Food for Thought....

I am gone with weekend at a Biblical Counseling Conference so while I'm away, I thought I would share with you two resources that have provided some food for my thoughts recently.  Please take some time to listen....

 

A Series On Brokenness

 

Courtship In Crisis 

Is Courtship Fundamentally Flawed?  

Set-Apart Girl Magazine Review: When You Don't Want to Know, "Who is the Hottest Man Alive" or "How to look like a Celebrity"

     Have you ever sat at a doctor's office with nothing to do and picked up a magazine just to kill the time?  Have you ever been horrified by what people will actually put in a magazine?  I have.  If it's not passing around the most recent celebrity gossip or tips on how to loose 10 lbs. in two weeks, the magazine selection is limited to National Geographic, Sports Illustrated and Cooking Light, all of which are chucked full of advertisements.  The concept of bite sized articles on thin paper with monthly subscriptions is great, if only we could find something worth reading!

     Now I'm not here to solve all of our world's problems but I do have a solution to this one!  Have you ever checked out the Set-Apart Girl magazine?  What started as an online publication has now become a beautiful, well-done, hard copy that can be sent to your house or, if you prefer, digital can be subscribed to online.  With a new issue produced bimonthly, this magazine is filled to overflowing with wonderful encouragement, insight and wisdom from young ladies who love the Lord and desire to point others to Him.
     I started reading Set-Apart Girl three years ago.  Since that time it has been my go-to source whenever I am struggling spiritually, need advice on a certain issue or just need some encouragement.  Through the use of the pen, the ladies who contribute to this magazine have inspired me in my walk with the Lord.  Having been blessed so deeply through the ministry of Set-Apart Girl, I am always so thrilled when I have the opportunity to tell others about it too!
   This resource is practical, purposeful and powerful.  In each issue, articles on honoring Christ in romance and friendships, becoming a Christ-centered woman and building a Christ-centered existence serve to help you catch the vision for what it means to practically live set-apart for Christ.  Some other added features are, articles written by young men giving their insight and advice from the male perspective, an article on motherhood, and recommendations for books, sermons, music and more!  You just can't read these wonderful articles without being challenged to go deeper in your walk with Christ.

     I really can't encourage you enough to get a subscription for yourself.  You will come back to these articles again and again.  The magazines are excellent quality with beautiful photography that complements the truth in such an elegant manner.  A subscription would so be a wonderful thing to add to your Christmas wish list.  Also, if you can't afford a subscription right now or would like to see what this is all about, I would encourage you to go to to setapartgirl.com to access their free material, including the first article in each magazine!  They also have great articles in  "the Collection" category that are sorted out by themes that are also a wonderful, free resource.
    So no more magazines from doctors offices.  Next time take your own copy of Set-Apart Girl.  Now here is something worth reading!  Enjoy! 
     

 
    

No Power in the Process

      In conservative, homeschooling circles certain, practices have emerged to define the philosophy which drives the way we live our lives.  A reformation of education has lead into a reformation of almost every area of life.  Processes like Courtship, Entrepreneurship, child training, wearing skirts instead of pants, and daughters that stay at home rather than attend college are just a few of the marked differences that set us apart as a unique culture in the world we live in.  If you question any of these beliefs, it's as though you threaten to tear apart the thread that binds our lives and makes us who we are.  But why do we hold so tightly to these processes and defend them with zeal and passion?  I believe that in many ways these changes have resulted not only in a shift in how we live our lives but also where we place our hope.  As a whole, I perceive our thinking has been warped by adopting the idea that somehow righteousness is achieved by a process instead of attained by the Person of Jesus Christ.
     I believe we often try to establish a perfect system where the outcome is always good.  Let me give you an example.  Instead of dating, courtship is the process by which many young people like myself are "guaranteed" a happy marriage to a wonderful spouse.  If we put in a + b, we have the promise that c will be the outcome.  Courtship is the "right way" to go about this thing called marriage, we are told.  If we just follow these rules and these steps, we will gain a good relationship that is founded on purity. 
     In many ways, we have succumb to the thinking that the Galatian church was rebuked for.  By adhering to the old law of circumcision, the Galatian church sought to perfect in the flesh what had begun as a work of the Spirit. 

"Let me ask you only this: Did you receive the Spirit by works of the law 

or by hearing with faith? Are you so foolish? Having begun by the Spirit, 

are you now being perfected by the flesh?"

(Galatians 3:2-3)  

     We say that God is sovereign over our salvation but when we put our confidence in a process instead of in Him, we deny the fact that He is able to sanctify us and make us holy.  Have we been seeking to perfect our lives, not through Christ but through laws, rules and regulations?  At the very core of the issue it's not about whether we should follow a courtship or dating model or work for a business or own our own, it's about our heart.  Paul's first rebuke to the Galatian church was that they were "so quickly deserting Him who called you in the grace of Christ and turning to a different gospel." (1:6)  The gospel isn't Jesus plus courtship, wearing skirts and homeschooling.  The gospel is that Christ's righteousness is imputed to us by grace alone through faith alone.  This same pattern continues for sanctification as we live with a righteousness that is wholly not our own. 

      While there is no such thing as a "homeschool gospel",  I fear that as we hold so dearly to the practices that we praise, the fruit of the flesh has been produced in our lives to some degree or another.  

"Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality,

 idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, 

divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. 

(Galatians 5:19-20)

     Note the words in bold.  Are we guilty of having idolized a system?  Has emnity, strife, jealousy or envy been sown in our lives as we see others doing things differently or being more successful as they adhere to the system?  However, above all the others, I must point our divisions.  I fear that this is the fruit of the flesh that has hurt or will hurt the body of Christ the most.  Do we hesitate to socialize with people who go to public or private school and still call themselves Christians?  Is it a sin to go on a date?  When one family wears pants and the other only skirts, is there a division that occurs in the heart as the later is looked down upon?  And when one girl goes to college and another stays home, is there grace for a different decision than yours to be made?  

     Law-righteousness always keeps us from Christ-righteousness.  When we are busy pursuing processes to provide us with righteous living, our gaze is distracted from the One who alone can make us righteous.  There is not power in the process, only in the Person of Jesus Christ.  

"On Christ the solid rock I stand,

All other ground is sinking sand."

    Have you been building your life on the sinking sand of prescribes processes?  If you have, I would encourage you to retrain your way of thinking through the lens of God's Word. Colossians 3:2 says that, "In (Christ) are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge." If we are seeking Him, wisdom will come.