Love Covers…

Even though I’m in a hurry, I prop on my full buggy and motion her, with her three items in hand, to go in front of me…it’s only treating her the way I want to be treated.  But then, the hasty shuffle past me, and never a grateful glance.

A short response from someone I love…

a perceived wound…

A thousand small injustices a day have only the power we give them…will I nurse my wound, blame, wear my feelings in a vulnerable place, or will I give others the benefit of the doubt?

“Who knows what that woman may be dealing with:  a terminally ill child she is hurrying back home to nurse?  Financial burdens larger than life?  An abusive husband?” I choose to ask myself.

“Love covers over an offense”.

I’m only just learning, at 37 years old, to look over offenses.  And I’m still very bad at it.  At least the thought occurs to me, and I’m praying earnestly that those thoughts would grow into more follow through.

As a mom, I find a hundred love-lessons like these to teach a day.  If we can cultivate a heart of looking over offenses in our children, imagine how we put them ahead!  Would you agree that this one character trait or flaw, whichever it is, is the source of so much violence, family turmoil and broken homes?  Think about the trail of disaster left in the wake of one of these tragedies when, who knows, had one party only had a mother walking beside him every day, spurring him to true Love, shaping a heart that is able to let an offense go, the whole chain of events may have never existed.

Left alone, the misery of self-centeredness–(for that is the vice that causes us to be quickly offended) will eat them alive.  But with careful pruning, day by day we speak into their lives…“Love keeps no record of wrongs”, and they are transformed by that truth. “Maybe your sister just needs a gentle word…”

Do I model it for them?   Do my children learn from the way I speak of others to cover offenses?  (This is a real question I’m asking myself right now as I write.)  What about my reactions to my husband or in-laws?

Thinking the best of people, letting things go, covering up offenses…this is the stuff of Christian love.  Are we big enough?

Recall What God Remembers–Oswald Chambers

A Word from Spurgeon: Do We Know How to Pray?

These words by Spurgeon provoked me to tears…and repentance.

Psalm 109:4 
But I give myself unto prayer.

“Lying tongues were busy against the reputation of David, but he did not defend himself; he moved the case into a higher court, and pleaded before the great King Himself. Prayer is the safest method of replying to words of hatred. The Psalmist prayed in no cold-hearted manner, he gave himself to the exercise-threw his whole soul and heart into it-straining every sinew and muscle, as Jacob did when wrestling with the angel. Thus, and thus only, shall any of us speed at the throne of grace. As a shadow has no power because there is no substance in it, even so that supplication, in which a man’s proper self is not thoroughly present in agonizing earnestness and vehement desire, is utterly ineffectual, for it lacks that which would give it force.

Prayer must not be our chance work, but our daily business, our habit and vocation. As artists give themselves to their models, and poets to their classical pursuits, so must we addict ourselves to prayer. We must be immersed in prayer as in our element, and so pray without ceasing. Lord, teach us so to pray that we may be more and more prevalent in supplication.”

“Fervent prayer,” says an old saint, “like a cannon planted at the gates of heaven, makes them fly open.” The common fault with the most of us is our readiness to yield to distractions. Our thoughts go roving hither and thither, and we make little progress towards our desired end. Like quicksilver our mind will not hold together, but rolls off this way and that. How great an evil this is! It injures us, and what is worse, it insults our God. What should we think of a petitioner, if, while having an audience with a prince, he should be playing with a feather or catching a fly? Continuance and perseverance are intended in the expression of our text. David did not cry once, and then relapse into silence; his holy clamour was continued till it brought down the blessing.

Joshua Harris: Sin and the Bean Bag

You really need to watch this clip by Joshua Harris.  Simple, funny, serious and important–all at the same time.  A timely message in our post-modern church who frowns on those who still call sin “sin”.

The Christmas Jar: Original Story

Jason Wright, author of The Christmas Jar, tells with tenderness and passion, what motivated his family to begin this simple tradition, and recounts the details of their first Christmas jar experience.

The Difference a Word Can Make

“I t is difficult to articulate all the things swirling around in my head that the Lord is showing me.  Everything I’ve read or heard lately seems to all tie together in an overarching connection that cannot be escaped.  Let me give credit to our Bible study teacher, Mark Travers, who helped articulate some of the thoughts in this post.

First this:

“…Abraham believed God, and it was accounted to him for righteousness.”  Galatians 3:6

Watch this….miss this one thing and we view the entire gospel with a skewed understanding…

It doesn’t say that Abraham’s belief *in* God is what gave him a righteous standing.  It was because he BELIEVED GOD.”

The difference is colossal.  Consider this:

“Thou believest that there is one God; thou doest well: the devils also believe, and tremble.”  James 2:19

Anyone can believe IN God.  But believing God requires action of faith.  When Abraham believed God, it was proven by the way he lived his life.  He acted on his belief of who God is and what God said.

Do we?  Faith in God changes the way we live–it just does!  If affects everything.

And not just that…He believed the hard things.  God commanded Abraham to do the hardest thing, hands down, that any human has ever been commanded–to take the life of his son.  (And we complain about what God asks of us?)  Abraham believed Him.  No questions.  No looking for anyone else’s opinion on the matter.  Just raw obedience to what seemed grossly unfair.

There is a new-age gospel running rampant.  Why? We don’t like unfair. And we’re incapable of holding a just God and a merciful God by the same hand. So we change His Word.  God forbid.  This new gospel is being swallowed like poison by the thousands.  Why?  Because  it is a whole lot of truth peppered with a few lies–Christians being deceived just like Adam and Eve were.  Remember?  The serpent didn’t make up a ridiculous story, it would have been too obvious.  He just asked questions mostly, until their thinking was just slightly off track, a subtle deception, and then THE FALL.

We must believe GOD.  We must believe what He says, who He is, what He has promised, and how He instructs us to live.  Be so discerning about what you hear!  We must be thinking Christians!

The grace of the gospel has been stripped of its power because we have stripped God of His character.  We try to serve a mutually exclusive God and Jesus. “Jesus is only love“, we say, “And God is fierce,and doesn’t like sin, so we’ll just keep Him hidden in the dusty pages of the Old Testament because that makes me feel better”.

No!  Jesus and God are the same and He can only be Love because He is Just! And I can only be accredited with righteousness by believing that.  My sin is an affront to a Holy God.  It’s written all through the pages of Scripture.  If I believe anything else, I believe no gospel at all.

My guilty record has been wiped clean because of His shed blood.  Absolutely. But that acquittal changes me.  It changes everything. I run out with new life and I shudder to remind him of the nails by my indifference to sin.  I obey Him because I love Him.  I love others because I love Him.  (“If you love Me….“)

Let me never be comfortable in my sin.  Sin I will.  Until I die.  But I pray for a heart that abhors it more and more.

“My Father, help me to believe You.  All of You.  Keep me from a false gospel that coddles my feelings.  Let the truth of Your gospel be enough–a balm to my soul!  I rejoice in Your love, Your justice, Your mercy and Your promises.  May it be as You say.”

This post is not just something I felt the need to “tell”.  It is a working in my own heart.  My children are still asleep. When they wake up, I will wash their feet.  I’ve never done that before.  The Lord spoke clearly to me about it last night.  I have sinned against them by my inconsistency, my impatience, my lack of gentleness.  I have repented to God. But I must make restoration with them.  I want them to see a contrite heart.

And please understand that I’m not writing that in some false humility.  I write it as a record, and as an encouragement.  I am a real mom, struggling daily to fight this weak,  flesh-wrapped body whose spirit is willing.  I really believe mothers–me and you–stand to receive the greatest attack of all.  We are building homes.  We are prone to be deceived.  If we can be deceived, Satan can win a household.  I am saying, and I hope you will say with me,

“Get thee behind me Satan–you may not have me or my children.”