Advent: Love

What if I told you there was someone who knew the worst things about you—all your thoughts, every word you’ve said, every bad thing you’ve done—and yet loved you anyway?

The good news of Christmas is that there is someone like that. God sent this love to us in the gift of his Son, Jesus Christ. When Jesus came to earth, he wasn’t born in a pristine palace. He immediately entered our mess by being born in a dirty animal stall. He came to us not because we were of all people most loveable, but because while we were still sinners, God loved us.

We tend to give gifts to people who love us in return. But God sent the greatest gift of all to people who would hate him, mock him, spit on him, and crucify him. God saw all our messy parts, every shameful secret, every sin we would commit day in and day out, and yet loved us anyway. But Jesus didn’t come to leave us messy. He came to redeem us, cleanse us, and make us holy.

As we light the candle of love, reflect on the love it took to come into our messy world, die for unlovely sinners like you and me, and give us the greatest gift love could give—eternal life to all who repent of their sins and trust in Jesus Christ.

Flashback Friday – Advent: Love

It’s the most wonderful time of the year. There’ll be holiday greetings and friends coming to call. It’s the time of year to throw around phrases like Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays, to be of good cheer to every cashier and barista in sight. But what does it mean when we wish someone a Merry Christmas?

We’re intending to spread a message of love and happiness, but many times it feels like we’re offering up an empty phrase. Like saying “Be warmed and filled” to a hungry, homeless person on a subzero day without giving them a warm place to stay and a sandwich.

Why do our intentions fall flat? Because love must be more than a well-wished, fuzzy feeling. Love must have purpose; love must have meaning; and love must be demonstrated with action.

The angels announced the birth of Christ with glad tidings that would bring great cheer. But the long-awaited Messiah didn’t appear to bring us warm, cozy feelings of parties, toasted marshmallows, and Christmas carols.

First John 3:5 says, “You know that he appeared in order to take away our sins.”

Jesus Christ came with a message of love, but it was a message of love from a God who came to rescue unlovely sinners like you and me.

His love came with a purpose: to redeem us from an eternity of punishment that our sins deserve so we could spend eternity glorifying and enjoying the most loving being in existence—God himself.

His love came with a meaning, displayed to us in God’s perfect character because he is the very definition of love.

And his love came with a demonstration:

“For this is the way God loved the world: He gave his one and only Son, so that everyone who believes in him will not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16, NET).

“Greater love has no one than this, that someone lay down his life for his friends” (John 15:13, ESV).

This holiday, instead of greeting our friends, family, and acquaintances with “Merry Christmas,” let’s say, “I hope you know the love of Christ this season.” Then share the meaning of that love which came to us as a baby that very first Christmas, gave his life for us, and soon will be coming again.

 

Letters to My Children: Modesty (Part 2)

To My Children:

 

If you do a search for modesty or dress, you will not find many other verses that deal directly with those topics. But we can also apply some principles from other places in Scripture.

As the parents in Proverbs warn their son about the adulteress woman, they describe her as “dressed as a prostitute, wily of heart” (Proverbs 7:10b). Clearly in their culture and time, there was a way a woman could dress that would identify her as a prostitute. If we think of what a prostitute looks like in our day and culture, we would be able to conjure up a clear image as well. There is a way a woman can dress that shows she is using her body to allure and entice others—we should avoid dressing in an intentionally sexualized way.

In fact, the Proverbs also say there are seven things the Lord hates; one of them is “a heart that devises wicked plans” (Proverbs 6:18a). Modesty, or lack thereof, can begin with forethought. If, when we think about the clothes we are going to wear, our heart is devising a plan to entice the gaze of others in our direction, either to arouse or make jealous, then we are devising wicked plans against our neighbor—plans that are not for their benefit but for their harm.

Similarly, when Jesus talks about not lusting (Matthew 6), he is using a reflexive verb, which means it can be translated not only as “don’t look at someone lustfully,” but also as “do not purposefully try to draw lustful looks from others.” Obviously, there are going to be people who look at you lustfully no matter how you dress, and this we can’t control; but we can control the intentions of our hearts when we put on an outfit and determine not to purposefully try to draw a lustful eye.

There are clearly some parts of our body that are to remain covered, except within marriage. A husband’s and a wife’s body belong to each other (1 Corinthians 7:4), but we should keep those parts of us covered that are only acceptable for our spouse to see.

The final principle here is authority. What follows Paul’s discourse to Timothy on women’s dress is a discussion about submission. We find a similar conversation on women’s adornment and submissiveness in 1 Peter 3. If you have an authority in your life, such as a parent or school, who gives you dress guidelines or rules to follow, you should submit to them. Children are to obey their parents, and we are supposed to submit to the authorities God has placed over us unless they ask us to sin. So if you have a school dress code, follow it as unto the Lord.

There may not be a direct line I can give you to determine which outfits are modest or not, but I pray these words and principles speak to your heart as a woman who professes godliness and leave you desirous to adorn yourself in modesty, self-control, and good works.

I love you. Grow in godliness and in your love for God.

 

This article was originally published at https://lifeword.org/blog/letters-to-my-children-modesty-pt-2/

Flashback Friday – Advent: Hope

The people who walked in darkness
have seen a great light;
those who dwelt in a land of deep darkness,
on them has light shone. Isaiah 9:2

 

Darkness.

God’s people sat in darkness for 400 years. There were no prophets, no word from the Lord—only silence.

The long-promised Messiah who would right all the wrongs and restore God’s people hadn’t come. The people were weary of waiting. There was no one to rescue them. Hope had been forgotten by most.

But then—a faint glimmer in the night. The twinkle of a star in the east, glowing like a small candle in a dark room, pointing to the little town of Bethlehem.

Hope.

Slowly, the light of hope spread. First to a virgin girl of low estate, then to shepherds in a field, then to wisemen in the east.

The small cry of a newborn babe broke the long, bleak silence.

And suddenly, hope was here in the flesh, in the form of a baby—Jesus, who would grow into a man and save his people from the darkness and gloom of their sins.

Jesus. The only light of hope in our darkest days. The only rescue from the weariness and burden of our sins. The only one who will sustain us and give the rest of our days purpose and meaning as we set our hope fully on the grace that will be brought to us at his return.

As we light this candle, let us hold fast the confession of our hope without wavering, for he who promised is faithful. May the God of hope fill you with all joy and peace in believing in his Son, Jesus Christ, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit you may abound in hope, this advent season and all year long.

Letters to My Children: Modesty (Part 1)

To My Children:

Modesty. What does it mean? The definition is hard to nail down. Is there a line to draw for how long your skirt should be or how high your neckline should go? Can we measure it with a ruler?

We certainly won’t find the line by following the culture. The line for modesty in a culture depends on where you live, is ever-changing, and is increasingly inching lower and shorter as time progresses.

As always, we turn to the Word of Truth. Can we find the exact number of inches in the Bible? Do the Scriptures say, “Thou shalt not show thy midriff”?

If we are looking for an exact measurement, then of course the answer is no.

But the Scriptures do have something to say about modesty.

First, when we are unsure about an answer to a question, the best place to start is with the fear of the Lord. “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of knowledge” (Proverbs 1:7). If we are looking to him in reverence and awe, we will submit ourselves to his authority and desire to align ourselves with his ways. Then we can begin to have right thinking about the subject at hand.

Second, we can look at what the Scripture says about modesty:

“I desire then that in every place the men should pray, lifting holy hands without anger or quarreling; likewise also that women should adorn themselves in respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control, not with braided hair and gold or pearls or costly attire, but with what is proper for women who profess godliness—with good works” (1 Timothy 2:8–10).

Women are to dress themselves in “respectable apparel, with modesty and self-control.” Again, that doesn’t really give us a line on a measuring tape to follow, but we can deduce from the rest of the verses that modesty has something to do with displaying godliness and good works. Godliness in our apparel would be reflecting Christlike character in the way we dress; when we think of “respectable apparel,” we should be thinking about what God would find respectable, not what the world would think is tolerable. How can we display good works in the way we adorn or beautify ourselves? “Good works” are others focused, not self-focused, so we should dress in a way that doesn’t draw all the attention to ourselves but thinks of others first.

We will discuss this more in my next letter.

I love you. Grow in godliness and in your love for God.

This article was originally published at https://lifeword.org/blog/letters-to-my-children-modesty-pt-1/

Flashback Friday – Growing Through Suffering

I’m not sure they’re going to make it.

Brittle. Barren. Lifeless.

These are all words that describe my mums this spring.

Confession time: I’m a mum-killer.

I have bought several containers of mums each year with dazzling aspirations of planting them and having them return the next fall in vibrant shades of scarlet, goldenrod, and fuchsia.

My first year, as a mum novice, I lugged home the hearty pots brimming with blooms, dug holes, and planted them right then and there. I admired the beautiful fall foliage in my yard and looked forward to seeing them again the next year. Little did I know that fall flowers don’t like to be planted in the fall; they want to be planted in the spring (and spring flowers like to be planted in the fall—plants are funny like that).

The next couple of times I bought mums, I let them run their fall course and left them crusty in their containers all winter only to be pitched in the garbage. One year, I even planned to go all Pinterest on them and spray paint the dead branches silver, hang ornaments on them, and turn my fall-failure into a Christmas win!

But this year, I was determined to make them last! I meticulously picked my favorite hues of mums from my local grocer, and I did my research!

One of the things I learned is that you have to prune them. You have to snip back the dead branches to a certain length if you want beautiful, healthy growth the next year.

Jesus speaks about pruning in John chapter fifteen:

“I am the true vine, and my Father is the vinedresser. Every branch in me that does not bear fruit he takes away, and every branch that does bear fruit he prunes, that it may bear more fruit” (John 15:1–2).

We are the branches.

Our pruning often comes about through suffering.

God uses the tragedies, the crises, the losses, and the pain to teach us to depend on him, strengthen our faith in him, and make us more like Jesus.

We may feel like God is taking our fruitfulness away—the loss of a job, the death of a child, a terminal diagnosis—but when God prunes what is already bearing fruit, he does so in order that we would produce more fruit.

As I’m writing this, I’m planning to prune my roses this weekend. Cutting off the dead sections of the stems will actually help them grow even fuller blooms this year. I know it needs to be done, but I’m afraid of making a wrong cut and ruining them. God, however, is a master gardener; he never makes a wrong snip. He knows exactly what needs to be removed from our lives in order to make us grow stronger and lovelier.

Elisabeth Elliot says, “We cannot know Christ and the power of his resurrection without also entering into the fellowship of his suffering.”

With that in mind, we should be thankful for any suffering which comes our way, and instead of fighting God’s chosen portion for us, we should learn to lean into the pain in order to be united in suffering with our crucified King.

In fact, if we are not being pruned, there is something wrong. Those who are his, he prunes; those who are not his, he cuts off to be thrown into the fire. Paul says to the Roman believers, “The Spirit himself bears witness with our spirit that we are children of God, and if children, then heirs—heirs of God and fellow heirs with Christ, provided we suffer with him in order that we may also be glorified with him” (Romans 8:16–17).

The proof is in the pruning.

That doesn’t make it any less painful.

We may cry out, like the apostle Paul, for God to remove our suffering; we may pray fervently, like our Lord Jesus, for the cup of suffering to pass from us. But if God, in his wisdom, goodness, and love, sovereignly allows the affliction to remain, may we also say as our forerunners did, “[Your] grace is sufficient for [me]” (2 Corinthians 12:9), and “Nevertheless, not as I will, but as you will” (Matthew 26:39).

Elisabeth Elliot quotes lines from a sermon by Ugo Bassi:

Measure thy life by loss instead of gain;

Not by the wine drunk but by the wine poured forth;

For love’s strength standeth in love’s sacrifice,

And whoso suffers most hath most to give.

There couldn’t be truer words, for the strongest love ever known was proven by the greatest sacrifice ever made. When Jesus Christ gave his life on the cross to save ruined sinners, he loved his own to the uttermost. He went through the greatest suffering imaginable to bring about the greatest joy possible—redeeming a people for his inheritance and the Father’s glory from every nation, tribe, and tongue.

Similarly, our suffering is producing in us an “eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison” (2 Corinthians 4:17). When we can see the suffering in our lives as notch marks of growth under God’s expert care, we will be able to accept the hardships with greater peace and joy because they are the assurance that God is still working in us—and he will bring to completion what he began.

Wondering what happened to my mums?

After pruning them and properly storing them over the winter, I planted them in the ground following the final frost of spring. Now I wait with hopeful expectation for bright, new buds to emerge. We’ll just have to see if God provides the growth.

The previous article was first published at: https://lifeword.org/blog/growing-through-suffering/

Letters to My Children: When I Fail You

To My Children,

 

Now that you are older and gaining some perspective on your past, I know you feel there are ways I’ve come up short as your parent. I know you feel I do things differently for your younger siblings than I did for you. I know you feel there are ways I failed you or did wrong as I was raising you.

First, I want to say I’m sorry for all the ways that I did sin against you—for the times I knew I was in the wrong, and for the times I didn’t realize what I was doing. There is never any excuse that can blame away sin.

There were other things I did that I wouldn’t necessarily call sinful, but that I regret—ways I parented because I believed that’s what a Christian parent should do but maybe were more damaging than helpful. I diligently searched the Scriptures on my own and with your dad for parenting wisdom and commands. As an imperfect person with limited understanding, I didn’t always apply them correctly.

I read numerous Christian books about parenting and tried to apply their principles, which I believed were rooted in Scripture. Sometimes I mimicked other Christian parents because their methods sounded good, and because, honestly, I had no other idea what to do. In hindsight, I don’t agree with some of those methods now.

Some of the problems I faced with you as a toddler and young child seemed insurmountable and unending at the time. As a new parent, I often felt overwhelmed and hopeless to face the challenges that arose. Now I know they were just normal things that all parents of young children experience, and a little more patience and consistency on my part would have gone a long way.

I often felt like I had no clue what I was doing as a parent—they don’t hand out parenting manuals along with the baby when you leave the hospital. I thought if I could find that one golden ticket, that one fool-proof parenting practice, then I would get perfect results. I know now that it doesn’t exist.

There are things I do differently with your younger siblings because I have learned from my mistakes, but I have also, by God’s grace, grown in godliness and the fruit of the Spirit—things like kindness, gentleness, and self-control. I, too, have gained perspective on things. I have learned to recognize more differences between childishness and disobedience. I have grown in giving grace to others and resting in grace for my own failures instead of thinking every misbehavior of my children was a poor reflection on my parenting.

I know this may make you feel a little bit like a guinea pig in my parenting journey. I wish I could’ve had it all figured out from the time you were born, but that’s not the way life works; we all learn and grow from our past mistakes and successes.

In all of this, I hope you will see that not everything I did was bad. Know that I have always sought to do my best, to be a godly parent who raised you according to the fear and admonition of the Lord. I have always loved you, always prayed for you, and always tried to do what was for your good, including teaching you how to live the way God says is best. Most importantly, I have always told you the truth of God’s Word, and I have always told you about Jesus—that he loves you in such an amazing way that he died on the cross for your sins and that you need to turn to him as your Savior.

My parenting certainly isn’t perfect, but I hope you remember the most important things I tried to teach you. I trust in God’s sovereignty, that even in my shortcomings as your parent, he will work all things out for your good.

I love you. Grow in godliness and in your love for God.

This article was originally published at https://lifeword.org/blog/letters-to-my-children-when-i-fail-you/

A Storm Sent to Save

We often think of God as being the one who calms the storms, and rightly so. We do not usually think of God as being the one who sends storms into our lives.

Our normal reaction is to think storms are bad. We don’t like pain, discomfort, anguish, tears, or anything that seems frightening or difficult. Our natural tendency is to avoid those types of things and do anything we can to get out of a hard situation. But there are times when God uses storms in our lives to get our attention.

Like Jonah.

Jonah was living in disobedience to God. He was told to preach a message of warning and repentance to the Ninevites, but instead, he ran in the opposite direction. He was running away from God.

So God sent a storm.

Jonah was asleep on a boat trying to flee the opposite direction of Nineveh when God sent the storm. Even with all the turbulence in his life from the storm, he continued to ignore God and slept. God sent the captain of the boat to wake him up.

Most of us know the rest of the story—that the sailors threw Jonah into the sea to try and appease the gods and stop the storm; that Jonah was swallowed up by a great fish appointed by God and spent three days and three nights in its belly before he cried out to God and was vomited out onto dry land; that God gave Jonah a second chance to preach his message to Nineveh, and that this time, Jonah obeyed.

But we need to stop and consider something. Even before Jonah was rescued from the belly of the fish, God was merciful to Jonah—by sending the storm, by sending the captain to rouse him from sleep, and even by having him thrown overboard. How could something that nearly led to Jonah’s death be merciful? Because God loved Jonah too much to let him persist in his sin.

And God loves us that much too.

When we are living in disobedience to God, we are like Jonah—we want to get as far away from God as possible. Darkness and light do not mix. God is light, and in him there is no darkness at all. When we are living in the darkness of our sin, we will hide from the light. We like our sin; we don’t want to give it up, even if outwardly we would denounce the types of behaviors we try to hide in our own lives. Or we feel too ashamed to come to God; we think we’ve messed up too badly this time and can’t show our face to him.

Sometimes we need a storm to wake us up and bring us back.

If Jonah had easy sailing, he would have continued on his way, ignoring God and living in disobedience. Maybe his life would have been storm-free, but its end would have led to death—not just physically, but spiritually for all eternity. He needed a wake-up call. And God was merciful enough to give him one.

Pastor and author Alistair Begg says:

“God comes to us again and again in our disobedience, unwilling to let us wallow in our sin. Even if we put our fingers in our ears and pretend not to hear Him, and even if we flat-out refuse to obey, God pursues his wandering children. He loves us so much that He doesn’t want to leave us to our own devices. In our sin, we cannot outrun the mercy of God, the one who will never leave us or forsake us.”

In fact, he loves us so much that he gave his only Son to die in our place.

“For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life” (John 3:16).

In God’s mercy, he uses storms and painful circumstances in our lives, not to punish us but to get our attention so he can lovingly restore us into a right relationship with him. Jonah could not outrun or out-sin God’s mercy, and neither can we. Although the storms in our lives may seem unpleasant and undesirable at the time, they are actually a gift of God’s good grace to us because he loves us. And in that love, he will never let us go farther than his mercy can reach.

This article was originally published at https://lifeword.org/blog/a-storm-sent-to-save/

 

Letters to My Children: Beauty

To My Children,

You are very beautiful. There is no doubt that God made a masterpiece when he made you. But I often find you worrying too much about the way you look. I know you want to look nice and present yourself nicely to others, but God says outward beauty is not the most important thing about you.

Outward beauty perishes. As we age, our skin wrinkles, our hair grays, our chin sags, our joints get knobby. Many people look in the mirror and wish they could erase the effects of time, but that is simply not possible. The Bible says all flesh is like grass or the flower that fades—it is new and vivacious for a brief moment; then it withers away.

When God was choosing the man who would be king after Saul, he told the prophet Samuel to find him among the sons of Jesse. Samuel saw the first son, who was tall and handsome, and thought, surely, he must be the new king. But God anointed David as king—the son who was least in stature and ruddy in appearance; the one who no one else would look at and think, He is king material. Man looks at the outward appearance, but God looks at what’s more important—the heart.

Before you start to think I’m against makeup and fashion, let me say that we were born with an innate appreciation of the beautiful. We can all see a rose or a sunset, a painting or a person, and recognize the beauty in them. But that beauty is meant to point us to something greater. It should inspire awe and wonder at the One who made such beautiful things—whose power, creativity, and intricacy of design had the idea for such wonderful creations, and also the ability to bring them into existence.

Our outward beauty is meant to put the awesomeness of our Maker on display. And we can do this, not by dolling ourselves up and primping with products to put all the attention on us, but by showing people the imperishable beauty of a gentle and quiet spirit, which in God’s sight is very precious (1 Peter 3:4). There’s nothing inherently wrong with spending some time on our appearance, but is the reason we put on makeup or style our hair or wear a certain outfit to get people to notice us or our God?

Proverbs 31:30 says those outward things don’t matter and are prideful if they’re just meant to draw attention to ourselves. The thing about a person that should be noticed and praised is a person’s fear of the Lord—not a boastful “look at me” spirituality but one that shows God is worthy to be reverenced and awed.

I am not against thoughtfully and moderately accentuating the beauty God created us with. But, I want you to stop and consider some things the next time you look in the mirror: How much time are you spending on cultivating your outward appearance versus your inward appearance? How much time do you spend on Bible reading and prayer each day versus the time you spend on hair, makeup, or clothes? How much time do you spend getting ready to go to church on Sunday mornings versus how much time you spend preparing your heart for worship? When people meet you, what do they notice most about you—your looks or your joyful and kind attitude?

Remember that a woman who spends more time beautifying herself inwardly by developing godly characteristics will be more beautiful than what thousands of dollars of beauty products and hours in front of the mirror can buy.

I love you. Grow in godliness and in your love for God.

This article was originally published at https://lifeword.org/blog/letters-to-my-children-beauty/

Letters to My Children: Submission to Authority

To My Children:

Authority and submission to authority have always been a good thing. I know in our humanness we don’t like people telling us what to do—it feels restrictive; it feels like we have no control or say in our lives. But God says authority is good and good for us.

In fact, the first commandment with a promise of blessing involves submission: “Honor your father and your mother, as the LORD your God commanded you, that your days may be long, and that it may go well with you in the land that the LORD your God is giving you” (Deuteronomy 5:16). When children obey their parents, they honor them by submitting to them. When you become an adult, you will not submit to your parents in the same way, but children of all ages can show respect to their parents even if they disagree with them or, at times, set aside their preferences for that of their parents.

God wants you to submit to your parents, not only because he says it is right (Ephesians 6:1) but also because he knows it is best for you and will bring you blessing in life.

Submission is not just for childhood, however; it is not something you must endure for a little while and then grow out of. When you are older, you will most likely have a boss. If you are your own boss, you will still have to submit to governing authorities and pay taxes. There are also police officers, mayors, and judges to submit to. If you try to tell your boss you’re not coming to work for a month because you don’t feel like it and you don’t like people telling you what to do, it will not go well for you. If you get pulled over and try to tell the police officer you don’t want to give them your license and registration because you have other things to do, it will not go well for you.

God gives you practice submitting to authority while you are a child so that, hopefully, you will have learned that submission to authority is good. I want you to learn that too.

Authority was instituted by God. He put Adam and Eve in charge of all the animals and told them to subdue the earth (Genesis 1:28). He established Adam as the leader of the marriage and family and made that the pattern for humanity (Ephesians 5:23). Wives are to submit to their husbands (Ephesians 5:22; Colossians 3:18). Children are to obey their parents (Ephesians 6:1; Colossians 3:20). Servants are to obey their masters, or employees their bosses (Ephesians 6:5; Colossians 3:22). Citizens are supposed to be subject to governing authorities (Romans 13:1–4). The church is to submit to Christ (Ephesians 5:24). God is the sovereign authority over all his creation (Psalm 24:1).

Submission to authority is even modeled by the Trinity. Before the foundation of the world, the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit knew God’s plan of redemption for humanity and their roles in it. Although each person of the Trinity is equally God and there is only one God, the Son willingly submitted to the Father by dying on the cross, and the Holy Spirit willingly submitted to the Father and the Son by coming to be our Helper when they sent him.

God knows that if you submit to the authorities he has placed in your life, it will go well for you; he has placed them there for your good. I also want things to go well for you, so I am encouraging you to submit to the authorities God has for you; by doing so, you are also submitting to God. Submission to God always brings blessing, and rebellion against God only brings judgment and punishment, even if it is not immediate. The only time you would not submit to an authority is if they asked you to sin—in that case, you must obey God rather than man because God is the final authority in our lives (Acts 5:29).

I love you. Grow in godliness and in your love for God.