Simplicity In Christ

 I Corinthians 11:3

"But I fear, lest by any means, as the serpent beguiled Eve

through his subtilty,

So your minds should be corrupted from

The simplicity that is in Christ."

Paul is writing this letter to the Corinthians out of love for them. He has helped them come to Christ but now false teachers are trying to lead them astray. Paul knows that the world and all it’s holds take away and distract us from the simplicity we find in Christ.

We cannot stay pure and unspotted for Christ if we leave the simplicity of him and live in the world, like the world.

But it’s tricky. Just as Eve was deceived, we can be deceived and beguiled in this world.

This Simplicity,

 What is it?

A Little Cleaning Up

As you can tell something is going on...

I've decided to re-vamp this site.

One of my goals for this year is to post more on this blog,

ideally I will try to post at least once a week.

 I realized how slack I had become.

And as I began to think I began to realize that I need the accountability

of sharing what I've been learning.

To push me further in my learning.

So part of my cleaning has to do with what I feel

the Lord had showed me for the new year.

Normally I seem to have a focus passage

that the Lord impresses on my heart around

the beginning of every year.

This year:

2 Corinthians 1-3,

particularly the end of verse 3 

"...from the simplicity that is in Christ."

A Post Coming to You Soon!

Sweet to The Soul

Proverbs 16:24

"Pleasant words are as an honeycomb,

sweet to the soul,

and health to the bones."

I want my words to be sweet and healthy to my husband and everyone I speak to. They need to be that way to everyone, but especially those closest to us. In order to do that I must speak pleasant words.

Pleasant means- agreeable, delight, something of grace or beauty.

Wow! My mouth can keep me from being a woman of grace a beauty.

There are seven Scriptural references to the word no-am(Hebrew for pleasant)
Ps. 27:4 - used to describe the Lord’s beauty
Ps. 90:17 - also used to describe the Lord but we are to put it on and be showing it.
Prov. 3:17 - the way of wisdom is pleasantness
Prov. 15:26 - pleasant words come from one who is pure or striving to be pure. It’s a choice to                                      speak pleasant words and live pure.
Prov. 16:24 - our text
Zech. 11:7, 10 - a rod called beauty used to correct the sheep/ the poor of the flock.
I must speak pleasant words, that wouldn’t be words:
That degrade
Complain
Are critical
That argue
Are sarcastic
Are dirty/hurtful

Pleasant words are something sweet that can be relished. Speak words that would warm the heart when remembered.

This Day

“This is the day which the LORD hath made;

We will rejoice and be glad in it.”

Psalm 118:24

Today - “this is the day”

The Lord Planned It - “the LORD hath made;”

A Purposed Attempt - “we will”

Rejoice - To spin around ( under the influence of any violent emotion) Think spinning around with joy in a big meadow, like Maria on Sound of Music.

Be Glad - cheer up, joy, be merry



I think we look right past another meaning of this verse. We automatically think, “ Be thankful and happy God gave you another day!” But what is we looked differently:

This day was created and planned by the Lord - that means today is in the Divine planner - everything in it He planned. Our job is to make a purposed attempt to be joyful and giddy (if you would) of the day and the plans thereof. But I don’t think it’s a once a day, do-this-every-morning thing. It’s ongoing though out the day. What if we replaced the word “in” with “throughout” and “it” with “the day”. Boy, would that change everything!

“This is the day which the LORD hath made;

We will rejoice and be glad in it (throughout the day).”

We are continually rejoicing and being giddy because the plans that unfold for the day are God’s plans! Yes, even that flopped supper. Just laugh about it and do your best to fix it.

So, throughout this day, rejoice in His planning.

A Titus 2 Woman

 

As I was studying Titus chapter two the other day I decided to search out some of the words. What interesting things I found.

 

There is an example for the aged (older) women to set:

 

• Holiness - reverent, to be proper, suitable, or sacred
• Not False Accusers (Greek: Diabalos) - Devil, Traduce (to be very critical)
• Not given to much wine- Not enslaved or given to alcohol
• Teachers of good things - a teach of right, virtue

Then Paul goes on to tell what these women are to impart to the younger generation:

• Soberness - a disciplines, self-controlled sound mind
• Love their Husbands - this love is a fondness, affectionate love, to be a friend of her man. 
• Love their Children - the same kind of love: fondness, maternal, and to be a friend
• Discreetness - Sound in mind, self-controlled feelings
• Chaste - Properly, clean, innocent, modest
• Keepers at Home - a guard, stayer at home
• Good - well, properly beautiful, valuable and virtuous 
• Obedient to husband - submit yourself to, put under, from the Greek word tasso meaning to arrange into an orderly manner
• Not Blasphemous - so their life doesn’t defame, rail on or speak evil of the Lord.

 

Some of these things I knew and others I forgot, but some others I hadn’t realized. I may not be one of the aged women, but I do have girls younger than me that I spend time with and what I do (my actions) will teach them more than my words.

 

Do we live our lives in a sacred suitable manner that is pleasing to Christ? How is my level of criticalness? Am I teaching right things, that which is virtuous?

 

I found it interesting that the love mentioned is: to be fond of, like preferring to be with those people above anyone else, and to be a friend of them. Then comes the discreetness, boy oh boy self-controlled feelings! That doesn’t always doesn’t happen easily for a girl.

 

Teaching the younger to be good, properly beautiful stuck out to me. Properly beautiful, to me I think the Lord was meaning beauty radiating on the outside from what is within the heart. Not ornamental beauty and what we can do to make ourselves look pretty. If we are beautiful inside, we’ll be beautiful outside.

 

Then the last thing that stuck out to me was the part about obedient to husband. I knew it meant submissive and I knew that meant giving up your own will. You must deny yourself and be put under another. The blessings of such are great. But it was the root word in Greek that got me. This word means To arrange in an orderly manner, this submission is all part of God’s divine order for the home. He knows that brings the greatest peace. And it’s a blessing to see it mentioned here.

 

I hope this was as big of a blessing to you as it was to me. And maybe it will inspire you to dig into His word and find these things for yourself, along with the requirements for a Titus 2 man.

 

What About Your Legacy?

I recently read a book my sister let me read after she was done with it. Gotta love those teacher cards from the library- six weeks- no rush.

Anyway, the book was an autobiography on Tim Tebow-

the football player for the Denver Broncos

with a Testimony for God.

(I'll admit, when I saw that game where he

knelt in prayer after a good run, I was a

bit sceptical- another one of those sports people

who says they are a Christian...)

But this was different.

It was a good book,

o.k. i had to wade through all the football language

which I know nothing about.

But his testimony was great. So I leave you with

a quote from his book of the legacy you leave behind.

“...But a legacy that left eternal fingerprints on the lives of others would be a legacy to be remembered in this world and the next. The legacy God intended each of us to leave has to do with the impact our lives have had on the lives of others He calls us to serve. It has to do with the difference our lives make in the world- in our families, with friends, at work, at school, with our coaches and teammates, and all those others around us. Our legacy should be about building in the lives of all those others, doing something for others

that will not only last in their lives here, but for eternity.”

p. 206 of Through My Eyes by Tim Tebow and Nathan Whitaker.