• Simplify stuff

I’m going to endeavor, with the Lord’s help to simplify my belongings. “Stuff” weighs us down, keeps us from being free to serve, and keeps us tied to this earth. One day it will all be left behind. I want the Lord to free me from collecting things I don’t need.

• Seek souls

The only thing we can take to heaven with us is other people. I’m asking the Lord to give me a greater burden for souls. As a person who knows the Gospel, I have the message that the lost world needs to hear. They won’t be saved by watching my life, they must hear the Gospel from my lips, and I’m asking God to give me people with whom I can share the Truth.

Have you asked the Lord to enable you to accomplish something this year? I’d love to hear about it so I can add you to my prayer list. May this new year and new decade find us loving our Lord more and bringing about eternal rewards.

With love,

Have you learned yet to have a love for discipline? If we were honest we’d all probably agree that this is the virtue we love to hate. But as we have been reminded this week, we must do the hard things that will create the beauty God wants to bring into our Christian lives. Steps one and two were: Daily time and Daily walk. Today we move to the last two points in having a life of godly discipline.

3. Daily desire. Proverbs 31:30 – Favor is deceitful and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the Lord, she shall be praised. This is where the desire comes in. There is a place in our lives for fearing the Lord. It’s our worshipful attitude towards Him. Do we really desire God’s best? Where do we really fall on the desire scale? Anne Ortland said, “I really do have a fear. I long to grow more godly with each passing day. Call it the fear of the Lord – being in awe of Him, scared to death of anything that would mar my life at this point.” This is the desire we need to have in our walk with God.

A woman after God’s heart must be like a tea pot on the fire! You know it’s there. You hear it, you see it. It’s jumping up and down! The lid is rattling. Smoke is coming out of it! That’s got to be us and our desire, so when people see us they see a passionate desire to walk with God and get as close to Him as we can.

4. Daily commitment – Romans 12:1 – I beseech you therefore, brethren by the mercies of God that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable unto God which is your reasonable service. This daily commitment is giving all that you are and all that you have to God. You do it now and you give it to Him forever, and daily is the key. We need to be reminded every single day of this commitment. Every day you need to give God your life all over again. It isn’t yours, it is His. Give Him your body, your health, your husband. We must pry our fingers off of our loved ones lives and let God do with them as He desires.

Elizabeth shared with us the example of when her husband Jim went into the ministry. She felt like she never saw him. At first she was resentful of this, but then the Lord showed her she must give her Jim to God to be used as God would choose. She said, “Lord help yourself to my husband’s life. Take him and let him spend His time with whomever You would desire.”

Each day we must pray for each of our children and ask God to do whatever He needs to do to draw them to Himself. F. B. Meyers said, “Every day make an audible commitment to God. ‘Lord, I give this day to You.'”

Betty Stam (pictured below) and her husband John, were missionaries in China under the China Inland Mission. Their life of commitment cost them their lives, their marriage, and their ministry (in human terms). Here was her prayer as they headed to China, knowing what the risks were:

“Lord, I give up all my own plans and purposes, all my own desires and hopes, and accept thy will for my life. I give myself, my time, my all utterly to thee to be thine forever. Fill me and seal me with thy Holy Spirit. Use me as Thou wilt. Send where thou wilt. Help yourself to my life at any cost, now and forever . Amen and amen.”

That was a huge commitment that cost Betty her physical life, but I know that she would tell us it was worth it. Oh, that we would each be able to make that commitment to our great God, because He is worth it!

Yesterday our study of “A Woman After God’s Own Heart” took us to Psalm 5:1-3 where David tells us that we need a daily time with the Lord and we learned how we can do that. The next step in disciplining ourselves to have a heart for God is…

2. Our Daily Walk – This is where we purpose to choose God at every way, every thought, word, decision, and act that comes during the day. This is what it means to make God our ultimate priority. Two items come to our rescue when it comes to making this choice:

A.) Proverbs 3:5,6 – Trust in the Lord with all thine heart and lean not thine own understanding. In all your ways, acknowledge him and He shall direct your paths. Imagine that in the morning after you’ve been to your prayer closet and had your time with God and are walking in the Spirit, you come out and your phone rings. The person on the other end of the line says, “You did this, and you did that…” Before you say a word or think a thought acknowledge him in all your ways. Stop and take a breath and say, “Lord, what do you want me to say, and how do you want me to act?” If it’s a face to face confrontation, we may even need to ask the Lord what expression we should have on our face (it’s usually a smile!). Choose to keep on walking with Him. Consult God in every decision with every thought you’re thinking, every decision you’re making and He will direct your path.

We can also be helped making God our priority with this second thought:
B.) Good better best, never let it rest, until your good is better and your better best. Elizabeth applies this little rhyme to her life, trying to make the good choice, then the better and the best.

Because she had many miles to travel every day in her car, she asked the Lord how she could spend her time wisely. She began by listening to classical music. “Lord, is there something better I could listen to?” Out went the classical music and in came the praise music. Time went by and she asked again, “Lord, is there something better I could be doing while driving all these miles?” Out went the praise music and in came sermons on tape. A while later she asked, “Lord, is there something better I could be listening to?” Out went the sermons and in came the Bible on tape. “Lord, is there anything better I could be doing here?” Finally she turned the whole audio system off and brought in her Bible memory cards and she memorize passages of God’s Word while she traveled about. This is just one example of going from good to better, then to the best.

We each need to discern the best ways for us to spend our time so we give our best to God. Are there changes you need to make to be accomplishing the best each day? This is our daily walk.

The conclusion will be on tomorrow’s post.

What hard work a garden requires! Pruning, clipping and shaping are all necessary in order to grow flowers and have the end result of beauty. It is a necessary discipline. Discipline isn’t a word most people like, but how necessary it is in order to grow in our Christian lives! “We need to develop a love for discipline. How else will we become a Paul, a David, a Hannah, a Mary, a woman after God’s Own heart? We must pray for a greater discipline to pray, to read God’s Word, to get a heart for peace and purity.” Elizabeth George’s study has given us so many “yes, but how?” answers this month! This post is a synopsis of lesson three in her book.

Every day when we get up we have so many things calling for our attention. What do we give attention to? David answers that with this passage: Psalm 5:1-3 Give ear to my words, O LORD, consider my meditation. Hearken unto the voice of my cry, my King, and my God: for unto thee will I pray. My voice shalt thou hear in the morning, O LORD; in the morning will I direct my prayer unto thee, and will look up. David’s solution is that we must have time with the Lord.

What does it require?

1. Daily time – The tip of the iceberg is only 1/7 of the iceberg. The greater part of it is out of sight where people do not see. Your public life is just the tip of the iceberg. People look at you after you’ve spent your time with the Lord, alone, praying, giving Him your life (this is the 6/7 that they don’t see!); they look at what they do see of your life and they say, “Where does she get that? How come she doesn’t faint? How come she always seems to make the right decisions?” It’s because of what they don’t see of your life which is that time spent out of sight beneath the surface with the Lord. “Talent develops itself in secret. What kind of talent? The talent of prayer. The talent of faith. The talent of meditation. The talent of seeing the unseen. It’s all developed in prayer; out of sight in solitude.”
3. Where is it we’re going to get this time? We have to learn to say “no.” You have to say “no” to something in order to say “yes” to something else. We must say no, not only to things that are wrong and sinful, but to things that are pleasant, profitable and good, if it would hinder and clog our grand duties and our chief work. Elizabeth said when she considers this statement she always things of …sleep! Sleep is profitable, pleasant and good! But if we could just say no to a little sleep so we could take care of our grand duties and our chief work.

I’m busy Lord, surely you can see

a thousand things that wait for me.

The dishes still lie in the sink

I cannot stop to pray or think!

Lord, I know You understand,

you gave these children to my hand.

And now they cry and need me so

Lord, You understand, I better go.

Now I’ve got them all to sleep,

I better dust and mop and sweep,

I must thaw out the meat for stew,

and the ironing’s long overdue.

And kindly my Lord answered me,

“Why do you from my presence flee?

I have so much for you today.

My child, I want to hear you pray.

I love you, child. I want you here,

to rest, to listen, to shed a tear.

For what if Paul had stopped to say,

‘Lord, I’m too busy to write letters today!’

No, my child, I’m what you need.

Through household duties you can speed

But when you’re through there’s emptiness

if this quiet time you miss.”

Oh, thank you, Lord, for showing me

how much I need to wait on Thee.

For what’s an undone dish or two

compared to spending time with you?

—Nancy Stitzel

We cannot be too busy to meet with the Lord and pray.

…Continued on tomorrow’s post.