God accepts me just as CHRIST is

The following is an excerpt from a blog that I read regularly. The content just changed me so much that I had to post it here. Really, really insightful.

“What happens to the Gospel when idolatry themes are not grasped? ‘God loves you’ typically becomes a tool to meet a need for self-esteem in people who feel like failures. The particular content of the Gospel of Jesus Christ—‘grace for sinners and deliverance for the sinned-against—is down-played or even twisted into ‘unconditional acceptance for the victims of others’ lack of acceptance.’ Where ‘the Gospel’ is shared, it comes across something like this: ‘God accepts you just as you are. God had unconditional love for you.’ This is not the biblical Gospel, however. . . .

“The Gospel is better than unconditional love. The Gospel says, ‘God accepts you just asChrist is. God has “contraconditional” love for you.’ Christ bears the curse you deserve. Christ is fully pleasing to the Father and gives you His own perfect goodness. Christ reigns in power, making you the Father’s child and coming close to you to begin to change what is unacceptable to God about you. God never accept me ‘as I am.’ He accepts me ‘as I am in Jesus Christ.’ The center of gravity is different. The true Gospel does not allow God’s love to be sucked into the vortex of the soul’s lust for acceptability and worth in and of itself. Rather, it radically decenters people—what the Bible calls ‘fear of the Lord’ and ‘faith’—to look outside ourselves.”

-David Powlison, “Idols of the Heart and ‘Vanity Fair,’” Journal of Biblical Counseling 13 (1995): 49.

I realize this may be a shocking statement to some. In a sense, I suppose it’s true to speak of God’s unconditional love in the sense that his love rests on us irrespective of what we deserve. But the wisdom of Powlison’s quote is to expose that “unconditional acceptance” can possibly mask a refusal to repent, a holding onto who I am and refusing what God offers me in Christ.

Guest Post by Eric Ortlund

He left the light on for me

It is midnight and I just walked in the door from being out at a prayer meeting with some precious girlfriends. It is a dark night and the light from my front porch was a comforting beacon of warmth and acceptance. It was as if I could audibly hear, "you belong here, we won't rest until you are safe within these walls, the light shines to show you in where you ought to be"

It is a big deal that the lights were on because the darkness was most certainly present upon my departure. My husband and I had not had the best evening in this journey of marital bliss and so after the kids were down and kitchen was clean I checked with him if anything else needed to be done and then I left. Cold and dark was my interaction with him. So in response to my earlier behavior upon leaving, I was more or less expecting a dark house when I drove up. But no, there was light.

There is forgiveness - he has forgiven me. There is acceptance - he accepts me for who I am. There is fellowship - I am his friend and he desires for us to spend time together. This is what the light represents to me.

"In HIM was life, and the life was the light of men. and the light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not comprehend it." John 1:4-5

"This is the message which we have heard from Him and declare to you, that God is light and in HIM is no darkness at all. If we say that we have fellowship with HIM, and walk in darkness, we lie and do not practice the truth. But if we walk in the light as He is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus Christ His Son cleanses us from all sin."

1 John 1:5-7

I see these Bible verses in a totally new 'light'. I often just turn my back on God, walk away to go my own way and not face the reality of my wrongs. Eventually, I come back and when I do, I know HE is eager to welcome me in to where I truly belong because, well, He leaves the light on for me.

Lavender the herb of relaxation

I named this blog 'Lavender Lane' to be a bit sarcastic because there isn't much around me that smells like lavender. We just colored Easter eggs today and when my 5 year old Eric walked in the kitchen this afternoon he says,

"Why does is smell like a stinky in here!?!?"

I guess he isn't used to the smell of several cracked hard boiled eggs and vinegar.

He came home from school the other day so excited to tell me that one can recycle elephant poop to make paper! :-) Betcha didn't know that!!!

Amy says the CUTEST things. Here are some of my faves...

'My spy wif my little eye sumping is...'

'God Our Father, God Our Father, we fank you, we fank you. Many many blessings, many many blessings. Amen. Amen'

Precious Paul is giving me a run for it!!! 21 months going on 21 years!! The other day he wandered out of the house and by the time I discovered his presence was no longer under my feet he was in the middle of the church parking lot behind our house. These are his most frequently said words, 'Tain-tu, Biaper, Ou-sigh, cookie, cake and eeeat". The child never misses a meal and if you were to pick him up you would agree with me.

I am carrying our fourth child!!! 14 weeks along and the baby is due on his/her daddy's birthday which is October 19. We are hoping for a girl and Amy is quite sure that it is. We love Baby already and can't wait to meet it. I know there will be much more cute sayings, messy meals and lots of stinkys to come, but all in all... life here in Lavender Lane is...

Beautiful.

A Mother's Prayer Tears

Have you ever checked in on your children while they are in a deep sleep?

I just did. And my eyes are still wet with their outpouring of love that can't be explained in words. It is the middle of the night and I can't sleep. So I go in to check on my children and I am just brought to tears.

Can it be that these precious, beautiful children are begotten of me and Tim? These living, breathing, growing, thinking little human beings started from two tiny cells.

Why even now, there is one so small growing in my womb and yet so full of life that I am overjoyed at the mere thought of what this little one can bring to this earth.

Amazing! So amazing I am speechless, and the only 'thinking' comes from my eyes as they well up with tears only to fall on the bodies of these sleeping babes.

Prayer tears.

They contain my prayers for life and life abundant. Prayers that the Words of Christ would dwell in their hearts. Prayers for health, strength, long life, and that their faith may not fail.

"The prayers of the righteous availeth much" I am not sure where that is in the Bible, but it is there. I don't feel righteous and I certainly can point to some unrighteous behavior in my life, but I pray that my prayer tears for my children will availeth much.

A mother messes up a lot. At least this mother does...O, but to know , to KNOW that my prayer tears have not fallen in vain. My Father, the Creator Almighty in Heaven has heard them and has collected the tears.

After all, He made me to be a mother

Love one another

Just heard this from my precious children and I had to record it...

Eric and Amy were sitting at the table eating lunch when Amy says, "I'm done."

She got up and started making her way to the living room when she says, "Hey Eric, wanna play Charades?"

Eric: Not right now, I'm still eating.

Amy: Okay, I'll just play by myself.

(By the way, how does one play Charades by oneself?)

Eric: Nooooo, Amyeeeeeeeeee. I want to play with you. You are my best friend.

At that my heart swells and a broad smile takes over my face.

"This is My commandment, that you LOVE one another, that your joy may be full." ~Jesus

I know why God commands us to love one another and I know how much joy it brings Him when we love each other. My kids say they love me all the time and yes I love to hear it and I appreciate it. I know they love me. I gave birth to them, I nursed them, I held them close for hours on end and bonded with them early in their lives and everyday since. So I really do not have to hear from their lips that they love me...albeit wonderful...I just know they love me.

But when I hear them say that they love one another and that they are best friends... that warms my heart infinitely more than when they profess their love for me. Why is that?

Now as I type this they are making Lego space ships for each other. Such a joy to peek in on them.

This is the greatest commandment, You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, soul, mind and strength and the second is this, love thy neighbor ~Mark 12:30

Getting Up

Getting up early to read, pray and write.

What is it with me and getting up early!?! Why is it so hard and such a battle in my mind? My husband gets up for work and leaves by 5:30 every morning. So I feel like I have at least some motivating factor to help get my tush out of bed and see him off.

But no. I stay and sleep.

"A little sleep, a little slumber, and a little folding of the hands to rest; so shall your poverty come like a prowler, and your need like an armed man." Proverbs 24:33

That's convicting. Is it convicting enough for me to get out of bed?

A few months ago I was enjoying a lovely evening with a group of women. All of these women were married to physicians (be it residents or attendings). So one major action that the two wiser and more experienced ladies did was to get up every morning with their husbands and fix his breakfast or get his coffee.

They GOT UP!!! One admitted that she didn't do much for her husband at 4:30am in the morning except heat up a muffin for him, but hey, getting one's head away from a warm, soft pillow and one's feet onto the cold, hard floor of the early morning says she did MUCH!

These ladies were on the same team as their husbands. They were for them and they didn't just say it, but they lived it. They anticipated the needs of their God-given spouses and put some action in the mix.

I say that I am a relational individual and that I have often 'taken pride' in the fact that I am just "so relational". The truth is I am a very poor communicator. So the whole 'relational' thing is thrown out the window because how in the world can one have a relationship with anybody unless there is communication?!

So here I am, communicating with myself really and writing for the world wide web to see that I have resolved to get up at least two mornings a week to communicate with my husband (my most important human relationship) before he leaves for work. Additionally, I will stay up in order to have a time to communicate with God (my most important relationship).

"His grace is sufficient for thee"

Cush

...the land of whirring wings along the rivers of Cush, which sends envoys by sea in papyrus boats over the water. Go, swift messengers, to a people tall and smooth-skinned, to a people feared far and wide, an aggressive nation of strange speech, whose land is divided by rivers -
Isaiah 18

Present day northern Ethiopia is the Cush of the Old Testament. I have seen it with my own eyes and what a sight indeed! This was my first trip overseas and I was overwhelmed. Sure I knew beforehand what a fortunate nation America is and that we have so much abundance, but I was shocked at the real way of living for most of the 80 million people in Ethiopia. It is one thing to see something on TV when you are watching it from your air conditioned house in a comfy recliner. It is totally different when you are experiening it standing in the middle of Ethiopia looking into the eyes of one of its daughters.

I flew into Addis Ababa on a Thursday night and was one of the ONLY white (Farinjii) in a huge crowd of the Bole Internationa Airport. After passing through customs and picking up my bag I headed for the reception area straining to find the other farinjii (my Timmy) in a crowd of hundreds. What a welcome sight he was!

From there we went to his apartment that he called home for the past four weeks. The next morning I woke at 4:30am to the encantations from an Ethiopian Orthodox Christian priest. There must have been a church nearby and this church had a loud speaker with which the priest was able to broadcast the daily prayers. "Strange speech" indeed. The national language is Amharic and second to that is English.

That day I spent with Tim at Zewditu hospital where he worked for some of the month. Black Lion, the other hospital was the larger of the two and I did not get to go there. That night we went to a traditional Ethiopian restaurant with dancing, food and the whole bit. It was really awesome and eyeopening.

The next morning we began our journey through Abyssinia. Bahir Dar to Gondor to Lalibela to Axum and finally back to Addis Ababa.

I have so much more to share, but I will wait for another post. I hope to get pictures put up too. In the meantime, if you EVER get the opportunity to go to Africa - TAKE IT!!! Until next time...