You Make Beautiful Things

All this pain
I wonder if I’ll ever find my way
I wonder if my life could really change at all?

All this earth
Could all that is lost ever be found
Could a garden come up from this ground at all?

You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of the dust
You make beautiful things
You make beautiful things out of us

All around
Hope is springing up from this old ground
Out of chaos life is being found in You
     

You make me new, You are making me new
You make me new, You are making me new
       ~Gungor

Always Seeking Higher Ground,

Nora

....then Just Don't Do It

Whoever speaks, let him speak as it were, the utterances of God.
       ~1 Peter 4:11

You have been called. To a different standard. To a gentle way. To a holy life.


If you can't do it in holiness......if you can't do it with a smile on your face.....if you can't do it with a gentle tone.....then just don't do it.


Simple.....

God said,

"....but according to the Holy One who has called you, you also become holy in all conduct".
       ~1 Peter 1:15

When I speak, my kids should not get confused with who is speaking. My words should sound like our loving Father.

Tender. Soft. Patient.


And when I am speaking confidences in the teacher's lounge, my colleagues should not have to hear whose side I am on. My words should be like God's Son, Jesus.

Encouraging. Thought Provoking. Gentle.


Or...the Christians who I run into at the grocery who attend our former church, they shouldn't have to have their peaceful morning disrupted. My words should be filled with God's Holy Spirit, the Comforter.


Sweet. Kind. Embracing.

"You have been called. Perfect Divinity has spoken to you. And He has called you to act holy in all your conduct. Not just how you behave at church, at Bible study, or with the lady at check-out.....He has spoken directly to you about how to conduct yourself.... at all times"

If I can't talk with Understanding and Respect to my colleague about the smallness of my room this year, and how difficult it is to get the technology running all because she moved me.......then don't do it.


If I can't ask with a Gentle Tone and a Smile for youngest to sit correctly in his chair and stop tipping it backwards as he picks the green out of his dinner.......then don't do it.
 
If I can't speak with Hope and Assurance of the state this world is in, and how it's going to "H..E..double toothpicks in a handbag".......then don't do it. 

If I can't Kindly and Tenderly ask (again) that oldest to turn his glassy glaze from the window back to his third homework page.......then don't do it.



If you can't do it in holiness, don't do it. Stay quiet. Pray. Ask for Divine Intervention and a Changed Heart......then do it just like Jesus would do it.

So...the next time I request the backpacks that have been thrown in a heap on the laundry room floor to be cleared away (for the countless time), I want the Lord to be able to nod and say...

                         

                           "That Mama sounds just like Me".





Lord God....I confess that much of the day these sons of mine do not hear You in my words, in my tone, in my conversations. Father, hear my cry ~ Give me Your language, Your love, Your voice! So that these children hear You when they hear me.

And let me not say anything at all at home, at work, while I'm out.... if I am not going to say what You would say.Cause me to only say it like You would...(and you spoke often in a whisper)..or to say nothing at all.
 
So those who choose to listen, think it's You....speaking through me.





Always seeking Higher Ground,


Nora

Just When You Started Feeling Better About Yourself

 Building high self esteem is all about trusting oneself and learning to cope with challenges. Know that everyone is worthy of happiness and success, and you deserve all of it! 
      ~Loveleena Rajeev





Religious incantations for self-worth, self-love, and self-acceptance pour out of the TV, drift across the radio waves, and entice people through advertising. Self-promoters continuously promise to cure all of society's ills through doses of self-esteem, self-worth, self-acceptance, and self-love. And everyone, or nearly everyone echoes the refrain: "You just need to love and accept yourself the way you are. You just need to forgive yourself" and "I just have to accept myself the way I am. I'm worth it. I am a lovable, valuable, forgivable person."

But It is not just on Oprah where you hear the mantra which glorifies the self and places the love of ourself at the center as the reason for existence.

Lately, Christian circles are no better. In the Church today, everybody is getting all crazy over themselves, and Christian leaders are placing self-esteem and self-worth in their teachings.

You are special also because you are of great value and worth to God. ... The value or worth of an object is usually determined by the price one is willing to pay to purchase or redeem it. It couldn't be more true for you and me ... I am worth the price God paid for me, which was 'Jesus' ... the real basis for a healthy self-image is to understand and accept the value God has placed on you. ... Christ's loving actions on your behalf have demonstrated and documented forever the great value you have to God.
      ~Josh McDowell (The Secret of Loving)

Success is to be defined as the gift of self-esteem that God gives us as a reward for our sacrificial service in building self-esteem in others. Win or lose: If we follow God’s plan as faithfully as we can, we will feel good about ourselves
  ~Robert Schuller

You were planned for God’s pleasure. The moment you were born into the world God was there as an unseen witness, smiling at your birth. He wanted you alive, and your arrival gave him great pleasure. God did not need to create you, but he chose to create you for his own enjoyment. . . . Bringing enjoyment to God, living for his pleasure, is the first purpose of your life. When you fully understand this truth, you will never again have a problem with feeling insignificant. It proves your worth. If you are that important to God, and he considers you valuable enough to keep with him for eternity, what greater significance could you have?
      ~Rick Warren (Purpose Driven Life)

This kind of mentality ultimately leads to a man-centered theology, which is diametrically opposed to what the Bible teaches.

The goal of salvation and sanctification is that we be conformed to the image of Christ (Rom. 8:29). It's been well said that faith looks out instead of in, and the whole of life falls into line. The more you know Christ and focus on Him, the more the Spirit will make you like Him. But the more you focus on yourself, the more distracted you will be from the proper path.         ~John MacArthur

Man-Centered Theology makes the fatal error of filtering God's Word through MAN's grid, rather than filtering man's thinking through the grid of God's Word.

Our true self worth comes only from knowing Christ died for us in-spite of our sinful rebellion. Knowing that He loves us is what gives us worth, not us loving ourselves giving ourselves worth.
     ~Joni Erickson Tada

Christian! the only thing that makes you differ from the vilest being that pollutes the earth, or from the darkest fiend that gnaws his chains in hell, is the free grace of God!
    ~ Octavious Winslow

The truth of it all is, God is inherantly Holy... and we are not.

If we approach all areas of our life from a mindset of holiness, we see the unworthy filth from which we were taken, and pursue more of the righteousness that is in Christ Jesus.

Growth in holiness will lead a man to see more and more of his own sinfulness.
       ~Tom Wells

Isaiah when faced with the awsomeness of Almighty God fell prostrate on the ground and was only able to mutter, "Woe is me! For I am lost; for I am a man of unclean lips, and I dwell in the midst of a people of unclean lips; for my eyes have seen the King, the Lord of hosts!"

For the first time in his life Isaiah really understood who God was. And at the same instant,
for the first time Isaiah really understood who Isaiah was.
     ~R.C. Sproul 

The journey to personal holiness begins with a right view of God’s holiness, and how depraved we are when compared to Him.

"The plain truth is that a right knowledge of sin lies at the root of all saving Christianity.” If we do not get sin right, we have no hope of getting holiness right.
     ~J.C. Rylie

The only way to understand His holiness is to grow closer to Him through reading His Word and prayer.
Then comes the realization. This seeing the sin of self and through it we become God famished. Hunger gnaws at the inside of the gut and there is a far deeper emptiness.

I believe the holier a man becomes, the more he mourns over the unholiness which remains in him.
       ~C.H. Spurgeon

Holiness doesn't mean the absence of evil in our lives ~ it is the presence of the Holy Spirit and the fruit of the Spirit being lived out. Being honest about who I am is a part of living out of the Spirit. The more we recognize our depravity, the more grateful we become for His grace, and the more He can be glorified through us.

Holiness is being concerned about God's holiness, not our own. Of course, once we are concerned about God's holiness and once our attention is focused on such, we will image God, we will highlight what He eternally is by the way we live.
      ~Geoffrey Paxton

Understanding that God is Holy and Just is a necessary foundation for understanding his Grace and His Love. Holiness is the opposite of sin.


God's holiness and our sinfulness is the contrast in which God's love is seen. It is what makes Christ's death on the cross, and the forgiveness of sin so special. Grace is  wonderful because it is God's response to something that he utterly, utterly detests. This Holy God, the God who hates sin with an unquenchable hatred, is the same God whose love has made a way for us to experience Him. And it was not cheap. It cost him the son who he has loved since before the foundation of the world.


If God were merely loving but not holy, then he would be only pathetically sentimental. But because God's holiness burns so hot, his love is shown in all its power.

In Old Testament times the High Priest could not go into the Most Holy Place of the Temple unless blood was on the altar, thus typifying a covering for sin. Today we have access to God because Jesus Christ shed His blood and placed it on the altar for us. Those who have received Christ as Lord and Savior are a part of His body, and the Father sees us as holy because we are “in Christ".
       ~Carl Groff

About one hundred and sixty years ago, a Scottish surgeon named Sir James Simpson made an important discovery. A devout christian, he was deeply interested in pain relief. Simpson had long been trying to improve the horrifying conditions that plagued surgeons doing operations, and had prayed for a solution that would help both doctor and patient. In 1847 while Dr. Simpson was conducting experiments with chloroform, he realized that by using chloroform, doctors could perform operations without causing pain to their patients. His discovery revolutionized modern medicine, and brought relief to millions of people who had been suffering...

Simpson received many accolades during his life because of his benevolence and commitment to improving the human condition, and when the godly Sir James eventually lay on his deathbed, a friend said to him, “Well, James, soon you will be able to rest on the bosom of Jesus.”


But Simpson completely aware that he was soon to face a Holy God replied,

“I don’t know that I can quite do that, but I do think I can take hold of His garment.”

Those with a proper perception of God’s holiness will tremble at His Word.

       ~Edwin Yamauchi

In the last days perilous times will come. For men will be lovers of self…rather than lovers of God; holding to a form of godliness, although they have denied its power.
      ~2 Tim 3:1-5

Always Seeking Higher Ground,

Nora

Still Clinging After All These Years

It's the first week of  new year and already I'm wondering where I got the crazy idea that by making a New Year's resolution everything would change. Bad Habits honed over long years do not disappear overnight. You would think the message would finally sink in...after all He said it 3 times, the same way, in 3 different places of of His Word.

Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.
                         ~Matthew 9:17

And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be       ruined. No, he pours new wine into new wineskins.
                           ~Mark 2:22

And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined.

                          ~Luke 5:37

Image in mirror does not look like a new wine skin..it bears more of a resemblance to over-ripe pear...
A few old habits may have changed..but truth be known; new ones just crop up in their place. Vices persist like patches, covering up the wear and tear on this old wineskin...and it's not working anymore...
 
 
I am an old wineskin leaking holiness....

Whom he did foreknow, he also did predestinate to be conformed to the image of his Son.
                        ~Romans 8:29

 God's plan has always been for us to become holy.

God has one destined end for mankind – holiness! His one aim is the production of saints. God is not an eternal blessing-machine for men. He did not come to save men out of pity. He came to save men because He had created them to be holy.

                                        ~Oswald Chambers

And we travail, longing with the earth for God's promise of glory.

Because the creature itself also shall be delivered from the bondage of corruption into the glorious liberty of the children of God. For we know that the whole creation groaneth and travaileth in pain together until now. And not only they, but ourselves also, which have the firstfruits of the Spirit, even we ourselves groan within ourselves, waiting for the adoption, to wit, the redemption of our body.
                                ~Romans 8:21-23

We're not groaning for the recreation of our souls--that's been done already--but for that of our bodies, which is where our fleshly nature resides. This new life we have in Christ is a taste of future glory when the whole universe will be recreated. What a marvelous privilege is ours!

                                    ~John MacArthur

I believe the holier a man becomes, the more he mourns over the unholiness which remains in him.
                                 ~C.H. Spurgeon

 So I will continue to be willing to say no to the flesh and yes to God, day in and day out. Because the world desperately needs to see what God is like. Because it is my created purpose and ultimate destiny...

               Because of the price Jesus paid to make me holy.


Ever so slowly, sanctifying love and grace from wood carved with blood,  continues to reshape and transform making me whiter than snow...

and this impossibly crazy idea of a new me this year will be nothing short of....


                                walking on water


             
But if He did it then.....He can do it  now.

And we all, with unveiled face, beholding the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another. For this comes from the Lord who is the Spirit.
                               ~2 Corinthians 3:18

Always Seeking Higher Ground,

Nora