Keepers of the Home - July 2007 Notes
We have talked about GOAL's a few months ago, but I wanted to talk about GOAL's in relationship to scheduling our days to count important what is of eternal value and to be able to accomplish the things God has for us and the tyranny of the urgent which so often is a stumbling block to us achieving the things that the Lord has for us to do.
GOAL's: Godly Ordained Activities for my Life:
Are goals that are based upon God's principles, and directions as well as our husbands needs, and desires as he leads our families. These goals are also things that the Lord would have me to do, to meet the needs of my husband and family as well as serve in my community as the seasons of my life permit.
These goals can also be goals that help equip me and that refresh and strengthen me to become the Proverbs 31 woman that I desire to be. The areas that these goals might be in are personal growth, marriage, parenting, physical, home making skills, organization, home schooling etc. They are spiritual goals, physical goals, and mental goals. They are goals that affect every area of my life as a child of God, woman, wife and mother.
Tyranny of the Urgent: (The Red Letter Bookstore has this booklet for sale. I hope you will purchase this booklet. I pray it will encourage you and help you, as it has me!)
Our greatest danger is letting the urgent things of life crowd out the important!
We live in a constant TENSION between the urgent and the important.
Many of us feel that if we just had more hours in our day then that would somehow solve our dilemma of not having enough time to do all we need to or want to in our day. But is this true? God tells us to think on what is true in Phil. 4:8-9 If we had 36 hours in our day we'd find ourselves filling all 36 hours, .and feeling that 36 hours wasn't enough time either!
In our society today we are living with NO MARGIN! We spend to the max our time, money, and energy! We are teaching our children to do the same! Years ago, people saw the value of building in a "margin" to their lives. They did not spend their entire paycheck and then some. They made sure they left room for some margin, some extra, just in case. Today, no matter how much our husbands make, we tend to spend the whole thing, we live to the max. Many families have little or no savings, .no margin. We don't just do this with our money, we do it with our time as well. We find it difficult to budget our time and our money!
God worked and then he rested. He told us to do the same. He set up a pattern for us to live our lives by. All throughout his Word, we can read many verses that talk about the value of working hard and about being diligent, responsible, and faithful. But God also tells us that we need to live our lives making sure that our priorities are lined up with Him and with what HE tells us is important in life.
Luke 9:23-25 says "If anyone would come after me, he must deny himself and take up his cross DAILY and follow me. For whoever wants to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for me, will save it. What good is it for a man to gain the whole world, and yet lose or forfeit his very self? "
Many times we are striving and struggling in our lives to attain what the world says is important, but in the end we will lose what is truly important!
There are sooo many pressures all around us today telling us exactly the opposite of what God's Word says to us! Newspapers, magazines, TV, radio, movies etc. all are telling us many times exactly the opposite of what God's will would be. So we have to be wise and we have to go to the real source of TRUTH, .God and his Word!
It is not just the world around us, .our own hearts are sinful and our flesh is weak!
We are selfish and self-centered apart from God and his work of renewing and redemption in our lives. Our hearts are deceitful and without the Holy Spirit and God's Word to help us, .we do not see just how wrong we are and how off track we can become! That is why we need to be in God's Word DAILY asking him to search our hearts and to see if there is any offensive way in us! Then as the Holy Spirit shows us what is really going on that should not be, we can go and make it right with God and whomever else we may need to and we can wisely turn from it and follow the Lord. As we are reading God's Word DAILY we will be learning what God's ways are and we will be learning from the Lord how to walk in his ways and apply his truth and principles to our lives. As we look to him DAILY he will help us make the small corrections we need to much as a ships captain does to a vessel he is sailing to keep it on the correct path.
Psalm 139:23-24 says "Search me O God, and know my heart; test me and know my anxious thoughts. See if there is ANY offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting."
David wrote this, and he was wise. He knew that he needed help from God to know what was really going on in his own heart! We are so easily deceived! We need to ask God as David did to please search us DAILY and show us if there is any thing that we need to make right, or anything that we need to stop doing or start doing depending on what God knows is best for us. With so much around us each day (our own sinful hearts, the media, TV, radio, friends and family etc.) telling us the OPPOSITE of what God's Word says, we need to DAILY be in God's truth so our thinking can be renewed! We need to want and desire to live God's way and to want and desire his help and grace, DAILY! If we are looking to the Lord DAILY, .he is able to show us little by little the direction we need to go. He will be giving us insight and instruction and he says that as we humble ourselves and obey he will bless us and give us grace.
Proverbs 8:32-34 "Now then, my sons, listen to me; blessed are those who keep my ways. Listen to my instruction and be wise; do not ignore it. Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching DAILY at my doors, waiting at my doorway."
We will be so very blessed if we LISTEN to the Lord and his wisdom. We will be blessed if we KEEP his ways. We will be blessed if we spend DAILY time with the Lord and in his Word. If we follow his instructions and what he is showing us to do by the leading of the Holy Spirit and as we follow God's principles and apply them to our lives that he gives us in His Word.
Psalm 25:4-5 "Show me your ways, O Lord, teach me your paths; guide me in your truth and teach me, for you are God my Savior and my hope is in you all day long."
Today many in the world put their hope in themselves, in their abilities, in their talents, in their own strength and in their own thoughts. As believers we need to realize what is true and do what is right and good and biblical. We need to put our hope in Jesus and ALL HE is able to do! Our hope as believers is not in ourselves, .it should be in Jesus. We need to realize how very, very much we need Him to show us HIS ways and teach us HIS paths and guide us in HIS truth. We need HIS instruction to know what is right and to know HIS way which leads to life everlasting!
Psalm 25:8-10 "Good and upright is the Lord; therefore he instructs sinners in his ways. He guides the humble in what is right, and teaches them his way. All the ways of the Lord are loving and faithful."
Psalm 25:12 "Who, then, is the man that fears the Lord? He will instruct him in the way chosen for him."
Psalm 25:15 "My eyes are ever on the Lord, for only he will release my feet from the snare."
Many of us today, feel we are ensnared by our sin and by the wrong way we've been living. We feel ensnared by the pressures of our lives and by the busyness of it all! It is only as we humble ourselves before the Lord, repent and turn to him that we truly see our need for his redeeming and sanctifying work in our lives, that he will lovingly set us free! J He will help us and show us and teach us the way he would have us to go! His way brings us peace, and joy and blessings.
Many of us are living to gain what the world says is important. In the end we will look back with a sense of remorse as we realize that what the world says is important if FAR different than what God says is important. We will look back over our lives with regret and with emptiness, .for whoever seeks to gain the "whole world" or what the world says is important and what the world says they should be doing, will find that as he looks back he has lost and forfeited his very self! The path will be strewn with broken relationships, and trophies that the world has given that are being rotted with rust and eaten by moths.
Matt 6: 19-21 "Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal. But store up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where moth and rust do not destroy, and where thieves do not break in and steal. For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also."
Luke 12:15-34 Then Jesus told them "Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed; a man's life doe