Great Quote I Love

Sent to me by one of the precious girls I disciple:

----

Still he shows his freedom and lordship by discriminating between sinners, causing some to hear the gospel while others do not hear it, and moving some of those who hear it to repentance while leaving others in their unbelief, thus teaching his saints that he owes mercy to none and that it is entirely of his grace, not at all through their own effort, that they themselves have found life.

Still he blesses those on whom he sets his love in a way that humbles them, so that all the glory may be his alone. 

Still he hates the sins of his people, and uses all kinds of inward and outward pains and griefs to wean their hearts from compromise and disobedience.

Still he seeks the fellowship of his people, and sends them both sorrows and joys in order to detach their love from other things and attach it to himself.

Still he teaches believers to value his promised gifts by making them wait for those gifts, and compelling them to pray persistently for them, before he bestows them.

- J.I. Packer

Missions

When it comes to missions, give God a blank check.  -David Platt

Missions exist because worship of God doesn't.  -John Piper

The question is not whether you will die.  The question is whether the death you die will bear much fruit.  -John Piper

He is no fool who gives what he cannot keep to gain that which he cannot lose.  -Jim Elliot

If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow me.         -Jesus Christ

Have you ever missed someone for every single day for over a year?  I have.  When my beloved and most favorite Aunty Agnes died in 2008 from sarcoma cancer, I grieved and mourned her death and missed her a lot.  But to be honest, I didn't miss her every day, and not in the way I miss you.  You set the record.

Encouragement to people like me on Valentime's Day

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Question 10: What Hope Does God Offer Lonely Singles?

Many Christian singles who cannot find a spouse end up dating non-Christians and compromising themselves. What does Christ offer a Christian who is tired of the weirdness of Christian dating, who longs to be married, who is sick of being lonely, but who doesn’t have any Christian prospects, and isn’t getting any younger? What would you say to them?

First, I just want to totally affirm the desire to be married. I don’t want anybody to ever feel guilty about that desire. I feel like so often, particularly single women — God bless them — they feel like the only message they get is: “Find your contentment in Christ. Isn’t Christ enough for you?”

And I think that’s such a terrible response, because the desire to get married is agood desire. It may even be a desire woven into them by the Creator of the universe. If the Bible says, “He who finds a wife, finds what is good” (Proverbs 18:22), that’s all I need to affirm a desire for marriage in men and women.

But like all desires, they have to be placed where they belong. I want to affirm the desire for marriage and I want to warn against the fear of loneliness becoming a desire so far up in your list of desires that you would be willing to compromise and put yourself in a situation that would be more horrific and far more lonely for you in the future.

Unfortunately, a lot of godly women get to a place where they are tired of the “weirdness” of Christian dating and the apathy from Christian men to actually pursue them, and it has led them to marry — I won’t even go as far as to say “lost guys” — but what I will just call “neat Christian boys” who go to church a couple of times a month and own a Bible. And on that basis, a woman justifies getting into a relationship with a man — a man who will not lead, who doesn’t really love the Lord, but who does come to church.

This ends almost every time in heartbreak. Now they are in a covenant, she feels trapped in that covenant relationship, and so she tries to “fix” her husband. That’s not working, so she hopes maybe having children will fix their marriage. They have children, and now the father is discipling their children not toward the Lord, but away from him.

So in all of this, the way I have tried to counsel our singles at The Village Church is to give themselves over to ministry and to serving the Lord.

Women, give yourself to ministry. There’s a woman who lives with us. She’s in her mid-30s. She leads a ministry, running discipleship groups of women all over the country, in 11 or 12 states, pouring her life into 50 or 60 leaders. She walked these discipleship groups through Wayne Grudem’s Systematic Theology, and more recently though the book of Genesis in a robust study of God’s word. And she would love to be married, but she is not waiting to be married for her life to matter, for her life to count.

And even when I think of the young woman who helped shape some of these questions, she has given herself over to serve the Lord, to write and to teach and to disciple and to open up her home to care for other women and to encourage other women to grow in biblical literacy. And I think that that is what Christ has for them — fulfilling, soul-stirring, soul-satisfying, gospel ministry.

(copied and pasted from desiringgod.org 10 Questions on Dating with Matt Chandler)

Progress

Wouldn't you agree that it's always nice to know that you're making progress and growing.  Moving forward.

Praise God!

"My Baby's Heart Stopped Beating"

I don't know if I'll ever get to have my own baby, or if I have a baby whose heart stopped beating.  But if the latter ever happens to me, I hope that I could respond in the same way that this godly woman did to the God whom she loves and worships and trusts.

http://www.desiringgod.org/blog/posts/my-baby-s-heart-stopped-beating

Joy

So I've been struggling to have joy. I've been feeling down and depressed for quite a while now. I don't know how to explain it - not depressed to the point where I want to kill myself or am unable to function (and I know that is the grace of God) but I guess you can call it depression in that it's like a gloomy cloud that hangs over me (or follows me) and it's never really gone away completely, and it's been like this for a while now. I don't quite remember when it started, but probably around the fall of 2013. Or maybe even before. 2013/2014 was a rough year.

Yesterday night at GOC Steve Lawson said, "The greatest joy in life is to know Jesus personally. The second greatest joy is to be used by God to help others do the same." I sat there listening intently with tears streaming down my face because deep down inside my heart, I couldn't agree more.  And this heart of mine is desperate to possess that kind of joy - both the greatest and second greatest.  And I know that that kind of joy comes only from God.  I cannot derive it from within myself or from someone or something or somewhere else.

Oh Jesus, I desperately want to know you more, and I want to know you personally, and I want to help others know you.  I want to learn to know you.

Jeremiah 9:23-24

Why, GOD? I don't understand...