suziebeezieland

smith + noble's "modern american style" fabric collection

I got the new Smith + Noble catalog in the mail today, and was really happy to see that they have a new fabric collection.

We have Smith + Noble roller shades in our house (plain white), and I have been really happy with them. We also have a Smith + Noble curtain in our big bathroom.  It's been there for several years.

But I've been wanting to get something different in there because the house next door sold and people have been working on their roof, and the cafe curtain isn't really cutting it. :) 

I like the "top down, bottom up" option on the fabric shades because you can lower it from the top and get a bit of light and sky, but leave the bottom down so you have privacy. But I wasn't seeing any fabrics I liked when I looked last year.

What I specifically imagined was something in a juicy green color with leaves and birds.

Look! :)

I'm so excited! They got my mental telepathy! :D

The whole collection is so pretty. Look. (There are also turquoise/aqua, blue, tan, black, and chocolate colorways.)

They also have cushions available.

Yellow and dandelions! Yay!

the love of god. also, god is happy. also, god delights in being god.

Here is the view to my right as I sit down this afternoon to finish up this little four-part discussion of God.

Hyacinth is asleep on the floor to my left. Bunch of lazybones. :) I should make them get jobs.

So.

I am glad that the fate of the universe is not up to me, and you should be, too. I am a terribly undisciplined, always disorganized, frequently reclusive woman who does not suffer fools and, frankly, could care less about politics. I am well-intentioned but uneven in my sympathies, passions, and duties, and I would make a lousy sovereign. 

The planet would shudder and then go kaput if I were in charge. 

But none of you is qualified, either. I'm sorry to have to tell you that. :)

God is in ultimate control of the world, and He does not need us to accomplish his purposes. In fact, He does not need us for any reason. God is perfect and complete in Himself. He is not deficient without us. We are deficient without Him. 

I am sorry if the idea that you are not needed by God is upsetting to you, and I am not being sarcastic in saying that I am sorry. I really am sorry, because I know it is initially a very discombobulating thought. It took me a very long time (about two years) to come to grips with that Biblical truth.

The God who made the world and everything in it is the Lord of heaven and earth and does not live in temples built by human hands. And he is not served by human hands, as if he needed anything. Rather, he himself gives everyone life and breath and everything else. From one man he made all the nations, that they should inhabit the whole earth; and he marked out their appointed times in history and the boundaries of their lands. God did this so that they would seek him and perhaps reach out for him and find him, though he is not far from any one of us. ‘For in him we live and move and have our being.’ (Acts 17:24-28)

Many people believe that God created humankind because He was lonely and needed someone either to love, or to love Him. That is not a Biblical idea, and it is therefore not the truth about God. Before we begin talking about God's love, and His love for us, it's really important to know that "need" does not factor into his love for us.

Augustine wrote this:

For whatever comes from God is so dependent upon Him that it owes its existence to Him, but He does not owe His happiness to any creature He has made. 

God was overflowingly happy in the Trinity before He created us, and is overflowingly happy in the Trinity now. God is gloriously happy. If you have never thought about that before, I am glad that you can think about it now. :) Jesus invites us to spend eternity with a happy God when he says "Enter into the joy of your master." (Matthew 25:23) Jesus lived and died that his joy—God’s joy—might be in us and our joy might be full (John 15:11; 17:13).

God's happiness is, first and foremost, a happiness in His Son. John Piper (whose sermons and Biblical exposition are helping me explain this today) explains this very well:

... when we share in the happiness of God we share in the very pleasure that the Father has in the Son. This is why Jesus made the Father known to us. At the end of his great prayer in John 17 he said to his Father, “I made known to them your name, and I will make it known, that the love with which you have loved me may be in them, and I in them”.

He made God known so that God’s pleasure in his Son might be in us and become our pleasure.

So here you were, all along thinking that God needed to make us to have someone to love, and it turns out that in fact God wanted to share with us this already-existing and perfect love, and by doing so, bring glory to Himself.

Piper is known for explaining it like this: God is most glorified in us when we are most satisfied in him.

Here's more:

If God’s pleasure in the Son becomes our pleasure, then the object of our pleasure, Jesus, will be inexhaustible in personal worth. He will never become boring or disappointing or frustrating. No greater treasure can be conceived than the Son of God. Moreover, our ability to savor this inexhaustible treasure will not be limited by human weaknesses. We will enjoy the Son of God with the very enjoyment of his Father. God’s delight in his Son will be in us and it will be ours. And this will never end, because neither the Father nor the Son ever ends. Their love for each other will be our love for them and therefore our loving them will never die.

God absolutely delights in His Son!

This is my beloved Son, with whom I am well pleased; listen to him. (2 Peter 1:17–18; Matthew 17:5).

God delights in being God! 

Why do I keep saying this? :) Because if you can't get a grip on this idea that we are not needed by God, it is going to forever taint the way that you understand God's greatest act of love toward us. You cannot understand God's love for us if you don't understand His delight in Himself and His passion for His own glory. If you think the Gospel's driving force is our value rather than God's value, you're not going to understand what it is God did for us. Your understanding of the Gospel will be skewed because you will be sticking yourself in the center of it.

Piper puts it this way (emphasis mine):

... the gospel is the good news that God is the all-satisfying end of all our longings, and that even though he does not need us, and is in fact estranged from us because of our God-belittling sins, he has, in the great love with which he loved us, made a way for sinners to drink at the river of his delights through Jesus Christ. And we will not be enthralled by this good news unless we feel that he was not obliged to do this. He was not coerced or constrained by our value. He is the center of the gospel. The exaltation of his glory is the driving force of the gospel. 

Read your Bible and see God being God. See His passion for His own glory. See humankind in that light.

... bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for my glory, whom I formed and made.” (Isaiah 43:6-7)

Look at the lives of the people in the Bible who mistakenly think they are God. They do not end well. God is God. We are not God. Again, His passion is for His own glory. That is also what our passion should be for. This is a truth to embrace, and you are not going to understand His love for us until you see His own supremacy over everything. Every. Little. Thing.

For my own sake, for my own sake, I do it, for how should my name be profaned? My glory I will not give to another.  Listen to me, O Jacob, and Israel, whom I called! I am he; I am the first, and I am the last.  My hand laid the foundation of the earth, and my right hand spread out the heavens; when I call to them, they stand forth together. (Isaiah 48:11-13)

... for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose,’  calling a bird of prey from the east, the man of my counsel from a far country. I have spoken, and I will bring it to pass; I have purposed, and I will do it. (Isaiah 46:9-11)

As believers submit to God and pray in Jesus' name (with all that means, as we discussed earlier), He answers us always in the way that will bring the most glory to Him. And every answer to prayer from God, no matter how difficult, is an answer that will work for ultimate good in the lives of His believers. 

God does according to his will in the host of heaven and among the inhabitants of the earth and none can stay his hand or say to him, "What doest thou?" (Daniel 4:35)

But he is unchangeable and who can turn him? What he desires, that he does. For he will complete what he appoints for me. (Job 23:13, 14)

Our God is in the heavens; he does whatever he pleases (Psalm 115:3)

And we know that for those who love God all things work together for good, for those who are called according to his purpose. (Romans 8:28)

If you find yourself having a "well, who does this guy think He is?" reaction to these verses, don't forget that God is untainted in any way by evil. He is wholly good, and there is no darkness in Him at all. I have always liked this verse:

You are good and do good; teach me your statutes. (Psalm 119:68)

He is good, and He does good. All our past-experience with self-loving people who want to be in charge of the universe has been with reprobate sinners and evil despots, not with a Holy God.

Keep track of your emotional response to the idea that God is sovereign, and if you find yourself thinking bad things about His zeal for His own glory, keep reminding yourself that while it would be evil for us to have a passion for the glory of our own self and our own name, it is not evil for God to have this passion for Himself. I would also really urge you to pray for the state of your own soul. You do not want to remain in rebellion against the sovereign God of the universe. 

I am the LORD; that is my name; my glory I give to no other, nor my praise to carved idols. (Isaiah 42:8)

Because He is who He is, we are called to love God.

You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. (Deuteronomy 6:5)

And our behavior towards other people will reflect this love for God.

“Teacher, which is the great commandment in the Law?” And he [Jesus] said to him, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. This is the great and first commandment. And a second is like it: You shall love your neighbor as yourself. On these two commandments depend all the Law and the Prophets.” (Matthew 22:36-40)

God calls us to love our neighbor:

You shall not take vengeance or bear a grudge against the sons of your own people, but you shall love your neighbor as yourself: I am the Lord. (Leviticus 19:18)

Look how "take vengeance" refers to an action and "bear a grudge" refers to what is going on in your heart. We're supposed to love in both deed and attitude.

And He also calls us to love strangers:

You shall treat the stranger who sojourns with you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt: I am the Lord your God.

 We're supposed to show to other people the same love that God has shown us.

What is the nature of God's love? What is the nature of His love for us?

Here is a verse you are probably familiar with.

Beloved, let us love one another, for love is from God, and whoever loves has been born of God and knows God. Anyone who does not love does not know God, because God is love. In this the love of God was made manifest among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through him. In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us and sent his Son to be the propitiation for our sins. (1 John 4:7-10)

God is love! There have always been two persons in God between whom love could flow. The Father, as we have said, loves the Son. (Matthew 3:17, Ephesians 1:6, John 5:20.) The Son loves the Father. (John 14:31) The Father and Son have never existed without love and delight flowing between them. 

"What about the other part of the Trinity?" you might be wondering right about now. "What about the Holy Spirit?"

Look at 1 John 4:12-13:

No one has ever seen God; if we love one another, God abides in us and his love is perfected in us. By this we know that we abide in him and he in us, because he has given us of his Spirit.

The Holy Spirit is this love and delight flowing between the Father and the Son.  As Piper says, it is "the esprit de corps of the Godhead." He explains:

In responding to each other’s infinite glory, the Father and Son put all that they are into the act of love. And therefore the Spirit is all that they are and exists as a Person in his own right, yet one with the Father and the Son.

That's the nature of God's love. Wowzers. Now what does His love for us look like?

God does not look at you and say, "Oh, you're kind of messed up, but that's okay. I like you anyway." He could never do that, because he is untainted and pure, and we are sinful. He cannot do anything that is against His nature. He never blinks at sin. Ever. But He didn't leave us floundering without Him. He offered a way to Him. The cost of sin (which R.C. Sproul likes to describe as "cosmic treason against the Most High God", and that's a pretty good definition) is death. Jesus paid the cost.

Look at John 3:16:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 

Here is the Gospel in a nutshell:

The Gospel is the news that Jesus Christ, the Righteous One, died for our sins and rose again, eternally triumphant over all his enemies, so that there is now no condemnation for those who believe, but only everlasting joy.

If you accept this truth, and bow before Jesus in repentance and acceptance, you can share in the apostle Paul's joy when he writes in Galatians 2:20:

I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me.

You can share Paul's certainty as he writes in Romans 8:

Who shall separate us from the love of Christ?

Shall tribulation, or distress, or persecution, or famine, or nakedness, or danger, or sword?

As it is written, “For your sake we are being killed all the day long; we are regarded as sheep to be slaughtered.”  

No, in all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.

For I am sure that neither death nor life, nor angels nor rulers, nor things present nor things to come, nor powers, nor height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. (Romans 8:35-39 ESV)

 Paul wanted us to know how he felt, being loved by Christ. He wanted us to know what that is, what that feels like. I want you to know that, too, if you do not already. :)

I pray this for you:

… that you might have power to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ which surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God. (Ephesians 3:18-19)

 Do you remember how we were talking about Jesus comforting His disciples the night before He would be crucified? Do you understand the love He had for these men?

Now before the Feast of the Passover, when Jesus knew that his hour had come to depart out of this world to the Father, having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end. 

Who does Jesus love? He loves His own. He loves His sheep, His friends, His believers:

He calls his own sheep by name and they follow him. (John 10:3)

The good shepherd lays down his life for the sheep. (John 10:15, 

Greater love has no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends. (John 15:13)

I do not pray for these only but for all who will believe on me through their word. (John 17:1)

Look at John 10:27:

My sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me. I give them eternal life, and they will never perish, and no one will snatch them out of my hand.

My Father, who has given them to me, is greater than all, and no one is able to snatch them out of the Father's hand.

I and the Father are one.

Piper explains it like this:

If you believe in Jesus Christ, don’t think of his love for you merely in terms of the love he has for the world. Think of the love that takes captive and cleaves and unites and cherishes and defends. Think of a marriage covenant between you and him in which he has sworn by his holiness to love you with a saving, cleansing, glorifying love.

What does it mean that Jesus loved His believers to the end? Here is the last bit of Piper exposition I am going to share with you, and then I'm going to let you chew on all this stuff, all these words and verses from the past few days, and ponder God's sovereignty, His supremacy, His awesomeness, and His unfathomable love for His creatures:

He loved us in life and he loved us in death. Having loved us in the easiest times he loved us in the hardest times. Having loved us with words and bread and touch he loved us with blood and pain and death. Having loved us extensively over years he loved us intensively to the depths.

We are moved to believe that someone loves us when two things appear—they stick with us over time, and they stick with us when it is costly. These are the two things I see here in this verse: having loved us over the years (patient with all our sin and misunderstanding) he now loved us to the uttermost, to the depths of suffering for us.

This is what we long for, and this is what we have by faith—an experience of being loved with a love that lasts, that is not fickle, or uncertain, or capricious, but durable, constant, stable. But not only a love that is extensive, that lasts over time, all time, but also a love that is intensive. We long to be loved radically, deeply, excessively, passionately.

And the word tells us, “having loved his own who were in the world, he loved them to the end.”

this and that (and a chicken recipe)

This has been a tough week in suziebeezieland for the gals who just drop in here for pictures and notes from the Bailey domestic front.

"WHAT are all these WORDS about GOD, I just need a CHICKEN RECIPE and maybe a photo of a puppy or FLOWER, THANK YOU VERY MUCH."

:D

The camellias are starting to bloom out back. They are the only pretty thing in my backyard right now.

I've been on the lookout for a cushion to put on top of my hope chest (that my dad made for me long ago, and is my favorite piece of furniture) where Hannah Cat sits to pine out the window. She is not sitting there in this picture because she knew I wanted to take a photo of her. She is sitting there right now as I type, however, because she knows I do not want to take a photo of her.

Everything was too expensive, but then I found this one on clearance at Crate and Barrel for $20. It's covered with Sunbrella-type fabric, which is nice with pets. :)

It has been sliding around a bit, so I think I'm going to have to secure it with a little Velcro. I am afraid that if anybody sits on top of it when she comes over to visit, she'll go flying onto the floor. :)

Bob and I are headed to London in a couple weeks. We're going to hang out for a week and celebrate our fifteenth anniversary. (It was on December 22nd. Our anniversary always gets swallowed up into Christmas and we never actually celebrate it, so this is kind of a cumulative celebration.)

Claire is going to stay here with her cousins. She is super excited. 

We're staying at a hotel in Bloomsbury, which I am excited about because 84, Charing Cross Road is one of my top-ten favorite books. :) Marks & Co. doesn't exist anymore, but we will walk over and browse around Foyle's.

We employ more than 80 expert booksellers who will be happy to offer any help or advice you may need. Whilst these days most bookshops are stocked by books bought centrally from head office and distributed across the chain, at Foyles our heads of department are also our buyers, so they truly are experts in their stock and subjects.

(I might not ever leave Foyle's. You might have to come get me.)

It's nice because you can order so many tickets online ahead of time, and avoid a lot of lines. We're going to go see Windsor Castle (last year we got there after it had closed, so I'm excited to go inside this time) and we have a couple museum days (The Victoria and Albert Museum, which I am mostly interested in, and the British Museum, which Bob is mostly interested in) and some general sightseeing (we love the Big Bus hop-on, hop-off tours) and walking around. We're doing a few of these London Walks, and we're also going to tour the Tower of London and go see Wicked. There are a few fixed events, but I always leave a little wiggle room in the itinerary for things like weather, fatigue, and a general desire to sit around drinking coffee tea. :)

I'm trying to finish my novel by April 29. I don't know if it will actually happen, but that's my goal. A pretty good chunk of it takes place inside Windsor Castle, so it will be nice to see at least some of the interior. I have the floor plan memorized. :) Dork.

Hey, awhile back my mom and sister and I spent a weekend in Palm Springs, and my sister made this pasta dish for us for dinner, and it was extremely delicious. I made it a couple weeks ago here, and it was still delicious. Phew.

Both of us added chicken to it.

My sister made it without the feta. I added the feta when I made it, because I look for excuses to eat feta, but the feta kind of overpowers any other flavors, so I will probably leave it off next time. Even though I am a feta monster. :)

Farfalle with Tomatoes, Onions, and Spinach

1 tablespoon plus 1/4 teaspoon salt
8 ounces uncooked farfalle pasta
2 tablespoons extra-virgin olive oil, divided
1 cup vertically sliced yellow onion
1 teaspoon dried oregano
5 garlic cloves, sliced
2 cups grape tomatoes, halved
1 tablespoon white wine vinegar
3 cups baby spinach
3 tablespoons shaved fresh Parmigiano-Reggiano cheese
1/4 teaspoon freshly ground black pepper
3/4 cup (3 ounces) crumbled feta cheese

1. Bring a large pot of water to a boil with 1 tablespoon salt. Add pasta, and cook according to package directions; drain.

2. Heat 1 tablespoon oil in a large nonstick skillet over medium-high heat. Add onion and oregano; sauté 12 minutes or until lightly browned. Add garlic; sauté 2 minutes. Add tomatoes and vinegar; sauté 3 minutes or until tomatoes begin to soften. Add pasta and spinach; cook 1 minute. Remove from heat, and stir in Parmigiano-Reggiano, remaining 1 tablespoon oil, remaining 1/4 teaspoon salt, and pepper. Sprinkle with feta.

Tomorrow I'm going to talk about God's love for us. :) I'm just sayin'.

the greatest miracle that can possibly be done.

Hi. 

Today I wanted to respond to a couple more comments on Wednesday's post about prayer. One phrase was, "Telling his followers they could do even greater things than He if they believed," which is part of a Bible verse from the book of John. I'd like to really look at the context in which this verse appears. It is not a good idea to grab a Bible verse or part of a Bible verse away from its context, and seek to understand it by itself.  

The other comment was "Maybe all those children died because of lack of faith in the healing power of prayer/Lack of faith by those praying for the children." I (strongly) disagree with this idea and will discuss it again in the final post in this four-part response. But today as we look at what it means to pray in the name of Jesus, see if you can discern any truths about the efficacy of faith and of prayer. Why and when is faith powerful? Does it relate to something in us, or to the nature and character of the object of our faith? Why and when is prayer powerful? Does its power come from something in us, or from the nature and character of the person to whom we are praying?

John 14:12 reads as follows. Jesus is speaking to his disciple, Philip. Pay attention to that word "because." :) 

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. 

We'll come back to this verse in a bit, but we need to look at the context surrounding it.

I remembered that my Pastor (who is also my brother-in-law Stephen) preached through the book of John back in 2004, and I listened to one of the sermons again online and took some notes while I listened. So this is from his own study of and exposition of John 14. Thanks, Stephen. :)

In John 14, Jesus is speaking to His disciples on the night before He will be crucified, to comfort them before He leaves them. As he speaks to them, he focuses on (1) who He is, (2) what He will do, and (3) what He has promised. 

Jesus' disciples are upset with Him as He speaks about His impending death. They are shocked to hear that one of the disciples (Judas) will betray Jesus, and that Peter will deny Jesus. (See John chapter 13.) They are upset, because the death of their Messiah is not what they were expecting. From their perspective, it sounds like Jesus is going to be killed by men, and all His plans are going to fall apart.

The disciples believed in the deity of Christ, and had expressed it, but hadn't really understood the unity between Jesus and the Father. They hadn't really yet grasped that Jesus was one with the transcendent God. They hadn't really wrapped their brains around that idea that Jesus was not a manifestation of God; He was God manifest, in the flesh.

Imagine coming to grips with this truth as you speak with the man you have laughed with, eaten with, and journeyed with for the past three years. God fully God, in a man. They are anxious and confused as Jesus speaks of His own death.

And Jesus says, listen. Be reminded of who I am. 

Look at John 14:1-7:

"Let not your hearts be troubled. Believe in God; believe also in me. In my Father's house are many rooms. If it were not so, would I have told you that I go to prepare a place for you? And if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and will take you to myself, that where I am you may be also. And you know the way to where I am going."

Thomas said to him, “Lord, we do not know where you are going. How can we know the way?”

Jesus said to him, “I am the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through me. If you had known me, you would have known my Father also. From now on you do know him and have seen him."

Jesus is saying, if you knew that I am one with the Father, if you really understood this, you wouldn't be panicked and worried. From now on, you can quit worrying about how to get to the Father. You are looking at Him. You have seen Him.

Jesus is telling them that "from now on" -- from the time of his death and resurrection onward -- they will finally truly understand what He has been telling them about Himself all along.

Look at verses 8 through 11:

Philip said to him, “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.”

Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me? The words that I say to you I do not speak on my own authority, but the Father who dwells in me does his works. Believe me that I am in the Father and the Father is in me, or else believe on account of the works themselves. 

Philip is asking for sight. Jesus is telling Him to have faith. You've already heard my words, and you've already seen my works, Philip, and now you're wanting another sign that I am God? A sign is not an end in itself. You don't stop at the sign. A sign points to something. You've already seen the signs. Keep going. You need to have faith.

So Jesus tells his disciples to take comfort in who He is. He also tells them to take comfort in what He is going to do. Here we are, back to verse 12, which is really very shocking:

Truly, truly, I say to you, whoever believes in me will also do the works that I do; and greater works than these will he do, because I am going to the Father. 

So let's think about some of the "works" that Jesus did.

He walked on water.

He healed people.

His words raised the dead.

He could feed thousands on a few loaves of bread and a few fish.

People could touch the hem of his garment and be healed.

So in what sense could we, or the disciples, possibly do "even greater works" than Christ?

And "greater" in what sense? Greater in number? Maybe, because there are more disciples, and they'll probably have more time than Christ had in his three-year ministry to do things. Peter lived about 30 or 35 years after Christ.

Or greater in power? When we think of greater works, we tend to immediately make the same mistake the people made during the life of Christ…we want to see the SIGNS! What can be more powerful than calling forth the dead with your voice? How can more power than Christ had be manifested in us? 

To understand how we can do greater works than Christ, we have to look at this verse in its greater context. There are two things that dictate what it means that we will do "greater works than Christ." 

Remember I said to look at that word "because"? Look at it again. :) You will be able to do greater works than I do, says Jesus, because I am going to the Father.

So why? What's going to happen when Jesus goes to the Father? 

The Holy Spirit is going to come, that's what is going to happen! Hooray! (Note: My brother-in-law does not typically punctuate his sermons with "hoorays". That's more my own touch.) That's what the whole next section of John 14, starting with verse 15, is about. So here's why you're going to be able to do greater works than I do, says Jesus. I'm leaving, and you're going to be indwelt and empowered by the Holy Spirit.

So we're going to do greater works than Jesus did because of the Holy Spirit, but in what sense are these works greater? Because even with the power of the Holy Spirit, what are we going to do that is greater than calling forth the dead? 

This is a part of God unfolding His purposes in salvation history. You might know and remember that between the Old and New Testaments in the Bible, there is a period of about 400 years of silence. No revelation, no prophets, no news.

And then here comes John the Baptist, doing great works. He doesn't do miracles, but he's a man of God, and he is calling people to repentance, and calling them to baptism. And people are coming to him in flocks! And then in John chapter 1, he tells everybody that hey, there is One coming after me who is greater than I am, and I am not even worthy to fasten His sandals.

So in salvation history there is this transition from the time of silence to the time of John the Baptist, and then a transition from John the Baptist to an even greater time, when Jesus comes and has His ministry on earth.

And now Jesus is telling His disciples that although He is leaving, they're now transitioning to an even greater ministry, when they will be indwelt with the Holy Spirit. 

What is the work that the Holy Spirit enables us to do, and enabled His disciples to do, that could possibly be considered greater than the works of Christ? If you simply look at the physical miracles the disciples did in the book of Acts -- the apostles healed people and raised the dead, and people even wanted to stand in Peter's shadow to be healed -- those are great works, but greater than Christ's? No, you can't really say that.

But on the Day of Pentecost, when Peter stood up and proclaimed the Gospel of Jesus Christ, what happened? Something that never, ever, ever happened in Christ's ministry while He was alive. 

Three thousand people repented of their sins and came to know Jesus Christ.

How many revivals were there during the life of Christ? Zero! People rejected him wholeheartedly.

Is that because He couldn't cause revival? No. Of course not. It was because it wasn't His purpose. Jesus came to die. He had to be rejected by men. The purpose of Jesus' ministry was not that the whole world would be revived and come to Him while He was on earth. His ministry while He was alive didn't extend beyond that little strip of land we know as Israel. 

But within less than fifty years of Christ's death, the Gospel went out to Europe, and Africa, and the uttermost parts of the world, because Christ left, and sent the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit goes before us and convicts the hearts of mankind, so that when they hear the Gospel, the souls of their hearts are softened, and they come to know Jesus as their savior.

The greatest miracle that can possibly be done is when we who are dead in our sins are made alive in Christ. It is a greater miracle that God has taken my soul, which was once dead in sin, and at enmity with God, and made it alive in Him. That is a greater miracle than if I could call forth the dead. It is a greater miracle that enemies of God can be turned to worshippers of God, than if I could walk on water.

Jesus tells His disciples, take comfort not only in who I am, and take comfort not only in what I do, but take comfort in what I promise you now. Look at verse 13:

Whatever you ask in my name, that I will do, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it.

The disciples had practical questions of Jesus: You're leaving! Who is going to provide for us? Who is going to teach us? Who is going to lead us? These people who have been taking care of us and giving us room and board don't care about us. We're a bunch of fishermen. They're putting us up because of you. What happens when you leave?

And Jesus answers, how far away will I be when I leave? I am only as far away from you as a prayer. You're not going to physically see me anymore, but you just have to say "Jesus!" and I'm there. 

Think about the greater context, about all that the disciples had heard from Jesus as they spent those three years with him. Think about Matthew 6.

Therefore do not be anxious, saying, ‘What shall we eat?’ or ‘What shall we drink?’ or ‘What shall we wear?’ For the Gentiles seek after all these things, and your heavenly Father knows that you need them all. But seek first the kingdom of God and his righteousness, and all these things will be added to you.  

These are precisely the things the disciples were worried about: the physical, day-to-day realities of life. After Jesus' death, they went back to work. They had to be provided for. But Jesus was saying, I'll be right there. And in verses 13 and 14, He says that anything they ask -- anything -- will be provided for.

There's one qualification, and it's crucial. They have to ask in Jesus' name.

Whatever you ask in my name, this I will do, that the Father may be glorified in the Son. If you ask me anything in my name, I will do it. 

What does it mean to ask something in Christ's name? Is that just formulaic? Can I just say, Lord, here's my Christmas list? And in Jesus' name, hey, God is now obligated? Here are the things I want, God, and I said "in Jesus' name," so you gotta do it?

Is that what He is saying?

The idea of "name" here includes reputation, person, and every characteristic that is wrapped up in that person. To say "in [someone's] name" is to say everything that they stand for. Everything that they are. To pray something in Jesus' name is to pray it in the very character and nature of God. To say it in the very name of God, according to who He is, according to His character, according to His righteousness, according to His holiness. According to everything that He is and His person, that is what it means to pray "in Jesus' name".

Praying in Jesus' name is praying for only those things which are consistent with His person and His work.

Through the cross, He has made it possible for us to approach God. Jesus is the way, and the truth, and the life. No one comes to the Father except through Him.

Ephesians 3:20-21 says this:

Now to him who is able to do far more abundantly than all that we ask or think, according to the power at work within us, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, forever and ever. Amen. 

Jesus says to His disciples, because I go, all of this is going to be possible.

Because He goes, the Holy Spirit comes, and no matter how far away He seems, He is only a prayer away. This is the comfort Jesus is leaving with His disciples the night before He dies. And we now can take comfort in this ... in who He is, and in what He is doing, and what He has promised. 

But we can't take the promise out of its context. There is only one way to receive that promise of comfort, and it's through the cross. The path to this glory and this kind of comfort was that Christ was going to the cross.

Those of us who believe these things now haven't seen them. We have the blessing of living by faith and not by sight. We are blessed because of this.

But there will be a time when our faith will be sight. :)

why jesus came to earth. and also, there is only one god.

Ideally, we'd all be sitting around in my living room discussing God, and we could interrupt each other and ask, "Now, wait, what exactly did you mean?" and hear our voices and see our faces, and drink coffee. :) This is always the problem with online communication. It's highly flawed, and isn't the greatest forum for talking about anything that is really important to you, or is subject to misinterpretation.  

But I think there is some value in trying, so I'm going to go for it. 

I'd like to talk today AT LENGTH :) (get a cup of coffee) about why Jesus came, and then a bit about what it means to be "Christlike". I am not sure exactly what the comment "Jesus came as a model for what we can become" meant, and I never want to put words in any suziebeezieland woman's mouth or misinterpret something or presume to be a mind reader. :) No, no. I'm disagreeing with my own understanding of it, which may or may not be what was meant. In particular, I disagree with the concept of Jesus as mere role model, and I guess I would also always want clarified what it is that we can become if we believe in Him. So I hope I'm not setting up a straw man argument. Anyway, in taking a guess as to what was meant, I found myself really wanting to talk to all of you about why Jesus did come.  

What was the incarnation all about? It's a weird idea, if you've never heard of it before. C.S. Lewis, who came to faith in Christ as an adult, is never far from his memories of Christianity as something too improbable to believe ... 

They say that God became man ... The first difficulty that occurs to any critic of the doctrine lies in the very centre of it. What can be meant by 'God becoming man'? In what sense is it conceivable that eternal self-existent Spirit ... should be so combined with a natural human organism as to make one person? ... In the Christian story God descends to reascend. He comes down; down from the heights of absolute being into time and space, down into humanity ... down to the very roots and seabed of the Nature he has created. But He goes down to come up again and bring the whole ruined world up with Him.

John 1:14 says:

And the Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. 

To save human beings, Jesus had to be made like us in every way, except for our sins. He didn’t only become like man; he actually became a true man. 

Hebrews 2:17,18 says:

Therefore he had to be made like his brothers in every respect, so that he might become a merciful and faithful high priest in the service of God, to make propitiation for the sins of the people. For because he himself has suffered when tempted, he is able to help those who are being tempted. 

And Hebrews 4:15 says:

For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. 

So Jesus, who is God very God, became a man. Why? 

God made the world, and is its ruler. I'm not sure what your view of God is, but think big.

Okay, now think bigger than that. :)

Isaiah 46:9,10 says:

for I am God, and there is no other; I am God, and there is none like me, declaring the end from the beginning and from ancient times things not yet done, saying, ‘My counsel shall stand, and I will accomplish all my purpose.’

We are created beings, and we were created to bring glory to God.

1 Chronicles 29:11 says:

Yours, O Lord, is the greatness and the power and the glory and the victory and the majesty, for all that is in the heavens and in the earth is yours. Yours is the kingdom, O Lord, and you are exalted as head above all.

As individuals and as a whole, mankind has rebelled against God. I know what my heart is like because it is my own heart. And I know what your hearts are like because the Bible says what they are like. We rebel. We are rebels. We turn from God. You can substitute "the image of an ox" in Psalm 106 here for anything in your life that you worship instead of God:

They exchanged the glory of God for the image of an ox that eats grass. They forgot God, their Savior ...

If you already know and love Jesus, that verse will break your heart. It is a wretch of a choice to exchange the glory of God for an ox that eats grass. 

Romans 3:10-12 says:

There is no-one righteous, not even one; there is no-one who understands, no-one who seeks God. All have turned away.

John 3:36 says:

Whoever believes in the Son has eternal life, but whoever rejects the Son will not see life, for God’s wrath remains on him.

Because we have rebelled from God, we are subject to His wrath.

This wrath is justified, but God's wrath is not a popular subject right now. Nope. You don't really even hear about it in a lot of churches. The only characteristic people want God to have is "love", and they want to define what that love looks like. Largely, it seems to have something to do with God just "liking us for how we are, warts and all".

But this is not a Biblical view of God, or of His love, and the problem with making up your own God, cafeteria-style, is that you end up believing in or worshipping or praying to a God who doesn't actually exist.

So we all want to skip right to John 3:16, and feel good, but we won't understand the import of God's salvation unless we truly understand that we need to be saved.

John Piper does a nice, concise job of explaining God's righteousness and our sinfulness:

He is the all-powerful Creator and Sustainer of the universe. He is personal and not a mere force, meaning he thinks and wills and feels. He loves, and he hates. And as personal, he is moral—that is, he deals with us in terms of right and wrong and good and bad. And as moral, he is unwaveringly righteous. He only does what is right. And the infinite worth of what he is defines what is right. To do right is to think and feel and act in a way that accords with (is in harmony with) God’s infinite worth.

All of us were made by this God, and our first and highest duty and reason for being is to honor him and give him thanks (Romans 1:21). We have all failed, and we are all under his righteous displeasure. This is what makes John 3:16 so needed and so precious. It describes the way God is acting to rescue us from this condition.

If you are hung up on this, and don't like the idea of humankind being subject to God, I really encourage you to do a study of God's holiness in the Bible. Get to know who He is. He is worthy of your worship and your fealty. Everything good and kind and noble and true and loving is perfected in God. 

And because of that great love, God didn't leave us alone to face the consequences of our rebellious hearts. Read your Bible -- the whole, entire book is the glorious, wonderful, rich, unfolding story of salvation history, and then a view (Revelation) of what's to come. Jesus was not "Plan B." He was ALWAYS the plan. John 3:16 says:

For God so loved the world, that he gave his only Son, that whoever believes in him should not perish but have eternal life. 

Romans 8:23-25 says:

for all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, and are justified by his grace as a gift, through the redemption that is in Christ Jesus, whom God put forward as a propitiation by his blood, to be received by faith. 

Look at Ephesians 1:7-10:

In him we have redemption through his blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of his grace, which he lavished upon us, in all wisdom and insight making known to us the mystery of his will, according to his purpose, which he set forth in Christ as a plan for the fullness of time, to unite all things in him, things in heaven and things on earth. 

Did you see that word, "'lavished"? :) We cannot begin to understand what God has in His character, at His disposal, at the ready, with which to love us. The riches of His grace. Accept no imitations, ladies of suziebeezieland. Run far and fast from made-up, patchwork versions of God that cater to people's own earthly desires. The God of the Bible is the God for you.

1 Peter 3:18 says:

Christ died for sins once for all, the righteous for the unrighteous, to bring you to God.

And look at Colossians 1:13,14:

He has delivered us from the domain of darkness and transferred us to the kingdom of his beloved Son, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins. 

Jesus came, not as a role-model, but as God the Savior, in fulfillment of prophecy and as the long-awaited Messiah, to save us from sin and reconcile us to the holy, loving, and sovereign God of the universe. 

We are unable to emulate his life by holding him up as a someone to follow and trying to adhere to his moral code. We cannot be godlike or please God through our works. We are justified (made right with God) through faith in Jesus' death on our behalf. This faith is given to us by God's grace.

Ephesians 2:8,9 says:

For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast. 

Romans 5:1 says:

Therefore, since we have been justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Galatians 2:16 says:

... we know that a person is not justified by works of the law but through faith in Jesus Christ, so we also have believed in Christ Jesus, in order to be justified by faith in Christ and not by works of the law, because by works of the law no one will be justified. 

Galatians 3:26 says:

for in Christ Jesus you are all sons of God, through faith.

Philippians 3:9 says:

... and be found in him, not having a righteousness of my own that comes from the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith—

As far as the idea of "what we can become", we are called as believers in Christ to be Christlike. In the book of Leviticus, we're told "You shall be holy, for I am holy."

Ephesians 5:1, 2 says,

Therefore be imitators of God, as beloved children. And walk in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us, a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

1 Peter 1:14-16 says,

As obedient children, do not be conformed to the passions of your former ignorance, but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.” 

Because God is holy, He wants His people to be holy. As we live our lives through faith in Christ and in the power of the Holy Spirit, we are being sanctified -- being made holy -- and this will be perfected when we are united with Jesus in heaven.

Derek W. H. Thomas writes,

If we are to be holy, that holiness of ours is fundamentally related to all that God has done in the purposes of redemption, in sending the Lord Jesus Christ into the world to become incarnate, to die on the cross, and to rise again for our justification.

This holiness is different than being, ourselves, deities. There is only one God, and we're not Him, and never will be.

R.C. Sproul explains this well, I think:

The term holy has two common references. The first and primary meaning of the term refers to God's otherness -- the sense in which He is different from everything else in the created universe. The secondary meaning has to do with His purity, His perfection in righteousness, which we contemplate regularly. In that sense, holiness is a communicable attribute. We know this is so because he says, "Be holy, for I am holy" (Lev. 11:44). But holiness cannot be a communicable attribute in its primary meaning, for it describes something about God that you and I cannot possess in this world or in the world to come. It refers to His transcendent, divine nature, the sense in which He is "other" from us.

I have been saved by the blood of Jesus, and am a beloved child of God, but I will never be God, or a god, of any sort. There is only one God, and I will always worship Him, even in heaven, as will all those who believe in Him. Jesus will always be my King, and I will always bow down to Him, and I will do it with great delight.

There is only one God. I repeat: there is only one God. :) I've always thought that if a person were going to get a tattoo, she could do worse than getting Deuteronomy 6:4,5 scribbled on her arm:

Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. 

Oh, suziebeezieland ladies, whom I have come to love so dearly over the past five and a half years, read your Bibles! Crawl under the covers at night with a flashlight, and read it, and know your God! I hope this is the only thing you remember from this blog when you are eighty years old. Everything you see in the room around you right now will eventually fall away. It is not a waste of your time to know Jesus, who will not fall away. Colossians 1:15-23 says:

He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of all creation. For by him all things were created, in heaven and on earth, visible and invisible, whether thrones or dominions or rulers or authorities—all things were created through him and for him.

And he is before all things, and in him all things hold together.

And he is the head of the body, the church. He is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead, that in everything he might be preeminent.

For in him all the fullness of God was pleased to dwell, and through him to reconcile to himself all things, whether on earth or in heaven, making peace by the blood of his cross. 

And you, who once were alienated and hostile in mind, doing evil deeds, he has now reconciled in his body of flesh by his death, in order to present you holy and blameless and above reproach before him, if indeed you continue in the faith, stable and steadfast, not shifting from the hope of the gospel that you heard ... 

jesus is god.

Thank you very much, those of you who commented on the post about prayer below. I planned to respond to Kelly's comments specifically, but as I was drafting a response my thoughts got very long, and also, I would rather speak to everyone interested rather than just addressing Kelly, which might put her on the spot. :)

So I'm going to do a few posts here on the topics that her comments got me thinking about, instead. These are things I have long wanted to share with you ladies, anyway, so this works well. I'm turning comments off on these posts because I want the four things I'll post to function as one long post. (It would just be way too long if I made it one long post.)

We are a diverse group here in suziebeezieland. What I mean when I say "God" or "Jesus" or "prayer" might not be what you mean when you use those words, and I never make that assumption. 

So I want to clarify some of my own beliefs so that you know exactly what you're dealing with. :) If you are interested in reading my church's statement of faith, which I ascribe to fully -- if I did not, I would not have chosen to become a member of my church -- you can read it here. I am aware of all that it contains, and have studied it for myself. I'm not a parrot. Or a lemming. :)

In regards to the comments yesterday, let me start by addressing the topic of Jesus' deity.  

Absolutely, Jesus is God! He is not someone who is a lot like God, or close to God. He is the Most High God Himself. The Bible attests to Christ's deity. 

Will I fall on my sword over this belief? Why, yes. Yes, I will.

John 1:1-3 says, "In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through Him, and apart from Him nothing came into being that has come into being."

Colossians 2:9 says “In Him the fullness of deity dwells fully.”

Titus 2:13 says that as Christians we are "looking for the blessed hope and the appearing of the glory of our great God and Savior, Christ Jesus."

Philippians 2:6-7 says of Jesus “who, though he was in the form of God, did not count equality with God a thing to be grasped, but made himself nothing, taking the form of a servant, being born in the likeness of men.”

Hebrews 1:2-3 says “but in these last days he has spoken to us by his Son, whom he appointed the heir of all things, through whom also he created the world. He is the radiance of the glory of God and the exact imprint of his nature, and he upholds the universe by the word of his power. After making purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high …”

In John 20:28, upon seeing the resurrected Christ, Thomas cried out, "My Lord and my God!"

Jesus is fully God, and fully man. If any of you has questions about the idea of Jesus as both fully God and fully man, or any questions about the nature of the trinity (which is as confusing to adults as it is children), I recommend a relatively short (as far as these things go), clear article over at the Desiring God website by Matt Perman called How Can Jesus Be God and Man?  I am recommending it because if I summarize the ideas, it will be ten times as long. Ha. :)

This article reflects my own beliefs about both the deity and humanity of Christ, and the nature of the trinity. I am also always happy to speak with any of you personally via email, although as those of you who email me know, I am sometimes slow to think through things and reply. But I will reply. :)

The next thing I'll talk about in this little "four-part response" series will be why Jesus came to earth.

the duties of parents: #6

Helloooo, sweet suziebeezieland readers. :)

We started discussing J.C. Ryle's slim little book, The Duties of Parents, back in autumn. I am hoping that if this is something you are interested in, that you have had time to think about and maybe even apply some of first five duties we discussed:

Duty #1: First, then, if you would train your children rightly, train them in the way they should go, and not in the way they would.

Duty #2: Train up your child with all tenderness, affection, and patience.

Duty #3: Train your children with an abiding persuasion on your mind that much depends on you.

Duty #4:  Train with this thought continually before your eyes -- that the soul of your child is the first thing to be considered.

Duty #5: Train your child to a knowledge of the Bible.

I'm hoping you're ready to forge ahead and look at some more. I know it's a lot to think about. :)

Today we're looking at Duty #6:

Train them to a habit of prayer. 

Ryle writes:

Parents, if you love your children, do all that lies in your power to train them up to a habit of prayer. Show them how to begin. Tell them what to say. Encourage them to persevere. Remind them if they become careless and slack about it. Let it not be your fault, at any rate, if they never call on the name of the Lord.

He warns against leaving your kids to just pray by themselves all the time, or "of giving up the oversight of this matter to servants and nurses." I know that you all probably don't have servants or nurses, but you get his point.  He says, "Surely if there be any habit which your own hand and eye should help in forming, it is the habit of prayer."

The problem, of course, is that we don't pray like we should. We don't know how to begin, we don't know what to say, we don't persevere, so how can we teach this to our kids without being hypocrites?

We're not a praying generation. We have weird ideas about prayer. We have unbiblical ideas about prayer. These weird ideas about prayer are because we have weird, unbiblical ideas about the God to whom we're praying.

So let's leave Ryle for a bit here, and take a moment to establish exactly what prayer is.

In Matthew 6, Jesus talks a lot about how to pray. In verse 8 he says, "for your Father knows what you need before you ask him."

If God already knows what we need, why do we need to pray? What is that all about? 

I have been blessed this past year by reading through an old sermon of Jonathan Edwards' called The Most High, A Prayer-Hearing God. Edwards preached this sermon between 1735 and 1736, when epidemics of both scarlet fever and diptheria were wiping out the children in Essex County, Massachusetts, and other parts of New England. Essex County lost about 1400 children and many adults in a two-year span. It was terrible.  

And in the midst of this epidemic comes Jonathan Edwards, talking to these grieving people about prayer, and why they should do it.

His description of prayer and of the God being prayed to is Biblical, but does not jive with much of what people say and do with prayer in the United States these days. I've bolded some key ideas to grab your attention. :) If you have a sense of God being here to serve us, or if you tend toward a human-centered view of the universe, or have tendencies toward people-worship, this might make you uncomfortable (or angry), because Edwards speaks here of the sovereign God of the universe, who is always in control, all the time.  And everything is all about God, not about us. Look for the phrase "to His glory."

Here we go:

Why Does God Require Prayer?

It is not in order that God may be informed of our wants or desires. He is omniscient, and with respect to his knowledge, unchangeable. God never gains any knowledge by information. He knows what we want a thousand times more perfectly than we do ourselves, before we ask him.

... God is sometimes represented as if he were moved and persuaded by the prayers of his people. Yet it is not to be thought that God is properly moved or made willing by our prayers. For it is no more possible that there should be any new inclination or will in God than new knowledge. The mercy of God is not moved or drawn by anything in the creature.

But the spring of God’s beneficence is within himself only. He is self-moved, and whatsoever mercy he bestows, the reason and ground of it is not to be sought for in the creature, but in God’s own good pleasure.

... God has been pleased to constitute prayer, to be antecedent to the bestowment of mercy. And he is pleased to bestow mercy in consequence of prayer ... When the people of God are stirred up to prayer, it is the effect of his intention to show mercy. Therefore, he pours out the spirit of grace and supplication.

That's wild, huh? So much for God as Santa Claus, responding to our demands. Edwards goes on to explain two reasons God has us pray in order to bestow his mercy. One reason relates to God, and one reason relates to us:

First, with respect to God, prayer is but a sensible acknowledgment of our dependence on him to his glory. As he has made all things for his own glory, so he will be glorified and acknowledged by his creatures. And it is fit that he should require this of those who would be the subjects of his mercy, that we, when we desire to receive any mercy from him, should humbly supplicate the Divine Being. For the bestowment of that mercy, is but a suitable acknowledgment of our dependence on the power and mercy of God for that which we need, and but a suitable honor paid to the great Author and Fountain of all good.

Second, with respect to ourselves, God requires prayer of us in order to the bestowment of mercy, because it tends to prepare us for its reception. Fervent prayer many ways tends to prepare the heart. Hereby is excited a sense of our need, and of the value of the mercy which we seek, and at the same times earnest desires for it, whereby the mind is more prepared to prize it, to rejoice in it when bestowed, and to be thankful for it. Prayer, with suitable confession, may excite a sense of our unworthiness of the mercy we seek. And the placing of ourselves in the immediate presence of God may make us sensible of his majesty, and in a sense fit to receive mercy of him. Our prayer to God may excite in us a suitable sense and consideration of our dependence on God for the mercy we ask, and a suitable exercise of faith in God’s sufficiency, that so we may be prepared to glorify his name when the mercy is received.

So did you catch all that? In other words, prayer is a way for us to acknowledge to God that we depend on Him for His mercy, and a suitable way to honor the source of everything (EVERYTHING) good in life. And praying makes our own hearts more ready to receive God's mercy, and more apt to thank Him when He grants it to us. Prayer makes us more mindful that God is God and we are not. :) It is a wonderful way to glorify Him.

John Calvin also speaks, in his Institute of the Christian Religion, of God's "great beneficence and goodness" (beneficence is such a great word ... we should use it more ... I'm going to start working that word into posts here and see if anybody notices) and reminds us that as God's children, we can address all our desires to Him and thank Him for all goodness we receive:

... as often as we call God the Creator of heaven and earth, let us remember that the distribution of all the things which he created are in his hand and power, but that we are his sons, whom he has undertaken to nourish and bring up in allegiance to him, that we may expect the substance of all good from him alone, and have full hope that he will never suffer us to be in want of things necessary to salvation, so as to leave us dependent on some other source; that in everything we desire we may address our prayers to him, and, in every benefit we receive, acknowledge his hand, and give him thanks; that thus allured by his great goodness and beneficence, we may study with our whole heart to love and serve him.  

Of course, Calvin's and Edwards' words mean nothing if they're not grounded in Biblical truth about God and prayer. You can say all kinds of wise-sounding bolognie, and even get a following, but it's all useless if it's not true.

Here are some verses and passages (out of many, many in the Bible on prayer!) that are foundational to what both men wrote about prayer. Take your time going through them as you can, and see if it helps you improve your own prayer life so that you can, in turn, pass this habit on to your kids.

Matthew 6:5-8
Jesus warns against hypocritical praying and emphasizes that God knows what we want even before we ask Him.

Matthew 6:7-13
Jesus gives us a good model/framework for how to pray, including praising God, giving Him our daily needs, confessing and asking for forgiveness, and asking for help in walking with God.

Luke 18:9-14
Jesus tells a parable about two different men praying, and emphasizes the importance of humility in prayer.

Hebrews 4:16
Oh, how I love this Bible verse! :) Because of God's merciful character, full of grace, we can pray to Him boldly!

Ephesians 3:20-21
Reminds us that God is a God of abundance and power who can do even more than we ask or think to ask of Him.

Philippians 4:6,7
We are supposed to give our requests to God all the time, instead of being anxious, and God Himself will guard our hearts and minds with His peace. 

There are so many more great verses in the Bible about prayer. If you really want to see someone in action praying, during good times and bad times and really bad times, I recommend going to the Psalms. David prayed a LOT. :) And this pleased God greatly.

So teach your kids to pray, and pray yourself. Yep.

fresh american spaces by annie selke

There are not a ton of designers around who share my affinity for elf culture cheerful, colorful decorating. But Annie Selke (the creator of Pine Cone Hill and the Dash & Albert Rug Company and Potluck Studios and Annie Selke Home) is one of them, so I'm excited about her book coming out in August of this year. 

Her stripes and ginghams are what really get me. Here are my favorite cute product photos from her websites to tide you over (or "tidy you over," as Claire says, as in "Can I have a snack to tidy me over until dinner?") until the book comes out.

You get a feeling for how fresh and American her style really is. :)

 

the boden outfit maker

I played with the Boden Outfit Maker tonight for awhile. It's a pretty compelling bit of software, if you are extremely fond of Boden clothes to begin with. 

I decided this dolly's woman's name is Julie. Sadly, as you can see clearly from the following photo, Julie only has one hip.

Having grown up dressing a Barbie whose legs bent backwards at the knees and whose head was prone to falling off if she whipped around the corner too quickly in her camper van, I wasn't fazed one bit by Julie's one-hippedness.

That's what cute jackets are for, anyway ... to cover up your missing hip.

Julie's early fashion influences include the French navy ...

... and Paddington Bear.

Also, LeSueur Baby Peas ...

... and Grape Hubba-Bubba.

She has a boyfriend named Ian McIan, and they hang out on the weekends. This is Julie's "I'm going on a picnic with Ian McIan" outfit.

And this is her "I'm going to the cinema with Ian McIan" outfit.

There is a lot that Ian McIan still doesn't know about Julie. He thinks she is a mild-mannered, one-hipped secretary. 

But actually, Julie is an undercover spy.

When they meet for dinner after work one night, Ian McIan assumes Julie's clutch purse is holding some Kleenex and a lipstick. Actually, it contains some microfilm and a coded note that she must slip, undetected, to another spy sitting at the table next to them.

When Ian looks down at the dessert menu, Julie makes her move. She slips the microfilm and note to the other spy, and Ian does not see her.

Unfortunately, in the process, Julie spills a large glass of blueberry juice down the front of her dress, and must go change into another outfit. Luckily, she has one in the trunk of her car.

This does not bother Ian, because Julie's absence while changing gives him the chance to receive some microfilm and a coded note from a spy sitting at the table next to them.

Yes! By a strange coincidence, Ian McIan is also, himself, a spy!

Neither suspects the other. And it goes on that way for quite some time, until one day Ian realizes that Julie spends way too much money on clothes to be working merely as a mild-mannered secretary.  In a flash of spylike intuition, he realizes she is the famed "Agent Eiluj" he has heard so much about. She, in turn, gasps with the sudden understanding that he is THAT Ian McIan, the famed secret agent.

Well, they are so relieved and happy to find out that the other is also a spy, that they get married and live happily ever after, and they both smile all the time, and Julie buys some more cute clothes, to celebrate. 

All in all, I'd say the Boden Outfit Maker is really cool. My only criticism is that I wish it had more accessories. Like maybe a Corvette, or a Dream House.

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xxoo

ll bean home spring

There is some cute new cottage-y stuff in the latest LL Bean Home catalog. Did you see it? :) Here are the new things I especially liked.

I love this stripey hooked wool rug! It is a bazillion dollars and besides, we have a puppy who is still not potty-trained because, we have decided, she has a brain the size of a pea. (Oh, but sweet. Have I mentioned how sweet she is?) So this is no time to be buying new rugs.

But I am enjoying looking at this picture of it.

They've added a new little storage console and some beadboard organizers (a desktop organizer  and a charging station and this chalkboard organizer) to their Painted Cottage Furniture collection. That wall clock with a drawer underneath is new, too.

... and this cute Aqua color and Sun color to some pieces in the Painted Cottage collection.

I'm thinking the little 20 inch plant stand in Aqua or Sun would be a good little side table next to the little chair we're going to put in the new guest room. Just big enough for a drink and a book, or the Wii controller or a cat. 

There is a really cute Buttons Throw Pillow for a bed.

And some cute new crewel stitch throw pillows.

I think this Green Tea Floral one is cute.

And I like the 1931 Big Ben Alarm Clock in some cute new colors, like this surf blue.

Good job, LL Bean, for always giving us cottage girls somewhere to turn in this mod, mod world. :)

an origami dollar heart

Claire lost a tooth on Christmas, and the tooth fairy, who was apparently caught off guard and didn't have any silver dollars or lose-a-tooth-on-Christmas special money on hand, decided that something pretty-looking and exciting should happen to the bill that was left under the pillow.

She reports that this is terribly fun to do and that she recommends it heartily. (Heartily. Hee.) She also notes that this would be fun to do when leaving a tip for someone.

She may have used this tutorial she found on YouTube.

the way my house is hibernating this afternoon

How have you all been? What have you been doing? What did Santa bring you? We had a lovely winter break. The week after Christmas is my favorite week of the year, when Claire and I play with new toys and read new books and listen to new music and stay in our pajamas eating cookies and leftovers, and only go out when absolutely necessary.

But Claire is back to school today and the Christmas decorations are all down (All the complicated details / of the attiring and the disattiring / are completed! William Carlos Williams wrote about a deciduous tree asleep for the winter, but I think that about the Christmas tree every year when I pull it to the curb), and things are back to normal.

Sniff.

I had guests for coffee this morning, and am now eating a cheese and tomato sandwich for lunch and drinking a late, third cup of coffee (what is it about the heavenly combination of coffee and cheese-tomato sandwiches, which don't sound like they should go together at all, but do?) and contemplating how best to use these two free hours before I need to pick up Claire.

The pets never feel a compulsion to be productive or busy. I've heard tell of people who have animals that earn their keep -- cats who catch mice and spiders, or preternaturally predict earthquakes, and dogs who herd sheep or rescue you from snow drifts -- but we've none of those around here. Nope.

We don't have Winter Proper here in southern California (like in Updike's "January", where the days are short / the sun a spark / hung thin between / the dark and dark).  

It's more like Frank Asch's "Sunflakes":

If sunlight fell like snowflakes,

gleaming yellow and so bright,

we could build a sunman,

we could have a sunball fight,

we could watch the sunflakes

drifting in the sky.

We could go sleighing

in the middle of July

through sundrifts and sunbanks,

we could ride a sunmobile,

and we could touch sunflakes—

I wonder how they'd feel.

Or -- my personal favorite -- Phineas & Ferb's S'Winter:

It's ski and snowball fight time,
And also fly a kite time,
Cold and sunny,
Yes that's right,
I'm talking about S'Winter.
It's a S'Winter S'Wonderland,
Unusual and grand,
You can freeze while you get tan,
Because it's S'Winter,
Talkin' 'bout S'Winter!

But you wouldn't know that we don't have real winters around here -- no sharp shivers thro' the leafless bow'r or dim-dark'ning thro' the flaky show'r as in Robert Burns' "Winter Night" -- the way my house is hibernating this afternoon.