Persecution

Persecution 

Be Faithful, even to the point of death.  Revelation 2:10

After reading The Insanity of God: A True story of Faith Resurrected by Nik Ripken (pseudonym) and Gregg Lewis it made me think about the way I have been and am persecuted in my own faith.  At times, it has hurt…but mostly just my feelings. 

This book is about a man, Nik Ripken, who describes his journey of faith from the beginning of being born again until today.  He sets off on a journey to Somalia, while his family resided in Kenya, to help a nation that seemed like it could not be helped both physically and spiritually.  Persecution was so strong that he often asked God how faith could grow in a place like that.  After six years and the death of one of his three sons he heads back to Kentucky to mourn and spiritually recover.  Nik and his wife Ruth were spurred on by the Holy Spirit to explore other countries and how their faith survives persecution.  He often prayed for persecution to stop.

The stories from numerous interviews revealed that spiritual growth does occur despite danger, imprisonment, and death among believers under persecution.  Nik asked one man in an interview why they did not share their stories of persecution as he watched his own faith grow from their stories.  The man replied, “Do you tell stories of how the sun comes up every morning?”  It was just their way of daily life and why would they tell a “normal” story. 

Christians in the West have not experienced the hardcore persecution described in this book.  I think about when I was made fun of, shunned or blatantly told to leave my faith out of things.  Again, my feelings were hurt.  Never have I feared being imprisoned, physically harmed, thrown out of my house and town or killed.  I have plenty of Bibles in all kinds of versions.  Christians in the countries described in this book have to hide their Bibles, if they have one.  One part in the book Nik witnesses a group of leaders ripping apart a Bible so every leader could at least have one book of the Bible to teach from. 

Among Ripken’s many revelations, he realized without persecution there would be no faith.  Christians are promised persecution.  Ripken said that mature Christians do not ask for persecution to stop, but the strength to endure.  This book increased my faith and comes highly recommended!

Warmly,

Jill

Too Heavenly Minded?

Can you become so heavenly minded that you are no longer are any earthly good? I have seen it happen and even experienced it myself.  In the beginning of my walk with Jesus, I devoured the Bible.  I couldn't get enough of it.  All I wanted to do was read the Bible as well as watch and listen to anything that was related to Christ.  That in and of itself is not bad.  But, I stopped being relatable.  I stopped being approachable.  I started judging others (even if most of it was in my mind) despite the fact that they were in a different place spiritually and God was working on their hearts in HIS time and perfect plan (Matthew 7:1-2).  Becoming spiritually puffed up and forgetting where He rescued us from does not glorify God.  Knowledge puffs while love builds up (1 Corinthians 8:1b).

God has since humbled me.  I am often reminded of my own sinful nature, selfish tendencies and the fact that He created us for relationships-- Him first and than others.  If I can no longer relate than it is not an effective relationship.  I can be salt and light (while continuing to be heavenly minded) without losing touch with the world.   Too much salt ruins the taste.  Just enough adds the right flavor to change a meal for the better.  

Prepare well for eternity.  That is what we are here for.  Also, get out in the world and relate sharing God's goodness and Truth.  We are all a work in progress.  

Warmly,

Jill

Great Article that Encouraged Me

A dear friend shared this article with me recently and it has  blessed me so much!  It was written by Ann Voskamp and kept feeling led to share it.  Just breathe.

Breathing in God's Goodness,

Leeanne

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{A Letter to Kate} 7 Ways to Labor and Deliver Your Best Life

Dear Kate:

So. They say you’ve gone into labor today?

I’m not sure if anyone ever mentioned it, but there’s this wild law of the universe: a mother’s labor and delivery never ends, and you never stop having to remember to breathe.

Let’s just be upfront: This can be a hard thing.

I once had a two and a half year old who climbed up a forty foot ladder on the side of a building.

One December, we all spiked fevers and had a collective tummy upheaval within 10 minutes of each other and it lasted 3 days. The baby was 8 days old. It was 5 days before Christmas. The house temperature fell to 58F and I had to get a fire started when fever burned through the bones and I couldn’t stand up and the baby kept crying and there wasn’t a clean sheet left in the house.Mothers can cry without a sound.

Then there was that night one of the teenagers stood at our door and hardly spoke so I could hear things I didn’t want to, and I laid awake afterward and I don’t know how air kept getting to my lungs. Mothers know that miracles are everyday things.

So — what you’re doing right now in labor and delivery, what they teach you in those childbirth classes? Yeah — Breathe. It’s how life works. It’s the way beauty is always born —

Breathe in: Lord, I receive what you give.
Breathe out: Lord, I give thanks for what you give.

That’s it right there.

That’s the prayer for people who can’t remember to breathe, the prayer for when you think you might hyperventilate, the prayer when you can’t remember what comes next — just these 7-8 syllables that perfectly settle into the rhythm of breathing.

It’s the syllables of sanctuary, a surrender to His sovereignty.

It’s the only cycle of sanity:

Breathe in: Lord, I receive what you give.
Breathe out: Lord, I give thanks for what you give.

And then, on the hard days, you know — when the transmission falls out of the car, when life turns you and you feel sucker punched, when the kids are all yelling and bickering at once, when the phone call turns into a crisis of faith, when you want to pull your hair out, pluck out your eye, or lay down and cry like a baby —

the perfect prayer can do this thing where it gets real short, fits right into your panicked, shallow breaths and quiets even them:

Breathe in: Lord, I receive.
Breathe out: Lord, I give thanks.

So there’s that: You don’t get to make up most of your story. You get to make peace with it.

You don’t get to demand your life, like a given. You get to receive your life, like a gift.

This is how you labor through a life, how you make it grace.

And when at some point today, Kate, when they hand your child to you for the first time and you hold that swaddled bundle and kiss that little forehead smelling like fresh heaven, but this is the thing and what the headlines forget:the delivery never stops.

The moment the delivery of a child stops — is the moment when everything starts to go wrong.

That’s what deliver means: “hand over, give, give up, yield.” Once you start delivering a child, just keep on: Keep delivering, handing over, yielding the child to God.

This is how you birth beauty in the midst of the messy.

I know, I know, Kate — they all said that you were too posh to push, but whoever said that, didn’t know that that is what mothers do: we push through exhaustion, we push through overwhelm, we push through dishes and laundry and all these feelings of unimportance, because we’re the ones who live the biggest and realest and profound idea: that suffering produces perseverance, perseverance produces character and character produces hope and hope does not disappoint.

This isn’t only theology — this is sanity. We let the grace of Christ push out into the world through the grace of us.

Somebody said that there’s this restlessness among the next generation of women, that they fear more than anything – wasting their lives. I’ve felt that before. Feelings can last for years but they can lie and change your forever.

So, look — There’s no fear: You aren’t wasting your life when you’ve poured out for eternity — wherever you are.

There’s no fear: You are doing something great with your life – when you’re doing all the small things with His Great love.

There’s no fear: You aren’t wasting your life – when you aren’t wasting opportunities to love like Christ.

So labor and deliver, Kate, and know you are not alone — there’s a whole world of us doing it with you, grandmothers and widows, men at desks and pulpits and barns, and women who are single, who are weary, who have never had children but have birthed these beautiful lives — We’re all breathing with you:

Breathe in: Lord, I receive.
Breathe out: Lord, I give thanks.

There are a thousand ways to be stretched thin and it’s the stretchmarks that a soul wears gratefully that can be these thin places –

that give us more of God.

Feast or Famine

Feast or Famine?

 Often times I can be an all or nothing person.  Black and white.  In my (finite) mind,  if I can’t do something the way I think it should be than it is not worth doing at all.  Someone once told me, “Anything worth doing is worth doing badly.”  That just goes completely against my grain.  If I’m going to do it I want it to be done with perfection.  There, I admitted it.  What does the Lord want us to do?

God says whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for The Lord (Colossians 3:23).  Does He say to do it perfectly?  How can we when Jesus is the only perfect One.   I do believe God wants us to do things with excellence and try our best.  But let’s quantify—washing the clothes?  It would be great if we could wash, fold and put the clothes neatly away all in the same afternoon.  Truthfully, it’s not always possible and if you make it possible you might be missing opportunities to serve your family in other ways or just spend time with them.  Exercise?  Ideally, I enjoy working out for 45-1 hour.  But what if I only have 20 minutes before I need to get in the shower and go somewhere?  Seize the moment!  Go for a brisk walk, pop in an exercise tape or whatever suits you.  Twenty minutes is better than no minutes of exercise.  Quiet time?  I enjoy spending an hour with the Lord reading His Word, journaling, doing my current bible study, etc.  But what if I can’t fit that hour in every morning?  Ten minutes with the Lord is better than no minutes with the Lord. 

Before you ditch making a quick thrown together dinner for take-out, decide not to read in your book because you only have five minutes or skip working out or a quiet time because it’s going to be less than what you desire—think again.  Often times, something is better than nothing.  Although I prefer feasting on the Lord’s Word and need to be intentional about carving out that time, having an appetizer is better than starving with nothing to eat or drink from Him.  His grace is sufficient and we are only made perfect in His power through our own weakness (2 Corinthians 12:9).

Warmly,

Jill

Disciplining

Disciplining

 This summer my husband and I have been diligent to try and correct poor attitudes and helping my children to listen without five thousand reminders.  We have locked arms to try and have a unified force.  Tough love is hard.  I’m sure my children do not consider it pure joy  (James 1:2-4) when we discipline them so that they can mature. 

Recently, we had what I call an explosion of disobedience that needed action.  Two of my children lost the privilege of going to our local pool the next day.  They were crushed and broken.  And so was I.  As I had pillow talk with my husband that evening I had a hard time holding back tears.  I did not want them to miss out of their favorite summer activity.  Couldn’t I give them one more chance?  I rewound the words I had just told them an hour before, “If you are caught speeding on the highway a police officer is not going to give you a ticket and then take it away.”  I had to look beyond the moment.  I am trying to teach my children to live respectfully, obey, tame their tongue and listen to what is important.

The next morning there were no grudges.  My two children loved me the same.  They were over the initial sting of being disciplined.  They also knew mommy and daddy meant business.  God also reminded me that I was able to have some “special time” with my third child at the pool that day, as the other stayed home while daddy worked from home.  Just as the Lord tells us to endure hardship as discipline; God is treating us as his children (Hebrews 12:7)—so it is with our children on loan from Him.  

Warmly,

Jill

A lecture for little-faith by Spurgeon

Another great Spurgeon devotion. Enjoy your summer day!

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SPURGEON AT THE NEW PARK CHAPEL

A lecture for little-faith
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“We are bound to thank God always for you, brethren, as it is meet, because
that your faith groweth exceedingly, and the charity of every one of you all
toward each other aboundeth.” 2 Thessalonians 1:3

Suggested Further Reading: Matthew 17:14-21

When faith commences in the soul it is simply looking unto Jesus, and perhaps
even then there are so many clouds of doubts, and so much dimness of the eye,
that we have need for the light of the Spirit to shine upon the cross before
we are able even so much as to see it. When faith grows a little, it rises
from looking to Christ to coming to Christ. He who stood afar off and looked
to the cross, by-and-by plucks up courage, and getting heart to himself, he
runneth up to the cross; or perhaps he doth not run, but hath to be drawn
before he can so much as creep thither, and even then it is with a limping
gait that he draweth nigh to Christ the Saviour. But that done, faith goeth a
little farther: it layeth hold on Christ; it begins to see him in his
excellency, and appropriates him in some degree, conceives him to be a real
Christ and a real Saviour, and is convinced of his suitability. And when it
hath done as much as that, it goeth further; it leaneth on Christ; it leaneth
on its Beloved; casteth all the burden of its cares, sorrows, and griefs upon
that blessed shoulder, and permitteth all its sins to be swallowed up in the
great red sea of the Saviour’s blood. And faith can then go further still; for
having seen and run towards him, and laid hold upon him, and having leaned
upon him, faith in the next place puts in a humble, but a sure and certain
claim to all that Christ is and all that he has wrought; and then, trusting
alone in this, appropriating all this to itself, faith mounteth to full
assurance; and out of heaven there is no state more rapturous and blessed.

For meditation: How would you describe the state of your faith? Do you want to
grow in faith (Luke 17:5)?

Sermon no. 205 / 18 July (1858) 

Spurgeon's Writing

I love this devotional by Spurgeon. What if we were so confident of our citizenship in heaven that we lived like Spurgeon wrote below? I bet our days would look much different.

Joy,

Leeanne

C. H. Spurgeon

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"Fellow citizens with the saints."—Ephesians 2:19.

WHAT is meant by our being citizens in heaven? It means that we are under heaven's government. Christ the king of heaven reigns in our hearts; our daily prayer is, "Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven." The proclamations issued from the throne of glory are freely received by us: the decrees of the Great King we cheerfully obey. Then as citizens of the New Jerusalem, we share heaven's honours. The glory which belongs to beatified saints belongs to us, for we are already sons of God, already princes of the blood imperial; already we wear the spotless robe of Jesu's righteousness; already we have angels for our servitors, saints for our companions, Christ for our Brother, God for our Father, and a crown of immortality for our reward. We share the honours of citizenship, for we have come to the general assembly and Church of the first-born whose names are written in heaven. As citizens, we have common rights to all the property of heaven. Ours are its gates of pearl and walls of chrysolite; ours the azure light of the city that needs no candle nor light of the sun; ours the river of the water of life, and the twelve manner of fruits which grow on the trees planted on the banks thereof; there is nought in heaven that belongeth not to us. "Things present, or things to come," all are ours. Also as citizens of heaven we enjoy its delights. Do they there rejoice over sinners that repent—prodigals that have returned? So do we. Do they chant the glories of triumphant grace? We do the same. Do they cast their crowns at Jesu's feet? Such honours as we have we cast there too. Are they charmed with His smile? It is not less sweet to us who dwell below. Do they look forward, waiting for His second advent? We also look and long for His appearing. If, then, we are thus citizens of heaven, let our walk and actions be consistent with our high dignity.