Holiness By Grace

Mara gave me this book as part of our bridesmaid present. I had finished Loving God With All Your Mind, and I wondered what I would read next, then I got this. I really love it so far. It talks a lot about the co-existing doctines of a wretch saved by grace, (we have nothing to offer before or after salvation, yet if we love Christ we keep His commandments) and obedience to God only by His grace. I also love that this book reminds me that even the "works" we continue to do don't gain us merit or higher standing with Him. Any merit we have is Christ alone and that means after salvation too. God is not impressed by our works before or after and he is not obligated to bless us or react to our obedience, or bless us in the way we would think of a "blessing". Yet we are blessed if we obey Him. Makes sense right??!! :) I must admit I never thought of the obedience that we do after being saved as really not impressing God. We think, oh God is pleased with me, I did this, whether it be in outward action or inward thought. Which really God judges the heart behind this anyway. Ok so after my probably confusing description of the intro, and first chapter, I'll put some quotes in here that say it better. If you can endure till the end of all these, it's worth it!!! :)

GRACE. God's Riches At Christ's Expense

Belief in this provision of grace, wherby God chose to view us as his beloved through no good of our own, becaome the greatest joy of our souls. What robs many believers of this joy, however, is a misunderstanding of how God continues to view us after we have received the grace that justifies us. ( either by meriting favor with our "accomplishments" for him or having our stocks drop when we fail spiritually)

We race in the confidence that his grace does not cease just because we have faltered. Grace becomes not only the means by which God once justified us, it is also the means by which we are continually encouraged and enabled to serve him with undimished delight.

For is we cannot lift our eyes from an earthly perspective, then we wil so focus on our weaknesses and stumbles that the race to please God will be misery. But if we remember that God is the lifter of our heads, then we will raise our eyes to see the afffection in his own.. When we see that his regard for us does not waver, then his grace will quicken our steps. strenghthen our hearts and delight our souls to carry on. (reminds me of the verse, even when we are faithless , he remains faithful, he cannot deny himself)

(the intro goes to talk about the balance between license, do whatever you want cause hey I'm saved by grace and legalism, boundaries that aren't always bible based of what a "christian" should be like)

Still, it is not enough for the advocates of grace simply to react against legalism. We must also respond to the license that always tempts Christians when preaches say, " God will love you no matter what". Legalism makes believers think that God accepts them on the basis of what they do. Licentiousness makes believers think that God does not care what they do. Both errors have terrible spiritual consequences.

Jesus said, " if you love me, you will obey what I command" John 14:15. Grace should not make obedience optional. When God removes good works as a conditon for his acceptance, he does not remove righteousness as a requirement for life. The standards of Scripture glorify God and protect his people from spiritual harm. We cannot undermine the legitimate standards of the bible without grave consequences.

God does not love us because we obey him, but we cannot know the blessings of his love without obedience. Thus, a grace focus that undermines Christ's own demand for obedience denies us knowledge of and intimacy with him. This is not grace.
Grace that bears fruit is biblical.

Resting on God's grace does not relieve us of our holy obligations: rather it should enable us to fulfill them. As the assurance of God's love allows us to cease striving to please him for our own benefit, our good works will begin relfecting more of the selfless righteousness that is truly holy.

God's glory andthe good of others increasingly replaces self-centered motivations. And, as our obedience becomes a gratitude response to God's grace rather than an attempt to bribe God for blessings, holiness more and more characterizes our actions. We increasingly and forever serve God in the holiness he grants by HIS grace, making the pursuit of HIS holiness our delight.

We will see how a grasp of biblical grace both releases from leagalism and rescues from license.

Grace overwhelms us with God's love, and as a result our heart resonates with the desires of God. His purposes become our own.....True grace produces joy and promotes godliness.

And that was some of my favorite stuff from the intro. Are your eyes tired yet?? cause my wrist is...

My favorite points from chapter one:

Read Luke 17:7-10

This parable troubles us. The character Jesus uses to represent the divine perspective seems so unsympathetic. Not only does the master not invite the hardworking sevant to his table, Jesus also says the master OWES the sevant no thanks....we should learn that even when we have done all we were told to do, we hsould still say "we are unworthy servants, we have only done our duty. (God is not moved by the deeds we do)

Because of the great disproportion between our best works and God's true holiness, we are unable to trade our righteousness for God's favor. Our bargaining chips of good works have no currency with God. God will bless according to his purposes good works done in obedience to him, but we cannot bind him to our definition or preferred degreee of his blessings. God's blessings, for instance may come in the form of difficulites that bring us closer to understanding his heart by allowing us to share in Christ sufferings (phil 3:10)

Rock of ages verses:

Not the labors of my hands can fulfill they law's demands; could my zeal no respite know, could my tears forever flow, all for sin could not atone; thou must save, and thou alone.
Nothing in my hand I bring, simply to the cross I cling; naked, come to thee for dress; helpless, look to thee for grace; foul, I to the fountain fly; wash me Savior or I die.

Many of us regularly sing these words with the thought of our intial salvation in mind. We rejoice that God made us right with him apart from any goodness in us.. But health and vigor will be added to our spritual service as we understand that this song applies to us at every stage of our Christian lives. To grasp fully the grace that daily restores out confidence in His love, we must keep our hands empty of any claim that God must bless us on the basis of our goodness. For if he loves us because of what is in our hands, then the day will come when we will believe that his affection has diminished because our works are small, or that his care has vanished because our deeds are wrong.

When I face the reality of the inadequacy of my works to merit God's favor , then I recoginize that I must depend on his goodnes and not on mine....I recognize the true character of my good works. According to scripture even my best works are "filthy rags" There is too much of human imperfection and mixed motives in my best deeds to have them obligate God to do as I wish. John Calvin : To man we may assign only this: that he pollutes and contaminates by his impurity those very things which are good. For nothing proceeds from a man, however perfect he be, that is not defiled by some spot. Let the Lord then call to judgement the best of human works: he will indeed recognize in them his own righteousness by man's dishonor and shame.
such words should not cause us to think that God never desires or blesses our goodness. Walking in God's ways is itself a blessing. ( as in the natural consequences of being honest, faithful to spouse, honoring ones parents etc;) Still no degree of human goodness will lock God into a path of blessing according to our choosing, as though we had become his master through our merit.

God promises to bless obedience by using it for his purposes. The blessings that result, however , should be seen less as credit for our goodness and more as evidence of his faithfulness to his purposes.

...the difficulties we face that lead us ( and those who observe our faith) to greater dependence on, and satisfaction in, God alone. In such trials God still truly blesses our faithfulness to him but these blessings can as well involve the mercy of removing us from the grasp of this world's pleasures as rewarding us with worldly delights.

THus we cannot guarantee that his care will flow according to our plans simply because we conform to some degree to biblical standards. Our works do not obligate God to care for us in a way that WE think is best. We cannot put God on a leash through our goodness, nor obligate him to our wishes by our deeds. God blesses according tot he wisdom of his eternal mercy rather than in proportion to our works of earned merit.

BB Warfield :
We are sinners, and we know ourselves to be sinners lost and helpless in ourselves, but we are saved sinners, and it is our salvation which gives tone to our life- a tone of joy which swells in exact proportion to the sense we have of our ill-desert. For it is he to whome much is forgiven who loves much and, who lovingly, rejoices much.

our best works are not worthy of God's favor

If our teaching of grace causes us to make light of sin, or to slight the requirements of the Savior, then we have really not understood either the monstrosity of our sin or the greatness of the heart that forgives it.
When we truly percieve how great is the heart that pardons us, then our hearts begin to beat in harmony with that heart. Honoring God becomes the joy of our lives, and love for him becomes that power that fuels that joy.

The tears of confession and the joy of pardon are required to produce the gratitude that empowers the Christian life. Biblical grace neither minimizes the guilt of our sin nor grants libery for it's expression. We know grace in its fullness when we are broken to the point of tears over our shame of our sin. We, in fact, strive to see our wrongdoing in all its horror and betrayal of our Savior: for when we do , the marvel of God's graces becomes all the more profound and mobilizing.

this belief in God's unmeritied grace will transform our lives by unleashing us from the peformance treadmill of trying to gain God's affections (or other people's) by our deeds or despondency. When the confession of our hearts is, "everything that is right about me, Jesus did." then the power of heaven's joy comes to earth for us.

One Heck of Week In Parenting

Things have been going less than smooth since we got back from Texas. The night after we got home, we had some water in the laundry room downstairs and after going a day, with minimal flushing ( we thought maybe Mitch could fix it) we ended up calling the roto rooter at 10:30 pm. Then this last week I had to figure out our new health insurance since they didn't cover my lab work I had done to check my thyroid at st lukes. So I'm going to recap the stunts of my children the past week.
-After informing the kids I would be on the phone to the insurance company not to bother me, Isabelle thought she would throw a supernanny-sized 2 year old fit outside the door, yelling banging on the door, throwing things at the door... who was that child I did not know. Did I react in a peacemaking ( by biblical terms) sort of way our pastor talked about this sunday, nope I followed the peacebreaking route and used my full mom arsenal of yelling, spanking, grounding.
-Christian decided to give up naps last week, that's always pleasant.
-Christian rolled the watermelon off the counter while Iw as trying to put away groceries and it split, we have kitchen carpet by the way.
-Isabelle hung off the shelve in Christian's room pulling it and everything on it down. ( at least she told the truth about it)
-Christian crawled up on my nightstand and he and the stand came crashing down along with the plant and dirt in it, and this was before breakfast... and while I was scolding both kids (yelling) at this is why you obey the FIRST TIME I ASK!!! Christian says " shut up"
-Christan often manages to embarass me at the meat counter at fareway. This week I let him walk with Isabelle, they were messing around poking at each other and Christians blurts out giggling " my nipple, my nipple!" while clinging to my leg as I'm trying to order. One of the meat guys asks me " got your hands full today?" my response..."everyday"
Throw in a few " I NOT!!!"s in there and that was my week, and Christian's been getting up in the night trying to sleep with us too... so that's work to either have to take him back, or have him scratching my arm repeatedly with a sharp toenail.
Christian now thinks the words " I forgive you" are a term of endearment. So when he hugs me out of blue and says " I forgive you Mommy" I guess I should say "thank you"

Big Ol Texas Wedding

I'm finally blogging after getting home last wednesday! I don't know where to start, do people really want me to recap the whole trip to Tom and Mara's wedding? I guess I'll type and see where this all goes. :) The wedding was Sept 7th. We set out on Thursday driving to Chicago, it rained on us steady the WHOLE way. :) And it was chilly, like jacket and jeans chilly. We got to our hotel near the midway airport and ate an early supper. We then decided to go swimming, the fairfield's pool was under construction so we went across to the courtyard. And let me say, the walk back across the street was Cold in my suit, wet in the rain to boot... The kids would not settle down to sleep till we came to bed at 10 and we had to seperate them because they kept poking at each other and giggling. :) The kids slept good through the night, and I woke up at 4:30am and couldn't go back to sleep knowing I had to get up at 5 am anyway. Our flight left at 8:05am and we had to be at the airport by 6:30. We fly non revenue thanks to some buddy passes from my cousin who flys for southwest so we fly on the space left over and plan our flights according the loads. Checked bags are not garaunteed so we fit everything into our carryon's and that's quite a task with the rules now days, but we are thankful, we did check a carseat base for Isabelle, that did get to Austin with our flight but we did get it back before our flight home, go figure, but I'm not complaining that's forsure!! Anyway so if you can picture us going through the airport and security....4 suitcases, a dvd player, my huge purse, 2 backpacks and Mitch carrying Christian's carseat on his back in a carrier....Anyway, amidst all the navigation with that load in tow, the flight was wide open, and the kids did really great on the 2.5 hr flight. They did well on the ride backtoo and we discovered that Isabelle could not only carry her backpack on her back but also pull one of the suitcases...

grrr I just realized this didn't autosave my whole commentary on the wedding.... I HATE dialup. I may just need to do something about this internet situation....

so the wedding, beautiful venue, Mara looked like a model in her chic dress. Isabelle did great as a flower girl! Walked all the way by herself and tried to keep dropping petals once she got up to me and didn't want to stop. Cried a lot at this wedding, ahh sweet love. :) So great to see everyone! Love and miss my family so much!! Extended included, I was so thankful for this fun time to see everyone. It was great meeting Mara's family too!

I've been in the long tedious process of uploading pics on facebook+dialup= no picnic. I have to be here babysitting it, only doing a few pics at a time so as to not get logged off, ridiculous. So if you check back you may see pics you didn't see before, if you have that kind of time. :) Take care all and I will write more later and keep working on the pics.

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=41221&l=1dbb3&id=520472082

http://www.new.facebook.com/album.php?aid=41885&l=be41c&id=520472082

2 albums

Click The Pic

2 Weeks

I can't believe I haven't blogged for 2 weeks, and with all my talking... :) This is pretty much just a post for the sake of posting.
It's been busy... Mitch has been working lots of overtime... 57 hrs the other week... hmm maybe that had something to do with the lack of blogging...
Life is just busy lately, I'm still getting ready for our TX trip. There are so many little details to remember and bring. We leave the Thursday after Labor Day for Chicago and fly out Friday am!! I am SO excited to see my family and see my brother get married. I've been waiting for this day for a LONG time!! :)
This weekend we went to have a 30th anniversary supper with Mitch's folks, I'll get pictures up of that eventually.
More Christian one liners: When asked to say Kongable, he says Konbagel. He's been calling Isabelle, Isabelle instead of Izzy lately. And today as I had to take him back for yet another spanking for getting out of bed and going to Isabelle's room to play with her jewelry, he said " goodbye necklace... goodbye"
I'll just end there.

Sweet Corn Festival

Here are some pics from this weekend. The weather was beautiful and we took the kids to the sweet corn festival. Christian got to see a life size version of the kind of cars he plays with. He adores all vehicles, especially race cars. The sky looked threatening at one point and we thought we better leave, we got in the van and checked the radio, no warnings... other people were going in and we even saw some people come out of their house and start walking over the festival. I thought surely they would've checked the radar to know it must be ok to go. So we went back with an umbrella just in case. The the rains came, heavy rain blowing you. So there we were almost back to the festival, huddled under a tree, under the umbrella, getting soaked and muddy. ( there was no lightening by the way) Mitch then ran to the van in the rain and came and got us, he said we looked pretty funny under that tree.... so we went back sunday to let the kids use the rest of the tickets, the weather was even more awesome sunday!

More encouraging words from the book Loving God With All Your Mind...

Knowing God and His promise in Romans 8:28 also eliminates the need for to us to manipulate circumstances. ( I can tend to do this!! I think God needs my help for some reason) Taking matters into our own hands...is evidence of our lack of trust in God. We can have something of a hands- off approach to life when we are trusting in the truth of Romans 8:28, the promise that God causes all things to work together for the good. After all, God is the Author of life. - Liz George

If our circumstances find us in God, we shall find God in all our circumstances. -D.L. Moody

Operation Pottytrain Status : ABORTED

That's it, I gave up, for now on pottytraining little man. I feel that since he is enraged at his potty, I need to work on his many temper tantrums right now instead. I'm DONE. I will close my ears and eyes when I hear of younger children pottytraining and just except that is where God has my child at this time. I can only force my structure on him to a certain extent. So I can ruin my life now... or just wait till he's ready. Which trust me better be before 3, but I can give him 2 and half at least right?
I'm now reading Loving God With All Your Mind right and I found a few things encouraging that I will share with you. Gensis 41:52 " God has made me fruitfull in the land of my affliction" Now orginally I thought that this verse would be encouraging to Mitch since his job can really take it out of him, mentally and physcially. But today my kids are afflicting me!! Ok so it's minor, I'm not living in cancer but I can't even seem to be fruitful in these things today. I got ENRAGED when Christian dumped a whole bag of goldfish out, he knows not to do this, and he threw a fit and said no when I told him to clean it up, and this was before breakfast... then Isabelle gets gum on the carpet....AAAHHHHHHh I was ticked, and I don't think pmsing helps either. I'm so ashamed at myself for not controlling my anger. I had to apologize to the kids for the cracker incident to which ISabelle says with a hug, " I forgive you Mommy" and Christian hugs me and says " I love you Mommy" you'd think I would've learned my lesson but I lost it again over the gum incident, I am down here trying to do bills, balance the checkbook, see how bad the budget looks, Christian's throwing a fit upstairs not wanting to take a nap. Isabelle comes over, " Mommy, I got gum on the carpet... forgive me..." I was still ticked....humbled by my own sin, ain't it grand... the Christian walk is a such a stumbling journey. God will break you if you're not broken already I am finding out. When I'm broken, I walk in a more careful manner, talk etc; more sensitive to Lord and His Word etc; when I have it together, I just go stomping, ranting and raving, till I fall on my face and get back where I should be again....
ok so now my other quote from the book, she quotes a pastor

see God as the God of the Bible-supreme, sovereign, and sensitive....The Christian life is kept fine-tuned by biblical theology. We should always interpret experience by truth-we should always filter every pain through the lens of deity. When God is in sharp focus, then life is also undistorted.