Author Archives: Becky Pliego

About Becky Pliego

I am grateful because God, in His grace, called me out of darkness and into his admirable light. When I did not look for Him, He found me. When I was in a pit of sin, He rescued me. I am not walking this road alone, my family is always with me, and we love Him, because He loved us first.

>-P2R Week 8- How to Memorize the Scripture and a Giveaway-

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Week 8 :: Philippians 2:12-18

12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed,
so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence,
work out your own salvation with fear and trembling,
13 for it is God who works in you,
both to will and to work for his good pleasure.
14 Do all things without grumbling or questioning,
15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God
without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation,
among whom you shine as lights in the world,
16 holding fast to the word of life,
so that in the day of Christ
I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.
17 Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering
upon the sacrificial offering of your faith,
I am glad and rejoice with you all.
18 Likewise you also should be glad and rejoice with me.
What a joy, what a blessed joy, it is to know that once the Lord calls us and justifies us, He doesn’t leave us on our own! After we are justified He is still at work in us for His good pleasure (not my life ideal!).
He wants us to obey, but He gives us the power to obey. He commands us to be holy just as He is Holy, but He sanctifies us.  So in our daily walk with the Lord we are called to obey and at the same time we can rest assured that our Salvation doesn’t depend on our performance.
MacArthur says,

“In Philippians 2:12–13, Paul presents the appropriate resolution between the believer’s part and God’s part in sanctification. Yet he makes no effort to rationally harmonize the two. He is content with the incomprehensibility and simply states both truths, saying, in effect, that, on the one hand, sanctification is of believers (v. 12) and on the other hand, it is of God (v. 13).”

One of the things we must do daily to work out our own salvation is as “simple” as stop complaining!

Read carefully verse 14,

“Do all things without grumbling or questioning”



When we live in discontentment we are definitely more prone to grumble all day and question every thing that comes to our lives. 

When we stop giving thanks to God we start to look at all the circumstances around us with a bittered spirit and we then stop growing in grace; and instead, we start to grow more impatient with our husband, children, parents, etc.


The next verse ties this up with strong cords… 

What is OUR MOTIVE for not grumbling and questioning everything around us? 


The only acceptable motive is this: A strong desire to please a Holy God; to be blameless and innocent before Him.


Seems like an impossible thing?  Yes, it is impossible for the unregenerate, but the children of God have hope; we can pursue a life without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation. We have hope because God is still at work in us, and because when everything around us seem to be shaking and falling apart we can hold fast to the Word of Life and not perish. What a wonderful news this is! O how, my heart leaps for joy!


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Now I want to share a few notes to ENCOURAGE you to memorize a whole book of the Bible…

1. It takes time, but NO more than you would think; no more than the time it takes you to visit few blogs, or check facebook… so, if that is what you need to leave on the side in order to pursue this great blessing, do it!

2. Carry it around. It is great to have the book you are memorizing printed and pasted in a Moleskine because you can carry it around all day, everywhere. Timmy Brister has put together Philippians and Ephesians for this purpose.

3. Write it down. My friend Anne, who is also memorizing Philippians suggested this to me, and it has proved to be a great help. I have a journal fr that purpose and I try to write from memory several times the verses or chapters several times. (at least once a day).

4. Mutter it all day long. While cooking, folding laundry, driving.. fill your mind, your heart with the Word; meditate on it day and night and you’ll see how much your speech and thoughts will change!

5. Study it. This is a very important and profitable thing to do; buy a commentary of the book you will be memorizing and study it along. I study the comments on the verses I will be memorizing that day as part as my devotions. This not only helps me to get the most of the book, but it also helps me remember the verse. As I repeat it during the day, word by word, slowly so I won’t skip a word here and another one there, I know the meaning of those words, I understand the context and the purpose of those verses more clearly. For this purpose I bought the Journible that corresponds to the book of Philippians, and I copy the verses I have memorized and on the left  pages,  I jot down the notes from the commentary I am studying. (Read more of the Journibles here and  here)

6. Be transformed by it. Let the Word change YOU!
 

Because I really want to encourage you to start this wonderful discipline of memorizing whole books of the Bible; I want to give away the Journible for you to start copying and jotting down your study notes.

What you need to do?

*Just leave a comment here and be willing to DO IT (memorize any epistle, or any other book that has a Journible to accompany it see the options here just mention which Jounible you would like to have).

* Please, don’t sign in if you plan to put this in a dusty bookshelf 🙂 (Only US, Canada and Mexico, please. If you live in a different country than these, and you own a Kindle, you can participate also… I will give you something else but related!)

* If you are already memorizing Philippians and would like to participate, you are more than welcome to do so!

* You can invite friends you think might be interested in memorizing the Scriptures  to participate in this giveaway. Feel free to pass the voice around!

I will choose a winner next Saturday, March 5… be sure to come back then!

Under His Sun,

 

>Lemon Tart with Rasperries for the Weekend -and some links and a book recommendation-

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>I want to share with you a great recipe I found last week, and turned out GREAT! Keep in mind that this tart is delicious cold so, you may want to make it at least 8 hrs before you plan serving it.

You can find the recipe  here;  the only thing that we changed was adding lots of raspberries at the end, and believe me… the combination of the lemon, and raspberries is phenomenal.

Now, as for the weekend links…

Petra’s pen has written a beautiful poem, Homophones.

Diane has a great, well… excellent post on Calvinism that speaks for me too, please read it here, What’s in a Name?

Diane also brings to us words of comfort from the hand of Mrs. Spurgeon, Thanksgiving Street.

Rebecca’s Theological Term of the Week is an important one, Hyper- Calvinism

And one more little thing…

I am starting to read this book:

I am so grateful for the authors… this is a book we all need to read as our children grow into adulthood. Remember how many books you and I used to read on childrearing when our children were all little? Well, now I have a son who is almost 18 and is leaving for college this summer {lump in my throat} and I am grateful I found this book in which I am learning the art of being a mom to a young adult man.

May your weekend be full of moments in which you find yourself thinking on Him and His Word!

>A Godly Marriage -Borrowed Words from Douglas Wilson-

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The Wilson’s books on the family are just a blessing to me. I appreciate the fact that they write not in a simplistic way, pointing you to methods; rather, they go beyond the methods to the core of our Christan living: Doctrine, that is our Theology. (and yes, we all have some sort of doctrine!)

What we believe, what is rooted in our hearts and minds is what will determine how we live under the sun every day: how we respond to various circumstances, how we parent our children, how we talk with our friends, how we relate with our brothers and sisters, with what attitude we walk to the kitchen and the laundry room and… how we love our spouse.

In Douglas Wilson’s book, For a Glory and a Covering. A Practical Theology of Marriage, he says,

“A Godly marriage occurs when a man and a woman both die to themselves, and are raised to the life that seeks the best interest of the other in all things. This is the only kind of godly marriage there is. And when we give all away in this manner, we discover that we receive all. We learn to give in order to receive, in order to be able to give some more. And we are  married to someone who is doing the same thing. 
Now, it is not possible to live this way without an applied incarnational knowledge of what the Holy Trinity is like. As we turn away from these sins, we must necessarily turn toward God Himself. And in turning to toward Him, we are learning to imitate Him, as dearly loved children (Eph.5:1).”

Now let’s read Wilson’s definition of marriage,

“So what then is marriage? Marriage is a form of death in separation and resurrection in union. When God created the world, He immediately set about fashioning the world by means of division. He separated man  into male and female and pronounced it all very good. But He divided for the sake of  richer union, and for the sake of division itself. What is the principle of this kind of union? The answer is covenant- specifically, covenantal partaking. The bond that ties division and union together is a covenant bond; marriage is based on covenant realities. “But I would have you know, that the head of every man is Christ; and the head of the woman is the man, and the head of Christ is God” (I Cor. 11:3).
…Covenant headship bridges the division and accomplishes union… Authority is the principle of union, not the principle of separation. Authority (biblically understood) is what brings them together… In other words marriage is defined by partaking.”

Some other quotes worth looking at are these:

“Being a married Christian is a function of simply being a Christian. In other words, we should not expect to find a set of marital “techniques” that are unrelated to the task of living as a Christian generally. For the unmarried, the best preparation for future duties is a pleasant embrace of current duties. For those who are married, there is no way to grow as a husband or wife in Christ apart from growing in Christ period.”

On words…

“Words are not abstract entities with an ethereal life of their own in Dictionary Heaven. Biblically considered, words are spoken in a particular place at a particular time, and full understanding is only possible for those who by grace understand the world in this same way. Words in this respect are like the Word. “And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us” (Jn. 1:14a). The glory of words is therefore revealed only when they are enfleshed and particularized. This means that the words were given to us in order to  be set in place like fine jewelry: “A word fitly spoken is like apples of gold in pictures of silver. As an earring of gold, and an ornament of fine gold, so is a wise reprover  upon an obedient ear” (Prov. 25:11-12)…
Since words only gain fill meaning when set in a specific context, husbands and wives must learn to speak to one another carefully – but there are two kinds of “carefully”. You should not have to be careful because you are handling a high explosive that might go off at any time. Rather, you should be careful because you are jeweler of words . you are setting fourteen-carat words in the appropriate place, and when you are done, it will be worth ten thousand dollars. This is the right kind of “carefully”.
… So we must be diligent students of words in our marriages, understanding all the nuances of our speech.”

Now, if you have a question you may want to ask Doug Wilson or his wife Nancy they encourage you to do so here.

Have a most blessed day!

Buy Here

>Out of the Land of Hurry – a Tale for Moms-

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Time runs incessantly by like a waterfall, violently. Clock and Watch seem to have the power over the days of men, they are such cruel rulers. The Sun and the Moon are no longer the Masters of the biological clock of the people in the Land of Hurry. Tic Toc; Tic Toc is the sound that can be heard all over the land, no time for listening to the birds’ song or watching squirrels, or kissing longer, or hugging tighter. Moms run from here and there, tirelessly, dragging feet and children. Dads go and go and go….

– But wait!

– Wait? Who dares to say THAT word in this Land of Hurry?

– It is me,  Quiet-Slow-Mom

– Are you talking to me? Sorry… I don’t have time to stay, I have to go. So many things in my list. I just can’t wait!

– Wait, please. Please, listen to me…

For some strange reason  Rushing-Busy-Mom always in a hurry stopped. For the first time in months she stopped and even felt her heart pumping blood through her body, and without even thinking stared for a moment at a few small beautiful flowers beside the road, and felt her little daughter’s hand holding hers.

Quiet-Slow-Mom said,

-I used to walk like you, enslaved by the cruel Clock and like you, I loved to be running all day. It made me feel… so… productive. Yes, I felt more important if I could handle more things than I wanted to do. I murmured a tiny prayer whenever I had time and sometimes  I read a Bible verse that had been on my fridge for years. Yes, I had the same endless excuses, the little ones, the laundry, the money, the husband, the Bible study, the bills, the gym, the so longed for “Time-For-Me”, who, by the way, is the most shrewd deceiver around Moms.  But one day I stopped… well actually , He made stop…

–He? I barely remember any of His Words… It has been so long…I hadn’t have time.

– Yes, He made me stop; the Owner of my Days; the One who fixed the Sun and Moon in place to give us a day to work and a night to rest. He spoke clearly to me, I remember well. It was one day when he opened my ears to hear my voice, my dialog. I was scared. The two words that my children were listening from me  all day long were terrifying: Hurry Up! 

Rushing-Busy-Mom had a lump on her throat and a tear made of minuscules particles of wasted time, rolled down from her cheek. 

Quiet-Slow-Mom kept on saying,

– When I realized how many times I had spoken those words I broke into pieces. I knew in that moment that those words I kept saying all day, all days were exactly the opposite of what my heart longed for… I did not want to rush the hours, I did not want to make the time pass by so quickly, I did not want to hurry the moments… O Beautiful Moments that were disappearing without no one noticing them, and I just let them go by while Clock and Watch observed, and they laughed at me.

Rushing-Busy-Mom sat on the grass, and held her baby girl in her arms who was now sleeping. She took her tiny hands and took a moment to see how much her hands had grown and how beautiful her hair was.  The rays of the Sun were particularly beautiful that day… or so they seemed. She looked at Quiet-Slow-Mom and whispered to her…

– Do you think it is possible, really possible, to stop living under the cruel, rude, and powerful dominion of Clock and Watch? Is there a way out of the Land of Hurry?


– Yes, there is a way out of the Land of Hurry. It is that tiny door over there; it is just like the Door to Paradise which is narrow; it is a door through which you must enter on your knees, face down, with a contrite spirit… slowly, very slowly. You must leave behind all that doesn’t matter and walk through it humbly. When you hear the Owner of Time, the One who holds the days of mankind in the palm of His hand calling you, do not hesitate and walk through it. He will teach  you to number your days; He will teach you to live wisely in the Land. He will help you to kiss longer and hug tighter, and slow down to play and read a book. He will renew your strength every day with the power of His Word; when You come to meet Him early in the mornings you will find out how to live in this frame of time, serving Him and not Clock or Watch. You will find rest under His shadow and peace under His wings. You will  soon find yourself loving more, smiling more, baking more, making love more… It is when we stop and deliberately seek Him that Time stops ruling our days and we start living, fully living under His sun and by His grace…

>Gratitude Monday -In Peace and Trials-

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It happens again, it is my friends going through tough times while we are enjoying a peaceful and calm season. My friend’s mom is in the hospital, my other friend has lots of economical problems, and so on… and the question comes to my mind:

Why Lord?

Why not me?

And I type these words with fear because,  who will stand in the day of  trouble? Only the one who is holding fast to the Word of God will stand firm… am I? Am I ready for the days of trouble that might lay ahead?

I pray I will.

Meanwhile, while peace and joy, and health and bread, are in our home I feed my soul, I memorize the Word, I sing praises, and give thanks… I fill my “spiritual tank”, because  who knows what tomorrow may bring?

Please, dear friends, don’t take me wrong, I am not expecting hard times… I am just being realistic. The Lord brings his children through trials, through fire, through valleys to see what is in their heart and to show Himself powerful to them.

Today God’s providence has us laying on green pastures, and I am grateful for that.

1151. I am grateful for green pastures.

1152. I am grateful for friends whose faith encourages us around them.

1153. I am grateful for the perseverance of the saints.

1154. I am grateful that even though we are called to walk at times through dark valleys, He is our Pastor and never leaves us.

1155. I am grateful for friends who teach us to recite a poem when all our children are sick.

1156. A family whom we have not met, and will soon become a family to our son.

1157. Babies  growing in the womb. It never ceases to amaze me how this can happen!

1158. Having lunch with a friend I have not seen in more than 17 years!

1159. Planners and calendars…

1160. Eating lunch at my parents’ home every Monday.

1161. Strolling with my little one through beautiful flowers in a garden.

1162. Reading time…

1162.  Brown Sugar, coffee, and my daughters beside me!

1163. Phone calls from my Beloved in the middle of the day.

1164. My children’s kisses.

1165. I am so grateful that I don’t have free will.

1166. I am grtaeful for my sister.

1167.  A great book on my nightstand. (I will soon post a review!)

1168. Chocolate melting in my mouth! (Isn’t it wonderful that we can actually taste?)

1169. I am grateful for the challenge to become addicted to my Bible!

1170. Unutterable Grace.

1171. I am grateful for you… for visiting, for reading, for loving… thank you!

What makes you sing for joy today?

What are you grateful for this very moment?

Share with us so we can praise God with you today!

>He Made Himself Nothing -P2R Week 7-

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Week 7 :: Philippians 2:5-11

 

“Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus,
who, though he was in the form of God,
did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped,
but made himself nothing,
taking the form of a servant,
being born in the likeness of men.
 And being found in human form,
he humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death,
even death on a cross.
Therefore God has highly exalted him
and bestowed on him the name that is above every name,
so that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow,
in heaven and on earth and under the earth,
and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord,
to the glory of God the Father.”
– Philippians 2:5-11

How can you repeat day after day these words without having a lump on your throat and not falling to you knees in prayer… “{He} made himself nothing…”

This is the mystery we just can’t grasp with our limited mind, yet it is a Truth we must believe if we are to be saved, and a model we are commanded to follow: “Have this mind among yourselves, which is yours in Christ Jesus…”

John MacArthur says,

“In light of the profound reality of Jesus’ full and uncompromised deity, His incarnation was the most profound possible humiliation. For Him to change in any way or to any degree, even temporarily by the divine decree of His Father, required descent. By definition, to forsake perfection requires taking on some form of imperfection. Yet without forsaking or in any way diminishing His perfect deity or His absolute holiness, in a way that is far beyond human comprehension, the Creator took on the form of the created. The Infinite became finite, the Sinless took sin upon Himself. The very heart of the gospel of redemption is that the Father “made Him who knew no sin to be sin on our behalf, so that we might become the righteousness of God in Him” (2 Cor. 5:21). Although that infinitely marvelous and cardinal gospel truth is impossible to understand, it is necessary to believe.”

He descended to save sinners like me, He came to rescue me when I was running away from Him and did not look for Him. This is where Grace meets us, in our sin not in our self-righteousness!

I keep muttering these words, I meditate on them while cooking and walking. I am commanded to have this same mind, I am commanded to humble myself, to make myself nothing, to be obedient to the point of death.

This doesn’t come easy. I love my flesh, my skin…. isn’t this the way I was taught by the secular media and the modern evangelical churches in which I grew up? 

We don’t work toward having a good self- esteem, that is already there. Naturally we love ourselves more than God. We are never inclined to make ourselves nothing, to descend, to bow, to make ourselves servants.


Think of the moments your husband is sick, or when your children ask you to read them one more story, or when your neighbor needs help… does saying no to yourself comes easily? Not for me. 


The gospel calls us to live dying in our every day walk. It is not something mystic, it is there in your kitchen, in the marriage bed, in the moments that are woven together that we must make ourselves nothing. Yes, this seems like foolishness to the unsaved, but it is the message of the Cross. I must lay down my life, my minutes to God by serving those around me.


MacArthur says,

“It is the attitude of selfless giving oneself and one’s possessions, power, and privileges that should characterize all who belong to Christ. They should be willing to loosen their grip on the blessings they have, which they have solely because of Him. Christians are set apart from the world as children of God and joint heirs with Jesus Christ. Yet they must not clutch those privileges and blessings. Instead, like the Lord, they must hold them loosely and be willing to sacrifice them all for the benefit of others”



and then he says,


“Christians obviously can’t empty themselves to the degree that the Lord emptied Himself, because He started so high and Christians start so low. Believers have infinitely less to empty themselves of. Even what they have is given to them by grace. Believers are obligated to follow the Lord’s example by emptying themselves of everything that would hinder their obedience and service to Him.”



Isn’t the home the perfect place to practice this? Isn’t among our family that we find the best opportunities to practice emptying ourselves so that His name might be exalted?

I am learning; I do not want to let these opportunities pass by …