Touching their earthly lives

Children are such a wonderful blessing from the Lord that they bring us much joy and enjoyment on earth. They enrich our lives so much and are often our first teachers on learning to deny ourselves and put others first.

Through our children we often learn to enjoy the Lord’s creation. Through them we learn to see the wonder in a caterpillar or in the rippling of water.

And through our children we are given our best chance to live out our faith before others. Our children learn from watching us and our faith…as true, born again Christians…will impact them.

It is a great privilege to be entrusted with such blessings.

What we often forget in our enjoyment and day to day encounters with our children is that we aren’t just raising these little people that bring so much to our earthly lives….we are raising souls that belong to the Lord.

While we pray for our children’s salvation, while we live the examples we want them to follow, we may forget to stop and remember that this child that belongs to us is actually a soul that doesn’t belong to us at all.

Their souls belong only to the Lord and it’s His place to do with them what he wants. We can only guide those souls in whatever small way the Lord will allow us.

I am a homeschooling mother. Have…in fact…homeschooled my children since before they were old enough to need any form of ‘school’. In the homeschool world there is great stock placed in curriculum. There are conventions where all manner of it are displayed. You can order magazines about it, get catalogs delivered to your door that can eat up hours and hours of your days. There are hundreds if not thousands of websites offering everything from single subjects to all-inclusive curriculums. There are ‘Christian’ curriculums, secular curriculums, and more. You name it if you want to teach it to your child you can probably find it.

There are whole models of education formed around certain ideas of how you should teach your children. And there are complete models formed around the idea that you can’t teach your child, that children learn when they are ready and not before no matter what…or how much…you pump into them.

Some families are ‘homeschoolers’. That is their identity. It’s who they are and it describes everything about how they live their lives, much the way other people describe being ‘doctors’ or ‘world travelers’. It is…quite simply…who they are. And they take pride in who they are.

There are many families among the homeschool world that homeschool for the sole purpose of being able to pump ‘Christian’ content into their children. They believe that it is their place to be the religious instruction for their children and that that should include their children’s education.

Let me say…I agree with that…to a point. I do believe that as parents we have a responsibility to teach our children of our beliefs, to live out those beliefs to them, and to give them the gospel.

I don’t however believe that we can instruct our children into salvation…which is basically what some among the homeschool world are attempting to do.

Being entrusted with children…with souls…by the Lord is a privilege that comes with the added privilege of being able to live out our faith in front of our children and the ability to give them the gospel as we will probably never be able to give it to anyone else. Part of that privilege is the joy of watching our children grow and learn.

I have met many a homeschooling parent and curriculum provider that believed that getting ‘Christian’ beliefs into the ‘Christian’ child was the single most important purpose of home educating them.

The trouble with this philosophy is that it completely misses the Biblical teaching that salvation is of the Lord and that we can’t work our way into it.

If we could…if we had to…if our children’s salvation rested in our hands and in how much of the Scriptures we could get into their hearts…we would fail. Miserably.

Because salvation rests in the Lords hands alone. He is the only one that can save our children and He will do so at His will regardless of what we do or do not do.

The vessels of God’s mercy (Romans 9:22-23) are prepared for eternal glory by the Lord and they are prepared according to the plan He has in place for them. When the time is right the Lord will draw (John 6:44) or more accurately according to the Greek text…draw…their hearts and souls to Him.

What has gone into their hearts and minds prior to that moment is only what was placed in their lives so that the Lord could get them to the place where He would save them.

If it was required of us…as parents…to put everything into our children that would save them…we would fail. We simply cannot put the love of Christ into their hearts so that they will love Him above all else. Sin lives in their hearts from birth and it will take root and grow despite our best efforts to weed it out.

This sin kills our children’s hearts so much so that they are dead in sins. Only the Lord can give them life from those sins and it’s His will to do so or not and there’s nothing that we…or they…can do to affect that. While our children are dead in their sins they are in complete darkness, lost to their sins, so much so that the darkness they live in will keep them from Christ…aside from a basic head knowledge that will allow them to profess a belief that does not reach their hearts.

That is the best condition that we can hope to ‘impart’ to them through anything that we…or they…do. Everything else…salvation…is in the Lord’s hands. It’s a gift that he pours out into those that He chooses to receive it. A gift is something that is freely given, not something we work to earn.

The educating of our children in the ways of the Lord may give them a head knowledge, it may restrain them in their sins, but it will not give them salvation.

Oh, but if we could. How great it would be to focus all of our earthly time and attention on our children’s souls and know that we were giving them their very salvation.

I would gladly spend every hour of every day working the Truth of Christ into my children’s hearts if only it would save them.

But Scripture tells us that isn’t the way salvation works and that nothing I do will save my children. The good news in that is that nothing I do…no failure on my part… will cast them into hell either.

They came into this world souls that belong to the Lord, to be used for His purpose…whatever that may be…and they will go out of this world the same way.

I can only touch their earthly lives to the extent the Lord allows me to do so.

 

Hidden idolatry

How easy it is for our hobbies and interests to overtake us. Scripture tells us to have no idols and yet we do, even those of us that are truly born again. We may feel like we don’t, think we don’t, believe we don’t.

But we do.

How many times have you felt like you played second fiddle to a loved one’s interests? How many times has your husband or wife’s interests or hobbies pushed you aside…even without meaning to…and left you feeling as if you’re less important than whatever it is that draws their attention?

How many times have your children felt that way? Does you cell phone or computer take up more of your time than they do?

Even cooking and household chores can become something of an idol. I’ve known many a women that puts great stock in their home. They decorate it, rearrange it, buy more things to make it look better, move this here and that there just to get a better effect. I’ve been in many a home where I felt as if I touched something I’d soil it.

Is that not an idol?

What do the families of women like that feel about their home? About their mother’s love for their home?

I have a relative that loves to cook. She’ll often start cooking lunch as soon as breakfast is finished. She makes huge meals. So much so that eating at her home is like eating at a buffet style restaurant. She’s a very good cook and I’ve never heard anyone say a word of complaint about the meals she prepares. And plenty partake of those meals. As the meal she’s cooking nears the ready point she picks up the phone and calls all her grown children, grandchildren, and great grandchildren and tells them it’s done.

Now we’re not talking about family that lives in her home or even down the road. A few are that close, others live across town or even in another town. They have their own homes and families but she calls them and when she does some combination of them comes to eat.

This relative spends hours and hours preparing meals. She does it when she’s the only one home and she does it when she has company in from out of state. It seems to be something she does for her own enjoyment but it also appears to be her way of taking care of her family, even when they need to be taking care of themselves and their own families.

But there comes a point that this interest…this hobby…this method of caring for the family crosses from simply feeding her family into something else. Call it obsession, call it a hobby, call it therapy…call it idolatry.

Here’s the thing, this same relative doesn’t allow anyone else to cook in her home, will…to a degree…allow someone else to do the dishes. She uses so much time preparing the meals that feed her family’s bodies but much less time feeding their need for time spent with her.

I’ve been the out of state relative in her home and I can tell you that as appreciative as I was for the meals she made…there were many times I’d have rather ate cold cereal or sandwiches and had more time with her.

How many times do those we love the most feel that way about the things we do?

How much more so does our Lord feel that way?

My children have told me on numerous occasions ‘you’re always doing _________’. Now it doesn’t seem to matter what I happen to be doing. If I’m spending quite a bit of time with one child for a certain reason, the others have that feeling…whether they voice it or not. If I’m spending more time with my husband, if I’m having to check my email more often, if I’m writing more blogs, even if I’m doing a lot of laundry. Their hearts seem to grab onto the thought and feeling that I’m putting something else ahead of them if I do anything that takes up my time. And the sad truth is that is often the case. Not because I want anything to take more time than my family but because it really doesn’t matter what we do if it takes our time, it takes us from our loved ones.

I can sit beside my husband or children but if I’m focusing on something I’m writing, reading, or doing…I’m not focusing on them. I can claim to be spending time with my children at the park but the reality is if I’m sitting on a bench while they play…how much of my attention are they getting? Just because I’m there…in their presence…doesn’t mean I’m focused on them.

I had to take one of my daughters to the emergency room a while back. It was late at night and this daughter, while uncomfortable, wasn’t in dire need of my attention. In fact she wound up sleeping through a good part of the emergency room visit. There were many an hour during that visit that I sat there either thinking or reading and not giving my total focus to that daughter. Now, she didn’t need my total focus but the reality is that since my attention was on other things through part of that…it wasn’t on her.

The same holds true for my Lord. If my total attention isn’t on Him then whatever I happen to be doing is causing me to break that first and most important commandment.

My husband works to provide for us. He puts in lots of long, hard, hours to do that. That work takes him away from me in more ways than one. It takes him away when he’s working away from home and it takes him away when he’s working at home. But it also takes him away from me when he’s thinking about work or when he’s so tired from all the work he does.

Working is something he has to do, and he does it for us, but it’s still something that takes him away from me. I know that. I can rationalize it. I can understand the reasons. But there are still times when I feel like I want to say…can’t you just set it aside for a while?

How many times does our Lord think that of the things that are in our lives? How many times are we ‘always doing __________’ instead of focusing on Him like we should?

It is impossible to keep the number one commandment. As fallen people we simply can’t love the Lord with all our hearts, souls, and minds all of the time. We just can’t do it. Thoughts and emotions come into play, worries about our earthly life come into play, we think of what we want to do, what we need to do, what we should be doing, and every one of those thoughts removes the Lord from our complete focus.

I know someone that is almost always talking of how busy they are, how much they have to do, how much they are doing, how much they will be doing. This person seems to keep so busy that I wonder if they aren’t running circles around themselves…and for what? I’m sure some of the things this person does are necessary, but I’m equally certain that a good part of what they’re doing isn’t.

I homeschool my children. In the homeschool world the world twaddle is used to describe any kind of school work that serves the purpose of keeping the child busy rather than any real purpose in teaching them something. It’s the things that are used to fill up space but serve no real function beyond that. Public schools use this method a lot.

How much of what we do would the Lord consider twaddle? 

How much of it hurts our families? How much of it takes us away from them even if we’re in their presence? Do the people we love most feel as if we love our hobbies and interests more? Do they feel like we’d rather be doing that than spending time with them? Do we turn to the things that give us peace, that ease our minds, that help with our own pains, when our loved ones hurt and need us most?

People with addictions will say they aren’t addicted. They say they can quit when they want. They rationalize what they’re doing by saying it doesn’t hurt anyone, or that they only do it for fun, or for relaxation…or whatever. But it does hurt those closest to them.

How many of our interests fall into the same category? How many people are addicted to the things they enjoy? How many of those interests wind up hurting those that they love the most?

And how much more does our Lord…a jealous God…get set aside for the things that draw our attention?

If our loved ones feel we turn more to our interests than we do to them, if they feel set aside, pushed aside, or ignored for our interests…how much more so does our Lord feel when our hearts and thoughts are taken from Him?

Are you a fatalistic Christian?

I recently found myself in the midst of a conversation that eventually led to the other person asking me if I was a fatalistic Christian. I must admit the question stumped me because I had no idea what the term meant. After some research and a discussion with my husband I found myself before the computer trying to pull my thoughts and beliefs together as I pondered the answer I would give. I wasn’t intending to write out an answer at that time only to get my thoughts in order so that I could answer and in the end what I wrote was a reply.

 

You see…I believe what I see in Scripture…nothing more, nothing less. If what I see in scripture makes me a Christian fatalist then maybe I am but to me I simply believe what I see in Scripture.

 

The question as to whether or not I’m a fatalistic Christian wasn’t a question that came out of the blue. It was part of a bigger conversation (carried out through email) that had been going on for some time, gradually leading up to the point where the question was asked. That question and the conversation it was a part of has made me grow and learn as I wrote out my own answers. My own thoughts have been clarified, my own understanding taken deeper as I explained my position through each step of this conversation.

 

I believe that the very nature of how we approach Scripture affects what we believe and we get out of it. But it isn’t just that…those same beliefs are affecting how we see life and how we live out our faith.

 

In the last year I have done more studying and learning of scripture and the things of scripture than I ever have in my life. My beliefs have grown and changed as I’ve come to better understand my own beliefs. In all that learning I’ve learned that there are two ways to see the basics of God. We have God saving man or we have man working his way to God. And in those two ways of seeing it are two very different beliefs that affect pretty much all of how a person believes. It is what everything else boils down to. It’s the very basics of how we relate to all of Scripture.

 

As I see it…it is God saving us all on His own. There’s nothing we can do, have done, or will ever do that will or could have changed His decision to save us. On the other hand…the other way of approaching Scripture leads to a belief that something a person does places them into the position to attain salvation. That may be through their ‘choice’ to believe in Christ or it may be in their attempt to work their way into salvation in some way. But for me the only way I can see it is to start with God and only God. I can’t do anything but give all the credit to Him and none of the credit to me or anything I’ve ever done or will ever do.

 

For by grace you have been saved through faith; and that not of yourselves, it is the gift of God; 9 not as a result of works, so that no one may boast. (Ephesians 2:8-9 NASB)

 

 Either of those above views will affect not only how we believe but it will affect nearly every other thing we do in life. Those are fundamental beliefs that are the base of where so many of our other beliefs come from.

 

When I read Scripture I read it in black and white. As part of the conversation that led to the question about whether or not I’m a fatalistic Christian the topic of Eli came up. It was a rather long conversation that went back and forth for a while. But it was only a part of a much bigger conversation. The entire conversation spanned everything from Eli to marriage and the raising of children.

 

 Here is my response…

 

All I can see in Eli’s story is a man that was a priest…and so had to live an outwardly faithful and obedient life…who raised two son’s that sinned in adulthood. That Eli reprimanded them…possibly out of love…but failed to fulfill the duties of his position as priest and was punished for it. He took in a child that wasn’t his and possibly treated him as his own…shown in him calling Samuel ‘my son’…and in the end raised two son’s that ended up sinning and were destroyed as a result of it and one…almost…son that grew up to be righteous. That is what I see. And if you look to Eli’s story…that’s all that’s there. Nothing else. That is the black and white of Eli in Scripture.

 

If I were to take Eli’s story further I would have to point to Malachi 1:3 and Romans 9:13 where it says Jacob have I loved, Esau I hated. These were two brothers, raised by the same parents, what made the difference here? Why was one loved and the other hated? Did Esau gain the Lord’s hate because his parents failed to walk out an unfeigned faith in front of him? Did Jacob gain the Lord’s love because his parents did walk out an unfeigned faith? They were the same parents. It can’t be both ways…either the parents showed the kind of unfeigned faith you speak of or they didn’t. And yet they raised two sons that did not receive the same treatment from the Lord. One was loved, the other hated. Why? Because of something the parents did? Or maybe because…

 

What shall we say then? There is no injustice with God, is there? May it never be! 15For He says to Moses, "I WILL HAVE MERCY ON WHOM I HAVE MERCY, AND I WILL HAVE COMPASSION ON WHOM I HAVE COMPASSION." 16So then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy Romans 9:15-16

 

If you want to look to the old testament…

 

18Then Moses said, "I pray You, show me Your glory!" 19And He said, "I Myself will make all My goodness pass before you, and will proclaim the name of the LORD before you; and I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show compassion on whom I will show compassion." Exodus 33:18-19

 

Here, in the black and white of Scripture, I see the Lord loved Jacob and hated Esau because He chose to have mercy on one and not the other. Per Romans 9:16… then it does not depend on the man who wills or the man who runs, but on God who has mercy. There’s no room in that…that I can see…for any actions either of the person being saved or not saved or of the parents. It’s all in the Lord’s hands…I will have mercy on whom I have mercy. Where does the parents actions come into that? Where does even our own actions come into it?

 

From there I look to Romans 9:22-23…

 

What if God, desiring to show his wrath and to make known his power, has endured with much patience vessels of wrath prepared for destruction, ²³ in order to make known the riches of his glory for vessels of mercy, which he has prepared beforehand for glory—

 

I see no room in any of that for the outward displays of faith of any person in their salvation or in their children’s salvation. The Lord specifically said…I will have mercy on whom I have mercy. That’s it…all God…all Christ…no man. If that doesn’t spell it out enough I see in Romans 9:22-23 where it says he has prepared some for destruction in order to save those he has prepared for mercy. Again I see God…no man. It’s what He has planned, His design, His decree…nothing of man. Nothing of parents. Just God. 

 

Going back to Eli…we have three sons…three young men raised by the same man. Two were destroyed, one was chosen by God. Why? They were raised by the same person. If the dads unfeigned faith or lack of it was the reason for the sins of the two sons why didn’t the third one follow the same path? He had not only Eli as an example but Eli’s sons as well. Of the three if example was the reason for their destruction Samuel should have been the least likely to be saved. But the two sons were destroyed and Samuel was saved. Again…why? If the answer lies only in Eli’s unfeigned faith or lack of it…what made two wind up destroyed and the third saved?

 

If on the other hand we look at it in the black and white…we know nothing of Eli’s faith one way or the other beyond what we know of what it took to become a priest…and we know nothing of how he raised his children and Samuel and if we look first to God…His plan, His purpose, His decree, His choice…and know that He loved Jacob and hated esau, who had the same parents setting the same example for them and if Scripture tells us…I will have mercy on whom I have mercy…and that there are ‘vessels of wrath prepared for destruction’ and ‘vessels of mercy’…what do we have? Could it possibly be that Eli’s sons were vessels of destruction? If I were to look to Eli’s story again and if I wanted to read anything of great significance into his story it would be…Now Eli’s sons were worthless men. They did not know the Lord. 1 samuel 2:12…the kjv says… Now the sons of Eli were sons of Belial; they knew not the Lord. That wasn’t Eli’s failure. If the point of Eli’s story was to show us Eli’s failure as a parent to raise his children to have an ‘unfeigned faith’ would we not be told something like…Eli’s children were worthless because Eli’s faith wasn’t strong enough to point them in the right direction? If the purpose of Eli in the ot was to show us how not to parent our children wouldn’t we see that in the black and white of Scripture? Instead we see the story of the saving of one boy…which placed him into his place in the greater plan of God…and therefore of the salvation of the Elect…than we do of any other thing. We have two sons that were destroyed, one saved. Why?

 

I see vessels of destruction and a vessel of mercy. We know that only Christ was sinless therefore Samuel would have sinned. What made the sins of Eli’s sons any worse than the sins that Samuel committed? Were the sins of Eli’s sons so great that they earned them death while the sins of Samuel didn’t deserve the same? The only way that makes sense to me is to see it through the eyes of the black and white of Scripture…I will have mercy on whom I have mercy…and to see that quite possibly the sons were the vessels of destruction while Samuel was the vessel of mercy.

 

Does that make me a Christian fatalist? I don’t know. I guess it depends on how you see Christian fatalism. I do believe the Lord is sovereign in all, that’s it’s his creation…including people…to do with as he sees fit. I believe he will save His elect and won’t save the non-elect. I believe that there’s nothing we can do to become one of the elect and that there’s nothing we can do to keep from becoming one of the elect.

 

I don’t believe we can work our way to Christ. I don’t believe we can work our children to Christ. I don’t believe that if we just pump enough Scripture into them and set a good enough example we can get them to a place where God will ‘visit their hearts’. In Scripture we are commanded to teach the gospel…this is to our children as well as all others. We are to share it. Our faith…if we are truly regenerate should be a natural extension that manifests itself in ways that others will know we are different but I don’t believe we are to live out a system of works that will gain us closer access to the Lord. I don’t believe that if we can just act a certain way, teach our children a certain way, that the Lord will ‘visit their hearts’ or save them in any way. I believe that He will save them or not according to His will and not through anything we do or do not do. I don’t believe that if we can just live out a life of sinless perfection that He will in any way owe us anything where our children (or ourselves) are concerned.

 

If that was the way it worked neither my husband nor I would have been saved. Neither one of us ever had that ‘unfeigned faith’ lived out before us.

 

 To me…the outward showing of faith comes from an inward change. It’s the byproduct of what has happened in the heart and soul and has nothing to do with any physical or verbal actions on our part. If our salvation is real then the Lord will change our heart and our lives will show that but it will be because it is a natural manifestation of the changes of our hearts and souls and not a conscious, outward work that we do because we are trying to reach God.

 

No matter how good we are, no matter how religious we are, no matter how many outward works we do…we can’t reach Christ, or get our children to Christ. Only He can save us (or them) and He will do that or not no matter what we do or do not do.

 

I don’t believe faith is inherited. I don’t believe we can live out our faith in a way that our children will ‘catch’ it the way they would the chicken pox. I believe that our children will be influenced by us, by our lives and actions, by our beliefs and faith but that they will in no way be saved because of them. Their salvation rests in the Lords hands and nowhere else.

People can show a belief they do not feel. This can show up in the way they dress, their commitment to a physical church building, the way they raise their children, the things they say or do. Just because they show an outward system of works that makes them look to be a Christian that doesn’t mean they have been saved by the Lord.

 

Everything we do should be in obedience to the Lord. We are to try and avoid all sin but when we fail…no if, but when…we are forgiven in Christ.

 

 

This brings me back to where I was before. My belief is that our faith comes straight from the Lord. It is not a result of anything we have done nor is it a result of anything our parents did or did not do in raising us. It is the Lord’s will to draw us to him and to save us and it is a gift from Him that should be seen as such. With no assumption that we can work our children into the same gift or that if we can live out a life of works that He will somehow owe us the salvation of our children. That was a very difficult point for me to get around. And to accept.

 

All of that to say everything I do, every view I have on life, stems from the belief that it is God that saved me and I can’t work my way to Him.

 

Is that Chrsitian fatalism? See it as you want to but for me it is nothing more than putting my life into my Lord’s hands and accepting whatever plan He has in place for me.

 

 I do not believe in free will. We are God’s creations. He does with us what He wants to do with us. That includes the miniscule things in our lives as well as the huge things in our lives. We are His whether we want to be or not, whether we acknowledge His existence or not, and He does with us what He wants to. (This was in response to a comment of us acting out of our own free will)

 

Either we believe God is sovereign or we don’t. If he is sovereign than everything…great and small…are within his command. If He isn’t sovereign than He really has no control.

 

If believing what I see in Scripture and believing that the Lord controls everything in His creation makes me a fatalist believer then that’s what I am. As I saw recently…’In the beginning God. Not ‘in the beginning man’. The Lord created all…people included…He saves who he wants to and doesn’t save who he wants to and all that we are is within His control and plans.

 

 

 

If you only had two hours

I came across something online that has me more than a little intrigued. It is the idea of writing out the Bible. I’ve heard of people doing that before but never really gave it much thought. But tonight…the thought stuck.

Maybe because I read of how people used to have to handwrite the Bible, copying it down from a Bible they were given access to. Or maybe it was because someone mentioned how there are people in persecuted countries that are forced to handwrite the Bible by copying a much treasured Bible that belongs to someone else…often in countries where Bibles are illegal.

Or maybe it was because I read of someone that set out to write the Bible and discovered that in writing it out by hand, they learned so much more than if they simply read it.

Or maybe it was because I read of someone that challenged those they knew to handwrite the Bible based off a hypothetical situation. The situation? Bibles will be confiscated in two hours. You have two hours…with no electronic devices or machines…to handwrite what you can from the Bible. This person challenged those in their group to spend two hours…the two hours before their Bibles were ‘confiscated’…to write out their favorite verses. After that they would use those verses, and only those verses, for Bible study. They did wind up copying down each other’s verses.

But this made me wonder…what would I copy down if I only had two hours to handwrite from the Bible, and at the end of those two hours I would hold the only section of the Bible I would have for the rest of my life?

I thought of the very near panic that would set in as those two hours ticked away the small amount of time before my Bibles were confiscated. What would I write? Which verses would I chose? Would I just start writing and work straight through until I ran out of time? Or would I pick and choose different verses?

I truly don’t know the answer to those questions.

It also made me wonder just how far I would go to get hold of the rest of the Bible, or as much of it as I could. Would I drive several hours to copy what someone else had written in their two hours? Would I meet with strangers to copy what they had?  

I pictured myself sitting down to write out the Bible just because. Because I wanted to, because it seemed like a good idea, because I wanted to handwrite a section of the Bible to give as a gift, because I was a part of a group effort to write the Bible by hand…whatever the reason, I thought of how I’d want a certain kind of paper. Certain quality, certain look. Just what I’d want, I don’t know. I’d probably spend some time shopping, looking, searching, for just the right paper.

I thought of how if I was going to handwrite a section of the Bible to give as a gift…not the gift most people would want, but one I would love and treasure…I would search to find just the right way to write it out. Would I write out an entire book? I’d want a notebook with a cover that did justice to what I was going to fill the pages with. Would I write out only a single page? Then I’d want the nicest paper, maybe with an antique look, to write just the right set of verses on.

But if I had only two hours to write what would become all of the Bible I would ever have…I’d write on anything I had available. Paper bags. The backs of envelopes. Napkins. Even pages torn from other books.

And as I think of those two very different scenarios, I have to admit that the verses written on whatever was at hand…let’s say a paper bag…would be worth so much, treasured so much.

And still I don’t know what part of the Bible I’d write out if I knew I had only two hours to write the only bit of Bible I would ever have again.

What would you write if you were to write part of the Bible to give away?

What would you write if you had two hours to write the Bible and would never again hold a Bible in your hands?

The importance of people

I was reading in Romans this morning and came to…

Is this blessing then only for the circumcised, or also for the uncircumcised? For we say that faith was counted to Abraham as righteousness. ¹⁰ How then was it counted to him? Was it before or after he had been circumcised? It was not after, but before he was circumcised. ¹¹ He received the sign of circumcision as a seal of the righteousness that he had by faith while he was still uncircumcised. The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well, ¹² and to make him the father of the circumcised who are not merely circumcised but who also walk in the footsteps of the faith that our father Abraham had before he was circumcised. Romans 4:9-12

When I read that section it made me pause and think. My mind grabbed onto… The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe without being circumcised, so that righteousness would be counted to them as well,…and wouldn’t let go.

There’s a song that I first heard about eight years ago that speaks of Mary and asks if she knew what she had in her son. When I first heard that song I was amazed by it. It made me stop and think. Made me ponder. Made me really wonder, as a mother, if Mary did know what she held when she held her brand new baby. Did she have any idea of just how important He was?

The verses in Romans 4 affected me that way too. Here was Abraham. A man going about his life. He worked, he cared for his family. Human nature gives us the understanding that he had to hurt, worry, fear, be happy, be sad, get sick, have health problems, get tired, experience exhaustion…and the list goes on. He was an ordinary man.

Yet Scripture tells us… The purpose was to make him the father of all who believe. Did he have any idea as he went about his daily life how important he was? Did he understand the plan the Lord had for him? Did he have any concept of who and what he was in the plan of God’s people? Could he even grasp the importance he would play?

As I read those verse those were the thoughts that stood out to me. Could Abraham have had any idea of just how important he was? But then I got to thinking of all the other Biblical figures whose lives we can read about and know of the importance they held. We can know…but did they?

Did Adam have any idea of how important his life would be on all of mankind? Did he realize that by sinning he was, in fact, causing the death and destruction of not only himself but of millions…billions…of people? Could he have even fathomed that many people? Did he know that his sin would have a profound effect on the world for all time?

Did Eve have any idea of the importance of what she did when she gave the forbidden fruit to Adam? Did she understand her role in the fall of man? Or did she see what she did only through the way it pertained to her and Adam? Was she, like most of us, only aware of the affect of her actions as they happened? Did she only see the cause and effect of this moment in time with no understanding of the long term consequences of what she did?

Did Noah understand how important he was in the world when he and his family were the only people saved out of the entire world? Did he know the importance of being the only person to find favor with God? Did he understand how important his place would be in the ancestry of the entire world for all time?

Years ago my sister told me about a television program she had seen that talked about a common ancestor all people have. Apparently scientists have discovered some gene in all people that is a common gene…everyone has it. According to what my sister told me, scientist called this the mother Eve (or something like that) gene and attributed it to the fact that all of mankind had a common beginning.

I don’t remember anything else my sister might have said about that program but as I remember that small amount now I have to wonder if Noah, if Adam and Eve, knew or understood the importance they would have on the beginnings and on the existence of all of mankind?

Did they know?

Did they understand?

What of all the other people we see in Scripture? They had an important role to play, they served a purpose in the plan of God, but did they understand…could they understand…as they lived out their lives the importance of their place in the Lord’s plan for mankind?

The power in our words

For Christ did not send me to baptize but to preach the gospel, and not with words of eloquent wisdom, lest the cross of Christ be emptied of its power.

1 Corinthians 1:17

 

What would happen if every preacher took those words to heart before he delivered a sermon? What would he say if he truly understood what it was that rested within the pages of the Bible he held and he preached with the above verse in mind?

A while back ago I wrote a post titled Preaching to Christ. How much more would preachers take to heart the messages they give if they were not only to preach to Christ and only to Christ, knowing that it didn’t matter if they had an audience of one or one million because the only One that truly mattered, the only One they needed to please with their message was Christ, but what if they also knew that the gospel they were delivering was of so much importance that they could…with their very words…empty it of its power?

Do the men that deliver those messages week after week realize that with their words they either give power to the cross or they devalue it? If you are a true Christian, if you’re in Christ, if you’re truly born again, regenerate…what does it do to your heart to think that you could remove the power of Christ on the cross with nothing but the words you say?

How much power does that put into the right words? How much power does that put into the message you may be given…and you don’t have to be a preacher to have that power within what you’re saying. You never know when the words you share with another will be the seed that takes root and grows into the method the Lord will use to save that person…assuming you’re talking to one of the Lord’s people. What power is then placed in the words you use and message you deliver, whether it’s done in word or in deed?

And how terrifying is it to know that with the wrong words you can take all that power away?

About a year ago I sat in a ‘church’ building I had only been in once before. While sitting there I heard a message delivered by the preacher that when it was over I was left wondering what the purpose to the message was. Was there even a point? If there was I completely missed it and so did my husband. The preacher seemed to talk about one thing after another, none of which really connected to each other, without ever tying them to Scripture, only to rather abruptly end the message with no lines ever being drawn to make any sort of connection to whatever purpose there was to his message.

When I left there, and to this day, I wonder what those poor people sitting in the congregation ever manage to get out of the messages that preacher delivers. Oh the power that was within that man’s grasp that day. The message he could have delivered. Even if all he had done was read Scripture. But he bungled the job. He removed the power of the cross as he failed to teach on the Truth of Scripture in any way.

I don’t know where that preachers heart truly stands. I don’t know what his deep held beliefs are. But I know that he had within his ability that day to deliver a message that might have planted a seed in someone and he delivered an empty message instead.

But as I think of him and that message I can at least look back and say he failed to deliver any message. There just wasn’t one there. What of the preachers and teachers that so often deliver messages that twist the Truth into their version of it? How empty do their messages become? How much do they remove the power of Christ from the message that could have been delivered?

The often taught belief that ‘Jesus is love’ or ‘God just wants to love us’ comes to mind. The preachers and teachers that perpetuate this false truth, this heresy, this…lie…had within their means to teach the truth of Who Christ is and they dropped the ball, they bungled the job. It was right there within their grasp to tell the Truth and they didn’t do it.

It’s as if they took the lid off a bottle of Truth and poured it on the ground while watching it all disappear into the dirt. They could have delivered it but they didn’t.

How dangerous would it be if a doctor took lifesaving medicine and instead of giving it to his dying patient he poured it into the sink and watched it flow down the drain? What if that medicine was the only bottle of medicine in the world that could have saved that person’s life and that doctor deliberately poured it down the drain.

What if the message a preacher gives today is the only message of truth that could have been delivered to someone but the preacher poured false hope and lies into that person instead?

Now I know that the Lord has his elect, that His chosen people will be saved no matter what. I know, too, that He uses preachers that teach false beliefs for His purposes and that what is happening at any given moment is all in the Lords hands and its all part of His plan. I’m not for a moment discounting any of that. I’m not implying that those preachers that teach the wrong things aren’t being used for the Lord’s purposes. I know too that those preachers can’t deliver a Truth they can’t see. That they can’t deliver a message they don’t understand themselves. I’m simply saying what if.

What if the word’s we use are that important?

How important does it make Christ, the real Christ as Scripture teaches, when you think of the fact that what you say has the ability to give power to the gospel or to remove its power?

It hurts my heart to even consider the idea that I might, in some way, take anything away from my Lord by saying the wrong thing.

How much power do the words we say have?

 

The power of a book

A while back I was in a large bookstore just browsing the shelves. I came across a book of Johnathon Edwards sermons. Of the thousands upon thousands of books in that store that day…that was the only one that caught and held my attention. I carried it around and skimmed the pages of it as the family members I was with perused many different books.

One of those family members asked me what I was reading…and I read a small section of Sinners in the hands of an angry God. I could tell with only a few words that this family member didn’t share my interest in the writings contained in that small book.

And that was okay. I’ll admit that some of those writings were hard to read. They were written in the language of Edwards’ time and weren’t always that easy to understand. For someone that isn’t used to the deeper truths of Scripture…I can well imagine how that small section I read would have been received.

But as I think back on that day now…as I think of the hundreds of thousands of books contained in that store. I am saddened. Books…for me…are like old friends. They have been a much loved part of many of the years of my life. They were friends when I didn’t have friends, they were therapy when I needed it, they were family when I was far from family, and they were examples of what life could be when I didn’t like what life was.

And…

They were escapes when I needed one.

The ability to leave the world behind could be had as quickly and easily as picking up the next book. Within the pages of even a bad book I have been transported to places…to being people…that my real life didn’t allow for. As a result…

Books are like old friends.

Only now…when I browse the many, many books to be found in a bookstore…or even a section of most any kind of store…I am left with a sense of…loss…or something. Where once lived old friends, now I see those books for what they are. Where once I found true enjoyment…now I see what isn’t there.

Books really are escapes. They open up world’s that don’t exist for the reader. I remember the many times I escaped my life through the pages of a book. I think of the articles I have read that talk of how important books are to prisoners…because they allow them…for a while…to escape the reality of the world they live in.

There is no denying that books do that for their reader.

But…there is also no denying that books bring with them so many influences that aren’t good. Even so-called Christian books fill our minds with things that aren’t Biblical.

I recently sorted through the many years worth of books that I have collected. Among those were books put out by a Mennonite company that I spent a small fortune to own. These books were bought many years ago…and with the exception of a very select few…were never read.

I bought them because they were ‘Christian’ books that I thought…at the time…would be good, wholesome, books for our home and the children. Only…the children never liked them…and they sat there mostly untouched. They were packed with great care when we moved and given a place in our new home…where they sat, once again, untouched.

Thinking of those books now reminds me of the many sermons I sat through during the early years of my life as a parent. I well remember leaving the ‘church’ building every Sunday having gained nothing for the time spent there but a pleasant…or unpleasant, depending on the day…experience. Hard as I tried…and I did try…I gained nothing, or at least very little, from those sermons.

I understand now that was the Lord’s way of protecting me from false doctrines that would complicate ideas that had already been filed into my brain and heart. Ideas that would later lead to my understanding Truth…and false ideas and beliefs that would have been fed and grown had I absorbed what was taught in those sermons.

All those Mennonite books…would have done the same thing. Because within their pages were the very beliefs that the writer held. In the case of those books it was the Mennonite beliefs.

All of those beliefs weren’t wrong, and I’m sure they would have told at least some Truth, but all of those beliefs weren’t right either, and I’m sure they would have also twisted those truths.

And so…despite the fact that those books lived in our home for years (most of them have now moved on and the few that remain will soon move on) my family was protected from the doctrines taught within them by a lack of interest in those books.

As a homeschool family we have encountered many books, have owned many books, have read many books. We have also owned so many books that we never read. Books that I bought thinking we would use only to watch them sit unused year after year.

I remember reading something online a few years ago that spoke of how important it is to be careful what books we allow our children to read because the beliefs of the author will be portrayed within the pages of the book no matter what the subject is or what the story line is about. This article went on to tell of beliefs held by some popular authors…most of which have written books that have come to be called classics.

Reading that article changed the way I saw books. It also prompted a huge purging of our book collections.

And still…too many books remained.

I understand more now. I understand better. We are influenced by the things in our lives, no matter what they are. For those of us that are in Christ…He will give us discernment where it is all concerned. For those that aren’t…they will be easily influenced by everything…and will be consumed by some of it.

Our children fall into that category. I see it daily in my children. I see it in my middle daughters and their obsessions with animals. I see it in my son with his obsession with certain toys.

And I see the protection the Lord gives to those of us that are regenerate in my own life. There are times when my mind wants to grab onto things, to put great importance in those things…only I’m given very little time to do that before the Lord reminds me that He is what is important. And whether I am ready to turn lose of that which my mind has grabbed onto or not…He pulls me away from it.

My husband tells me often that there’s a difference in the interests of the regenerate and the unregenerate. He tells me how people have questioned why their interests in something is an obsession while his interests aren’t. How they want to know the difference…only they don’t truly want to know the answer.

I can look no further than my own book collection over the years to see that in myself. There was a time that I put great stock in my collection of books. A time when I would arrange them on a bookshelf, when I would look over them with pride, when I took joy in just knowing I owned them.

Today, I still own books, but now my collection is different. I recently got rid of about 90% of the books I had collected over the years…and felt not a hint of remorse at seeing them go. In fact…I almost felt relief. It was like having a weight lifted off me with the dispensing of those books.

The books that I did keep serve a greater purpose. There is still a collection of books in my possession that are to be used in schooling the children. They are still here because they have to be. The personal books that I kept are almost all Bibles…and I even parted with a few of those…and those that aren’t are mostly written by reformed writers. There are a couple of books on gardening and the like…and the rest…are gone now. Moved on to live on someone else’s shelf.

I feel the difference in my interest in books each time I browse through a book section or book store. Where once I was greeted by old friends, I now feel more like I’m looking at wolves trying to devour sheep. I know that they are not, because I know that most people that will read those books aren’t sheep. But I know too…that books are an escape.

I know that we can lose ourselves within the pages of a book. I know that what we read has the power to affect our thoughts and our lives. And I know that the beliefs held by the writer will be passed on to the reader…what that reader does with them…who know?

I think of how my own beliefs fill the pages of this blog. Of how there is no way for anyone to read what I write and not be affected…at least in some way…by my beliefs in the Lord.

I think, too, of Paul. Of how he wrote so much of the New Testament. How many times did he say he was a servant of Christ? How many times did he tell those he was addressing just Who and What he stood for? Can you imagine the things Paul wrote…without Paul’s beliefs?

I can’t. The writings that we were given through him are so filled with his beliefs that there would be little left if his beliefs were taken out of them.

I think again of my own writing. Recently my husband told me that he enjoys reading what I write for the chance to see life through the eyes of another that is reformed. Now…my husband gets to see life through my eyes pretty much all the time. He knows me like no one else does. I tell him things I would tell no one else. And so…I truly don’t know what he sees in my writings that he doesn’t see every day in me. But others that read my writings…they don’t see life through my eyes as my husband does. They aren’t there to see…me in all of life. But in the things that I write are my beliefs. What I am fills the words, the sentences, the paragraphs, and the pages of everything I write.

I recently thought of my blog…if it were a book…and imagined myself handing it to different people. I thought of which ones I would be comfortable giving it to and which ones I wouldn’t want to have it. Because this blog…it is me. It is my thoughts, my feelings, my beliefs.

And in the pages of the thousands of books that lined the shelves in that book store are the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs of the people that wrote them.

As I walked those aisles, as I looked…mostly from afar…at those books…I couldn’t help think they weren’t friends at all. I experienced a sort of disconnected sadness at seeing things I had once enjoyed so much and realizing just how much of a delusion they cast on people.

Books have the power to transport people like few…if any other…things do. They capture our minds, our hearts, our senses. They pull us into the pages until we completely lose track of when and where we are. They have the ability to make us lose all touch with life as it happens around us.

I have read thousands of books in my life…maybe more than thousands. I know what lies within the covers of those books that line the bookshelves of the store. I may not know the story, I may not know the characters, I may not even know the genre…but I know the escape waiting to transport the reader to another place.

And they have the power to influence us.

They have the power to instill…or at least expose…us to the beliefs of the person writing the book.

I can think of only one Author I want having that kind of power over me.