Parenting is not easy

I have been deliberately silent on my blog for a couple of months, apart from just feeling overwhelmed with busyness, I have felt overwhelmed with my role as a mother.

I have been confronted with so many of my weaknesses, struggles, sin lately...

I am thankful though for what God is teaching me about Himself. I have come to the conclusion that motherhood is definietly not something that comes natural to me (something I mention often!) and that my struggle with it is part of how God is sanctifying me, and that I will spend every day, for the rest of my life coming to Him depending on Him totally to help me!

I was encouraged by this in, Gospel Powered Parenting - by William P Farley, under the subheading, Parenting is not easy.

First you cannot be a perfect parent. I opened with the story of our troubles to emphazise this point. If you could parent perfectly, your children might not need a Saviour. But you are not perfect. From where you sit, you cannot even see perfection. Therefore, your children will desperately need Christ.

Your sins, your failings, and inadequacies produce conflict with your children and misunderstandings with your spouse. At times you will deeply feel this inadequacy.

In addition to your inadequcies, there are external stresses. Some of your children might die prematurely, others might enter the world with congenial defects, or still others, like ours, might go through difficult stages of rebellion. Some will be bright, talented, or good-looking. Others will be slow, average, or unattractive. Some will have easy personalities. It will take all your perserverance and tenacity to love others.

...Because parenting is difficult, and becuase you are imperfect, you will need the grace that comes to you through the gospel. God will use these problems to deepen your dependance on him. You will experience stress and obstacles. They will happen so that when your child comes to saving faith, your boasting will be in Christ, not your own best efforts. Like Paul, you will say, "I worked harder than any of them, though it was not I, but the GRACE OF GOD that is with me" ( I Cor 15:10)

You will need grace, and you will need to know where to get it. Precisely because you are so flawed, the gospel, the saving work of Christ, must be your refuge.

I have been meditiating on the gospel and grace, so much lately, I know He is teaching me to live by His grace alone, and to remember He will always give me the grace I need at the time I need it.

It's the grace of God that teaches us..

For the grace of God that brings salvation has appeared to all men.

It teaches us to say "No" to ungodliness and worldly passions, and to live self controlled, upright and godly lives in this present age.

Titus 2:11-12

I have been reading through Jerry Bridges, Discipline of Grace - God's role and our role in the pursuit of holiness, and these verses were at the start of chapter 5 entitled, Disciplined by grace. I read this chapter the other day, after a rather frantic and stressful week, and these verses have been plaguing my mind ever since!

I am coming to realise so very slowly, that my only hope in this life is the hope I have in the gospel of Jesus Christ! He is my only hope. It doesn't matter if I am having a good day, or a bad day, if my hope, my purpose, my understanding of all that happens in this life is not based on the gospel of Christ, everything can so easily fall apart and seem all so hopeless!

This past week I have been confronted so many times with my sinfulness, and I have easily become caught up in the trap of guilt and hardness of heart, but this chapter helped to release me somewhat, and remind me once again of where I need to fix my mind, my heart, my hope!

This chapter, and the above mentioned verses in particular reminded me that it is the grace of God that teaches me to life a life that glorifies God, the same grace that brought me salvation. And its only when I stop to consider this saving grace do I have the ability to say "no" to ungodliness, and yes to self control and godly living.

Bridges writes,

Paul said, though, that it is the very same grace - God's unmerited favor - that brought salvation to us in the first place that disciplines us. This means that all our response to God's dealings with us and all our practice of the spiritual disciplines must be based on the knowledge that God is dealing with us in grace. And it means that all our effort to teach godly living and spiritual maturity to others must be grounded in grace. If we fail to teach that discipline is by grace, people will assume, as I did, that it is by performance.

That is why we must not put the gospel on the shelf once a person becomes a new believer. he or she will have just as difficult a time believing that God saves by grace instead of by works. ...

He closes the chapter with this reminder.

Remember, the grace that brought salvation to you is the same grace that teaches you. But you must respond on the basis of grace, not law. That is why you must "preach the gospel to yourself every day."

So once again I have been challenged about my need to preach the gospel to myself everyday...I am so thankful that He is my only hope!

Justified by faith alone!

Justification is a word I don't spend enough time thinking about, and I am only just beginning to realise how vital it is for me to think about it more.

Recently I have had days when I feel like the worst mother, wife, friend...I have called upon the Lord constantly to help me with my attitude, my heart, but what I have failed to realise is that the reason I feel these things so much is because of my own self-righteousness.

If I were to examine my heart more honestly, I know that I am more grieved at my inadequacies rather than been grieved that God is not being glorified when my heart is not totally fixed on Him.

The cross is my only cure. The realisation that it's only by the blood of Christ that I have any worth, it's only because of what He has done that I have been made righteous before a Holy God.

The book I was reading today, Your Home a Place of Grace, by Susan Hunt reminded me of justification.

"Most of us struggle with accepting the people and circumstances in our lives and with feeling accepted by others. Our performance orientation is heard in statements as:

......If I do more for the Lord, He will love me more.
And the guilt-ridden hyperactive child of God eventually loses joy and grows weary of well-doing.

This type of thinking displays a theological problem - a failure to understand the glorious doctrine of justification by faith alone. Martin Luther said that justification by faith alone is the article upon which the church stands or falls.

...This doctrine is an essential building block in a haven of grace because our acceptance of ourselves, our circumstances, and others will be in proportion to our understanding of our acceptance before the judgement seat of God."

A few months ago, after reading The Cross Centred Life - Keeping the Gospel the Main Thing by C J Mahaney, I was challenged to read over passages about the cross daily, to help me keep my mind cross centred. I am starting to realise how essential this is. I have had Romans 5:1-11 pinned on my bathroom wall all this year and the times I have meditated and saturated my mind with it have been so enriching...but lately I haven't been focused on it....

I think I need to spend some more time in the bathroom!

Mahaney lists the following passages to help us preach to ourselves, that speak of God's work of salvation through the cross.

Isaiah 53:3-6
Romans 3:23-26
Romans 5:6-11
Romans 8:32-29
1 Corinthians 15:3-4
Galatians 2:21

Marriage, humilty and the gospel

These are the subjects I have been learning so much more about over the past few months. So much of what I have been reading and listening to have had these topics in them and I am so thankful for all God is teaching me about them in His Word.

There have been some hard 'cut to the heart' lessons, but God is so good and He has shown me time and time again "the path of life" and that "in His presence is fullness of joy and at His right hand are pleasures forevermore". (Psalm 16:11)

Our book club has just finished a life changing book, The Cross Centred Life by C J Mahaney. It's one of the shortest books you'll read, but worth every page!

The following quote encompasses all 3 of the topics I have been dwelling on.

Your relationships with others must be based on your relationship to God through the cross. Ephesians 4:32 states, "Be kind and compassionate to one another, forgiving each other just as in Christ God forgave you."

When I become bitter or unforgiving toward others, I'm assuming that the sins of others are more serious than my sins against God. The cross transforms my perspective. Through the cross I realise that no sin committed against me will ever be as serious as the innumerable sins I've committed against God. When we understand how much God has forgiven us, it's not difficult to forgive others.

For if while we were enemies we were reconciled to God by the death of His Son, much more, now that we are reconciled, shall we be saved by his life.

More than that, we also rejoice in God through our Lord Jesus Christ, through whom we have now received reconciliation.

Romans 5:10-11