learning to embrace life with grace and truth
We are reading Because He Loves Me by Elyse Fitzpatrick. Want to join? It’s not too late to read along. If you haven’t purchased a copy of the book, you can do so here.
Ruth at GraceLaced is sharing her thoughts on Chapter 3. So, join here over there, and join the conversation! Also, if you have a blog, feel free to write a post and link it here or over at Ruth’s!
“For this very reason, make every effort to supplement your faith….For whoever lack these qualities is so nearsighted that he is blind, having forgotten that he was cleanse from his former sins.” 2 Peter 1:5,9
I am a quote girl. I have this entire chapter heavily underlined, and so, instead of me trying to explain, I am just going to share what I am learning through meaningful quotes!
Take some time to really read these quotes and let them sink down deep.
“The epidemic is seen is serious Christian book that focus on improving our outer behaviors such as communication skills or self-discipline, or even overcoming sin, without much reference to God’s love for us or his ongoing work in us. It’s seen in the hymns and choruses we sing in which we declare our determination to follow Christ without a mention of his determination to cause us to do so.”
“Even though we believe the gospel, the occasions in which the gospel (the incarnation, sinless life, death, bodily resurrection, and ascension of the Son of God) actually intersect and powerfully affect our daily life are infrequent.”
“We assent to these precious truths about Scripture but we frequently find ourselves living life like practical atheists.”
“How has the gospel defined and shaped you?”
“Most of us view God’s love and the gospel as elementary topics meant to get us in the front door of faith, and they are that. But we’ve forgotten how these truths are also to transform us every moment of every day.”
“This kind of disconnect between our stated beliefs–my identity is that I’m one who’d been loved immeasurably by God and am one with him–and our practical beliefs–my identity and self-worth are determined by whether I’m popular, respected, a winner, and well-fed…”
“[When we understand the gospel] We’ll love God because he has first and marvelously loved us, and this love will overflow to others as well (I John 4:8-9). These gospel truths are not insignificant, something only for beginners. (1 Corinthians 15:1-3) The gospel message–you have been cleansed from sin–is the pinnacle of God’s loving work in the world, and just as it is this work that saves us, it is also this work that transforms and sustains us. The gospel is the message that must remain paramount throughout all our life.”
“‘Who are you?’ with the answer, ‘A child of God!’ but that’s a truth that must be pressed into our consciousness every moment of every day. When dissed by our friends, when we’re struggling with pain, when falling into sin (again!), we’re still his children. And that is the most important thing about who were are. God has graciously chosen, adopted, and sealed us for his own glory. He is giving himself to us, and if we’re not distracted by our self-efforts and self-trust, we will respond by defining ourselves by that love. Who are you? You’re his, he is yours, and you’ve been cleansed from sin. And that’s all the identity any of us need.“
“Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the holy places by the blood of Jesus, by the new and living way that he opened….through his flesh….let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.” Hebrews 10:19-22
“He has called us, ‘Be Mine.’” If you’re his child, he wants to assure you of his unchangeable love for you and your place in him even now. We can boldly respond to him in the full assurance that he really does love us, that he really has welcome us to himself and made us his own.”
This chapter has given me a lot to think about. I am speechless.
Questions for reflection and discussion:
How do you join the conversation? Two options:
*Leave a comment below, and feel free to discuss with others there!
*Write a blog post either answering these questions or with your own reactions to the chapter, and link up your blog post below! (Remember to add the title and url for the specific post and not your blog url and name. Thanks!)
(It’s not too late to read along. If you haven’t purchased a copy of the book, you can do so here.)
I love nature. I am a Northwest girl, who loves a good hike, a picnic outside, or a day trip to the beach. Nothing speaks to my soul as deeply as a beautiful mountain, a sweeping landscape, or an immense ocean that seems endless.
Some people are not. They would prefer the mall to the trail. That’s ok. I love indoor things too. My challenge for us today is to look for beauty and take an extra moment to be thankful for it and to relish it more than we usually would. Where I live, there is some real beauty, but it is interspersed with trash piles and cracking cement. I have had to become a beauty hunter to find and appreciate beauty in my every day. And, guess what? I have found as Ann Voskamp says, “The life that counts blessings discovers its yielding more than it seems.” When I started to hunt for beauty, to see God’s handiwork all around me, I found it everywhere, and in some unlikely places.
But let’s not enjoy beauty simply for beauty’s sake. Let us see the beauty all around us, and use it to point us to God’s glory.
“The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work if His hands. Day to day pours forth speech, and night to night reveals knowledge.” Psalm 19:1-2
God’s creation is telling us something about HIM!
“What if the Iguazu Falls {one of the wonders of the world} were put there to tell us about the person who put them there? More to the point, what if everything was put here to tell us something about Him?” Steve DeWitt, Eyes Wide Open
But no created thing can satisfy the cravings of our heart. As Augustine says, “You have made us for Yourself, O Lord, and our hearts are restless until they rest in You.”
And even more than this, the beauty that we find points us to THE most beautiful One, Jesus Christ.
“The real desirability is found in Christ. God made every created beauty in this world as an expression of Christ’s beauty and the beauty of the Father’s love for the Son. All beauty is a breadcrumb path that leads us to Christ.” -Steve DeWitt, Eyes Wide Open
Have you spent time meditating on Christ’s beauty? The beauty of what was done, finished, completed on the Cross. Can you fathom the love the Father has for the Son, and the love the Father has for us? I can’t. I can’t even fathom it.
Here are some things that have turned my heart to God in praise this week:
Frederick Langbridge says it so eloquently in his famous quote,” Two men look out the same prison bars; one sees mud and the other stars.”
Take a few moments today and find the beauty around you. And let it turn your heart in awe to the True Beauty found in Jesus Christ. What beauty have you found this week?
Previous Posts in this series:
These are my parents. Aren’t they cute? They have been married for 41 years and have been on the Family Life Weekend to Remember Speaker Team since I was in high school {that’s a looonnng time!}. My dad is a full-time pastor, and they speak for Family Life several weekends a year.
My wonderful mom is joining me here at Grace Full Mama on Mondays in February, and we are going to do a series on marriage together! I am so excited! I don’t promise we will get it all right, but we are working hard to bring you some godly wisdom and encouragement for your marriage!
So, here is my question to you: What is your question about marriage? What is the one question you would like to ask an older woman on the topic of marriage? Or what one topic would you like to hear about? Let us know in the comments!
Don’t forget to subscribe to get your free copy of my ebook, Cultivating a Heart for Motherhood!
Angie Tolpin and I met when both of our oldest children were just 6 weeks old. We connected deeply from that moment, and have been dear friends since. I’ll admit when she told me she was writing a book on childbirth, I cringed. Not because of her! Not at all. But, you see, childbirth is a touchy subject for me. I have been inadvertently stung by words of those who have had “normal” or “natural” births, feeling that I was somehow less than.
I have had 4 C-sections. Because of an aneurism in my brain, normal or natural childbirth was never an option for me. Before I ever got pregnant, I knew I would always need to go the C-section route. Also? During my C-sections, I didn’t feel very spiritual. Oh, I did pray. A lot. But my prayers went something like this, “Lord, please, please, please don’t let me die on the operating table. Don’t let my aneurism explode or let me hemorrhage or anything else. Please let my baby {or babies} be healthy. Please Lord.”
So I figured because of these two things, this book was not for me. I was so wrong! In fact, I needed this message so much.
Angie has written a beautiful book on bringing in the Lord into your pregnancy, birth, and mothering experience with the intent of uniting women around this topic. What a breath of fresh air!
With wisdom, grace, humility, and enthusiasm, Angie guides a mother-to-be to glorify the Lord through the hard times, through the beauty and the pain. This book is a gift, and I pray that you will love it and be blessed by it! {Just so you know, I have not finished reading the book yet, but I fully trust and love Angie, so I know I can recommend it!}
Go here to purchase your copy!
Also, since this week is launch week for the book, there are some great giveaways, including an iPad mini! Go here to see the great giveaways and to download the free Growth and Study Guide!
I pray, along with Angie, that you will be blessed, encouraged, and strengthened by this message.
“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 15:5
We are refreshed when we abide.
What does that even mean? Simply this: tenaciously clinging to Him. In the moments you feel like giving up, you want to crawl back under the covers and wish the day away, you want to “numb out” sitting in front of the computer, fill the pain with food, or watch TV, He calls, quietly, “Abide in Me.”
It is in our own strength we fall.
Our BEST as women is when we are holding fast, holding desperately, to Him.
When we realize how poor we are, we can come before Him and ask Him to fill us, refresh us, give us something to pour out onto the precious people we love.
“Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven.” Matthew 5:3
When we mess up, we shouldn’t berate ourselves for the sin we committed, the angry word spoken, the rolling of the eyes, the exhausted sigh. That’s not the root problem. The root problem is: we departed from the Source of true life, presuming we could manage on our own.
Instead of feeling bad about failure, instead of voicing our grief in this way, “Sorry Lord I messed up, I’ll do better next time“, what we must say is, “Sorry Lord I left your side. Help ME!”
The most spiritual prayer for ourselves we can pray is two words, “help me.”
The problem isn’t failure, but instead, failure to rely on the Source of refreshment.
We should be compelled to come to the Lord desperate for His power and work in our lives, to refresh our souls, begging Him to give us what we lack. Choosing moment by moment to trust in His unfailing love and resting in His power for each decision, each word spoken, each task completed. We can do it on our own for a while, but in the end we feel exhausted, stressed, and depleted.
Andrew Murray speaks to this in his book, Abide with Christ, “…unspeakable danger of our giving ourselves to work for God, and to bear fruit, with but little of the true abiding, the wholehearted losing of ourselves in Christ and His life.”
He gives to the hungry, the poured out, the poor in spirit.
He gives.
Live in the truth of your “poorness”, don’t pretend it is anything else than what it is, give up the illusion of your own strength.
Begin today, this moment, to say this, “In this moment of exhaustion, of weariness, I cleave to You. Help Me!”
I am slowly learning to do this moment by moment in my day, and it, HE, is making all the difference.
Thoughts?
The new year begins as it always does; crisp and new, free from mistakes, full of possibility. Imaginations run wild. Will this be the year? Will we finally make that change? Will we stick with our goals and finally do that thing we have always wanted to do?
My sweet friend Beth created this printable and graciously offered for me to share it with all of you! Isn’t she talented? Thank you Beth!!
Click here to download and print as a PDF.
Merry Christmas and may we all take time to spend worshipping the King!!
Well, you get the real me once again. This is me in the early morning, no make-up or hair fixed. I’m still in my bathrobe, after being up late in the sweltering heat as the electricity was off for six and a half hours last night.
No fans=lots of sweat!
Even so, I was struck this morning by the beauty of God’s creation during my quiet time in the moments just before dawn.
I hope that you will join me today by looking for something in your corner of the world and praise the Creator, God!
Psalm 19:1, “The heavens are telling of the glory of God; And their expanse is declaring the work of His hands.”
Psalm 71:8, “My mouth is filled with your praise, and with your glory all day long.”
“The need for us is the ‘wait upon the Lord’ in meditations on His majesty, till we find our strength renewed through the writing of these things upon our heart.“ -JI Packer, Knowing God
Here is a link to a video of the song I mentioned in my video.
Last week, I shared about living Beautifully Unashamed. This week, I want to share my passion to live focused every day on eternity and the reality that life is going fast. I am not getting any younger and I am guessing you aren’t either! However, it can be so difficult to live “in light of eternity” when the mundane keeps us busy all day every day.
This video is sure to make you laugh, because it is real life and real me. I don’t have a lot of time in my day, but I do have passion, so you get a raw “first take” video, complete with my twins jumping in and me getting flustered trying to read the wrong verse!
Such as it is. I am hoping that you can overlook my humanness, and in fact, I hope my messiness would just point all the more to our perfect God. Thank you for grace as I learn how to do this video thing!
Can’t see the video? Click here.
“I have set the Lord continually before me.” Psalm 16:8
“What if heaven and God became our normal? Wouldn’t that change everything?” Jennie Allen, Anything
“For our citizenship is in heaven, from which also we eagerly wait for a Savior, the Lord Jesus Christ.” Phil. 3:20
“Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy, and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys, and where thieves do not break in or steal.” Matthew 6:19-21
Colossians 3:2-3, “Set your mind on things above, not on the things that are on earth. For you have died and your life is hidden with Christ in God.”
Do you want to join me in living focused on the eternal? Grab a small card and write down a few verses to carry with you throughout your day! We can be focusing on the Lord even while we fold the laundry!
