We were honored to have such powerful conference this weekend. Almost 150 women gathered to discuss why God asks us not to arouse or awaken love before it so desires. Women from the ages of 10-100 came and learned what God’s plan was and why he said wait. I was so impressed by our teens who were honestly saying that they had never really considered why God said wait.
Some of the comments that touched my heart were:
“Now I understand why my dad acts like he hates boys to talk to me you know? He is trying to protect me. I mean, he’s still not doing it right but I see his heart now you know?”
“I would never do the things I do in front of my dad but I had never considered that my father in heaven is always watching. It makes you think.”
“I can’t talk to my mom because she always runs and tells her sisters and her friends.”
“I can’t talk to my mom because she always starts yelling and judging.”
“I feel helpless when my daughter comes to me because I see my baby asking 13 year-old questions and it scares me.”
“I sometimes don’t know what to say to my daughter so I revert to rules.”
“I still wear scars by the things boys said to me in high school”
“I didn’t live what I am teaching and I want more for my daughter but I don’t know what to say.”
“I’m scared of what I see happening to the young girls today.”
“My mom just lectures and I have no one to talk to but my friends.”
Thank you Jesus for a ministry that allows us to come forth with the questions of our heart. Thank you that you see every question and that it is meaningful to you!
In his book, Forgotten God, Francis Chan asks the question, how much do you love the church?
I read this with interest and thought about some things that are really disturbing to me. Recently, my son was called a bible thumper in youth group. It made me laugh, although my son was angry about it, but it was a funny statement coming from within the church. I laughed because it’s true! He is a bible thumper and his questions and study make me smile.
We read the bible at our house and we discuss it and we teach it and we try very hard to live it. Although, yeah, with teenagers we sometimes find ourselves defending and explaining ideals that they often find old-fashioned to our culture today. What was meant as a put-down wasn’t in my eyes because it’s our job to teach the bible to our kids. We love the church that much! Not even because we are pastors either. We loved the church before we were in ministry. We are friends of the groom, called to serve his bride and prepare her for a wedding. This is why I love the picture above so much. The people in the picture are caring for every detail of the bride in preparation!
What happens though when the church doesn’t know she’s getting married? I have a friend who is faithful to her church attendance. Her children are in Sunday School each Sunday. Get beyond the basics of Sunday School and her kids know nothing really about the word of God. They can’t pray cognitively for a meal or for themselves or others. Should not love for the church begin at home? I spoke to this issue with her. What I realized was to raise a bible thumper you really have to believe the bible. You have to know it, you have to read it. A thousand sermons at your left hand and ten thousand at your right, makes you no more an effective witness if you don’t know your word. How can your family stand against the trials of the world if they do not know the word or who the bride is beyond a mere acquaintance? So what is the fruit of our testimony? Is it not in part our children and our life? Does it matter that the people who I call friends and co-workers come to ask me to pray for them but my kids live like hell? How much do I love the church? It shows first in my life. No not one of us is perfect nor do any of us have the perfect family, I certainly don’t. I want to try to do better. I want to love the church so much that television or tiredness or overwork doesn’t cause me to forsake my family. I don’t want to depend on the little songs from childhood Sunday School to get my kids through. I want to be active and engaged in their education. I want them to know that I love God not just with my lips but with my action and my advancement of the kingdom in their lives. I ask what my kids are reading in their bibles, and no it’s not the only thing they read. We discuss viewpoints and my bible thumper has some deep thoughts that you’d never know about unless you ask. Bible study is not just for the pastor’s kids, it’s for everyone who loves the church.
Yesterday we ended with the thought that we are cracked yet bulging from the sheer amount of information that is at our fingertips but uselessly spilling out to no avail. The word from Isaiah that was posted yesterday said the wall would collapse suddenly. Let’s read on:
Isaiah 30:14 It will break in pieces like pottery, shattered so mercilessly that among its pieces not a fragment will be found for taking coals from a hearth or scooping water out of a cistern.” 15 This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it. 16 You said, ‘No, we will flee on horses.’ Therefore you will flee! You said, ‘We will ride off on swift horses.’ Therefore your pursuers will be swift! 17 A thousand will flee at the threat of one; at the threat of five you will all flee away, till you are left like a flagstaff on a mountaintop, like a banner on a hill.”
Beth Moore made a statement in one of her teachings that it was much better to allow God to break us rather than to snap. I believe this statement wholeheartedly. For we see, in this passage, that if we had come to repentance and rest, if we had stopped the murmuring and complaining and trusted God it would not be as it is today.
We thought, as children often do that our freedom bared no burden of responsibility. Ask any teenager with an allowance and they will tell you that they can buy whatever they want. Only whatever they want may not be good for them or fit into the family dynamic of what is acceptable and not. So the argument ensues as to what is appropriate and what is harmful. They believe their right trumps their father’s rules. So it is with our heavenly Father. We believe our freedom trumps His desires. Yet, the bible tells us that the Lord will prevail in the end. So we end up fighting a losing battle thinking we are somehow winning.
Better to be broken than to snap, just ask any economist today. Better to be broken than to snap, just ask anyone who signed an interest only home loan. Better to be broken than to snap, just ask any spouse who pushed the other just a little too far. Better to be broken than to snap, just ask any person who experimented with drugs and alcohol only to find themselves chained to their addiction. Better to be broken than to snap, just ask any of us who have demanded our own selfish desire over the will of the Father.
As mature of a believer as we want to seem to be, we are still children in many ways. We don’t take the time to cleanse ourselves, like every 10 year old in America others can smell the funk across the room. Just like children, we never learned to rest our desires in God’s hands and so we restlessly reach for the next adrenaline rush from whatever source it comes from. Just as toddlers who want to talk incessantly we are never quiet enough to access the still small voice that leads us to victory. Just as teenagers who think they can make it on their own, we never fully understood what it means to have our strength in Him.
We are going through a period of testing and proving and the lessons which could have been easy will be hard instead. For those whose desire is to wake from their slumber to attempt to serve the one they call Lord and Savior, it will mean some radical changes. Times are tough and will be getting tougher. The difference will be the children who decide to grow up and have the faith to see God provide. Then there will be the others who will continue to murmur and complain and decide that God is only as good as what He’s done for us lately.
In a recent survey, dating couples were interviewed about the first time they slept together. 33% of couples say they slept together on the first or second date. Yet, these couples after dating an average of 8 months still did not know things about each other in terms of past experiences, life-long goals or childhood memories.
Genesis 2:21 So the Lord God caused the man to fall into a deep sleep; and while he was sleeping, he took one of the man’s ribs and closed up the place with flesh. 22 Then the Lord God made a woman from the rib he had taken out of the man, and he brought her to the man. 23 The man said, “This is now bone of my bones and flesh of my flesh; she shall be called ‘woman,’ for she was taken out of man.” 24 For this reason a man will leave his father and mother and be united to his wife, and they will become one flesh. 25 The man and his wife were both naked, and they felt no shame.
In the garden, we find Adam and Eve the first naked man and woman. I know that we focus on their physical nakedness but there is a deeper thought process to all of this. They were not only naked physically, they were naked emotionally. That is to say that they were open and honest with each other. Their relationship transcended the shallow and dared to swim in the deep richness of a true communion of acceptance and love. They could truly be themselves with each other and not have to worry about the judgment of the other person. At this point in time in history it was all good.
Genesis 3:6 When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. 7 Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves. 8 Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden.
In a moment of weakness they opted to gain worldly knowledge and thus sacrificed true self for self-image. Instantly, they covered themselves from each other.
So today we find that getting physically naked with one another is acceptable but getting emotionally naked with each other is taboo. This is why pornography and illicit affairs are prevalent. We hide our emotions and our true self hoping that when you when you see us, you only see what we tell you is pleasing to you and not what is real.
A woman who shouts to her mate in the middle of an argument, “You don’t really know me!”, may be correct. She may have been showing her self image for the length of time of their relationship rather than her true self. A man consumed by pornography to the detriment of his marriage, may be burying himself in self-image rather than dealing with the work it takes to build a lasting relationship.
Those who are called according to his purpose have an obligation to live beyond the cross of calvary. Jesus died so that we may have true relationship back. We need to stop being superficial and thinking the self-image will suffice. Maybe then our divorce rate will drop, our self-worth will return, our friendships will be fulfilling, and we’ll return back to the place where we can be naked and unashamed. It’s called authenticity and we should be desperate for it.
Luke 9:25. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self ?
Or in terms of this blog, what good does it do to share our physical body if our soul and heart get lost in the process?
Titus 2:3 Guide older women into lives of reverence so they end up as neither gossips nor drunks, but models of goodness. 4 By looking at them, the younger women will know how to love their husbands and children, 5 be virtuous and pure, keep a good house, be good wives. We don’t want anyone looking down on God’s Message because of their behavior.
Tonight TLC starts a new class for the young mom’s in the church. Those of us who have older children and have been there done that and have the t-shirt have decided to feed them with a potluck dinner and then begin to mentor them.
What kind of chores can you give a toddler?
How can you get a shower when you can’t even get a single moment alone?
How can you keep the house clean when each time you leave a room, a child or children come and throw their toys again?
What do you do about a husband who wants to have some sex and you just want to sleep?
What happened to the pretty perfume smell you used to have because now you smell like baby spit-up?
Is there anymore ME time?
What do you do with a child who refuses to do anything you say?
What do you do when your child asks why for everything?
How do you get your child to eat something other than chicken nuggets?
What do you do when a child throws a major tantrum in the grocery store?
Yes, lots of questions that the older moms and grandmothers can answer. It’s going to be a great night! Looking forward to being a help and support!
Moses was asked by God to deliver his people, the Israelites, out of bondage from the Pharaoh of Egypt. Moses and his brother Aaron went obediently to Pharaoh and gave him the word of the Lord. Pharaoh’s first reply to Moses was,
Pharaoh 5:2 Pharaoh said, “Who is the LORD, that I should obey him and let Israel go? I do not know the LORD and I will not let Israel go.”
Sadly, the story goes downhill for Pharaoh from there. As God introduces himself on the scene of Pharaoh’s life it’s not a pretty greeting. Three chapters later we find Pharaoh in the same place. After God has begun to send plagues to the land of Egypt, Pharaoh cries uncle in the midst of each plague and then reverts back to his old ways of thinking once the danger is gone.
Exodus 8:8 Pharaoh summoned Moses and Aaron and said, “Pray to the LORD to take the frogs away from me and my people, and I will let your people go to offer sacrifices to the LORD.” 9 Moses said to Pharaoh, “I leave to you the honor of setting the time for me to pray for you and your officials and your people that you and your houses may be rid of the frogs, except for those that remain in the Nile.” 10 “Tomorrow,” Pharaoh said. Moses replied, “It will be as you say, so that you may know there is no one like the LORD our God. 11 The frogs will leave you and your houses, your officials and your people; they will remain only in the Nile.” 12 After Moses and Aaron left Pharaoh, Moses cried out to the LORD about the frogs he had brought on Pharaoh. 13 And the LORD did what Moses asked. The frogs died in the houses, in the courtyards and in the fields. 14 They were piled into heaps, and the land reeked of them. 15 But when Pharaoh saw that there was relief, he hardened his heart and would not listen to Moses and Aaron, just as the LORD had said.
How frustrating it must have been for Moses who saw hardship escalate in the land where he was raised. How misguided Pharaoh was to give a word and then retract it once the danger was over. Yet, that spirit follows us today. How many times do we pray to God making deals to get out of situations only to find that we once the danger is over the deal is off and our hearts are hardened once again? How often do we make promises and then mid-stream determine that we no longer want to fulfill them? Rather than deal honestly with the real issue at hand, losing control of our lives, we instead cast the bait and then retract it.
For Pharaoh, the end result was the death of his first born son. What will it be for us? What price is too high to pay? Why not allow our word to define our character and not make deals we were never intending to keep? Why not allow God to move in our lives?
I read a very interesting and well written article in The Washington Post, by Adam S. McHugh, that I thought I’d share. I am a social person in small circles and yet, very introverted in many aspects of my life. I need alone time to recharge and I have never felt the need to be with someone all the time. In fact, when Doug and I go away for a break, often we’ll take off by ourselves and meet back up for dinner. It’s something that I love about my husband, we have the ability to entertain ourselves, but I digress from where this article is going. I have to agree that maybe church can be an overwhelming place to some. I wonder where the line is?
I have to agree with this:
Too often “ideal” Christians are social and gregarious, with an overt passion and enthusiasm. They find it easy to share the gospel with strangers, eagerly invite people into their homes, participate in a wide variety of activities, and quickly assume leadership responsibilities.
I was listening to a sermon by Pastor Jim Reeve and he said he had always postponed joy. He was happy but always waiting for the next best thing. It so ministered to me because I am the same way.
I’m happy in the moment but can’t always say that I am content. I am content in aspects of my life and in others, I’m waiting for the next best thing. It’s been that way in this building project. I was happy when the sheetrock went in but I couldn’t wait until the platform went in, I was happy when the platform went in but I couldn’t wait for the paint, I was happy with the paint but couldn’t wait for the bathrooms, and so the list goes on. Someone even told me to enjoy the process but I couldn’t, or rather, I wouldn’t.
In my mind I was always moving forward to the next big joyous moment, but in the process I may have missed some of the joyous moments I was in. I want to do things differently in the next half of my life. I want to enjoy the process and I don’t want to be in so much of a hurry that I dismiss the joy of the moment and keep thinking it’s just on the horizon of my life.
As Americans we are pretty spoiled. Things we see as simple pleasures are great luxuries to many in the world. But what really constitutes a necessity and what is just a thing that for now, we can do without and how do we tell the difference?
Every now and then we have misunderstandings in our benevolence ministry on what is a necessity and what is simply a luxury. One woman asked that we pay her cable bill. When we explain that a cable bill is not a necessity, she begins to get angry. Frustrated she asks us what her kids are supposed to do all day without cable? I’m not faulting her, it’s her perspective for where she is at right now. I wonder what she would tell a Haitian mother whose country has only been able to remove 2% of the rubble from a earthquake long since past?
Still another woman who is getting back on her feet and explains to us that she has nothing but a few items of clothing and list her number one need as a television.
We wade through the requests and almost everyone who fills out a form is helped but it is sometimes sad when I see that these people need much more than a TV. I am praying about how to best help our community. The single mom who needs school clothes for her kids is easy to help. The man who needs a suit to go to a job interview is a simple fix. Only what do we do with those who can’t pinpoint their need or who are misdirected in their need?
I had to laugh when a homeless man came in to get some clothes and water and then asked for a microwave. His reasoning? “Well, one day I’ll get on my feet and I’ll need it.”
Today I am sitting here wondering if the reason we are struggling with our economy is that we didn’t understand necessities? I wonder if we will get back to basics and will that be a good thing for America?
Without doubt modesty is nothing less than a holy feeling; and without doubt the person whose rule of modesty has been transgressed feels the same sort of wound that he would feel if something made holy to him by his religion had suffered a desecretation. I say “rule of modesty” because there are about a million rules in the world, and this makes a million standards to be looked out for. -Mark Twain- Following the Equator
Sometimes women, we are our worst enemies. Instead of fighting for true injustice in the world, abuse, sex-trafficking, child slavery and rape we are assessing each other’s dress code and deeming it inappropriate. We disguise it under the veil of religion, determining that we cause men to lust with our clothing. As if we have the power to dictate the feelings of another.
Only who determines modesty? Muslims can feel we Christians are immodest. Certain denominations of Christians determine that other denominations are immodest and the list goes on and on. I find it interesting though that men aren’t held to this standard. A woman’s lust for a man isn’t predicated on his attire or so it seems.
I just want it to stop. The women in the church clucking and running around talking about the attire of others are nothing more than bullies who have determined it is their right to speak out, behind your back of course, about their opinion of the way another dresses. The problem is you can make all the religious rules you want to about dress code. Unless the heart convicts you, you follow the rules in front of the rule authorities but you won’t follow it on your own because it isn’t your conviction.
1 Samuel 16:7 But the LORD said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The LORD does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance, but the LORD looks at the heart.”
Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is living and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.
Col 2:16 Therefore do not let anyone judge you by what you eat or drink, or with regard to a religious festival, a New Moon celebration or a Sabbath day. 17 These are a shadow of the things that were to come; the reality, however, is found in Christ. 18 Do not let anyone who delights in false humility and the worship of angels disqualify you for the prize. Such a person goes into great detail about what he has seen, and his unspiritual mind puffs him up with idle notions. 19 He has lost connection with the Head, from whom the whole body, supported and held together by its ligaments and sinews, grows as God causes it to grow. 20 Since you died with Christ to the basic principles of this world, why, as though you still belonged to it, do you submit to its rules: 21 “Do not handle! Do not taste! Do not touch!”? 22 These are all destined to perish with use, because they are based on human commands and teachings. 23 Such regulations indeed have an appearance of wisdom, with their self-imposed worship, their false humility and their harsh treatment of the body, but they lack any value in restraining sensual indulgence.
Pastor Susan 