The Bible: Rubber Meets the Road

Mrs. Beaver:

I just started reading Joe Thorn's Note to Self: The Discipline of Preaching to Yourself. Before even reaching the author's words, I've been challenged and convicted by the introduction.

What's your reaction to these strong assertions?

"Good intentions, New Year's resolutions, promises, plans, personal discipline, and rigorous regimens designed to control and direct human choices only go so far. They rarely, if ever, effect a lasting and fruitful change in the soul. It is only when our thoughts are challenged and conformed to the principles of God's Word and our hearts are energized to make choices consistent with God's revealed will that a human being is transformed...

"Merely affirming that the Bible is inspired accomplishes very little. Asserting its authority isn't much better. The inspiration and authority of the Scriptures are of value to us only so far as we change our beliefs to conform to its principles and alter our behavior to coincide with its imperatives. The Bible is meant to govern our lives, to fashion our choices, to challenge our cherished traditions, and ultimately to make us look more like Jesus.

"The question for each of us, then, is whether the Bible actually functions in this way. Do we submit to its dictates? Do we put our confidence in its promises? Do we stop living a certain way in response to its counsel? Do we embrace particular truths on its authority? Do we set aside traditional practices that conflict with its instruction?

"In other words, for the Bible to be of value to us it must actually function to shape how we think, feel, and act, as well as what we believe, value, and teach...

"Through the power of the Holy Spirit, God has invested the biblical text with the capacity to change human lives...

"Let [God's Word] be the anchor for your soul. Let it be the rock on which you stand. Let it be the compass to guide your choices and renew your heart through trials and tragic times. Let it govern your choices and renew your joy and ground your hope. Build your life on its moral principles. Embrace its ethical and moral norms. Believe what it says about the nature of God. Believe what it says about the nature of mankind...

"The word of God, whether it is preached and heard or read and memorized, is more than simply true. It is effectual. The Word of God does more than merely announce: it accomplishes! It doesn't just impart information; it creates life! someone once said, and rightly so, that God speaking is God acting. God's word is always carried along by God's Spirit and empowered to produce what it proclaims...

Therefore, let us, "Crave the Word of God. Be desperate for it! Seek it. Yearn for it. Long for it. Desire it. Tolerate nothing in your life that might diminish your hunger for God's Word. And apply it with vigor and spiritual energy!"
Sam Storms, Senior Pastor, Bridgeway Church, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma

It Takes Love to Make a Family

Grandma listening to Oksana last night as she excitedly
 talked about leaving for her Bible memory program

"Love is extravagant in the price it is willing to pay, the time it is willing to give, the hardships it is willing to endure, and the strength it is willing to spend." Joni Eareckson Tada

John and Grandma just before he took her out on a "date"

The Comfort of the Word "My"

Mrs. Beaver:

I found a wonderful book recently through Grace and Truth Books (a favorite web book seller!) called Voices from the Past with short-but-powerful daily readings from a variety of Puritan authors.

Today's reading blessed me deeply as I face major surgery at the Mayo Clinic next week. I'm clinging to God tightly and the words below encouraged me. Perhaps they will comfort or challenge you.

"God is the happiness of man because of His suitableness to the soul...Tasting this manna tramples on the onions of Egypt. God is true happiness of the soul because He is an eternal good. As the sun never sets, so the soul that rests in God has an eternal Sabbath...This all-sufficient, suitable, and eternal God is the saint's peculiar portion, and therefore causes infinite satisfaction. God is my portion forever...The pronoun 'my' is worth so much to the soul. Luther said much religion lies in the pronouns. All our consolation indeed consists in this pronoun. He is my God. All the joys of the believer are hung upon this one string. Break this and all is lost. I have sometimes thought how David rolls this word as a lump of sugar under his tongue: 'I love you, O Lord, my strength. The Lord is my rock and my fortress and my deliverer, my God, my rock, in whom I take refuge, my shield, and the horn of my salvation, my stronghold' (Psalm 18:1-2). George Swinnock, Works, IV:7-12

Clinging to my perfect, precious Saviour,
Denise

Daring to Trust

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Credit: Eric and Leslie Ludy

Continuing to Learn Love

Mr. & Mrs. Beaver:

Our family's guiding definition of love is, of course, drawn from Scripture. But we also appreciate the way that Paul David Tripp unpacks the God's word in ways that help us really grasp God's vision for love. He pulls from many Scripture passages in coming up with a summary definition as follows:

"Love is willing self-sacrifice for the good of another that does not require reciprocation or that the person being loved is deserving...

 Tripp goes on to unpack love at an even deeper level:

"Love calls you beyond the borders of your own wants, needs, and feelings. Love calls you to be willing to invest time, energy, money, resources, personal ability, and gifts for the good of another. Love calls you to lay down your life in ways that are concrete and specific. Love calls you to serve, to wait, to give, to suffer, to forgive, and to do all these things again and again. (Emphasis ours)

"Love calls you to be silent when you want to speak, and to speak when you would like to be silent. Love calls you to act when you would really like to wait, and to wait when you would really like to act. Love calls you to stop when you really want to continue, and it calls you to continue when you feel like stopping...Love again and again calls you away from your instincts and your comfort. Love requires personal sacrifice. Love calls you to give up your life." What Did You Expect??: Redeeming the Realities of Marriage, pg. 188

Although Tripp's book is intended to help couples grasp God's ways in marriage, the same concepts apply to all our interactions as a family. After all, where better to love than within the family?

So, as we prepare to enlarge our family again through adoption, this reminder from Tripp's marriage book is also helping us to prepare our hearts for the sacrificial kind of love that makes adoption... and family in general... work. It's the kind of love that makes adoption work, even when the world says it's impossible. It's the kind of love that makes adoption work, even when the world says it's too scary. It's the kind of love that makes adoption work, even when we're too exhausted to answer another question or wipe another messy face or solve another sibling conflict. It's the kind of love that only He can raise up in our hearts.

"I am Profitably Engaged..."

I recently found an inspiring quote from one of my heroes:

"I am profitably engaged in reading the Bible. Take all of this Book upon reason that you can, and the balance by faith, and you will live and die a better man." - Abraham Lincoln

- Joe