Proverbs 13:20

Last night I gave the Council Time message at Awana.  I talked about friendship with the kids. I began by having the kids imagine that their favorite uncle showed up at their house on the morning of their birthday.  He hands you an envelope.  In it are four tickets to Disneyland.  One is for you, the other three are for friends.  You go to school and everyone hears about your tickets.  All of a sudden you have friends that you never knew you had!  We call these friends "fair-weather friends."

I told the kids the Bible is a handbook on friendship.  We talked about what qualities to look for in a good friend.  What it means to be a good friend.  I shared verses that describe what foolish people are like.  Below are some of the verses "paraphrased." 

•  A foolish person doesn't believe in God
•  A foolish person thinks his mother is disgusting  (you should have seen the faces on this one!) 
•  It is better to meet up with a mother bear robbed of her cubs than a fool in his foolishness

• A foolish person likes to listen to himself talk to show other people how much he knows (or really doesn't know)
  
• A foolish person loses his temper all the time  (I asked the kids if they knew anyone like this.  In hindsight, perhaps not the best question to ask.  Some nodded their heads yes but one little boy who was sitting right in front, just opposite of me said, "My mother.")

I read Proverbs 13:20 to them, "He who walks with wise man will be wise, but the companion of fools will suffer harm."  Bottom line, a foolish person does not make for a good friend!

I ended with John 15:13 - "Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends."

Being a good friend is showing "you before me love", even to the point of giving up your life for that friend. And of course, Jesus is the best friend of all to have! 

For You Gals - 9

 When I drove school buses, I was required to do a brake inspection on my air brakes before I left the yard.  This included going through a series of different steps to ensure that the air pressure in the air tanks would build up in a certain amount of time and that the air tanks were not leaking.  I shudder to think of what could happen if I lost my brakes on some of the hills around Gig Harbor.  Thank the Lord, it never happened.  But, there are other times when  "my brakes have failed."  Let me explain what I mean.

Last night our Titus 2:4 gals group met.  We had a great time looking at the word "sensible" in Titus 2:5.  The Greek word is "sophron."  It's a compound word, formed from "sozo" (to save) and "phren" (mind).  It describes a woman who is sober minded and coolheaded.  (Being sensible is mentioned four times in Titus, and is also applied to pastors, older men, and younger men.  None of us are off the hook.)  In Titus 2:5 the older women are to encourage the younger women to be sensible, or to be sober minded and coolheaded.  Common sense and good judgment should improve with age, but they should also be evident in early adulthood.  The sensible woman is in command of her mind.  When we are in command of our minds we are in control of the things we think about and do. We are also in control of our feelings.  The older women are to encourage the younger women to use self-control and self-control always starts with how we think.  When we have gotten out of control with our behavior or our attitudes, our speech, or our moods, we need to ask ourselves, "Where in my thought life did I fail to put on the brakes?"  (Now you know where I was going with my bus story.)  Gals, we are like a bus without brakes when we fail to apply the brakes of self-control and a bus out of control can cause great damage.  Being sensible is having the ability to apply the brakes to our life - to our thoughts, to our attitudes, our behavior, our speech, and our moods, sparing others the damage a lack of self-control can cause. 

Since the older women are to encourage the younger women to sound minds, to coolheadedness, and to self-controlled thinking, this implies we've gained some experience in mastering our thought life.  We aren't perfect at it by any means, but younger gals, gaining control over your thought life comes from taking periodic inventory of what you spend your time thinking about.  Also, we gain control over our thoughts when we spend the majority of our time talking to ourselves rather than listening to ourselves.  (Think about that one for a minute...)

A sound mind also results from being saturated with God's mind by being in His Word.  As we stay close to the Lord in His Word, He is our mind stabilizer.

...AND TAKE TIME TO THINK.

 Put on the brakes, for Him.

Put off the bad and then set your mind on what pleases the Lord. 

The Church's Divine Engagement Ring

"...you were sealed in Him with the Holy Spirit of promise, who is given as a pledge of our inheritance..." Ephesians 1:13b-14a

Men break promises all the time.  God never does.  His word should be sufficient for us, but He is so gracious in that He makes His promises even more certain (if that were possible) by giving us His own guarantees.  When a person becomes a Christian, the Holy Spirit takes up residence in his/her life.  The Holy Spirit empowers us and equips us for ministry.  He protects and encourages us.  He also guarantees our inheritance in Jesus Christ.  The Spirit of God is our securing force, our guarantee.  When we are sealed with the Holy Spirit, we are marked out as God's own possession.  From the moment the Holy Spirit takes our lifeless arms and wraps them around God's gift of faith, we entirely and eternally belong to Him.  I love how John MacArthur puts it - "The Holy Spirit is the church's irrevocable pledge, her divine engagement ring, as it were, that, as Christ's bride, she will never be neglected or forsaken."

We will never walk away from the Savior's love either.  We won't because we can't.  To say we can is to say we are bigger than God. 

Rejoice in His covenant-keeping love for you today!

Preserving Unity and Peace

In Ephesians 4:1-3, Paul gives us four virtues that when lived out in the church body, unity and peace will be preserved.  I think we can say the same holds true in families as well.

"I, therefore, the prisoner of the Lord, entreat you to walk in a manner worthy of the calling with which you have been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, showing forbearance to one another in love, being diligent to preserve the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace."
 
A lack of humility says I'm better than you. A lack of gentleness says I'll walk rough-shod over you.   Impatience says I don't have time for you.  A lack of forbearance says I am unwilling to tolerate any short comings you might have.  

Yes, unity and peace in the body of Christ (and families) is definitely broken when we lack these virtues. 

The humble person says I am sinful and flawed and in need of God's mercy and grace every moment of every day.  Humility says I see the log in my own eye.  Gentleness says I will treat you with tenderness and care.  Patience says I will slow down and take time for you.  I will listen to what you have to say and consider it as important because I know it is important to you.  Forbearance says I will throw a blanket over your short-comings.  I will not hold them against you.    

What unity and peace would reign in our churches and families if we consistently chose to walk in these virtues!

Love is the umbrella that covers all of these qualities.  Love is "you before me."  Christ modeled these virtues for us and has loved us perfectly with these virtues.  He submitted to the Father's will and put our needs before His own.  He treats us with tenderness and care.  He is very patient with us and oh the things He tolerates from us!  He commands that we do the same for others.  The great thing is that He has provided the Holy Spirit so we have the power to love as He loved.  It is possible, Beloved, and Jesus Christ is glorified in our churches and in our homes, when we choose to walk in that same love.

Thomas Cranmer

Ok, so I learned something over the last twenty-four hours.  I love having an outlet for when my heart and mind collide with the truth of God's Word.  I also enjoy posting what I am learning and I enjoy passing along nuggets from the books I am reading.  I thought I would be at peace about taking a break.  Turns out, I was wrong, and yeah, I do love my little blogging family! 

A few more things from "The Power of Suffering" which I finished up yesterday.  It is a great book.  It certainly has enlarged my view of God and has given better understanding as to why God has included suffering in His plan for us.

In chapter six John MacArthur gives the account of the martyrdom of Thomas Cranmer.  He was first Protestant Archbishop of Canterbury and author of the First and Second Prayer Books and the Thirtynine Articles of the Church of England.  He experienced the overcoming grace and strength of the Holy Spirit at the end of his life, when he faced his greatest crisis.  He was burned at the stake because he would not renounce his Protestant beliefs.  An iron chain was used to fasten him to the stake.  The wood was kindled and the fire began to burn near him.  He stretched out his right hand and held it in the flames.  He never even flinched.  His hand burned before the fire touched the rest of his body.  He uttered no cry, he was so patient and steadfast.  He seemed to move no more than the stake to which he was bound.  He lifted up his eyes to heaven and he kept repeating, "This was the hand that wrote it [a previous disavowal of Protestantism, an action he had since reversed]."  As long as his voice allowed him he called his right hand, "unworthy."  He also said like Stephen, "Lord Jesus, receive my spirit!" till the fury of the flames silenced him. 

Thomas Cranmer modeled for us that God gives grace that is unique to the requirements of our suffering and our suffering can never break our faith nor sever us from His love.

I do have one more for you...  :)

"Who shall separate us from the love of Christ? 
Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword? 
Just as it is written, "FOR THY SAKE WE ARE BEING PUT TO DEATH ALL DAY LONG; 
WE WERE CONSIDERED AS SHEEP TO BE SLAUGHTERED." 
But in all these things we overwhelmingly conquer 
through Him who loved us.
For I am convinced that neither death, nor life, nor angels,
nor principalities, nor things present, nor things to come, 
nor powers,nor height, nor depth, nor any other created thing, 
shall be able to separate us from the love of God,
which is in Christ Jesus our Lord."

Romans 8:35-39

"Watch for the Signs, Then Look for My Return"

I've been thinking about this for a couple of months now.  I want to take a break from posting, but I haven't been able to bring myself to actually break away.  I just need to make the choice to do it.  I'm using one of my favorite quotes of yours, Kristen, for this blog title.  It communicates the whole reason I began blogging...

"WATCH FOR THE SIGNS, THEN LOOK FOR MY RETURN"
 
Need to know where those signs are?  You'll find them in Matthew 24, Mark 13, and Luke 21.

I'll still be reading and commenting on my favorite blogs, I'm not disappearing completely.

Thanks, dear friends...