Category Archives: Exhortations

Because We Love Friends

Posted on by
1

This is true, we love our friends.

Friends who cry with us, friends who need that we cry with them.

Friends who listen and friends who need to be listened to.

Friends who laugh and others who need our laughter.

Friends who encourage and others who need encouragment.

Friends who support us in prayer, friends who need our prayers.

Friends.

We women are especially willing to engage in deep friendships, we love to talk and encourage others and just be friends; but as I teach my daughters about friendship, I need to go deeper and teach them, really teach them, about this issue which can build them up or tear them down.

I have seen this, I have been at a Starbucks by myself trying to read a book and suddenly the conversation besides me  calls my attention. A group of women, all loud, all “friends”, and their words are only words that destroy their husbands and children. It is almost like a competition to see which one of their husbands is the worst, the meanest, the less preapared, and the least affectionate.

It is true, these women are probably not Christians, but I have also seen this particular way of conversing around a table in which the women around it call themselves Christians. The difference? They do exactly the same, but add the words “Please, help me pray for my husband or my children….”

Mary, a woman who found favor in the eyes of the Lord, learned from the beginning a valuable lesson that we, women who fear the Lord, must learn; the Bible says that  “Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart…” (Luke 2:19)

Who are our friends? What do we talk about around a coffee table? Is it about the weaknesses of our husbands or children? Are we gossiping in the form of  “prayer requests”? What is in our heart? Let us pray to the Lord and ask Him forgiveness if we have done this.

Every time we open up the secrets of our home over a coffee table, we are walking away from wisdom, away from prudence, away from understanding; in the book of Proverbs 2: 9-13, we read:

“For wisdom will come into your heart,
   and knowledge will be pleasant to your soul;
  discretion will watch over you,
   understanding will guard you,
   delivering you from the way of evil,
   from men of perverted speech”

Women dress up beautifuly to meet with their friends, yet they often forget what the Bible teaches about a woman who is not discreet:

“Like a gold ring in a pig’s snout
   is a beautiful woman without discretion.”
Proverbs 11: 22

I want to teach my daughters all these and now that they are young, they are already learning that it is not Biblical to talk about their parents’ or brother’s mistakes in the company of others. They are learning that certain things need to be kept inside our home.

If you are really in a desperate situation, don’t go over to a coffee table, go first of all to your husband, and then go to an elderly woman in the Church in whom you know you can trust.

Friends,  godly friends are a gift from God. I have been greatly blessed with many women in my life who love God and love their families so much that they do not come to our coffee table to tell the me all about the sins of their husbands and children. They honor them, they are grateful, they build wisely, and walk in prudence. For this I am thankful.

“Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets,
but he who is trustworthy in spirit keeps a thing covered.”
Prov 11:13 ESV

I have also learned that if I want to honor my husband and our relationship, I should come always to him first. He is my Beloved, he is my best friend, he is the one who holds my hand in the night. I should never choose oher friends over his friendship. Whenever I share about a personal struggle with a friend, he knows about it. He is never left out.

My friends have helped me be a better wife, a better mom; they have encouraged me to good works, to grow in my sanctification, and for this I am grateful. 

We insist to our children about the importance of choosing excellent friends, godly friends? Do we hold the same standard for ourselves?

Do we choose wisely?

I pray I will always do.

“Whoever goes about slandering reveals secrets;
 therefore do not associate with a simple babbler”
Prov 20:19 ESV

“The righteous chooses his friends carefully
but the way of the wicked leads them astray”
Prov 12:26 ESV

May you find today beautiful opportunities to bless your friends.

The pictures were taken in a trip with my best friends, my husband and my sister with her husband. We had a wonderful time. It was a gift indeed!

A book which helped me grow into the woman I am now is this:

The Fruit of Her Hands

 
sign up here and read along! 
We will start the conversation Tuesday, October 12. 
Don’t miss it!

This post is linked to Raising Homemakers

Reformed People in a Catholic Cathedral

Posted on by
4

We have a friend visiting from another country, and if you know us, we love to have people over and show them the city we live in.

Today the tour was to visit downtown and the huge Cathedral in it.

As you walk inside the massive building with three different architectural styles (it took three centuries to build it) it is mostly dark, the smell is peculiar, and your eyes are immediately forced to look at the altars.

The altars (the Altar of Forgiveness and the Altar of the Kings, in the main nave)  are covered with gold, lots of gold. Many people are in there, tourists, children, workers; three nuns and a priest found their way through the people; some devouts were kneeling before the so many images found in the sixteen chapels, two men were in solitude contemplation were sitting on the benches. Others were giving alms, and a lady was pouring holy water on her wallet.

There are as many images of different saints as you can imagine; and as many  different “Virgin Mary” as you could think of, one for each need. There are all kind of “Christs”, there is even one called “The Black Christ”, and another one called “The Lord of Cacao Beans”.

“Our God is in the heavens;
    he does all that he pleases.
 Their idols are silver and gold,
    the work of human hands.
They have mouths, but do not speak;
   eyes, but do not see.
They have ears, but do not hear;
   noses, but do not smell.
They have hands, but do not feel;
   feet, but do not walk;
   and they do not make a sound in their throat.
Those who make them become like them;
   so do all who trust in them.”

Psalm 115: 3-8

What do we learn?

The heaviness over our spirit to see all this idolatry breaks our heart, but there has to be a lesson for us to learn.

What about the idols of the heart that we have and cannot be seen?

They are as terrible and as abominable before God as these wooden idols whom our eyes saw with such indignation.

Let us examine our hearts and search them lest we had already made ourselves some idols.

God mocks the idol makers and idol worshippers, making them just as the idols they build for themselves,

 ” All who fashion idols are nothing, and the things they delight in do not profit. Their witnesses neither see nor know, that they may be put to shame. Who fashions a god or casts an idol that is profitable for nothing?  Behold, all his companions shall be put to shame, and the craftsmen are only human. Let them all assemble, let them stand forth.

They shall be terrified; they shall be put to shame together. The ironsmith takes a cutting tool and works it over the coals. He fashions it with hammers and works it with his strong arm. He becomes hungry, and his strength fails; he drinks no water and is faint. The carpenter stretches a line; he marks it out with a pencil. He shapes it with planes and marks it with a compass. He shapes it into the figure of a man, with the beauty of a man, to dwell in a house.  He cuts down cedars, or he chooses a cypress tree or an oak and lets it grow strong among the trees of the forest. He plants a cedar and the rain nourishes it. Then it becomes fuel for a man. He takes a part of it and warms himself; he kindles a fire and bakes bread. Also he makes a god and worships it; he makes it an idol and falls down before it. Half of it he burns in the fire. Over the half he eats meat; he roasts it and is satisfied. Also he warms himself and says, “Aha, I am warm, I have seen the fire!” And the rest of it he makes into a god, his idol, and falls down to it and worships it. He prays to it and says, “Deliver me, for you are my god!”

 They know not, nor do they discern, for he has shut their eyes, so that they cannot see, and their hearts, so that they cannot understand. No one considers, nor is there knowledge or discernment to say, “Half of it I burned in the fire; I also baked bread on its coals; I roasted meat and have eaten. And shall I make the rest of it an abomination? Shall I fall down before a block of wood?”  He feeds on ashes; a deluded heart has led him astray, and he cannot deliver himself or say, “Is there not a lie in my right hand?” 

Isaiah 44: 9-20

May God grant us a repentant heart.

My two three recommendations for today:
If you want to learn more about about how idolatry destroys our life, consider reading, We Become What We Worship, A Biblical Theology of Idolatry, by G.K Beale or Counterfeit Gods: The Empty Promises of Money, Sex and Power, and the Only Hope that Matters, by Timothy Keller
Again, Diane has a great article worth reading, Repent or Perish! John H. Gerstner.
Petra gives moms great encouragement, In the Arms of Faith

I Love Jesus

Posted on by
4

All of us have seen a sign like this one everywhere, from earrings to tattoos; but most of the time I have seen it it breaks my heart and to be true it also makes me mad, because many (I do not want to use a universal statement here, although I am tempted….) of those who wear it live as haters of Jesus, and bring shame to the precious name of my Savior.

Jesus said,  
“If you love me, you will keep my commandments”
Now… Do you truly love Jesus?
 Do you even know what  His commandments are for us?

So, please…. search your heart before wearing a T-shirt with a logo like this, and please, do not let your children wear it if they are walking as Covenant breakers.