Author: teachwhatisgood

Dear friends,

I am so excited to share my good news with you. After many years in the works, the Bible study I’ve written especially for families while they are continuing their pregnancy after finding out their unborn baby has something wrong is finally available.

It is titled: A Child of Promise: A Bible Study for Parents Facing a Poor or Fatal Prognosis for their Unborn Child.  You can find it on Amazon at: http://www.amazon.com/dp/150049285X

I would sincerely appreciate any help you can give in spreading the word – on Facebook or via email or your own blogs or so forth.

Also, the “A Child of Promise” website has been updated and is up-and-running. Yay for techy-hubbies! It is at: www.achildofpromise.org

Thank you for your prayers and service to the Lord, and the body, in this way.

To God be the glory,

Kim

“Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of mercies and God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our affliction, so that we may be able to comfort those who are in any affliction, with the comfort with which we ourselves are comforted by God. For as we share abundantly in Christ’s sufferings, so through Christ we share abundantly in comfort too. If we are afflicted, it is for your comfort and salvation; and if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which you experience when you patiently endure the same sufferings that we suffer.” (2 Corinthians 1:3-6 ESV)

“The Bible was not given to us so that we could be as smart as the devil; it was given to us so that we could become as holy as God.” – Studying, Interpreting and Applying the Bible, pg 165

“Even the demons believe and shudder” James 2:19

“Why do you call me ‘Lord, Lord,’ and not do what I tell you? Everyone who comes to me and hears my words and does them, I will show you what he is like: he is like a man building a house, who dug deep and laid the foundation on the rock. And when a flood arose, the stream broke against that house and could not shake it, because it had been well built. But the one who hears and does not do them is like a man who built a house on the ground without a foundation. When the stream broke against it, immediately it fell, and the ruin of that house was great.”
Luke 6:46-49

You may have been wondering where I’ve been the last few months.  I’ve been wondering that too, but I pray that I have been busy building a solid foundation for my life and my household.  This month has been particularly full.  Our oldest daughter, Emily, graduated high school on May 10th, immediately followed by a five night cruise to Mexico.

This morning during my time in the Word, I was reading Luke 6-8 and was particularly struck by this passage.  It is a parallel to the passage in Matthew 7 which I wrote about on October 18 of last year.    What struck me this morning were these words: DUG DEEP.

Luke 6:48 says that the man dug DEEP when he was building his house.  This was hard work.  This took digging.  This required effort.

That really resonated with me.  How often am I taking the easy road?

All too often I find myself building my life on the ground that I can see before me, rather than taking the time and effort required to dig deep to build it on the solid rock of the Word.  All too often, I am calling out “Lord, Lord” and yet, not doing what my Lord has told me to do.

Please join me in digging deep, deep into the well of living waters, deep into the heart of our Lord, as we found our lives and our households on the solid rock.

TWIG

Founded on the rock

 

Here is the audio file from a talk I gave in St Louis in October at the Shine Ministries conference.

I pray that your faith would be strengthened as you hear God show Himself mighty and awesome in one simple woman’s life.

“I thank him who has given me strength, Christ Jesus our Lord, because he judged me faithful, appointing me to his service, though formerly I was a blasphemer, persecutor, and insolent opponent. But I received mercy because I had acted ignorantly in unbelief, and the grace of our Lord overflowed for me with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus. The saying is trustworthy and deserving of full acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am the foremost. But I received mercy for this reason, that in me, as the foremost, Jesus Christ might display his perfect patience as an example to those who were to believe in him for eternal life. To the King of the ages, immortal, invisible, the only God, be honor and glory forever and ever. Amen.” – 1 Timothy 1:12-17 ESV

TWIG

“Where is the one who is wise?

Where is the scribe?

Where is the debater of this age?

Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world?

For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, it pleased God through the folly of what we preach to save those who believe.

For Jews demand signs and Greeks seek wisdom, but we preach Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and folly to Gentiles, but to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

For the foolishness of God is wiser than men, and the weakness of God is stronger than men.”

1 Corinthians 1:20-24

I have always been quite the debater. Since before I could speak, I debated with my parents. By middle school, I excelled in mock trial. In high school, I regularly went to state and won top speaker awards for team policy debate. Before coming to faith in Jesus Christ, I got a rush out of debating Christians about the foolishness of their faith. Belief in an unseen God, belief in creation as a worldview seemed beyond any sense of reason to me.

So, last night I was thrilled to be able to watch live the battle of the world views as Ken Ham of Answers in Genesis took on Bill Nye (“The Science Guy”) on the topic of the origin of the universe.

I encourage everyone, mature believing creationists and evolutionists alike, to check it out.

You can watch the debate here.

Please join me in praying for Bill Nye to come to faith in Jesus Christ, for the many people who saw the debate to seek the truth with their whole hearts and for the Answers in Genesis ministry.

Did you see the debate? I’d love to hear your thoughts. Please share them in the comments.

Oops. I guess sometimes scheduling blogs posts to go when you’re not finished with them yet doesn’t quite work out. Here we go again!

Take two:

My dear friends in St. Louis have an annual tradition of choosing a “word of the year.” This year they chose one for me. Guess what it was???

Wisdom.

So I began studying the word ‘wisdom’ in the scriptures.  One thing I decided to look up was where the word ‘wisdom’ and the word ‘heart’ appear together which led me to Psalm 90.

So turn with me to Psalm 90.  The subtitle for this psalm is “A prayer of Moses,  the man of God.”

Read along with me.

Lord, you have been our dwelling place in all generations.

Before the mountains were brought forth, or ever you had formed the earth and the world, from everlasting to everlasting you are God.

You return man to dust and say, “Return, O children of man!”

For a thousand years in your sight are but as yesterday when it is past, or as a watch in the night.

These first four verses show us the everlasting, eternal nature of our God, in stark contrast of the temporary, temporal nature of human life here on earth. This is how this psalm begins – pondering the nature of God as compared with the nature of man.

The next seven verses continue this theme but emphasizing God’s righteous judgment and wrath on sinful humankind.

But then you come to verse 12. A special verse nestled in the middle of reflection on God’s eternality and our brevity.

“So teach us to number our days that we may get a heart of wisdom. “

So, how do we get a heart of wisdom?

By numbering our days. By realizing how brief our lives are. Living them out in a daily appreciation for how short life is in light of the nature of God who is from everlasting to everlasting.

And then this beautiful psalm ends with

Satisfy us in the morning with your steadfast love, that we may rejoice and be glad all our days.

Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.

Let your work be shown to your servants, and your glorious power to their children.

Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us, and establish the work of our hands upon us; yes, establish the work of our hands!

In God’s perfect timing, I’ve been thinking about this blog post for several days but was never quite able to finish it. Yesterday, two significant events happened.

One, Bill’s 87-year-old grandfather ended up in the hospital again. The third time in a month. Heart problems.

Two, my pastor and his wife who had just announced Sunday that they were expecting their third baby, shared that their newest baby blessing had passed from this life into the presence of the everlasting God.

And there it is. The critical importance of numbering our days, from first to last. From the youngest little babe to the ripe old age.

Father, teach us to number our days. To live every moment as it might be our last. To thank You and be glad even as many days as we are afflicted, to rejoice and be glad all our days as we are satisfied with your steadfast love.

Amen

TWIG

Please, go open your Bible right now, or you can click here and read Psalm 107.

This beautiful Psalm begins like this:

“Oh give thanks to the Lord, for He is GOOD, for His steadfast LOVE endures forever!”

and ends like this:

“Whoever is wise, let him attend to these things; let them consider the steadfast LOVE of the Lord.”

But, you see, in the midst, in the middle of God’s goodness and love, is lots of trial and pain and hardship.  Lots of darkness and shadows. Plenty of labor and distress. Even affliction and destruction.

Yet, in the midst, in the middle, there is also the steadfast LOVE of the Lord.  The Lord’s love does not waiver.  It does not end when His people rebel against His words and spurn His counsel.  His love causes Him to discipline His children, yet His love does not end.  His love is steadfast.  And the wise pays attention and remembers this.

Father, help me to be wise.  Fill me, Lord, with your wisdom.  Grow me in patience and help me to pay attention to what You are doing in my midst.

TWIG