Surprises on the other side of wifely submission

Friday, 12. April 2013 by Renee Ellison

What if when we go to the New Jerusalem, we find out that the Almighty had additional packages of blessings waiting to give us, as wives, that we never received?  Suppose that these blessings were reserved for us—to be given to us only on the threshold of submission to our husbands!  Many puzzling verses in scripture have more mystery behind them than we know.  They hint at something, perhaps, but could contain great voltage that we simply don’t understand until we enter into obedience to them.  I am beginning to think this is so with reference to a wife’s submission.  It could be TNT—it just might be that hot!

A biblical understanding of a wife’s submission never involves responding to ungodly edicts, and it never involves taking abuses.  True biblical submission is characterized by a voluntary state of her heart that promotes peace in the home.  There are thousands of little daily choices where a woman can resist her husband’s every suggestion, nipping at his heels, like foxes in a vineyard, or where she can voluntarily submit to him in little matters and in big in order to secure greater harmony in the home.  We are talking about a wife who begins to have this as an appetite—an appetite that wants glory in her family’s relationships more than to always “be right” on issue after issue.

Here is what I’m learning personally about submission.  I shared a piece of it with a woman’s group at a recent conference.  Here it is: it is very possible that God works beyond the husband, even beyond his reason, to achieve some good for the woman, if she will submit to the process under His sovereign care.  The Heavenly Father may work some additional good for the woman, often in a non-related area (the connection is only discerned/discovered spiritually, afterwards), if she lovingly submits to her husband.  The more she cultivates submission as a habit, the greater becomes her own beauty.  It seems to progressively create softness in her character, and adds luster to her countenance.  This had to have been Sarah’s case because she was over 90 years old when Abimelech was attracted to her beauty (Genesis 20).

Learning a proper response to authority is a key to personal happiness, and a sure route to experiencing more peace in the home.  Think about it: it is possible to learn to not be agitated over anything.  We read in history that this is where all the great saints ended up, in their souls. The awareness of the beauties of putting themselves under is threaded throughout their writings. They found this to be the key to advanced spirituality.  How I yearn for this in my own spirit.  I’m getting there slowly, but still have a long ways to go.

For example, one time in an airport I was hostile to my husband because he was inordinately slow in getting into the security line and I though we might miss our flight. However, after I pitched my little fit the Heavenly Father told me, privately, in my spirit, that even if we did miss the flight, Todd would learn from that via someone else or some other experience (or from this one), and I might meet a delightful new friend on a different flight, or have a super yummy meal somewhere else, or be invited to see a beautiful piece of scenery that I would have missed otherwise.

It could be that there might be great consequences behind a wife’s submission that escape even the husband’s understanding.  For example: a woman could be upset with her husband because he won’t let her board a ship to England, when she is standing there on the pier ready to do so, and he all of a sudden has decided to become unreasonable (in her mind), telling her she can’t board, after all. Only to hear later, that the ship went down—as in, it sank!

Or, a woman could be told by her husband which way she should drive home, after dropping him off somewhere.  She could rationally think his suggestion unreasonable because it takes longer.  But, suppose she obeys him anyway?  She would no doubt be surprised to find that by going her husband’s route home she missed a severe car accident up ahead that would have involved her at that exact same minute!  Her husband obviously knew nothing of what was behind his strong recommendation.  Because God authorizes headship as a way to get His work done optimally in the earth, He may supernaturally infuse it with validations that escape the rational mind.  He could possibly create urges in the husband to fulfill the Almighty’s own purposes, in His vastly larger story in the universe.

In other words, sometimes the person who is our headship doesn’t know why they lead as they do, but because everyone is in the proper biblical line of authority it later works to everyone’s good, even beyond what the husband, himself, understood at the time.  When God gives a married man authority, the new husband initially has no idea the levels of validation of his authority that God may also give with it, in the celestial court.

I think if women were told this on their wedding day it would make a huge difference in her willingness to defer to her man.  If a wife understood that she isn’t submitting only to her husband, she is submitting to the Heavenly Father behind her husband, it could give her great joy.

This isn’t the last word on this subject.  All truths have paradoxes which we sandwich ourselves between.  There is often spiritual tension from both ends of a concept, that we navigate by the Holy Spirit’s moment by moment promptings of how to apply the principle in each new and ever shifting scenario.  Submitting like this doesn’t preclude a wife’s giving her man all the added perceptions and loving input she wants to give him, but there comes a point when she goes with what he ultimately decides.  Submission is about outcomes, not input.  Nevertheless, most of us miss the joy of experiencing extra benevolences that may be specifically given to us as women (or children) if we believe the text by faith and begin to function in it gladly, sure of these loving outcomes .

See our book Growing Marriage for a fuller discussion of all of the aspects of a godly submission.  It’s a treasure trove of more such wifely mysteries.

Birthdays under the magnifying glass of the Word

Monday, 28. January 2013 by Renee Ellison

Are you feeling that birthday celebration expectations among your children’s friends could get out of hand?  Do you find that you are spending more and more of your life on birthday party pay-backs and reciprocities?  Does your schedule get eaten up by unexpected additional parties you hadn’t counted on; are you flattered but exhausted?  Are you bothered by the increasing over-the-top materialism, the plastic restaurants that will do it all for you?  You like it, but don’t like it?  Feel trapped?

Are the origins of birthday parties even biblical?  What were its specific pagan practices and for what reasons were they done?  Do we still do those today?  Why?  I remember the day when it struck me as a young mother that playing musical chairs was an AWFUL game.  What kind of values does wanting to hog a chair while pushing another child away, teach?  Wouldn’t I rather like to teach my child to give UP his chair out of deference for another?  There are many things like this that we grew up with in our culture that were simply handed down to us that have not been examined biblically.  Teaching the story of Little Red Riding Hood is another.  What kind of values are in that wretched story of fear and anxiety and unreality?  I can’t name a single person who has ever had to face having a wolf for a grandmother, so why put all that trash in a child’s head?  Whatever FOR?  To what end?!

If you love birthday parties, this blog won’t be for you. But if you have a nagging feeling that something might be off in relation to them, or that you feel more and more uneasy about them, or feel like you are on a roller coaster of expectation from all your friends that you can’t get off from, there might be some liberating thoughts for you from the Bible.  Scripture says to “Love one another”; it never mentions doing that more (or better) on one day over another!  If you were ever to take a fork in the road regarding birthdays, initially, your friends might be outraged that you won’t come to their exhausting parties, but you can be sure that they will cock their heads when you show them more love and thoughtful kindness on an ordinary day, more than they are used to from others.  All our messages about who we are, or who we are becoming, don’t have to get said on a single day!  So here is some food for thought.

The following verse really struck me this morning in a forceful new way:

“They imitated the nations around them, although the Lord had ordered them, `Do not do as they do’ and they did the things the Lord had forbidden them to do” (2 Kings 17:15, NIV).  Apparently it is not enough that we obey the decrees and statutes of Scriptures.  Do we see that we also must NOT do what the heathen do—actions that are typical of heathen behavior?  Should we be putting heathen parts of Christmas and birthdays away, etc., under the ban?  Many of us are still attempting to accommodate both—and this is syncretism.  Are we obeying one and still doing the other?

We, as a family, have grappled with this caving into syncretism in several areas.  Although the pagan practices found in holidays were fairly easy to jettison and replace with Biblical ones, we’ve had a whale of a time jettisoning birthdays completely.  We, personally, as a family still struggle with birthdays.  Although we ended the external parties and invitations long ago, making others focus upon us, which after all IS what happens (and many young mothers have come under the tyranny of ever more lavish birthday parties from ever more friends—coming under a subtle tyranny of giving far more time and money to it than they would really RATHER give), we still privately give gifts to each other, or do dinner, i.e. there is SOME attention drawn to it.  But I’m newly alarmed via this verse about what we perhaps lose of His presence, of His favor, of spiritual heart rest, when we engage in this apparently mild idolatry for a few hours.  Does a mincing degree of it have some death in it for our spirits?  I wonder.

There is nowhere in Scripture where we are told to do birthdays. Accounts of ancient birthdays give us some light on the topic, perhaps.  Pharaoh’s birthday celebration led to the restoration of his cupbearer and the death of his baker, as recorded in Genesis 40:20-22; good for one but not so good for the other?  These ancient birthdays were often occasions of rash behaviors.  John got his head chopped off at Herod’s birthday party (Matthew 14:8).  Job’s sons were apparently doing birthdays, having parties on “their days” and it was apparently not a blessing; their father went out and sacrificed to cover any sins they may have committed, cursing God in their hearts (Job 1:5).

Many birthday practices have heathen origins, not godly ones.  Heathens initiated the custom of making round cakes (in worship of the sun god) on that day; spanking the birthday person to expel wicked spirits; gathering friends, family and loved ones around so as to fend off the attacks of the demons on that day.  Candles were for the sun god.  Wishes were wishes made to demons.

The Messiah Himself never instructed us to celebrate birthdays—not even His own.  He shifted the focus elsewhere to remembering his DEATH, instead: “Do THIS in remembrance of me” (1 Corinthians 11:24), drinking the cup at Passover.  There is no Biblical mention of giving gifts to each other as a means of celebrating His birth.  The few examples of birthdays that are in Scripture are devastating.

Perhaps the root of birthdays may be a bit of self-worship?  It may be what makes us so uncomfortable when everyone at a restaurant sings happy birthday to us.  It might be that a mere mortal was never designed to be able to deal with “worship”—only God was made to be able to stand it without making Him squirm or having it go to His head.  It may be that the only reason He requires any worship for Himself is that it looks good on us—that it was designed for our benefit—much like we as parents, insist that our children say thank you.  We don’t need the thank you, the child needs to say it to put his own spirit in a grateful posture for his own well-being—to take his spirit out of agitation and death over little issues and big.  It may be that worship of the Almighty is the survival adrenalin from heaven that keeps the mortal life “centered” in the most life-giving place.

If you find yourself wondering about all of this, carefully observe the emotional dynamics among people at birthdays, and see what you conclude.  Consecration could be not only about doing but also about not doing.  Just like with healthy diets; it is not only what one puts into one’s mouth, but what one doesn’t eat, that brings about optimal health.  Thinking biblically about every single detail of our lives may take us in some surprising directions with some surprising benefits.  The important thing is to THINK—and to pay attention to our misgivings.

For further reading on this topic, see our booklets/eBooks:
+ Party Themes and Activities
+ How to Keep Your Kids from Slipping into Materialism
+ No Stress Holidays for Moms

Soft on suicide?

Tuesday, 01. January 2013 by Renee Ellison

Suicides are on the increase in our nation.  As much as we find this topic uncomfortable, it is becoming evident that to protect the adolescents in our homes from this potential tragedy, we as parents need to be out ahead of this alarming trend.  We need to prepare our family’s THINKING on this topic now.  Something is happening to the MENTALITY in our culture that precedes these acts.  THAT is where the battle is won or lost.  We need to fortify our homes against the onslaught of cultural propaganda that all but proclaims that suicide is a viable option for handling our problems.  While having compassion for those who have gone this route, we dare not allow our families to slip into a soft view of suicide.

In all declining empires, consensus views on nearly everything grow more and more twisted toward the end of that culture.  These subtle, gradually accelerating deviant views, in fact, CAUSE the collapse.  A falling nation will grow destructive views on nearly all matters ranging from how to conduct a nation’s finances (to navigate by debt, greed and fraud), to what constitutes a marriage (homosexuality has been prominent in all dying cultures), to what real beauty is (tattooing and carving/cutting on one’s own skin), to that nation’s view of death.  A culture’s view even of suicide is very telling.

Currently suicide in our nation is increasingly presented as a dominant way to solve problems in a growing number of thriller novels, movies, and rock music.  Add to that the addiction of an adolescent (or an aimless grown man) to endless hours of virtual killing via video games, his compulsive thumb-stomping on the button to do it again and again, and you’ve got a real persuasion going on about the non-value of life.  Our culture is saturated with this message.

Let’s analyze the three things that choosing suicide really says, and make a point of discussing these with our family. The person contemplating suicide is THINKING:
One:

“God is not sufficient for me in this matter.  My suffering is worse than anyone else’s, either currently or perhaps in all of history, as far as I can see.”

Two:

“I have the RIGHT to end my life.”

  [Though this is in direct defiance of one of the Ten Commandments that says, “Thou shall NOT murder.”  Note: the moral condition of a person who commits suicide is no different from that of someone who dies in the middle of stealing or committing adultery; in each case, the person is directly disobeying one of the eternal moral laws of God.]

Three:

“My body belongs only to me.”

  [This thought defies the Scripture in 1 Corinthians 3:17 which reads, “Don’t you know that you yourselves are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit lives in you?  If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him; for God’s temple is sacred, and you are that temple.”]

Committing suicide really says, “God’s word is not to be feared, and I am now God over me.”  Thus suicide, at its root, under the cloak of self-pity, is on some level a final act of rebellion.

There are many people in the world and throughout history who would have GLADLY chosen suicide, but out of sheer obedience to God they didn’t.  People suffering protracted, long severe illnesses are often tempted by the thought of it, but remain restrained out of deep reverence for God and the thought of meeting Him on the other side.  And think of the countless saints who have been mercilessly tortured in concentration camps, who would have loved a way out, but resisted taking their own life, even when they were given the chance.  Some lived through such tortures to the glory of God, for when they were released they went on to preach all over the world, declaring that they found that “There was no pit so deep that God wasn’t deeper still” (Corrie Ten Boom).

The core issue that we need to teach our families is that God has retained the sovereign right over when life begins and when it ENDS for all of His creation, else He would not be Lord.  God alone creates a mortal human being from its first throbbing cell, and then proceeds to sustain it henceforth with every heartbeat.  He retains the sole right to end what He alone began.  To see that this is so, recall that a man has nothing to do with the hour of his conception.  Try as he might, he could not BEGIN his own life.  It follows then, that God alone will choose the hour of his death.  But all this TRUTH is hardly mentioned from our pulpits amidst 100 sermons over a lifetime, and no doubt is thoroughly absent from the rock music songs—because God Himself is absent from the pop hits.  Thus, among the songs of youth any accountability TO God is missing, as well.

Sometimes in Scripture we read that God, as the benevolent parent over all creation, tells us things very firmly.  He has said: “Thou shalt NOT EAT of the tree of good and evil.”  Later in history He said: “Thou shalt NOT TOUCH the ark.”  The man died who touched it, even though he was trying to keep it from falling.”  Strange as it may seem to the modern permissive mind, there are some things God forbids.  When God says “Do not” and we directly defy that mandate, history shows there may be irreversible consequences.  We are not dealing with a moody psychiatrist here or a goofy mad scientist; we are dealing with the eternal God of the universe.  And in Hebrews 12:29 it says of Him that at times He is a “consuming fire” (also in Deuteronomy 4:24 and elsewhere).  What we must teach our families is that suiciders will wake UP from their suicides.  Who and what they meet with will be infinitely more to deal with than what they were dealing with here.

Instead of discussing these things with seriousness, we as a post Christian-culture have descended into a secular view of all life, ALLOWING it to grow in the songs and media that we buy—even to joke about it.  We’ve marketed suicide.  We’ve become soft on suicide.  Secularism always leads to a death wish, be it Hitler’s and Stalin’s camps, or our own nation’s 55 million abortions, the vast majority of which were done for personal convenience.  Suicide, euthanasia, and short-circuiting the job of procreation through a burgeoning homosexuality, quickly follow.  As a result of our secularism, the empire will die—just as it wished for, and argued for, an infinite number of smaller deaths on scores of other topics.

Let us, instead, resolutely choose LIFE by jealously and carefully watching over the messages our children are receiving through the media—because what you are so earnestly teaching in the living room can be stolen in a child’s bedroom through rock music and other media.  Close off the avenues to the bad press.  Have a talk with your children about this deviant message so prevalent among their peers.  Do not be soft on suicide.  The church and family must hold the line on this one.  Speak sternly to your children that this is not an option for solving problems.  Let them hear firmly and clearly that there is a morning after.

Cremation vs. burial for a Bible-believer

Saturday, 29. December 2012 by Renee Ellison

As we face the beginning of a new year, are your family papers in order?  Specifically, do you have a current will?  Here are some thoughts for consideration, regarding a controversial subject that you will have to give personal written instructions for within those papers.

Although cremation is becoming the dominant way of burying American’s dead, is this practice a good idea for a believer?  What does the Bible say about this?  Regardless of how we or our loved ones have responded to this decision in the past, let’s look at what we may want to do in future when we are called upon to make this decision.  Let’s take a serious look at the roots of cremation.  When its origins are considered closely, one can trace the practice of cremation straight to the pagan fires of such countries as India, South America, and China.  The South Sea Islands, for example, had a practice, in the not so distant past, of throwing the living wife on top of the fire of her dead husband (i.e., both were cremated).

Because something is “done” in a culture, doesn’t mean it ought to be done.  As believers, Scripture alone is our rule for all of life and conduct.  If it is not, the culture becomes our rule.  We then are in danger of arriving at a place where ALL issues descend into cases of “anything goes” via current (and ever-descending, in moral terms) public consensus.

Reincarnation is at the root of the idea of cremation.  Pagans HAVE to burn the body because they believe the person comes BACK to earth as a monkey, or cow—so any evidence of the previous life must be eradicated.  On the other hand, at the core of Christian beliefs is that all is REDEEMED, made new, including the OLD body, which is re-gathered.  Consider the dry bones of Ezekiel.  If there were no bones, then “what” would have been re-gathered?  Christians believe that they will see each other in the flesh in the next life.  Hindus do not.

Nowhere in Scripture do we see cremation condoned.  In fact, we see just the opposite.  Consider 2 Chronicles 34:5.  Note that cremation was done to the wicked, as a sign of judgment.  Fire is a sign of judgment, not of life.  All evil practices have an ORIGIN, and the origin tracks with the expression of that practice through all time.  If we don’t agree with what the practice was declaring at its inception, it makes no sense to buy into the practice later.  We, as a people, have not stopped to consider what comes WITH such practices, in the spirit realm.

Believers in the Messiah, instead, want to HONOR the body because it shows our conviction that the person is eternal.  Joseph, looking forward to the next life as he was dying in Egypt, said, “Take my BONES with you to Canaan”.  There is a connected dignity to this life AND the next life for the believer.  It would not be at all surprising to find that some Hebrews will awake upon the exact spot of their future inheritance plot, where they will live on in the coming Millennium.  They believed in an afterlife, as Job said: “Though worms destroy this body, in my flesh shall I see God.”  Throughout Genesis the patriarchs were ALL buried.  The ongoing practice of burial from Adam and Eve to the present day actually is one more evidence today of the Israelites’ deed claims to the very land of Israel.  When ownership of land is being contested via the legalities of provenance (who was originally there, or who was there first), it is hard to argue with the LOCATION of grave sites and burial stones.

Our Lord’s own example as the pioneer in ALL things in our faith, our forerunner, was to sovereignly allow Himself to be buried.  Joseph of Arimathea chose this as a way of restoring dignity to the Lord.  Joseph saw to it that he was careful in all of the details of giving the Lord a proper burial.  If the Lord had been cremated, a major piece of the afterward story couldn’t have happened or been told for all time.  It would have been impossible to show the truth of resurrection without the body.  The same is true of Lazarus’ body.  What happened to his body was a major testimony to a multitude of people about eternal life, as all funerals and memorial services are meant to be, even down to the present age.  All the resurrections that happened simultaneously with the Lord’s own, when the tombs were opened in Jerusalem, would not have been possible, without bodies.  The hope of the resurrected body is one of the believer’s most cherished immortal treasures.  And God personally chose this way of burying Moses himself.  It seems paramount that God wants us to get the message by burying, symbolically copied in our baptisms, by the way, that the body is SOWN corruptible and then is raised incorruptible.

Let’s look finally at two practical aspects.  In order to accomplish cremation, one has to look squarely at the fact that ovens are used in this process.  Flesh burns speedily, but bones do not.  The raging high levels of heat (sometimes 1,700 degrees) necessary in these crematorium ovens, to get the job COMPLETELY done, is atrocious.  They often have to grind the bones, in addition.  (God was upset with the Moabites for burning bones.) It is almost as if the Lord made the body to REFUSE to be stamped out, even after it is dead.  It is difficult to accomplish this with bones.  Because Americans don’t SEE the practice, and are not forced to WATCH the entire process, they remain untroubled.  We cling to the idea that what is hidden is NOT, in our culture.  And why would one want for one’s loved ones the same practice that was used to try to annihilate the Jewish race…Hitler’s ovens?  There is an OVEN involved in this process.  In the Scriptures, fire is a sign of God’s wrath, not of honor.  And it is fire that will destroy the earth, finally.

And what of the ashes?  Rationally, who wants ashes (not a person) in a decorated urn in their living rooms for the rest of THEIR lives?  Whatever do we keep them around FOR?  Another material possession?  We have accepted what is unthinkable—even against our reason, OR our emotions?  Do we really WANT to endlessly hammer on our emotions each time we dust, when the Lord has graciously provided another way to show respect, and to emotionally cope with the finality of death, and hold on to PLEASANT memories of a living person?

Many think they are choosing cremation because it is cheaper.  But for centuries the dead have been buried on the day they die—eliminating all the need for expensive cosmetic afterlife procedures—often in a simple pine box.  Even today the simplest of coffins can be procured at low costs.  Earlier, people of faith (Jewish and Christian) wrapped the body in linen and put it directly into the ground.  Inexpensive grave sites can be found in less populated areas.  We don’t HAVE to straddle ourselves with the huge price tag of a luxurious formal mortuary, by choosing what is Biblically right.  Much of life is about choices.  In the last analysis, we WILL MAKE happen what we WANT to happen, or are convicted should happen.  Let us ask of ourselves if each of our choices is governed by Scripture or by the culture.  Which will we be proud of, or ashamed of, in the next life?  If one hunts for the Lord’s WISHES in Scripture, they CAN be found, in all matters governing our life and death.

The anatomy of a trial

Wednesday, 05. September 2012 by Renee Ellison

Trials always take us by surprise.  We get blind-sided by them.  They happen in a moment.  One moment we aren’t in one, the next moment we ARE in one.  No pre-posturing possible.  You just wake up in one.  You take it on the chin.  It’s all over you before you KNOW it.  “Gottcha.”  You don’t ask for them, nor can you avoid them.  They just hit, always unannounced.  Whether psychological or physical, it makes no difference, they are equally taxing to endure and manage.

Trials can range anywhere from someone’s rude remark, to finding oneself in a stifling set of circumstances, to having to make an impossible scissors-choice decision, to becoming increasingly trapped in an unintended embroilment.  Physically, they can ensnare you in barely being able to draw your breath due to a pinched nerve for an hour or so, or being laid up for months after a total bang-up in a traffic accident.  Trials can come and give you a whirl, like pulling the string on a top, and be gone, or move in with you to stay, like Amy Carmichael’s fall in a hole that lasted 20 years in bed, or like the slow erosion of a set of circumstances one can’t get out of.  What ARE these things, spiritually?  Why the land-mines?

C. S. Lewis said:  “Trials come to all mankind, but Christians USE their sufferings; pagans waste them.”  Apparently, trials accrue some benefit for the believer.  Herein lies a mystery.  In some inexplicable way, our hard patches aren’t just hard patches!  In the Scriptures there is a hint that for every trial a believer falls into, he will come out with INCREASED spiritual territory.  It appears that the “deed” to new territory IS the trial.

In Daniel, three Jewish lads were thrown into the fiery furnace but to their surprise, they met up with God himself IN there, and they came out un-singed—not even smelling like smoke.  In addition, they gained a loud proclamation over the land that now everybody must believe in their God!  Not bad for a short trip into unbelievably hot circumstances.  Same with Daniel.  He was dumped into the lions’ den but was hauled out the next morning un-chewed, not even slobbered on, WITH the gain of the conversion of his king.  Consider Job.  In James we are told to think on the OUTCOME of his trial.  Everything was restored double-fold.  You may be tempted to say, “but not the children”.  But ah, yes, the children, too—godly Job will have his original children in eternity, plus seven MORE.  Noah had HIS trial as an older man.  He left terra firma, had a tangle with a tsunami, and landed unharmed.  The first thing he did was worship.  That might not have been on his schedule for that day, as SUCH a priority, ahead of dinner, without the boat-ride.  Nebuchadnezzar’s metamorphosis out of his beastly stupor resulted in an increased rock-solid adoration of God which wasn’t gonna’ diminish anytime soon!

The key to gaining increased spiritual territory FROM trials seems to be what the believer does with the promises of God while IN the trial.  All bets are off if one rails against God.  But with a heart that says: “Though He slay me, YET will I trust Him” as Job said ... and “NEVERTHELESS, even if we die in this furnace, we will believe in our God,” or Esther’s “If I perish, I perish,” the outcomes are different.  Redeemed, somehow.  There is no wavering here.  These believers are STANDING on something.

Here is an odd scripture.  In Hebrews 11:39-40 it says:  “They died without having RECEIVED the promises.”  It doesn’t say that they didn’t BELIEVE the promises right up to their last breath, or that they wavered on the promises.  They just hadn’t RECEIVED them ... yet.  We are assured here, by implication, that the promises ARE given.  Where?  When?

If the promises are not gained now (many promises ARE gained while still in this time frame—there have been millions of answers to prayers through the centuries) then the rest of them must be received yet in the future.  The story is not over.  Far from it.  Our resurrected bodies are given BEFORE entering the promised land (Revelation 20:6).  We gain them, to live in them during that last thousand years while He reigns on earth—else we couldn’t REIGN with Him in the millenium—we wouldn’t last in an unglorified body!  So, too, the answers to the promises are given at that hour.  Think about it.  What promise would NOT be given?  Think of even one.  The promises go WITH the territory—with the transformation.  We are told that “we shall NOT be ashamed” when we SEE Him (1 John 2:28), and entering into the millennium is WHEN we shall see Him.  “His reward is with Him” (Isaiah 40:10 and 62:11).  We eventually GET the outcomes of the trials of our faith—each and every one, specifically!

The promises of God are not fairy tales—they are an extension of His very nature.  We are told that “All the promises of God are “yes” in Christ (2 Corinthians 1:20).  The promises of God are a direct expression of His will toward us—in every detail and area that they speak of.  There can be no doubt.  The devil stakes all his warfare upon the severity and DURATION of the trial.  When the believer is like a “dog on a bone” holding fast to the promises of God—over the length of the trial—the reward is sure and his spiritual territory is always increased.  In the face of a believer’s unshakeable faith, the devil’s wind goes out of him.  He sizzles down into a heap of mild and increasingly meager protestations.  Aha—so THAT is what these things are that hit the believer so out of the blue and temporarily throw him so off balance.  They are but the lance leveled at the bulwark of our confidence.  May it not prevail.  Tighten your bite.

LIGHTS OUT?  Are you ready?

Monday, 03. September 2012 by Renee Ellison

For decades, the Boy Scout motto, “Be prepared”, sparked forethought in sterling young men who became an asset to any situation.  You always wanted a Boy Scout in your neighborhood, at your campsite, and most especially at the scene of your accident!  They were READY.  We are NOT ready, as a nation, for an EMP (electromagnetic pulse) fry-out.

An EMP fry-out is no fairy tale.  Parts of the nation have experienced massive power outages due to natural disasters in recent times.  But power outages could occur from a new type of electrical warfare, too.  All traditional warfare aside, an electrical fry-out would literally bring our nation to its knees, crippling it with malfunction.  Computers and all communications devices would be down, hospitals would be down, power plants would be off-line (no electricity or water or natural gas), fuel and transport would be down due to disabling of the computer chips in the vehicles and no electricity to work the gas pumps, commerce would be crippled, cash registers silenced, banks would close, and electronic money would vanish.  We would be plunged into the Dark Ages, with no skills or tools to enable us to cope with it.  It would be a long nightmare.  We as individuals, however, can be LESS traumatized by such an event in our future daily life if we will get prepared NOW.  As Proverbs 22:3 says, “The prudent FORSEETH the evil [alarming possibility] and hideth HIMSELF”—not his whole nation.  There is NO DOWNSIDE to PREPARATION, as an individual and as a family.  And no one is stopping you.

Is this imminent?  It could be.  There are three potential sources of trouble: weather and earthquake disasters, Iran’s hatred, and the sun. Anytime someone calls you the Big Satan and VOWS to neutralize you, because their eschatology demands it, you’d better get prepared for anything.  Iran’s ideas range from using suitcase bombs to launching a nuclear bomb from a ship near our coast (after they attack Israel, as soon as they are able to do that)—targeting the center of our nation—and from that radius a fry-out would be successful over the whole nation.  And such a fry-out could be accomplished withOUT a nuclear weapon, any host of OTHER ways, by Iran, Korea or China, as well.  There is no defense against such an attack.  Air and cyber warfare possibilities are infinite.  We’ve never faced them before.

The sun’s danger?  Radioactive sun flares.  The sun is fast reaching the peak of its solar activity cycle, belching larger and larger radioactive sun flares that have historically caused the Earth trouble and will do so in greater measure, this time, in the not-too-distant future.  We cannot stop the sun.  It will do what it will do.  And it currently doesn’t look good.  Scout it out for yourself on the Internet.  Scientists are VERY concerned with what this will do to electrical transformers world-wide.

The keys to preparation are forethought and practice.  Mental preparation—living through the event in your head, ahead of time, is first.  Next, realize that practical preparation involves STUFF.  Preparing your stuff has four key steps:

One: Build artificial heat.  Pretend that the fry-out will happen soon—even a week from now.  What is NOT ready?  What is most important to GET ready?

Two: Make a list, prioritize your list, and obtain things in that order.

Three: Think through ADDITIONAL parts to your stuff—fuel, batteries, light bulbs, matches, etc.  Missing just one piece can be as significant as not having the tool in the first place.

Four: Practice.  Improve.  Then practice again and again, until you get it down pat and you don’t lack any key thing that makes your survival “do-able”.

Basic preparation may FEEL overwhelming, but it need not be.  Given some serious focus and a good plan, you can get the bulk of vital preparations all done in a week, if you’ll stick at it.  Go for it and then practice living through a power-outage crisis over some weekend, soon.  Guaranteed, you’ll have a dismal go at it.  Get up, tweak it, and go after it again next weekend.  Your neighbors won’t be doing any of this, as they sit cocooned and captivated by evening television shows.  Imagine the power grid going down tomorrow.  HOW ready would you be?  No one else cares.  No one else will be preparing FOR you.  “Night cometh when no man can work”  The option is to prepare for the possibility that progress will be at a stand still for a long time,  shops will be closed, Amazon.com down, trucks stopped, shipping no more.

There is a host of “preppers” info freely obtainable online.  But we found much of it overwhelming, and began to work very hard at synthesizing the most vital parts of voluminous information into a simple inexpensive DO-ABLE 40-page booklet, Emergency Preparedness for Families.  This is a booklet for believers because it includes vital information about mental and spiritual steps to take, and how to endure persecution.  The optimal PRACTICAL plans here presented will save you hours of reinventing the wheel and will give you the courage to face the MENTAL parts of increased tribulation, too.  Order it in hard copy ($5) or as an eBook ($4) on our website.  You won’t regret it.  Times are tough, and they will only be getting tougher.  Get prepared.

Strive to raise a holy child, not just an academic one

Wednesday, 29. August 2012 by Renee Ellison

Preserving godly seed in this world is precarious, at best. Right from the Garden of Eden, we nearly lost the godly line when Cain killed Abel. Angels held their breath until Seth was born because there was no godly line to replace Abel there for awhile. And angels held their breath again when all but Noah were wiped off the earth. The godly seed YOU raise is terribly important. A frail godly thread hangs in the balance over the entire earth and your child is in that line. This must be your first, and last, obsession. It is your highest call to raise a holy child for the Kingdom, as well as for the child’s own soul.

While the enemy occupies us with academic anxieties over Greek gods (demons), he prowls around to take the SPIRITS of our children. Keep your focus on the “worship factor” in your children. What are they starting to worship? Movie actors? Rock stars? What posters and pictures are going up in their rooms? What are they listening to? Watching? Talking about? Be too busy with godly pursuits to let this worldliness gain any head of steam in their lives in the first place. Let Bible reading, serving real needs in the real world, gaining life skills of all sorts, and running home based businesses occupy those hours, instead. Is their devotion to the one true God SECURE? How MUCH do they love Him? What can you do to raise the spiritual bar in your child in the few short years of influence that you have with him? Is his affection for God locked-in, rock sure? Where does your child run emotionally in his spare moments? What reading does he prefer? How does he use his discretionary time?

There is no downside to raising a godly child. Holy children don’t rebel. Holy children internalize YOUR values—they have no reason to rebel. They love the God you love as ardently as you do, or more so. They enlarge heaven and enlarge righteousness upon the earth, while they wait for heaven. They don’t get side-tracked. They cause no trouble. They waste no life. Their very presence and their choices glorify God while they walk among the sons of men. They are content. They are cheerful. They are selfless. They are mature before their time, as Timothy was.

Most of us as parents are preoccupied…we are chasing the wrong ball…in the wrong ball park…playing the wrong game. The “game” of life is to “glorify God and to enjoy Him forever” (Westminster Catechism) and to raise up godly seed to do the same. Until our children are ambitiously doing that, under their own gumption, without us, even when we aren’t looking, we have work to do. If all we do is focus on secular academics, we COULD raise an intelligent murderer. Our grief will know no end if we worship academics only, but our joy can know no bounds if we groom the spirit to adore the living God. Take up your child, steward him in holiness, and return him to His Maker…just like Hannah did with Samuel.

There are FOUR ways to steward a child in the development of holiness.

1. Set a good example, yourself. Be in a “white heat” yourself in your own love for God. Be daily in His word. Be ever running to Him with the vicissitudes of life. Nothing inspires like example. Turn off the cultural noise (media and all) until you have tended to God as your FIRST priority, EVERY day. No matter how disheveled the schedule, go to Him at your FIRST discretionary moment.

2. Train your child’s will. God takes a lifetime to show us as adults how exchanging our will for His will in all matters in life is actually our most fulfilled life. We were created FOR God, not for ourselves. We will always be slightly off the radar of the real deal, slightly out of focus, when we live for self. Therefore, believe that developing a supple will in your child is THE avenue to his greatest happiness. The goal? Can he submit himself anytime, anywhere over any matter to the will of his parent, as a young child? Has the child learned to deny himself? He won’t always be having to do this; normal days are filled with much give and take. But CAN he do it, at a moment’s notice, when called upon to? A parent who is forever appeasing his child, humoring him out of his disgruntlement, bending his adult will to his child’s will, trains nothing in his CHILD. The parent already knows how to do this. It is the CHILD who needs the practice.

3. Train your child’s character. Teach him that his word is his bond. Train him in personal nobility: not to lie, to follow through with what he says, to be trustworthy. There are around 50 of these attributes. Find out what these are, and go to it.

4. Teach your child to go to (and rely upon) his OWN prayer closet. All of the remarkably holy saints throughout history knew the value of their own prayer closet. Each of them had discovered that THIS is where you recalibrate spiritually and cross-examine your motives as you HEAR from God through HIS Word and YOUR prayer. Daily cloistered away from the world at some moment during the day to transact business with God changes a man like the sun changes seeds in a garden. No sun, no plant, nothin’, zip, zilch. Time spent in this sacred holy relationship is the core difference between raising a holy child and an academic one. This is the fastest route and the shortest distance to transformation. No man who influences the world for God does so without the prayer closet. George Mueller, Hudson Taylor, Oswald Chambers, Jim Elliot, Charles and John Wesley, Isaac Watts, François Fénelon, Andrew Murray, Charles Finney, George Whitfield, Jonathan Edwards, David Brainerd and others (read them all) of historical note lingered there often. What they conversed about in private with God ALONE materialized in a finished lasting spiritual work on the ground in real life.

So even if you do family devotions, then at the opposite end of the day train the child in his OWN devotional life, so that he learns how to rely upon God by himself for that eventful day when he grows up and leaves home. At first do HIS devotions with him, day after day. By virtue of your own excitement about it, make it the best part of his day. Then imperceptibly, bit by bit, remove yourself from his devotions until he is doing them without you with the same eagerness that he had when doing them with you.

Give him his own Bible (while you are still doing devotions alongside him). Start with easy versions and teach him to underline in it like a workbook (right next to you, with lots of smiles and approval) so that he can rapidly re-find his favorite verses. Also, teach him to jot down one gem from his daily devotions in a little notebook. Just one. This causes him to interact with what he reads and not just go through the motions. Teach him to pray for five minutes. That’s it. You grow a spiritual muscle just like you exercise a physical one—incrementally. One chapter, one thought, one prayer. You are growing a HABIT. It will mushroom on its own.

If you have boys sixth grade and up, have them trade off times with the father for leading short daily family devotions, each of them standing up to read one chapter, at the foot of the dinner table, perhaps. At the close of this reading, encourage your son to make ONE VERBAL COMMENT upon what was just read, for the edification of the family. The whole exercise will take a total of about five minutes. Done. (Long devotions turn everyone off, whether by son OR father.) Men don’t lead their OWN future families because they think it is too overwhelming of a chore, they were never in the HABIT of leading, and they were never trained. To NOT do this becomes a lifetime source of guilt and awkwardness when sons later become the heads of their own households. Require this of your sons, and appreciate them IN it, and it will become the coveted joy of a man’s life as God meant for it to be—fueling their manhood and assuring grand influence in the world via the piety and actions of their own family.

Training academics doesn’t hold a candle to training holiness…but usually you will find that the holy saints BECOME the most academic as well! The spiritual discipline fits them for good progress in the other. BOTH get done, concurrently. William Carey cataloged all the known flora and fauna in his village in India as WELL as was a missionary. Albert Schweitzer cataloged the rivers of Africa. Said again, “there is absolutely no downside to raising a holy child!” The results will be the joy of your life. You can count on it!

Additional resources:
Children Can Gulp the Word
Character Traits Coloring Book and Songs
Wesley’s Daily Holiness Checklist

Finding relationships difficult?

Friday, 24. August 2012 by Renee Ellison

I’ve been young and now I’m old and I’ve never seen any effortless relationship or any uncomplicated person! All relationships eventually clash, in little ways or in big, on the hill of unfulfilled expectations from BOTH sides. All human beings find that they begin life and traverse life misunderstood and emotionally needy. Anger toward others, for not fulfilling us, is really only a process of waking up. When we move beyond this disillusionment, we beautifully mature. God alone satisfies the soul. Instead of seeking more self from others, we find that people are OUR CHARGE to learn to love.

Sweet concord under one roof is only possible when all the inhabitants are living FOR the same thing—God’s glory. That is the only true grounds of lasting relational unity. Sentimentalism alone cannot and will not hold a relationship together. Get the stresses of life up high enough and sentimentalism will fizzle. But when all in a household can see the earnestness of each soul struggling to live for God, even though encumbered with ineptitude, relationships thrive. Such a home is full of tendernesses.

We all begin life as victims of total myopia. Ultimately for each of us, as serious believers, life becomes one long journey from self-absorption to self-denial. A supple will, at the end of life, is the gold God was mining. Relational fires can be good things.  Sit tight; they only burn off the dross, to OUR own improvement!

Thoughts on navigating relational rough patches

Monday, 06. August 2012 by Renee Ellison

Are you going through a rough patch with an important, close relationship?  Here is an array of overcoming thoughts on this topic, to get you up and over the episode.

Life’s hard moments:  Realize that our Heavenly Father keeps us on the stretch (continues to keep the “life-CHALLENGE-rope” a little taut)—both physically and psychologically—to perfect His nature in us.  Sanctification, not happiness, IS what the earth experience is all about.

Re: relationships
One of the greatest attributes of the Creator’s love is its LOOOOOOOONGEVITY.  Correspondingly, He purposefully sees to it that WE have a few of those relationships that go on and on, to show us how WE do with them, in order that we may marvel at HIS ability to do it perfectly.  He manages to love us WHILE we warble and careen in bouts of alienation from HIM over an entire lifetime!  In light of that, how do WE do at loving others over the long-haul?

In his book, Life Together, Dietrich Bonhoeffer says that all relationships have to crash first and then begin to rebuild upon the surer foundation of God’s love, i.e. endless selflessness.  “Crashing” means coming to the point that we have no expectations of the other person—none.  At that point we learn to work at BEING, ourselves, what WE were looking for and hoping for in others.

Realize that another person is who he/she is at their worst moments because of their OWN bankruptcies.  Prior experiences have molded their life responses and their modus operands.  As we mature we must grow to have a great compassion for how tough life has been for the OTHER guy, to CAUSE him/her to be like this.  In all conflict, try to see life through the OTHER person’s eyes.

If you have increasing desires to be holy but have just muffed it in an argument, do not be downcast.  The Father USES that failure.  Holy remorse is the refiner’s most perfect fire.

When you are amidst continuing tough relationships, come to terms with knowing that the Almighty engineers the parameters of each of our lives, moment by moment.  There is no BETTER life for us, today—no reason to long for someone ELSE’s circumstances and life.  He particularly designed THIS one for YOUR advancement and growth, today.  And HE can be found IN IT, working marvelously on your behalf, if you perk up our ears, sniff the air, and hunt for it.  He works for each of us EXACTLY what we need through our CURRENT life.  There are no mistakes—no “wrong” circumstances.  Surely, this is amazing ULTIMATE benevolence on His part toward us.

Be alive to the spiritual law of spiritual compensations.  It is EVERYWHERE.  The loving Heavenly Father’s wrapping paper and joy are sprinkled everywhere!  I broke my leg the other day.  But while I was sitting in the car all day, waiting hours for an appointment, He sent a gentle WONDERFUL breeze!  It was unusually refreshing.  Because HE lives, ALL of life is like that, even in a dungeon!  Someone may have a difficult childhood, but an easy marriage.  Or an easy childhood but a difficult marriage; or, run out of gas on a trip but meet a marvelous person who helps; skimpy groceries this week, but extraordinary unexpected dinner gifted to us; lots of friends but a difficult in-law, or an easy in-law but difficult neighbors; a cantankerous spouse but a delightful child; a taxing child but a delightful spouse; no money but good relationships; hot climate but refreshing friends; perfect climate but loneliness; a small left brain but a large right brain!  We may have a rotten “this” but a heavenly “that”!  But after we’ve been seasoned in God’s love enough, we drop demanding any adjectives to our experiences at all—because they are ALL good—when seen as FOR our good (Romans 8:28).

Movies: A passport to delusion

Friday, 27. July 2012 by Renee Ellison

The recent tragedy in an Aurora, Colorado movie theater has shaken us all, but, in addition there is a more subtle concern related to movies, that is also sobering.

I have been distressed recently, reading popular Christian writers and noticing that they can hardly write a paragraph without referring to some movie.  It dawned on me that our point of reference, as an entire culture, has actually SHIFTED from the Book of Proverbs to sit-coms and movies.  We now tether off of the movie for our conversations and analogies, instead of the Bible.  Recently while skimming some of the works of these popular Christian writers, I jotted down a few of the titles of the movies they referred to as I read, and afterwards looked them up on Amazon to get their ratings and to view a few short clips.  I was appalled at what I saw.

When one considers what is IN these movies, it becomes apparent that our culture is clearly in a deep state of “warpia”.  We think we are just in for a nice entertaining evening “swim,” but the water is growing HOT for us MENTALLY.  The HOUR is hot.  [And sometimes, as in the tragic situation inside the Batman Colorado movie theater a week ago, the actual environment is deadly.]  We are not MENTALLY where we once were.  We are at sea, with no moral shoreline in sight.  Modern films are saturated with arrogant saucy attitudes, self-indulge entitlement thinking, outrageous unkindnesses and/or violences to others, vices galore, and ridicule of God.  Yet we HAVE to use THESE vehicles as a point of reference to communicate about ideas?  What has happened to us?

HAVING to refer to modern films, many of which are dripping with occultism and altered realities, is a spiritually crushing state of affairs, indeed. All too often, the realities in these films are not God’s realities.  They are born of witchcraft and defiance against the heavenly order, both in what a being is created for (e.g., a homosexual couple can’t produce a child) and in what righteous authority was designed to be—endlessly making fun of fathers and clergymen.  In these filmed new realities, good and bad are often redefined; the person using devious means WINS.  REAL life with one’s real neighbor, real economics, my brother’s real need is of no REAL concern; we are nightly wrapped in a raucous digital life that means nothing.

Let’s add it up: occultism, altered realities, defiant re-ordering of created beings, and casting off of divine government—i.e. preferring rebellion to worship—THESE are what we NEED to communicate?  Movies are the source of the life-sized posters on the walls of our children’s bedrooms.  These characters are their EXAMPLES.  Where is the symbolic picture of the Good Shepherd on the wall?  It is in the trash.  Vile “scenes” are now our REFERENCE points.  And THESE are NOT in the trash.

Pastors and professors are increasingly using movie clips to make a point.  The other day the pastor of a mainline church near us used Walt Disney scenes to define the gospel for his audience.  All that did was entice the young mind to want to see the REST of those films, having whetted the appetite in a baptized holy setting…surely it MUST be all right.  The supposed “godly insight” that was gained was lost on the way home from church (or on the way out the door).

What happened to using the Book of Proverbs as our moral reference point?  How ‘bout the MEMORIZATION of the entire Book of Proverbs?  What about reading the Proverb of the day (i.e., this is the 28th, so today it’s Proverbs chapter 28)?  What if two people stood before you—one addicted to movies, the other addicted to Proverbs (i.e. one who conscientiously meditates upon that timeless wisdom and attempts to live by them, sorrowful when he falls even slightly from its precepts).  Which person would YOU pick for your boss?  your business partner?  Which one do you want to be the President?  Which one of them your car mechanic, or the producer of your food?  Your governor, Chief Justice, or accountant?  The violent and morally shady material with which the mind has habitually hobnobbed slam-dunk produces a disturbed individual—and a disturbed culture.  Be aware of this shift from the Bible to movies—at least where your own children are concerned and while you still have influence.  The hour is short and the battle is insidious.

(For further reading, download our ebook, TV Watching out of Control .)