Living Sacrifice
For the last several weeks our church has been in the middle of our "Seize the Moment" campaign for building on our 40 acres of land. This is the 3rd financial campaign since we’ve been at the church – the first two to raise funds for land (which God so graciously provided at an AMAZING price). It is finally time to begin building and we are so excited.
So of course we’ve been talking a lot about giving – and giving sacrificially for the building campaign. Everyone is at a different point financially and a different point in their faith and so I’m sure this campaign has stirred up many thoughts in people. But for Mark and I the giving is just a no-brainer. God has blessed us SOOOO much in the area of our finances – not that we make huge salaries or anything – but since we’ve gotten our act together to get out of debt, etc. God has just continued to show up in big ways, so much that I don’t doubt his provision.
So really the decision boiled down to what to give. That idea got a lot less "comfortable" a month or so ago when I found out that I would be losing my PT stay-at-home job (that I’ve had for 4+ yrs) at the end of June. Whooosh! That was the sound of all our "extra" money going out of the budget. Money that would have been EASY to give to God for the building campaign. Suddenly things got a little more interesting 
We started brainstorming ways to cut expenses, etc.
Then, just for good measure, God kind of pounded the point home last Tuesday during our Beth Moore Daniel study. She spent most of the lesson talking about our need to SACRIFICE. Not just in our finances, for that is
just a portion of the picture.
Romans 12:1 call us to “offer your bodies
as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of
worship.”
the antithesis of selfishness. And boy do we live in a selfish world! Over and
over we are bombarded with messages.
“Why should I have to wait?”
“Why shouldn’t I be comfortable?”
“Why shouldn’t I have what that person has?” (YEAH, that’s a
big one!)
2 Tim 3:1-5 describes a godless society, “There will be terrible times in the last days. People will be lovers
of themselves, lovers of money, boastful, proud, abusive, disobedient to their
parents, ungrateful, unholy, without love, unforgiving, slanderous, without
self-control, brutal, not lovers of the good, treacherous, rash, conceited,
lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God— having a form of godliness but
denying its power. Have nothing to do with them.”
I see a lot of that in the world around me – and of course
in me at times.
But Christ calls on us to make ourselves a living sacrifice.
It may mean going without “stuff”. Or it may mean giving up doing something we
enjoy because the time would be better spent elsewhere.
Beth commented that “if we give into the message of
selfishness we can miss our life
purpose.” WOW! That one hit really hit me. How tragic for me to stand before
God someday and have to explain why I missed out on the purpose he had for my
life because I wasn’t willing to make the necessary sacrifices.
Mark 14:3-6 tells a story that took on new meaning for me
today.
While he (Jesus) was in Bethany
table in the home of a man known as Simon the Leper, a woman came with an
alabaster jar of very expensive perfume, made of pure nard. She broke the jar
and poured the perfume on his head.
Some of those present were
saying indignantly to one another, "Why this waste of perfume? It could
have been sold for more than a year’s wages and the money given to the
poor." And they rebuked her harshly.
"Leave her alone," said
Jesus. "Why are you bothering her? She has done a beautiful thing to me.
This woman made a sacrifice. She took something of great worth and, without
thought to what others might think, literally poured it out on Jesus.
Sacrifice SHOULDN’T be comfortable. It should make you catch your breath. It should make you rely a little harder on God.
Verse 9 of that same story continues, "I tell you the truth, wherever the gospel is preached throughout the
world, what she has done will also be told, in memory of her." And it’s true. We’re still talking about it today. What will our legacy be – what car we drove? how big our house was?
Or will it be what we did with our time, talents and treasures?
Poems by Noah
Noah’s class has been writing some poems it seems. Here is one I found today…verbatim.
Your so neat
and so sweet
When you’re nine
pleas be mine
Isn’t he cute! This of course completely goes against his philosophy of girls having cooties and the fact that he has sworn he will never get married and instead will adopt kids.
Lessons from Daniel Chapter 2 – Pt 2
So, to continue with our 3 friends and the fiery furnace…
Daniel 3: 25 says that King Nebuchadnezzar exclaimed, “Look! I see four men walking around in the fire, unbound and unharmed, and the fourth looks like a son of the gods.”
The only thing that God allowed to be touched by the fire was the ropes that bound the men. Sometimes we are so bound by the sin in our lives that God allows us to go through a fiery trial so that we can be freed from that long term bondage.
When the men came out, “They saw that the fire had not harmed their bodies, nor was a hair of their heads singed; their robes were not scorched, and there was no smell of fire on them.”
Nine years ago my husband’s grandparents house burned down. There was not much left but some things were boxed up and have been sitting on the back porch of their new house, out in the air, for 9 years. A couple of months ago my father-in-law opened them up and the smoke smell STILL permeates the stuff.
But these three men walked through their fiery trial and came out with no smoke smell. How many of us go through a fiery trial, came out the other side but continue to rant and rave about the trials and the hard times that we went through. We’re still bitter and angry – we still smell like smoke! Instead we should give praise to our almighty God who walked through the fire with us and brought us out safely on the other side.
WFMW – Cold Bottled Water for Long Days
So the summer time is brutal in Phoenix and it will soon be here. Running errands can be especially tiring when you’re getting in and out of a hot car (which barely has time to cool down before you’re at the next stop). If you leave a bottle of water in your car for more than about 30 minutes it will be hot enough to make tea with when you come out.
So in the summertime I try to keep several bottles of water frozen for errand running days. I will open them up and pour just a small amount of the water out, then recap and freeze in the freezer. Pull them out right before you go. They melt as the morning goes by and will stay cool for at least awhile longer. They don’t last all day but you can’t expect miracles can you???
Lessons from Daniel Chapter 2 – Pt 1
This is a cross post from what I posted on our church women’s blog but I thought I’d get the extra mileage out of it. I’m in the midst of Beth Moore’s Daniel study which is awesome. These are some insights from week 2.
If you grew up in church, you are probably very familiar
with the story of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego and the fiery furnace. There
were tons on interesting points Beth made, but the biggest area was in relating
the story to our own personal “fiery trials”. She outlined 3 scenarios.
Scenario A: We
can be delivered from the fire. Dividend? Our faith is built. (Although
sometimes we later forget and tend to chalk the deliverance up to luck or
coincidence.)
Scenario B: We
can be delivered through the fire. Dividend? Our faith is refined.
NOTE: We will never escape trials entirely
Jn 11:4 (Lazarus
death) When he heard this, Jesus said, "This sickness will not end in
death. No, it is for God’s glory so that God’s Son may be glorified through
it."
1 Peter 1:6-7 In this you greatly
rejoice, though now for a little while you may have had to suffer grief in all
kinds of trials. 7These have come so that your faith—of
greater worth than gold, which perishes even though refined by fire—may be
proved genuine and may result in praise, glory and honor when Jesus Christ
is revealed.
Scenario C: We can be delivered
by the fire into His arms. Dividend? Our faith is perfected. This should be
the scenario that we all desire. The fact that we want often want to stay here
on earth is because of our complete inability to grasp what awaits us in
heaven.
Heb 12:1-2 Therefore,
since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off
everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles, and let us run
with perseverance the race marked out for us. 2Let us
fix our eyes on Jesus, the author and perfecter of our faith, who for the joy
set before him endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right
hand of the throne of God.
James 1:12 Blessed is
the man who perseveres under trial, because when he has stood the test, he will
receive the crown of life that God has promised to those who love him.
We will all face trials in our lifetime, some big, some
small. When God does not choose to deliver us altogether from those trials and
we must walk through the fire, we can rest assured that God is with us. Isaiah 43:1-3
1 But now, this is what the LORD says—
he who created you, O Jacob,
he who formed you, O Israel:
"Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
I have summoned you by name; you are mine.
2 When
you pass through the waters,
I will be with you;
and when you pass through the rivers,
they will not sweep over you.
When you walk through the fire,
you will not be burned;
the flames will not set you ablaze.
3 For I Israel, your Savior;
am the LORD, your God,
the Holy One of
As we know the story well, God chose to deliver those 3 men
from the fiery furnace.
Stay Tuned for More…
Slow Week
I’ve been going through my Bloglines this week (30 different feeds) thinking – "Man it’s kind of quiet. Where is everybody?"
Then I realized I haven’t posted any thing since last weekend either.
So yes, I did make it back to the birthday party – on the right day and we had a fun time.
I’ve been busy this week making plans for the church women’s retreat. We’ve got the date and place nailed down and things are rolling along. I’m really excited about it.
We’re going to be doing Beth Moore’s Loving Well Retreat – guaranteed to be excellent teaching. Here’s a little snippet of what it’s about…
Some people are a joy to love, some are difficult to love,
and we all have to deal with some people who are humanly impossible to love. In
all those relationships one truth endures: We will never be able to love others
well until we have been loved well. And only God can ultimately give us the
complete love we so desperately need.
We’ll have tons of fun and I hope we get a great turn out. If you’re a Palm Valley attender, we’ll keep you posted on the details on our blog.
Blonde Day
File it under, "I Should Be a Blonde".
I made arrangements for 7 yr old son to spend the day with his grandpa so that I could take 4 yr old daughter to her friend’s birthday party. The party was way on the other side of town and to make matters worse a portion of the freeway was closed so I had to take surface roads. Took me nearly an hour to get there.
Then we spent 20 minutes wandering around this huge park where there were a gazillion parties going on while my daughter kept yelling out "Allllllly, Alllllllly." Called husband, got Ally’s mom’s phone number. Called and left message saying I couldn’t find them. Asked at the info booth – no Ally’s on the list.
Called husband back. "Um, what’s the date on the invitation."
"April 15th"
"Yeah, that’s tomorrow."
DUH! Called Ally’s mom back (and of course this time she answered) to say ignore my idiotic message from earlier – we’d be back tomorrow.
So tomorrow I get to do it all over again! Fun fun!
WFMW – Curling Eyelashes Trick
To give your eyelash curler some extra help, warm it w/ the blow dryer for just 2-3 seconds before curling your eyelashes. It gives a really great curl!
My New Pet Project
So I told you awhile back about how excited I was about planning the women’s retreat for church? Well here’s my other new pet project – the women’s blog for our church. We’re working on getting the word out to all the women so here is a good a start as any. So ladies of Palm Valley, and others too, head on over to
Soul Spa (www.palmvalley.org/women)
My first post is up today. It’s some thoughts from the Beth Moore study of Daniel that I’ve been leading for the last 9 weeks.
Happy Monday to You
Were you surprised? I’m feeling so light and airy all of a sudden. It’s like spring cleaning but for my blog. The house comes later today. Son is home sick today (barely sick) which means that my computer will soon be monopolized by one of my children. They have one computer of their own but on weekends (and sick days) mom tries to be nice and let the other one use mine part of the time. So cleaning I will do. Tell me what you think of the new look.
