Wednesday, February 28, 2007

No Free Lunch

I am finally able to get onto this blog thing. It made me change, and then for the last week, it would not let me comment or write a new post! Oh well. Here I am.

I would like to sin with impunity. I was reflecting on that today; it just occurred to me that that was a fact. However, the other fact is that it is impossible to sin with impunity. No matter what the sin, it affects me, those around me, or worst of all, God Himself. When I sin and no one on earth knows, my Heavenly Father does, and it hurts Him terribly. There is no getting around it. I would love to eat whatever I want, for instance. Of course, gluttony shows itself in fat gain and not being attractive to my soulmate, as well as contributing to other health issues. I would love to be lazy (and oh, am I lazy!), but the house wouldn't get cleaned, the clothes wouldn't get washed, the family wouldn't be fed, the children would not be where they were supposed to, and everyone would be unhappy, including me. I would get frustrated and snap at my kids and husband, another sin--impatience and unrighteous anger. The family would go around in smelly, dirty clothes, and that would be a poor witness to a watching world. They would probably become ill, too, from the unhealthy living conditions. We could never invite people over and use the gift of hospitality, unless we wanted to turn them off from the Way. I would love to read my fiction novels and neglect God's Word, but I will fall into sin without His Word to guide me and grow the Spirit within me and teach me how to love Him more. I could go on and on with examples, but it would become tiresome, if it hasn't already. Perhaps you have some examples of your own. The point of all this? Sin affects everyone, no matter how "small" or how "private" it seems to us. The rules God gives us are not to keep us from having "fun" but to protect us, our loved ones, the world, and our posterity (think of the sins of the fathers visited upon their children and children's children.) I wish I did not want to sin at all, whether it had consequences or not. Oh, to be pure in heart! Father, create in me a clean heart; please renew a right spirit within me.

Tuesday, February 13, 2007

Valentine's Day Wishes


Happy Valentine's Day, everyone! It's really not a holiday we celebrate, but for all of my dear friends who do, I send you loving greetings!

As for my husband Tim, best friend, soul mate, father of our wonderful children, spiritual head of our home, I LOVE YOU forever and ever! I thank God daily for the gift of you!

And for my dear, dear children--Faith, Sarah, Anna, Luke, and Hope--you are precious and cherished by me and your father. I take this day to remind you that I will LOVE YOU FOREVER and LIKE YOU FOR ALWAYS!

I am the most blessed of women. Thanks to all those special people God has placed in my life; you make my life worth living. Praise be to the God and Father of us all, the Father of lights, from whom all blessings come! amen

Thursday, February 08, 2007

Call unto Me

I received a new book today and I am excited to have time to study it--it is Charles Spurgeon's prayers! It opens with a lecture, "The golden key of prayer," based on Jeremiah 33:3, "Call unto Me, and I will answer thee and shew thee great and mighty things, which thou knowest not." I must read it in depth, but a quote I will leave with you before I put clothes in the dryer and a few other chores before bed--

God's own people need, or else they would not receive it, a command to pray.
How is this? Because, dear friends, we are very subject to fits of worldliness, if indeed that be not our usual state. (STEPPING ON ANY TOES YET? MINE HURT) We do not forget to eat: we do not forget to take the shop shutters down: we do not forget to be diligent in business: we do not forget to go to our beds to rest: but we often do forget to wrestle with God in prayer, and to spend, as we ought to spend, long periods in consecrated fellowship with our Father and our God....hours for the world! Moments for Christ! The world has the best, and our closet the parings of our time. We give our strength and freshness to the ways of mammon, and our fatigue and languor to the ways of God. Hence it is that we need to be commanded to attend to that very act which ought to be our greatest happiness, as it is our highest privilege to perform, viz, to meet with our God.

Ah! This book is going to be quite stimulating! More to come....