Encouragement

While Paul suffered greatly for the name of Christ, and often found himself pursued, imprisoned, abandoned, beaten or left for dead, he was also continually supported by faithful friends and fellow ministry workers. Throughout Paul's letters, he at times detours from his writing to mention those friends who have been helping him. He will list all sorts of names like Timothy, Luke, Justus, Clement, Epaphroditus....and all kinds of other names I can't even pronounce. Sometimes I feel kind of like I do with the genealogies of the Old Testemant. The "I'm tired of reading all these names; let's get back to the good stuff" feeling...

But recently I've realized that these names of Paul's friends and co-laborers ARE the good stuff. These are the people who visited him in jail, sometimes even finding themselves imprisoned alongside him. They would bring him food and clothing. They would house him. They would travel with him, experiencing hardship, hunger, and persecution. They would painstakingly pen his letters for him (remember they didn't have computers or even ballpoint pens). They would carry his letters to churches abroad, often taking long and dangerous journeys to bring the word of God to various cities throughout Asia Minor. They would pray with Paul, weep with Paul, enourage Paul, and eagerly soak up his teaching and live by his example.

So when Paul praises "Timothy's proven worth, how as a son with a father, he has served me" (Phil. 2:22) or when he rejoices over Epaphroditus who "nearly died for the work of Christ, risking his life" (Phil. 2:30) to help Paul, I am learning to realize how essential this encouragement was. When Paul says that Aristarchus, Mark, and Justus "are the only men of the circumcision among my fellow workers...and they have been a great comfort to me" (Col.4:11), I can only imagine how nice it must have been to have just a few Jewish friends in the midst of being imprisoned in the foreign culture of Rome.

So I ask myself, how can I encourage those around me who have devoted their life to ministering to God's people? How can I support and encourage my pastor and his family, especially as we go through this time of uncertainty with our chuch location and finances, as they await the birth of their fourth child and wonder how in the world they will get a vehicle big enough to hold their whole family (so excited to see what God provides!)? How can I serve my friends who serve abroad as full-time missionaries in some of the most remote or poorest places in the world? How can I labor alongside them as Paul's fellow workers did, even though I am halfway across the world? Can I suport them financially? Can I send a care package? Go visit them? Send them a letter or e-mail of encouragment? Pray for them often? Pray for the culture in which they live and the people to whom they minister? Instead of finding myself bored with Paul's thank you lists in his letters, I am finding myself inspired to encourage my own pastor and missionary friends in new ways. Praising God for His constant transforming of my mind.

Being a Gospel Wife

It's funny how in marriage God really uses your spouse to balance you out... In marriage you learn to humbly accept your husband's conviction when you are slacking in godliness, while at the same time you learn to be bold and loving in calling your husband out when you see an area where he is not applying God's truth to his own life. Micah and I do this all the time. I will gently remind him that he is not entitled to certain things in life - relationships, promotions, money, what have you. That he should rejoice in suffering and live for God's glory, not his own. At the same time, Micah will lovingly remind me to be thankful in the midst of any circumstance. He will convict me of worry and encourage me to trust God's plan when my own plan is not working out (which usually means God is hindering my own foolish planning to show me something far better).

I will leave you with an encouraging pasage I just read from Carolyn Mahaney's blog and her current series on marriage:

Hopefully our husband does encourage us to pursue a deeper knowledge of God, but we are not dependent on our husband to grow spiritually. We are accountable before God to seek His face and obey His Word. Remember, when it comes to the grace of life, we are heirs with--and not under--our husband (1 Pet. 3:7).

 

In order to be a gospel wife, we must be rooted in God's Word.

This means we must be avid students of Scripture, regardless of our husband's spiritual pursuit. We should daily dig into the Bible, regularly read good books, and eagerly absorb and apply our pastor's teaching. We shouldn't assume that deep theological study is only for the men. Neither should we try to hide our own lack of spiritual growth behind our husband's lack of leadership.

Grace to you; grace be with you

Piper points out in Future Grace something important about the way Paul begins and ends almost all his letters to the churches. I am currently reading through Ephesians right now, which serves as a perfect example of Paul's typical saluations....

Ephesians begins with the phrase "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ" (1:2).

Then Paul ends his letter to the Ephesians with this line: "Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible" (6:24).

Notice that I bolded the prepositions "to" and "with." Piper points out that these small words are very important to the way God's grace works through Scripture.

Piper explains that as Paul begins his letters, he must realize that the written words will be God's grace to those who read them. Piper imagines Paul thinking as he writes his letter, "grace is now active and is about to flow from God through my inspired writing to you as you read - grace [be] to you." Then when Paul is about to end his letter, he realizes that the flow of God's grace through written words is about to end, but because God is so good, there must be another form of grace to sustain the readers once they are done reading. When the question rises, "What becomes of the grace that has been flowing to the readers through the reading of the inspired letter?" Paul answers with a blessing, "Grace [be] with you." This is the grace that is "With you as you go home to deal with a sick child and an unaffectionate spouse. With you as you go to work and face the temptations of anger and dishonesty and lust. With you as you muster the courage to speak up for Christ over lunch." This is how God's grace remains with us each and every day.

This is the beauty of reading and being filled by God's word. His grace comes to us through the Scriptures and it remains with us as it transforms our minds, softens our hearts, and fills us with the Spirit, changing the way we act and think and talk every single day. But Piper says it better than I ever will: "We learn that grace is ready to flow to us every time we take up the inspired Scriptures to read them. And we learn that grace will abide with us when we lay the Bible down and go about our daily living."

Fill yourself with the riches of God's grace in His Word and pour out His grace on others because He has promised His grace is with you where ever you go...

Future Grace

As I mentioned in an earlier post, I am currently reading John Piper's Future Grace and it is soooo good. However, I am reading it very slowly, partially because Piper needs to be read slowly and partially because my school workload is way too demanding right now to read for fun...

But anyway the book is awesome. I highly recommend it and I might share some quotes from it from time to time. Here is the first one...

"The only debt that grace creates is the 'debt' of relying on more grace for all that God calls us to be and do..."

~J.Piper

God's Tenacity

In 6th and 7th grade, I had an awesome humanities teacher, Mrs. Mayer. She, sadly, passed away a few years back from an ongoing battle with cancer. However, her impact on me as a student will never be forgotten. I can remember specific assignments from her classes way back in middle school better than I can remember many events from high school or college.

One specific assignment during 6th grade sticks out in my mind. Each student was given a difficult vocab word, as in word-that-we-had-to-look-up-in-the-dictionary-because-we-had-never-heard-it-before difficult. And then we had a to write a poem that used the word correctly. My word was "tenacious"...

te·na·cious adj \tə-ˈnā-shəs\persistent in maintaining, adhering to, or seeking something valued or desired

Recently, as I was reading through Philippians, I was struck by God's tenacity. He is tenacious with His beloved. He is persistent in loving us, shepherding us, correcting us, forgiving us, and sanctifying us because He values His children. What a tenacious God we have!

Philippians 1:6 says: "And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ."

God is at work in us. He has done, is doing, and will do amazing things in our hearts and lives because of the sacrifice of His Son, Jesus Christ. If I think about my own life, I can think of the way God called me to Himself, how he protected me in my youth by allowing me to be raised in a Christian home. He convicted me during my early 20s that I was not living a life that was truly humble and glorifying to Him. He has molded me and changed my heart and so many of my habits and characteristics over the past three years. Now He continues to teach me through His word, sharpen me through Godly friendships both old and new, and refine me through my marriage. And in the future, no matter what happens - good or bad - on this earth, He has promised to save me and glorify me for all eternity.

I can't recall exactly what I wrote about for my "tenacity" poem in 6th grade, but if I were to write a poem with this same vocabulary word now, surely I would write about my tenacious God.

Humble AND Gentle AND Patient AND Loving!?!?

I am reading Ephesians now. I'm making my way backward through GEPC (General Electric Power Company, God Eats Peanutbutter Cookies... yes, I know Peanut Butter is two words, but that is how my Young Life leader taught me... or just Galatians/Ephesians/Philippians/Colossians if you prefer to be traditional). I have been enjoying my time going through these books slowly, concentrating on just a few verses a day, and I have a bunch of posts on Philippians and Colossians partially written. I promise I will get them up soon.

But I thought for now, I would focus on today's reading, because today's reading helped me TODAY. Isn't is lovely how God's Word does just that? If we are faithful to read His Word, He is faithful to teach our hearts how to apply it. In Isaiah 55:11 it says: "For as the rain and the snow come down from heaven and do not return there but water the earth, making it bring forth and sprout, giving seed to the sower and bread to the eater so shall my word be that goes out from my mouth; it shall not return to me empty, but it shall accomplish that which I purpose, and shall succeed in the thing for which I sent it. His Word does not return to Him empty. I think sometimes we think this verse just applies to sharing the Gospel with unbelievers. We know that God is at work in people's hearts when we share His Word, whether or not we see results. But the same is true in our own lives. When we read the Word or hear the Word preached, God is at work. Just because I am already a Christian doesn't mean that God's Word has any less of an impact on my life. And today was the perfect example of that.

This morning I read the first part of Ephesians 4, which reads:
I therefore, a prisoner for the Lord, urge you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling to which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, eager to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. - Ephesians 4:1-3

Lately, I've been dwelling on this idea of living a life worthy of God's calling. Or at least I thought I had been dwelling on it, until today when my Bible footnotes convicted me of what a worthy life really looks like. The footnotes after this verse kindly pointed out that the life of one striving to love Christ will be marked by humility, gentleness, patience, and love for others DAILY.

Eeek. I happen to struggle quite a bit with some of those traits. Okay, all of them. Why can't it say be disciplined and generous (I'm far from perfect, but I feel like I have a better grasp on those two). But it doesn't say that. It says I should be humble AND gentle AND patient AND loving.  And it's not a grab bag. I can't work on being patient today and focus on loving tomorrow. We are called to be like Christ in His utter humility and His alluring gentleness AND His everlasting patience AND His undserved love EVERY day. Can you say "conviction?"

So I walked around campus today, thinking about this verse from time to time. (Because God, by His grace and power, was teaching my heart to meditate on His Word, even though I wasn't consciously choosing to do so....like I said His Word does not return to Him empty). And when I got home, God put me to the test. I went running after school and when I got back to our apartment around 5:30 I was hot and sweaty and anxious to jump in the shower. But I saw that Micah had just called me and seeing that it was his first day at a new job and we hadn't solidified our plans for the evening and he always gets on me for not answering my phone, I decided I should probably call him back. But my heart did not want to. Not because I didn't want to talk to him; I was very excited to hear about his first day on the job, but I didn't want to talk to him before I took a shower. I just wanted to take a shower and for him to come home while I was getting dinner started and then we could talk over dinner. That was my plan. It made sense. It was convenient. A phone call before showering was not convenient. But I called him anyway. However, I quickly became annoyed that we were talking on the phone when we could be talking in person in ten minutes, so I asked to get off the phone so I could jump in the shower. Even when I was off the phone, I felt myself annoyed. Annoyed that talking on the phone for five minutes delayed my shower for five minutes, which would undoubtedly delay dinner by five minutes which might throw off all our plans for the evening. Being way too transparent in my thought process right now... but that's what it was....controlling, selfish, sinful.

But then, thankfully, I remembered my verse. I took a deep breath and thought "I am supposed to be humble and gentle and patient and loving. I am pretty sure to be irritated when Micah gets home from his first day at a new job is the opposite of living a worthy life. It's funny (and sad) how I can get so upset over five minutes that don't go according to my plan. So I sucked it up and got over it. I welcomed Micah home with joy instead of frustration, because God is faithful to teach us how to apply His commands when we meet with Him and delve into learning His statues, His character, and His ways.