TRUE WORSHIP AND THE WORD

(Transcripted from presentation at ALCF Mom's Time Out; April 25, 2013)

In today’s teaching, it’s my intention to narrow my focus to how essential a thorough knowledge of the Word is to being a “true worshipper” of God.

Jesus said: “Yet a time is coming, and has now come, when the true worshippers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshippers the Father seeks. God is a spirit, and His worshippers must worship in spirit and in truth.” (John 4:23-24)

These words were spoken to a Samaritan woman Jesus had met while seated at a well in her village. The two of them got to talking, as people will, and Jesus was helpfully attempting to clear-up some misconceptions she had about the sort of worship God desires.

This woman’s people, the Samaritans, were a half-Jewish/half-Caananite community, who tried to worship God through a religious amalgam of the folk traditions of both cultures. Without much access to scripture, over time they had gotten way off-base in their practices and understanding of the Lord. They were worshipping on the wrong mountain, with the wrong priests, and the wrong offerings. As a result, their worship, though well-intentioned, was unacceptable to God.

In some ways, the Samaritan religion was rather like Islamic beliefs in that they featured pretty much the same cast of characters (e.g., God, Moses, Abraham, angels, etc.), but their vision of who God is and what He wants was completely torqued by their ignorance of scripture. The Samaritans were therefore doing what seemed right in their own eyes. They were worshipping not according to the revealed truth of scripture, but practicing their own brand of folk religion.

Unfortunately, there still remains a great deal of what I call “folk Christianity” related to what constitutes true worship. Anyone familiar with the whole Word of God will recognize this truth. The evil one is well aware of it, too. Since he knows scripture well, he realizes their importance in producing true worship. Therefore, he makes sure to keep Christians overly distracted and busy, busy, busy with volunteering, choir practices, serving, going to seminars, and reading Christian books, so that they don’t have time to spend reading their Bibles.

The goal of the evil one is to prevent Christians from knowing the heart of their King; but in truth, the Word is the very heart and mind of the Lord God.

I think we are all aware that we are in a daily spiritual battle. If you belong to God, you are a Soldier of the Cross. We are often under attack by the evil one, but even more frequently, our efforts at holiness are attacked by our own fallen flesh. To illustrate our predicament, and particularly that of a church-going Christian who does not read the Word of God for herself, I would like to offer you this metaphor:

Imagine yourself as a soldier on the battlefield who has just sustained a severe wound and been knocked-out. When you come to, you feel weak and cold. Shock is setting in. Several major arteries in your body have been severed and you are experiencing a tremendous loss of blood, yet by some miracle, you are still alive.

To your immense relief, you see your buddies racing toward you with a medic. They kneel beside you, tucking blankets around you snugly to counter the effects of shock. They bandage strategic places to bind your wounds. Unfortunately, they are not equipped to give you a much needed transfusion of strength-giving blood, so they offer you Gatoraide, help you to your feet, and send you to back to the battle.

You’ll manage, right?

And you do manage – just. You survive, but you remain very weak and pale, with your health undercut for years and years. Your condition is nowhere near the vibrant, effective warrior for which you had such potential.

In my metaphor, the buddies are the fellowship of believers in the church. The medic represents the good pastors and teachers who sacrificially give us the very best care they can. The strength-infusing transfusion the soldier needs is the Word of God, and therefore, the Gatoraide represents a sermon.

While the comfort and care of our brothers and sisters in Christ is very needful and a valid part of God’s master plan for Christian life, merely listening to teaching, even while it might be very pithy, is just a bandaid, not the cure for the blows sustained in our daily spiritual battles. By saying this, I am only attempting to point out that if we don’t get a direct infusion of the Word -- as opposed to just “interpretations” of the Word -- we are denied the thing that will give us the spiritual strength and clear-minded wisdom we need to go forth for the kingdom of heaven. 

Switching to the apostle Paul’s own analogy, the Word of God is the strong drink that nurtures growth to maturity. Only with spiritual maturity, we will become one of those “true worshippers” the Lord is seeking.

More to the point, the Kingdom of Heaven is our home country, so knowing your Bible will help you to actually feel "at home" there. Our earthly sanctification can be thought of as a process of repatriation into the Garden of Eden, where we once again walk and talk with the Lord face-to-face. And like the earthly process of becoming a citizen of a new country,  becoming a functioning citizen in the Kingdom of God requires study of that country’s ways and laws.

The Lord’s ways are meant to be our natural culture, yet in my personal experience, most of my earthly life has been a battle to overcome the selfish and ungodly urgings of my flesh. I have also struggled to overcome pressure to conform to the culture around me. I suspect this is quite a familiar state to most other Christians, too.

Surprisingly, this struggle against worldly pressure can even involve church culture when the church's practice strays from the Lord’s ways. Hence, the genesis of my phrase ‘folk Christianity’, wherein things are incorporated into the Christian life and worship that do not stem from His revealed Word. 

This situation occurs because, although the grace of God has transformed the natural will of His children to agree with His own through the process of being born again spiritually, we still have our fallen brains and fallen bodies dragging around with us. Until we receive our fully-sanctified bodies in resurrection, we struggle to be perfectly aligned with the will of God. You see, it just isn’t completely natural to us yet because we are not fully transformed.

This is why we need a guide book telling us how to be and to do in the Lord’s kingdom. Your Bible is that guidebook.  Without it, God’s people make gaffs, omissions, and worst of all, offer Him ‘strange worship’, as opposed to the true worship He seeks. And we are completely without excuse because all we need to know for a godly life is carefully revealed in scripture. Absolutely everything is covered in the Word: How to eat healthily -- what to wear -- who to marry -- how to get along with people -- how to spend your free time -- how to raise your kids -- what to think about global warming -- even what best to do with a dead body.

As the hymn, How Firm a Foundation, says, “What more can He say than to you He has said?” There is no new revelation because nothing more is needed. God's Word to us in the scriptures is complete and comprehensive for every thing in life.

The voice of the Holy Spirt will always and only whisper a reiteration of what the Lord has already said in the Bible. Therefore, you will only be able to know if those thoughts in your mind are His, or, God forbid, yours, by whether they match His Word. This also applies to those “prophesies” some people like to offer you. If anything does not match the Word, or purports to be new revelation, it’s not from God.

Basically, if you don’t spend time letting the Lord speak to you through scripture, you won’t be able to discern the source of those thoughts, and you will constantly be trying to figure out God’s will for you, instead living with the utter peace that comes from already knowing it.

So what is the best method for acquiring this kind of knowledge?

Just read your Bible! Every day reading is best. It is rather like the manna the Lord provided to the Israelites, whose freshness was good for the day only. Like them, you need to take your little bucket out daily and gather a new supply to live on.

At this point, I must confess that I’d been a Christian for about seven years before I read the Bible for myself. As a new believer, my brother and his wife had prayed that I would be given a hunger for scripture, so I was well past the gentle nudges of the Holy Spirit by this time. He was literally shouting at me, and I felt a huge burden of guilt for the neglect. I was more like a stick-figure sketch of a Christian, than a real portrait.

With that confession, I want to read my testimony to you about how I learned to be in the Word because I don’t want to misstate anything:

“In the late 1970’s, I was operating a little day care in my home, so I wasn’t able to attend any women’s Bible studies, or even listen to teaching on CD because the children in my care required my full attention. I believe now that God arranged these circumstances because He wanted me to spend time with Him alone. It was His intention that I listen to only His voice with no interference, speculation, or theorizing from others.

The Holy Spirit had me under considerable pressure, so I embarked on a plan to read through the Bible in one year by using one of the most common systems available at the time and reading its corresponding commentary.

I chose to do this during the children’s naptime.

Soon, however, I began to notice that what I was reading in the Word frequently did not match the teaching in the commentary. In response, I would re-read the passages even more closely just to be sure I wasn’t mistaken. It was confounding. This happened on a number of days during the first month resulting in my loss of faith - - in the commentator.

It seems the writer held a particular theological position into which he tried to ‘shoehorn’ each segment -- even when something didn’t fit his mold. I chucked the commentary at that point, but kept on with its very accommodating reading schedule.

Every day thereafter, I would start my Bible reading by confessing to the Lord that my dark mind wasn’t able to understand spiritual things. He tells us this truth in the Bible; but clueless me had to experience a seminary graduate’s failures to understand how truly disadvantaged I was. If the trained author of that commentary couldn’t get it right, how could I?

I asked God to teach me Himself and to protect me from error. I didn’t use any commentaries or other books going forward, I just read slowly, carefully, and attentively for about 30 minutes each day as the children slept.

It is from this first experience that I have remained convinced that the Holy Spirit alone is entirely sufficient to teach His people truth. To this day, I’m always suspicious that anything added by a human will probably be dross.

At the end of my first reading through the Bible, I knew something of God at last; and interestingly, He wasn’t much like the God about whom I had been taught in church. I don’t fault my teachers for this. The Lord is just too fierce and too immense for anyone to convey adequately. His love is too consuming, His anger too searing. His will is insistent and unalterable. And He’s not at all like us, (for instance, He can be intensely jealous and it’s a good thing); therefore, only He can express the fullness of His being.”

Among the many revelations new to me after my very first read through the Bible, I was most startled to learn that the Lord has a love language. (Could this is another way humanity is made in His image?) God's love language is obedience.

No one had ever pointed this out to me before, even though the Lord plainly and repeatedly says, “If you love Me, keep My Word.” (John 14:15). This desire is expressed all over the Bible, from Genesis through Revelations, phrased in many ways. I just hadn’t known it because I hadn’t been listening directly to Him.

All I had ever been taught in my previous church experience was a continual cautioning to avoid being like the Pharisees. The Pharisees were a Jewish sect who tried to live in stringent compliance with Biblical law with a goal of winning God's favor for themselves. This mindset is often referred to as Legalism. After reading the Bible for myself, I now understood that the obedience God seeks can superficially appear similar, but it stems from a very different motive. He longs for obedience that is founded solely on our love and trust for Him.

This is heart-obedience is the very particular worship the Lord seeks. It praises His wisdom. It expresses maximum trust in His sovereignty. It is the highest complement to His good will. And isn’t that the very definition of worship?

So, while it can include them, true worship is not the songs, or the tithing, or the good works, or even the sermon. True worship is our obedience to the Father, and we can’t offer it without knowing what He seeks. When we read our Bibles, we are preparing our hearts to worship the Lord.

So now I think I can hear some of you thinking, “Carolyn, what do you mean when you say true worship is obedience to the Word of God? Give us some examples.”

Though I can think of a myriad of examples, here are three quick ones for you:

1. Imagine anger flashing in your heart; but instead of  expressing it, you quash it because you know the verse that says God’s righteousness can’t be displayed in man’s anger. Any woman who quenches her anger for the Lord’s sake is offering Him true worship as she lays her anger aside because of her love for Him. OR -

 2. Picture a woman who conducts herself as a wife, not as the world recommends, but according to the plan laid out in scripture because she knows God intends her to be a picture for all to see of how the church responds to her husband Jesus. By demonstrating the willingness and love of the church toward the Lord in her relationship with her husband, she is offering God true worship. OR -

3. Imagine yourself sharing your home, time, provision and companionship with others -- even when you have no such inclination -- because you understand that the Lord wants His children to demonstrate His own graciousness through hospitality. This is offering God true worship.

What I am trying to express is that we worship the Lord with actions that not only demonstrate the honor expected in His worship, but actions that spring out of love for Him. Everything else is window dressing.

The Lord wants to be in a continual conversation with us. Prayer is simply us talking to Him. The Word is God speaking to us. While the Lord certainly does want us to talk to Him – we were created to fellowship with Him, afterall -- He decidedly wants to be the conversational leader.

Every wisdom and blessing you need for your family is in the Word! Our clever and mighty Lord has given His Word to us in a format understandable for the simplest person, yet deep and complex enough the greatest mind. 

I caution you now about spending your precious time reading books “about” the Bible. These are not necessarily bad, but they remind me of the old movie “Multiplicity” in the way they offer a copy of a copy of a copy. As modern mothers, I understand that your time is subject to many demands and, therefore, quite limited. Just as I would advise a physically ill friend not to eat junk, but go for quality food to restore their health, I counsel you to go for the "quality spiritual food" - the Bible alone - for your study time.

In the hope of encouraging you to go forward with your reading, I would like to offer you five simple suggestions to help get you into the Bible on a daily basis.

1. Pick a time for Bible reading and be rigid about it. Tell the children they may not interrupt when you are listening to the Lord. Explain that you need to listen to Him everyday, or you won’t be able to be a good mommy for them. Don’t let anything short of blood or a fire stop you.

2. Remember, you just need to show up on the page! Our Lord will be pleased to honor your commitment to hearing Him by opening His Word to your understanding. Count on the Holy Spirit to do all the heavy lifting.

It is extremely important that you read the whole Bible, so that you can hear and receive the whole counsel of our unchanging Lord. Even at a rate of one chapter per day, you can read through the entire Bible once every three years!

3. Be sure to read the Bible openly in front of the children. This is part of your ministry to them. It demonstrates the importance you place on the time you spend hearing from God and is a testimony that will speak louder and longer to your children than your words.

4. Don’t be presumptuous in your approach to the Word. Always thank God for speaking to you and ask Him for help to understand. Ask Father for the faith to believe His message. Faith is a gift, you know, and Father loves to give gifts!

5. Understand that it is absolutely okay not to “get it” when you read a passage.

When I read scripture that I don’t understand, I just place a question mark next to it with my pencil. It is one of the major joys of my life to be able to erase those marks as the years go by. It assures me that the Lord is sharing more and more of His heart with me.

Oddly, I’ve found that I’m even happier to add new question marks in places that I thought I had previously understood. Somewhat counter-intuitively, this tells me that I am making progress because you know you really don't get it when you don't even have any questions!

I’ll close with a simple message from the Lord found in Deuteronomy 6:6. He says, "These words, which I am commanding you today, shall be on your heart." His words are the core of His leadership for your life, and they will assuredly travel to your heart through the reading the Bible.

ROAD TO SALVATION VIA CATHOLIC CHURCH

I hope you can see this informative diagram clearly. (Please email

me if you would like to receive the scan in a larger size.) It is interesting 

to compare it with what Jesus has to tell us on the subject.

A diagram of the Catholic church's road to salvation prepared by 

Norman L. Geisler.

WHEN YOUR HUSBAND BECOMES YOUR CRITIC

1. The Ideal

A person who is under authority submits to the will of the leader. Unity in thought, purpose, and effort is achieved only as one leads out and the other submits to the leading. Together, as one, they work in cooperation doing what is now the will of both. There is no conflict, no occasion for criticism. This is the God-designed ideal in which husbands and wives are meant to relate within marriage (I Corinthians 11:3).

The natural advantages of this ideal can be viewed functioning in the world through such examples as the coordinated actions of the human body responding to the will of the brain, soldiers complying with their regimental leader in battle, and so forth. The principle is a tactic of order, and in direct opposition to chaos.

2. The Reality

From universal personal experience, we know that criticism can make the critical person seem unsafe to the recipient. It can be so distressing that it often makes it hard to perform at our best around the critic thereafter. And how much more so when that person is someone whose view of us is so vitally important to our existence, like our husbands!

During courtship, most people instinctively understand that unconditional love is the Holy Grail that all are seeking in a mate. (Never mind that unconditional love can only be found in Christ). We instinctively know better than to threaten the relationship with criticism during this period. Unfortunately, after marriage, the growing familiarity causes our inherent differences to become glaringly obvious. As the infatuation wears off, the verbal observation of these differences (i.e., “faults”) appears to constitute an immediate threat to the bond of attachment that we so desperately desire to preserve with our mate.

For this reason, the earliest period of a marriage - that time between the cooling of the “crush” and the building of real love through an investment of self - is when many marriages fail. Unless either mate’s criticism is delivered with considerable tact and restraint (probably much more the exception than the rule), most spouses experience painful feelings of withdrawn love, validation, and support. For wives in particular, the negative emotions of a prickled pride and the more subtle fear of abandonment make it very difficult for them to listen objectively to their husband’s remarks, calmly appraise them, and respond with all the strength of an “Iron Lady” Margaret Thatcher.

In addition, as sinfully self-centered humans, criticism, even well-intentioned criticism, is usually understood to be a direct assault on the ego, so it’s only normal to react far more emotionally than rationally. The unconditional love, which we all thought we would be receiving when we married, is now seemingly withdrawn, and thus our ability to return to an affectionate state has been undermined. For these reasons, criticism triggers an emotional sorrow akin to the loss of something particularly treasured, as in a death, so naturally it results in a painful grief.

Our self-love much prefers praise, which is often taken to be an expression of love; but all-in-all, neither praise nor criticism are genuine signs of love as it is defined in the embroidery on a pillow I once saw: “Love (luhv) (noun) A profoundly tender, passionate affection for another person; an ineffable feeling of warn personal attachment.” Service, loyalty, respect, nurture, and sharing are all markers of real love; praise and criticism are not.

It is important to note that a critical husband doesn’t usually engage his wife with malice aforethought. It is likely that his behavior, offensive as it may be, represents little more than his single-minded striving to get his own wants and needs met, thus, leaving him oblivious to its possible impact on their spouse. If a wife is honest though, she must confess that she is often like this, too. A selfish will is the hallmark of all humanity’s sin nature, so she can’t “throw any rocks around in her own glass house” - -

3. The Wife:

In truth, unless a woman marries herself, this little “death” of unconditional love is inevitable. All a godly wife can do in the face of her husband’s criticism is to battle the tendency toward bitterness, counter any reciprocal critical thoughts about him, and try to accept his “help” at face value. The Lord wants us to gain more than just an intuitive understanding of the value of humility and the danger of pride. Therefore, it may be that through our mate’s criticism, we may actually be viewing Him at work perfecting us. As I say this, I am reminded of my pastor’s extremely apt “rock polisher” metaphor for marriage, wherein the couple are the crude stones to be polished into gems, the added sandy grit represents the annoyances common to life, and the lubricating water is the Holy Spirit. All the parts mix and abraise each other in a polishing process that ultimately produces glowing jewels instead of rough rocks.

With this in mind as a metaphor for the process of spiritual growth, ask the Lord to help you take your eyes off the offense of the criticism and focus on the real markers of your husband's love, such as his provision for you, his enjoyment of your company, the fact that he considers your input seriously, etc. These are the true signposts of love.

4. The Husband:

As for the critical husband, he should know that the love he shows his wife needs to include a respect for her that understands that, as his wife, she is not him, nor an extension of him, or even some product that he ultimately needs to produce in conformation with himself. In a loving relationship, both mates need to understand that they are and will remain unique individuals, and they must learn how to mesh their desires with each other. A husband should be very circumspect in his criticism because those little “wins” will set back his wife’s affection for him and, therefore, her attachment to him - - something he dearly needs, too, because marriage is for a lifetime.

A man must also understand that experience is always the best teacher and that his wife will learn just as much from her mistakes, as he does from his.

5. The Couple:

If either mate seeks any modification that will assist in improved personal development, the other mate should embrace it without pride. It’s a win-win for the partnership because of the growth and the strengthened commitment that comes through cooperation and taking each other’s counsel gracefully.

It should also be noted that between Christian spouses, both husband and wife would do well to forever release the need to defend themselves. In their persons, God has created two bright and beautiful people. No defense is necessary because mere words cannot subtract from the truth of the goodness He has vested in each of His people.

COMMANDMENT 2 - IMAGES OF GOD

Exodus 20:4 “You shall make for yourself no idol in the likeness of anything in the heavens above, or on the earth below, or in the waters under the earth.”

• Visual representations of the Godhead prevent us from worshiping the true God according to His own revelation of Himself, but instead, offer a god of human devising.

The Lord has pointedly forbidden His people to make physical representations of Himself. Why do you think this might be?

Quite obviously, our Creator is so unimaginably greater than His creation that any attempt to project a representation of Him will fall woefully short. He is just too fierce, too immense, too magnificent, too powerful, and so infinitely beyond every superlative conceivable, to be truthfully conveyed through images wrought by human hands. In short, God does not desire images to represent Him because, by the very limitations of their nature, they will convey misleading information, i.e., a lie, about Him.

• In a maneuver parallel to the actions of Adam and Eve, the image-user is making a subtle attempt to level the differences between himself and his Creator.

Another solid reason behind the Second Commandment is the Lord’s penetrating understanding of the flesh's subtle intent to usurp lurking behind the use of images. His Word has revealed that the human heart is “deceptive above all things” (Jeremiah 17:9), and certainly the person to whom it lies most avidly is itself. This is surely the reason that many Christians are so blind to the sinful nature of their impulse to produce such images. Nevertheless, the intent is very similar in form and quality to humankind’s first rebellion against God.

By accepting the forbidden fruit, Adam and Eve sought to acquire an enhanced knowledge that would enable them become on par with God (Gen. 3:5 “. . . you will become like God.”). They were willing to disobey Him in their attempt to elevate themselves to a standing commensurate with His. In the same way, the creation of a tangible representation of God can be viewed as humanity making another vain effort to level the differences between itself and God. Also, one can’t fail to notice the inappropriate role reversal, wherein man, made in God’s image, attempts to make God in his own image.

We excuse this practice as it appears in books, statues, paintings, and so forth, because it is more comfortable for us to have something of a tangible nature, something more common to our earthly experience, that we can identify as God. These representations feel justified to us because they seem to make Him more easily fathomed. Yet such representations are not only false, they are a subtle effort seeking to redress the power gap between creature and Creator. When viewed this way, it becomes easy to see why the Lord would call it sin and forbid the practice.

• What about depictions of Jesus and the Holy Spirit?

Let’s continue to expand our thinking about the Second Commandment by considering a few more questions. “Do you think the prohibition was meant apply to all the members of the Godhead?” and “Did God intend this ban to include images of His messianic incarnation?” Perhaps we should also follow these questions with, “Why would, or wouldn’t, it?”

As part of the Triune God, Christ the Son and the Holy Spirit are also far above all created beings. Their artistic representation as any created being would massively fail to display Their true reality. Yet despite the dishonor implicit in these images, we wink at the overt disobedience of the second commandment when it comes to creating, harboring, and often displaying supposed representations of Jesus, Who is God.

Concerning His incarnation, the Lord selected a time in which no image would be produced for posterity. Palestine was too impoverished for paintings and sculptures except among the very wealthy, and the man, Jesus, was a humble carpenter. Photography was non-existent. The little we know about Messiah’s appearance can be found in Isaiah 53:2b (“He had no beauty or majesty to attract us to Him, nothing in His appearance that we should desire Him.”), which tells us that Jesus had an ordinary appearance with nothing particularly attractive about Him physically. He was a man to be appreciated by the soul, not the eye.

Perhaps also contributing to His general purpose of physical anonymity of the Messiah, God chose to make His appearing at the navel of the earth, the land of Judea. Judea was historically an international crossroad, where all races and cultures seemed to transit, and where the full color-spectrum of human flesh could, and was, seen daily. God did this in wisdom so that all peoples could envision their Savior, Jesus, as someone with whom they could physically identify. It was His intention that there be no off-putting “Jesus” in a blond pageboy looking like “the white man’s god,” nor any “Samurai Jesus,” or “Black Jesus” to confound the sons of Japheth (the Europeans).

• Knowing man’s nature, God wanted to remove any barriers to the acceptance of His Son.

Representations of Christ have been the devil’s work from the beginning because it is his nature to deal in lies. It has always been his evil intention to alienate the hearts of people from the Savior, and what better way than to produce a substitute image that is both remote and two-dimensional? Even the use of an actor, a sinful human like all others, to portray the Christ is not appropriate. Through illustration alone, the evil one has enjoyed a season of particular success in the area of children’s Bibles and Bible stories because of the many opportunities they offer to trivialize Christ.

Within Christian children’s books, Jesus is depicted as a slightly feminine-looking man in strange clothing. At best, He is merely a storybook figure. At worst, as in The Comic Book Bible (“Updated and repackaged with a great new cover, The Comic Book Bible is filled with clever, comic-style illustrations” per Amazon), He’s competing for awe and attention among a pantheon of other available comic superheroes, many with noticeably cooler get-ups. These publications for children aren’t respectful, honoring, or holy in the way they diminish His glory, and they cause Him to appear as a subject of fiction, instead of the true God working in real history.

• Our children don’t receive the message that Jesus is Immanuel, “God With Us.”

Upon reaching young adulthood, children put away belief in Santa Claus, Easter Bunny, Tooth Fairy, witches, and trolls. Should it surprise us how often our young people also put away, as fantasy, their belief in the Son of God? The diminished version of Him in popular print makes it easier to put Him aside and, ultimately, becomes a stumbling block to faith. Whenever there is a stone to stumble, one either falls, or turns away to avoid it.

I say these things not to condemn, but to point out that we need to think carefully; constantly questioning all that the common culture presses upon us. It is my desire to provoke deeper thinking and a more intentional application of the Word to real life. You may not come to the same conclusions I have drawn, but we will always have fellowship together in Him and respect each other’s relationship with the Holy Spirit.

I know, too, that the Hound of Heaven will find any He determines to seek, images or no. I only pose that through obedience to the Lord’s second commandment, we can render Him worship and prevent our lives from hindering those He would call.

Blessings to all of my dear readers throughout the world ~

HOMESCHOOL: More thoughts

Additional thoughts to March 5, 2010 post:

1. Common sense should tell us that socialization concerns are a straw man. Homeschooled children are generally much more appropriately socialized because they are socialized by adults, not other unsocialized children. I've watched the development of many from birth to adulthood/marriage/and children, and will testify to this emphatically. I also have reams of firsthand experience with my own children's social development.

2. The current trend to use video instruction seems very negative to me because it circumvents personal parent-child interaction, one of the premier advantages to homeschooling.

3. My husband and I never took money from the public school system, though offered, nor allowed them to monitor us because we do not believe their "in loco parentis" stance to be Biblical. It is not the Lord's intention for anyone to take the place of the parents.

4. Homeschool is very inexpensivie. I bought texts for kindergarten through 6th grade for around $600. It's probably 3 times that by now, or more, but one year of private school can easily cost from $3,000 - $18,000 per year.

5. I recommend ordering the Calvert School kindergarten curriculum, because it's like Christmas in a box. We used their craft supplies for over 10 years! They were plentiful and very high quality.

6. We tested every year to keep the relatives mollified, but this may not be necessary now that there is greater public acceptance. When our final two entered Kings Academy as 8th & 9th graders, they tested at college level.

7. I would be happy to demonstrate how I structured the morning to accommodate all ages. It's a lot easier than it sounds, and the instruction time only ran about 4 hours. The remainder of the day after lunch was free!

Though the above may sound like it (and I did absolutely love homeschooling and the way it impacted my sons), I don't think it is the only way to go. I will pray for you as you deliberate over the educations choices for your children and would be happy to answer any questions you may have.

FAMILY READ-ALOUD BOOK RECOMMENDATIONS

Our family benefited tremendously from daily times of reading aloud. Naturally, we read many, many toddler and early childhood books to the boys, but when our oldest was around age six, we began reading “real” books to them as a family. It’s surprising how much even the youngest can apprehend.

Our sons would huddle together on the couch next to us or lounge on our bed alongside of us to listen; later, as the boys grew older, they would just range on floor at our feet or on chairs nearby. The familial closeness fostered and the intellectual growth were major contributors to the men they are now. (Haha - One of our sons recently mentioned to me that he still misses those times and would probably come over every night if we started reading aloud again!)

I can’t recommend the practice highly enough and would like to share our recommendations for books that your family might enjoy, so here they are in no particular order:

Most loved:

The Little House on the Prairie (whole series) by Laura Ingalls Wilder

The complete Narnia series by C. S. Lewis

Little Britches; Man of the Family; The Fields of Home by Ralph Moody

The Phantom Tollbooth by Norton Juster

James and the Giant Peach by Roald Dahl

Walk Across America; The Walk West by Peter Jenkins

Gifted Hands by Ben Carson

The Prince and the Pauper; Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain

Little Women; Eight Cousins; Rose in Bloom by Louisa May Alcott

Black Beauty by Anna Sewell

The Hiding Place by Corrie Ten Boom

The Wheel on the School by Meindart Dejong

King Solomon’s Mines by H. Ryder Haggard

Out of the Silent Planet; Perelandra by C. S. Lewis

Liked:

Pilgrim’s Progress by John Bunyan

Calvin & Hobbs (all) by Bill Watterson (cartoons)

The Great Divorce by C. S. Lewis

The House of Many Fathers by Meindart Dejong

White Fang by Jack London (Jr. High level)

Bobsey Twins series by Laura Lee Hope (suitable for age five)

O’Henry stories (any)

Sherlock Holmes series of stories

KIND WORDS

Kind words are like honey - enjoyable and healthful.  Proverbs 16:24

Father,

With all of the sharpness and tartness in today's world, help my words to be words like honey. May they be sweet and honest. May I commend and bless in such a way that the results are enjoyable and healthful.

Cause me to realize, Lord, that kind words are not always words that sound kind. Sometimes kind words reprimand, while at other times they are a soft

disagreement.

May I understand that kind words must come out of a heart that has kindness in it. Give me the right kind of kindness in my heart to put forth the right kind of words.

In Jesus name,

Amen

REFLECTIONS ON HUMILITY

Humility, best described as the absence of personal pride, is hard to measure empirically. The problem is, of course, that once someone takes up the label, mightn’t they be proud in their claim to be a humble person?

Most virtues are typically considered to be a character strength that many desire to possess; yet humility doesn’t seem to get the same respect as the other virtues. To the contrary, pride, the polar opposite of humility, seems to be morphing into a modern virtue, e.g., “We’re No. 1!”; “Gay Pride”; “American Idol”; “keeping-up with the Jones” and surpassing them; or the ultimate Joe Kennedy quote, “Show me a good loser, and I’ll show you a loser;” etc.

It appears that the lack of respect for the quality of humility is due to the nature of our Fall, wherein mankind pridefully sought to “be like God” (Gen. 3:5). That same pride continues to lurk within our nature; yet our magnificent God righteously brooks no rivals. It is for this reason that we find that our God prizes a humble-heart and that humility is uniquely valued within Christianity.

Have you noticed that all other religions regard humility as demeaning? At best, it’s a mere rung on the ladder to higher enlightenment and honor, as in Buddhism. Yet, Jesus washed His disciples’ filthy feet to show how much He valued service and to reflect the depth of the humility to which His people are called. He demonstrated that humility and service are honorable and do not signify a loss of dignity. To God, humility is the destination, not the path. A humble spirit brings us into alignment with our proper place in creation, so in the Lord’s eyes, it is the essence of moral piety.

As you know, it is a Christian’s imperative to be like Christ, so a follower of Jesus will recognize the following truths and live by them:

•  Humility is the proper attitude of a creature toward its Creator.

 •  Humility recognizes dependence upon God.

•  Humility demonstrates a consciousness of sin and recognizes the moral gulf between the Lord and us.

To clarify, a humble person isn’t necessarily self-deprecating, but rather, someone who is more realistic in how they perceive themselves and more accurate in the way they present themselves to others. Those who prize humility as a virtue also tend to be more helpful than those who are less humble. Other people do matter, and we can matter more to others if we matter less to ourselves. As the Word says, "In humility, value others above yourselves, not looking to your own interests but each of you to the interests of the others." (Philippians 2:3-4).

In opposition to humility, pride, said to be the root of all sin, exists in the human heart and engages mankind in a continual battle. Pride is the very apex of insolence toward God; therefore, a life that lacks humility of heart reflects the primary indicator of another "god" in that life. (The self, perhaps?) Since a humble heart does not trust in its own power and resources, it is the essence of devotion to the Lord. 

Though it seems paradoxical, it isn’t possible to offer God true worship without humility; yet without worshipping Him, we cannot be humble.

Scripture Sources:

Romans 12:10: Be devoted to one another in brotherly love. Honor one another above yourselves.

James 4:10: Humble yourself before the Lord, and he will lift you up.

I Peter 5:5-6: Young men, in the same way be submissive to those who are older. All of you, clothe yourselves with humility toward one another, because, “God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.” Humble yourselves, therefore, under God’s mighty hand, that he may lift you up in due time.

Isaiah 13:11: I will also put an end to the arrogance of the proud.


“REVERENCE HER HUSBAND” Eph. 5:33

“This is a great mystery: but I speak concerning Christ and the church. Nevertheless let  . . . the wife see that she reverence her husband.” Ephesians 5:32-33

The Lord desires to demonstrate His relationship to the Church through the medium of Christian marriage, intending it to be a working scale model for all heaven and earth to observe. Paul calls this a “great mystery,” but illumines the concept further when the Holy Spirit leads him to add, “let the wife see that she reverence her husband.” Thus, a wife who shows respect and esteem for her husband will be exhibiting the final hallmark of one who desires to model a testimony of truth concerning the Church and the Lord Jesus.

In the context of the marriage analogy, this imperative does not appear to pivot upon the husband’s worthiness, but upon the honor due the office of husband as it parallels Christ’s relationship to His Bride, the Church. Therefore, a wife’s attitude and acts of respect for her husband are to be purposeful acts of her will that are not based upon her feelings for him or the performance of his role. In actuality, She is reverencing the Lord by obeying His command and, thus, making the respect shown to her husband an act of worship offered to God.

Setting the spiritual dimension aside for a moment, notice that the Lord is also offering some practical counsel to wives. Feelings of being undervalued and disrespected are a significant reason many men seek sex outside their marriage through extra-marital affairs, etc.* In a recent article published in Britain, one researcher had this to say about these matters: “Many men are not finding acceptance in their conventional monogamous relationships, and so these men become emotionally unconnected to their unsuspecting spouse and children. They seek a temporary high, a connection and an escape from reality in Gentlemen's Clubs, etc., or serial affairs.”*

In short, many husbands don’t feel respected (reverenced) at home, so they buy a substitute woman who is welcoming, undemanding, and accepting. (It is also not unusual for this same acceptance to be found for free among those women husbands encounter through the work place.) Christian women should not be surprised by these revelations when God, knowing the strong need men have to feel valued, has shown wives the remedy: “let the wife see that she reverence her husband.” Eph. 5:32.

So, if you truly want to speak love to your husband in a language that he can understand, speak it to him through respect. He will be much more likely to handle temptation from a place of strength. Your respect can serve much like a vaccination in warding-off the vulnerability that accompanies a man who does not feel valued. When you reverence your husband - - that is, express to him deep respect and honor - - the “reap what you sow” principle will also activate in your favor, and over time, your husband will respond in kind. The measure of how long this turnaround takes will be in proportion to amount bitterness that you have sown into your marriage.

Taken together, the manner in which a wife talks to and about her husband, her demeanor toward him, and the manner in which she treats him will form a complete expression of her esteem (or lack thereof). Thus, a woman will demonstrate her attitude toward her husband through her words, her actions, and her body language.

Body Language

While each of these three means testify to the state of the heart (i.e. attitude), body language speaks much louder than the other two. Because it is largely involuntary, body language is often more truthful than the spoken word. It has been observed that as much as 80% of what we understand in any given conversation is read through the body, not the spoken word. Since body language will infallibly betray the attitude of her heart, it is singularly important for a wife to call upon God to help her cultivate a thankful, grateful, and humble heart. There is no other solution for altering body language than a changed heart. Pray that the Lord will give you a heart of mercy and forgiveness for your husband, so that your total being will convey the respect the Lord desires a wife to offer her husband.

Spoken Word:

Unless one partner is a sociopath of some sort, it takes two to create a bad marriage. In her book, Created to be His Help Meet, writer Debi Pearl states this truth: “Counselors agree that in all marriage conflicts, both husband and wife share the blame almost equally. A man’s guilt is usually easy to see, while a woman’s guilt may be less obvious, but it is just as destructive and just as evil.” She is referring to the female tendency to sins of the tongue. Every person (and this surely includes husbands) deserves the right to represent themselves to others, so if a reputation is to be ruined, it should be done by the individual in question - - not through the surrogacy of their spouse.

Therefore, a wife's refusal to speak ill of her husband to others is one very compelling way to express honor for him. In Proverbs 31, wherein a woman of virtue is extolled, Father has given His daughters a clear call to be a wife in whom her husband can trust. This one attribute, trustworthiness, is the first virtue mentioned by God in the passage. It is foremost in making her “more valuable than rubies” to her husband, and it begins with a wife to whom her husband can entrust his reputation. Perhaps the place this is most important is in the eyes of your children.

Sustaining your husband’s reputation by curbing any criticism before the children reveals a wisdom more rare and precious than gold. The Lord will praise the wife who does this. After children mature beyond the more nurture-needing stages of childhood that primarily involve a mother’s care, they begin to need the type of leadership and assistance that a father can bring. A wise mother has protected her husband’s reputation so the children will be open to receiving their father’s insight and direction through the coming stages of their lives.

In a marriage in which the father is the “bad actor,” it is equally important to consider that when the children are old enough to consider the claims of Christ, their mother’s gracious attitudes, words, and behavior will be hugely influential in comparison with that of their father’s. In maturity, those children will be able to see clearly what has gone down between their parents. Mom’s Lord will smell sweet to them, but Dad’s gods will repel.

Finally, the virtuous woman of Proverbs 31 is one who speaks with a civil tongue: “She opens her mouth with wisdom, and on her tongue is the law of kindness,” Proverbs 31:26. Just to paraphrase this for you, Father is telling His daughters, “DON’T BE A SCOLD.” Conflicts that arise over questioning your husband’s judgment, or a failure to submit to his leadership, are huge setbacks. These events are not irreparable, but one flare of anger or one despising word will be immensely destructive to your efforts to improve your relationship and to align your marriage with a true reflection of Christ and His Bride.

Conclusion:

The Puritans called marriage “the little church within the church.” In marriage, every day you love and every day you forgive.  It is an ongoing sacrament - love and forgiveness. If, as a wife, you follow the course of respect for your husband to which the Lord has called you, you will truly be a woman who is reverencing God through your obedient actions. Don’t grow weary of doing well, and keep building your “little church” with acts of kindness, forgiveness and respect. The Lord God will bless you for your faithfulness to Him.

* I’m sure my readers understand my vague references in this paragraph. It was necessary for me to remove certain terminology and phrases to avoid being winnowed-out by filters and to prevent attracting comment from those searching specifically for those words for “other” reasons. 

EDITH SCHAEFFER

I would like to share a beautiful picture of marriage and family that Edith Schaeffer devised in the 1960’s. Her metaphor is so evocative of the reality, it has continued to bless and encourage me throughout my married life. Mrs. Schaeffer envisions marriage as a work of art, specifically a mobile - - always in motion, rarely still, changing, shifting, moved by the slightest current to reflect light or enter shadow. Like a mobile, your marriage is a different artistic expression by the moment. You, your spouse, and the Lord are the artists, collaborating together, to create this work of art, while even more wonderfully, you are the art. What could be more astonishing?