My 2015 Book "List"

How many books do you think I have on my list? Drum roll please...One! If you peruse the blogosphere, you'll see that I most likely have the shortest book list.

Why only one book? I'm not an avid reader except for my daily Bible reading. I'm also not a fast reader because I'm so reflective. I often sit and ponder one sentence or paragraph for several minutes. I then write my thoughts in the margin.  That's why I can't loan out my books because they become personal journals. I'll most likely read bits & pieces of other books but I'll plan to finish my one book first. And here's the book...

Our family is adjusting to the biggest transition of our lives as we prepare to plant a church - cityofjoyfellowship.org. My sweet hubby recently blessed me with this book. It is so helpful as I get acquainted in my new role as a church planters' wife. I have much to learn! Here is a simple yet profound statement that the author said, 

"In all my attempts at forming a job description for myself, God has continually spoken grace over me: Follow Me. Serve your family. Love people. As much as I panic and attempt a bullet point to-do list, He always brings me back to dependence." (p. 42)

I've been very encouraged by her transparency and honesty about the sweet & sour of this role. I'm looking forward to reading more. I've already read two chapters! My reading goal is definitely not set too low; it's realistic for me as I keep up with my insanely wonderfully full life. Hopefully I'll get done before I have to write my 2016 Book List!

Why Grace Moments?

My blog was previously named Defining Moments.  I have been blogging for 5 years under that title.  Recently, God has been doing a new thing in my heart.  I am realizing that all of my defining moments (the good, the bad, & the ugly) have nonetheless been grace moments.  Therefore, I thought it would be a good time to upgrade my blog...that's the short answer.  Continue reading for the more elaborate explanation.

The ultimate Grace gift that I have received is Salvation through Jesus Christ.

Jesus’ blood has forever cleansed me from all my filthy sins in the past, present, & future.  I have been set free of the guilt of sin and shame.  I am alive in Christ!  I have been justified by grace and I am being sanctified by grace.  That’s why I love the lyrics to the hymn – Grace Greater Than Our Sin!

Grace is a word that has captured my thoughts over the past year.  Here are excerpts from three books that I have read on the topic of grace. 

*Susan Hunt in her book, The Legacy of Biblical Womanhood, explained the essentials of being a receiver of grace and in turn a giver of grace.  “As our hope in God’s sovereign love grows, we will become beautiful pillars of grace.  We will carry on the legacy of daughters of the covenant who have given support and comfort to God’s people” (p. 62).  “Deeds of grace are proof of grace.  The grace of gratitude is the right and reasonable response to sovereign grace” (p. 103).

*Ann Voskamp in her book, One Thousand Gifts, enlightened my mind to the endless grace gifts constantly around me and to see God through the mundane and ordinary. “This act of naming grace moment, this list of God’s gifts, moves beyond the shopping list of variety of prayer and into the other side.  The other side of prayer, the interior of His throne room, the inner walls of His powerful, love-beating heart…It really is a dare to name all the ways that God loves me…To move into His presence and listen to His love unending and know the grace uncontainable” (p. 59).

*Elyse Fitzpatrick in her book, Give Them Grace, elaborated on God’s amazing grace to His children and His sovereign grace over parenting. “Our ultimate joy as parents is not dependent on our ability to parent well.  God’s smile on us is not contingent upon anything other than the record of the beloved Son.  It is based on our belief that Jesus has already done it all perfectly for us.  Grace simply means resting in Jesus’s blood and righteousness” (p. 162). 

God owes me nothing!  I like these lines to a song by Misty Edwards – “You owe me nothing.  I deserve hell.  You owe me nothing, but you’ve given me mercy.”  As I recall the mercy that I have received, I desire to live my life as a thanks offering to God for all the Grace Moments that I am constantly given. 

Thank you for visiting my journey of grace!  May you be inspired to rejoice in the Lord for all the Grace Moments in your life!

Thank you, Tricia, for once again gracing me with a beautiful blog header!

All is Grace,

Caryn

Rejoice in Your Slavery Today!

That is, your slavery to the Great Master!

Excerpt from Slave by John MacArthur, p. 132-133

The Bible teaches that God has chosen His slaves by His own sovereign, independent, electing choice. In fact, He elected them to be His slaves before they were born, and even before the world was created. As those chosen by God, believers were "purchased with [Christ's] own blood" (Acts 20:28), predestined to be freed from slavery to sin and ushered into the household of God. He pursued us even though we did not seek Him, drawing us to Himself and snatching us from the clutches and condemnation of sin. Like Paul, we were "laid hold of by Christ Jesus" (Phil 3:12), becoming His willing captives, His joyful prisoners, and part of the people for His own possession. We are those who belong to Him, not because we chose Him but because He chose us.

Slave or Self: Is it About Me or Him?

Excerpt from Slave by John MacArthur, p. 14-15, 21

We don't hear about that [slave] concept much in churches today. In contemporary Christianity the language is anything but slave terminology. It is about success, health, wealth, prosperity, and the pursuit of happiness. We often hear that God loves people unconditionally and wants them to be all they want to be. He wants to fulfill every desire, hope, and dream. Personal ambition, personal fulfillment, personal gratification--these have all become part of the language of evangelical Christianity--and part of what it means to have a "personal relationship with Jesus Christ."

Instead of teaching the New Testament gospel--where sinners are called to submit to Christ--the contemporary message is exactly the opposite: Jesus is here to fulfill all your wishes. Likening Him to a personal assistant or a personal trainer, many churchgoers speak of a personal Savior who is eager to do their bidding and help them in their quest for self-satisfaction or individual accomplishment.

The New Testament understanding of the believer's relationship to Christ could not be more opposite. He is the Master and Owner. We are His possession. He is the King, the Lord, and the Son of God. We are His subjects and His subordinates.

In a word, we are His slaves.

Scottish pastor Alexander Maclaren, a contemporary of Spurgeon, echoed these same truths: "...the blending and the absorption of my own will in His will, is the secret of all that makes manhood glorious and great and happy...In the New Testament these names of slave and owner are transferred to Christians and Jesus Christ."

Time with Your Father

Taken from A Praying Life by Paul E. Miller

Here are seven simple suggestions for how you can spend time with your Father in the morning:

* Get to bed. What you do in the evening will shape your morning. The Hebrew notion of a day as the evening and morning (see Genesis 1) helps you plan for prayer. If you want to pray in the morning, then plan your evening so you don't stay up too late. The evening and the morning are connected.

* Get up. Praying in bed is wonderful. In fact, the more you pray out of bed, the more you'll pray in bed. But you'll never develop a morning prayer in bed. Some of my richest prayer times are at night. I'll wake up praying. But those prayer times only began to emerge because I got out of bed to pray.

* Get awake. Maybe you need to make a pot of coffee first or take a shower.

* Get a quiet place. Maybe a room, a chair, or a place with a view. Or maybe you do better going for a walk. Make sure that no one can interrupt you.

* Get comfortable. Don't feel like you have to pray on your knees. For years I was hindered from praying because I found it so uncomfortable to pray on my knees.

* Get going. Start with just five minutes. Start with a small goal that you can attain rather than something heroic. You'll quickly find that the time will fly.

* Keep going. Consistency is more important than length. If you pray five minutes every day, then the length of time will slowly grow. You'll look up and discover that twenty minutes have gone by. You'll enjoy being with God. Jesus is so concerned about hanging in there with prayer that he tells "his disciples a parable to show them that they should always pray and not give up" (Luke 18:1, NIV).

You may also enjoy my past series on Quiet Times.

What Are You Talking About?

A couple of weeks ago, a dear spiritual role-model of mine blessed me with the book, Come, Thou Long-Expected Jesus: Experiencing the Peace and Promise of Christmas. It's a collection of 22 short readings for Advent. Kempton and I read the first reading the other night which was written by George Whitefield. We underlined most of the chapter because there were so many good spiritual nuggets. The quote that gripped us the most is about what our conversations should be like when we talk with other believers. Whitefield said,

"If you are in company, let your time be spent in that conversation which profiteth: let it not be about your dressing, your plays, your profits, or your worldly concerns, but let it be the wonders of redeeming love. O tell, tell to each other what great things the Lord has done for your souls; declare unto one another how you were delivered from the hands of your common enemy, Satan, and how the Lord has brought your feet from the clay and has set them upon the rock of ages, the Lord Jesus Christ; there, my brethren, is no slipping" (p.13).

Tell of all God's Wondrous Works! (Psalm 105:1-2)

The Quest Conquered

My pondering to all these questions ended after I read the book, Treasuring God in our Traditions by Noel Piper. This book is a MUST read! It is an easy read and very practical (my kind of book!) In a nutshell, here are the 3 most profound statements that totally changed my way of thinking.

1. “Traditions are a vital way of displaying our greatest treasure, of showing what—Who—is most important to us” (p. 18). That statement reflects 1 Cor. 10:31.

Do the things you do on holidays represent the One you say you treasure?

2. “We should keep God’s Word as available and as visible as if it were hanging between our eyes—as if everything we see and do comes through his filter. His Word should be as if it were tied on our hands so that all our acts are directed and shaped by his Word” (p. 24). That statement clearly defines Deut. 6:6-9.

Do the things you do on holidays represent God’s Word?

3. “From their births, I have always wanted my children to know as much about God as they were able to grasp at whatever age they were. And I have wanted my life and our family to be a picture of God to others—that we be the body of Christ who presents an image of Christ to the people around us” (p. 30-31). That’s what Prov. 22:6 is all about.

Do the things you do on holidays send mixed messages to your child? Does your child have to sift through the loads of fairy tale to see the ounce of truth?

Basically, when we question something we do on holidays and say, “What’s wrong with…?” “That’s the wrong question. We need to be asking: Will it strengthen my faith and help me love Jesus more?” (p. 54)

"All things are lawful," but not all things are helpful. "All things are lawful," but not all things build up. 1 Corinthians 10:23

I'm ALMOST Finished!

I'm finally ALMOST done with the book Humility True Greatness by C.J. Mahaney. Outside of reading the Word, serving my family & the church, managing my home, participating in Bible Studies, I rarely have time to read anything else. I try to read at least a section before bed. Of course this is the time when I'm completely exhausted, so that's why it's taken me all summer to read a small, 174 page book!

Anyway, this book has definitely been life changing for me. Before reading the book, I already knew that I had a pride issue and desperately needed humility. So, I didn't need the book to prove that point to me. However, this book gave me so many practical ways of destroying the ugly pride in my life on my path to becoming more like my humble Savior.

The section that gave me the most insight was in Chapter 5 which had a "list of practical ways to weaken pride and cultivate humility." Below are the 6 ways that were discussed.

1. Reflect on the Wonder of the Cross
"Far from offering us flattery, the cross undermines our self-righteousness, and we can stand before it only with a bowed head and a broken spirit." - John Stott (p.68)

2. Begin Your Day Acknowledging Your Need for God
"From the moment I awake, I've learned to make statements to God about my dependence upon God, and in this way I'm humbling myself before God." (p. 69)

3. Begin Your Day Expressing Gratitude to God
"Let each of us recognize every day that whatever grace we receive from God is so much more than we're worthy of, and indescribably better than the hell we all deserve." (p. 71)

4. Practice Spiritual Disciplines - Prayer, Study of God's Word, and Worship
"By quietly pausing to study and read and pray before launching my workday, I can be confident that I've taken a step to weaken pride and strengthen humility." (p. 73)

5. Seize Your Commute Time to Memorize and Meditate on Scripture
"Even if you don't have a long commute, there are countless other segments of time throughout the day that can be seized as opportunities to experience God's transforming grace by memorizing and meditating on Scripture." (p. 74)

6. Cast Your Cares Upon Him
"When there's worry, when there's anxiousness, pride is at the root of it. When I am experiencing anxiety, the root issue is that I'm trying to be self-sufficient. I'm acting independent of God." (p. 75)

I urge all of you to read this book if you haven't already done so. May God's truth pierce each place of pride in our hearts so we can reflect His beauty through humility.

God opposes the proud, but gives grace to the humble.

James 4:6

Book Quotes

Wow...the book I'm currently reading, Humilty "True Greatness" by C.J. Mahaney, is so real & so convicting.

I just had to share some quotes from the 1st 3 chapters:

* God is decisively drawn to humility. Contrary to popular and false belief, it's not "those who help themselves" whom God helps; it's those who humble themselves. (p.20-21)

* Humility is honestly assessing ourselves in light of God's holiness and our sinfulness. (p.22)

* Though (humilty) shows up in different forms and to differing degrees, it infects us all. The real issues here is not if pride exists in your heart; it's where pride exists and how pride is being expressed in your life. (p.29)

* From my study, I'm convinced there's nothing God hates more than this...there's no sin more offensive to Him than pride. (p.30)

* Pride is when sinful human beings aspire to the status and position of God and refuse to acknowledge their dependence upon Him. (p.31)

* Jesus does not categorically criticize or forbid the desire and ambition to be great. Instead, He clearly redirects that ambition, redefines it, and purifies it: "But whoever would be great among you must be your servant, and whoever would be first among you must be slave of all" ~Mark 10:43-44. (p.43)

Praise Her In The Gates: The Calling of Christian Motherhood

I recently finished this book by Nancy Wilson. It gave me so much insight and got me thinking about many parenting convictions that I never considered before. Here's a recap of just a few of the key points that caught my attention.

Chapter 1 - The Big Picture: "When mothers faithfully obey God in this very precious and demanding role, they can expect God to fulfill His promise of blessing in their families" (p.11).

Chapter 2 - The Church Our Mother: "The Church is fruitful. While evangelism brings more worshipers into the Church, childbearing brings more disciples into the home. Children are not to be viewed as a hindrance, an intrusion, an interruption, or a burden" (p.19).

Chapter 3 - Conception, Pregnancy, Childbirth: "We cannot play God...It is all of God's doing. We must be humble when we consider what He ordains to do in & through our bodies, & we must look to God for His sustaining grace..." (p.24).

Chapter 4 - When the Kids are Sick: "Sickness is a good time to teach our children about compassion & mercy, as well as about the frailty of life. Use all these times for spiritual profit" (p.34).

Chapter 5 - Loving the Kids: "God supplies us with motherly love for our children. We should be praying that God will give us a godly, self-sacrificing, rejoicing love for our children, even when we think we have enough already" (p.37).

Chapter 6 - Manners: "We must model Christian courtesy to our children, not simply expect it of them without showing them what it looks like" (p.48).

Chapter 7 - Respecting Sons: "When a mother respects her son, she verbalizes it. She praises him for his achievements. She expresses her admiration to him for his accomplishments. She gives him responsibility and expects him to fulfill his obligations" (p.58).

Chapter 8 - Loving Daughters: "Daughters primarily need love & security. Mothers must be diligent to praise their daughters, not for their achievements primarily, but for who they are. They needs lots of love, hugs, understanding, and reassurance" (p.66, 67).

Chapter 9 - Setting Standards: "God has given us our children as our "ministry". Our children are our disciples. Godly discipline is focused on the long-term goal of maturity, not a short-term desire to make life easier for ourselves now" (p.73-75).

Chapter 10 - The Importance of Education: "Christians have the reponsibility & opportunity to educate their children in a God-honoring, God-glorifying way. Whether parents choose to enroll their children in a school or homeschool, oversight is required by the parents" (p.83, 84).

Chapter 11 - The Pleasant Home: "A pleasant home should be full of joy and full of beauty--the beauty of holiness. Our homes should be pleasant, happy, lovely reflections of the joy we have received in Christ" (p.91, 92).

Chapter 12 - The Domestic Arts: "Domesticity is a devotion to home & family life. God created marriage, He creates homes, He delegates the management of the home to the wife, & He gives us the desire & the ability to imitate Him in "creating" lovely surroundings for our families in our homes" (p.97).

Chapter 13 - Letting Them Go: "We want to train & equip our children so that when they are of age, they will be able to leave our homes to lead productive, godly lives on their own. We do not live for our children; we live to glorify God" (p.103, 104).

Charm is deceitful, and beauty is vain, but a woman who fears the LORD is to be praised. Give her of the fruit of her hands, and let her works praise her in the gates.
Proverbs 31:30-31

Living Beyond Yourself

But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. Galatians 5:22-23

I just finished up my 1st Bible Study at my new church. I love Bible Study! What can beat studying God's Word for yourself and then coming together with other sisters in Christ and sharing what the Lord has taught each of us. It's definitely life changing! Well, this study was probably the best one I've done. We studied Beth Moore's Living Beyond Yourself - "Exploring the Fruit of the Spirit". It was Very Bible-saturated, Very real, & Very convicting! I just wanted to share some key characteristics of each fruit of the Spirit.

* LOVE - "Agape (divine love) always flows from what is right and best. It is not as much a feeling as it is a response. It is not fueled by the desire of its recipient; it is fueled by the need" (p.59).
* JOY - "Defiant joy is a joy that defies circumstances. Few conditions are more unique to a believer's experience and peculiar to the world than a joy that defies our pain" (p.93).
* PEACE - "The key to being filled with the Holy Spirit so that God's peace may be released within is a mind focused on Him. The peace of God sustains abundant life" (p.112).
* PATIENCE - "The practice of patience helps complete something lacking in us." As we patiently wait for difficult circumstances or people to change, God is working His likeness in us. "Convenience never produces character" (p.134).
* KINDNESS - God is right there in your suffering, grief, & despair. "You are richly loved, do not give up. Once you've had a true glimpse of God's tender heart, you will begin to understand that if the Savior says "no" to your cry, it is because He's saying "yes" to eternal kingdom profit" (p.139 paraphrased).
* GOODNESS - "The most foundational truth about God is that He is good. What God does is good because of the good it does" (p.155). He calls us to do good and to serve others so that they can experience God's goodness through us.
* FAITHFULNESS - "Faithfulness is believing the reality of a sovereign God. God created us to bring Him pleasure. Our calling is to please Him--to wake up every morning saying, "Yes, Lord." then live through the day to discover His questions" (p.157, 162).
* GENTLENESS - "The Greek word for gentleness is praotes. It describes the complete surrender to God's will and way in your life. It basically means to stop fighting God" (p.178). It's about having a teachable, humble, and submissive attitude.
* SELF-CONTROL (Definitely the most challenging for me!) - "The key to self-control is the refusal to allow our enemies (the flesh, the world, or Satan) to rule or hold us captive in any way. Self-control is the decision to remain within the boundaries of victory! (p.201,202)

Only in Christ, are we able to live beyond ourselves by the power of the Holy Spirit!

Now to Him who is able to do far more abundantly beyond all that we ask or think, according to the power that works within us, to Him be the glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations forever and ever. Amen.

Ephesians 3:20-21