V is for Virtue

Well, I am running behind, but I vow to finish. So let me start by catching up with V.

A to Z Challenge

Virtue:  Behavior showing high moral standards, goodness, virtuousness, righteousness, moral excellence, integrity, dignity, honor, decency, nobility, rectitude, purity, conformity of one’s life and conduct to high moral and ethical principles, uprightness, rectitude

Where is the virtue today? Where are the high moral standards, standards of goodness and excellence, righteousness, honor? Have they died as we negate God in our world? Without God, where does virtue come from anyway?

In a search for ‘virtue’ on the internet, I found many organizations attempting to recreate the virtuous that has been lost. There are some that admit religion plays a role. There are others that identify other mechanisms to instill virtue like sports, work, or stable relationships like families or schools. However, this neglects a deep question. Why should anyone desire to be virtuous? Who defines virtue and where does the idea of virtue originate?

To have true virtue, we need a standard by which to measure that virtue. We need a definer of virtue. That standard definer is God.

Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience. Bear with each other and forgive one another if any of you has a grievance against someone. Forgive as the Lord forgave you. And over all these virtues put on love, which binds them all together in perfect unity. Let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, since as members of one body you were called to peace. And be thankful.

Colossians 3:12-15(NIV)

Here are a few websites to check out to:

Voices for Virtue 

The Character of Virtue 

What is the Biblical Value ofVirtue? 

God bless, Maria

Making the Most of...

I am participating for the third year in the April A to Z Challenge. Each day of the month, minus Sunday, we blog on a certain topic that begins with the designated letter from the alphabet. Today is 'M' and I chose to make the most of it. 

We have reached the halfway point. So I thought one way to make the most of the challenge was to again thank Arlee Bird for creating the challenge for all of us to enjoy. It is amazing how it has grown. Well over a thousand people are participating this year. Thank you to all of those involved in making the most of this blogging experience.

A to Z Challenge

Making the most of: An idiom meaning to use to full advantage, to enjoy to the greatest degree possible, to maximize one’s experience, to get as much out of something that we can.

Therefore be careful how you walk, not as unwise men but as wise, making the most of your time, because the days are evil. So then do not be foolish, but understand what the will of the Lord is. Ephesians 5:15-17 (NASB)

I encourage you to check out what the therefore is there for in this verse from Ephesians. But even if you don’t, the point that is made about being wise in the use of your time if you are going to make the most of it is worth pondering. We are constantly in a state of making choices from the littlest thing to the monumental. Do I stay in bed an extra 5 minutes? Should I take the job? Do I marry him? Many little decisions we don’t even realize we make. Will I smile at the cashier or remain preoccupied? What kind of an attitude will I have today?

I believe the more purposeful we are in these little decisions, the more likely we are apt to make the most of…(fill in the blank.) Deciding to have a good attitude, to have a positive impact on one’s environment, to be a blessing and to receive the blessings from God gratefully, all these little decisions have monumental consequences and lead to making the most of our lives and everything in them.  

Here are a few articles to help make the most of your life, talents, and even less than happy circumstances.

Making theMost of Your Christian Life 

Make The MostOf Your Talents 

Making theMost of a Breakup 

Maria

King of Kings

Once again I am participating in the A to Z challenge. It's krazy. It's kreative. It's kaotic. Today's letter is: K and my word for K is King.

A to Z Challenge

King – a Sovereign, a ruler. The one who has the authority over a kingdom.

The Bible clearly points to Jesus as the king of heaven and earth. In ‘J’,  I propose that what we do with Jesus can make all the difference in the world in our lives.

Jesus answered, “My kingdom is not of this world. If My kingdom were of this world, then My servants would be fighting so that I would not be handed over to the Jews; but as it is, My kingdom is not of this realm.” Therefore Pilate said to Him, “So You are a king?” Jesus answered, “You say correctly that I am a king. For this I have been born, and for this I have come into the world, to testify to the truth. Everyone who is of the truth hears My voice.” Pilate *said to Him, “What is truth?” John 18:36-38 (NASB) 

 I charge you in the presence of God, who gives life to all things, and of Christ Jesus, who testified the good confession before Pontius Pilate, that you keep the commandment without stain or reproach until the appearing of our Lord Jesus Christ, which He will bring about at the proper time—He who is the blessed and only Sovereign, the King of kings and Lord of lords, who alone possesses immortality and dwells in unapproachable light, whom no man has seen or can see. To Him be honor and eternal dominion! Amen. 

1 Timothy 6:13-16 (NASB)

This song, written by Jeremy Camp, is called “King Jesus.” Enjoy. 

Here are two additional ‘K’ websites to help you to know and keep believing in Jesus, the King of Kings.

Knowing Jesus 

Keep Believing

JESUS

A to Z Challenge

Jesus – The historical person who Christians accept as the second person of the Trinitarian God on whose birth, Dionysius, a monk who lived in the 5^th century, based the center point of the current calendar. Though his calculations may have been incorrect, the point is that the birth and life of Jesus is accepted by most of the world from a calendar perspective as the center of human history.

I believe it was C.S. Lewis who first said, Jesus must be viewed as a liar, a lunatic, or Lord. You see, Jesus claimed to be God and the Messiah. Here are just three of the many examples.

“I and the Father are one.” 

John 10:30

“Jesus *said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life; no one comes to the Father but through Me.” 

John 14:6

“And those who were in the boat worshiped Him, saying, “You are certainly God’s Son!” 

Matthew 14:33 (He never denied His deity when others worshipped HIM.)

Someone who claims to be God is either seeking to deceive or is crazy. He can’t be a good teacher or just a prophet with the claim being among His proclamations. The third possibility is that He is who He says He is. When I examine the evidence: the eye witness accounts of His life and His miracles, the changed lives then and throughout history, the archeological and forensic evidence of the validity of the Biblical accounts, I can’t help but come away with a conviction that Jesus is who He says He is. 

If He is who He says He is, what you decide about Jesus makes all the difference in your life. Here are a few "J" websites to help you consider Him further.

Jesus Online Ministries

Jesus

Who is Jesus Really?

God bless, Maria

Glory

A to Z Challenge

Glory: What is Glory? John Piper puts it like this:

“I believe the glory of God is the going public of His infinite worth. I define the holiness of God as the infinite value of God, the infinite intrinsic worth of God. And when that goes public in creation, the heavens are telling the glory of God, and human beings are manifesting His glory, because we're created in His image, and we're trusting His promises so that we make Him look gloriously trustworthy.

The public display of the infinite beauty and worth of God is what I mean by "glory," and I base that partly on Isaiah 6, where the seraphim say, "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of his—" and you would expect them to say "holiness" and they say "glory." They're ascribing "Holy, holy, holy is the Lord God Almighty. The whole earth is full of His—" and when that goes public in the earth and fills it, you call it "glory."

So God's glory is the radiance of His holiness, the radiance of His manifold, infinitely worthy and valuable perfections.” 

Other websites to help unfold God’s glory and His grace:

Giving Glory to God

Grace to You

What is the glory of God?

FAMILY

A to Z Challenge

Family: Traditionally the family unit would be defined as a husband and wife with the possibility of children produced by said union. It would also extend to the father and mother of said husband and wife, so grandparents, and aunts and uncles and nieces and nephews and so on. The word family has come to include a whole host of different unions today.

In our Sunday school recently, we considered what a Biblical family looks like and what the idea of a Christian family should look like. If you look in the Bible at families, it doesn’t pull any punches in identifying an assortment of dysfunctional families. So we are left with the question, “what would God want from family and in family relationships?”

It is my belief that God wants a family to be the source of learning about Him, the place where we find strength, refuge, character, among other empowering and good things.

“You have heard that it was said, ‘You shall love your neighbor and hate your enemy.’ But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous. ...

Matthew 5:43-48 (NASB)

Now for this very reason also, applying all diligence, in your faith supply moral excellence, and in your moral excellence, knowledge, and in your knowledge, self-control, and in your self-control, perseverance, and in your perseverance, godliness, and in your godliness, brotherly kindness, and in your brotherly kindness, love. For if these qualities are yours and are increasing, they render you neither useless nor unfruitful in the true knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.

2 Peter 1:5-8 (NASB)

Clearly God wants us to be loving and kind to reflect what it means to be a member of the family of God. To find out more about living as a Christian in family visit:

http://www.familyrenewal.org

http://www.focusonthefamily.com

http://www.cftministry.org 

This is another “F” website I came across in my search with some excellent short clips on living as a follower of Jesus Christ in the family of God..

https://flannel.org/store/films/nooma

Equip

A to Z Challenge

Equip – the preparation and providing of what is necessary and essential to perform a certain work.

He who descended is Himself also He who ascended far above all the heavens, so that He might fill all things.) And He gave some as apostles, and some as prophets, and some as evangelists, and some as pastors and teachers, for the equipping of the saints for the work of service, to the building up of the body of Christ; until we all attain to the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to a mature man, to the measure of the stature which belongs to the fullness of Christ. 

Ephesians 4:10-13 (NASB)

All Scripture is [a]inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, for [b]training in righteousness; 

2 Timothy 3:16 (NASB)

The things which you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses, entrust these to faithful men who will be able to teach others also. 

2 Timothy 2:2 (NASB) 

There are many sights, some provided in earlier posts, which can provide the essentials for equipping the Christian to understand and give an apologia for one’s faith. There are also plenty of websites that you can find which attempt to equip against the Christian faith. 

As a Christian, I want to be equipped to be an effective Ambassador for Jesus Christ, to examine and be prepared to explain the essentials of the faith and represent the kingdom of Heaven to those with whom I interact.

Here are a few websites which help equip Christians to do just that, to be Ambassadors for Jesus Christ and the kingdom of Heaven.

http://www.equip.org/about/

http://www.iequip.org/news/equip-at-a-glance/

http://evangelismexplosion.org

Doubt

A to Z Challenge

Doubt is not the opposite of faith; it is one element of faith. Paul Tillich

We all have doubts. What we do with them is the question. I prefer to examine and weigh the evidence, using critical thinking to come to the best conclusion. Still doubts may resurface simply because we are constantly bombarded with a cacophony of conflicting, confusing communication which stirs up uncertainty. So I go back to the examining and weighing of evidence, using critical thinking which generally strengthens my faith, because doubt is one element of faith. 

Here are a few web posts dealing with the issue of doubt.

http://www.keepbelieving.com/sermon/if-i-believe-why-do-i-doubt/

http://bible.knowing-jesus.com/topics/doubt,-dealing-with

https://bible.org/seriespage/lesson-31-dealing-doubt-luke-718-35

Maria

Christian Worldview

A to Z Challenge

A worldview is the comprehensive way we make sense of and relate to the world, touching every area and aspect of life. We all have one, but many of us don’t live a consistent worldview that is in line with who we say we are and what we say we believe.

What is a Christian Worldview? A Christian worldview would be the way a Christian should relate to and make sense of the world if he is living as a true follower of Jesus Christ and son of God through faith in Jesus Christ. In other words, if I am a Christian, am I walking the walk not just talking the talk?

Here are  a few websites that delve a little deeper into  Christian Worldview. Of course there are many others, but these are a few I have found reliable that start with 'C'.

http://www.christianworldview.net

http://thechristianworldview.com/

http://www.compellingtruth.org/

Maria

Biblical Studies

A to Z Challenge

What was once a staple of our learning in the USA, the Bible, has become more misunderstood and misinterpreted than studied today. I am not talking about the academic discipline pursued at the college level. What I mean is the daily intake of Biblical truth that was taught in homes and schools from before this nation’s beginnings.  

Yes the Bible may be the “Christian’s” book, where we believe the revealed Word of God can be found to answer the basic questions of life, but it also holds wisdom, culture, and history that has served mankind throughout the centuries. It is a sorry state of affairs that humanity at large has become so Biblically illiterate.

So here are a few websites where you can explore the Bible and also find answers to some of those questions which may be causing you some misunderstanding. Of course there are many others, but these are a few I have found reliable that start with 'B'.

https://www.biblegateway.com

https://www.biblicaltraining.org/

http://www.biblestudytools.com

https://bible.org/

Happy studying!  Maria

Delighting in A to Z 2015

I signed up a little late for the A to Z Challenge this year and haven't blogged since last November, and my blog visiting has slacked off lately, but I decided it was too much fun to not jump back in. So here I am, last minute, but here. Since I literally just added my blog on the last day of March, I'm not prepared this year. That will certainly make the challenge more of a challenge, but I have no doubt it will stretch me in a good way.

I believe that we are meant to be always stretching, always learning. As a Christian, I want to be always growing in my faith, testing it, confirming it, deepening it. I want to be able to share it meaningfully, truthfully, lovingly. So in that pursuit, I hope to complete my A to Z with resources that will do that, stretch, and in the stretching, grow faith, and in the growing, share.

I look forward to once again visiting old A to Z friends and making new ones. Thank you to Arlee Bird and all the A to Z team for this blogging adventure. It's time to relearn blogging for me. I have so much to learn and relearn and I will delight in the journey.

                                                                                                                               Maria

Join us for Call2Fall

The Call2Fall is nothing fancy.  It is simple.  On Sunday, June 29, 2014, let's get on our knees and faces before the Lord in repentant prayer, pleading with God to reshape our lives, renew our land, and send times of refreshing (See 2 Chronicles 7:14; Acts 3:19).

Join us in living out the Call2Fall Declaration and preparing our hearts for Sunday, June 29th.   

You can find out more on the Call2Fall Website.  Can we ever pray enough for our nation?  Spread the word.

Call2Fall

  

Call2Fall

More Puritan Prayer

In my last post, I mentioned that I have recently become enamored with Puritan Prayer through the introduction of my pastor.  Here are two more of the Puritan Prayers I found so very compelling.  I hope they bless you as they did me.

                                     Spiritual Helps

Eternal Father, it is amazing love, that You have sent Your Son to suffer in my stead, that You have added the Spirit to teach, comfort, guide, that You have allowed the ministry of angels to wall me round; all heaven subserves the welfare of a poor worm.  Permit Your unseen servants to be ever active on my behalf, and to rejoice when grace expands in me. Suffer them never to rest until my conflict is over, and I stand victorious on salvation's shore.

Grant that my proneness to evil, deadness to good, resistance to Your Spirit's motions, may never provoke You to abandon me. May my hard heart awake Your pity, not Your wrath, And if the enemy gets an advantage through my corruption, let it be seen that heaven is mightier than hell, that those for me are greater than those against me. Arise to my help in richness of covenant blessings, keep me feeding in the pastures of Your strengthening Word, searching Scripture to find You there.

If my waywardness is visited with a scourge, enable me to receive correction meekly, to bless the reproving hand, to discern the motive of rebuke, to respond promptly, and do the first work. Let all Your fatherly dealings make me a partaker of Your holiness. Grant that in every fall I may sink lower on my knees, and that when I rise it may be to loftier heights of devotion. May my every cross be sanctified, every loss be gain, every denial a spiritual advantage, every dark day a light of the Holy Spirit, every night of trial a song. 

                               The Valley of Vision

Lord,
high and holy, meek and lowly,
Thou hast brought me to the valley of vision,
where I live in the depths but see Thee in the heights;
hemmed in by mountains of sin I behold Thy glory.
Let me learn by paradox that the way down is the way up,
that to be low is to be high,
that the broken heart is the healed heart,
that the contrite spirit is the rejoicing spirit,
that the repenting soul is the victorious soul,
that to have nothing is to possess all,
that to bear the cross is to wear the crown,
that to give is to receive,
that the valley is the place of vision.

Lord,
in the daytime stars can be seen from deepest wells,
and the deeper the wells the brighter Thy stars shine;
let me find Thy light in my darkness,
Thy life in my death,
Thy joy in my sorrow,
Thy grace in my sin,
Thy riches in my poverty,
Thy glory in my valley.


I decided I had to purchase the book, The Valley of Vision which stirred my passion for these prayers. These cause me to delight even more in my God.
                                                                                 God bless, Maria

Discovering the Power of Puritan Prayers

Recently my pastor shared a Puritan prayer in church from a little book called The Valley of Vision.  It so blessed me that I asked if he would email me a copy of the prayer.

"Here Maria.  Why don't you borrow the book for a couple weeks?"

Reading some of these prayers, I have been so profoundly moved.  Several I have copied to share with family and friends.  I searched on the web to see if I could find easier versions to email and I found Puritan Prayers which replicate many of the prayers from my pastor's little book.   I hope to  commit some of them to memory.  I want to learn to pray like this from my heart, to pour my heart out with the depth of appreciation these godly folks had for their state and the awesomeness of God, His love, and His grace.  I want to pray like this.

Portrait of the Founding Fathers at the signing in the Capitol Rotunda

As God would have it, in the midst of contemplating the place of prayer in my life, I was privileged to take a tour of the US Capitol exploring our spiritual roots with the Center of Christian Statesmanship.  One of our guides, Congressman Forbes of Virginia, pointed out the place of prayer in our country's history and its transformative power before the birth of our nation.  Again my heart was pricked as I considered what greater role I should be giving to prayer for my nation. 

Today we don't give nearly the time and devotion to God in our prayers that was true of our Christian predecessors.  They would spend hours in prayer to our minutes, and it made a difference in their lives and their purposes, because they aligned their lives and purposes with God's meta-purpose.  Though I try to keep a prayerful stance, praying continually, I don't spend the devoted time in contemplative and repentive prayer that I believe I should.  Puritan prayers like these in this little book come from a heart that has been bathed in the presence of God in prayer and time in the Word of God.  I don't believe it flows from a few minutes, but from practiced Christian Discipline.

Now it's good to pray for whatever time you do.  However, as I read the prayers of these humble saints, I long for more of God.  God was so gracious to have these prayers committed to paper so that we could glimpse what beauty awaits us if we will pour our hearts out to the Lord and let Him fill us up.  How glorious we become in our contriteness because in our weakness, He is strong.

Here is the prayer that started me on this journey.

Valley of Vision: The Precious Blood
The Banner of Truth Trust ^ | 1978 | Arthur Bennett

 

Blessed Lord Jesus,

Before thy cross I kneel and see

the heinousness of my sin,

my iniquity that caused thee to be

‘made a curse’,

the evil that excites the severity

of divine wrath.

Show me the enormity of my guilt by

the crown of thorns,

the pierced hands and feet,

the bruised body,

the dying cries.

Thy blood is the blood of incarnate God,

its worth infinite, its value beyond all thought.

Infinite must be the evil and guilt

that demands such a price.

Sin is my malady, my monster, my foe, my viper,

born in my birth,

alive in my life,

strong in my character,

dominating my faculties,

following me as a shadow,

intermingling with my every thought,

my chain that holds me captive in the

empire of my soul.

Sinner that I am, why should the sun give me light,

the air supply breath,

the earth bear my tread,

its fruits nourish me,

its creatures subserve my ends?

Yet thy compassions yearn over me,

thy heart hastens to my rescue,

thy love endured my curse,

thy mercy bore my deserved stripes.

Let me walk humbly in the lowest depths

of humiliation,

bathed in thy blood,

tender of conscience,

triumphing gloriously as an heir of salvation.

A version of this prayer has been committed to song and can be heard at Sovereign Grace Music.  You can listen to or purchase the song or the album on this website.

                                                                              God bless, Maria

P is for Purpose

We all have purpose.  Tied to my purpose are p words :  passion, prayer, peace, praise, and being the person God created me to be.  

This is Good Friday, the day we Christians mark the death of Jesus Christ.    On Easter Sunday, we Christians celebrate His resurrection from the dead.  My ultimate purpose is to point to Him, our Lord and Savior.  

A to Z Challenge

 

C is for Christ

He lives! 

Christ came to bring deliverance, freedom, life abundant.  He claims to be “the way, the truth, and the life.” (John 14:6)  That’s difficult to grasp and can’t be completely understood, but it is worth taking the time to consider because if it is true, if He is who He claims to be, God incarnate, then what you do with Christ makes all the difference in your world. 

So let your eyes gaze upon Jesus.  I used to wonder what it meant to keep your eyes on the Lord.  I mean, isn’t being a good Christian about believing Jesus died for my sins and rose again to give me eternal life and then living the good moral life set forth in the Bible.  However, the longer I live the committed Christian life, the better I come to understand how its all about keeping my eyes on Christ.

Jesus Christ is central to the Christian faith.  Unlike other religions, Christianity can’t be separated from its founder, Jesus Christ.  Who He is and what you do with Jesus is what makes Christianity what it is.  You can’t take Christ out of Christianity and still have Christianity.  If you take other founders out of their religions, leaving only with their teachings, their religions could still function.  They are separate from what they taught.  Christ is integral to what He taught.  For the Christian, if Jesus isn’t who He says He was, the religion falls apart.  One could still live according to some of the moral principles He taught.  In fact a lot of people do just that without embracing Christ for who He claimed to be.  That isn’t Christianity though.  Christianity demands confronting Christ.

You see, as C.S. Lewis and other renowned thinkers have put it, Jesus was either liar, lunatic, or the real deal, God incarnate.  He can’t be just a good teacher, just a prophet, just a great guy.  He doesn’t leave that option open to us.  He claimed to be God.  He claimed to be the answer to man’s sin problem.  He made claims that don’t leave those other titles as possibilities.  What would you say to someone who claimed to be God if he wasn’t?   You see if Jesus wasn’t God, as He claimed to be, he was either deluded, or He knew He wasn’t God and He aimed to delude. 

As I spend time reading my Bible, praying, meditating on what I read, considering divergent thoughts and analysis, and conversing with skeptics, questioners, and those who have studied this in depth, as I consider the evidence for and against each of these propositions, deluded, deluder, truth, I am convinced of Jesus Christ’s authenticity as the Son of God.  His claims best fit the evidence and reality.  Christianity is not blind faith, but reasoned faith, yet faith none the less.  We can’t prove who Jesus Christ is, but we can, if we examine the evidence carefully, come to a reasoned conclusion to feed a confident faith.

Yes, Jesus was a great teacher.  He was a prophet and a good man.  He fulfilled many roles.  However, Jesus is so much more.  He was and is the Christ.  And if that is the case, does it make reasonable sense to ignore Him or treat Him as just one choice among many?  He doesn’t leave us that option either.  If His words are true and He says there is only one way to find the way to eternal life, shouldn’t we pay attention?  If He is God incarnate, then He has the answers to life’s big questions and other answers are just wrong.  If you have a disease that will kill you, you want the right medicine.  The wrong medicine won’t solve your problem.  Neither will the wrong belief solve a problem for which only Christ is the solution.

“Therefore, holy brethren, partakers of a heavenly calling, consider Jesus, the Apostle and High Priest of our confession; He was faithful to [the Father] who appointed Him, as Moses also was in all His house.  For He has been counted worthy of more glory than Moses, by just so much as the builder of the house has more honor than the house. For every house is built by someone, but the builder of all things is God.  Now Moses was faithful in all His house as a servant, for a testimony of those things which were to be spoken later; but Christ was faithful as a Son over His house—whose house we are, if we hold fast our confidence and the boast of our hope firm until the end.”                                Hebrews 3:1-6  

If Jesus Christ is who He says He is, and the evidence certainly points in that direction, can you afford not to consider Him and what He had to say?  Consider Jesus Christ.  Even better, discover the delight:  the deliverance, the freedom, the life-abundant in knowing Him.

…“fixing our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of faith, who for the joy set before Him endured the cross, despising the shame, and has sat down at the right hand of the throne of God.” Hebrews 12:2