Monthly Archives: February 2015

Jonathan Edwards: Living for the Glory of God and Family Bible Time…

10 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by in Boasting in Weaknesses, Call to the Cross, Edification, Encouragement, Jonathan Edwards, Reformed Theology, Testimony, The Believing 21st Centruy American Woman, The Glory of God

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For several years now, my husband and I have been meeting with our kids for Bible Study on Monday nights. I take the girls and we have a “Ladies Theological Society Meeting” -complete with Bible Study, prayer, and chocolate. And, my husband takes the boys to another room in the house, and does “Men for the Lord” (which, by the way, was quite an undertaking for those years when some of Dan’s ‘mighty-men’ were still in feety-pajamas and needed to be in bed by 8:00 PM). Anyways, I share this about our home study time with the kids, because Jonathan Edwards’ Resolutions are a regular part of study time with my girls. We have read the Resolutions together, talked about them, and prayed over some of them for each other. Last week, one of my girls asked me to pray that she would be like Jonathan Edwards- that she would be resolved to live her whole life for the honor of the Lord. It’s for this reason that I decided to post Jonathan Edwards’ first resolution. I figured that maybe some one would read it- and (just like my girls and I have begun to do) catch the passion and intensity of Jonathan Edwards’ intentionality in living for the glory of God!

Resolved, That I will do whatsoever I think to be most to the glory of God, and my own good, profit, and pleasure, in the whole of my duration; without any consideration of the time, whether now, or never so many myriads of ages hence. Resolved, to do whatever I think to be my duty, and most for the good and advantage of mankind in general. Resolved, so to do, whatever difficulties I meet with, how many soever, and how great soever.

One more thing! Here is a link to the Christian Classics Ethereal Library where you can read all 70 of Jonathan Edwards’ life changing Resolutions for free. http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/works1.i.iii.html

 

Video

Ragamuffin: A Great Movie about Rich Mullins and His Music

07 Saturday Feb 2015

Posted by in Music

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Saw this movie- Ragamuffin– recently. It is about the life of Rich Mullins. I loved it. Now,  I am not a huge movie person- but I love music. So a movie about Rich Mullins, one of my favorite Christian artists, entertained me- and it moved me. I never knew how he suffered emotionally and relationally (two forms of suffering I can honestly identify with), and I never knew what grace was his in Christ.

After watching the movie- I began to think that, perhaps, the Lord had used Rich’s music to start to prepare my soul for more of a reformed understanding of the sovereignty of God. I have been listening to him since I was 12 years old, even before I knew the Lord. It is a deep movie- it has “thematic elements”- but I liked it. I’ve posted the trailer below. As for the song- it is one of my favorite Rich Mullins pieces: The Love of God.

Happy Saturday.

 

Using Social Media to Get an Education About Yourself

05 Thursday Feb 2015

Posted by in Boasting in Weaknesses, Call to the Cross, Chastity, Confession of Sin, Edification, Education, Encouragement, The Believing 21st Centruy American Woman

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A while back, I began reading The Well-Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had by Susan Wise Bauer.  In the first chapter of the book, she talks about the importance of keeping a record of self-education- of writing down important ideas, truths, thoughts, or anything else that the self-educating person may want to remember.

She calls this record a  “Journal of Self-Education” (that makes sense), and she compares it to something called a “Common-Place Book,” which was apparently a 19th and 20th century “...loose-leaf or bound blank book in which readers copied down quotes and snippets that they wanted to remember.” † Through out the last year I have thought about how this blog is essentially my “journal of self-education”- it’s just a 21st Century American version of the olden time common-place book. For, I pretty much post quotes, ideas, truths, thoughts, songs, sermons, sermon-jams, epiphanies (that’s a scary thought), links, and other forms of “mental fodder” that have been helpful to me in my walk with Christ. So in a way, my blog is my “journal of self-education”- it is my “common-place book.” Granted, it isn’t a loose-leaf or bound blank book, and anybody in the world can read it, add to it, comment on it, or think about what I post- but it is a record of “…quotes and snippets…” that I want to remember.

Anyways, as I thought about this recently- I was thinking that, in a way, Face-book, Twitter, Linked-In, and all the other modern social-media outlets that I use are kind of like the same thing. I don’t always think about my emails, my instant-messaging, my tweets, my linked-in account, and  my news-feed- which, by the way, I always share with my husband (HINT, HINT) as my journal, at least not like the journal that I keep at my bedside and share my “deepest-secrets” with (joking). But, in essence that is what social media does- it records what really matters to me, who really matters to me, attitudes that I have had, and the beliefs that I hold to be true. Taken collectively, these accounts are, in reality, a running journal of my daily life.

So, it follows that if I want to do a self-inventory- get an honest look at what has mattered to me, who has mattered to me, and what I really believe- (and, not just what I tell myself that I believe) – I can review my social-media accounts. And, although I never intended to use social media as my “Journal of Self-Education”- in so doing- I might just find that I get quite an “Education about Myself.”

 I suppose this could be true for all of us.

†Bauer, S. Wise, The Well- Educated Mind: A Guide to the Classical Education You Never Had. New York: W.W. Norton and Company, INC., 2003. p. 35.

Take the Arrogance Test with Todd Friel

04 Wednesday Feb 2015

Posted by in Christian Love, Confession of Sin, Edification, Repentance, Sin, The Believing 21st Centruy American Woman, Wretched/Todd Friel

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It has been a while since I posted anything from Wretched.  The other day I came across the “Arrogance Test,” administered by Todd Friel. I found it to be wonderfully convicting, yet slightly entertaining in a Todd Friel-ish-edgy-sin-exposing sort of way (if you know what I mean). As for me, I’m glad I spent three minutes and fifty-five seconds of my life taking this test- it helped me see an area of my soul that needs a little mortification; that is, a little more sin-killing-effort. So I figured, “Why not spread the love?” If you like it, there is a link to Wretched on my blog. You can find it by scrolling down and looking to your reading left.

Please Lord, Keep Me from the “Temptations of the Table”

03 Tuesday Feb 2015

Posted by in Edification, Encouragement, On Prayer, The Believing 21st Centruy American Woman, William Wilberforce

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Shortly after  Wilberforce’s conversion to Christ, he felt the call of God on his life. He believed that the Lord was calling him to lead England in social reform- chiefly by ending the British involvement with the slave trade. To this end, he invested over thirty years of his life, and in so doing, became one of the most influential social reformers that Britain ever knew.

What is of particular interest to me concerning Wilberforce is how he viewed what he termed as the  “temptations of the table,” how he viewed “...dinner parties filled with vain and useless conversation.” In one  journal entry, he wrote that dinner parties “…disqualify me for every useful purpose in life, waste my time, impair my health, fill my mind with thoughts of resistance before and self-condemnation afterwards.” Apparently, Wilberforce had a singular life focus- his calling to end slavery- and in his effort to fulfill that call, he was sensitive to the many temptations and diversions that accompanied the affluence in which he lived.

Wilberforce’s singularity of purpose and his sensitivity to the allurements of the flesh are very instructive to me. First, his singularity of mind and purpose teaches me that I must foster a singularity of mind and purpose in my service to Christ. I have to train my self to embrace the call of Christ to do all that I do for the glory of God. In a like manner, Wilberforce’s sensitivity- to those things in his life that threatened his singularity of mind and purpose -challenges me to carefully evaluate the distractions and temptations in my own life; those things which threaten my own singularity of mind and purpose in my service to God. Certainly, I must be careful not to fall into “vain and useless conversation” or anything else that would could somehow “…disqualify me for every useful purpose in life, waste my time, impair my health…” and/or “…fill my mind with thoughts of resistance before and self-condemnation afterwards.”

To this end, my prayer is that the Lord will grant me both singularity and sensitivity, as He granted to William Wilberforce. In other words, my prayer is that the Lord will keep me from the “temptations of the table.”