Where Your Heart Is

My heart broke with Ann's as she recapped her feelings following a week in Haiti.

Anger, shame, disbelief.

When you see, smell, and hug abject poverty first hand, all these emotions spill.

God wants you changed and he drags you through the worst slums so you can come closer to choosing Him over your own comfort.

That is the choice, really.

Sure, you can start out with $38 a month--an amount to sponsor one child. An amount you barely notice.

But then, if you so dare, God will change you at the core. He will mold your heart so your very beats match His...for nothing gives the God of the Universe more pleasure. This is happening to our dear Ann.

Do you want the same heart? Or is it too scary?

Luke 12:48
From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.

Ann is angry that she still has a desire to pin the latest pretty thing on Pinterest, after all she's seen. Angry that she still loves comforts.

And yet she sees her choice clearly and there's no turning back. More and more, she and her family are choosing God over comfort. Giving over receiving. Being the blessing, instead of spending the blessing.

The first step in saying yes to God's heart is to allow yourself to drink in abject poverty. Absorb it with your eyes, your intellect. Don't avoid that story, that image...anything that jerks you awake. Let yourself wake up to God and His will.


God didn't allow rich and poor so that some go hungry and others grow fat. He allows the disparity to give us a chance. A chance to love radically, like He did on the tree.

That is His desire for every believer's life. That we would love radically. Love is our destiny.

And yet, He doesn't want us to share out of guilt, but with a cheerful heart. A heart that pumps gratitude, along with blood. A daily thanks-living for the gift of Grace.

As much as Ann's post broke me, my heart loved getting this photo in the mail from Raphael, our correspondent child from Burkina Faso. It pictures his mother, his baby brother, and food supplies they bought, along with details about roofs for their room and some clothes. We had some money given to us in February and now, Raphael has a roof that doesn't leak!  (He also has another sibling and his father in his home, but they must have been unavailable for the photo). 

It takes so little to change so much. Won't you be a part of the change? Won't you free yourself from comfort, so that God becomes really, really enough?

Luke 12:34
For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.

An Open Letter to Unhappy Christian Wives

Dear Unhappy,

I want to express my sorrow about your marriage grief. Grappling with complicated relationship issues can be so overwhelming. Please enlist people to earnestly pray for you.

I believe in the Body of Christ concept that we are all One Body. When one person in the Body suffers, the whole Body suffers. Because of this fellow believers need to rally around hurting members and lead them to the Healer, who has all the answers. I pray these words will reveal what God wants for you and for your family.

I understand that in response to your sorrow, the D word has entered your life. The question of divorce is heart wrenching but surprisingly uncomplicated, from a Christian perspective. This is due to the very narrow allowances in scripture for divorce. God tells us for our own good, and for the good of the Body of Believers, that we mustn't get divorced except in cases of adultery, or when an unbelieving spouse abandons a believing spouse. See http://carm.org/what-does-bible-teach-about-divorce for the relevant scriptural references and for questions regarding remarriage.

If neither of these--adultery or abandonment--apply to your marriage, you cannot get divorced without disobeying God, though if you are being abused and are unsafe in your home, leave the premises as soon as possible. Physical distance from the abuser is extremely important.

If you choose to disobey God and pursue a non-biblical divorce, you must weigh the consequences for you, your children, and your husband. God will surely forgive you if you sincerely seek his forgiveness at some future time, but you must be truly sorry for having left your marriage union, and as part of heartfelt repentance, you must seek reconciliation with your spouse, if he has not yet remarried. At the very least, you must seek your former spouse's forgiveness.

Also, scripture does not allow for you to remarry. If you try to seek a relationship with a sincere, growing Christian man, he will want to know the circumstances surrounding your divorce. If it wasn't biblical, only a marginal Christian man would be interested in pursuing the relationship. A mature Christian man would not seek to defy God.

Secondly, you will complicate the developing faith of your children (and your husband's faith, if he has any), as they watch you defy God and try to make your own way in the world. When we disobey God we are stepping outside of His protection--essentially saying we know more than the God of the Universe does. We can handle our problems better than He can. 

That all sounds overwhelming, doesn't it? No one increases their personal peace through non-biblical divorce. Many people will be spiritually hurt by the divorce and possibly for generations, it will spiritually stain your family. Children of divorced parents are more likely to get divorced themselves, and second marriages are far less successful than first marriages (80% divorce rate, compared with 50% for first marriages), especially in the cases of non-biblical divorces from the first spouse.

What would be better than divorce? Making Jesus your Lord. This means he runs all aspects of your life, and you live for him and serve him, out of an overwhelming gratitude and love for Him and what he has done for you. If you have lost touch with that radical love for Jesus Christ, pray that God will renew the fire in your heart. 

When you live with a non-believer or with a person who doesn't pursue a relationship with God, it can easily drag you down spiritually. You need to be very diligent to keep the fire in your heart alive, by reading your Bible and praying regularly. Every time we open our Bible or pray to God, it renews a relationship. It nurtures and protects a beautiful bond. When we neglect that time with God, Satan gains a foothold in our lives.

Divorce is Satan's most successful tactic. Over time, it can destroy a society. Satan breeds discontent in the hearts of believers and the discontent leads to sin. If the believer doesn't put a halt to the discontent and embrace thankfulness instead, Satan wins. 

When you accepted Jesus as your Savior, you became his. He paid the ransom for us--he brought us--and if we never receive another blessing at all, we have enough. God is enough. Eternity is enough. When we deceive ourselves into thinking otherwise, great pain is in store for us. 

Every wife has a laundry list of things she doesn't like about her husband. Every husband has the same. Many of the items can be heartrendingly difficult to endure, without Jesus as Lord. But as in all hardship, we must remember that the Christian life has never been about us or about our happiness. It is about serving Him and bringing Him glory. By enduring hardship in a god-honoring way, we bring glory to Him. In fact, how we endure hardship defines us as Christians. 

When we set our minds on the things of the Spirit (keep our eyes fixated on God), whether we are happy or not on a daily basis becomes irrelevant, as it did for the Apostle Paul when he was in prison.

Romans 8:5-8 For those who live according to the flesh set their minds on the things of the flesh, but those who live according to the Spirit set their minds on the things of the Spirit. For to set the mind on the flesh is death, but to set the mind on the Spirit is life and peace. For the mind that is set on the flesh is hostile to God, for it does not submit to God's law; indeed, it cannot. Those who are in the flesh cannot please God. 

For more on what the bible says about hardship and sacrifices, see this http://www.openbible.info/topics/sacrifices_and_hardship

I urge you to start a thankfulness list for your life in general, not just for your marriage. Satan hates thankfulness but God loves it. We are told many places in scripture to live with a thankful heart...even when circumstances are less than ideal.

1 Thessolonians 5:18  give thanks in all circumstances, for this is God's will for you in Christ Jesus.

You will find that a heart of thankfulness will increase your marriage happiness many fold. You will concentrate not on what's wrong with your spouse, but on all that's right. Eventually, if you commit to having a grateful heart, all the reasons you wanted to seek a divorce will pass away in importance. 

Rest assured that if you make Jesus your Lord and develop a grateful heart, He will diligently work behind the scenes, creating beauty from ashes. Your own heart, devoted to the Lord, will win your husband over. Nagging makes most people dig their heals in deeper rather than change, because as human beings, we seek unconditional love. It's only when we feel unconditionally loved that we give our best to others. 

Give your husband the gift of unconditional love, for it is the same gift your Father gave you. Jesus loved us sacrificially and this is the same love he requires from us, for our fellow man. 

The Bible tells men to love their wives, but it tells women to respect their husbands. Men need to feel respected, more than loved. I think it's accurate to say that respect is love, from their perspective. It is part of the way God created them. When we nag or complain, we are not showing respect and it hurts a man at his core. 

So, giving a man a list and asking him to change is the worst thing we can do. Also, it is arrogant, since we are all sinners and we all need to change. We will never be all that a spouse wants. We can't be. And no spouse can meet all of our needs, which is why we need personal relationships with God, the ultimate and perfect Lover of our souls. Our marriage relationship can't define us. Our relationship with God defines us. 

Change starts in our own hearts and with our own humility, especially in the context of marriage. If we set our gaze on God and on His purposes, the overwhelming peace emanating from us will be contagious, and all in our midst, including our spouse, will want what we have. The Bible tells us we win over a wayward husband by the reverence of our lives. And what is complaining and putting conditions on our love and devotion? Is it reverent?

I'm not saying you shouldn't lovingly pursue conversations about marriage issues, but they should never be associated with the D word (divorce). Throwing the D word around is akin to bullying one's spouse. To be fully engaged and committed, each spouse needs assurance that the other spouse is in the marriage for life. This level of commitment is essential for the health of any marriage. 

All issues should be committed to prayer before being discussed with the spouse. The prayer will reveal, over time, how to approach the spouse about the issue, and it will prepare the spouse's heart to receive feedback about the issue. Let prayer guide your marriage entirely. For prayer is your communication with the Holy Spirit (and to a lesser extent, your time reading the Bible is too). Reading the Bible reveals God's heart to you, and praying helps make God's heart personal to you and your needs. You will know God's perfect and pleasing will, through your prayer time and your reading time.

Again, I express my sorrow about what you are going through. I pray these words will point you to the Healer. To your first Love. May God richly bless you, your family, and your legacy.

My Own Thankfulness List:

- a beautiful time with Christian friends

- a marriage molded by grace

- a dinner invitation given to a neighbor

- the radical nature of Christ's love 

- that change always starts with us

- a hernia surgery scheduled for next week and no money required up front

- a son practicing piano

- dancing daughters

- the Chronicles of Narnia series

- dinner time with my family

- the meat, milk, eggs, bread prices at Aldi's

- the power of the Word 

- 4 days of caring for babies at VBS this week

- my children's contagious excitement about VBS

- Miss Beth's first time at VBS 

To read about the outcome of this letter for the person I wrote it to, click: Unhappy Christian Wives, Part 2

Another helpful post: 3 Christian Marriage Essentials

The Body of Christ, Part 2

agapegeek.com

Today I present Part 2 of my Body of Christ series. Before I get into a practical discussion of our function within the Body, I want to lay some Biblical goundwork for the Body of Christ concept. This will be the heavier reading but please plow through for me, until we get to Part 3?

The Church, referred to in the Bible as the Bride of Christ and the Body of Christ, is made up of all people who've been born again through faith in Jesus' blood. You may live near and work with people from different denominations, but if you're all born again, you are part of the Body of Christ. 

1 Corinthians 12:12-14
Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. Even so the body is not made up of one part but of many.

Last year I did a study on the Lord's Prayer and we learned that the beginning words "our father" were used for a purpose; we're not individuals, but members of One Body, and we're to pray and act as such. 

From a previous post: The Lord's Prayer, Vol. 1 Both the words Father and Our point to a familial relationship. When we become a Christian we are grafted into the Body of Christ (the Body of Believers).  We are brethren to one another and God is our Father.  It's important to regard our membership in the Body seriously, for it carries a responsibility. We must always be looking and working toward the good of the Body, our Brethren.

Philippians 2:4 Each of you should look not only to your own interests, but also to the interests of others.

Mark 12:31 The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

For example, when we sin, it not only harms us, but the whole body.  We are not to be individual operators, but rather, operate as a cooperative body--spending time in fellowship with one another, praying for and with one another, helping one another in need, building each other up, admonishing in love when necessary.

What does Christ want his Bride (The Church) to be like? Ephesians 5:25-27 describes us as "without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.

Revelation 19:7-9 tells us we will be "clothed in fine linen, bright and pure--for the fine linen is the righteous deeds of the saints."

How is the Body of Christ to operate and care for itself? Scripture points to a number of ways, but mainly we must 1) meet together 2) serve, love, and pray for each other 3) hold one another accountable 4) dedicate ourselves, as One Body, to Christ.

1) We must meet together:  We know from Hebrews 10:24-25 that we are to "spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together."

Hebrews 10:24-25

And let us consider how we may spur one another on toward love and good deeds, not giving up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but encouraging one another—and all the more as you see the Day approaching.

2) We must serve, love, and pray for one another. Each member has gifts to contribute to build up the Body:

Mark 12:31 The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.' There is no commandment greater than these."

Ephesians 4:11-12  “So Christ himself gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the pastors and teachers, to equip his people for works of service, so that the body of Christ may be built up.” 

Ephesians 4:16 
From whom the whole body, joined and held together by every joint with which it is equipped, when each part is working properly, makes the body grow so that it builds itself up in love.

James 5:16
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

Here you can take a spiritual gifts inventory to find out what your spiritual gifts are, taken from this widely accepted list:

Administration:  The ability to organize resources and persons for effective ministry.

Community Builder (Apostleship): The ability to help create koinonia, that unique type of inclusive fellowship which characterized the early Christian church.

Discernment: The ability to recognize and to affirm the skills, talents, and spiritual gifts of other people, especially other Christians.

Evangelism: The capacity to discern when and how the Gospel message should be communicated to persons outside the Christian community.

Exhortation: The capacity to inspire, to motivate, and to encourage others in their spiritual formation and personal ministry.

Faith: It is the special gift whereby the Spirit provides Christians with extraordinary confidence in God's promises, power, and presence so that they can take heroic stands for their future of God's work in the church.

Giving: The capacity to manage one's own resources (income, time, energy, skills, and gifts) in such a way that there is more than enough to share with other people.

Hospitality: The ability to meet the basic social needs of and to extend care to persons (strangers) beyond one's immediate circle of friends.

Knowledge: The capacity to cognitively comprehend the complexities of God's Truth and to explain these complexities to others.

Leadership: The ability to understand one's own principles and vision, to communicate those principles and vision to others, and to challenge others to move into the future, all in a non-reactive way.

Mercy: The ability to identify with and to feel the pains and hurts of another person and the capacity to help that person move beyond those pains and hurts.

Prophecy: The capacity to receive, to reveal, or to interpret God's Truth, publicly, no matter what the consequences or risks.

Shepherding/ Mentoring:  The ability to affirm, to equip, and to support other Christians in spiritual formation and Christian ministry.

Helps/Service: The ability and overwhelming desire to aid persons in need. The ability to perform the most basic acts of kindness as a means to glorify God and to embody the Gospel.

Teaching: The capacity to create an environment in which obedience to God's Truth can be practiced.

Wisdom: The capacity to convincingly illustrate the mystery of God's Truth in very concrete, practical, and specific ways.

3) We must be accountable to one another.

We mustn't associate accountability with confrontation, for accountability is essential to us in our infirmities. The verses I've listed below admonish us to:  help our friends when they fall; defend each other; teach and admonish each other; submit to one another; be truthful with one another; confess our sins to each other; and pray for each other.

Ecclesiastes 4:10 
If one falls down, his friend can help him up. But pity the man who falls and has no one to help him up!

Ecclesiastes 4:12
Though one may be overpowered, two can defend themselves. A cord of three strands is not quickly broken. 

Colossians 3:16
Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly as you teach and admonish one another with all wisdom, and as you sing psalms, hymns and spiritual songs with gratitude in your hearts to God. 

Ephesians 5:21
Submit to one another out of reverence for Christ.

Colossians 3:9-10

Do not lie to each other, since you have taken off your old self with its practices and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge in the image of its Creator. 

James 5:16
Therefore confess your sins to each other and pray for each other so that you may be healed. The prayer of a righteous person is powerful and effective.

4) We must dedicate ourselves, as one Body, to Christ: 

Romans 12:1-2
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices (to give up your pursuits as an individual, and live as One), holy and pleasing to God--this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is--his good, pleasing and perfect will. 

That Weird Header Photo

Okay, so I wrote a post earlier today telling you that I had more to share about the Body of Christ. As a header for that post I chose a picture of a puzzle and I previewed the post before publishing it. It published fine with the photo I wanted. But when I got back into my blog later, a completely different photo existed at the top of my post. A weird, completely unfitting photo. Sorry about that and I have no idea how it happened. I published the post again, this time with no photo at all.

Just wanted ya'll to know I'm not crazy! Most days, anyway.

The Body of Christ, Part 1

My last post, Are You Isolated From the Body of Christ?, asked these questions:


How does the Body of Christ share burdens it doesn't understand? How can we make ourselves vulnerable, when we know understanding isn't there? Can we just share our neighbors' burdens in love, but never really put ourselves out there?


I contemplated this while I washed dishes, folded laundry, and drove my Beth to physical therapy. What's expected of me...of all of us...Lord? What should the Body of Christ look like, practically speaking?


No answer came, until I got back from physical therapy. 


Picture it, my three year old is having a fit as I carry her into the house, crying because swim therapy on Tuesdays and gym therapy on Wednesdays is a lot for her atrophied but starting-to-revive muscles. She's exhausted and irrational and I'm hot and headachy from a 28-minute van ride sans air conditioning.


My husband has a special arrangement to go into work at 5:30 AM on Wednesdays so he can come home for a few hours and watch the other children while Beth does her Wednesday session. Tuesdays I bring them all with me.


So husband's home when I get Beth into the house, but he's rushing to get on the road to his second job. He quickly informs me that the secretary at his church job mentioned today that she may lose her insurance soon because she and her husband "might have to get divorced". 


Concerned, he took the liberty to tell her that his wife saved a marriage recently by writing both parties a letter, and maybe I could help her? 


Husband doesn't know the issues but asked me if I would call her and talk with her about the issues? 

Talking on the phone with strangers who are not from utility companies and insurance companies and doctor's offices, always panics me because I'm shy. My three year old is still fitting and needs lunch and my husband's old friend Jim and his wife are supposed to stop by tomorrow on the way to Yellowstone, so the house needs to be in nice shape before Thursday afternoon.


Don't I already have my hands full and how I do find the time to help this woman? And who says she even wants help? Casually mentioning she may have to get divorced is not necessarily a plea for help.


But none of this actually made it out of my mouth because the Holy Spirit suddenly gave me a beautiful picture of what the Body of Christ should look like. And all my objections melted away and as I carried my three year old to the couch to nurse her and calm her down. 


I said to my husband, "I will do what I can to help, but remember I'm a writer not a talker. I never could have helped the other couple outside of a letter."


How it will work with the secretary and her husband, I don't know. But I have a clearer picture of the Body of Christ to share with you...later this week.


Please join me?