The Law - Part 2

This is the second part of my previous post about the Old Testament Law, and what I feel like the Lord has revealed to me about it's purpose. My insight is certainly not unique, I have heard it from others before, but I also hear a lot of people saying that the Law is done away with. I disagree with that, and if you missed the first part, check it out here. Then, lets move on to part two. I ended last time with the question:

So am I saying we are still bound by the Law?

No.

I believe we are free from having to follow the letter of the law through the death of Jesus. Yet, we are also free, to express our love for the Lord by following the theme that was established by the law, which is to love the Lord your God, with all your heart, soul, mind and strength, and to love our neighbors as ourselves. The Law shows us what is required to be pleasing to the Lord, in very great detail.

Yet we also have Holy Spirit now, which makes it so much easier to follow after the Lord in the way that He has called us to live. With the help of Holy Spirit, we now have a real chance of actually succeeding to some extent at living a life pleasing to the Lord.

Finally, my point in writing this is in defense of the Law as a good tool. The Lord did not make a bunch of rules so that when Jesus came, those rules would be worthless. They had a purpose back then, and they can still be useful now. I think after reading the Old Testament and seeing all that the Israelites went thru I can more fully appreciate the New Testament grace that comes through Christ, and also the value of Holy Spirit operating on our behalf.

Still, with the Holy Spirit opening my eyes, I no longer view the Old Testament as such a sad story. I always use to feel so bad for those Israelites. They were always messing up so bad, and the wrath of the Lord was always coming against them. But when I look at what the Lord offered them, and how they scorned that offer with their evil living, it is no wonder that a Holy God like Yahweh could not help but punish their wickedness.

When you read books like Hosea and Song of Solomon. You realize that the Lord was trying to woo His people Israel like a Bridegroom woos His bride. It really was all about love. Ever seen a wounded lover? It isn't always pretty. They would accept His offer of marriage (the covenant) again and again, but fail to be faithful, again and again. I feel more bad for the Lord. He always held up His end of the deal.

If I was the Lord I would have probably turned away from them completely, but He never did. Whenever they would repent, and come to the Lord for help, He would always hear from heaven and rescue them. We serve a truly loving, faithful, and merciful God. His mercies are new every morning. The Old Testament is as much a picture of that as the New Testament.

Thank you Lord, for all you are teaching me about Yourself, and Your ways. Help me to listen carefully to the instructions You offer me, because I want to live a life thats worthy of Your calling. Remove the things which hinder me from loving You because I don't want regret upon the day I stand before You. May I be found a pure and spotless bride (A Life thats Worthy by Misty Edwards).

The Law

The Lord wanted relationship, the Israelites wanted something else.

This is what I have been reading in my quest to read the entire Bible in a year. Obviously I'm in the Old Testament, but I'm finding it so, so interesting.

After experiencing the Lord when He came down on Mount Sinai to speak directly with the people of Israel, they asked Moses to speak for them with the Lord ever after. They didn't want to be in relationship with such a powerful, unpredictable God. They wanted something that was perhaps more manageable? More tame, I suppose?

They got the Law.

Now, having grown up in the church, I have heard a lot of bad talk about the Law, and I still hear a lot of other people say that Jesus did away with the Law when He came. Well, I disagree with both of those ideas to some extent. Here's why.

Even Jesus Himself says: "Do not think that I have come to do away with the law and the prophets; I have not come to do away with them, but to fulfill them."

To FULFILL means to achieve or realize (something desired, promised or predicted); to bring to completion or reality

Now lets look at the Law, the real point I want to focus on. What did Jesus fulfill?

All those animals sacrificed.  Those animal sacrifices were part of the instructions of how the people could make themselves presentable to the Lord. There had to be blood paid for their sins, for them to be acceptable in the sight of a Holy God.

Thankfully, Jesus did fulfill that part of the Law for sure. He came as that perfect, sinless Lamb, who paid the price for all of our sins. So now the blood part is taken care of.  Jesus fulfilled that requirement in the Law.

What about the rest of the Law though? All those rules about how to be ceremonially clean, how to tithe to the Levites, how to deal with contagious skin diseases? How were those fulfilled by Jesus coming.

Well, before we go there, lets look at what the book of Matthew says about the Law & the Prophets:
Matthew 22:37-40

"You must Love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the Law and the prophets are based on these two commandments."

There it is. The point of the Law.

To help us to love the Lord our God with all our heart, mind, soul, and strength, and to love our neighbor as ourselves.

I learned about that in Sunday school when I was 8 years old, but now, at the age of almost 30, I am asking myself, how does the Law really point to that conclusion.

Here is what I have come up with so far.
The Law was a set of rules, and the prophets carried the message, that pointed to this ultimate desire of the Lord: that His people would love Him with all their hearts, souls, and minds, and that they would love everyone else the way they loved themselves. The Law wasn't a big rule book for the sake of having rules. It was a guide for the people of Israel, to lead them into a loving relationship with the Lord.

However, they didn't see it as such. They missed the Lord's heart behind the message. Only a select few really got it. Moses got it. Joshua, son of Nun got it. David got it. Even Solomon got it, well for a while. Yet even those who got it, somehow that message would get lost from one generation to the next so that the people never remained faithful to their relationship with the Lord.

Even still.

What about all the other stuff that the Law contains. Some of it is still good stuff that was not made null and void when Jesus died on the cross. Or at least, I think it would still apply to today.

Things like laws about "forbidden sexual practices" and "holiness in personal conduct" and ideas about "redemption of property, the poor, and enslaved". Those sound like good things to me, even now that Jesus has come.

Sure, there are certainly a few things in the Law that I don't understand why the Lord included it, but I do know this. The Lord is not careless in His ways. If He put it in the Bible, then it has a deeper meaning, and therefore we should trust and respect that.

When I hear people say that the Law has been done away with, I typically wonder if those people who are saying that are really just looking for a way to show more tolerance to the sin in their own lives (or the lives of friends). Just being real here people. Like those people who have sexual sins in their life. It would be really easy to excuse a lot of sins by throwing out the Law, and saying it no longer applies.

If the Law no longer applies, then maybe those things contained in the Law are no longer sins? Interesting idea. Yet God is still the God of the Old Testament. The person of Jesus is not a contradiction to the Old Testament expression of the Lord. They are one and the same. So doesn't it also make sense then, that if the Law was a list of rules and ideas that the Lord established to help the Israelites to live rightly before Him, that they would still have some application for today.

People who preach a lot of freedom in Christ are probably not liking where I'm going with this.

So am I saying we are still bound by the Law?

To be continued in........The Law Part 2.

2013 Goals

I know I have written about my belief in the importance of goals (and vision for our lives) before, but now that we are into a new year, I thought it would be fun to look back on my list of 2012 goals, and see how I think I did.

Here are a few of them that I made:

1. start homeschooling Kinsey (main focus - teach to read) - Done (and I started teaching her Kindergarten stuff August thru December, and still going strong. I gotta say, I love this one!)

2. read 2 non-fiction books: Biography of Suzanna Wesley - Done.   The Overcoming Life by Rick Joyner - Almost Done (only half way by years end -whoops.)

3. drink more water - Done (pregnancy was helpful for this one, made me more thirsty)

4. start and finish the Song of Songs Study by Mike Bickle - Done (and loved it!)

5. write more on my blog - Done (more than any other year before!)

6. start a prayer meeting - Done (started in December, but it still counts, and it is still going)

7. tithe my time to the Lord = 18hrs/week - Somewhat Done (the goal at least helped me be more intentional, but my average was more like 12 hrs/week)

8. read thru the Bible in a year - Failed (but I blame pregnancy, reading was hard when i was preggo. I know, excuses, excuses. I never even got started on this one. whoops.)

9. give more away - Done (we gave more money away this year than any year of our marriage previously, and we gave lots of other 'stuff' away too! It felt so good to be able to give so freely)

10. pray more consistently - Done (my schedule had regular prayer meetings included and I became really good at sticking to those prayer commitments. I give props to the grace of the Lord though, because I know He made me stronger in this area this year)  

11. start an etsy business - Failed (but it is still in my heart, I just didn't feel the timing was this year, so although this goal was not met in a year, it is still floating around in my heart and mind)

12. have a healthy new baby & go into labor naturally - Done and Done! (my most awesome labor ever and baby boy is perfect!)


So, those are my goals from 2012. Pretty reasonable, right?

Well, now lets look at a few of my 2013 goals. These are so exciting to me right now!  I feel so empowered by how well I did with my 2012 goals (the Lords grace was surely upon me), that I started to make some new kinds of goals this year. Some of these are not even real goals, so much as faith declarations that the Lord will have to help me fulfill, but I know He can do it, and so I wrote them down in faith!

Here they are:

1. start first grade homeschool with Kinsey in August

2. teach my children to pray by praying with them more consistently (consistently is the key word)

3. read 2 nonfiction books: Love and Respect by Eggerichs and The Mission Minded Child by Dunagan

4. read thru the Bible in one year

5. do a new Bible study/book study

6. stay committed to praying consistant at scheduled times (again, consistently is the key word)

7. do weekly exercise (start with abs)

8. cut out more sugar and processed foods from my family's diet

9. cut out extra gluten sources in our diets (things other than bread, we love bread too much)

10. clean my house more diligently and stick to my cleaning schedule (oh, this is a hard one!)

11. organize and keep organized our family files/records

12. renew my passport

13. blog at least once a week (well we can all see how well I'm starting out on this one...whoops, but there is still time to correct this goal!)

14. finish more craft projects than I start

15. give more away (than even last year, not sure how, but I believe if the Lord wants to use us this way, then He will give us the means)

16. walk in greater spiritual authority and discernment (I feel like this one is in the Lords hands as much as mine)

17. learn to maintain my peace and joy, even in the midst of transition (this one will really get tested as our move to TX draws near)

18. make new and deep friendships (even while I'm here in SC, but even more so when we arrive in TX)

19. send out at least 4 care packages to missionary friends overseas

20. start to learn a bit of spanish

21. hug and show my affections for those I love in a more regular way (I don't want to move away from my SC friends and have any regrets about the way I loved them. Love is an action, so I want to show my love more often, with my actions and words!)

22. design a new garden  (somewhere, anywhere, doesn't even have to be for me....)



There you have it. Pretty crazy, right? I feel like some of these are big, but not too big for God, who is my strength. So I am moving forward, and if I don't ace all of these in a year, I'm not going to beat myself up about it. I will focus on what I did get accomplished and thank the Lord for what has been fulfilled!

Be inspired! The Lord is mighty, and His strong right hand is willing to move on our behalf if we ask Him. You better believe I am asking Him for some divine help, but in the end, I will be better for having stretched myself. My hope is to be very......... flexible, by the end of this year!

Hugs!


PS. It is not my intention to intimidate anyone with my lofty goals, it is my hope that you will be inspired. So it is also worth mentioning, that I have been making goals for a few years now, but the first year that I made goals my goals were not nearly so big. 
Start small, make a manageable list, and keep it somewhere where you will see it often. Keeping your list before you will help you remember to keep going for the goals, and not forget about them. We as women are prone to forget, so don't give yourself that easy way out. I keep mine in my day planner, and I look at them at least every two weeks if not more. The sight of them spurs me on, to do better and more!
Hope that helps.

The Swap

Although I could probably fit some uber spiritual theme to that title, for this time, I am actually talking about a physical swap. Just a normal, every 6 months, clothing swap between me and some of my mom friends. But, oh, what a swap it was!

I attended my first swap when I lived in Kansas City. I had hardly anything to bring because I was a missionary, and well, I just didn't have much to swap, but it was still such a blessing. No one in our circle of friends had a lot, so we all came with the little we had. All of us had a blast trying on clothes together though. It was great fun just to be silly girls together for a few hours, without our children or our worries, and then we all went home with at least one new outfit!

Amazing!

So amazing in fact! That friends can get together and swap a commodity (clothing), that is so overly expensive to buy new. Then each of us is able to walk away with at least one new outfit without spending a dime!  It is important to mention, that the clothes we were bringing were not trash, we were just no longer in love with them. So we brought them, and swapped them for something new and exciting.

Sigh. It was so satisfying. Only a woman can understand how much so.

Now, here I am, the morning after my fourth ever swap, looking through all my goodies. Can we say, exciting!

This time I felt I had a lot to bring. People had been giving me clothing on and off for the past 6 months, some of which didn't fit me, or wasn't my style, etc. So when it came time to swap, I brought all of those items with a few of my own things. Then I walked away from that night with a whole clothes basket full, and I wasn't even hoarding. There were at least six trash bags of clothes that were left to be donated to the Salvation Army the next day.

Those of us with an abundance, brought our many gifts. We organized it somewhat, and then we 'shopped'. Some of us tried on clothes, and all of us enjoyed some great fellowship and snacks. And we all went home with at least an armful of new clothes.

This time I got a great pair of shoes, a couple pairs of pants, and some comfy shirts. I also found some earrings and a few necklaces. Oh, and a new summer purse too! It was so much fun!

So now, it will be a long time before I need anything new again. I have new summer clothes and winter clothes, and even a few new maternity clothes (for that next pregnancy which is no where near happening yet).

To all my readers out there, who else likes clothing swaps? If this is a new idea to some of you, though, feel free to ask questions too! I've been through enough of them now, I feel a bit like an expert, of sorts.

Peace to you all!

The Patriarch Lesson

So I am on this reading plan - one of my goals for 2013 - to read thru the whole Bible in a year. I am doing really good, in that I am ahead of schedule in reading it, but I haven't yet reached Deuteronomy and Numbers yet, which I expect to slow me down, just a bit.

Anyhow, reading about Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, and Moses, has been so interesting for me. For sure, I have read these stories before, but the Word is living and breathing. The Lord shines fresh revelation on scriptures, even if we have read then a hundred times.

Right now, the lesson the Lord is highlighting, is how bad these Patriarchs of our faith messed up. They were so flawed. They had some big time tests that they failed, or just bad character flaws in general, etc.

The point that stands out to me is, not only did they have these big failures, but that these failures were recorded in the scriptures, to be remembered for all time. They were considered righteous men, and they were, but not because they were any more prefect than me or you. They were considered righteous men because they believed and fellowshipped with God. They even got it right a good portion of the time, and obeyed the Lord's commands and followed thru for the long haul. Yet it was their faith in God, in the bad, and even in the good times that made them righteous.

It brought me back to a statistic I heard somewhere once, that the Lord focuses on the 85% that we get right (that is an overly generous percentage I know, that is like for a saint or monk or something, not me personally)

Yet I find myself almost constantly focusing on the 15% that I get wrong. Or that other people get wrong. Why do you think the Lord has no problem forgiving our sins and seeing the goodness in us?

Because He is looking for the goodness, the good stuff. He sees us and He sees our potential as well as our hearts, and He smiles because He doesn't make junk, and He made us. He can see our beginning from our end, and everything else in between. So when He does comes across the bad in us, He is never surprised by our failures. He just picks us up, and dusts us off, and tells us what else He sees! There is a whole lot more to us than our failures, so lets start focusing on the good in us.  Especially what makes us really good, which is Christ in us, our hope of Glory!!!!

Sugar Detox - Round 2

Three years ago (approximately) I detoxed myself from sugar. What a wonderful and stupid thing it was to do. Wonderful, because it is always a good idea to detox from any addictive substance, and stupid, because I didn't really think about what the consequences might be. Therefore I detoxed without a plan for what to do with all the "junk" that a lack of sugar stirred up in me. (white refined sugar to be specific)

Seriously, I was raging on the inside. Most people wouldn't look at me and say, "she is a woman who deals with anger", but I'm telling you flat out, I had murderous thoughts about people for the seven days it took my body to detox from sugar. It was scary, even to me.

I'm telling you, it was wild! Thankfully, most of the war with my flesh occurred in my mind. Still, it was like taking a bandaid off of a big nasty infected wound. Instead of dealing with anger or frustration as it cropped up, I had just kept putting a fresh bandaid on it every time it would begin to ooze through the old. Sugar was my bandaid.

I would hazard to say that lots of us stay at home moms use sugar as a bandaid, because heck, what else can we do in the moment. The kids are out of hand, the house is a wreck, and I (we) have a whole, well stocked cabinet with baking supplies at my (our) disposal. Let's whip up some cookies and eat away our troubles.

Some of you may laugh, because it sounds funny, but also because you know it is so true. Scary true.

Now back to the detox. The detox forced me to look at the vicious cycle I had been supporting. I would have a bad day, but instead of taking my burdens and troubles to the Lord and allowing Him to help me invest into those areas where I was struggling, I just baked cookies and pacified my flesh.

Therefore, the fresh bandaid was applied, and I didn't have to look at or deal with my issues.

No everyone uses sugar this way, but I would guess that we all have something that we turn to as a comfort when we feel 'stressed' or 'on the edge'.  So we pacify our flesh, you, me, and lots of people, right? Yet I took the plunge three years ago to be brave and rip that bandaid clean off, and then be more brave to look at what was underneath (in my heart).

I am sharing all of this to encourage you to try it too. Be brave. Try to quit some habit that you turn to when you are having a bad day. See if we are really walking in that fruit of the Spirit called Self Control.

It may not be pretty, and it probably won't be fun, but it will be healthy and a very good learning experience. It humbles me to look at the true condition of my heart. I did my first detox, like I said, almost three years ago.  Since then, I try to do them periodically (sugar detox), as a litmus test to see where my heart is. It is a pretty accurate test.

If I can be friendly and walk in compassion and love without my beloved sugar, then I'm doing pretty good with allowing the Lord to transform me from the inside out, and not just covering up my boo boo's.

If I can't be civil or say a kind word to my husband, children and housemates, and I want to swerve my car to hit innocent creatures while driving, and I want to ram my cart into someones car who parked to close to my passenger side so that I can no longer easily load my children in after an excursion into a grocery store (just being real here, I never actually did these things, I just wanted to), then i would say I have been using sugar as a boo boo cover again, and need to take these heart issues to the Lord afresh. I need to let the Lord cultivate in me some Fruits of the Spirit, because lets face it, if we really have the fruit, then it will still be there when the sugar is gone, right?

So in the last three years I would say I have done pretty decent, my detoxes have not be terribly dramatic, like my first, but this one, the one I started a few days ago, has been interesting. Hard. Ugly.

It started with a massive headache, which at least reduced me to passive parenting (red flag 1). Then, when the headache passed, I was using sharp words with everyone in my house. I knew I didn't feel as strongly as I was speaking, but I just couldn't seem to control my tongue (red flag 2). Now, I find myself feeling somewhat depressed when I walk in the kitchen, like nothing will satisfy me (red flag 3).

Then later, I blew up on my housemate about the most ridiculous thing, and spent the next 20 minutes pacing around our townhouse complex crying. Not because I was sorry, but as a release for all the rage that was burning under my surface. Then, after praying in tongues for a bit, I was finally able to come in and apologize to our housemate and look at the situation rationally (big ol' fat red flat 4).

So now my questions is, "how did I let sugar creep in and take so much control again?" The answer is pretty simple, and a long story (so I will not go into it), but the bottom line is, I was again using sugar as a crutch to deal with the somewhat hard things in my little world.

Wow. Food is such a powerful thing in our lives. To be used for good, and evil.

And for me, white refined sugar, is evil.


Which brings me to another point that I feel ready to mention.  I will need to be learning these lessons, of how to run to the Lord with my problems, instead of sugar, in the coming months.

As some of you may already know, we are moving again, across country again, this time to land in Texas. I am both elated and apprehensive. I am so excited for the adventure the Lord is leading me into, but I am not as eager to start all over in a new place.

I have built some of the most amazing friendships of my life here in Charlotte, NC, and it will be a very hard day for me to say goodbye to these people who mean so much.

It may be 7 months away (July-ish), but I know myself. I will need the Lord to be my comfort as the time draws near. I don't want sugar to be my comfort. I want the Lord! He is my comfort and my shield.

If you think of it, pray for us, that the Lord would make this a smooth transition and that the Lord would also be preparing me some new friends in Texas.  I already know that I'm going to need them like air. There is nothing like another woman friend to cry with, laugh with, and share life with.

Natalie, Tabitha, Katy, Carolyn, Bree, Katie, Ashely, Lauren, Lindsay, and Ashleigh, you ladies have made my life so good here in South Carolina. There are others, of course, but these are my fail-safe groupies, that help make being a mom so much fun for me!

Bless you all!

Awareness Day

Lot of thoughts float through my head on any given day, but lately there has been a recurring theme. I come upon this theme fairly regularly, because it is one of those things that has always pierced my heart. It is one of my greatest passions for intercession, but I warn you, it is heavy, and sometimes hard to read about. It is....


Human Trafficking - the Sex Slave Industry.


Because that's what it is, you know, an industry that exploits women & children sexually.

It makes me sick to my stomach when I think about it. The injustice, the evil, the victims, and yes, even the perpetrators.

Sexual crimes in general have a huge affect on me, especially since I got married and experienced sexual intimacy for the first time.  I realized then what a beautiful and wonderful, and yet very vulnerable experience it can be and should be. After than, even when I would read about a rape in the newspaper I would be reduced to tears and feel a heavy knot in my stomach. The wrongness of this sin stirs me inside like few others do.

Sometimes I still cry about it, when the reality of it grips me afresh. Mostly though, I take that sick feeling in the pit of my stomach now, and turn it into intercession. Lately I have had a wave of thoughts concerning this very topic again. The Lord just keeps highlighting the industry to me, and my heart is gripped with the desire to speak out about it. Then I realize it is Human Trafficking Awareness Month. Go figure.

My excuse is no longer "how can I share about this", but when and to who.  So here is one of the places I have chosen (my blog).

It was National Human Trafficking Awareness Day yesterday, January 11th! Yet this whole month has been declared by President Obama to be National Slavery and Human Trafficking Awareness Month (January).  Even Obama can get some things right, and I bless him for that, but I hope it leads to him pushing also for the Trafficking Victims Protection Act (TVPA) to be renewed through Congress. Click the link above to read more about it.

So now I just want to highlight a ministry that deals with this very issue. Not some foreign mission, far across the ocean, although there are plenty of those. Great and powerful ones that work to rescue and then support women and children being brought out of the sex industry.

Still, I am choosing to highlight a ministry that is much closer to home and one that I think plenty of us have a skewed view of. I know I use to misunderstand these women.

Prostitution, right here in the United States of America.

We sometimes write these women off as "they should have known better" or "they chose that lifestyle for themselves", but they are as much victims as any, and their Father in Heaven is broken hearted over them as much as anyone else.

So here is the ministry - Hookers for Jesus! 

I first heard about this ministry watching the movie Nefarious.

Never heard of that movie? It is a movie that exposes the extent of human trafficking that is happening around the world. It brings awareness to the plight of women and children all across the globe.

"Why would anyone want to watch a movie about that?" you ask.

I would, and thousands of others too, because we desire to be gripped and ruined with the issues that grip and pain the father heart of God. Sure it is painful to see and watch. I was crying uncontrollably during several parts, especially where children were involved, but it is pain with a purpose!

It moves me to do all I can (in my small world of influence) to pray about it, talk about it, learn about, and walk with a heart of compassion.

So there you go. Please try to read about Annie's story on the Hookers for Jesus site if you can. It will not be easy. Her story paints a very painful picture of brokenness, but it has a good ending. One that leads to a powerful outworking of the redemptive work the Lord has done in her life.

If you are also interested in learning more about the Nefarious video, and other Human Trafficking awareness materials, then please visit Exodus Cry!

Have a blessed day.