Not My Favorite Day

...everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Halloween has always been my least favorite celebration. Actually we never have acknowledged it in our home. Not since we made Jesus our Lord at least.

My views and principles about participating in a holiday that promotes mostly wickedness and evil changed and just didn't sit right in my heart. And it still doesn't. It doesn't really matter to me how it's packaged in fun and games. At the center of it fear and evil is promoted and I keep close guard on that in every other way. Why would I open myself to it on this one supposedly innocent holiday?

In modern times there seems to be a new obsession with any other worldly which only exacerbates the evil side of the day. I realize this is not the most popular view even among Christians these days. That's okay. I've never won any of those popularity contest anyway. And I don't condemn you if you decide to celebrate it. I wish I understood why but I don't condemn.

To minimize the acknowledgement of the day, rather than join in, we either went to church festivals or once our kiddos were older we took them out to eat so we could stick together and concentrate on family.

The evil characters have gotten much worse since my kiddos were growing up. The billboards, the advertisements on TV, the overly exaggerated gory displays in the local stores are really very annoying an often offensive.

Adults seem to have hijacked the day, too. As if they wait for Halloween to have their own ridiculous bashes and lewd parades. I say to them if they like to dress up in costumes they don't need an excuse like Halloween that taints the day even further. Have a masquerade party any other time of year. It's really okay to have your own party without using your kids as an excuse.

I LOVE this time of year and all the 'good' changes it DOES celebrate like the weather (still waiting on that one here in Florida), the colors represented with this season, sweaters and scarves, visions of harvest and Thanksgiving is right around the corner.

Getting past Halloween and all the reminders of it everywhere is something I look forward to.

Minding My Mind

...everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

As a follower of Jesus Christ I’m so curious these days about the standard used to decide our values and conduct. It seems, to me anyway, a culture of thought has crept into the church (I use this term to describe the entire body of believers) which allows for just about any kind of thinking (opinions) and activity that each believer ‘feels’ is right. I’m probably not even articulating this exactly like I wish I could. But talking to so many believers I know, and have known over the years, the overwhelming impression I get is one of conformity to the world rather than a noticeable variance in our attitude, conduct, activity, etc.

We are apt to forget that a man is not only committed to Jesus Christ for salvation; he is committed to Jesus Christ's view of God, of the world, of sin and of the devil, and this will mean that he must recognize the responsibility of being transformed by the renewing of his mind. Oswald Chambers

I often wonder, since Jesus told us He could do nothing of Himself and He only did what He heard from His Father how it is that I (we) think I (we) can have so many opinions about what is okay and not okay for how I (we) think and therefore live.

No matter what I think or you think is right or wrong in God’s eyes the Bible is exceedingly clear that as believers we are to be transformed (change something dramatically) so we can know what God wants us to do. It is our responsibility to renew (to get a new supply of something) our own minds and discipline ourselves to take every thought captive to the obedience of Christ. Where have we gotten so far off of this basic and simple truth? Is it just me or is the New Testament not perfectly clear about this? Not really too much open to interpretation on the subject of renewing our minds to the point that what we think and do is very different from those who have not yet found our Lord as their Master.

Transformed: to change somebody or something dramatically, especially improving their usefulness; to undergo change completely for the better.

As a side note: I’ll share more later about the fact that these admonitions from the Bible were not meant to become a legalistic way of living that shuts the world out of our lives. Quite the opposite actually.

Is Marriage a Divine Conspiracy?

...everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.
I was on the phone with a dear friend the other day involved in an encouragement fest. We do this easily as we think alike on so many levels Biblically. Our personalities are not necessarily alike but our hearts are intertwined when it comes to spiritual things. We were kind of bemoaning the lack of sheer resolve so many people seem to have lost in the generations that follow us... and ours, too actually. Somehow that line of thinking turned to the subject of marriage... you know ... marriage in general. But specifically how it seems everyone we know is married to someone who is completely opposite from each other... in personality and motivation.
She shared a recent John Eldredge newsletter (which is actually an excerpt from his latest book entitled Love and War) with me. So relevant are the words in light of what I see going on in Believer's lives everywhere. Here it is in part. Decide for yourself.


Blue highlights~ my thoughts added.
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Just this morning Stasi and I were talking about marriages we know, and we came to a pretty sobering realization ~~ we can't name one marriage that hasn't been through deep waters in the last three years. Not one. And we know a lot of people, and a lot of marriages. You'd think we'd be able to point to some couple who is trouble free. We can't find one. Not one. Every single marriage we know is either currently struggling, or they've just passed through some major struggle, or they've thrown in the towel. What's with that?

... maybe there's something about marriage, something inherent to it, that we'd all do well to go ahead and admit, face head-on, come to terms with. Marriage is fabulously hard.

Everybody who's been married knows this.

... the sirens that lure us into marriage ~ romance, love, passion, sex, longing, companionship ~ they seem so far from the actual reality of married life we fear we've made a colossal mistake, caught the wrong bus, missed our flight. And so the hardness also comes as something of an embarrassment (don't you feel embarrassed to admit how hard your marriage is?). Maybe it's just us.

Nope. This is everyone. We might as well come out and say it.
In the Christian world I think everyone will admit this ~ we just don't like to talk about it.
... Of course marriage is hard. For heaven's sake, bring together a man and a woman~ two creatures who think, act and feel so differently you'd think they'd come from separate solar systems ~ and ask them to get along for the rest of their lives under the same roof. That's like taking Cinderella and Huck Finn, tossing them in a submarine and closing the hatch. What did you think would happen?

When it comes to high-level expeditions, one piece of advice that veterans unanimously urge is this: "Choose your tent mate carefully." For you are going to spend weeks to months on end shut-in by foul weather in the forced intimacy of a tiny fabric cocoon with this person. By the time it's over everything about them will drive you mad~ the way they eat, the way they breathe, the way they hum show tunes or pick their nails. To keep yourselves from a Donnor party ending, you must start with people you are utterly compatible with.
This made me chuckle. A fact too difficult for our single friends who are just longing for romance, and companionship to imagine.
God does the opposite ~~ he puts us with our opposite. Our mutual brokenness plays off of each other so perfectly it's frightening. It's like throwing a dog and a cat in a dryer. Is He absolutely mad? Why would God do such a thing?

... He lures us into marriage and then he uses it to transform us.
And wait until you have children... either you transform or you kill them.
We all have a style of relating, we have a way that we do life. Our carefully crafted approach colors the way we work, the way we love, the way we handle stress and the way we look for life. Our style is borne out of brokenness and sin, and it is the number one thing that gets in the way of real love and companionship, the shared adventure and all the beauty of marriage. It's really this simple ~ the number one thing that gets in the way is your way. And we have absolutely no intention of giving it up. Not even to love. So God creates an environment where we have to. It's called marriage.
I just need/want to be happy. Really?
Now listen carefully ~ God wants us to be happy. He really does. He simply knows that until we deal with our brokenness, our sin, and our style of relating, we aren't going to be happy. Nobody around is going to be very happy, either. Most of what you've been experiencing in the last twelve months is God's attempt to get you to face your style of relating, and repent of it.
That didn't feel very good... nor did it make me very happy.
Can we just get to the answers here!
... understanding that happiness is the fruit of other things, chief among them our own holiness, and so we must undergo a transformation.
That's not exactly what I wanted to hear.
... we must share in God's holiness before the story is finished. This flies in the face of the more popular view of the world that's crept in recently ~ the happiness view. This is the idea that frames most people's expectations of marriage (and everything else) ~ the view that we're here for our happiness and so you'd better make me happy. It comes as quite a disruption when we begin to realize that God might have other things in mind!

But once we accept the plot ~~ our transformation ~~ then we can get on with cooperating with God, and that opens the door to all sorts of good things.
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That's a good word.
In this world of "it's all about me" it really is all about me. It's just not all about me in the self-centered way we tend to demand.
I am not my own... I've been bought with a price. Laying down my own rights to even my happiness is a step in the right direction.
Lots more to say but this is a post and I've gone too long... more later I'm sure... I can feel it.
What about you? Do you have the dream marriage we all wish we had? Or have you had to make lots of adjustments? If you aren't married, do you have big ideas about the way the right guy or gal is going to fulfill your fairy tale dreams?

A Good Starting Place

...everything else is worthless when compared with the priceless gain of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord.

Folks seem to be consistently perplexed about what the will of God is for their lives. The will of God… volumes of books have been written on how to know the will of God.

Believers tend to make things complicated. Hearing from God one way or another is the age old excuse for the good things and the wrong things we do. If I had a nickel for every time I’ve heard the phrase, “God told me such and such ” I’d own that place on the beach I dream of. I wonder how many times God actually told us or we just decided on our own it was what seemed best. Not pointing fingers… I’m including myself here.

There are some passages in the Bible that flat out tell us what IS the will of God. No guessing. No praying. No trying to make it fit with our philosophy or theology. No twisting or turning or distorting can make it say what we wish it did. Just plain and simple instructions. If we applied what we DO KNOW the Bible says about God’s will first, and lived it out, the will of God wouldn’t be such a mystery to so many folks. [It’s good to remind yourself that if you are a child of God, you are precious to Him and He is not withholding anything of Himself to those who know Him. ]

For this is the will of God, your sanctification; that is, that you abstain from sexual immorality (or sexual vice~ in another translation); that each of you know how to possess his own vessel in sanctification and honor, not in lustful passion, like the heathen who do not know God. I Thess. 4:3-5

One translation says, “Stay away from all sexual sin then each of you will control/manage his own body and live in holiness and honor”.

Sanctification… it’s a good starting place. We don’t hear much about it these days. It’s certainly not what itching ears want to hear. It means we separate ourselves UNTO God and we allow the holiness of Him to make us holy. In another place He says, “Be holy as I am holy”. Those words tell me it is possible for me to BE holy and LIVE holy.

I wonder if some of the music we listen to would fit with this admonition. If the music we listen to and the movies/TV we watch promote sexual sin do we think it helps us in our sanctification to let it in our ears and eyes?

Oh, that thinking is ‘SO yesterday’!

Wow, what if we just made that one adjustment. What if we actually learned how to possess our own vessel (body) in sanctification and honor! What if we just wanted to do God’s will at any cost to our flesh? What if that was more important to us than what anyone else thinks of us?

I’m asking myself these questions. What about you?