Category Archives: Living_in_the_Sacred

A Project for the Busiest Months of the Year: Memorizing the Sermon on the Mount

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This is crazy, I know. But I need it. I need to be drawn (and at times even dragged back) to the Word of God, especially when my mind and heart want to go wild. The busiest season of the year is coming; Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year, family, friends, planning, traveling, food, feasting, all of that is right at the door (and I am pretty happy and excited about it, don’t take me wrong!), but in the midst of all that, I don’t want to be like Martha, caught up in the many distractions that surround this season and then forget what really matters, that one thing: taking time to sit at the feet of Jesus to listen to His Word.

So I contacted my friend Elizabeth Hankins (whom I met while memorizing Philippians in 2011, and with whom I have been memorizing several passages -and books- of the Scriptures since then), and we decided that it was time for us to work on The Sermon on the Mount. So here we are, two moms with kids, crazy schedules, books to read, meals to cook, brownies to bake, papers to grade,  tired feet, and Facebook accounts, ready to memorize, by God’s amazing grace, 111 verses by the end of January 2013, which means that we will have to cover about 8-9 verses per week.

The thing is that we would love for you (yes, you!) to join us in this crazy endeavor. It will take some extra effort and discipline, but I am sure we can do it if we ask the Lord to help us choose wisely how we spend our time during this coming season. We must learn to make wise and simple choices, for example, limit the time we spend on all social networks, don’t read all the many blogs out there (even this one, forget about it!) choose only two, maybe?  Avoid Pinterest (once you know what crafts you are making and what are you cooking, stop looking for more ideas to pin). We should ask ourselves, What if instead of checking my mobile every 10 mins.  I’d review my Bible verses with the same urgency? This is not an impossible thing to do, you can carry the Bible verses you are memorizing with you at all times (I always have them in a Moleskine that fits in my pockets), you can repeat them in the shower, while doing your hair, while driving. You can pray over them while cooking breakfast and cleaning after dinner. You can mutter them in the car, or on your bed at night. Be intentional. Don’t forget about it. Don’t set it aside. Don’t leave it for later. You will be so blessed after persevering day after day.

We are about to enter a season of feasting, why not make it a time for feasting on the Word of God. Let’s be filled with it, let Him fill our cups until they overflow!

I always encourage my friends who memorize a large passage of the Scriptures to study it in depth while doing so. It helps enormously to know what the passage means when you recite it. It also helps us not to memorize a book -or passage- for the sake of just memorizing it, it helps us meditate on it and be convicted and challenged by it.

I recommend these resources to help you study The Sermon on the Mount (read only the commentary on the verses you are working in a particular week. You don’t want to be overwhelmed).

An Exposition of the Sermon on the Mountain by Pink.

The Sermon on the Mount: The Character of a Disciple by Daniel M. Doriani

The Sermon on the Mount: Expositional Commentary by James Montgomery Boice

You can also read Thomas Watson’s exposition of The Beautitudes at Grace Gems.

Or if you prefer to listen 30 mins. sermons  (that is what I am doing this time), you can download and listen to John Piper’s series here or you can choose from many other sermons at Monergism.

I am excited for a season of feasting in the Word!

Becky

When My Mind Wanders

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You know how it goes, one day -almost without noticing- you entertain one thought, one worry, one doubt, one fear, one question, one… and then two days later, and then three days later, and the next week, and the week after that you have a wandering mind, with no limits whatsoever, your spirit is troubled, and of course, you feel heavy burdened.

What to do now?
Go back to the Word of God.

Go back to the Scriptures and mediate on them day and night.  Memorize God’s Word, pray it, recite it, mutter it. The Word of God will dissipate all doubts, all fears, it will strengthen your heart. It will help you fight those vain thoughts.

James Smith said,

“We must mix faith with the Word; seek to hold fellowship with God through every portion; and realize the presence of the Holy Spirit, who alone can render the Word profitable”

How true this is! Let us come, to the Word. Let us abide in it, let us persevere with all diligence to keep it in our heart and mind.

Jesus said, “Come to Me, all you who labor and are heavily burdened, and I will give you rest.”  How do we come to Him? We come to Him in prayer and we find Him in the Word. It is there where we hear Him speak to our need, to our troubled soul.

Is your heart troubled and your mind wandering today?

Go back to the Word of God.

Under His sun and by His grace,

Becky

Recommended article:

Profiting from the Scriptures by J.C. Ryle

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J.R. Miller on Godly Character

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Photo by Annie Pliego

 

We ought to seek to gather in this world — treasure that we can carry with us through death’s gates, and into the eternal world.

We should strive to build into our lives — qualities that shall endure… Yet there are things — virtues, fruits of character, graces — which men do carry with them out of this world. What a man IS — he carries with him into the eternal world. Money and rank and pleasures and earthly gains — he leaves behind him; but his character, he takes with him into eternity!

This suggests at once, the importance of character and character-building. Character is not what a man professes to be — but what he really IS, as God sees him.

A man may not be as good as his reputation. A good reputation may hide an evil heart and life. Reputation is not character. Reputation is what a man’s neighbors and friends think of him; character is what the man IS.

Christ’s character is the model, the ideal, for every Christian life.

We are to be altogether like Him; therefore all of life’s aiming and striving should be towards Christ’s blessed beauty. His image we find in the Gospels. We can look at it every day. We can study it in its details, as we follow our Lord in His life among men, in all the variations of experience through which He passed.

We cannot merely dream ourselves into godly manhood or womanhood; we must forge for ourselves, with sweat and anguish, the beautiful visions of Christ-likeness which we find on the Gospel pages! It will cost us self-discipline, oftentimes anguish, as we must deny ourselves, and cut off the things we love.

SELF must be crucified.

It is not easy to become a godly man, a Christlike man.

 

Character is a process of growth. It is like fruit—it requires time to ripen. Different kinds of fruits come to ripeness at different seasons; some in the early summer, some later, and some only in the autumn. It is so with Christian lives—they ripen at different seasons. There are those who seem to grow into sweetness in early years, then those who reach their best in the mid years, and many who only in the autumn of old age come into mellow ripeness.

All of life is a season of character-growing! We are left in this world, not so much for what we may do here, for the things we may make—as that we ourselves may grow into the beauty of mature Christian character. In the midst of all our occupations and struggles, all our doing of tasks, all our longings and desires, all our experiences of every kind—there is a work going on in us—which is quite as important as anything we are doing with our mind or with our hands.

 

The object of life—is to learn to live. We are at school here, and shall always be at school, until we are dismissed from earth’s classes to be promoted into heaven! It is a pity if we do not learn our lessons. It is a pity if we grow no gentler, no kindlier, no more thoughtful, no more unselfish, no sweeter in spirit, no less worldly, if the peace of our heart is not deepened—as the years pass over us.

 

Old age should be the true harvest time of the years. Life should grow more and more beautiful, unto the end. It should increase in knowledge, in wisdom, in all the graces of the Spirit, in all the sweetness of love, in all that is Christlike. Aged Christian people, should be like trees in the autumn, their branches full of ripe fruit to feed the hunger of those who live about them.

 

We have but one life to live; we pass through this world but once. We should so live—that every step shall be a step onward and upward. We should strive to be victorious over every evil influence. We should seek to gather good and enrichment of character, from every experience, making our progress ever from more to more. Wherever we go—we should try to leave a blessing, something which will sweeten another life or start a new song or an impulse of cheer or helpfulness in another heart. Then our very memory, when we are gone—will be an abiding blessing in the world.

 Soli Deo Gloria

Becky


*These quotes were taken from J.R. Miller’s articles: The Ripening of Character and What is it for You to Be a Christian?

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Sola Scriptura and Prayer

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Shiloh Photography



Sola Scriptura is one of the 5 pillars of the Reformed Faith, and it means that the Scriptures, God’s infallible Word, are the uttermost authority in our lives, in the Church. It means there is nothing above them, that the Scriptures are sufficient. The Scriptures were breathed by God, and therefore are the very speaking of God.

Now, we also know how important prayer is in the life of the believer. Prayer and a desire to learn the Scriptures are the natural responses from those who have been born again. Both draw us to the Throne of Grace.

Have you consider how Sola Scriptura applies in the life of prayer? Many times, we simply don’t know how to pray, we are short-sighted. We say we want God’s will to be done, but as we pray we pray hoping that ours may be done. We sometimes pray as if we were trying to persuade God to do what we think is the best for us, for our children, for our husband, or for our friend.

Bringing our theology to our mundane life is what we ought to do; we need it when trials come, we need it when life is good, we need it when we do dishes and bake a cake, and when serve our family and the needy among us. But we also need it in our prayer closet.

When we pray, let us pray the Scriptures. Let the Word of God guide us to the Throne of Grace. Let the Word of God be our most wonderful prayer companion. When we don’t know how to pray (and also when we think we know how to pray) let us turn to the Word of God, and let us make it our utmost prayer book.

M. Horton has said it well, “There can be no communication with God apart from the written and living Word. Everything in the Christian faith depends on the spoken and written Word delivered by God to us through the prophets and apostles.”

This is another reason why we (my friends from Doctrines in the Kitchen, Out of The Ordinary, and Desiring Virtue) are always trying to encourage women to love the Word, to study it, to memorize it, to make it our supreme rule of life. Sisters, if we want to be women of prayer, we need to be women of the Word; if we want to become “warriors” in the prayer closet, let us learn how to use The Sword. There are no shortcuts.

Under His sun and by His grace,

Becky

The Love Story of A Passionate God and His Bride -Part 1-

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@Katie Lloyd Photography

“Again the word of the Lord came to me: “Son of man, make known to Jerusalem her abominations, and say, Thus says the Lord God to Jerusalem: Your origin and your birth are of the land of the Canaanites; your father was an Amorite and your mother a Hittite. And as for your birth, on the day you were born your cord was not cut, nor were you washed with water to cleanse you, nor rubbed with salt, nor wrapped in swaddling cloths. No eye pitied you, to do any of these things to you out of compassion for you, but you were cast out on the open field, for you were abhorred, on the day that you were born.

“And when I passed by you and saw you wallowing in your blood, I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’ I said to you in your blood, ‘Live!’I made you flourish like a plant of the field. And you grew up and became tall and arrived at full adornment. Your breasts were formed, and your hair had grown; yet you were naked and bare.

“When I passed by you again and saw you, behold, you were at the age for love, and I spread the corner of my garment over you and covered your nakedness; I made my vow to you and entered into a covenant with you, declares the Lord God, and you became mine. Then I bathed you with water and washed off your blood from you and anointed you with oil. I clothed you also with embroidered cloth and shod you with fine leather. I wrapped you in fine linen and covered you with silk. And I adorned you with ornaments and put bracelets on your wrists and a chain on your neck. And I put a ring on your nose and earrings in your ears and a beautiful crown on your head. Thus you were adorned with gold and silver, and your clothing was of fine linen and silk and embroidered cloth. You ate fine flour and honey and oil. You grew exceedingly beautiful and advanced to royalty. And your renown went forth among the nations because of your beauty, for it was perfect through the splendor that I had bestowed on you, declares the Lord God.”

Ezekiel 16: 4-14

John Pipers says,

“That’s a picture of God’s utterly free and undeserved mercy. That is how Israel was chosen. That’s how you were brought from death to life and from darkness to light and from unbelief to faith, if you are a believer. “I said to you,’Live!’ and made you flourish. I married you. You are mine.” That’s how Israel began. That’s how the Christian life begins. The mighty mercy of God.” (Sex and the Supremacy of Christ)

May we never, not for a second, forget where we were when He found us.

Becky

It Is Wise to Anticipate Old Age

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100 Days of Books

Today I am humbled and grateful for the opportunity to be sharing over at Desiring Virtue. Please, come and read…

Just as you can’t understand how quickly your little one has passed through the diaper stage, or how fast your son has grown into a young man who now has eyes to see a beautiful lady and buy flowers for her; one day you’ll come to the mirror and find an older woman’s reflection. If you are not ready, you will find yourself asking, “When did this happen?” 

You may keep on reading here.