2 Winners for "Give Them Grace" Book Giveaway

Drumroll please! Thank you for all the entries, follows, tweets & reposts of the giveaway.  The winners for tonight is:

Sarah Harrison Woodward

&

Jessica Thommarson

Congrats ladies! I messaged you via Facebook to send me your addresses so I can email you your "Give Them Grace" books.  So very excited for you! 

Are you raising a Pharisee or a Lover of Jesus?

Is there a book that you've recently read that has stopped you in your tracks? One that rocks you to the core of your being and makes you rethink your Christian walk and how you live your life? "Give Them Grace - Dazzling Your Kids with the Love of Jesus" by Elyse Fitzpatrick & Jessica Thompson is the book that has done that for me recently.   It's a must read for every Christian mom & dad.  I know that you hear that time and time again but this book will change your perspective not only in the way you interact with your children but it will open up your heart and see how you truly see your Saviour.  Do you see him as the Lawgiver and Judge? As the disappointed Father every time you sin? No, He is the God of Grace who loved me even though I was sinner and paid the price for me, not so that I would live perfectly but live in the grace that He's bestowed on me by paying the price of my sin with His perfect life and sacrifice.
This book isn't a "how to" raise godly children.  Are you disappointed? It's a book to show you that your children need the gospel not the law.  What saved us in our trespasses? Not the law, but His grace! Hallelujah for God's grace.  Hallelujah for a Christian parenting book that finally preaches the truth of His grace and not the burden of the law.

"Nearly every parenting book you'll read will tell you how to be a successful parent of successful,

seemingly sinless children.  Our modern worship of personal success stories is clearly seen

in the number of books that outline the methods for producing spiritual giants.  Whether

they encourage family-integrated education and worship, public schools, immersing our family in the culture, or moving to a little house on the prairie, being a successful parent and raising

successful kids is the only paradigm we seem to be willing to accept.  But what if we're measuring

success in the wrong way?  Could it be that our perception of success isn't God's plan

for us or for our family? What if he's going to use our failure and our children's rebellion to make us humble comforters of other sufferers for his glory?" pg.148

"Do you hear the underlying message of that best-selling book? Your child's success depends

entirely on your ability to communicate to him in the right way. "If we do our job right as parents to instill these values, our kids will be a success at whatever they do! We'll have trophy kids!  This is the message of every book about parenting that is not rooted in the grace of God demonstrated

in the gospel. ..... parenting books are not Christian if their primary message is law.  If their

message isn't rooted and grounded in the truth that you and your children are deeply sinful

yet deeply loved, in reality its nothing more than a glorification of the will and work of the parent.

Aside from placing a crushing burden of guilt and fear upon the backs of dads and moms, the thought that we can change any one's heart is laughable. Change our children's hearts?

Only God has the power to change the heart!.....

When we make parenting more complex than God has made it, we afflict ourselves with burdens

too heavy for us to carry, and we are unintentionally presuming that the good news of the gospel

is insufficient." pg 161

There isn't a page in this book of mine that isn't highlighted in yellow.  These are only some of the quotes that made the ground underneath me move and quake that I walk on daily.  If you know me you wouldn't think or even suggest that I am legalistic or struggle with that in my Christian walk but this book really made me examine how I have explained or have been an example of what the gospel is to my children. 

A few weeks ago I was driving my oldest son to school and I asked him, "What makes a person a Christian?" He proceeded to give me a list of things Christians don't do.  My worse fear may have come true.  Have I raised a Pharisee? Have a raised a rule keeper or a Jesus' lover? I proceeded to tell him that a Christian isn't necessarily a person who goes to church, doesn't cuss, doesn't do drugs, etc.  Just because you do those things isn't what makes you a Christian.  It's what you love and do you love Christ more than anything and want to live your life for Him is why you do or don't do those things.  We go to church because we love Christ and want to worship Him and be with His people.  We try to live holy lives because He is holy and we love Him and want to please Him, but doing those things doesn't make us holy or make us right with Him.  He has done that already by His death on the cross. 

I want to get this book in parent's hands so I will be doing a book giveaway Sunday, November 20th & Sunday, November 27th. You can enter numerous ways and each one will give you another entry in the giveaway.  You can  follow my blog, "like" my Facebook page, follow me on Twitter, repost & retweet the giveaway on your pages or blogs. I will keep all entries till we give away both copies of "Give Them Grace" on Nov. 27th.  Leave comments on my blog to show me which way you've entered the giveaway.  Please include me in your reposts so I can accurately keep track of your entries. 

I will continue to post my favorite quotes of "Give Them Grace" during the duration of the two giveaways. 

I See You Now For Who You Truly Are

I can honestly say that the last few years have been the hardest I've experienced but yet if you were to ask me, "What would you do differently?" I don't know if I would do it differently or ask God to change it.  It has been the most trying of times but truly the best of times.  I can look back the last four years and see God so clearly sustaining, guiding, instructing, stretching, providing His will for my life and my family. 

One of the books God used to mightly in my life was "Trusting God" by Jerry Bridges.  I read this book right after I got married in 1992.  What does that tell you about me? I remember it had a huge impact on me to the point that when I wanted to start a Bible study with the young ladies at church that was the book I went for and grabbed.  What unfolded was God displaying His magnificent power and beauty of His sovereignity to me in ways that I've never experienced before.  As the world as I knew it seemed to be shaking and crumbling around me, God used that book to remind me of who He was.  A good and loving God who was in control of every detail of my life who wanted me to trust Him with every aspect of my life even though it might mean that my life as I know it would change completely but it was for my good and His glory.  God used that book to show me the idols in my heart.  I was trusting in those idols not in Him.  At the end of the day, it was my flesh and it was what others thought of me.  I learned that my hope was tied to this world instead of the living hope of Jesus Christ.  God began to strip me of these idols.  It hurt.  Hurt so deep that the only way to get out of this deep hole was to look up and say, "all I have is Christ."  I am thankful for a loving God who is using everything in my life to refine me into the image of His Son.  Who created me, who knows me and loves me that nothing escapes His plan for me.  As the ground beneath me was shaking (not literally) acting like Job and asking and questioning why God would allow this in my life.  I felt as though God was saying to me, "do you trust me?" Bridges goes through the attributes of  God and shows us who God truly is and uses the truths of Scripure to back it up.  I am convinced that you cannot know God if you don't believe who the Scriptures says He is.  It's not until that you view yourself rightly compared to the God of the Bible that you can completely understand His beauty, splendor and majesty to where you completely surrender your life wholely to Him and be able to say, "yes Lord, I trust you!"  Job understood this completely in Job 42: 1-5

"Then Job answered the Lord and said, "I know that You can do all things,

And that no purpose of Yours can be thwarted. Who is this that hides counsel

without knowledge?  Therefore I have declared that which I did not understand,

Things too wonderful for me, which I did not know. Hear, now, and I will speak;

I will ask You, and You instruct me.  I have heard of You by the hearing of the ear;

But now my eye sees You;"

See Him for who He truly is,  the one who holds every detail of your life in His hand.  His name is Jesus.  



What Controls You?

There is a reoccurring theme that I can't seem to get away from.  Whenever I open the Word of God, there it is illuminating from the pages.  When I go to open a book to read, it's popping off the pages.  When I hear sermons on the radio it seems to be the message of the preacher as he speaks to me in my car as I am driving.  God has me focused on His love.  I don't think I've ever had a theme verse, but I would have to say that 2 Corinthians 5: 14 has me hooked.

"For the love of Christ controls us, because we have concluded this, that one has died for all, there all have died; and he died for all, that those who live might no longer live for themselves but for him who for their sake died and was raised."

The question that keeps going around and around in my thoughts and heart is, does the love of Christ control me? What does control me? What rules me? What motivates me? What brings a smile to my face? Is it the love of Christ? Christ's love drove him to the cross.  His love for me is why I may live.  If I am controlled by Christ's love than I no longer live for myself but for HIM.  When people meet me or speak with me do they experience the love of Christ?  Do my children experience the love of Christ because of me?

"The secret of the early Christians, the early Protestants, Puritans & Methodists

was that they were taught about the love of Christ, and they became filled with a knowledge of it.

Once a man has the love of Christ in his heart you need not train him to witness; he will do it.

He will know the power, the constraint, the motive; everything is already there.

It is plain lie to suggest that people who regard this knowledge of the love of Christ as the supreme thing are useless, unhealthy mystics.  

The servants of God who have most adorned the life and the history of the Christian Church have always been men who have realized that this is the most important thing of all,

and they have spent hours in prayer seeking His face and enjoying His love.

The man who knows the love of Christ in his heart can do more in one hour than the busy man

can do in a century.  God forbid that we should ever make of activity an end in itself.

Let us realize that the motive must come first, and that the motive ever be the love of Christ."

Martin Lloyd-Jones, The Unsearchable Riches of Christ, 253

I want to sit and bathe in the love of Christ.  I don't ever want to leave the foot of the cross that displays His love for me.  The wrath of God is no longer for me because I am washed by the blood & love of Christ.  Are you controlled by the love of Christ?

A Letter From Mary Love - My Dear Heart

I first heard of Mary Love's letter to her husband when my family and I were at the Resolved Conference a few weeks back in late June.  Rick Holland read her letter within his sermon, The Believer's Right Response to Difficulty.   I don't think there was a dry eye in the audience, but that's not the reason for me posting her letter is to make you cry.  If I were to have a poster child for my blog, other than Jesus Christ, it would be Mary Love. Let me set the scene for you.  Mary Love is married to Christopher Love, a brilliant young Welsh preacher.  She is 8 months pregnant with their 5th child, two living and two deceased.  Her husband, Christopher Love is imprisoned for treason by the English government and as far as she knew to be executed the next morning.  These were the last words that she had for her husband. 

My Dear Heart

July 14, 1651

Before I write a word further, I beseech thee think not that it is thy wife but a friend now that writes  to thee.  I hope though hast freely given up thy wife and children to God, who hath said in Jeremiah 49:11, "Leave thy fatherless children, I will preserve them alive, and let thy widow trust in me."  Thy Maker will be my husband, and a Father to thy children.  O that the Lord would keep thee from having one troubled thought for thy relations.  I desire freely to give thee up into they Father's hands, and not only look upon it as a crown of glory for thee to die for Christ, but as an honor to me that I should have a husband to leave for Christ.

I dare not speak to thee, nor have a thought within my own heart of my unspeakable loss,but wholly keep my eye fixed upon they inexpressible and inconceivable gain.  Thou leavest but a sinful, mortal wife to be everlastingly married to the Lord of glory.  Thou leavest but children, brothers, and sisters to go to the Lord Jesus, they eldest Brother.  Thou leavest friends on earth to go to the enjoyment of saints and angels, and the spirits of just men made perfect in glory.  Thou does but leave earth for heaven and changest a prison for a palace.  And if natural affections should begin to arise, I hope that spirit of grace that is within thee will quell them, knowing that all thinks here below are but dung and dross in comparison of those things that are above.  I know thou keepest thine eye fixed on the hope of glory, which makes they feet trample on the loss of earth.

My dear, I know God hath not only prepared glory for thee, and thee for it, but I am persuaded that He will sweeten the way for thee to come to the enjoyment of it.  When thou are putting on they clothes that morning, O think, "I am putting on my wedding garments to go to

be everlastingly married to my Redeemer."

When the messenger of death comes to thee, let him not seem dreadful to thee, but look on him as a messenger that brings thee tidings of eternal life.  When thou goest up the scaffold, think (as thou saidst to me) that it is but thy fiery chariot to carry thee up to thy Father's house.

And when thou layest down they precious head to receive thy Father's stroke, remember what thou saidst to me: Though thy head was severed from thy body, yet in a moment thy soul should be united to they Head, the Lord Jesus, in heaven.  And though it may seem something bitter, that by hands of men we are parted a little sooner than otherwise we might have been, yet let us consider that it is the decree and will of our Father, and it will not be long ere we shall enjoy

one another in heaven again. 

Let us comfort one another with these sayings.  Be comforted, my dear heart.  It is but a little stroke and thou shalt be there where the weary shall be at rest and where the wicked shall cease from troubling.  Remember that thou mayest eat thy dinner with bitter herbs, yet thou shalt have a sweet supper with Christ that night.  My dear, by what I write unto thee, I do not hereby undertake to teach thee; for these comforts I have received from the Lord by thee.  I will write no more, nor trouble thee any further, but commit thee into the arms of God with whom ere long thee and I shall be.

Farewell, my dear, I shall never see thy face more till we both behold the face of the Lord Jesus at that great day.

Mary Love

Her letter reveals it all.  Christ is her Husband who is her All in All.  My prayer is that we may be women, like Mary Love, who don't allow our circumstances to shake up our faith but know that our lives our written out by His Sovereign hand, which results in us to stand on the solid ground of Jesus Christ.  At the end of the day,  He is our Groom.

"For to me, to live is Christ and to die is gain." Philippians 1:21