God’s Testimony

To me, outer space shouts the existence of a Creator. I wonder why He made it so vast? Is it the perfect balance to keep everything livable on earth? Is it there just so we can discover it? To keep things in perspective for us, or what? Perhaps it is a combination of all these things. I know it serves at least one purpose: to give us an undeniable proof of His existence.

The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament sheweth his handiwork. Day unto day uttereth speech, and night unto night sheweth knowledge. There is no speech nor language, where their voice is not heard. Psalm 19:1-3

No culture has ever escaped God’s testimony of Himself.

Agenda-driven fiction

Six months ago, I read a post about agenda-driven fiction. And I must say, I love what the author had to say.

As Christians, reaching others for Christ should be our only agenda. Our education, our career, our relationships, every decision we make should be weighed against what we are accomplishing for the kingdom. We don’t see many Christians today who are living a life exclusively for God. We get too wrapped up in ourselves, in our aspirations. A part of me envies the missionaries and others who are doing nothing but serving. I want to be a light in the darkness, but too many times, I want to do it on my own terms. Because I am only here for a short while, I want to meet my goals that I have laid out for myself. But since we do have such a short sojourn in this world, all the more reason we should be spending our time reaching others. How am I spending my time? What am I writing? Am I too busy writing what I imagine myself publishing in five or ten years? Something that I imagine will be admired by the world? Or should all of my writing material point to Christ? I agree with the writer of this post: if something that I write reaches just one person, the time I spent writing it will be worth more than anything I can earn writing a parade of best-sellers.

On Heaven:

I have a really grown-up vision of heaven. In my mind, it’s not a place where people sit around all day playing harps and walking along the riverfront in white robes. (Although, there may be some of that, if that’s what pleases you.) But in my mind, it’s a thriving, bustling community with things to do – things yet to learn – and our Heavenly Father at the center of everything. You see, after the old earth melts with a fervent heat, God is going to create a new one (II Peter 3:10-12, Revelation 21:1-2). Now as a child, I thought that we were all going to live up in the sky somewhere in a place called heaven for the rest of eternity – but I don’t believe that anymore. You see, the New Jerusalem will descend from heaven to the earth. God is preparing that city as we speak (John 14:2-3, Revelation 21:2), but its final home will be on the new earth. People will inhabit the earth as it was originally meant to be inhabited. Now, imagine the world today as though Eve had never sinned. Imagine what society would be like. All of the creativity, all of the discovery, all of interesting ideas and inventions that have turned up in the past six thousand years, only without being corrupted by sin. No really – close your eyes for a moment and just think about it…Yeah. That’s what I’m talking about. I used to be afraid that I would be bored, and not have anything to do or to learn. But then, as I came to know God better and understand Him more clearly, I realized that the desire to learn was created by Him and instilled in me. He knows it’s a good thing. And if, for some reason, he does take that away from us (in case we know everything already, which I don’t find desirable at all), He will replace that desire with something better, more compelling, more able to keep us entertained and interested throughout the eons of time.

On Death:

For years now, I’ve looked at it this way: Say you’re at work. It’s your last day of work for the rest of your life. Tomorrow, when you wake up, you will be a healthy, retired citizen with a bankroll that would make a millionaire jealous. Sounds appealing, right? Well, that’s where I am right now. In fact, if you are a Christian, that’s where you are too. We just have a few more years to go, and then…well, the rest! Heaven, and our Best Friend, and all the rest forever. Whenever I have a really bad day (whether it’s dealing with confrontational people or the loss of a loved one, or whatever), I like to remind myself of this: the time it’s going to take me to live the rest of my life on earth (be it seventy years or seventy minutes) won’t amount to a drop of water in the ocean of my life. I’m getting ready to retire! I can handle anything life throws at me because of that fact.

How to Cope with a Depressed Spouse, part 1

What you can do for yourself

You may love your spouse with every fiber of your being – or you may be to the point where you can’t stand the sight of him or her. On some days, you may even experience both of these emotions simultaneously. How can you live from day to day when someone else is affecting your happiness-factor?

The short answer: you can’t.

That is, you can’t allow someone else to affect your happiness-factor.

So what can you do for yourself?

Things that won’t work:

Society tells us to focus on ourselves, since we’re the only sure thing that we have. So maybe you’ve tried confiding in friends, or perhaps you’ve immersed yourself in a hobby. Others read, meditate, or otherwise seek out “me”-time. But why is it that none of these things seem to help alleviate stress?

In extreme situations, people often turn to drugs or alcohol, or even find themselves nursing dangerously intimate relationships with the opposite sex. Those are the sorts of things that will only serve to make their situations even worse. And they certainly aren’t being helpful to their spouses.

The number one thing you can do for yourself

Develop a relationship with our Creator. You know, the One who saw fit to place you on this earth in the first place. Search Him out, seek to understand His will, and talk to him daily. Tell Him how you really feel – don’t use fancy words or try speaking in old English; God understands what the word “you” means, so you can skip the “thees” and “thous.” Ask Him questions, and listen for an answer. You’ll be amazed at how often the answer seems to reveal itself upon asking. Base your happiness on the fact that you’re connected to the most loving, most powerful Being in the universe, and also upon the fact that you’ll get to leave all of this trouble behind when we finally reach eternity.

If you’re not a believer

At least do your research, and see what you find. It’s kind of silly to be an unbeliever just for the sake of being one. The same thing goes for believers. Know what you believe, but more importantly, know why you believe it. Beg God to reveal Himself to you, if He really exists – and He will.

I know He will because that’s what He did for me. But He didn’t hit me all at once with a “sign:” I just kept asking Him to help me find Him, to help me know which religion was the true one, and eventually, because I was talking to Him so much, I just sort of got to know Him. He speaks back to us through His Word, and in other small ways. He’s impossible to miss, if you’re truly looking.

You’ve tried everything else

Why not try Jesus? What have you got to lose?

Treasures of Healthy Living

Tuesday I finished Treasures of Healthy Living, written by Annette Reeder and Dr. Richard Couey, and I am so pleased to review it for you. When I received this book, I expected it to tell me all about healthy foods and how to improve my diet. Well, it did all of those things, but it is so much more than a book about food; it is a manual for living a well-balanced, all-‘round godly lifestyle.

Even though the book contains a twelve-week course intended for study groups, I read it in just a few days. Because I am already trying to eat better and exercise, the faster pace didn’t overwhelm me. Instead, I made notes to myself for later and implemented several changes immediately, such as: excluding unclean meats from my diet, making a conscious effort to purchase healthier animal products, laying down a plan for fasting, implementing scripture memory into my exercise routine, purchasing plants for home and office, taking greater care in food preparation and storage, becoming aware of the ingredients in topical lotions, cosmetics, etc, and intentionally increasing the happiness factor in my relationships. From this list, I don’t want you to get the idea that the book doesn’t cover food in-depth. It does! In fact, the first half contains information and ideas for eating food in the way it was designed to be eaten.

– I only had two issues with the book. First: references. I wish there had been more (mostly because I’m a newbie, and although many of the statements made in the text may be common knowledge for those who have been studying healthy living for a while, I would prefer to see more proof). I also would have liked for those references to be listed at the bottom of each page, instead of at the end of the book. Secondly, I wish that all of the scriptures had been printed in-full within the text. One non-issue: I expected the book to have recipes in it, but I discovered that it is basically a text-book/study-guide, and that recipes are included in a companion book that I will be ordering very soon. This was not an issue because the book was already long enough, and I am more than happy to order a separate recipe book, but I just thought I would throw that out there for those of you who may have had the same expectations.

If you want to find out more, check out the product page for this book. Or you can preview it here.

Note: In exchange for an honest review, the publisher provided a complimentary copy of this book through Glass Road Public Relations.

After All

I truly enjoyed reading After All by Deborah Raney. It tells the story of Susan Marlowe, a recently widowed woman who tries her best to run a homeless shelter in a town where nobody wants her shelter, or the “kinds” of people that it attracts. In the midst of it all is a fire chief who feels responsible for the death of Susan’s husband, a secret that her husband carried to the grave, and perhaps even a conspiracy.

This book was a pleasant read. I was touched by the emotional turmoil that Susan felt, dealing with her husband’s secret, her grown son, and her relationships with the fire chief and others. She truly seemed like a genuine woman trying to do her best for her community and family, while remaining true to herself and her ideals. This book does contain a love story, and it’s always a pleasure to read about new romance. I do think, however, that Susan should have been more careful in her choice of whom to date. In real life, things don’t always turn out as nicely as they do in books, and Christian women need to be extremely careful about men they hang out with. If he’s not a strong Christian leader, don’t get close enough to accidentally fall in love.

If you want to find out more, check out the product page for this book. Or you can preview it here.

Note: In exchange for an honest review, the publisher provided a complimentary copy of this book through Glass Road Public Relations.

River’s Call

River’s Call by Melody Carson tells the story of Anna, as she struggles to overcome the difficult relationships in her life. For years she has borne the verbal abuse of her former mother-in-law, Eunice, and she is currently trying to resolve the wedge that Eunice has driven between herself and her own daughter, Lauren. Things become even stickier when Anna discovers that Lauren is pregnant, and does not intend to keep the baby.

This book was a little different than the other book I have read by Melody Carlson. Personally, I enjoyed the set-up of the Diary of a Teenage Girl series, and it was hard for me to make the switch to a more conventional method of storytelling, especially since I knew that it was written by the same author. The writing wasn’t bad, but it just wasn’t as much fun! That being said, the book is heart-felt, and brings to into question many modern relationship problems, along with potential ways to resolve them. I did not always agree with the protagonists’ opinions – I happen to think that Anna should have taken her daughter in hand rather than let her figure things out for herself, and the feminist views of Anna’s new, more desirable mother-in-law, Hazel, got under my skin a bit. I don’t mean to be critical though, because everything else about the book was good! I enjoyed spending time on the river with Anna and her friends, and I will most likely read the other books in the series.

If you want to find out more, check out the product page for this book. Or you can preview it here.

Note: In exchange for an honest review, the publisher provided a complimentary copy of this book through Glass Road Public Relations.

Our Favorite Sins

Our Favorite Sins by Todd D. Hunter was written to help every sinner who is tired of his sinful lifestyle. Mr. Hunter addresses the fact that we commit the same sins over and over, and it’s difficult for us to get out of those ruts. Basically, we have trouble because we try to force ourselves to quit sinning, but we do nothing to address the desires that tempt us to sin again and again. If we could only steer our desires away from evil and toward goodness, it would be easier to just say “no.” We won’t fall into sin if we have no desire to commit that particular sin.

This was a great book for me to read. I would recommend it to all who find themselves falling for the same temptations again and again. All too often, we wander aimlessly through life, succeeding or failing to overcome temptation in a haphazard manner, without addressing the root of the problem. We neglect to ask ourselves which desires really drive us to temptation. In addition, we unknowingly nurture the desires that trip us up the most. For instance, if we are prone to sexual temptation, we read romance novels and watch romantic movies. These things just serve to enhance our desires, and will intensify the temptation to sin when it comes our way. If we are sick of our own sin, we need to make a concentrated effort to address our desires.

If you want to find out more, check out the product page for this book. Or you can preview it here.

Note: In exchange for an honest review, the publisher provided a complimentary copy of this book through BookSneeze®.

Post from the Past: Eve’s Mistake, My Mistake

Back in January, my pastor’s wife loaned me a book by Debi Pearl, titled Created to Be His Help Meet. I have been reading it on and off, and have enjoyed (almost) every word of it! I don’t read much for pleasure any more (too many other things to do!), so last night, I found myself about a third of the way through the book. It was about there that Mrs. Pearl began talking about the differences between Adam and Eve. As I was reading, I had a strange idea.

How many times have I blamed Eve for being so stupid and ruining everything? If it weren’t for her, I sometimes think, we would still be living on a perfect earth. She should have known better! God told Adam point-blank that death was the penalty for disobedience (Genesis 2:16-17). Why didn’t she believe Him?

But as I was reading the story again last night, in the context of thinking about obeying my husband perfectly, a new idea occurred to me. Every single time I rationalize concerning the Word of God, I make the same exact mistake that Eve made. Take, for instance, submission to my husband. Every time I think, “Well, God’s rule doesn’t apply in this situation,” I am allowing Satan to deceive me into questioning God.

The problem is thousands of years old: Eve didn’t respect God’s supreme authority, and it’s even possible that she didn’t trust God to follow through on His promise. She wanted what she wanted so badly, that she allowed Satan to deceive her into rationalizing. She willingly chose to be deceived.

God is God. This fact alone requires our obedience.

First of all, Eve should have been willing to obey God because He is God. Because He is the Creator. Because He makes the rules (or rule, in her case). He doesn’t have to explain Himself. We often don’t tell our children precisely why we ask them not to say certain words or act a certain way. Sometimes, the explanation wouldn’t be good for them, like when I asked my five-year-old not to go around holding hands with and hugging on other boys (he was making some of the older boys in choir uncomfortable). Sometimes, we need them to obey immediately, and we don’t have time to explain. And again, sometimes, we just want them to recognize our authority and to obey us just because our position demands it.  God required Eve’s obedience. He told Adam that the consequences of disobedience were death. I’ve always figured that Eve didn’t really believe that God would follow through on His promise. She certainly didn’t understand the gravity of her situation. She didn’t know about all the sorrow she would bring into the world. But should God have needed to tell her the exact consequences of disobedience before He asked her to obey? No.

Sometimes I think we forget that God created us for His own glory. He wants us to tell Him how wonderful He is. He wants us to tell Him what an awesome job He did when He created everything. And He wants us to obey Him to the letter. Because He is God. We don’t need another reason.

How do God’s rules benefit me?

However, we humans often don’t follow God implicitly unless we can see how it directly benefits us. Don’t ask me why – it shouldn’t make sense, but that’s the way we are. We are sinful. Even before Eve took her first bite, she decided that she would do what she perceived to be good for her, regardless of what her Creator, her Lord, demanded. She was led to believe that perhaps God didn’t have her best interest in mind.

Luckily for us, God never asks us to do anything that isn’t good for us. He is the epitome of goodness and intelligence. He doesn’t make rules for the mere sake of placing restrictions on us, but for our own benefit. If you read through the books of Exodus and Leviticus, you will find that God made a great many rules and placed a great many restrictions on His people, and He didn’t always explain why. My husband and I aren’t Jewish, but when our son was born, we had him circumcised on the eighth day, just as God had commanded the Israelites. Now, we weren’t convicted to do so, and He never commanded Gentiles to do so, but we figured He must have had a legitimate reason for creating a rule about it to begin with. We found out a couple years later that blood clotting is at its peak on the eighth day of life. What I’m trying to illustrate is: we don’t have to understand why God has asked us to do (or not to do) something. We need to just trust that He knows best, and that all of His intentions are good ones. When I fail to obey Him, I fail to trust Him.

Application

The difficulties begin when we start applying His commandments to our own lives. If we were to trust God completely, our lives as we know them would be turned upside down. Even Christians fail to trust God when doing so gets between them and the things they really want to do. The more wrapped up we are in the lifestyles and perceptions of our day, the harder it is to let go of our own desires and understanding, and trust God with everything.

Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.

Proverbs 3:5

Here are some potentially life-changing applications, should we decide to obey God to the letter:

Be Careful What You Watch on Television

Being filled with all unrighteousness, fornication, wickedness, covetousness, maliciousness; full of envy, murder, debate, deceit, malignity; whisperers,

Backbiters, haters of God, despiteful, proud, boasters, inventors of evil things, disobedient to parents,

Without understanding, covenantbreakers, without natural affection, implacable, unmerciful:

Who knowing the judgment of God, that they which commit such things are worthy of death, not only do the same, but have pleasure in them that do them.

Romans 1:29-32

Finally, brethren, whatsoever things are true, whatsoever things are honest, whatsoever things are just, whatsoever things are pure, whatsoever things are lovely, whatsoever things are of good report; if there be any virtue, and if there be any praise, think on these things.

Philippians 4:8

Submission to Authority

Honour thy father and mother; which is the first commandment with promise;

Ephesians 6:2

Wives, submit yourselves unto your own husbands, as unto the Lord.

Ephesians 5:22

Does God tell wives to submit to their husbands, except when the husbands are wrong? Does he tell wives to submit unless the husbands are unsaved? No! In fact, he tells wives that their unsaved husbands can come to salvation through observing their wives’ submission in the fear of God. The only time we should not obey authority is when we are commanded to do something contrary to the Word of God. Period.

Let every soul be subject unto the higher powers. For there is no power but of God: the powers that be are ordained of God.

Romans 13:1

For me, this verse even means paying taxes on every penny and obeying the speed limits. This may be common sense for a lot of people, but I also know many, many Christians who are more of the “civil disobedience” type.

Gossip

And withal they learn to be idle, wandering about from house to house; and not only idle, but tattlers also and busybodies, speaking things which they ought not.

I Timothy 5:13

Caring for Others

Pure religion and undefiled before God and the Father is this, To visit the fatherless and widows in their affliction, and to keep himself unspotted from the world.

James 1:27

He that hath pity on the poor lendeth unto the Lord; and that which he hath given will he pay him again.

Proverbs 19:17

Withhold not good from them to whom it is due, when it is in the power of thine hand to do it.

Proverbs 3:27

Resisting Worldliness and Conformity

And be not conformed to this world: but be ye transformed by the renewing of your mind, that ye may prove what is that good, and acceptable, and perfect, will of God.

Romans 12:2

Church Attendance

Not forsaking the assembling of ourselves together, as the manner of some is; but exhorting one another: and so much the more, as ye see the day approaching.

Hebrews 10:25

What about Old Testament Laws?

Even though we are no longer under Old Testament laws, I maintain that many of them were instituted for our own good, and certainly won’t hurt us. In the following verse, God practically dares us to trust Him with our finances.

Bring ye all the tithes into the storehouse, that there may be meat in mine house, and prove me now herewith, saith the Lord of hosts, if I will not open you the windows of heaven, and pour you out a blessing, that there shall not be room enough to receive it.

Malachi 3:10

Tithing is good for the Kingdom. It supports those who have devoted their entire lives to reaching others for Christ. It is good for us, too. By tithing, we prove our trust in God, which, when God blesses us in return, helps to increase our faith.

Keeping the Sabbath is also good for us.

And he said unto them, The Sabbath was made for man, and not man for the Sabbath.

Mark 2:27

Have we never stopped to consider that it is good for us, emotionally, spiritually, and physically to actually rest from working once a week?

Rationalization Is Our Warning Signal

I would venture to say that anytime we find ourselves rationalizing, we should stop in our tracks and do the opposite of what it is that we are wanting to do. Rationalization is the signal to stop and ask ourselves if we are trusting God, and to try to figure out what our motivations really are. If we have to rationalize, we already know what we should be doing, but we don’t want to do it. We are trying to find a way around it without hurting our consciences. We set ourselves up as God, and think: In this situation, I can see what’s best for me. For some reason, God’s rules only apply to our situations when we want them to. Any other time, we can find ways around them. That’s not respect at all! How would you feel if your teenagers treated you that way? My friends used to tell me, “It’s easier to apologize than to ask permission.” But if you know ahead of time that you are going to be apologizing later, then you already know it’s wrong. It’s a sin to dishonor your parents, husband, or God by doing anything that you suspect will garner their disapproval.

And we know that all things work together for good to them that love God, to them who are the called according to his purpose. Romans 8:28

Do you believe that? Do you believe it enough to trust God to the point of obeying Him in all situations? That your situation isn’t the exception to the rule? Maybe God didn’t see this coming? Maybe it can’t work out by doing it His way; it will only work out if you do what you think is best? Since when is your wisdom greater than God’s? Will you be brave enough to present these arguments before God when He asks why you disobeyed? I know the answer.

Can you think of any more areas of life in which we can apply this concept? I’m sure there are many, many more!