The Frazzled Mama

A Sacrifice of Righteousness

by frazzledmama on May 18, 2012

Don’t you love how God works? A couple of days ago, I wrote a new post in my series on James, during which we learned that we must put off the soul staining deeds of the flesh and seek after righteousness. Seeking righteousness is not an easy thing. But, as we discussed, God gives us the strength to do so, through Him.

Yesterday, while working though a Bible study I am doing with friends, I came across Psalm chapter four. It isn’t terribly long, so I am going to ask you to read the whole thing ;)

¹Hear me when I call, O God of my righteousness!
You have relieved me in my distress;
Have mercy on me, and hear my prayer.

²How long, O you sons of men,
Will you turn my glory to shame?
How long will you love worthlessness
And seek falsehood? Selah
³But know that the Lord has set apart for Himself him who is godly;
The Lord will hear when I call to Him.

⁴Be angry, and do not sin.
Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still. Selah
⁵Offer the sacrifices of righteousness,
And put your trust in the Lord.

⁶There are many who say,
“Who will show us any good?”
Lord, lift up the light of Your countenance upon us.
⁷You have put gladness in my heart,
More than in the season that their grain and wine increased.
⁸I will both lie down in peace, and sleep;
For You alone, O Lord, make me dwell in safety.

What really jumped out at me, was verse 5. “Offer the sacrifices of righteousness, and put your trust in the Lord.” What an interesting statement. I never thought of righteousness as being a sacrifice. You know me, I had to dig deeper.

Merriam-Webster defines sacrifice as…

an act of offering to a deity something precious; especially :the killing of a victim on an altar

: something offered in sacrifice

a : destruction or surrender of something for the sake of something else b : something given up or lost

Wow! This really goes hand in hand with what James was telling us. “Destruction or surrender of something, for the sake of something else.” Kind of like the destruction or surrender of filthiness and wickedness for the sake of righteousness? For the sake of receiving God’s word, which can save our souls? For the sake of being blessed!

Now, looking back to the context in this chapter the Psalmist was speaking about being angry, and yet not sinning. What a great example of putting of wickedness! It is so easy to become angry, yet not so easy to be angry and not sin. But His word says, when we put off (or kill) those soul staining deeds(like sinful anger), it is a sacrifice to Him, a sacrifice of righteousness.

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Are You a Doer?

by frazzledmama on May 16, 2012

Sorry for the huge gap in posts on my James Bible study. Things got busy ;)

Let’s move on today looking at James 1:21-25. We’ll take it in pieces.

²¹Therefore lay aside all filthiness and overflow of wickedness, and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.

Ah “therefore”, therefore operates in the same fashion as “so then.” You’ve heard it a million times, right, “You have to find out what the therefore is there for.” Therefore, or, “since the wrath of man does not produce the righteousness of God, lay aside…..” Get it? So, in order to produce the righteousness of God, we must lay aside, or get rid rid of all filthiness, and overflow of wickedness.

Filthiness…dirtiness, staining your soul.

Wickedness… evil, malice, spite!

Ouch!

Can we lay aside these things on our own? No way!

There is none righteous, no, not one;
There is none who understands;
There is none who seeks after God.
                                          Romans 3:10-11

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God,
                                           Romans 3:23

But we are all like an unclean thing,
And all our righteousnesses are like filthy rags;
                                            Isaiah 64:6

But thank the Lord that we have His grace!

Have you not known?
Have you not heard?
The everlasting God, the Lord,
The Creator of the ends of the earth,
Neither faints nor is weary.
His understanding is unsearchable.
He gives power to the weak,
And to those who have no might He increases strength.
Isaiah 40:28-29

Through His power and strength, we must lay aside things in our lives which dirty our soul, and all malice and spite. Why? So that we may meekly (humbly) received the implanted word(God’s word) which is able to save our souls! How powerful are His words!!! Don’t you want to hear them? Don’t you want them to save your soul? We must set aside our flesh to hear God’s word in our heart.

When we lay aside the evil soul-staining deeds, which is a daily task, what then? Laying aside these things has the potential to free up quite a bit of our time. If we are laying aside the old ways, we must take up new ways…

22But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. ²³For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror;²⁴for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. ²⁵But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.

I remember so clearly hearing a sermon on this topic when I was a teenager. The Pastor told us to think about what that is saying….if we hear the Word of God, but do not act on it we are the same as a person who looks at their reflection in a mirror, and the instant they walk away from the mirror, they forget what their face looks like! It sounds incredulous, doesn’t it? But isn’t that the reality of the situation? If we read the Word of God, and walk away forgetting all that it says, and we continue living in a soul staining fashion, haven’t we forgotten who we are? Or rather, who’s we are? Our actions always reflect the reality of who we are…. Christ said:

“If you love Me, keep My commandments. John 14:15.

In order to keep His commandments, we must be familiar with them. We must know them, remember them, cling to them. When we do there are blessings. Verse 25 of James chapter 1 says

But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.

How many dear souls have looked into the perfect law of liberty and walked away? How many have not continued? How often do you and I walk away and refuse to continue….Dear one, we must be knowledgeable about God’s commandments and walk in them. It is not an easy thing, but the Lord promises to bless the things that we do, when we act on His commandments and do His work.

What a great task is laid before us, to put off soul staining deeds, so that we can heard the Word of God. How grateful I am that He has declared that we can do all things through His strength! And that He has promised a blessings for those who choose to actively follow Him and be a doer of His work.

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When Life Gets Busy

by frazzledmama on May 14, 2012

I’m sure that my regular readers have noticed that I have not been posting as regularly as usual. We have been absolutely swamped! I mean crazy busy. Sometimes, I get to end of the day and think, “Wait! What? The day is over!”

Sigh….my friend Mo warned me this would happen as the children got older…and it did!

Hopefully things will settle down this week and allow me to feel like I actually have my feet under me, not running three steps behind ;)

In light of that, I thought I might share my top ten tips for surviving when life gets busy.

1. Write everything down on your calendar or make a list, and check it at least twice a day.

2. Plan simple, quick dinners that will leave you with a few leftovers for easy lunches.

3. Do not skip your quiet time and prayer. I find it so essential to have my morning prayer time when busy. Who better to ask for help with a busy day? Lately my prayer has been, “Lord, please help me to be productive, and feel productive at the end of the day.”

4. Don’t take on any new commitments or projects when you are in a busy season. If it is something you really want to take on, ask if there is time to pray about it. Perhaps time will open up in your schedule in a few weeks.

5. Don’t forget that your children are a higher priority than busyness. Often, during season of busyness, children need you to be especially consistent with them and your management in the home.

6. Don’t forget to care for yourself. Get plenty of rest, and up your water and vitamin C consumption. Making time for exercise is important as well. Usually, that will be the first thing that I let fall to the wayside. However, I am learning to try to do something simple, a 30 minute walk, or a quick at-home exercise. It will do a world of good for you!

7. Communicate frequently with your hubby, or wife as it were. Don’t allow busyness to rob your relationship of closeness.

8. Allow trivial things to fall to the wayside for a time. If it isn’t critical, let it go. You will get back around to it! Sometimes, I will even make a list, “When things calm down, I need to:”

9. Get your kiddos to pitch in where they can. Especially if the busyness has a direct link to them :)

10. Last, but not least, make time to simply sit and unwind for a few minutes. It will be okay if you sit down and have a cup of tea, and read or browse Pinterest ;) For these little breaks, I find that it is helpful to set a timer. Just sayin’.

I hope that these tips will be helpful for you as well. I may need to print them out for myself ;)