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Riding Lessons

Having two boys makes for lots of fun memories and this is definitely one of them!  Solomon and Gio pretty much play outside everyday and I usually hear them making noise and running around.  This day I noticed they were unusually quiet so I thought for sure they doing something they shouldn't be doing.  To my pleasant surprise Solomon was actually teaching Gio how to ride his bike.  He was also boasting about how much of a good big brother he is :)

He Keeps His Sheep

         Hebrews 13:20-21-"Now may the God of peace who brought up our Lord Jesus from the dead, the great Shepherd of the sheep, through the blood of the eternal covenant, make you complete in every good work to do His will, working in you what is well pleasing in His sight, through Jesus Christ, to whom be glory forever and ever. Amen."


  Man is not at peace. He's not at peace with God, and usually not with anybody else. It's amazing how we sin and pursue the satisfaction of our desires and our pleasures and we'll sit there, and if we think about it long enough we'll say, "I'm not any happier than before I did this."  We are in this condition of sin which brings ruin, disorder, chaos and destruction, and into that kind of a world the Son of God came to make peace. He is the God of peace. Through Christ and the gospel He made peace with sinners, and they are able to make peace with each other. Christ can make peace and He gives peace (Romans 5:1). 
          This is the grace of God: it doesn't matter how far down you've gone into your sin, He's greater than your sin.  The One who the hostility is against is the One that takes the initiative to go and get the one who is at war (John 10:16). We can't fix our state; we can't pick ourselves up; we can't free ourselves. Only He can break the hold of our own sin and self destruction. That sheep on that cliff is going to fall off and is going to be destroyed if the Shepherd doesn't grab it (Luke 15:1-7)! 
         I don't care what age you got saved. Have you ever thought about what you would've become and what you would've done to yourself if He hadn't of intervened? He keeps His sheep! I don't care "super christian" who you are, I'm gonna tell you why you've been sustained and haven't destroyed yourself, even as a Christian: He's kept you! He has kept you!

One Thing is Needed

              The last few months God has been burdening my heart to learn what it truly means to worship Him.  I've been blessed to inherit many of my dad's books from his library and quite a few are specifically written on worship.  You may think of worship as the time you sing songs at church or a biblestudy, but I have come to find out it springs out of your heart and shows through every day of your life.  One of the books that I read is titled, "How To Worship Jesus Christ" by Joseph S. Carroll, so many of things I will write is from that book.
            The first chapter is focused on Luke 10:41-42 which goes, "And Jesus answered and said to her, "Martha, Martha, you are worried and troubled about many things. But one thing is needed, and Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her."
           As a busy mother and wife, many things are necessary to manage our home, be a helper to my husband, and bring up our children in the Lord.  By the time you are done with cooking, cleaning, laundry, grocery shopping, disciplining the kids, getting them off to school, or homeschooling you have little hours left in the day.  This doesn't even include the things you need to do for a ministry you are serving in at church.  Helping with a ladies meeting, going to a biblestudy, bringing someone a meal, planning a baby shower, discipling a younger woman.  There are a lot of things that demand our attention!
             I would venture to say that most of us women, if not all of us, can relate to Martha.  Now all the things I just listed are good things.  God calls us to make disciples, study His word, serve in the church, give to missions, pray for others, but if we do all those things and leave out what is the most needed, then we will always fail to truly worship Him in our daily activities.
             Now if we go back and look at Luke 10:39 it says Mary was "seated at the Lord's feet, listening to His word."   
              John Macarthur comments on this passage,"Most people, unfortunately, are exactly like Martha - preoccupied, distracted, too busy serving to sit at the Savior's feet. Living in a high-tech age, we tend to be driven by time clocks, deadlines, schedules, appointments, obligations, assignments, and urgent things beyond our control. Few people feel they can afford to put worship at the top of their "To Do" list.  The truth is, we can't afford not to. Worship is ultimately our first priority. Nothing on anyone's agenda is more important."
                 The Lord isn't saying to not be busy. As women we will be busy and we will always have a lot on our plate. If you read Proverbs 31:10-31, you see that this woman who is said to be excellent and fear the Lord, is a very busy woman. In vs 13 she is working with her hands, vs 14 and 15 she is preparing food for her family, vs 16 she is making a profit to help financially, vs 19 to 22 she is making her family and others clothing and vs 27 she is not idle.  But if you notice in vs 25 her intimate relationship with the Lord is shown by her trust and confidence in her God, in good times and bad. We may be "busy" with many things tugging at us from all different directions, but may we not be anxious and troubled by them, and may we never leave out the most important, the most needed thing of all.
                Joseph Carroll writes in his book that, "the best time to worship is, of course, in the morning, in that time that we call a quiet time."  But what is a quiet time?  I used to think it was a time when I would read a few chapters of the book of the Bible I was going through and pray for the people on my prayer list.  That is not a quiet time, that is a study time and a time for intercession, but not a quiet time.  
                Matthew 6:6 says, "But you, when you pray, go into your inner room, close your door and pray to your Father who is in secret, and your Father who sees what is done in secret will reward you."  You need to be alone. Whether you are in a closet, a room, a forest, or a car. The main thing is you get alone with you Father.  When we pray, we enter into the very presence of God only by the blood of Jesus.  May that great truth never grow dull to us. We need to be in awe of not only what God has done for us, but who He is.  These are the things we should think on when we are having our quiet time.  Instead of looking at the clock and saying, 'I only have a few minutes to get through my prayer list and read these few verses and then I can go on about my day', we should simply be bowing down and worshiping the Lamb of God who was slain for us.  The only One who is worthy of our worship.
                 Psalm 27:4 says, "One thing I have desired of the LORD, that I will seek: that I may dwell in the house of the LORD all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the LORD, and to meditate in His temple."  David was a great man, a great leader, a king, an amazing psalmist, but the only thing he desired was to behold the beauty of the Lord and have intimate fellowship with God.  We must seek Him with all our heart!  
                Now back to Martha and Mary.  Martha was not the only one busy - Mary was busy too, just in a different way. Martha was allowing all the "things" in her life to swallow her up and spit her out. She was complaining against the Lord and then commanding Him to do something about it. She was so distracted by the world around her that she completely missed the most important part.  I used to read this story and think the difference between Martha and Mary is their personalities. Martha is busy and involved in a lot of things and Mary is quiet and reserved.  I've come to see that that's not it at all.  The difference between these two women is this: Mary made a choice. Martha did not.  It's natural for women to be looking after our home, cooking up dinner in the kitchen and ordering people around to help in this way and that way.  We must make a choice to seek the Lord. And it's not an east choice. As we fulfill our calling to the Lord, may we not forget the one thing which is needed to set the foundation of a Christ glorifying life. May we consciously make a daily choice to seek hard after the Lord with all our heart and cast off every hindrance that is weighing us down. May we sit at His feet and adore the One who gave His life for us and experience a personal love between you and your God. May we commune with Him in complete aloneness, almost as if there were no one else in the world.  May we pour out our love on the Savior's feet, just as Mary poured out the costly oil.  
              
 "We were created to worship Jesus Christ. We were created for Him, to become something to Him in order that He might find pleasure in us. But this demands discipline. This demands self-renunciation. This demands the mortifying of the flesh. This demands the taking out of our lives everything that does not contribute to the one great objective."

Excited To Learn

                         Well, I never thought it would come to this, but yesterday was Solomon's first day of school.  Oh, and it was also my first day of school too :)   Troy and I have decided to home school (ahhhhhh!).  So, as many other moms in our church have done and are currently doing, we are going through a charter school Visions.  Trust me when I tell you, there is NO way I would ever be able to do it independently!  Ha now that would be a sight to see!  So anyways, Visions provides you with a Certified Teacher that you meet with once a month, they guide you along the way and are there for you whenever you need them.  I am very thankful for the opportunity to be able to do this.  I know the last few days leading up to this I started to get a little anxious, just thinking about how in the world was all this going to pan out?   Especially when people would ask me the dreaded question, "So, are YOU ready to home school?"  Well, if you REALLY want to know, the answer would be no and yes at the same time.  NO, of course I'm not ready, I've never done anything like this before!  And YES I am ready because I have God on my side and He promises that "I can do ALL things through Christ who strengthens me."  So the night before the big day, I cried out to the Lord and asked him to wake me up early the next morning, give me energy for the day, give me wisdom on how and when to start the school day, to multiply my hours to still have time to run an errand and cook dinner all before Troy gets home.  Yesterday morning I woke up to my alarm I set and I felt refreshed and ready to go.  I started my day with communion time with the Lord, just being quiet before Him and talking with Him. I can't express to you how much fun the first day of school was for Solomon and for me.  God answered all my prayers and then some. I even got a workout in before school started!
         A few verses come to mind when I think about how blessed our day went.
Psalm 37:5, "Commit you way to the LORD, Trust also in Him, and He shall bring it to pass."
 Also Psalm 34:4, "I sought the LORD, and He heard me, and delivered me from all my fears."  
                So here I am, ready to start day 2 of the unknown path of home schooling and my way is still being committed to the Lord.  I pray all of our school days will be joyful and that most importantly I would use those days to continually point Solomon to Christ or it would all be in vain.  Here are a couple photos of how much fun Solomon had testing out his cutting skills, and of course a picture he drew of himself.  Hey, he got the curly hair right!

John the Baptist: A Model Preacher and the greatest man that ever Lived

Luke 3:1-9

                    "John the Baptist was a man governed by the Spirit, a God-centered man.  He had a commitment to fearlessly, powerfully, uncompromisingly preach.  He spoke the truth whether people liked it or not.  He spoke the truth whether it was received or not.  His goal was not to get and keep a large crowd, like many preachers today.  He didn't think his job was to be as positive and "feel-good" as people wanted him to be.  His job was to speak the truth for God's glory and to be helpful to people by telling them the truth for their own good, whether they understood it or not. 
                     He was a model preacher.  Many preachers today try to make you feel as good as they possibly can, even if it means not telling you the whole truth. What if you had a doctor like that?  Now say you have blood where you shouldn't have blood, pain in your chest where you shouldn't have pain, numbness in your body where you shouldn't have numbness, you've got severe headaches.  So you finally go in to the doctor and he smiles and says to you, "everything's gonna be alright!" even though you'll be dead in two years.  People that won't accept that with doctors, will accept that with preachers.
                    The people were telling themselves, "I'm Okay! Abraham's my father, I know that the scriptures are from the prophets and they're from God.  John says, "Don't even begin to say to yourself because you know all that, that you're okay! I can tell by your life that you are not okay.  If God has done His work in you, you'd be following Him and have left all that behind. The axe is laid at the root of the tree!" 
                    John the Baptist was also a good news preacher (vs 3). His aim was not to judge them or condemn them, his aim was to get them to see, "you too need to repent, you too need to be forgiven".  He preached  God's grace and mercy and pardon in Christ. The glory of Christ captivated John beyond any man that ever lived (John 1:24-27).  He clearly saw the glory of the person of Christ ( John 1:29-30). When he preached forgiveness, he understood that the forgiveness of sins would be because of the atoning work that Christ did on the cross.  He says in John 1:29 when he say Jesus coming to him, "Behold, the Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world!" 
                     This is the greatest man that ever lived."

Little Did I Know

                     This past Wednesday, July 31st, marks my 10 year anniversary of getting my cosmetology license!  I can't believe it's already been 10 years, but at the same time so many momentous things have happened since that hot summer day in Sacramento when I finally became a "professional".  It's funny because I wasn't one of those little girls who always dreamed of one day being a hairstylist or a makeup artist.  I was actually more of a tomboy who loved to play soccer and wear skater shoes.  Even through high school I loved playing sports over doing my hair and makeup.  After graduating high school, I had planned to just go to the community college, take some classes and try out for the volleyball team.  Then God used a woman in our church to mention the idea of going to beauty school.  I remember mentioning it to my parents and my dad was all for the plan.  He said in all of his intensity, "Lindsey, that would be great!  One day if you ever have a family you can work from home!" Now, he's telling this to an unsaved 18 year old straight out of high school.  The last thing I was thinking about was being able to work from home while taking care of a family!  All I saw was cute hair and dollar signs. 
                  Little did I know that God had a way better reason for me going to beauty school than just stylish hair and making money.  I'm so thankful for the way the Lord works things out and the people He uses in our lives to direct us in the way He wants us to go.  It's not only a blessing to be able to help out my family financially, although with two crazy boys I'm not working as much these days, but there are other blessings with it.  For one, I have the opportunity to meet women who I would never have met otherwise.  Not only ladies in our church, but women outside of the church.  God has graciously given me many opportunities to share the gospel with a few of my clients, many of which I passed up or should have been more bold, but I know He can even use the few words I did say to them.  So what I first thought to be  just an adventure through beauty school and gaining experience in different salons, turned out to be so much more. 
                  My dad definitely knew what he was talking about.  Little did I know he would be right!  Little did I know instead of being at all the latest hair shows ,I would be at home running after two rambunctious boys while my client's color is processing.  Little did I know God's plan for me was way better than my selfish sin driven one that I thought I had all mapped out.  So thankful that God directs our steps and that He is ultimately in control!   
             Proverbs 16:9- "The heart of man plans his way, but the Lord establishes his steps."

Happy Birthday Solomon!

               I'm a little late, since his actual birthday was on Sunday the 21st, but hey better late than never right?  He's not only 5 years old now, but has already lost 2 teeth and can write his name.  Where has the time gone?  He's my big teddy bear, tough- yet sensitive, goofy- yet serious, social butterfly.  The first time you meet him he's already giving you hugs and high fives.  Here's a photo of him slam dunking on his fisher price hoop. The next picture perfectly portrays his goofy side. 

All That We Need

Colossians 2:9,10 - "For in Him dwells all the fullness of the Godhead bodily; and you are complete in Him, who is the head of all principality and power."

           In Christ is access to every believer for their completeness.  I don’t care how messed up your background was, how deep your scars are, how evil the people were that raised you.  You can be complete (1:28)! And you can be encouraged (2:2) because in Him, in bodily form now, is a fullness accessible to you.  Christ possesses in His being and in human form as the God-man, the  entirety of the infinite being of all of God’s attributes. The perfections of God’s nature in their entirety and fullness are found in Christ.  

          He is infinite in His knowledge, in His wisdom, in His love, in His mercy, in His graciousness.  He possesses infinitely every single  attribute that the Father possesses.  How can  there not be what we need??? Sustaining power? He’s infinitely powerful!  Mercy??  To sustain someone that does not deserve to be sustained? He’s infinitely merciful!  Infinitely faithful, loving and just!  The attributes are not only infinite, they are immutable. They cannot be changed!  He can’t love an object of His love less.  If you can sin and He love you less, then you can change Him.  Can you change Him?  No!  He can be less happy with you, less pleased with you, but He loves you the same (Psalm 89:1).  The essence of the glory of the being of Christ and of God the Father is their sufficiency.  There’s Someone who helps you, there’s Someone who sustains you, there’s Someone who gives you wisdom, , there’s Someone who gives you power, and He’s all powerful and He’s all wise. There’s Someone who restores- there’s a Person and He’s all sufficient-

 and this is His glory. 

A Tooth for a Tooth

Solomon has yet to turn 5, but he already came running to me this morning shouting, "Mommy, my tooth came out!That's amazing! (just like his papa used to say)".  It's funny to think about how you can actually be excited about losing a tooth.  Can you imagine if as adults we were still like that?  We bite into a frozen candy bar and our front tooth comes out with it, and we shout with joy, "My tooth came out!".  Hmmm, I don't think that would be a joyous occasion.  We would be calling the emergency dentist line right away.  Not to mention, that is actually a true story, but I'm not gonna say who that really happened to ;)  So learn from their mistake, if you like your candy bars to be cold and you put it into the freezer, please let it sit for a few minutes before you bite in, just sayin'.  
On the more serious note, it is a precious thing to watch your child go through all the stages of life.  It's also amazing to think about how all-wise God is in His creation.  He fashioned our bodies so complex and with such care.  He even gave us two sets of teeth! 

Opportunity to share of God's mercy

For those of you who don't have Facebook, here is the link to watch the video of Troy's speech

Troy was given a huge opportunity to speak at an 8th grade graduation at a public school in Vallejo.  Even though he's never done anything even close to this, he knew he couldn't pass it up.  If the Lord is with him then he's ready to go!  The first picture I posted is him right before he went to speak at the graduation.  The second picture is Giovanni realizing he's not going with daddy, and Solomon is just in his own world :)  The amazing thing about this whole thing, is that even though he's speaking at a public school, he was free to mention his faith and God's mercy on him.  He even quoted a few scriptures at the end. Now in this day and age,  that is unheard of!  I'm so thankful that Troy was finally able to share with others God's great mercy on him and how he was delivered from the domain of darkness and transferred to Christ's kingdom of light. I especially like the part when he said he has no excuses to justify his life of purging in sin.  No one, no situation, no surrounding to blame but himself.  Just like Troy, if it weren't for God's mercy on us, we would be dead in our sins and on the path to hell.  Praise God who lavishes His love and mercy on us, not only undeserving, but ILL DESERVING people!  I also want to point out that even though this was way out of Troy's comfort zone to do this,  he did not back down.  He put Christ's glory in the forefront of his heart and asked the Lord to help him accomplish His work.  So when you are presented with an opportunity to serve Christ that may be out of your comfort zone, but you feel the Spirit's tug at your heart, don't back down.  You will lose out on major blessings of trusting in the Lord to help you and give you the strength to do it!

Reconciled in Christ

 As I was listening to my father's sermon online,  the Lord put it on my heart to begin posting pieces of them kind of like a devotional.  I pray God continues to use my dad to bring souls to Christ and proclaim His name. 

Colossians 1:21,22 - “And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, He has now reconciled in His body of flesh by His death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before Him.”

                 What He did in removing the offense of reconciliation is SO entire, SO complete, SO final that He can present us before God without any blame, without any reproach; It's ALL been removed! All the offenses, all the sins that would breach us are gone! He can present us faultless in Christ, not faultless in ourselves. 

                 How, How do we not cherish Him? How do we not serve Him? How do we not love Him? How? And how, how – when we are offended – we say, “you know they offended me man, let me tell you what they did, and I'm hurt”, how do we not say to them, “What did you do and did I do anything to cause you to do that? Was there anything that I might have done to precipitate this? Take what's out of your eye first – the log, and then you get the speck out of your brother's. How do you just lay in to someone without fist saying, “ did I do anything to create this thing? Was there anything on my side?” You say, “I don't want to do that, why should I have to do that?”

               He did it ALL friends! He took away your offense! How can we NOT approach people that way and say, did I do anything to make this breach? Was there anything on my side that caused this, even a little bit? Now you already know in your mind what's on their side and it's huge to you. That's not the issue. The issue is this: If Christ approached you this way, how can you not approach people that way? How do we do this?? We forget what He did for us. 

              Oh what a Savior! Oh Lord You came our way, You went to us, the angry rebel that spit in your face and didn't even know it. We say “what do You want? Hey get out of my life!” Children of wrath.. and You reconciled us. We should be in the dust. Who are we? Who do we think we are? Please forgive us, forgive every one of us. Amen.

When in doubt, PRAY

Our human nature in all of its falleness,  tells us that we always have to be physically doing something in order to help - either ourselves or someone else.  Yes, it is good to physically help someone if the opportunity presents itself- bring them a meal, help them with household chores; but sometimes the only thing - and the BEST thing - you can do is PRAY.  Maybe someone is going through a trial and they may not need any one material thing to help them, but just to let them know you are praying for them is enough.  Don't just say the words "I'm praying for you"  and leave it at that.  No, go to the throne of grace and pray for them.  Or you may know of someone who lives far away and you long to be able to be near to them to comfort them.  Send them a note and let them know you are praying for them, and really pray for them. Don't just say you are praying for them, do it.  I am writing this to me first, I know I need to grow in this area greatly. 

 Charles Spurgeon says, "When you cannot use your sword, you may take to the weapon of all prayer.  Sword and spear need furbishing, but prayer never rusts; and when we think it most blunt, it cuts the best."