To Make Real Friends, Be a Friend of God

Let me just start out by saying that when I make a general statement in this post, I know that I am making a general statement....I know there are exceptions to the rules and not all people fall into the following categories. That being said---I will make the following generalizations!

We live in a neighborhood that has the word "estates" as part of the title. We live in a neighborhood where most of the houses probably sell for about half a million dollars (at least the updated ones!). We live in a neighborhood where there is an unspoken message being proclaimed that unless you have the right car, the right job, the right amount of kids, the right salary, the right clothes, send your kids to the right schools, keep your yard a certain way and so on and so on you just don't quite belong or fit in. I don't have the right things so it goes without saying that I don't quite fit in. I'm ok with that, I don't really care for my own benefit to fit in, but I would like to be some influence--namely I want to proclaim Christ to the people that I live around. But that's rather a hard thing to do when you don't know the people. (Ok, we do know the people that live right around us and they are lovely people) I am mainly thinking about people that are close to our age....we are poor compared to them! Anyway, I've been thinking how can I be of more influence to the people that I live around if we hardly see or talk with them. I think there are things that can be found in common, things that will bridge the gap between our worlds, but it's a tough nut to crack. So, all this thinking about how hard it has been to get to know people and find things in common has lead me to think of how utterly unique and beautiful Christ's church is.

The Church, the Bride of Christ, while still imperfect, is a glorious picture of how rich people and poor people and all sorts of people can be friends and more important, family. People that I would not normally think of being friends with I am able to be friends with because of the common denominator of Christ. The more I think on that the more it blows my mind. When I think of the barriers that are up towards us from peers in our neighborhood and then I think of the friendships we have with believers the more I see that only Christ can bring people together! It seems like although people are polite, hell would freeze over before people in our neighborhood would allow more than a mere socially correct conversation to happen.

I was so blessed to hear my father in law preach today on Romans 15:5-6 which says all that I was thinking about the unity of Christians and it says it much better than my feeble ramblings. Here is the handout Joshua's dad shared with his congregation. I hope it will encourage you as much as it did me.

"Now may the God who gives perseverance and encouragement grant you to be of the same mind with one another according to Christ Jesus, so that with one accord you many with one voice glorify the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ." Romans 15:5-6

In this wonderful passage of Scripture we are given a wish-filled benediction identifying one of the great all-consuming purposes that God has for human history. Why did God send His Son, the Lord Jesus Christ? Why did Jesus die upon the cross and rise again from the dead? Why did God give birth to the church in the life and miraculous work of the Holy Spirit at Pentecost? Why is Jesus coming back to earth to consummate and culminate redemption and history in His Lordship? Why? Here we have a reason that gives a true and great ultimate purpose to these things? God is putting together a people, His people throughout history, through redemption in Jesus Christ so that the day will come when these people will with one voice rise up together in unity of mind and heart to glorify God in all His worthiness, goodness, and transcendent wonder. This is why God does everything He does--He is putting together a people from all over the world to possess one mind in Christ and speak with one voice the unifying praise of the Lord in and through the Lord Jesus Christ. The text tells us the following concerning this overarching theme:

1. Perseverance and encouragement, a vital necessity in Christian living and experience, is actually a work of God given to us in the journey of our salvation through our Lord Jesus Christ in the work of the Holy Spirit.

2. Although God loves every Christian as His own child, yet God wants every Christian to experience the important blessing of Sharing the "same mind" with other believers in Christ. This same mind is centered on the nature and meaning of the true gospel of free sovereign grace through the saving work of Christ on the cross and resurrection, made real in us individually and among us corporately through the unifying love and work of the Holy Spirit. See Philippians 2:1-2

3. The work of God's saving grace and the glorious work o the Holy Spirit in regeneration and sanctification baptizes the believer into the on Body of Christ (See 1 Corinthians 12:13), gifting us for living and service in the Body of Christ (See 1 Corinthians 12:27-31), and giving to all believers a common life (the life of Christ), which we share in love and covenant together in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Thus Christians are to live together in Christ "in one accord."

4. This inner oneness shared by CHristians finds expression with one common voice praising and glorifying God because of and focused on the gospel of His saving grace in Jesus Christ. This is what the church celebrates in worship, and this worshipful celebration of the gospel in oneness of heart and voice reflects the triumphant church's experience in heaven for all eternity.

Application to LIfe
1. Christian oneness is a gift from God and not a human creation forced upon people either by effort or institutionalization.

2. Christian oneness in essence is the church in love with God because of Jesus Christ and through the work of the gospel, grace, and the power of the Holy Spirit, thus this oneness is founded on truth, birthed in regeneration and nurtured in love.

3.Christian oneness is a miracle of God's power in salvation that transforms sinners from selfish, caustic, irritating rebels causing division and hurt into selfless saints sharing, promoting, and living in the love and joy of God's eternal transcendent goodness in the context of human history and life's difficult fallen environment.

4. Therefore, the more the Christian loves and rejoices in Jesus, the closer the Christian gets in affection and mind to God and to other Christians in the church.

5. And the more the church experiences Christians growing in love and joy in Christ, in the light of the gospel, the more the earthly church will together rejoice in and love the Lord.

6. Furthermore, the more this happens on earth in the life, worship, and experience of the earthly church, the more the earthly church resembles the heavenly church.

7. The greater the earthly church rejoices in the Lord, joining in the heavenly church glorifying and honoring the Lord God of heaven and earth, the more redeemed humanity manifests the entire point of why God made people, the more glory God is glorified on earth, and the more frustrated Satan gets.

"May the God who inspires men to endure, and gives them constant encouragement, give you a mind united with one another in your common loyalty to Christ Jesus. And then , as one man, you will sing from the heart the praises of God the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. So open your hearts to one another as Christ has opened his heart to you, and God will be glorified." Romans 15:5-7 J.B. Phillips "The New Testament in Modern English."

Amen!

When your kids are sick

Anna is not feeling well tonight. I'm not sure what is wrong and where she may have picked it up but her tummy seems to be upset. So as I've been sitting here I've been thinking.

1. Be thankful for her cuddles right now since she is not normally very cuddly.
2. Be thankful that I even have a sweet baby girl to hold and take care of...some people don't have babies to take care of.
3. Learn to joyfully give up my own desires in order to serve my daughter. (I wanted to work out, among other things)
4. Learn to give sacrificially and do it without grumbling or complaining. (I expect to not get much sleep tonight)
5. Use this opportunity to teach Daniel to have compassion for his sister and teach him to serve his sister.
6. Look forward to the new creation, when there will be no more sickness.
7. Pray that Anna and Daniel will be saved so that they will experience life in the new creation.


That's as far as I got thinking last night about this, but I thought I'd share it for what it's worth!

*She's feeling better today

Small Victories

Joshua and I were just about to fall asleep the other night when we woke up to Daniel coughing really hard. He just couldn't seem to stop coughing, so I went in there, picked him up and offered him water. As the coughing went on and I could start to hear him wheezing I could feel the vice-like grip of fear squeezing my heart. Daniel stopped coughing and we put him to bed but I could still hear the wheezing. I decided to sleep on the guest bed in Daniel's room so I could keep an eye on him...his breathing wasn't getting worse but it wasn't getting better either. There are a lot of awful things to listen to in this world and one of the worst I think is listening to someone struggle to breath...and it's 100x worse when it's your child. So while I am thinking of what I can do to help him that fear just begins to grow. "What if he gets worse?" "Do I know what to do to help him?" "What if we have to go to the ER?" "What if the ER is really full and we have to wait a long time, will he stop breathing?" "What if Anna gets sick?" "What if Anna or Daniel die?" Yes, that really is how my mind works.

The small victory is that even though I did ask myself all those questions, I realized I was being fearful and worrying and knew that I needed to pray and ask the Lord to take all that fear. Daniel has been memorizing verses and one of them is Psalm 56:3, "When I am afraid, I will trust in You [God]." That verse helped me so much that night. I recognized that I needed to do what I could to keep helping Daniel, even take him to the ER if needed. But ultimately I could trust God for everything involved in this situation. As I put my trust in God that hold the fear had on my heart slipped away. God is kind because I can't trust Him without Him giving me the ability to trust Him. So it's small but encouraging to me!

Spring Is Here

Spring in Kentucky is the most beautiful of all springs I have ever seen. I was sitting outside the other day and reading Psalm 104, which is one of my absolute favorite Psalms. Right as I was reading verse 12 a bunch of birds started singing! This verse says, "Beside them the birds of the heavens dwell; They lift up their voices among the branches." I am amazed at all the things God has made! The beauty of the earth speaks so much of His creativity and His kindness. Here are some of the beautiful things that God has seen fit to surround us with.







Joshua and I were notcing how green everything seems here. Compared to Oklahoma, the grass seems like a thick bed of lushness! And I don't think I have seen so many different dogwood trees before. And then there are the trees that have tiny purple flowers on them...I don't know what they are but they are vibrant! Not only are the colors of spring fantastic, the smells are amazing! Joshua makes fun of me for saying something smells pretty. But it's so true! The grass and the flowers smell so pretty. And all of this is so astonishing to me becuase it's amazing that God would allow us to enjoy so many good things!

Peace in the Storm

Last Tuesday night we were in the midst of a storm. Part of the weather system that wrecked so much havoc with the tornados, came through Louisville. I had gone to bed about an hour and a half before the tornado sirens went off. I had to get up on Wed. morning to go to work and my sleep was very precious to me at that point. When the sirens started their scream I nudged Joshua and woke him up. He turned over and we were going to go back to bed, thinking, it's Louisville, they overreact. We've lived in Oklahoma... Nothing happened to us, but after the fact, we thought about how we were being very self-confident and we should have gone downstairs to some of our neighbors to spend the night. But anyway....Joshua checked the weather and said he would stay up for a while and told me to go back to bed, since I had to work in the morning.


I tried and tried to sleep but I just kept thinking. I started thinking about how the sirens that were screeching were probably something like the sirens that went off during WWII when there were bomb raids. I thought how terrifying that must have been. And then I got to thinking about how scary the weather really can be. There is SO much power in storms. We have all seen pictures showing the damage caused by it. So I then started thinking about how powerful God is. He is the one that controls every storm and Jesus Christ calmed the storm with WORDS!!!! Mark 4:35-41 relates this story to us. The disciples ask, “Who then is this, that even the wind and the sea obey Him?" How many of us take the time to learn these lessons that God is teaching us in a storm? How amazing it would be to be able to teach your children to fear the Lord and trust in Him while you are huddled in a closet or in the bathroom under a mattress! It was so wonderful to think about the bigness of God in the midst of the storm last week. Humans can predict the weather, but what human can CONTROL the weather!? Can you worship God in the midst of a storm? Yes! Worship Him for his majesty. Worship Him for being such a huge God and thank Him for showing you how small you are. Worship Him for His providential use of His creation. For those who lose family and friends in such storms, worship Him for his kindness in not destroying all of humankind. Worship Him for keeping His word to never do anything like the Flood again. Worship Him for His mercy in keeping you alive and giving you more time to turn to Him.

How often do we say that we trust God when we are in the middle of a literal storm like that of last week? It seems natural in the initial moments of the siren warning us that a storm is approaching to seek safety. But is my trust and hope placed more in the buildings and structures that man has made? How often can we say that we trust that God will providentially preserve our life or he will providentially call His child home? He is good in keeping me safe in a storm like that of last week and He is good if He had chosen to end my life here on earth. When we trust in God's goodness and providence we can say that we have NO FEAR!! That is joy!






All the pictures are from Yahoo! pictures