For this Valentine’s Day I thought I would offer you a little printable reminder of God’s love. Do you know all the things God’s love does for you? This list comes two on a page so you can print out a few and put them all over: the fridge, the mirror, your Bible. You may even want to mail one to a friend.

What God’s Love Does for Me

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Christians have got to learn there is no way getting around the potential for persecution and people not liking what you have to say when you stand up for Jesus Christ…We owe our first loyalty to Him. He is our savior and our Lord and it is Him we are trying to please.         (emphasis mine)

Well said, Bishop Jackson.

What would He has me do? What would He have me say? Where would He have me go? I owe my first loyalty to Him, not to my ego or my  friends or even my family. Pleasing Him should be my only concern.

In this new age of “tolerance” it seems that the only point of view that is not tolerated is God’s. I can say I am too often intimidated by the potential backlash, so I refrain from speaking strongly for Christ and His principles. That will change as of today. I encourage you to make the decision this year to care less about what people think and more about what Jesus would want you to do. Speak the truth in love and let God receive all the glory. It is Him alone we strive to please.

The Holy Spirit reminded me of a scripture today and I wanted to share it here, just in case a reader may struggle with feelings of guilt and/or condemnation.

18 My dear children, let’s not just talk about love; let’s practice real love. 19 This is the only way we’ll know we’re living truly, living in God’s reality.

20 It’s also the way to shut down debilitating self-criticism, even when there is something to it. For God is greater than our worried hearts and knows more about us than we do ourselves. 21 And friends, once that’s taken care of and we’re no longer accusing or condemning ourselves, we’re bold and free before God! 22 We’re able to stretch our hands out and receive what we asked for because we’re doing what he said, doing what pleases him.                  1 John 3:18-22 The Message

It is so comforting to know that God knows our hearts (Jer 17:9, 10) and He is greater. With God’s grace we can be free of guilt, whether it is appropriate or not. Guilt keeps us focused on ourselves. Self-criticism keeps us swirling in our own thoughts and actions. Our worried hearts keep us from resting, physically and mentally.

What is the key to freedom from guilt? L-O-V-E. This passage says to practice real love and that it will “shut down debilitating self-criticism.” Mature love (God’s kind of love) is the key to many things, like:

freedom from fear–

There is no fear in love [dread does not exist], but full-grown (complete, perfect) love turns fear out of doors and expels every trace of terror!        1 John 4:18 AMP

stability–

17 That Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that ye, being rooted and grounded in love, 18 May be able to comprehend with all saints what is the breadth, and length, and depth, and height; 19 And to know the love of Christ, which passeth knowledge, that ye might be filled with all the fulness of God.             Eph. 3:17-19 KJV

God is love (1 Jn 4:8). All you need is wrapped up in Him (Eph 1:23). He sent Jesus to us (John 3:16) and He continues to love us as He always has (Eph 2:4-8).

So we are free from guilt because of the work of Christ. If He, as the only one who has a right, does not condemn us, we should not do so ourselves (Rom 8:31-34). Rom 8:31-39 is blessed confirmation of God’s commitment to love us:

35 Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 36 As it is written, For thy sake we are killed all the day long; we are accounted as sheep for the slaughter. 37 Nay, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him that loved us. 38 For I am persuaded, that neither death, nor life, nor angels, nor principalities, nor powers, nor things present, nor things to come, 39 Nor height, nor depth, nor any other creature, shall be able to separate us from the love of God, which is in Christ Jesus our Lord.

Rejoice that you are set free, even from your own worried, self-criticising heart. Nothing you have done, or have yet to do, can separate you from Him and His love, His love that covers a multitude of sins (1 Peter 4:8). Now you can walk free in boldness and get busy living for Christ. Praise God!

When praying with your kids, make sure to include a lot of Scripture. They need to get their prayers from God’s Word, and they need to see what God says about their situation. We must keep our minds fixed on the Lord (1 Cor. 10:3-6).

We can’t know everything about a situation. We must get the mind of the Lord, properly applying the Word to the situation. Heb. 4:12 Our children must learn how to search God’s Word for themselves. Teach them how to use a concordance and how to pray scriptures. One book I highly recommend is Praying the Scriptures by Judson Cornwall.

Show then the Bible isn’t just a dusty old book on the shelf. It is alive and filled with God’s solutions. He will speak to them  from His Word just as He does you. Let them own that. Give them opportunities to hear from God through His Word.

When they read God’s Word faithfully, they will increase their spiritual vocabulary. It is the highest form of literature and it will improve their prayers, making them more articulate and spiritually relevant (making more targeted prayers and not simple “bless my mommy” type prayers). They can read the prayers of others and it will inspire their own prayer time.

It will give them ammunition in their thought life. When ungodly thoughts come to mind they are able to combat them with scripture prayers. If fear tries to come, they can pray, “I thank you father, you have not given me a spirit of fear, but a spirit of power, and of love, and of a sound mind.” Instant prayers are contained in the Scriptures that come to mind in a crisis.

And speaking of a crisis, make a list of scriptures for emergency situations. When things are swirling, that is not the time to crack your Bible and try to find that scripture you can’t quite remember. One way you can do that is to have a file box in your kitchen or other central location. Use dividers for topics like healing, love, peace, relationships, etc. and write on scripture on each index card and place in the box. If you ever need them, there they are.

I hope you will use your Bible more with your children in your prayer time, not just as inspiration, but as a part of your armor of God (Eph. 6). The sword of the Spirit is a very effective weapon in your prayer time and teaching your kids how to use God’s Word effectively will transform your family prayer time.

I have been teaching a series on “The 7 Be’s of Family Prayer” at different churches for over a year now and have had a lot of positive response.  I wanted to summarize this teaching to help your family in this area. I hope something that is said in this series will ignite your family to pray together more often.

Principle 1: Be Consistent

God rewards faithfulness. Prayer is something that we do everywhere, all the time (Eph. 6:18). Be instant in season and out of season, ready to pray anytime. Make it a lifestyle. When you pray through your day, your children see that you don’t just pray at church or at mealtimes, but God is always ready to talk with us. If you hear of a tragedy somewhere or you pass an accident on the road, take a moment to pray about it. If someone comes to your mind several times, especially if you do not often think of them, pray for them. Pray all events that happen in your family.

Encourage your children to have queit time with God. Even 4 or 5 year olds can listen to praise music or a Bible on tape and have a few quiet moments to think about God. Schedule it into their day and as they grow older it will be a habit they treasure.

Make it a routine, not a stale ritual, to take everything to the Lord in prayer. You will grow closer together as a family, you will have more peace because you allowed God into your daily life and you will have greater joy seeing the answers to those prayers.

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If you would like the complete teaching as an mp3 for $4, please contact me. And stay tuned for principle 2.

The little book I picked up for two dollars was a well-worn copy of Havergal’s Kept for the Master’s Use. (I have since discovered that she wrote several books for children, which I am now eagerly seeking!) The unassuming tome is thoughful application of Scripture in a personal way, using our lives and bodies to illustrate her points, using her hymn “Take My Life and Let it Be.” Chapters include: “Our Hands Kept for Jesus,” “Our Voices Kept for Jesus,” “Our Silver and Gold Kept for Jesus,” “Our Lips Kept For Jesus,” and so forth. Here is a sample from her chapter entitled “Our Feet Kept for Jesus:”

The figurative keeping of the feet of His saints, with the promise that when they run they shall not stumble, is a most beautiful and helpful subject. But it is quite distinct from the literal keeping for Jesus our literal feet.

There is a certain homeliness about the idea which helps to make it very real. These very feet of ours are purchased for Christ’s service  by the preciious drops which fell from His own torn and pierced feet upon the cross. They are to be His errand-runners. How can we let the world, the flesh and the devil have the use of what has been purchased with such a payment? (p. 60)

And she has this to say about Jesus’ hands in the final chapter entitled “Christ for Us:”

3. His Hands “for thee.” Literal hands, literally pierced, when the whole weight of His quivering frame hung from the torn muscles and bared nerves; literally uplifted in parting blessing. Consecrated, priestly hands; “filled” hands (Ex. xxviii. 41, xxix. 9, etc., margin)– filled once with His great offering, and now with His gifts and blessings “for thee.” Tender hands, touching and healing, lifting and leading with the gentlest of care. Strong hands, upholding and defending. Open hands, filling with good and satisfying desire (Ps. civ. 28 and cxlv. 16). Faithful hands, restraining and sustaining. “His left hand is under my head and His right hand doth embrace me.”

Ms. Havergal’s poetic prose and call to consecration are inspiring. I know I will pore over her book for years to come, allowing my new friend to challenge and inspire me, beckoning me higher and higher in Him. So I’m off to put on a pot of tea and sit with my new friend and listen to her thoughts on the Saviour I so dearly love.

Links to her biography, music and writings:

My King: or Daily Thoughts for the King’s Children

Poetry Selections from The Ministry of Song

Hymns by Ms. Havergal

The Works of Miss Havergal (Online reading)

Morning Bells; Or, Waking Thoughts for Little Ones

The Havergal Trust

We were in our JBC studying about Moses this week. We were reading through the text when we came to the part about Moses in the wilderness:
Exo 2:16 Now the priest of Midian had seven daughters: and they came and drew water, and filled the troughs to water their father’s flock.
Exo 2:17 And the shepherds came and drove them away: but Moses stood up and helped them, and watered their flock.
Exo 2:18 And when they came to Reuel their father, he said, How is it that ye are come so soon to day?
Exo 2:19 And they said, An Egyptian delivered us out of the hand of the shepherds, and also drew water enough for us, and watered the flock.

I had to stop right there. I had not noticed this before. Why did the women think Moses was Egyptian? He was Hebrew. It doesn’t say he told them. This was very interesting, so we had to reason for a moment. Why would they think he was Egyptian and not a Hebrew? she reasoned four answers:

• his language (the way he spoke)
• his appearance (his clothing and hair)
• his name (given from the Pharoah’s daughter)
• his mannerisms (uniquely his as he was raised Egyptian with his Hebrew mother in his youth)

I thought there were great reasons that she discovered. The women were looking at his outward individuality and making a judgement about where he was from and how he was raised. And we had to bring it around to God’s Principle of Individuality.

Individuality is of utmost importance to God. I am learning more about this from Ms. Katherine Dang and will share more insights on socialism and individuality later.

I was glad we were able to take this small side trip on our journey through godly leadership this week. We will see how this contributes to Moses’ leadership later in the week.

• Ruler–any one that exercises supreme power over others.
• Leader–One who goes first; a guide. (I rearranged these a bit.)

There is a marked difference between the two. One seems benevolent and one does not. We discussed the differences and the type of government these two would look like. We also talked about the responsibility of the people under these types of civil government. Here is what she reasoned:

• The people have no need for self-government under a ruler. They are told everything.
• The people have some need for self-government with a leader because it is up to them to follow.

We created a page with flaps that fold up to see what’s underneath. We defined them both (above), listed the responsibility of the people and gave an example of both from real 7 year-old life.

The Holy Spirit gave me an idea as we were talking about what these two types look like to a kid. Here’s what we discovered:

• Simon Says: ruler. You are told what to do. You can govern from anywhere. There is no mercy (one miss and you’re out)
• Follow the Leader: leader. You are shown what to do. The leader must be in front to set the example. There is mercy because even if you miss something you can still start again.

This was really fun. We played both games so she could follow and see which one she would rather follow. Of course she chose the leader. But for a moment she thought she might like to be the ruler. I see we still have some work to do!

This week were are discussing Egypt and their government–Pharoah (dictator), man over man type of government. Now my Princess G is only 7 but she was able to reason some profound reasons why she does not want to be under a dicatorship. Keep in mind that she really did get this on her own. I did not tell her what to think.

We discussed what a dictator was and what that type of government looks like in chart form.

Then we discussed the passage in Exodus 1 about Egypt and what that society was like. Not a great length, just the basics. We discussed why Egypt was unhappy that the Hebrew numbers were growing and what that meant to Egypt.

Then I asked her, looking at the chart, why she would not like a man over man type of government. These are the reasons she listed:

• I would worship him instead of God.
• I wouldn’t get my prayers answered becasue he is only a man.
• He would be controlling and tell me what to do all the time.
• He would be unknown and I wouldn’t know what he was thinking (she was saying he was highly undpredictable).

This was really exciting to me. She really understood what we were saying and was able to reason why it wasn’t a good thing to have a dictator. God bless her! We made it into a paragraph for her notebook:

When she came up with the reasons I was quick to praise her and give her ownership of her own thoughts. “I am so proud of you! You came up with those reasons yourself; I didn’t tell them to you. What a smart girl you are! God has blessed you with such a bright and wonderful mind.” This really encourages her to keep going. The more I encourage her to think the more she does. I can’t wait to see how this reasoning looks in 5 years. This BPA philosophy of education is awesome!