Also, for those who have been subscribed to my blog in the past — to receive updates, please resubscribe here through Substack! Through an unexpected snag, I no longer have access to my subscriber list from when I was blogging in previous years, so I’m starting fresh here in this space. I’d love to be able to send my writing to your inbox again.

As for what to expect from my Substack blogging, I plan to reflect on God’s faithfulness and precepts from the perspective of someone to whom God has been faithful. I hope that this space can help myself and others ponder how to bring our circumstances and thoughts under the authority of the word of God. And I want to always seek to trust God’s love and trace his hand through the seasons I encounter.

Thanks for reading, and in every way — may Jesus Christ be praised!

-amanda

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Last year around this time, dad’s faith became sight. Scripture says the things that are unseen are the eternal, permanent, lasting things. Dad had read about them in the Bible, and he personally had been anticipating them. In the year or so before he died, I asked him if he thought of heaven often, and he nodded that he did. He told me he prayed nightly for God to go ahead and bring him there as soon as it was time. 

This past year since dad went home to be with the Lord Jesus, dad has been full of gladness in the presence of the Lord. He’s beheld the glory of God. He’s seen his parents and family members. He has entered his anticipated rest that Jesus purchased for him on the cross.

But maybe what comforts me the most is how dad’s earthly sufferings now must be a distant memory for him, if he even refers back to them really at all. They still feel like a fresh memory to me some days – I remember all that his illness took from him and the sadness his diagnosis brought to him and to us. But to dad, he’s not in heaven pining away for what his illness took away from him.

Wouldn’t it make sense that right now he would affirm with the Apostle Paul that his earthly afflictions were but light and momentary in comparison to the eternal weight of glory that he now possesses, a weight of glory that those very afflictions prepared for him? Dad quoted these truths (2 Corinthians 4:17) to us and believed them even before he experienced their fullness and that reality of glory for himself. But now that he’s experienced it, I know full well that dad would tell me that the sufferings of this present time (and the sufferings he experienced on earth) are not worth comparing with the glory that is to be revealed to him and to us.

I miss my dad every day, and the memories of his diagnosis and illness are still very difficult some days. But what would I do without the comforts I am given through these truths? I thank God and am filled with hope (even in sorrow) that God is currently doing the same thing for us in our present afflictions – he is working for us an eternal weight of glory through them as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For we know that if the tent that is our earthly (temporary) home is destroyed, we have a building (a permanent home) from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens. In this tent, dad groaned, longing to put on his heavenly dwelling. He was burdened, for he wanted to be further clothed, so that what was mortal would be swallowed up by life. That’s how Paul describes the death of a Christian in 2 Corinthians 5:4 – “swallowed up by life.” And now that dad is away from the body and at home with the Lord, that’s the only fitting way to describe his absence: “swallowed up by life.” I miss him. I will always love him. But I am comforted with the truth he spelled out to us (on his alphabet board) before he joined the Lord Jesus in heaven: “We will be together again.”

Postscript:
Dad's obituary from one year ago: David Dowdell Easley, Sr. (Obituary) - PawPaw's Ponderings

I enjoyed this conversation on motherhood that I shared with Jeff Chamblee on American Family Radio’s “The Stand Radio” program. We discussed an article I wrote that The Stand magazine featured in their May 2024 edition.

You can find the interview here: The Inefficient Ministry of Motherhood.

I have known Mr. Jeff since I was a young person; he and my parents were friends back in the early days of home schooling. I left my conversation with him thankful for how the Lord has consistently placed people like him in my life who encourage me and point me to the faithfulness of God. He was such a blessing to spend time with, and I hope the interview encourages other mothers, especially if you’re in the trenches with young children in this season of your life.

-amanda

I can listen and try to answer their questions, point them to Scripture, and pray for and with them, but I’m still deeply aware of how incapable I am to do the work for them (and more importantly, in them) that they need the most. That work requires an actual miracle from God that, even on my best days, I can never perform. Jonah 2:9 both comforts and sobers me: “Salvation belongs to the Lord.” Making dead souls live is a work that can only be accomplished by God alone. So, knowing that our biblical responsibility is to bring up our children “in the discipline and instruction of the Lord,” how do we respond to the weight of our insufficiency in light of the depth of our children’s needs (Eph. 6:4)?

The Bible’s biography of a young man named Joseph beautifully illustrates this truth that motherhood drives home to women who recognize their own insufficiency: I can’t do it, but God can. After unjustly spending two years in an Egyptian prison, one day Joseph is ushered in haste before Pharaoh, the most powerful man in the world. Pharaoh expects Joseph to have the supernatural ability to interpret dreams, but Joseph knows that he doesn’t possess the power this task requires.

Pharaoh expresses hope that Joseph will be capable and exceptional, but Joseph is a man who sees himself rightly. “It is not in me,” Joseph replies to Pharaoh (Gen. 41:16). He knows that the ability to do the work that God has given him must come from a source outside of himself.

Joseph is also a man who sees God rightly. Through years of trusting God in life’s difficulties, he has developed a faith-reflex that boasts in the truth that God is able. Joseph doesn’t flinch in confessing to Pharaoh, “It is not in me. God will give Pharaoh a favorable answer” (Gen. 41:16). God reveals heaven’s secrets to Joseph in order to rescue a country from starvation, as well as preserve the family through whom God had promised to send the Messiah. 

God used Joseph’s very ordinary life for great eternal purposes, but it’s worth noting that God orchestrated his entire life to crescendo to this moment of human insufficiency. If Joseph’s life were a movie, this is that memorable scene where stringed music fills the air and Joseph is majestically flung into Pharaoh’s presence, only to declare, “It is not in me.”

And aren’t these words the very core of the gospel message we believe for ourselves and teach, sing, and pray over our kids day by day? “Would you like to be saved?” we ask our children. “You cannot do it; it is not in you. But there is Another who has done it for you, and he is able to forgive your sins and give you life.” And in their acknowledging they “can’t” but God “can,” God will make our children his own, forever. This message is the essence of our living the Christian life, as well. I can’t do it, but God is able, so I depend on him in every situation to do for me and my children what we cannot do for ourselves.

Some days I feel it so keenly, how “it is not in me” to do and be for my kids what they need the most. But rather than despairing over my inadequacies, Joseph’s example invites me to boast in God’s sufficiency.[1] I lack the strength, ability, and power to do the things that will make an eternal difference. No mother can truly soften her child’s heart to the things of God; no mother can give her child spiritual understanding; no mother can make her child believe the gospel. But every Christian mother can teach her child the gospel, seek the mercy of a compassionate God through prayer, and unflinchingly declare that God is able.

Maybe we’re still blinking in amazement at the tiniest blue or pink bundle placed in our arms, or maybe we’re in the middle of motherhood somewhere, sensing the depth of our inadequacy more than ever. What a deep well of blessing awaits those of us who embrace both truths: “It is not in me,” but “God is able” (Gen. 41:16; Eph. 3:20).

We trust him, both to strengthen us for the daily work of mothering, as well as to do his greater, life-giving work of sovereignly shining in our children’s hearts to give “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Cor. 4:6). Motherhood extends countless invitations for women to imitate Joseph and exercise our own faith-reflex: to recognize our inability, to acknowledge God’s ability, and through prayer to lean on him to meet our children’s deepest need of peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. God loves our children and is able to do for our children what we can never do for them. And more sure than the sun’s rising or the stars in the sky, we know God is sufficient for all these things, worthy of a very ordinary mother’s trust and all her hope.

[1] 2 Corinthians 3:5–6

This post first appeared at Risen Motherhood.

Anticipation of harvest: that’s why gardeners garden, isn’t it? Because as wonderful as it is to be outside on a warm sunny day, the reason we bury seeds each spring is not simply because the weather beckons us; we plant because we anticipate the coming reward. Fruits, vegetables, and flowers are the resurrected results of buried seeds. We only garden if we expect a harvest, and we only expect a harvest if bare kernels will give up their solitary existence in exchange for resurrection.

We garden in hope of each tiny seed’s resurrection. And for those who have cast our lot to Calvary, the spring season proclaims to each of us our own coming resurrections. The triumphant Story that the Creator writes into the garden is that all who believe on Jesus will experience resurrection, as he did.

The trowel peels back the earth, I tuck the seed inside, and the soil seals closed the seed’s tomb. Down the garden row I continue, pressing large seeds into their holes and sprinkling a fine dusting of dark soil over the tops of small ones. Hiding away seed after seed, my heart swells over the good news the garden preaches: in Christ, resurrection always follows death. “For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.” (1 Cor 15:22)

In this body, this tent, as Paul refers to it in 2 Corinthians 5, we groan, being burdened, longing that what is mortal may be swallowed up by life. Our circumstances vary person to person, but we share together the longing to put on our heavenly dwelling. At times we all feel it more keenly than others, that longing for our own resurrection.

What burdens you this season? What is the source of your personal “groaning?” What experience makes you long for heaven? For whatever situation comes to your mind, I think about something that D.A. Carson said: “I’m not suffering from anything that a good resurrection can’t fix.”

Since Jesus was raised, all who repent of their sins and put their faith in Jesus Christ are promised that when the perishable puts on the imperishable, and the mortal puts on immortality, then shall come to pass the saying that is written, “Death is swallowed up in victory.” Oh death, where is your victory? O death, where is your sting? So, take heart!, my beloved sisters, and be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain. Let the garden’s preaching embolden you to trust the God who raises the dead, so that we live all of life as women anticipating our own resurrections.

But I still grow impatient with the sheer time that it takes to be a mother — to cook a warm meal (only to know that snack requests begin within 90 minutes at best), buy and launder clothes, read storybooks, plan and do homeschool lessons, hear the adventures of Lego inventions, bathe and instruct and buckle in. Especially for those of us with young children, motherhood absorbs the bulk of the labor we would otherwise pour into ministry outside these Crayola-smudged walls. A mom in her home can feel shelved by God from real ministry.

But isn’t there a story about this in the Gospels, about adults who didn’t want time-consuming children to interfere with real kingdom work? And whom did Jesus correct? Did he correct the thick-fingered toddlers and long-winded grade-schoolers? Did he correct the boys for how their minds wander and bodies fidget, and the girls for their sticky fingers and their immature decisions?

They were bringing children to him that he might touch them, and the disciples rebuked them. But when Jesus saw it, he was indignant and said to them, “Let the children come to me; do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of God. Truly I say to you, whoever does not receive the kingdom of God like a child shall not enter it.” And he took them in his arms and blessed them, laying his hands on them. (Mark 10:13-16)

Instead of correcting the time-taking toddlers, Jesus corrected the kingdom-driven adults who didn’t have time for the children.

Jesus corrected those who would set aside the least of these in order to embrace the platform-building crowds of a growing ministry. He felt indignant that the disciples would assume that his kingdom work was not wide enough to envelop, on some days, just a few — a few who would take up a lot of his time (since we know how children do). But Jesus brought the children near to him, touched them, and spent time with them.

How inefficient, Lord.

Whom Will We Imitate

In Christ’s kingdom, the way up is often down, isn’t it? God is often pleased to work through those who copy Jesus, laying down their lives in the shadow of his cross, because real spiritual yield usually comes through intense pressing, downward burial, hidden-away entombment. “Unless a grain of wheat falls into the earth and dies, it remains alone; but if it dies, it bears much fruit. Whoever loves his life loses it, and whoever hates his life in this world will keep it for eternal life” (John 12:24-25).

How good God has been to women to choose us to join Jesus in lowly, life-giving work among his littlest lambs! For mothers of young children as well as all Christian women, when we are willing to be spent in inefficiency for the most tender, impressionable, and helpless among us, we are choosing the good portion that will not be taken away from us. We die to self, marching with confidence into that grave, because of the sure promise of God that, like Jesus, we will bear much fruit.

But doesn’t our labor for the kingdom feel inefficient and cumbersome to our flesh? Oh, I can think of more efficient kingdom work than motherhood, nursery care, and my dear wiggly three-year-old church class. I can come up with more efficient means to grow our church than Vacation Bible Schools, and Sunday school classes equipped for children with special needs, and mothers filling sippy cups and packing diaper bags for Sunday mornings. And I can think of more efficient means to grow the kingdom than to bury a mother’s talents and gifts and energies into her few who take so much time.

Yes, I can make a list of ways to serve God more efficiently — if, that is, kingdom work can be wrought by my flesh, by giving into demonic lies that echo the serpent of old who casts doubt on God’s ways. Speaking of the devil — whom will we copy? Will we copy the satanic ambition to “make myself like the Most High” (Isaiah 14:14), or will we copy Jesus, who said, “Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me for I am gentle and lowly in heart” (Matthew 11:29)?

Proving His Excellencies

It’s gloriously true: when Jesus uses inefficient means, working through those who follow him down into a grave of laboring sacrificially and faithfully in the dark, it proves to us and to the watching world that the power and sufficiency is of him and not of ourselves. Because when growth and resurrection and life and new birth push forth from that tomb, there won’t be any doubt that it’s been the Spirit who worked through clumsy, inefficient means so that Jesus Christ alone may be praised.

How can we go lower into the grave with Jesus? We can embrace the fertile ground that motherhood offers us to spend and be spent in seeming inefficiency. With each unseen, unapplauded offering of time and attention to our children, we take hold of Jesus’s promise for burrowing grains of wheat to yield a harvest. Filled with opportunities to extend grace, patiently instruct and correct, and bless those who are unable to repay us, motherhood is our chance to die as we learn from Jesus to imitate his ways.

Do not fear to lose your life, Christian mother! To surrender to his ways is an invitation to join the King whose burial culminated in resurrection. Look to Jesus, the Firstfruits. Do you see his end? It seems too good to be true. And we are invited to take up our cross on the way to the tomb, to join him in these inefficient means along the road to resurrection.

Won’t you come along, my fellow kernel of wheat? Won’t you delight in the burial he has for you, knowing it’s the true path to genuine fruitfulness? Embrace the daily, cumbersome, inefficient crosses God affords us through motherhood. In our current season of life, these humble crosses are our invitations to genuine and faithful kingdom work as our insufficiency for this task is our platform to prove the excellencies of our beloved Savior, King Jesus.

This article first appeared at Desiring God.

But around that bend into the year's unknown, we can “fear not!” For there is Stability that goes before us, a Rock that follows us, and a constant Friend who will be our refuge and strength. So in dependence on that Rock of Ages to be who He says he will be and do what he's promised he'll do, why don’t we sing in 2020? Sing to the Rock. Sing in his shelter. Sing to remember that he is with us and near us and loves us. 

What a bold and courageous move to Sing while stepping around that shadowy bend, and I hope I can follow in their steps, those saints of old. For example, Paul and Silas sang. When was that, you say? Oh, their songs were sandwiched sometime about midnight between the beatings and the morning light (see Acts 16). Does that sound about right, fellow Christian? Belting out truth that their current predicament seemed to defy, they believed God’s promises in the dungeon, before they knew the end of the thing, before the rescue, and before the morning light.

And isn’t that what faith does? Faith believes God (his very Bible-words) when our feelings don’t match what he says and the circumstances mock our hope-filled songs. But we hope anyway, because we believe he is who he says he is — a God who rewards those who seek him. We sing in the dark because, although we don’t know what is around the coming bend, we know who is around the bend and that he will be with us as we round it. 

So what songs will we sing as we round that bend? Well, if we’re going to sing in the dark, facing the unknown, we’d better not sing so much of our trembly feelings and our knock-kneed-selves, or we’ll be humming doom and gloom, doubt and the doldrums, won’t we? So instead we look with eyes of faith beyond the bend, beyond the bend after that, and around the unknown that bottoms out before the final trek, and we sing to and of and for The Rock who goes before us, who remains with us, and who is ever for us. 

Jesus is the Rock we hide in, believe in, and sing to. He’s promised that around some bend — we don’t know which — eternal resurrection awaits all who have looked to the crucified and resurrected Savior for rescue and life. So, knowing the coming prize, we sing. In light of the Rock’s constant presence, we sing. Because he rose, we sing. And with sure hope that the Rock is our hiding place and shelter around that next bend, in 2020, let’s sing.

“So we do not lose heart. Though our outer self is wasting away, our inner self is being renewed day by day. For this light momentary affliction is preparing for us an eternal weight of glory beyond all comparison, as we look not to the things that are seen but to the things that are unseen. For the things that are seen are transient, but the things that are unseen are eternal.” (2 Corinthians 4:16-18)

On Repeat: listen to some old favorites from Shane and Shane here.

What Jesus did for those disciples on the Road to Emmaus, he will do for you and me if we draw near to him through his Word: he will fill us with all joy and hope in believing, so that by the power of the Holy Spirit we may abound in hope. When I had opportunity recently to join the ladies at Longview Point Baptist Church for an evening to consider Jesus here at Christmastime, this story is what I wanted to talk about. They recorded it, and I've included the video here.

Longview Point Baptist Church | Ladies Christmas Dinner | December 3, 2019

And ye, beneath life's crushing load, whose forms are bending low,
Who toil along the climbing way with painful steps and slow,
Look now! for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing.
O rest beside the weary road, and hear the angels sing!

For lo! the days are hastening on, by prophet bards foretold,
When with the ever-circling years comes round the age of gold
When peace shall over all the earth its ancient splendors fling,
And the whole world give back the song which now the angels sing.
(Edmund Sears)

• Am I just plain tired? Due to the normal course of life, sometimes we’re bone-weary and don’t FEEL excitement about sitting down to read and concentrate on the Bible. If this is you, take heart - just because we don’t FEEL close to God doesn’t necessarily mean we’re not. An exhausting season of life is our training ground to believe the Bible instead of our emotions. Keep reading and putting your trust in what God says in the Bible. Keep praying, even when you can’t FEEL your prayers going higher than the ceiling. Your emotions will most likely catch up and FEEL excitement about the Bible's life-giving promises after your body catches up on some sleep and rest.

• Am I walking through a spiritual valley? Seasons in the valley are part and parcel of the Christian life. Sometimes we can identify specific causes of grief or depression that have led us here, and other times we may not know why we’re in this spiritually dry season. If you are walking through a dark, low valley, take heart - Jesus, the man of sorrows, has walked here before you, and he’s here with you now. Read the beloved Psalm 23, or turn to Psalms 42-43 and pray God’s words back to him. Continue to hope in God in this present season, even if hope feels more like an exercise in reasoning with your soul rather than a warm blanket of emotion. This is your chance to exercise true faith! — consider God’s Word, ask for faith to believe it, and put your hope in what is unseen. Pray, ask God to lift this heaviness and give you joy in him again, and wait, wait, wait on the Lord. “Wait for the LORD; be strong, and let your heart take courage; wait for the LORD!” (Psalm 27:14).

• Am I entertaining sin in my life? When I’m excusing sin in my life, God does not give me pleasure in his Word. (Isn’t that merciful of him! He won’t let me be happy in my sin - what a good Father he is.) Taste buds that are savoring worldliness and sinful pleasures won’t usually find much pleasure in the Bible. If reading the Bible feels boring or disinteresting to you, pray and ask God if sin or worldliness is the cause. And if it is, take heart! — Jesus loves you too much to let you enjoy the fleeting pleasures of sin. Confess it to him; draw near to God, and he will draw near to you (James 4:8).

• Is my spirit proud? For me, this is often why I find the Bible lifeless or boring. I forget how completely helpless I am and that “[wo]man does not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Mt 4:4). Am I coming to the Bible with the understanding that I’m needy and that God is my strong help? Am I reading the Bible like a beggar looking for morsels? Am I reading the Bible like a Christian who holds in her trembling hands the very words of God? Am I ready to submit my circumstances and life to the ways of God I discover in his Word? So often, I don’t read the Bible with this kind of humility. And so, if the Bible feels stale and distant to you, ask God to help you believe how needy he says that you are. When we approach Bible reading like a little child peering with incomprehensible awe at the feast laid out before us, we’re moving a little closer to humility and the grace God has promised for those who humble themselves before God.

When we became Christians by trusting in Jesus, he made us new people with new hearts and new loves and new want-tos. We still struggle with this old flesh and its loves and want-tos, but the REAL YOU - the one made new in Jesus - loves the Bible. So ask God to continue working in you to help you love the Bible and love Jesus. When you find that Bible reading has grown stale, pray and wait on the Lord. Ask God to warm your heart to Jesus. 

When I’m tempted to just hop on my phone first thing in the morning or skip spending time in prayer I give myself a talk, something like: “Amanda, this is your lifeline. Nothing and nobody else can give you what you crave. Social media, friends, television - none of it will satisfy. Don’t trust your own strength; you’re not enough; you’re needy; you’re weak. Come, eat this feast, drink from the Fountain. Listen to God’s voice through the Bible. Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you.”

I find motivation to engage my mind with the text and linger there in prayer when I remember what is true - that if I don’t feed and fill up on Christ, I will be like a branch laying on the ground, frustrated and dismayed that I can’t put out fruit. And if I trust in my own strength to get me through this day or this week, I will produce fleshly, putrid, rotten fruit. If I don’t position myself under the Fountain to take in his living water, how can I ever be a channel of that living water to others in my life? So, come to Jesus and drink.

How do I read the Bible? Enjoy a daily “quiet time.” The basics of a quiet time are (1) the Bible and (2) prayer. We set aside a specific time to read God’s Word to hear his voice, and we talk to him in prayer. When prayer lulls, we read his Word some more. Back and forth - read and pray.

If you are just beginning a quiet time, I suggest grabbing your Bible, a notebook, and a pen. I set those items out on the kitchen counter each evening after supper, even pre-opening my Bible to where I last left my bookmark. Now, when I roll out of bed tomorrow morning, it’ll be ready for me. :)

The next morning (of course, you can read and pray ANY time of day!), I begin my quiet time with prayer, asking God to help me understand the Bible. I read a verse or paragraph, and then I pray some more, glancing back at what I just read, seeking to understand it and praying about what it brings to mind. I continue this pattern of read-pray-read-pray during the time I have available. In my notebook, I write down verses or phrases of Scripture that jump out at me (jotting down bits of Scripture is also a wonderful way to help me remember it!). Sometimes I write down something I am praying for or something I have learned. 

Note! - my notebook is almost always for “my eyes only,” not necessarily because I need to keep it private so much as I don’t view my notebook as a memoir or Instagram-ready material. My notebook/journal is a tool for me to know and love Jesus more; it’s a place to work out what I’m learning. If I view it as more than this, I tend to invite distraction or an audience into my quiet time. Before I know it, my quiet time becomes a stage on which to perform rather than the corner where a needy beggar finds bread and water.

I sometimes incorporate other Bible study materials into my quiet time, and these have their place. But Jesus in the Word of God is himself the feast, so I filter the resources I use through this question: Does this help or motivate me to open my Bible to know God, see Jesus, and talk to him in prayer myself? If so, it may be a valuable (as well as rare) resource.

But what can I do when my quiet time feels stale? What about if I don’t enjoy having a quiet time? Until next time..!

If you're new to Bible reading, I want to share a 21-day Bible reading plan with you! (You'll find it on the Resource page.) Over the course of 3 weeks you'll read some key passages from Genesis to Revelation that will provide a "skeleton" framework for understanding the Big Picture of the Bible.
-amanda

We need the Holy Spirit to help us understand God’s Word. 1 Cor 2:14 says, “The natural person does not accept the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him, and he is not able to understand them because they are spiritually discerned.” The Bible cannot be understood and embraced accurately by unbelievers, or even by us in our own strength. Knowing this, we read the Bible with dependence on God to help us know him through the help of the Holy Spirit.

I remember being in a Bible study led by an older Christian man in our church. I don’t remember what we were studying, but a couple of us were shaking our heads at “dummies” we knew who just didn’t “get it.” I remember some laughing and eye-rolling on our part, that something so obvious in Scripture could be missed by others.

Our wise, older friend gave us a stern and loving caution. A brilliant electrical engineering professor at the local university, he told us something along these lines, that “the Bible isn’t like calculus or biology, a subject that one can study hard enough to become an expert in it. The only reason we understand anything in this Word is because God has opened our eyes. We DO work hard to study it, but the Bible is a spiritual book and must be spiritually discerned. Without the Holy Spirit’s opening our eyes, we would never understand it either.”

His caution to us that day convicted me and changed the way I read the Bible. We don’t read the Bible like we dissect information in a textbook. We read the Bible with cries to God to give us understanding and life.

Not only can we pray at the beginning of our Bible reading to ask for help to understand, but Bible reading can be a rich exchange of fellowship with God by his Spirit through his Word. Pray a little; read a little; talk to God about what I’m reading; read some more. That’s what a “quiet time” really is -- a time set aside to read God’s word and talk to him. So how can I have a quiet time? Until next time..!

The Story of the Bible is the awfulness of sin and the loving plan of God to reconcile sinners to himself through his Son, Jesus Christ.

In the beginning man sinned, and sin separated man from God. God promised to send One who could rescue mankind from the terrible curse of sin, death, & hell. And the rest of the Bible is the story of God’s keeping his great promise. At the opening of the New Testament, the Messiah appears on the scene (Messiah / Christ means PROMISED ONE!). The Messiah is God himself, Jesus. At the cross, Jesus died in our place for our sin; he was buried; and he rose again 3 days later. For all who come to Jesus, believing in him for rescue from sin, God will forgive their sin and give them eternal life. And someday? God will make all things right; for us who have trusted in God through Jesus, we will spend eternity with him in heaven.

While I’m quite the inadequate story-teller, those are some basics to The Story. And we’re always reading and learning to discover the beauty of Jesus in the Big Picture Story.

I heard Pastor Alistair Begg say, “If you keep your eyes on Jesus you’ll be able to find your way around the Bible.” And that’s true, because The Story of the Bible is all about Jesus Christ, isn’t it?

But there’s a caution for our embrace of the Big Story, too, I’ve learned. While we can’t accurately understand Scripture apart from the Big Story, there is a danger of making the Big Story our catch-all apart from careful study and application of all of Scripture.

Every verse in the Bible is not some hidden, secret reference to Jesus. While The Story is about Jesus, God has provided unlimited riches to mine from his word that take a lot of time and work to understand, and a general answer of, “It’s all about Jesus!” is only a jumping off place, not the extent of our pursuit of him in Scripture.

So, we read the Bible in the context of The Story within its pages, and then we work to understand and obey each word God has given us there. But how can we UNDERSTAND the Bible? It’s a big book with some hard-to-understand parts! Until next time..!

How do I read the Bible? -- Read the Bible as a story. What I mean by that is that we want to read the Bible with the understanding that when we open it to a particular chapter and verse, we’re jumping into part of the story.

For example, if I pull “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” from the shelf and read page 87, I read it with the understanding that page 87 only makes sense in view of the WHOLE STORY. I’ll learn something about Mark Twain or his characters on page 87, but I keep in mind that I’m reading one section of a much larger story. Knowing that, I can seek to fit what I zoom in on on page 87 into what I already know about the whole story.

Just as it makes sense that I can only understand page 87 of Huckleberry Finn when I learn more about the rest of the story, in a similar way I find that I can better understand small sections of the Bible when I read them with a view towards the “rest of the story.”

Instead of zoning out and reading the Bible like it’s a cryptic, mysterious religious book, I can read the Bible as one story by one Author with a message to convey. I may not understand everything on this one page at this moment, but as I keep reading the story (and keep believing/obeying what I do understand!), the Author will keep revealing his message.

Reading the Bible this way also helps keep me from cutting and pasting the Author’s words into personal life-application that the Author has no intention of conveying. Just as we’d never isolate a phrase at *random* from Mark Twain’s Huckleberry Finn to sum up Twain’s message in his story, reading the Bible to understand *God’s* story helps us be careful not to splice the Bible’s message into soundbites that the Author isn’t intending to convey in his Story.

And just what is that Story of the Bible? Until next time... :)

“Help, Lord.” (Psalm 12:1)

In any situation - whether very small or eternally big -- these two words are a way to come to God and begin to pray. They remind me (1) what it is that I truly need and (2) Who it is that can supply that need.

Whatever it is that I may be bringing before God in prayer, if I’m coming to God through his Son, Jesus -- the One who loved me and delivered himself up for me -- he hears me. Praying this way reminds me afresh of my inability, my lack, my weakness, and my need for help in every area of life. And my joy is refreshed to remember the One who is able, the one without lack, without weakness, and without need.

And because all the promises of God are yes and amen in Christ Jesus, his reply to my prayer for help is always, “Fear not, I will help thee” (Isaiah 41:10).

(Spurgeon writes about this prayer here in his June 17th morning devotional.)

Although I haven’t used the phrase, “Ask Jesus in your heart” with my own kids (we instead use phrases such as, “Trust Jesus to save you from your sins”), when I turned to the Lord as a child, I did clearly understand two crucial things: 

(1) I am a sinner, and

(2) If I ask him, Jesus will save me from sin and hell. 

I could not have articulated it at 6 years old, but at that age, in my heart I looked by faith to Christ to rescue me, and Jesus’s promise is that “…whoever comes to me I will never cast out” (John 6:37).

It is not our knowledge by itself or the words we say that save us, nor can our fervency, zeal, or passion make us right with God. It is the OBJECT of our faith who saves us, the Lord Jesus Christ.

And so, the reason I want to press in on my conversion as a young child is because I believe it highlights the God that saves. And remembering that initial joyful, life-giving look to Christ is a balm to tired Christians, because the Good News isn’t simply the starting line of our pilgrimage: it’s the hope of our entire journey.

One of the greatest explanations of coming to Jesus for salvation is given by our Lord himself in John 3, when Jesus refers to a situation recorded in Numbers 21:4-9. You may already know the story of The Bronze Serpent.

The people had sinned, and “the LORD sent fiery serpents among the people, and they bit the people, so that many people of Israel died.” And so God provided a means by which the people could be saved from the deadly snake bites. He told Moses to “make a fiery serpent and set it on a pole, and everyone who is bitten, when he sees it, shall live. So Moses made a bronze serpent and set it on a pole. And if a serpent bit anyone, he would look at the bronze serpent and live.”

Jesus tells Nicodemus in John 3 that the serpent on the pole is a picture of himself and how he would be lifted up on a cross to die: “And as Moses lifted up the serpent in the wilderness, so must the Son of Man be lifted up, that whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:14-15).

The little 6-year-old Amanda didn’t understand a lot, but she knew she had been bitten by the serpent — she knew she had a sin problem and that she would die and go to hell unless Jesus rescued her. How could she be saved from certain death? She could be saved by looking to the Man on the cross. He died so she could live. She looked because she wanted rescue, and what is Jesus’s promise? “Whoever believes in him may have eternal life” (John 3:15).

Jesus’s definition of “believe” is explained by the Bronze Serpent story he reminds Nicodemus about. A snake-bitten-Israelite had only to look up to the serpent on the pole and be healed from his snake bite. Do you think there could have been unbelieving, rebellious Israelites who wouldn’t look? “Look up, Israelite!” we might plead. “Just look to the snake on the pole and you will be well.” And maybe some Israelite refused to look away from himself for his rescue; maybe he covered his eyes and went back in his tent to avoid even the shadow cast by the pole.

Due to the strike of that serpent of old, Satan, you and I have all been bitten, too, but our bite is eternally more deadly. Our problem is not a physical wound and ensuing death, but a spiritual cancer with a coming, sure eternal death.

And yet there is a remedy! Jesus Christ was made sin for us. The serpent lifted up on the pole represents Jesus himself, bearing in his body the reproach and shame that is ours. And to anyone who will look to him for rescue from their terrible sin-bite, he will forgive their sin and that person will live.

And yet there are many, thousands and millions, even, of snake-bit souls who shield their eyes from the cross, returning to their tents lest the light of the glory of God should illuminate their ghastly, deadly condition. Do not hide your eyes from looking to Jesus who died for you!

Come to Jesus and live. Look to him — put your trust in Jesus who died on the cross in your place for your sin. In your heart, do not trust in your own reasoning or goodness, or even your own fervency or emotion. Could your tears forever flow, and your zeal no respite know, these for sin cannot atone — Jesus must save, and Jesus alone!

And so, bringing nothing to Jesus in order to obtain the cure – no gift, no exchange or bargaining, no offering of even your very life – look to Jesus and live.

“Look unto me, and be ye saved, all the ends of the earth: for I am God, and there is none else,” Isaiah 45:22.

I read this sermon by Charles Spurgeon in my mid-twenties when I was wrestling with whether or not I had truly trusted in the Lord Jesus Christ and been saved. It helped me greatly, and I think it made the gospel more clear to me. If you are doubting or questioning your salvation, I hope you’ll take time to read it.

I also want to point you to another specific resource for those who may be questioning their own salvation. The Bible gives “tests” to know whether we are really Christians or not — God’s design is not to leave us waffling in doubt. 1 John contains many of those tests, and I commend this free pdf booklet by John MacArthur to anyone who wants aid in working through God’s tests for salvation in 1 John.

The Scripture tells us of one such woman, and her name is Sarah. Yes, Sarah the wife of Abraham the Patriarch: Sarah, the barren woman, the quite jealous woman, the doubting woman, the harsh woman, the lying woman, the laughing woman.

God points us to Sarah as an example of a woman with whom He was pleased--a woman who receives commendation in both 1 Peter 3 and Hebrews 11--because of her faith in the God of the promises.

LOOK TO SARAH (Isaiah 51:2)

It’s always confounded me how Sarah made it into the “Hall of Faith.” Hebrews 11:11 says, “By faith Sarah herself received power to conceive, even when she was past the age, since she considered him faithful who had promised.” But my confusion regarding God’s commendation of Sarah reveals a misunderstanding about God on my part rather than inconsistency on the part of the Faith-Rewarder, for Scripture is very clear: “For by the works of the law shall no flesh be justified” (Romans 3:20). Like her husband, Sarah believed God and it was credited to her as righteousness.

Sarah receives God’s commendation because she “hoped in God” for what was physically impossible and for what her eyes could not see (1 Peter 3:5). God had spoken; he had made a promise to give her husband a son. Sarah heard the promise of God, and she believed what God said. More specifically, Sarah trusted in the God who made the promise; she “considered him faithful who had promised” (Hebrews 11:11).

Yes, Sarah made a mess of things. Her attempts to “help” God with the details of his work proved disastrous. She stumbled in her hope and faith at times. But although she did not know HOW God would provide the son, she believed God would do what he said he would do. Sarah persevered in faith for decades, because she “looked beyond the promise to the Promiser” (AW Pink).

Sarah is not in the “Hall of Faith” because she earned her spot there through her own righteousness, but because God commends women who hope in the God of the promises. He faithfully upholds and strengthens women who, in the midst of their own seemingly impossible circumstances, hear the words of God and count the Promiser worthy of their trust. Women adorn the gospel of our Lord Jesus Christ when we believe that God will make good on his word, and so we trust and obey him. Sarah’s faith in the specific words of God bore fruit to God’s glory. And for Christian women who hope in God, God also gives us “power to conceive” what is otherwise impossible: freed from sin, we are alive to God and enabled to spiritually bear fruit to God’s glory.

SARAH’S DAUGHTERS (1 Peter 3:6)

God commends Sarah for her faith. And yet, “faith reveals itself in various ways” (Spurgeon). Single or married, healthy or sick, weak or strong, old or young, women who lean upon the God who cannot lie will yield the fruit of faith in their various contexts. Justified by faith, we see in 1 Peter 3:1-6 how Sarah’s hope in God is attested to by fruit that adorns a woman in Sarah’s situation: submission to her husband, a cultivation of inner tranquility, and fearlessness.

But consider with me how we see this fruit of faith in our personal situations. Sarah’s hope was in God and not in her husband. So, married or single, God commends women who lean upon God rather than putting their hope in a husband (or in getting a husband!). God commends women who are preoccupied with inner beauty rather than outer beauty, because they fear God rather than their fellow man--or fellow woman. God commends women who fear the Lord rather their situations, whether it is concern for their health, or their children, or the unknown days ahead.

God commends women who are so confident in his promises that they laugh at the future (Proverbs 31:25).

DAUGHTERS OF PROMISE (Galatians 4:28)

Just like he did for Sarah and Abraham, God has given us promises that we can trust him for. We don’t know how God will make good on his promises to us, but if he has said it, we can count on him to do it. What rest and sure hope is ours! For “faith will cheerfully leave it with omniscience as to how the promise will be made good to us” (AW Pink).

God is still looking for women who trust him, who take him at his word, who rest upon his promise, who find it sweet to know “thus saith the Lord.” And of the thousands of promises in Scripture for the daughters of Sarah, what are a few that I could leave with you?

Thus saith the Lord:

“I will never leave you nor forsake you,” Hebrews 13:5.

“Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand,” Isaiah 41:10.

“My God will supply every need of yours,” Philippians 4:19.

“For those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose,” Romans 8:28.

“Draw near to God, and he will draw near to you,” James 4:8.

“Knowing that whatever good anyone does, this he will receive back from the Lord,” Ephesians 6:8.

“Whoever believes in him may have eternal life,” John 3:15.

God is looking for women who lean on him for strong help (2 Chronicles 16:9), who believe God and order our lives around his promises, and who walk in obedience to God’s word because we are confident that God will help us and that we will not be put to shame for trusting Him. God commends women whose hope is in the One who watches over all his words to perform them.

What would the holy work of “lower” look like in my life? Where can I serve in secret so that the work of my right hand is obscured from my left one? How can I go lower in 2019?

“Addict yourselves to the holy work of caring for the feeble and despondent.” (Spurgeon)

Keenly aware of my  propensity to pride, I am quite sure that if anyone could do it, I could most definitely turn “lower” into a navel-gazing-activity fit for a cymbal-clapping-Pharisee. So clearly, the goal of quiet service isn’t secret work for the sake of secrecy, and the goal of humble servanthood isn’t “lower” for the sake of topping the labors of someone else.

But if “lower” is where Jesus is, then “lower” means joining him in the real kingdom work. “Lower” is where rubber meets the road in my Christian life. “Lower” is where I’m trusting God to do miracles -- miracles like changing hearts (mine and theirs), being a means of spiritual blessing to others, and producing eternal fruit to the glory of Christ. Because it’s only by the work of the Spirit that these miracles will happen simply by offering sippy cups of water and fresh apple slices in Jesus’s name. To my human way of thinking, chasing after “bigger” and “higher” is the way to God-glorifying, earth-shattering, "real" kingdom work. But it’s not the example Jesus shows me in his Word.

When I read about Jesus in the Gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John), Jesus’s work doesn’t look like what I think of when I dream of bigger and better, when I imagine what it looks like for me to chase after God-sized dreams and ambitions. Should I seek to rise above my Master? Certainly not, for what could be more God-sized than Jesus’ example on earth?

I encounter Jesus’s instructions on the heels of washing feet, as he is in anticipation of tomorrow’s crucifixion:

“You call me Teacher and Lord, and you are right, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another’s feet. For I have given you an example, that you also should do just as I have done to you. Truly, truly, I say to you, a servant is not greater than his master, nor is a messenger greater than the one who sent him. If you know these things, blessed are you if you do them.” (John 13:13-17)

Following Jesus is always going to involve going “lower.” And going "lower" looks like my not deciding I’ve graduated on to Christianity 2.0, not assuming the methods and humble work of Christ are for the newbies. Going "lower" means submitting myself to the commands and model of Jesus and looking for reward from the One who sees in secret. Going "lower" will look like using all my life (including my best, strongest, healthiest years) for a Philippians 2 kind of life:

counting others as more significant than myself,
looking to the interests of others,
having the mind of Christ, who didn’t count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself,
taking the form of a servant,
humbling himself to the point of death.

Which leads to my motivation for a life of servanthood: Jesus does not separate a life of going “lower” from its coming reward. “He humbled himself by becoming obedient to the point of death, even death on a cross. Therefore God has highly exalted him…” (Philippians 2:8-9). Jesus endured “lower,” the shame of the cross, “for the joy that was set before him” (Hebrews 12:2).

We, too, look for the reward. Our life of “lower” is a life of joy and hope, because we’re storing up riches in heaven, reward from the One who notices our faithful obedience and simple labors. Jesus said, “If anyone serves me, he must follow me; and where I am, there will my servant be also. If anyone serves me, the Father will honor him” (John 12:26).

So, what does going "lower” look like in your context? Where can we be faithful in the smallest matters? How will we use our “best” to serve in the most humble of capacities? How can we addict ourselves to the attitude of a foot-washing Savior?

For one thing, I have two little children who’ve taken to heart the words of the old song: “Make all my wants and wishes known.” There’s no way one tired mama can (or should) fulfill all their wants and wishes. And yet, I end each day feeling the weight of not being enough for them.

But now a new guilt steals over me. Here I am, the end of the day, and I’m just now taking this to the Lord in prayer. God gets my leftovers again, and my spiritual life feels like one more demand I can’t satisfy, one more person wanting a piece of me. I’m not sure how to find the desire and the joy of spending time with him. In tears I express my frustrations to my husband. He reminds me that while the kids and the house and bills and unreturned phone calls all feel like they’re screaming for a piece of me, God is different. God has no void in himself he needs me to fill. God loves me and is my strong support and help.* As the line in the well-worn hymn foretells, “Christ will gird himself and serve us with sweet manna all around.” That line makes me uncomfortable. No. No, no, no. Christ doesn’t put on an apron and serve me! You won’t find me resting on my achievements while Jesus is up doing the work! In John 13, on the evening of his betrayal, Jesus’ disciples winced at this idea, as Jesus gathered the supplies of the lowliest slave and began washing grown men’s feet.

“Lord, do you wash my feet? You shall never wash my feet” (John 13:6). And just like Peter, I too balk at the idea that I would sit still at a low, wooden table and let Jesus serve me food and drink, and then wash my feet. No! The idea feels all wrong! The one whose sandal strap I’m not even worthy to untie, he would tend and care for my feet?! “If I do not wash you, you have no share with me” (John 13:8). That truth that God is “not served by human hands” is a hard pill for this approval-craving-junkie to swallow (Acts 17:25). My flesh—pride—winces as the Word of God discerns the thoughts and intentions of my heart. And yet, relief floods my soul. This gospel is really true: there’s a place I can go to drink, to eat, to lean, to rest. There’s a strong, able, saving God who is not needy. He shows his strength to any needy mother who leans, trusts, and rests in him for help (2 Chronicles 16:9). It’s a glorious thing to curl up on the couch at night and lean into the bosom of one who doesn’t demand a piece of me, doesn’t have a void that he needs for me to fill, doesn’t have a need for me to supply. It’s upside-down. It’s revolutionary. This isn’t a God with lack who needs me to give my life for him. This is a God who gave his life for me. Jesus is a Savior who not only cleans people’s dirty feet but washes their hearts and births them into new life in the Spirit. He’s a miracle-working, helping, supporting master who comes inside and changes us. He changes our want-tos and lets us enter into the rest of the one who finished his work. He calls us to come and receive the work of the cross that dealt with our sin, shame, and inadequacies. The whole Christian life is an offer for us to come and receive. An offer to follow in the way of our foot-washing-Savior. At no cost, God invites us to bring our sin, our needs, and our emptiness in exchange for his salvation, strength, and rest. Come and drink—the fountain is Jesus. Come and eat—the bread of life is Jesus. Come and live—Jesus is life.  

This post was originally published at Risen Motherhood.  

*Ps. 33:20; Ps. 46:1; Is. 41:10; Is. 64:6; Phil. 4:19-20; Heb. 4:16

For further devotional reflection, spend time considering the following passages: Is. 55:1-3; Matt. 11:28-30; John 6:35; John 7:37-39; John 11:25-26.

But God’s response to David’s desire to serve him gives us insight into the way of the Lord with his children. Through the prophet Nathan, God asks David, “Would you build me a house to dwell in?…Did I speak a word...saying, ‘Why have you not built me a house of cedar?’” Later, David’s son Solomon would build him a house, but for now, God wanted David to understand what kind of a God he was -- and it wasn’t a God who needed David to build him a house. God says in Isaiah 66:1-2, “Thus says the LORD; ‘Heaven is my throne, and the earth is my footstool; what is the house that you would build for me, and what is the place of my rest? All these things my hand has made, and so all these things came to be,’ declares the LORD. ‘But this is the one to whom I will look: he who is humble and contrite in spirit and trembles at my word.” And oh, God did look! God looked to David, replying to him in a way that said, You want to build ME a house? Oh no, no, no, no. I will build you a house -- an eternal one! The Bible is clear: God isn’t looking for women who will build him a house, who will work for him, who will get their act together and plan for him, who will provide for him, who will fill some void in his heart. He’s looking for women for him to revive (Isaiah 57:15). He’s looking for women with a contrite and lowly spirit so he can come to them to show himself strong on their behalf (2 Chronicles 16:9). “I dwell in the high and holy place, and also with him who is of a contrite and lowly spirit, to revive the spirit of the lowly, and to revive the heart of the contrite.” Isaiah 57:15 “For the eyes of the LORD run to and fro throughout the whole earth, to give strong support to those whose heart is blameless toward him…” 2 Chronicles 16:9 God turns David’s (and my!) understanding of himself upside-down and on its head -- GOD is looking to serve ME. To help me. To support me. To work for me. “From of old no one has heard or perceived by the ear, no eye has seen a God besides you, who acts for those who wait for him.” (Isaiah 64:6) Does this kind of doctrine make you feel uncomfortable? Do these truths make you feel like you need to put on the brakes? I think I’ve felt uncomfortable with these truths because I don’t want to make it out like God is a genie in a bottle, a Santa Claus waiting to give me my best life now and make all my dreams come true. I also know that the Christian life does involve sacrifice and walking in a manner worthy of Christ, and I don’t want to seem to encourage lawless, ungodly living. But Paul taught a gospel like this -- a gospel so good that one might fear that its grace gives license to sin. Paul’s response to this assumption is, “By no means!” (Romans 6:1-2) Because, for those of us who have been brought from death to life, Jesus has changed our very want-tos and who we are from the inside out. Yes, we’ll still fight those old, sinful inclinations, but we won’t love them anymore. When we receive Jesus, the Bible says we are new creatures in Christ Jesus (2 Corinthians 5:17). We are fundamentally different after we receive Jesus than we were before we believed. Now, we love God and his ways, and whereas we went wrong before, now we go right, because we are right within (Spurgeon). But I think the biggest reason I’ve felt uncomfortable emphasizing a strong God who helps the weak, is because it’s hard for me to admit that I’m weak and needy. Do you identify? Are you strong, self-sufficient type that others can always count on? Not needy? Not dependent? For the strong, for those who see themselves as better than others (Luke 18:9-14), it’s an uncomfortable gospel. But it’s the true one. And it’s good, good news for those who realize that they are unworthy, needy sinners. And that Sunday when we talked in our ladies class about this glorious, too-good-to-be-true God and his goodness to us, I could feel the weight of “the Christian life” lift off my shoulders. The should, the ought-to, the guilt, the trappings of busyness and stress. Because the right response to God’s goodness is to receive it -- and ask for more! “What shall I render to the LORD for all his benefits to me? I will lift up the cup of salvation and call on the name of the LORD.” (Psalm 116:12-13) Like he did for David, God is seeking to help us, too. Jesus said that he did not come to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many (Mark 10:45). Jesus’ work on the cross -- his ultimate service of dying in our place for the sin that we have done -- is for those who receive His son, Jesus. “But to all who did receive him, who believed in his name, he gave the right to become children of God.” (John 1:12) But Jesus’ help for us did not end when he died on the cross for our sins. We live the Christian life like we began it: receiving. God works for us. Our response to the incredible Gift we have received is love, obedience to, and worship of “the God who made the world and everything in it, being Lord of heaven and earth.” He is a God who “does not live in temples made by man, nor is he served by human hands, as though he needed anything, since he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything.” (Romans 12:1; Acts 17:24-25) And the Christian life is daily asking God for more. Asking God for help. Asking him to do in us what only he can do. Asking him to change our loves and want-tos. Trusting him to be our strong help. Walking in obedience to his word through the strength that he supplies. Joyfully rendering obedience and a whole-hearted trust in response to the work he has done for us and is doing in us. Resting in a God who works for us.

Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to Thy cross I cling; Naked, come to Thee for dress, helpless, look to Thee for grace: Foul, I to the fountain fly, wash me, Savior, or I die.

Quite often I’m tempted to judge or criticize a mom who parents differently than I do, feeds her kids healthier than I do, prioritizes her family better than I do, keeps house better than I do, or exercises more than I do. If I find some fault in her, I am less apt to feel inferior in comparison to her. And then there’s that mom who I don’t welcome warmly because she’s needy; or she’s judgy; or she monopolizes the conversation. I justify distancing myself from her because “I just don’t need that kind of negativity in my life.” But the message of the Gospel intersects all my sinful heart attitudes: “Welcome one another as Christ has welcomed you” (Romans 15:7). Because of what Christ did for me, loving me to the cross while I was still his enemy, my identity in him is a foundation for loving unity toward other women, even and especially toward the mom who is different from me. 

A Fixed Identity and an Eternal Worth When I find that loving unity is not my response toward a mom who is different from me, it’s because I’m not resting in who I am in Christ. As a Christian, my worth and identity are firmly fixed on this truth: “Christ Jesus has made me his own” (Philippians 3:12). An identity that finds its worth solely in the joy of belonging to Christ breaks strongholds of jealousy and envy, discontentment, comparison, selfish ambition, and pride. That’s the power of the gospel of Christ. And if, like me, you struggle to love the moms who are different from you, you can find freedom from comparison and insecurity in an identity that boasts, “Christ Jesus has made me his own!” When I base my worth on my works, I feel superior to another mom if I gauge that I’m keeping up with expectations and onlookers, but then I judge a fellow mom if her differences tease my insecurities or challenge my sense of worth. But when my worth is found in Christ rather than in having a righteousness of my own that comes from good works or personal achievement, my worth never ebbs and flows. How could another mom’s slimmer figure, nicer home, or more winsome personality rattle me when my worth is found in knowing the One who died for me, rose again from the dead, and made me his own? We see in Philippians and throughout the New Testament that Paul finds his identity in belonging to Christ, and that is where a Christian mom can find her identity, too. Free From and Free To A woman who finds her identity in Christ is both free from and free to. Because her confidence is not in her works but in the work of Christ, she is free from an identity based on how well she “measures up” against another mom. Since her worth is firmly and forever fixed in Christ’s worth, she is free from the terrible burden of insecurity, free from worrying about whether or not someone judges her, affirms her, likes her, or receives her — Christ Jesus has made her his own! What identity can compare to this glorious one? She is also free to. She is free to imitate the Lord Jesus and welcome others. When Paul says to count others as more significant than ourselves, to have attitudes of humility toward one another, and to look out for the interests of others, he is teaching us to imitate Christ, the one who made us his own (Philippians 2:3-4). “Though he was in the form of God, [he] did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but emptied himself, by 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.” (Philippians 2:6-8) When our delight is in so beautiful a Savior as this One, we are free to live lives that are consistent with his gospel message. We are free to come along with Jesus and die. Die to envy. Die to rivalry. Die to fear. Die to selfish ambition. Die to insecurity. Die to dissatisfaction. Die to this world. Die to self. As we die daily to an identity outside of our identity in Christ, we are free to be who we were created in Christ Jesus to be: I am free to be happy! Insecurity, envy, and rivalries flee when I live awe-struck by the almost-unimaginably glorious truth that Christ Jesus has made me his own.

I am free to love the mom who is different from me, because at the foot of the cross I understand that we are equals: unworthy sinners who need a Savior. I am free to rejoice when another mom’s giftings, talents, and interests are different from my own, because we are members of the same body, that of our Lord Jesus Christ. I am free to see other moms through gospel-lens rather than distancing myself from others because of my insecurities. I am free to live for another’s progress and joy in the faith, that perhaps they might see just how worthy our God is. Loving the Mom Who Is Different from Me Sometimes my struggle to welcome another is due to my insecurity or disbelief in God’s promises, and sometimes I struggle to love another mom because of her sin: she boasts and brags, or criticizes and gossips. But if the gospel has shaped my identity, I am free from insecurities that would cause me to take her sin personally, and instead I am free to prayerfully seek her good: “Is she saved? How can I pray for her to keep the faith? What questions could I ask her that would help me to understand her better? Could I gently correct and help her in hope that God might grant her repentance? How can I give thanks that God brought her into my life, even if His purpose is to refine me through our challenging interactions? What good word can I offer her that can help her to treasure Christ?” The book of Philippians begins by Paul’s extending grace and peace to fellow sinners, and his genuine affection and love for the Philippians flows from his understanding of the grace and peace God extended to him. That is what an identity in Christ frees us to do: welcome one another as Christ has welcomed us. Because Christ extended grace and peace to us through the cross, we are free from sin and free to imitate Christ and live a life consistent with the message of the gospel.

(Article originally published at RisenMotherhood.com)