Stepping Heavenward

I purchased this book for my daughter 2 years ago for Christmas and decided to read it for myself about a week ago.  What a gem of a book!! Once I began reading, I couldn't put it down. I was so sad to see it come to an end.  There were so many words of wisdom that I thought I would share with you.  If you haven't already, I encourage you to read the book Stepping Heavenward, by Elizabeth Prentiss. 
On doubting salvation:
The question is not whether you ever gave yourself to God, but whether you are His now.”

On the blessing of having children:
“She says I shall now have one mouth the more to fill and two feet the more to shoe, more disturbed nights, more laborious days, and less leisure or visiting, reading, music, and drawing.
Well! This is one side of the story, to be sure, but I look at the other. Here is a sweet, fragrant mouth to kiss; here are two more feet to make music with their pattering about my nursery. Here is a soul to train for God; and the body in which it dwells is worth all it will cost, since it is the abode of a kingly tenant. I may see less of friends, but I have gained one dearer than them all, to whom, while I minister in Christ's name, I make a willing sacrifice of what little leisure for my own recreation my other darlings had left me. Yes, my precious baby, you are welcome to your mother's heart, welcome to her time, her strength, her health, her tenderest cares, to her lifelong prayers! Oh, how rich I am, how truly, how wondrously blest!”

On obedience to the Lord:
“You cannot prove to yourself that you love God by examining your feelings toward Him. They are indefinite and they fluctuate. But just as far as you obey Him, just so far, depend upon it; you love Him. It is not natural to us sinful, ungrateful beings to prefer His pleasure to our own or to follow His way instead of our own way, and nothing, nothing but love of Him can or does make us obedient to Him.”

On training children:
“People ask me how it happens that my children are all so promptly obedient and so happy. As if it chanced that some parents have such children or chanced that some have not! I am afraid it is only too true, as someone has remarked, that "this is the age of obedient parents!" What then will be the future of their children? How can they yield to God who have never been taught to yield to human authority? And how well fitted will they be to rule their own households who have never learned to rule themselves?”

On facing trials:
“There is no wilderness so dreary but that His love can illuminate it, no desolation so desolate but that He can sweeten it. I know what I am saying. It is no delusion. I believe the highest, purest happiness is known only to those who have learned Christ in sickrooms, in poverty, in racking suspense and anxiety, amid hardships, and at the open grave.” “Yes, the radiant face, worn by sickness and suffering but radiant still, said in language yet more unspeakably impressive, “To learn Christ, this is life!”

On holy living:
“You think then,” I said while my heart died within me, “that husband and children are obstacles in our way and hinder our getting near Christ?” “Oh, no!” she cried. “God never gives us hindrances. On the contrary, He means, in making us wives and mothers, to put us into the very conditions of holy living. But if we abuse His gifts by letting them take His place in our hearts, it is an act of love on His part to take them away or to destroy our pleasure in them.”

　
On the blessings of children once again:
“I want to see little children adorning every home as flowers adorn every meadow and every wayside. I want to see them welcomed to the homes they enter, to see their parents grow less and less selfish and more and more loving because they have come. I want to see God’s precious gifts accepted, not frowned upon and refused.”
 A reminder that every day is an act of worship when living for Christ:
“Instead of fancying that our ordinary daily work was one thing and our religion quite another thing, we should transmute our drudgery into acts of worship. Instead of going to prayer meetings to get into a 'good frame,' we should live in a good frame from morning till night, from night till morning; and prayer and praise would be only another form for expressing the love and faith and obedience we had been exercising amid the pressure of business."

When your in a busy season that doesn't allow you to spend the time you wish in devotion/prayer time:
"I only wish I had understood this years ago," I said. "I have made prayer too much of a luxury and have often inwardly chafed and fretted when the care of my children, at times, made it utterly impossible to leave them for private devotion--when they have been sick, for instance, or in other like emergencies. I reasoned this way: 'Here is a special demand on my patience, and I am naturally impatient. I must have time to go away and entreat the Lord to equip me for this conflict.' But I see now that the simple act of cheerful acceptance of the duty imposed and the solace and support withdrawn would have united me more fully to Christ than the highest enjoyment of His presence in prayer could."
"Yes, every act of obedience is an act of worship," he said.

So whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God.
1 Corinthians 10:31

The Cure for Self-Righteousness

The true cure for self-righteousness is self-knowledge. Once let the eyes of our understanding be opened by the Spirit, and we shall talk no more of our own goodness. Once let us see what there is in our own hearts, and what the holy law of God requires, and self-conceit will die. We shall lay our hand on our mouths, and cry with the leper, “Unclean, unclean.” (Lev. 13:45)

~ J.C. Ryle

A critical spirit.... something I struggle with.

I realize that my eyes can either be fixed on Jesus or fixed on others.

In order to receive God's mercy His Word says that I have to show mercy to others.

I believe I need to spend more time thanking the Lord for all He has forgiven ME for. I don't deserve forgiveness and if it wasn't for the GRACE of God I would be just like those I find myself criticizing.

Lord, help me to have a humble and meek spirit; not a spirit of pride or self-righteousness. You resist the proud. Help me to take every thought captive and to be able to resist the schemes of satan. Help me to give grace, mercy, and forgiveness to those who dont deserve it and to remember that I to don't deserve anything good, yet you have blessed be abundantly. Help me to pray for those that are weak spiritually and not to forget that apart from You I can do nothing.

In Jesus Name,

Amen.

Matthew 5:7

Blessed are the merciful; for they will obtain mercy.

Faith in Jesus

A true believer’s religion does not consist in mere intellectual assent to a certain set of propositions and doctrines. It is not a mere cold belief of a certain set of truths and facts concerning Christ. It consists in union, communion, and fellowship with an actual living Person, Jesus the Son of God. It is a life of faith in Jesus, confidence in Jesus, leaning on Jesus, drawing out of the fullness of Jesus, speaking to Jesus, working for Jesus, loving Jesus, and waiting for Jesus to come again.

~ J.C. Ryle

True Saving Faith

It is greatly to be feared that there are multitudes in Christendom who verily imagine and sincerely believe that they are among the saved, yet who are total strangers to a work of divine grace in their hearts. It is one thing to have clear intellectual conceptions of God's truth, it is quite another matter to have a personal, real heart acquaintance with it. It is one thing to believe that sin is the awful thing that the Bible says it is, but it is quite another matter to have a holy horror and hatred of it in the soul. It is one thing to know that God requires repentance, it is quite another matter to experimentally mourn and groan over our vileness. It is one thing to believe that Christ is the only Savior for sinners, it is quite another matter to really trust Him from the heart. It is one thing to believe that Christ is the sum of all excellency', it is quite another matter to LOVE HIM above all others. It is one thing to believe that God is the great and holy One, it is quite another matter to truly reverence and fear Him. It is one thing to believe that salvation is of the Lord, it is quite another matter to become an actual partaker of it through His gracious workings. A.W. Pink

7 Signs of True Saving Faith:

Faith in Christ's sufficient work on the cross

Signs and evidence of true biblical repentance

Deliberate turn from a life enslaved to sin to embrace Jesus as Lord and Savior

Desire/joy to follow God's Word-(obeying God's law from the heart)

Bearing fruit (attitude [fruit of the Spirit] and action [good works])-Continual working out our salvation

Desire to live for God's glory

Christlike desires and emotions

Mark Talbot The Signs of True Conversion, Crossway Books, 2000.

Another proof of the conquest of a soul for Christ will be found in a real change of life. If the man does not live differently from what he did before, both at home and abroad, his repentance needs to be repented of and his conversion is a fiction. C.H. Spurgeon

Sin forsaken is one of the best evidences of sin forgiven. J.C. Ryle

The Call of Motherhood

"This job has been given to me to do. Therefore, it is a gift. Therefore, it is a privilege. Therefore, it is an offering I may make to God. Therefore, it is to be done gladly, if it is done for Him. Here, not somewhere else, I may learn God’s way. In this job, not in some other, God looks for faithfulness."
— Elisabeth Elliot

"What a traditional woman did that made her home warm and alive was not dusting and laundry.... Her real secret was that she identified herself with her home, [and]...it is illuminating to think about what happened when things went right. Then her affection was in the soft sofa cushions, clean linens, and good meals; her memory in well-stocked storeroom cabinets and the pantry; her intelligence in the order and healthfulness of her home; her good humor in its light and air. She lived her life not only through her own body, but through the house as an extension of her body; part of her relation to those she loved was embodied in the physical medium of the home she made. My own experience convinces me that there is still no other way to make a good home than to have attitudes toward home and domesticity modeled on those of that traditional woman.... Advertisements and television programs offer degraded images of household work and workers. DIscussions of the subject in magazines and newspapers follow a standard formula.... It is scarcely surprising, then, that so many people imagine housekeeping to be boring, frustrating, repetitive, unintelligent drudgery. I cannot agree. (In fact, having kept house, practiced law, taught, and done many other sorts of work, low- and high-paid, I can assure you that it is actually lawyers who are most familiar with the experience of unintelligent drudgery.)"
~ Cheryl Mendelson, Home Comforts: The Art and Science of Keeping House, pages 9-10.

"Women are told today they can have it all-career, marriage, children. You need a total commitment to make it work. Take a close look at your child. He doesn’t want you to be bright, talented, chic, or smart-any of those things. He just wants you to love him. He will be the one who pays the price for your wanting to have it all. Think carefully about having that baby. Not to have it would be a great loss. To have it too late greatly increases the health hazards for you and the child. To have it without a commitment to it would be a great tragedy."
~ Beverly Sills, addressing a graduating class of Barnard College in New York.

"So long as we insist upon defining our identities only in terms of our work, so long as we try to blind ourselves to the needs of our children and harden our hearts against them, we will continue to feel torn, dissatisfied, and exhausted…. The guilt we feel for neglecting our children is a byproduct of our love for them. It keeps us from straying too far from them, for too long. Their cry should be more compelling than the call from the office."
~ Danielle Crittenden, What Our Mothers Didn't Tell Us, page 143.

Biblical Motherhood

Christian motherhood means dedicating your entire life in service of others. It means standing beside your husband, following him, and investing in the lives of children whom you hope will both survive you and surpass you. It means forgoing present satisfaction for eternal rewards. It means investing in the lives of others who may never fully appreciate your sacrifice or comprehend the depth of your love. And it means doing all these things, not because you will receive the praise of man — for you will not — but because God made you to be a woman and a mother, and there is great contentment in that biblical calling.

In 1950, the great Scottish American preacher Peter Marshall stood before the United States Senate and he explained it this way:

The modern challenge to motherhood is the eternal challenge — that of being a godly woman. The very phrase sounds strange in our ears. We never hear it now. We hear about every other kind of women — beautiful women, smart women, sophisticated women, career woman, talented women, divorced women, but so seldom do we hear of a godly woman — or of a godly man either, for that matter.
I believe women come nearer fulfilling their God-given function in the home than anywhere else. It is a much nobler thing to be a good wife than to be Miss America. It is a greater achievement to establish a Christian home than it is to produce a second-rate novel filled with filth. It is a far, far better thing in the realm of morals to be old-fashioned than to be ultramodern. The world has enough women who know how to hold their cocktails, who have lost all their illusions and their faith. The world has enough women who know how to be smart. It needs women who are willing to be simple. The world has enough women who know how to be brilliant. It needs some who will be brave. The world has enough women who are popular. It needs more who are pure. We need women, and men, too, who would rather be morally right that socially correct.

These quotes were found in a wonderful article called The Rise and Fall of Motherhood in America.

Beautiful Motherhood

Mothers, don’t let anyone ever dupe you into thinking there’s anything ignoble or disgraceful about remaining at home and raising your family. Don’t buy the lie that you’re repressed if you’re a worker in the home instead of in the world’s workplace. Devoting yourself fully to your role as wife and mother is not repression; it is true liberation. Multitudes of women have bought the world’s lie, put on a suit, picked up a briefcase, dropped their children off for someone else to raise, and gone into the workplace, only to realize after fifteen years that they and their children have a hollow void in their hearts. Many such career women now say they wish they had devoted themselves to motherhood and the home instead.
John MacArthur
Successful Christian Parenting, 1998, p. 195


One of the things the feminist movement has done so successfully is to stir up discontent in women with being homemakers and to convince them that other pursuits can increase their sense of self-worth… Fueling discontent and pushing women out of their homes in search of greater meaning and satisfaction has resulted in off-the-chart stress levels for many women who can no longer survive without pills and therapists… The greatest spiritual, moral, and emotional protection a woman will ever experience is found when she is content to stay within her God-appointed sphere. This does not mean that she never leaves her house, but rather that her heart is rooted in her home and that she puts her family’s needs above all other interests and pursuits.
Nancy Leigh DeMoss

Women are called to manage their homes (1 Tim. 5:14) ; this pleases God and keeps the adversary from speaking reproachfully. Women who make homes keep God’s word from being blasphemed (Titus 2:4). The way I understand this is that a home that is well managed is a positive glory; a home in shambles is a poor testimony. But this is not to lay a guilt trip on women; rather, it should inspire us to view our seemingly mundane tasks as a truly worthy calling that God uses to transform the world. We often think of homekeeping as drudgery. But God says it silences our enemies. That is something potent. God always does things backwards from what we think. This requires wisdom.
Nancy Wilson of Femina


Your good works ought to first be done at home--ministering to the needs of your family. Then if God gives you time, opportunity, available resources or in a different season of life--to take those gifts and those abilities and expand them, as we'll see the Proverbs 31 woman does, outside of your own home.
Nancy DeMoss

Family J.R. Miller Pg.65-66
But it should be understood that for every wife the first duty is the making and keeping of her own home. Her first and best work should be done there, and till it is well done she has no right to go outside to take up other duties. She is to be a “worker at home.” She must look upon her home as the one spot on earth for which she alone is responsible, and which she must cultivate well for God if she never does anything outside. For her Father’s business is not attending Dorcas societies and missionary meetings, and mother’s meetings, and temperance conventions, or even teaching a Sunday-school class, until she has made her own home all the her wisest thought and best skill can make it. There have been wives who in their zeal for Christ’s work outside have neglected Christ’s work inside their own doors. They have had eyes and hearts for human need and human sorrow in the broad fields lying far out, but neither eye nor heart for the work of love lain about their own feet. The result has been that while they were doing angelic work in the lanes and streets, the angels were mourning over their neglected duties within the hallowed walls of their own homes. While they were winning a place in the hearts of the poor or the sick or the orphan, they were losing their rightful place in the hearts of their own household. Let it be remembered that Christ’s work in the home is the first that he gives every wife, and that no amount of consecrated activities in other spheres will atone in this world or the next for neglect or failure there.



Pg. 180
There is nothing in the daily routine of the family life that is unimportant. Indeed, it is ofttimes the things we think of as without influence that will be found to have made the deepest impression on the tender lives of the household.

Pg.188
When we think of the importance of evenings at home it certainly seems worthwhile to plan to save as many as possible of them from outside demands for the sacred work within. It were better that we should neglect some social attraction, or miss some political meeting, or be absent from some lodge or society, than that we should neglect the culture of our own homes and let our children slip away from us forever.

Pg.219
To make a home godless and prayerless is to send our children out to meet all the worlds evil without either the shelter of covenant love to cover them in the storm or the strength of holy principle in their hearts to make them able to endure.

Pg.223
It is impossible to estimate full influence of the reading of the word in a home day after day and year after year. It filters into the hearts of the young. It is absorbed into their souls. It colors all their thoughts. It is wrought into the very fibre of their minds. It imbues them with its own spirit. It’s holy teachings become the principles of their lives, which rule their conduct and shape all their actions.



Pg.262
No other work that God gives any of us to do is so important, so sacred, so far-reaching in it’s influence, so delicate and easily marred as our home-making. This is the work of all our life that is most divine. The carpenter works in wood, the mason works in stone, the smith works in iron, the artist works on canvas, but the home-maker works on immortal souls. The wood or the stone or the iron or the canvas may be marred, and it will not matter greatly in fifty years; but let a tender human soul be marred in its early training, and ages hence the effects will still be seen. Whatever else we slight, let it never be our home-making. If we do nothing else well in this world, let us at least build well within our own doors.

Television and Ungodly Influences in the Home

We would never purposely allow violence, pornographic magazines, vulgar language, or books in our home that teach evolution would we? Why is it that we don't see a problem with watching shows on t.v. in our homes that promote these same things? According to usetoday.com, the average American home has more televisions than people with an average of 3 televisions per home. As christians we shouldn't find entertainment in watching shows that promote a sinful lifestyle. Did we forget that it was SIN that nailed our Lord and Savior to the cross? Do we really think filling our minds with filth will have no consequences?
I'm not saying that it's wrong to ever watch television, but we need to use the Biblical standard for choosing which programs we watch:

Phillipians 4:8
"Finally brothers, whatever is true, whatever is noble, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable-if anything is excellent or
praiseworthy-think about such things."

Proverbs 31:27
"Above all else, guard your heart, for it is the wellspring of life."


Galatians 5:19-21
Now the works of the flesh are evident: sexual immorality, impurity, sensuality, idolatry, sorcery, enmity, strife, jealousy, fits of anger, rivalries, dissensions, divisions, envy, drunkenness, orgies, and things like these. I warn you, as I warned you before, that those who do such things will not inherit the kingdom of God.

I want to share with you a few titles of some of the most popular t.v. shows of 2010:
True Blood
Lie to Me
Gossip Girl
Desperate Housewives
Hell's Kitchen
The Vampire Diaries
Pretty Little Liars
Charmed
Buffy the Vampire Slayers
Dirty Sexy Money
Sex and the City
Bad Girls Club
Californication



Here is just a few of the many dangers of television:

1. Desensitizes us to sin.
2. Corrupts our character. "garbage in, garbage out"
3. Creates a false view of reality.
4. Wastes time we can be spending doing something fruitful.
5. Steals precious time we can be spending with our family.
6. Is linked to a higer risk of autism in children.

The following paragraph is taken from Nancy Leigh DeMoss from Revive Our Hearts
Children will cultivate an appetite for whatever they are fed in their earliest formative years. I have known young people from 'committed' Christian homes who know more about movie stars and rock groups than they do about the patriarchs or the disciples. They can sing along with all the top hit songs but do not know the great hymns of the faith. I can only assume that they have an appetite for what they've been exposed to.
"If we allow our children to listen to music, attend movies, read books and magazines and hang out with friends that promote profanity, negative attitudes, illicit sex, rebellion, and violence, we should not be surprised when they adopt the world's philosophies."
God intended that our homes should be like a greenhouse--a potting place for young, tender plants, where they can be nurtured and brought up in the ways of God until they're prepared to go out into the world and to withstand the attacks and the storms of life outside your home.
As parents we need to be careful what influences we are allowing in our homes. May our homes and the programs we watch glorify the Lord and be pleasing in His sight.


The TV is my shepherd, my spiritual life shall want,
It makes me to sit down and do nothing for the cause of Christ.
It demandeth my spare time.
It restoreth my desire for the things of the world.
It keepeth me from studying the truth of God’s Word.
It leadeth me in the path of failure to attend God’s house.
Yea, though I live to be a hundred, I will fear no rental;
My “Telly” is with me, its sound and vision comfort me.
It prepareth a program for me, even in the presence of visitors.
Its volume shall be full.
Surely comedy and commercials shall follow me all the days of my life,
And I will dwell in spiritual poverty forever.
Author Unknown

Embracing Your Role As Homemaker

It's not easy being a homemaker in todays culture. The very word "homemaker" is counter-cultural. The world considers those who choose to work at home as lazy, unproductive, wasting our time, talents, education. We receive no recognition from others for our hard work or salary for the long hours we put in, but we can guarantee that our reward is in heaven. None of our days sacrificed in serving others will go unnoticed by our Lord and Savior. Choosing to stay at home to raise your children is a decision that you will never look back and regret and neither will your children. You will never hear a child tell his mother that he wishes that she would have worked full time so that he could have spent his childhood at daycare. We live in a society where mothers have forsaken there God-given roles and pay others for jobs they simple "dont have the time for" in order for them to pursue more "important" tasks. We can pay someone to raise our chidren, pay someone to clean our house, pay someone to make our food, pay someone to do our laudry... the list goes on and on. I'm not saying all those things are bad in and of itself, but when we refuse to embrace God's calling for us as women we are saying to God that His plan for womanhood isn't relevant anymore, it isn't good enough. God's Ways are always perfect, always good. When we choose to do things our way or the world's way there will always be consequences. Don't ever let anyone tell you that you are not serving God unless you put your ministry before your children. Raising Godly children that fear and love the Lord IS ministry! This should be your first priority. Rest in the season God has placed you because the season of raising little souls is fleeting and will pass quickly.
If we do nothing else well in this world, let us at least build well within our own doors.-JR Miller



Titus 2:1-5
1 But as for you, speak the things which are proper for sound doctrine: 2 that the older men be sober, reverent, temperate, sound in faith, in love, in patience; 3 the older women likewise, that they be reverent in behavior, not slanderers, not given to much wine, teachers of good things— 4 that they admonish the young women to love their husbands, to love their children, 5 to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husbands, that the word of God may not be blasphemed.


Here are some motherhood quotes you might enjoy:





When you cook nutritious, tasty meals for your family, you are pointing them to the One who feeds the hungry and who satisfies thirsty souls with Himself. You’re giving them an appetite for Him.
And when you go to the time and effort to be sure that your husband and your kids have adequate clothing that fits, you are pointing them toward the One who clothes us with His righteousness.
See, every aspect of homemaking is meant to reflect some spiritual, eternal truth that we’re trying to picture to our world.
When you maintain a clean home, an orderly home, you’re creating an atmosphere where your family can appreciate the value of being spiritually clean, cleansed from sin, and of having lives that are spiritually ordered. You’re teaching; you’re training not just to be clean and orderly because that is not a supreme, ultimate eternal virtue. It’s pointing them to virtues that are supreme and eternal. As you are homemaking what you are doing is creating a taste for our ultimate home in heaven.
We’re talking about homes that reflect the glory of God, the beauty of Christ, and that are havens and greenhouses and places where life can be cultivated and where people can grow and become like Christ and where the gospel can be manifested.
Nancy Leigh DeMoss




"To know the true state of a nation, look at the state of the Church. To know the true state of the Church, look at the families who populate her pews. To know the state of her families, look to the fathers who lead them. Destroy the vision of the father, and you render impotent the family, thus creating a chain reaction that will spread throughout civilization."

- Douglas W. Phillips

Family JR Miller
Pg. 118
The place in which He (Jesus)
was prepared for that mission was not in any of the fine schools of the world, but in a lowly home; not at the feet of rabbis and philosophers, but with his own mother for his teacher. What an honor does this fact put upon home! What a dignity upon motherhood!



Family J.R. Miller Pg.65-66
But it should be understood that for every wife the first duty is the making and keeping of her own home. Her first and best work should be done there, and till it is well done she has no right to go outside to take up other duties. She is to be a “worker at home.” She must look upon her home as the one spot on earth for which she alone is responsible, and which she must cultivate well for God if she never does anything outside. For her Father’s business is not attending Dorcas societies and missionary mettings, and mother’s meetings, and temperance conventions, or even teaching a Sunday-school class, until she has made her own home all the her wisest thought and best skill can make it.


There have been wives who in their zeal for Christ’s work outside have neglected Christ’s work inside their own doors. They have had eyes and hearts for human need and human sorrow in the broad fields lying far out, but neither eye nor heart for the work of love lain about their own feet. The result has been that while they were doing angelic work in the lanes and streets, the angels were mourning over their neglected duties within the hallowed walls of their own homes. While they were winning a place in the hearts of the poor or the sick or the orphan, they were losing their rightful place in the hearts of their own household. Let it be remembered that Christ’s work in the home is the first that he gives every wife, and that no amount of consecrated activities in other spheres will atone in this world or the next for neglect or failure there. JR Miller