Clouds to the north of us during the tornado outbreak last week...
The weather has been just spectacular, in my own humble opinion, since the tornados ravaged our mid-state last weekend and the one before that. (There is a blog here with some great pictures of the tornado that did so much damage in Gallatin and Goodlettsville if you go down through the posts....)
Last night, we lingered long into the night enjoying one another's company after the gospel meeting at our little church. We were jammed in again, which I love, because it means that there are others with spiritual things on their minds, and that is a great encouragement to me. (We are getting a bigger building, but it is not finished yet!) It got a little warm before the end, and when we all spilled out into the night air, it was just like coming inside into air conditioning on a hot day, except this time, it was reversed! I must be getting menopausal, because the cold air just felt so good!
We had such a wonderful lesson last night. The speaker changed his mind at the last minute and changed topics, and he ended up speaking about hell. No one really likes to think about hell, but he very, very effectively showed how Jesus Himself had more to say about Hell than any New Testament character, and if Jesus spoke about a topic, then we had better pay attention. We had one precious soul respond and correct his life! After such an amazing sermon, it was a fitting thing to see one step off the path to hell and turn around!
Our speaker this week is from Montana. I don't think I know anyone else from Montana! He has a fresh take on the gospel and doesn't shy away from admitting that he is not traditional in his presentation. That does not mean he is not scriptural...it just means he is not traditional. Those of us who are Christians have to be sure that we don't get caught up in the traditions of men and bind them as doctrine. I am a stickler for doctrine, and if he strays from the truth, I'd politely be on him like "white on rice" as they say! But I am content to hear him preach in a way that I am not accustomed to and draw on his illustrations to remind me of some truths that he has quite a unique way of getting to....
I especially liked a point he made Sunday night. Have you ever had someone ask you how your "spiritual life" or your "prayer life" is doing? (As opposed to WHAT? Like there is a time that we are NOT spiritual?) I have, and I'll bet you have too. Maybe you were even the one who asked. What we forget is that we should not put on spirituality and take it off again like it was clothing. We should be spiritual ALL the time, and "whatever we do in word or deed should all be done in the name of the Lord." It is not like we have a spiritual life and something else. The preacher pointed out very poignantly the other night that it is rather hard to "chew out your mate" in the name of Jesus! It's hard to browbeat your child right down to the fiber of his/her being "in the name of the Lord."
Maybe some of us flounder at times because we are taking our spirituality off at the door as we leave the church building. Maybe we don't even realize we are doing it. Once we put on Christ, we should not be taking Him off and putting Him on over and over again. So when I am cleaning house, that IS my spiritual life, and when I am raising children, that is spiritual service, too. If I do each and every activity every day with the attitude that I am doing it for the Lord, it changes my attitude about how much I put into that activity!
That kind of goes with the reason we homeschool our kids. Deuteronomy 6:6-9 says, “And these words which I command you today shall be in your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, when you walk by the way, when you lie down, and when you rise up. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates." That does not leave a lot of extra time in there for someone else to see to your children. It is my responsibility.
This is how I have tried to raise my kids. We talk aboutspirituall things all day and all night--not every waking minute, obviously, but often. Everything gets turned into a lesson. We don't write on our hands and wear things between our eyes, but we do have our Bibles close by and good wholesome reading material and Bible coloring books and puzzle books for the little ones. We use software and visit websites that promote reading and discussing the scriptures. Television is pretty much a thing of the past in our home (except when we raise the bunny ears to hear the weather reports.) We haven't written on the doorposts and the gates literally, but we do fill our walls and our refrigerator and our desk tops and our mirrors, etc. with Bible verses to meditate on when we are doing the most mundane tasks. While we don't outwardly notice every verse every time we pass by it, you can bet the subliminal effect is there, and there is something powerful about affirming "As for me and my house, we will serve the Lord" every time you walk through the den.
Posting Bible verses all over the house will not guarantee that everyone will automatically be saved. Each of us has to live it, every second of every day. Do we? Sadly, no. We fail. We miss the mark---the mark that has been set by Jesus. Missing the mark is also called sin, and sadly, we do that from time to time. But I think that is what the apostle John was saying in I John 3:6 when he said that "Whoever abides in Him does not sin. Whoever sins has neither seen Him nor known Him." As we get more into the spiritual and less into the carnal, worldly nature, we don't sin as much as we used to. We should get better at being spiritual as we get older, that is if we are growing in the faith. (II Peter 1:5-8: But also for this very reason, giving all diligence, add to your faith virtue, to virtue knowledge, to knowledge self-control, to self-control perseverance, to perseverance godliness, to godliness brotherly kindness, and to brotherly kindness love. For if these things are yours and abound, you will be neither barren nor unfruitful in the knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ.)
I've been a Christian for about 33 years now, and I have heard a lot of gospel sermons in my life. But the older I get, I grow ever more cognizant of the need I have to be reminded over and over of spiritual truths. The apostle Peter said numerous times in his second epistle that he needed to "remind" them of things over and over so that they would be stirred up to do the things they needed to do. As I grow ever more feeble-minded every day, it seems, I need these reminders, too.
This is going to be a very profitable week, if the Lord sees fit to give us the time.
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