God is. Read of His character, learn His works. Never brush off anxiety as unimportant or justifiable.
I have far to go in my fight...just ask my brother! On Saturdays, he and I work the same shift and I usually ride to work with him. I do this for three reasons. One, because it is dumb for us both to drive to the same place at the same time and then leave at the same time to drive back to the same place. Two, because I enjoy his company. Three, because it gives me a regular opportunity to display a trust in my God. Those of you who know me well know that I am pretty scared of being late. Its a big fear. I have a four minute commute to work and I almost always leave 20-25 minutes before I'm scheduled to start...just in case! Matt, on the other hand, leaves in enough time to arrive 2 minutes before he is scheduled! I'm sorry to say that almost every Saturday I get extremely anxious. I start nagging him and bugging him to leave. I'm impatient and frustrated on the walk to the car. It feels like hours instead of 2 seconds for him to throw a couple notebooks off the front passengers seat into the back of the car. The whole drive there I'm urging him to drive faster. My poor brother, I'm honestly surprised he still lets me drive with him!
The point? I am daily fighting anxiety. It is a huge struggle for me and is always rearing its ugly head in areas I never expected. Look for the anxiety in your own lives. Recognize it as sin...and fight it alongside me. May we all learn to trust our God so much that nothing in this world can daunt us!
Uh oh, you're all thinking right now, here it comes. Anxiety is a sin...we know already!! And I just want to take this opportunity to say yeah, I know too. And I'm still anxious all the time, usually without recognizing it as sin or calling it sin. So why is anxiety a sin? I mean, we're human right? Anxiety is an emotion; we live in a fallen world, for heavens sake, there is tons to be anxious about! Anxiety is a sin because it shows a distrust of God in our hearts and a lack of willingness to accept God's providence in our lives.
I had to confront this particular sin in my life a little over a year ago. I have a skin problem with my fingers. No one really knows whats going on with it, but I have some medicated lotion I have to use like crazy. Most of the time its under control and it just seems like I have really dry hands. But sometimes its really bad and my fingers get swollen and scabby and break open...you get the picture. Its gross. There have been several times when I haven't had use of my hands because of it. Once or twice this happened on a Sunday morning and I wasn't able to write on the whiteboard in class - I had to ask one of the kids to do it for me! Many times I scratched my fingers so hard that my hands were shaking from exhaustion; often times the only relief was to hold my hands under scalding water for a few minutes. Do you get the picture I'm trying to paint? This is not a pretty thing! My dad told me that he had had a similar experience when he was my age and that it happened when he was particularly anxious about something. He asked me if there was anything I was anxious about. I said no, but I thought about it. I thought and thought and thought and realized that I was an extremely anxious person! God showed me much grace and I have been battling this anxiety and winning over the last year. We serve a gracious Lord! And now I always have a very physical reminder whenever I loose trust in God...one that I can't ignore!
Not all of you (unfortunately?) have this same reminder though. Its harder to tell when you aren't trusting God. And that is all anxiety is. If we understood God for the Almighty, All-Knowing, Loving, Faithful, Sovereign God that He truly is, then we would never ever suffer from anxiety!! We wouldn't be able to!
Remind yourselves of God's promises. Learn them, memorize them, and meditate on them. Make them your own. Learn more about who God is. Read of His character, learn His works. Never brush off anxiety as unimportant or justifiable.
I have far to go in my fight...just ask my brother! On Saturdays, he and I work the same shift and I usually ride to work with him. I do this for three reasons. One, because it is dumb for us both to drive to the same place at the same time and then leave at the same time to drive back to the same place. Two, because I enjoy his company. Three, because it gives me a regular opportunity to display a trust in my God. Those of you who know me well know that I am pretty scared of being late. Its a big fear. I have a four minute commute to work and I almost always leave 20-25 minutes before I'm scheduled to start...just in case! Matt, on the other hand, leaves in enough time to arrive 2 minutes before he is scheduled! I'm sorry to say that almost every Saturday I get extremely anxious. I start nagging him and bugging him to leave. I'm impatient and frustrated on the walk to the car. It feels like hours instead of 2 seconds for him to throw a couple notebooks off the front passengers seat into the back of the car. The whole drive there I'm urging him to drive faster. My poor brother, I'm honestly surprised he still lets me drive with him!
The point? I am daily fighting anxiety. It is a huge struggle for me and is always rearing its ugly head in areas I never expected. Look for the anxiety in your own lives. Recognize it as sin...and fight it alongside me. May we all learn to trust our God so much that nothing in this world can daunt us!
Wednesday, May 27, 2009
Witty Wednesday
Okay hold on, hold on. I know this is an unprecedented move by me...posting on a wednesday??? But I found an absolutely hilarious post over at the girl talk blog that I thought I would steal for ours. :D Here you go, trust me it is worth the effort of clicking on a link. I almost fell off my chair laughing.
Tuesday, May 26, 2009
Making Disciples
Being on mission with God is something that has captivated our Church, and for that I am glad. This is something that as a family we are still working through. How does that look in our everyday existence? How purposeful are we being in ministering the gospel of Jesus Christ to those around us? Is the Gospel at the center of all we say and do?
As we are evaluating and making changes, repenting where it is necessary, spending time in purposeful prayer as we look at relationships we have, my own husband has reminded me and himself that the mission isn't merely to have relationships and gain converts, but to make disciples! Whoa! What a concept. A phrase he has been using to make it stick in our minds is "missional discipleship." This phrase is by no means original to him, but it has set some things right in my mind. This means that we cannot merely abandon fellowship and the One Anothers that God's word demands. It means we cannot abandon being equipped and equipping through preaching and teaching. It is, in fact still necessary to teach one to "obey all that is commanded." This takes time, sweat, tears, prayer, deep study and being discipled and taught ourselves! It means as our dear family and friends who do not love Jesus are with us, they see us with our Church family, they see how we interact, they hear the things we are being taught, they see how the way we parent, do our marriages, and make decisions are based on the Gospel - based on what we have been taught in the scripture - based on our doctrine. And, they learn with us, and as one comes to Christ, we teach and equip them. This does not happen without purposeful planning. It means one on one and it also means through classes and preaching where we are learning these things together and growing in unity.
I have some family who are new converts. It will be a sad day if as a Church we abandon helping them to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ and throw them out into the world untaught and ill- equipped for any good work.
I know that is not the desire of our shepherds.
I hope and pray that as I live out life as a Sent One, I will remember that the great commision from the One who has been given all Authority and in Whose name we go, is: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I command you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
As we are evaluating and making changes, repenting where it is necessary, spending time in purposeful prayer as we look at relationships we have, my own husband has reminded me and himself that the mission isn't merely to have relationships and gain converts, but to make disciples! Whoa! What a concept. A phrase he has been using to make it stick in our minds is "missional discipleship." This phrase is by no means original to him, but it has set some things right in my mind. This means that we cannot merely abandon fellowship and the One Anothers that God's word demands. It means we cannot abandon being equipped and equipping through preaching and teaching. It is, in fact still necessary to teach one to "obey all that is commanded." This takes time, sweat, tears, prayer, deep study and being discipled and taught ourselves! It means as our dear family and friends who do not love Jesus are with us, they see us with our Church family, they see how we interact, they hear the things we are being taught, they see how the way we parent, do our marriages, and make decisions are based on the Gospel - based on what we have been taught in the scripture - based on our doctrine. And, they learn with us, and as one comes to Christ, we teach and equip them. This does not happen without purposeful planning. It means one on one and it also means through classes and preaching where we are learning these things together and growing in unity.
I have some family who are new converts. It will be a sad day if as a Church we abandon helping them to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus Christ and throw them out into the world untaught and ill- equipped for any good work.
I know that is not the desire of our shepherds.
I hope and pray that as I live out life as a Sent One, I will remember that the great commision from the One who has been given all Authority and in Whose name we go, is: "Go therefore and make disciples of all the nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and the Son and the Holy Spirit teaching them to observe all that I command you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age."
Thursday, May 21, 2009
Respectable Sins - Part 1
Over the next few weeks we are going to discuss some of the more respectable sins in our lives. None of us - that I know of - have committed any of the really 'serious' sins such as adultery, murder, homosexuality, etc. However, many of us, myself included, have allowed various 'respectable' sins to continue on in our lives.
Pride
I believe that we can find pride at the root of all of the sin in our lives. Pride shows itself in a multitude of ways. Obviously, we can all think of situations where we can exercise a sinful pride. But what about when we exhibit moral self righteousness? What about when we look down at others who we feel are less moral than us? Do we recognize these situations as sin? How about when we show pride of our correct doctrine? We have better doctrine than that other guy, obviously we are the better Christian and he is simply to be looked down upon and dismissed. Does having better doctrine give us the right to be prideful? Or does it offer us an opportunity to give thanks to God for the grace He has shown in our lives?
Unthankfulness
There are times in all of our lives when it is difficult to find something - anything - to be thankful for. But it is necessary for us to be constantly giving thanks to God for the work that He has done and is still doing in our lives. Whenever we are unable to find true thankfulness to God in our hearts it is sin. We should pull back, look at our lives in the big picture rather than the here and now, rather than the specific situation that is going on right now, and we should thank God. The mercy and grace that He has shown us is impossible for us to ever comprehend. This fact alone makes our opportunities to show thankfulness unlimited.
Pride
I believe that we can find pride at the root of all of the sin in our lives. Pride shows itself in a multitude of ways. Obviously, we can all think of situations where we can exercise a sinful pride. But what about when we exhibit moral self righteousness? What about when we look down at others who we feel are less moral than us? Do we recognize these situations as sin? How about when we show pride of our correct doctrine? We have better doctrine than that other guy, obviously we are the better Christian and he is simply to be looked down upon and dismissed. Does having better doctrine give us the right to be prideful? Or does it offer us an opportunity to give thanks to God for the grace He has shown in our lives?
Unthankfulness
There are times in all of our lives when it is difficult to find something - anything - to be thankful for. But it is necessary for us to be constantly giving thanks to God for the work that He has done and is still doing in our lives. Whenever we are unable to find true thankfulness to God in our hearts it is sin. We should pull back, look at our lives in the big picture rather than the here and now, rather than the specific situation that is going on right now, and we should thank God. The mercy and grace that He has shown us is impossible for us to ever comprehend. This fact alone makes our opportunities to show thankfulness unlimited.
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