Bunyan Bit No. 2: Christ the Advocate

“There is someone to plead for you with the Father. He is Jesus Christ, the one who pleases God completely” (1 John 2:1). This thought will bring you relief when your faith is discouraged and afraid. Satan can take some of Christ’s other functions and twist them around to frighten us. After all, Christ, as a prophet, sentences sin’s crime, and Christ, as a king, has the power to execute that sentence. Satan, however, as our enemy, has enough cleverness to abuse both these aspects of Christ to overthrow the faith of the children of God.

Christ is our advocate. This realization will help you to pull off the mask that Satan has tried to put over Christ’s face, misrepresenting Him to you so that you will be weakened and frightened. This is one of the most common ruses that Satan uses against God’s saints; he loves to take a spark of truth, bringing fire from Christ’s truth, and use it to burn us. He tries to make Christ look as though His face is so angry and distant, that a person who is tempted and guilty will hardly be able to look up at God.

But when you think, “Christ really is my Advocate,” this heals everything. Children can sometimes be scared if their father puts a masks over his face, but if the father speaks with Daddy’s voice, then the mask is gone, if not from the father’s face, yet from the child’s mind. Despite the mask, the child will crawl into the father’s lap.

This is exactly what happens when Satan deludes the saints by showing them a disfigured image of Christ’s face. Let them just hear their Lord speak in His own voice — and when we hear Him speak as an advocate this is His daddy-voice — and their minds will be calmed, their thoughts settled, their guilt will disappear, and their faith will revive.

Is Christ Jesus the Lord my advocate with the Father? Then wake up, my faith, and shake yourself like a giant, rouse yourself and stop being faint: Christ is the advocate of His people, and as for sin and selfishness, the one thing, my faith, that you most often trip over, well, Christ not only died for that, and not only carried His sacrifices to the Father into the holiest of all, but what is more, He continues to uphold that offering as an advocate, pleading its power and worth before God and against the devil for us.

The modest saint is apt to be embarrassed, thinking how troublesome she is or what a lazy good-for-nothing he has been in God’s house all day. Go ahead and blush, but never forsake your advocate.

– John Bunyan, The Riches of Bunyan (p. 116)

April 29, 2008 | Filed Under Bunyan Bits | Leave a Comment

Happy Birthday, Steve-o!

Man, our little man is three! How time flies…

I am keeping a private blog of all of my sweet and sappy mommy thoughts for my kids, so I will refrain from going on and on here. I just want the world to know how much we love this son of ours and how blessed we are to have him in our lives. I have woken up and gone to bed every day in awe that he lives in my house, and I just watch him play and learn and am amazed and more than blessed. He has his own little way of doing everything, and it makes my heart leap for joy. I cannot wait to see how God uses him in his life to bless others and bring glory to Himself.

Steven, you are

adorable

meticulous

focused

sharp

messy with food

tender-hearted

and so much fun!

Dear Father,

Thank You for your precious gifts, and thank You for our son. I pray that this next year would be a year of growth, laughter, and joy for us with Steven and that You would be drawing his heart even closer to Yours every day. Use him to teach us, and help us to see into his world and grow beside him in faith. In the strong name of Jesus I pray,
Amen

April 26, 2008 | Filed Under Celebrate!, Steve-o | 3 Comments

Happy Birthday, Mama!

It’s a happy day for me to wish my mother a beautiful birthday. I am so thankful for my mom and how much she means to me. I have pondered how grateful I am many times, and with each new day and week I become more thankful. She is a wonderful mama and grandmama to my kids. My mom has a heart of gold, and I wish her a wonderful, happy birthday!

April 25, 2008 | Filed Under Celebrate! | Leave a Comment

Bunyan Bit No. 1: Conscience

This is my first posting of the “nuggets” that I will be posting regularly from John Bunyan which I mentioned in my previous post. There are so many that I have already marked and highlighted; they are so good! So I just picked one of the ones I have read first and will post it as the first one. I hope you enjoy these “Bunyan Bits” as much as I am; I am eating them like a beggar with bread!

The conscience has its place in the soul, where it is like a judge to tell the good things from the bad, judging them accordingly (Romans 2:14). The conscience is the same as the law of nature (1 Corinthians 11:14), which is able to teach those who don’t know God’s Word that sin against the law is sin against God.

Now this conscience, a part of human nature itself, can control and scold those who will listen to it — but should we depend only on our conscience, making a god of it? How strange that people would make a God and a Christ out of their consciences, just because the conscience can convict of sin.

You say, If my conscience convinces me of sin against the law, then it will also help me fulfill the law. Friend, your conscience convinces you that you’ve sinned against the law, but follow your conscience, and it will only lead you under the law’s curse, for it is too weak to do anything else. It can never deliver you from the curse of the law, for if forgiveness came by obedience to the law, or by our conscience either, then Christ wouldn’t have needed to die (Galatians 2:21).

–John Bunyan, The Riches of Bunyan (p. 55)

April 24, 2008 | Filed Under Bunyan Bits | Leave a Comment

Maybe it’s Maybelline?

I have been pouring over some deep stuff in my mind that I want to post for several days. I’m excited. But right now I am awake and deeply disturbed by a random question that is burning inside my head (or, on my face, rather):

Does anybody know if it’s bad to go to bed without washing off your mascara?

I only wear makeup once or twice a week, but when I do, I rarely wash off my eye makeup because I’m too tired and lazy. Is that bad? I’ve been this way since I was in high school. I know you aren’t supposed to pluck your eyebrows to death when you’re young because if you do, when you’re old you’ll have to carve in rainbows with crayons every morning over your eyes. I have a dormant fear of plucking my eyebrows for this reason. Are my eyelashes going to fall out when I’m in my sixties because I don’t wash off my mascara at night?

Yikes.

[Update: at least someone else has been paranoid about this before...

Dan says,

"Not sure about the medical implications, but knowing that I might wake up looking like Mimi on Drew Carey would be enough to make me cleanse my face at night."

and Mlee says,

"Hey Sweets: I leave Mascara on all the time, and I have for 20 years. No eyelashes fall off other then the ones that were going to anyway. I know, I'm a slob. My daughter washes hers off every nite and I have longer eyelashes. Good Luck..."

I'm glad I got that out of my system.]

P.S. No, I am not saying “sixties” is old.

April 16, 2008 | Filed Under Chuckles | 8 Comments

Pregnant Tummy Pictures

Well, here is baby Shepherd hanging out at 27 weeks. Sorry for the not so glamorous pictures and the bad hair. There were a few with me smiling like a cheese ball, but they were blurry. Everyone tells me that he looks very high; my prediction is that he is already settling in like his siblings with big feet and stretching out his long body! Everyone says also that he looks like a nice little basketball, and I totally agree. That just makes me laugh! Steven looked like a basketball, too. The kids are kissing my tummy all the time now, and Meredith has made a habit of trying to lift up my shirt in public – oh no! That is always hard to explain to a little one!

This is also the time when Eric starts laughing and poking fun at me because I make the oven buttons start beeping. We have a cooktop with lots of digital buttons on the front, and when I start getting big, I’ll turn on the burners just by standing there. He loves to make fun of me about that. So… I turn the “oven lock” on just to avoid the jokes.

I know it’s annoying when pregnant women say, “I am SO HUGE,” but I really do feel so huge. I am simply not able to get to the gym very much because of our busy schedule and can certainly feel the impact. Apparently having four kids so closely together has really wreaked havoc on my muscles and their ability to stretch and “relax” well, too. (I love to state the obvious!) Seriously I am in a good deal of pain right now from my abdomen to my thighs, and although I knew it was going to happen, I thought it would be closer to June / July — not now. After each delivery I have had some kind of nerve / muscle issue which makes me pretty useless in my legs for a few days. I don’t know why, but I am experiencing that issue right now. I’m not mentioning this to whine; I am quite scared about managing this pain and ask for prayer that God helps me take care of the kids and do the things I want and need to do between now and July without downing a ton of Tylenol, which I refuse to do.

Women are at risk for developing SI joint problems later in life due to childbirth. Female hormones are released during pregnancy that allow the connective tissues in the body to relax. The relaxation is necessary so that during delivery, the female pelvis can stretch enough to allow birth. This stretching results in changes to the SI joints, making them hypermobile (extra or overly mobile). Over a period of years these changes can eventually lead to wear-and-tear arthritis. During pregnancy, the SI joints can cause discomfort both from the effects of the hormones that loosen them and from the stress of carrying a growing baby in the pelvis. The more pregnancies a woman has, the higher her chances of SI joint problems. – All About Neck and Back Pain

Anyway, I’ll probably post more pictures a few weeks before the birth and have a little birth weight guessing game just for fun. I’ve really enjoyed the baby games before on here. It’s always fun to watch someone else getting bigger, right?! Honestly it’s all worth it because I am already getting so excited to meet our little Shepherd!

April 14, 2008 | Filed Under Shepherd | 6 Comments

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