Excellent Wife Chapter 5

This week was chapter 5: A Wife's Understanding of Marriage, God's Purpose. This was a very convicting chapter. How greatly I long to have a marriage that honors God! I want a oneness and spiritual and physical bond that glorifies God! How humbling it has been since I started this book to realize that I'm not doing so good on being a submissive wife. I thought I was doing okay, but now I feel like it's a big weakness of mine. I have a tendency to look more at what Josh is doing wrong than myself. Ultimately, I need to work on myself in order to help us glorify God! I need to pray for sin to be revealed and repent of it. I need to hear someone tell me my sin and not be angry because of it. I need to respond with a grateful heart, confessing that sin, and turning from it!
God does His part by convicting, disciplining, and enabling me to grow and mature. I must do my part by growing in knowledge and understanding of Christ, pursuing love, setting my mind on the things of the Spirit, fleeing immorality/sin, and disciplining myself for the purpose of godliness. Wow! That's a tall order, but praise God he's patient and enables me!
The one thing that has stuck with me in this chapter is what I'll leave you with. It deals with our marriage as the act of mutual sanctification. Mutual sanctification is the process of helping each other become as much like the Lord Jesus Christ as possible. Thoughts?

Update: Scripture Memory

I have actually memorized Phil. 1:1-21 now! Only 9 more verses to go and I've finished all of chapter 1! I hate to mention that I have neglected 1st John to work on Philippians. Honestly, I've been dreading going back over 1st John 1 since it took me forever to learn it; something about the way the words repeat over and over but in slightly different ways each time. I'm going to stop making excuses though, and do it!

I'm so thankful to God that we can memorize and hide His word in our hearts! It's such a blessing when I am having a rough day at school and can't read the bible. It brings real meaning to it being alive! It's so relevant to today just the way it is...amazing how God orchestrates that!

Kitty My Rib

Josh and I have gradually been reading through a fictional biography of Katherine Luther (Martin Luther's wife) called Kitty My Rib by E. Jane Mall. It has been so interesting...Josh of course didn't think it would be, but is now hooked! We only have 5 chapters left out of 24 and I look forward to each one!

Last night's chapter was Katherine getting sick, almost near death; Luther surprising her with a country cottage to live in; and then the both of them succumbing to moving back to Wittenberg to do God's Work. I can't wait to see what happens in tonight's chapter!

Just wanted to share! We are reading the Pilgrim's Progress by John Bunyan after Kitty My Rib. It's a great time Josh and I share and it's better than watching T.V. Hope you get a chance to read it! If you have, let me know what you thought!

Scripture Memory!

I am currently working on memorizing 2 books of the bible: Philippians and 1st John. I am going to post updates to hold myself more accountable! Currently I've done Phil. 1:1-15 and 1st John 1 and 2: 1-5. I would like to finish Philippians 1 by the end of next week and get through verse 17 of 1st John. I will keep you updated on my progress!

Are you memorizing scripture? If so, what works for you? How do you do it? I'm always curious if people have methods that would work better for me! Right now my big motivation is an older woman in my church. She's in her 70s and has epilepsy and currently memorizes way more scripture than me. Shame on me! I'm 24 and have no health issues! If she can do it, I can do it :)

Sunday Sermon: Sola Fide-Faith Alone!

Wow, today was an awesome sermon! Of course I say that every Sunday, but it truly was! I used to hate the idea of TULIP, Calvinism, election, etc. I have studied it more and more since I came to Cornerstone, and did eventually conclude (by the grace of God), that election was biblical. After the sermon today I have no question in my mind. My pastor preached on Rom. 3:27-31. He is preaching expositorily through the book of Romans. Here is what I learned:

I always knew that works could not merit our salvation. I mean, I've read where the bible says that it's by faith alone. Today, however, be it the way my pastor explained things, God opening my eyes, or focusing intently (I think it's all 3), I truly understood more deeply what the bible says when it says "by faith alone, through grace alone".

For so long, I thought that the way to salvation was to live a good life. Wrong, found that out a few years ago when, as Is. 64:6 says, "all my good works are like filthy rags." I still never reconciled the fact that asking someone to accept Jesus into their heart and make the choice to be saved is actually a work on their part to merit salvation. Someone who does this, recalls the date they prayed that prayer as the assurance for their salvation (unbiblical--if you find it let me know). In a sense, that is boasting in a work they did to choose God and be saved. I believe Rom. 3:27-31 opposes that idea completely.

When someone gets saved/justified, God is the one who does it. Not man. Earlier in Romans it says there are "none who are good." I've also read that "none seek the Lord." How is it then, that man can make a decision to pray a prayer and accept Christ on his own free will? If none seeks God, then how is that possible? It's only possible, because God draws the person He has chosen, regenerates him, "replaces his heart of stone with a heart of flesh", and gives him the ability to then seek God with the immediate/natural response being repentance and faith. There are NO works that precede justification. However, even though man's works have nothing to do with his justification, justification has everything to do with obeying the law. Christ said that we will know the brethren by their fruits. Our fruits are our evidence of conversion. You cannot just nullify the law, because we are saved by faith (v. 31). James makes that clear, "faith without works is dead." It's a faith that works.

I think that's all I'll post right now. It's so much to think about. I love how God's word is alive and relevant for today! I love how God has opened my eyes and grown me in knowledge. If you knew me in college, you knew I was ignorant of scripture. I couldn't even tell you what justification meant. I'm still nowhere where I need to be, but I've learned so much over the last 2 years. I just keep praying God will reveal His word to me as I strive to understand it more. Thanks for reading! Feel free to post your thoughts! I'll be posting more on a book later!

Relationships

This week I read the 4th chapter of The Excellent Wife by Martha Peace. It was another convicting message! These are the things I learned:

My relationship with my husband is a reflection of the Trinity.

The Hebrew word for "one" is "echad" meaning one, alike, altogether, or all at once.

I need to change the following characteristics in my relationship: ungentle, unmerciful, cruel, private, self-protective, tearing him down to build me up, self-seeking, not communicating biblically, deceitfulness, untrusting, and manipulating with tears.

God expects perfect unity in my marriage--communicating intimately, humility, harmony.

I need to stop asking what I get out of my relationship and start asking how can we please and glorify God in our relationship.

We no longer live for ourselves, but for Christ (2 Cor. 5:15).

I should communicate in love-sharing thoughts, feelings, present and future desires, aspirations, goals, struggles, and spiritual insights-being open, honest, transparent-my motive is for the glory of God!

That's all for now! I know that the more I learn, the more I recognize different sin in my life that needs to change. I'm thankful God doesn't reveal all my sin at once! Any thoughts?

Welcome!

Welcome to my little corner of the internet! My name is Lindsay and I'm a 24 year old wife and teacher. The reason I created this blog is to share my reflections on all the reading I plan on doing. It's also a way to hold myself accountable to doing it, as I want to post often about the books. I am in the middle of so many good books right now, that I want to finish them and move on to others!

A little about me: I grew up thinking I was saved, because I always "felt" saved. I was a moral person. I guess you would call me the "naive good girl", because I never got in trouble, made good grades (never had a C till college), and didn't drink/party. In fact, I taught Sunday school and was very involved in church. God showed me, though, that I was not saved. In fact, I was relying on my moral works to save me. It wasn't until I saw my sin and how bad it was, that I realized there was no hope and I deserved hell. God is holy and righteous and I fall short of that in some many ways. I cried out to God in repentance for Him to save me. It was nothing I could do, only God that could pull me out of the filthy sin I was in. Praise God He has changed my life! I desire the things of God! I love reading (I hated it before) the Bible and books about doctrine/theology. I have learned so much and I love sharing it with people! I want to tell people the good news of the Gospel! I love the brethren and love discussing the Bible!

I say all this, purely, to let you know who I am. I am not perfect and nothing I write will be. I want to share, because honestly, it's something I love doing! When I talk with someone, the conversation generally leads to the topic of God, theology, the Bible, or church. It's hard to hide it :) I gladly welcome any input/feedback on your feelings about what I write. I want it to be a tool for open discussion about the things of God and I want it to glorify Him!

With that all said, welcome to my new blog! Enjoy!