Boast in This Alone

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Jeremiah 9:23-24

23 This is what the Lord says:
“Don’t let the wise boast in their wisdom,
   or the powerful boast in their power,
   or the rich boast in their riches.

24 But those who wish to boast
   should boast in this alone:
that they truly know me and understand that I am the Lord
    who demonstrates unfailing love
    and who brings justice and righteousness to the earth,
and that I delight in these things.
    I, the Lord, have spoken!

Being used by our great God to lead others in Spirit and in Truth to the throne of His grace is an awesome privilege. It can also become a dangerous trap if we continually receive the praises of men, more power to influence, and earthly riches as a result of our efforts.

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To boast in any way about ourselves, or what God has done through us is pride. Boasting inflates our ego like a balloon. Left unchecked by ourselves, or those who should be holding us accountable, that hot air will eventually fill the latex to its breaking point. When the pressure to perform becomes too great, an explosion is imminent. And oh, what a terrible devastation occurs in our life and the lives of those we lead.

Luke 12:48

48 But someone who does not know, and then does something wrong, will be punished only lightly. When someone has been given much, much will be required in return; and when someone has been entrusted with much, even more will be required.

The sad reality is, most of us are completely deceived in believing we never fall into this type of pride. Sure, its easy to point the finger at the man who preaches every Sunday morning, or the woman who ministers all over the world in Jesus’ name. But let us not be fooled, dear friend. Until we breathe our last breath and stand before the throne of our Savior, we will battle this destructive sin. The pressure to cave to our selfish desires is only compounded when we lead others.

Matthew 20:24-28

24 When the ten other disciples heard what James and John had asked, they were indignant. 25 But Jesus called them together and said, “You know that the rulers in this world lord it over their people, and officials flaunt their authority over those under them. 26 But among you it will be different. Whoever wants to be a leader among you must be your servant, 27 and whoever wants to be first among you must become your slave. 28 For even the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve others and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

“Some of us always want to be illuminated saints with golden halos and the flush of inspiration, and to have the saints of God dealing with us all the time. A gilt-edged saint is no good, he is abnormal, unfit for daily life, and altogether unlike God.” –Oswald Chambers

Father,

I repent for my pride; of wanting to be acknowledged for the gifts that YOU have given me to advance YOUR Kingdom. YOU are the one who gives me what is needed to lead Your people to Yourself. YOU alone deserve all the glory and honor and praise on this earth and in heaven.

Amen

At Home with the Lord

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Matthew 14:13-21

13 As soon as Jesus heard the news, he left in a boat to a remote area to be alone…..

After I heard the news of my grandmother’s passing today, I wanted desperately to retreat to a remote area to be alone; our master bedroom. It’s where I go every day to read God’s Word, pray, worship, journal, throw a fit before God, repent, rejoice, cry…….and so I thought it was fitting that I escaped back to my room this afternoon to sit in my lazy boy recliner (my grandparents owned lazy boy recliners my entire life) to praise God for taking Granny to her eternal home, while simultaneously grieving her departure from this one.

Grandma Scheel (later named “Granny” when she became a great-grandmother) was the quintessential grandmother for me. She baked chocolate chip cookies, made lemon meringue pies, showed me how to play Solitaire & Yahtzee, scratched my back and would laugh hysterically when we watched the “The Golden Girls” together. She provided squishy hugs (she was nice and round in the middle) when I needed to feel loved, but she was also willing to supply some much needed tough love when I acted like a brat when loosing at my favorite marble board game (it’s no coincidence that our daughter, who is named after her, shares not only her love of sweets, but an uncanny ability to show tough love, when needed!)

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Cleanse Me

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Psalm 19:12-14

12 How can I know all the sins lurking in my heart?
 Cleanse me from these hidden faults.

13 Keep your servant from deliberate sins!
    Don’t let them control me.
Then I will be free of guilt
    and innocent of great sin.

14 May the words of my mouth
and the meditation of my heart
be pleasing to you,
    O Lord, my rock and my redeemer.

There’s a common misconception among those who visit our home. Repeatedly we hear “your house is so CLEAN- how do you keep it that way with 4 kids?!” in which I reply “I like to keep things tidy…but if you look close, you’ll see its not really clean!”

When I was a little girl, I passed over the top of the toilet, sink and shower with my sponge just enough to make it LOOK like I had actually cleaned the bathroom. But my mother wasn’t fooled. She frequently had to make me go back and re-do all of it.

Our kids are the same way. They wipe the surface of the fixtures, but they really don’t scrub them in order to clean all the hidden yuck lurking beneath. Perhaps they just don’t see it. Perhaps they’re too lazy to do the work. Or, perhaps they’d rather get their chore done as quickly as possible to do something more FUN!!! It’s probably all of the above. I should know, because I still do the same thing when it comes to cleaning the master bathroom shower. In fact, I’ve even started asking my husband to clean it for us (he’s a much better detailed cleaner than I am anyway….but really, I just don’t wanna do it!!!)

It’s a similar tactic the enemy uses on me time and time again to keep me from seeing the sins lurking in my heart. Sure, I may “confess” my general sins in order to wipe the surface, but often I’m too lazy to ask God for specifics, so that I may sincerely repent. To be completely honest, most of the time I just don’t feel like allowing Him to expose the yuck. It’s much easier to ignore it or blame someone else for the dirt- and try to force them to clean it up.

Let’s face it; cleaning the bathroom takes time, effort and a lot of scrubbing. But, when the hidden yuck is removed and the surface begins to sparkle like diamonds it can finally be used – and enjoyed – for its intended purpose.

If I truly want God to cleanse me I must be willing to invest the time and effort for the Holy Spirit to remove the yuck from my soul….AND I must be willing to crucify my flesh and submit my will to His. Only then will love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control shine like the Son on the surface of my life.

1 John 1:9-10

9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.

Unfortunately, it doesn’t take long for the yuck to build back up in the bathroom….so I need to keep the cleaning bucket ready for touch up cleans, as well as the regularly scheduled deep cleans that are required. The same is true for my soul; cleansing isn’t a one-time event- it’s an ongoing, life long process.

Bountiful Harvest

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Galatians 5:16-26

16 So I say, let the Holy Spirit guide your lives. Then you won’t be doing what your sinful nature craves. 17 The sinful nature wants to do evil, which is just the opposite of what the Spirit wants. And the Spirit gives us desires that are the opposite of what the sinful nature desires. These two forces are constantly fighting each other, so you are not free to carry out your good intentions. 18 But when you are directed by the Spirit, you are not under obligation to the law of Moses.

19 When you follow the desires of your sinful nature, the results are very clear: sexual immorality, impurity, lustful pleasures, 20 idolatry, sorcery, hostility, quarreling, jealousy, outbursts of anger, selfish ambition, dissension, division, 21 envy, drunkenness, wild parties, and other sins like these. Let me tell you again, as I have before, that anyone living that sort of life will not inherit the Kingdom of God.

22 But the Holy Spirit produces this kind of fruit in our lives: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, and self-control. There is no law against these things!

24 Those who belong to Christ Jesus have nailed the passions and desires of their sinful nature to his cross and crucified them there. 25 Since we are living by the Spirit, let us follow the Spirit’s leading in every part of our lives. 26 Let us not become conceited, or provoke one another, or be jealous of one another.

My mother-in-law spent the last few weeks teaching our children how to plan, prepare and plant a garden. Much time and energy was spent discovering the best way to cultivate the seeds in order to produce optimum growth. After all, the sole purpose of our garden is to reap a bountiful harvest of fruit and vegetables for the Bullard Pack!

Galatians 6:9

9 So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.

Now we’re in the waiting phase….

Each day the sun shines down on the seeds buried beneath the soil. If God doesn’t send water, the kids send it through a watering can!

Tick tock, tick tock….hurry up and wait.

Although it may appear as if nothing is happening, God is forming, nurturing and sustaining the seed below ground. This first stage of growth is crucial. If the seed does not receive the water, sun and nutrients it needs in order to survive, it will never sprout or produce a harvest.

God is doing the same thing in me. In the seclusion of our master bedroom, hidden away from the rest of the world, I sit each day, soaking in the light of His Word and life giving water of His Spirit. Just like a seed, I must continually die to myself (my sinful nature) so that He can produce a great harvest for His Kingdom.

The work below the surface is hard- and sometimes painful. No one is there to encourage or praise or acknowledge my process of dying. It is the place where I come face to face with my pride and where I must choose to surrender my wants, my dreams, my rights to the One who formed me, chose me, planted me and sustains me.

Gardening is hard work (which is why I was more than happy to let Grandmom handle this project!) and so is growing in the Lord. But, once you develop the habit of reading His Word and surrendering your will to the power of His Spirit, one day you will be amazed at how He has produced love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control in you.

Honor God with your Body

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1 Corinthians 6:9-11

9 Don’t you realize that those who do wrong will not inherit the Kingdom of God? Don’t fool yourselves. Those who indulge in sexual sin, or who worship idols, or commit adultery, or are male prostitutes, or practice homosexuality, 10 or are thieves, or greedy people, or drunkards, or are abusive, or cheat people—none of these will inherit the Kingdom of God. 11 Some of you were once like that. But you were cleansed; you were made holy; you were made right with God by calling on the name of the Lord Jesus Christ and by the Spirit of our God.

Since the creation of man & woman, the enemy has lied to God’s children and their doubt of the Almighty’s goodness has resulted in their choosing to sin against Him. Sin is sin, there is no “ranking”  in God’s word about which is the worst. But, there are several warnings listed about the severity of sexual sin and how it affects the individual and the ones in whom he/she is in relationship.

I know this all too well, for I did not heed the warnings. Not only did I believe in my mind that I had the “right” to do such things, my emotions confirmed the deceit that doing what felt good in the moment would fill the void of love, acceptance and worthiness that I so desperately craved. Decision after decision to disobey God’s commands drowned out the whisper of the Holy Spirit to RUN FROM ALL SEXUAL SIN until eventually, I no longer heard Him speak. My mind and emotions had convinced my will to surrender to the wooing of the enemy.

1 Corinthians 6:12-20

12 You say, “I am allowed to do anything”—but not everything is good for you. And even though “I am allowed to do anything,” I must not become a slave to anything. 13 You say, “Food was made for the stomach, and the stomach for food.” (This is true, though someday God will do away with both of them.) But you can’t say that our bodies were made for sexual immorality. They were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies. 14 And God will raise us from the dead by his power, just as he raised our Lord from the dead.

15 Don’t you realize that your bodies are actually parts of Christ? Should a man take his body, which is part of Christ, and join it to a prostitute? Never! 16 And don’t you realize that if a man joins himself to a prostitute, he becomes one body with her? For the Scriptures say, “The two are united into one.”[d]17 But the person who is joined to the Lord is one spirit with him.

18 Run from sexual sin! No other sin so clearly affects the body as this one does. For sexual immorality is a sin against your own body. 19 Don’t you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you and was given to you by God? You do not belong to yourself, 20 for God bought you with a high price. So you must honor God with your body.

For years I allowed my flesh to be the lord of my life and slowly my experiences plunged me into a deep dark depression which tempted me to just run away from it all- permanently.

I was robbed of the joy of living and everything I held dear had either been stolen, killed or almost completely destroyed. Not only was my relationship with my Heavenly Father broken, but so was my relationship with my spouse. Oneness had always eluded us.

Fed up & desperate for change, I finally surrendered to the only One who could rescue me from the pit.

Psalm 103:1-5

1 Praise the Lord, my soul;
all my inmost being, praise his holy name.

2 Praise the Lord, my soul,
and forget not all his benefits—

3 who forgives all your sins
and heals all your diseases,

4 who redeems your life from the pit
and crowns you with love and compassion,

5 who satisfies your desires with good things
so that your youth is renewed like the eagle’s.

The first choice I had to make towards being made right with God was to call on the name of the Lord and ask the Holy Spirit for help. Then I had to be willing to acknowledging all the deep dark secrets that had been locked away from myself and others for so many years. Only then was I able to force my will to confess & repent to God, confess and repent to my husband and confess to others who helped me through the process of cleansing.

1 John 1:9

9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness.

As a daughter in the Kingdom of God who has received a rich inheritance I can tell you that there is only ONE WAY to obtain the love, acceptance and worthiness your soul was made to crave. Don’t be fooled by the lies of the enemy to engage in sexual sin. Jesus is the ONLY way, the ONLY Truth and the ONLY life. And He is the ONLY One who can truly set you free from the bondage of sexual sin so that you may once again honor God with your body.

John 8:36

36 So if the Son sets you free, you are truly free.

The Blessings of the Locusts

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Joel 2:12-14, 25-26

12 That is why the Lord says,
“Turn to me now, while there is time.
Give me your hearts.
Come with fasting, weeping, and mourning. 13 Don’t tear your clothing in your grief,
but tear your hearts instead.”
Return to the Lord your God,
for he is merciful and compassionate,
slow to get angry and filled with unfailing love.
He is eager to relent and not punish. 14 Who knows? Perhaps he will give you a reprieve,
sending you a blessing instead of this curse.

25 The Lord says, “I will give you back what you lost
to the swarming locusts, the hopping locusts,
the stripping locusts, and the cutting locusts. It was I who sent this great destroying army against you. 26 Once again you will have all the food you want, and you will praise the Lord your God,
who does these miracles for you.

I have encountered multiple armies of locusts in the field of my life, my marriage and my parenting. Some of them destroyed only a portion of the crops and some have stripped every sprig of growth, leaving nothing but bare soil. Some of the locusts swarmed me, leaving me feeling completely overwhelmed and helpless. Some of them hopped all over me, becoming a pesky nuisance that distracted me and caused me to live in constant fear, not knowing what direction they would come to pounce on me again. Some stripped away everything of value to me, leaving me feeling absolutely hopeless about my future. And some cut my soul so deeply that death seemed to be the only possible relief. Some of those locusts invaded my field as result of my sin….and some trespassed on my land because of someone else’s.

At times I have yelled violently, shaking my fists at the enemy for sending these vicious attacks, but only recently have I realized that the enemy can do nothing without God allowing him to. Every army of locusts that are dispatched to my field MUST be given permission to destroy by the Creator of the universe. Nothing, absolutely nothing in this life happens to me without passing through the hand of God Almighty first.

It’s an earth shaking revelation to know that God has allowed, or even sent destroying armies of locusts to obliterate almost every living thing in my field. But, I am slowly beginning to understand that every trial, every heartbreak, every loss, every triumph, every devastation, every abundant harvest is from Him and FOR Him. And, every locust sent is for my ultimate good because it draws me closer to Himself and causes another area of my flesh to die so that I can grow to be more like His Son. He endured every swarming, hopping, stripping and cutting locust on my behalf, so that I may have life to the full……. and if that weren’t enough, He promises to restore what was lost to the locusts, as I return to Him and repent.

Lord, I praise you for the blessings of the locusts in my life. You are loving, you are righteous, you are healer, you are deliverer, you are redeemer, you are restorer …and you work ALL things for my good.

Take the Garbage Out!

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1 John 3

3 See how very much our Father loves us, for he calls us his children, and that is what we are! But the people who belong to this world don’t recognize that we are God’s children because they don’t know him. 2 Dear friends, we are already God’s children, but he has not yet shown us what we will be like when Christ appears. But we do know that we will be like him, for we will see him as he really is. 3 And all who have this eager expectation will keep themselves pure, just as he is pure.

4 Everyone who sins is breaking God’s law, for all sin is contrary to the law of God. 5 And you know that Jesus came to take away our sins, and there is no sin in him. 6 Anyone who continues to live in him will not sin. But anyone who keeps on sinning does not know him or understand who he is.

7 Dear children, don’t let anyone deceive you about this: When people do what is right, it shows that they are righteous, even as Christ is righteous. 8 But when people keep on sinning, it shows that they belong to the devil, who has been sinning since the beginning. But the Son of God came to destroy the works of the devil. 9 Those who have been born into God’s family do not make a practice of sinning, because God’s life[a] is in them. So they can’t keep on sinning, because they are children of God. 10 So now we can tell who are children of God and who are children of the devil. Anyone who does not live righteously and does not love other believers[b] does not belong to God.

One of my favorite poems by Shel Silverstein tells the story of a little girl who continually refuses to obey her daddy – and take out the trash. Eventually, the pile of rubbish becomes so high that it begins to negatively affect her relationships with others, so Sarah Cynthia Sylvia Stout finally decides to take the garbage out! Unfortunately, however, because of her constant procrastination, the pile is so high that she is no longer able.

Over the years, Doug and I have witnessed many sons and daughters continually refuse to obey their Daddy- and take out the trash. As a result, their rotten, stinky, filthy sins begin to pile up. When the weight of the pile begins to destroy their marriage, one of them will eventually become exasperated and announce: “I’m done.” In an attempt to clean up the mess, they will relent, as Sarah did, and try to muster up the strength to empty the trash on their own. Sadly, in most cases, they become so overwhelmed with the magnitude of the pile they just ignore it and walk away..…

When I got married I had a dumpster full of trash. As I continued to break God’s law the pile got larger and it too began to negatively affect my relationship with my husband. Several years went by until I finally said “OK, I’ll take the garbage out!” But, just like Sarah, I was overwhelmed and completely unable….

That is, until I realized that…..

1) even if my pile of sins reaches the sky, when I confess, God is always faithful to forgive me.

2) His Spirit will patiently help me remove each and every piece of rotten, stinky, filthy trash from my life through the power of His Word.

3) He will provide others in the Body of Christ to pray for, encourage and hold me accountable to continue to take the garbage out!

1 John 1:5-10

5 This is the message we heard from Jesus[a] and now declare to you: God is light, and there is no darkness in him at all. 6 So we are lying if we say we have fellowship with God but go on living in spiritual darkness; we are not practicing the truth. 7 But if we are living in the light, as God is in the light, then we have fellowship with each other, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, cleanses us from all sin.

8 If we claim we have no sin, we are only fooling ourselves and not living in the truth. 9 But if we confess our sins to him, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all wickedness. 10 If we claim we have not sinned, we are calling God a liar and showing that his word has no place in our hearts.