Keepers at Home

 

 

Younger women in today's modern church are too busy with their feet running to and fro in order to spend much time in their own homes (Proverbs 7:11). Careers along with raising children and events such as Girls Night Out is the phenomenon that causes much of this.

The Bible advises the "older" women to teach the "younger" how to excel as a keeper at home (Titus 2:4-5). It is definitely a lost art in this contemporary society.

"Apples of Gold" is a wondrous ministry promoting this concept ( http://www.applesofgold.org/home.shtml ) Several years ago, the ladies in our church went through this program with uplifting and lasting results.

The younger women were so grateful to the older ladies who mentored them - giving them skills and wisdom, which their moms were never able to share with them for one reason or another.

There is no Biblical precedent for Girls Nights Out, or Women's Conferences that take up a whole week-end of a wife and mother's time, as well as eating into the family budget to pay for the whole event.

Single women often have the time and financial resources to participate in this type of fellowship with other singles, but married women can avail themselves of the teaching and ministry of their local churches.

Books, Videos and CDs also give us a chance to learn women's related issues on our own or in a local church class. We can even learn Biblical truth by teaching or assisting in a children's class.

Fellowshipping as couples, and even families, promotes strong church ties and deep friendships with spiritual people in every age group. The best way to learn as a couple is in a class where the spouses both hear the same information.

This gives us something to discuss in our private times, opportunities to hold one another accountable for what we learn, and resources that we can research together to teach us to deepen our relationship to one another and to Christ within us both.

The Pastor's Bible studies on Sunday and Wednesday evening are full of Biblical principles for every Believer's life; yet, so few people avail themselves of this rich and valuable opportunity to grow in Christ and to mature spiritually.

Prayer:

Father God, Your plan and desire for women is to love our husband and children, and to make them our priority in our life. You state in Your Word that we can learn to live self-controlled and pure lives; so we will not discredit Your reputation by our words and behavior.

Teach us to manage our homes well and to live as co-heirs with our own husband. Help us to share with him our opinion, wisdom and leading from Your Spirit, but to ultimately submit to his decisions for our family. If he is rebellious against Your Word, we can pray for him to submit to your Word, strengthen our own ties with You, and attempt to find areas where we can agree as a couple.  

Thought for the Day:

There is never a good reason for divorce, because with mutual submission we can always find a third alternative with which we can both thrive as individuals, as a couple and as a family; as keepers at home, we uncover God's fulfilling role for our life.

Manifestation of God

Most of humanity does not know Jesus as the Christ, nor do they care at all about Godly principles. Hypocrisy in the lives of so called Christians exacerbates this problem.

If unbelievers see no distinction in their daily walk with that of a professing Believer, this disillusions them. They want nothing to do with Christ or with us.

We have a problem with our connection to the Vine (John 15:5). We may even have a false hope of Heaven, because we never truly repented or made Jesus the Lord of our life.

If, however, we are grafted into the Vine, their reason for rejecting His truth may be that we are hiding His light within us and they cannot see it (Matthew 5:15-16).

Once we surrender our identity over to the Ruler of the universe, God makes a huge difference in our habits, language, personality and interests.

When we fully submit to God for Him to use as He pleases (Isaiah 29:16), our life takes on the character of Christ. This is when people see us as authentic Christians. We are a manifestation of God on the earth.

We have God’s peace in trouble, His perseverance in trials, His love for our persecutors and His joy during periods of grief.

They see us exhibiting patience in trying times, using self-control when others give in to debauchery, displaying meekness rather than having a haughty attitude, relating to others with kindness and basing our life and decisions on faith in our faithful God.

We lay down our preferences and care about the needs of others over our own agenda, without compromising who we are in Christ.

Others see truth and reality in our lives. We are capable of this behavior, not because we are exemplary human beings, but because of God's Holy Spirit within us (Galatians 5:16:25).

This is when other people want for themselves what we have within us.

Prayer:

Father God, Jesus prayed that no one would snatch us out of Your hand. You are greater than all, and we are perfectly safe in Your everlasting arms (John 10:28-29). Fill us completely full of Your Spirit and keep us as the apple of Your eye (Ephesians 3:16-19; Psalm 17:8).

Draw us close to You and never let us go. Your unfailing love is our priceless treasure and we run to the refuge of the shadow of Your wings (Psalm 36:7). When we draw near to You, and resist Satan's efforts to sidetrack us, he has to flee from Your presence within us.

Thought for the Day:

The Holy Spirit is our source of power; and we can ask Him to manifest Himself in and through us all the days of our life; so that others see Christ in us.

Fruitastic Personality

The Holy Spirit moves into our life at justification - when we repent of our sins and ask Jesus to save us from the penalty of them. He brings with Him the power, nature and fruit of God's character.

His fantastic fruit will replace our carnal nature and make us a new creation (Romans 6:22). However, the weeds of sin, the world and the devil will rob the soil of our life and starve the spiritual fruit, preventing it from growing.

It is our choice to allow or to hinder this from happening. Negative emotions will crowd out His fruit by dominating our thoughts and preventing God's Word from germinating (2 Timothy 3:2; Romans 1:30).

It seems to be easier to grow the weeds of sin than the fruit of the Spirit; but as we surrender our will and all of our human effort to God's Spirit, it becomes unpleasant to sin and joyful to walk in holiness (1 John 2:17; 1 Corinthians 6:19-20).

We discover that God's Spirit replaces hatred with love, discontentment with peace, irritation with patience, criticism with gentleness, backbiting with goodness, worry with faith, pride with meekness, and depression with true joy, as we are controlled and guided by Him.

What do these fruit actually mean to our life and personality? His love gives us affection for others; joy produces an exuberance in us for life; peace conveys a deep abiding serenity; patience provides us with the willingness to persevere.

Gentleness exudes compassion from our heart; goodness radiates kindness which pervades our entire being; faith comes from experiencing God's faithfulness; meekness makes us humble in our service to our King. 

When God's Spirit guides us each moment of the day, we have self-control in every circumstance (Galatians 5:22-23). It is a bit overwhelming to think of changing all of these attitudes in our life at one time. 

Actually, the Holy Spirit changes us from one stage of glory to the next, a little at a time, one degree at a time (2 Corinthians 3:18). 

We end up with a fruitastic personality; and we can share God's fruit throughout our lifetime with everyone we will ever meet. We will develop into a wonderful example of the love of God in an individual's life.

Prayer:

Father God, our old nature prevents Your fruit from growing in our life. Help us to lay aside those negative emotions and character traits, which so easily weigh us down and to allow Your Spirit to transform our life (Hebrews 12:1). 

Thank You for helping us to focus on the positive viewpoint in Your Word whenever negative thoughts assail us (Philippians 4:8). Help us to meditate on Your Word day and night as Your Spirit gives us the mind of Christ to replace the negative attitudes which come from Satan, the world and the flesh. 

Show us the root of every negative thought, feeling and outlook, so that we can surrender it to You immediately. This will prevent us from adopting a negative, complaining, stressed, depressed or grouchy attitude. Thank You for delivering us from our self.

Thought for the Day:

We can write verses pertaining to one fruit at a time and post them in obvious places where we spend time: like the bathroom mirror or kitchen window or refrigerator, or above our desk at work; so we can reread them daily as God's Spirit transforms our life with them.