The most important and basic thing for a Christian to do is to decide whether or not they believe the scriptures are inerrant (incapable of error) and sufficient (enough).

Why?

Because if we believe the above to be true, then the scriptures will be our standard for evaluating everything in life.

“The law of the LORD is perfect, restoring the soul;
The testimony of the LORD is sure, making wise the simple.
The precepts of the LORD are right, rejoicing the heart;
The commandment of the LORD is pure, enlightening the eyes.
The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever;
The judgments of the LORD are true; they are righteous altogether.
¹They are more desirable than gold, yes, than much fine gold;
Sweeter also than honey and the drippings of the honeycomb.
Moreover, by them Your servant is warned;
In keeping them there is great reward.”  Psalm 19:7-11

“All Scripture is inspired by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction,for training in righteousness; so that the man of God may be adequate, equipped for every good work.” (bold and italicize mine)  2 Timothy 3:16,17

We know from the scriptures that the scriptures are enough.  They are without error, and they are breathed of God – they are the authority of God.

Knowing where we stand on the authority of scripture is going to be key in how we answer the questions of life. If you and I trust the scriptures…if we trust God…we can be secure and safe in His wisdom for us.

Related Article: What Says the Scripture?

Today’s post is from Women Living Well author, Courtney…

A good friend asked me to write on the topic of depression- and I immediately thought – I just can’t.

I have never personally experienced a long bout of depression so how can I speak to it? Yes, I have had prolonged days of sadness – where the exhaustion of managing my home and children and feeling like a failure at both has caused me to be downcast. When my nursing went terribly wrong with my son and he failed to thrive – for months I carried a heavy burden of guilt and failure – and each time I revisited those 8 weeks of nursing tears would overwhelm me. Even now as I type – the tears are coming. I have had times where doing the right thing in marriage felt too hard. I’ve been weary in ministry where I wanted to throw in the towel and give up – where my plate was too full and the critics seemed to abound – where I wore my smile at church while I cried at home. I’ve had days where I’ve felt lost – not sure what my purpose is or if I can make a meaningful difference in this world.

And so from my small tastes of weariness and sadness – I write this series on depression. All of us have been touched by some form of depression – whether we have a friend, relative or ourselves have been there – it has affected us. And so we need to know how to Biblically handle this monster called depression.

Have you ever had days, months or even years where you felt joy was out of reach? It can come out of no where and stay for too long – it comes from stressful circumstances, because of sin in your life, Satanic assault, too much isolation and absorption of self or from physical causes or just plain hereditary. If you feel lost and alone you are not.

Listen to David as he cries in Psalm 69:1,2

“Save me, O God, for the waters have come up to my neck. I sink in the miry depths, where there is no foothold. I have come into the deep waters; the floods engulf me. I am worn out calling for help; my throat is parched. My eyes fail, looking for my God…”

David here is exhausted, weary and feels as though he’s drowning. Though he desires to feel God’s presence he cannot seem to find God. Are you there – feeling as though you are drowning and just breathing air is difficult? Does God seem out of reach?

Fight for Joy. You are in a battle – fight for joy. I will be taking this series from John Piper’s excellent book “When I Don’t Desire God – How to Fight for Joy” (this book is available free online for you to download – just click on the link). I’ll be adding a woman’s (my own) perspective to it. So join me and invite your friends to join in, as I address – Dealing With Depression.

If you are depressed right now these words will be hard to do – walking and functioning may be hard to do – but I plead with you today – open your Bible and read Psalm 69. Go to the Lord in a one sentence prayer – ask him to help you in your fight for joy.

Walk with the King.

Courtney

Women Living Well

Dealing with Depression is a four-part series.  Next Wednesday will be Part 2 – The Physical Side

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On another note, two stellar giveaways are happing today…books for babes from Tommy Nelson here (Relevant blog) and the Homestead Blessings 10 DVD pack here (Raising Homemakers)!

The good stuff

“I have seen so many families over the years fall by the wayside, eventually, as one ideal after the other is compromised, and now few remain faithful and idealistic in the long run because life can be wearisome.

You have such precious children and husband and they are the story of your integrity that you will someday be able to offer you a platform as an encouragement to other women. How our culture needs women who know the reality of giving, sacrificing, teaching, loving and doing all because of our wonderful Lord’s love for children and His entrusting them into our hands.” (Excerpt taken from an email I received last week.)

Friends, I know that being a mom is tiring, often monotonous, and just plain hard (heck, you don’t have to be a mom to experience the battle fatigue of life!).  I also know we only have one shot at this life gig, and I don’t know about you, but man I want to get it right (and when I say right, I mean do the hard stuff).  I want to enjoy this online camaraderie that I am so blessed to have, without neglecting my family…my good husband (who is but a sinner, just like me) and my sweet blessings (who may seem like burdens sometimes, but that’s just because of my selfishness…and their little sin natures!).

I want to live a life that glorifies my God and fulfills my God-given feminine role.

And so I am faced with two poignant questions:

Am I willing to battle in this war being waged for my life and the lives of my family?

Am I willing to forgo the distractions that are set to besiege me into complacency?

Yes.

Yes.

Are you willing to fight alongside me?

P.S. The winners of the DownEast Basics giveaway are Jesica and Angela!  Congrats – please email me with WINNER in the subject – sarahmae (at) likeawarmcupofcoffee (dot) com.  :)

This article is by Serena Woods – you can read part 1 here.

….Not ‘giving up on your faith’, but giving up on your right to ‘self’. God needs empty vessels to fill, not self-propelled motors to watch. Christ’s death on the cross was to complete the ‘abc’ existence and set you free to ‘get it right’ through faith. You couldn’t do this for yourself, so He did it for you. Going back on that is blotting out the cross with unbelief.

“I am emphatic about this. The moment any one of you submits to circumcision or any other rule-keeping system, at that same moment Christ’s hard-won gift of freedom is squandered. I repeat my warning: The person who accepts the ways of circumcision trades all the advantages of the free life in Christ for the obligations of the slave life of the law.” -Galatians 5:2-3

Sometimes He allows bad things to happen so that He can illuminate Himself. He let Lazarus die and said He was ‘glad’ (John 11:14), He instigated Job’s attack (Job 1:8), He let Satan sift Peter (Luke 22:32), He let men crucify Him, He lets you fall and He lets you hurt all for the sake of illuminating Himself. It’s not glory for you, it’s glory for Him. If you think that it should be all roses and sunshine, then you’ll miss Him. You’ll be resentful and frustrated and tighten the reigns on yourself even more.

When you give your life to God, He makes a clean sweep, throwing the trash out to be burned.

“The real action comes next: The main character in this drama…will ignite the kingdom life within you, a fire within you, the Holy Spirit within you, changing you from the inside out. He’s going to clean house—make a clean sweep of your lives. He’ll place everything true in its proper place before God; everything false he’ll put out with the trash to be burned.” –Matthew 3:11-12

Is your life in shambles right now? Face it full on. Don’t ask questions. Don’t scramble to try to fix it. Wait for God with faith and hope. He may have had to destroy what was built in order to give you a new foundation, a foundation with Him as the cornerstone.

“When life is heavy and hard to take, go off by yourself. Enter the silence. Bow in prayer. Don’t ask questions: Wait for hope to appear. Don’t run from trouble. Take it full-face. The “worst” is never the worst. Why? Because the Master won’t ever walk out and fail to return. If he works severely, he also works tenderly. His stockpiles of loyal love are immense.” -Lamentations 3:28-32

Today’s article is by Serena Woods.

“This sickness is not fatal. It will become an occasion to show God’s glory by glorifying God’s Son.” -John 11:4

I think the church has committed the crime of ‘bait and switch.’ We’re told that our lives will be easier, happier and more profitable if we live for God.

When things go wrong or get tough, they tell you it’s because something is wrong with your ‘walk.’ You’re not doing something right. You spend all your time trying to get the perfect ratio of prayer, devotions, giving, doing, thinking… Only, you still end up on the short end of the stick. Your loved one still died even though you prayed your best for their healing. You can’t control your addictions even though you’ve begged God to deliver you. You can’t grow a child in your belly even though you’ve done everything right.

It’s easier to have a rulebook in front of you so that you can follow the guideline and get the reward. It feels more secure to know that if you do ‘a’, ‘b’ and ‘c’, then everything will work. We know that God is not a faulty product so we turn our attention to ourselves when things don’t work out. We think of ourselves as gas tanks, banks, or electronics. We need to ‘put gas in our tank’, make a deposit in our ‘bank’, refresh our ‘batteries’ or get ‘plugged back in.’

It’s a never-ending cycle of examining spans of time where it was good and trying to recreate our formulas to make it good again.

In all of the time you’ve had your head down, studying yourself, where is God? In all of this stubborn ’self-control’ and ‘perseverance’ how is it possible to let your ’self’ go? I’m not saying that self-control and perseverance are bad, I’m saying that when they become your focus, then your focus is not on God. It would be better to be an absolute mess who relies on grace than a squeak-free, surge-protected, name-brand, self-sufficient appliance that relies on strength and ability. In the effort to ’save your life’ so that you don’t lose it, you’re losing everything. It’s only when you lose your life that you save it.

“…whoever would save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for my sake will save it.” -Luke 9:24 ESV

So far, in my own journey, I’ve come to believe that giving up is the best course of action…

Continued tomorrow…

You can find Serena blogging at Grace is For Sinners, a place where you can go to remember the truth of the Gospel when it’s hardest to feel worthy of it.  Serena is also a Relevant speaker.

“We’re not raising a man who happens to be biologically capable of having children.  We’re raising a woman, a wife, a mother…’it sounds so radical!’ Yea, it probably does.  You know why?’ Cause we’re a lot more American than we are Christian.  We do the same thing everybody else does.  And most times in the exact same way.  After step A you take step B.  Why? ‘Cause everybody does it, and if you don’t, you’re messin’ things up.  Keep your prosperity in check.  There’s a whole lot of women out there who have bought the lie that says you can have it all, and the fact of the matter is, you cannot.  And you were never meant to.  Nor were men.  There is a role for us to play, you weren’t designed to have it all.  But here’s what I’m wondering: why would anyone who has been given the incredible gift and privilege of being able to bear and grow in them a life - 9 months – why? Why? To have a symbiotic relationship between your body and theirs; between your heartbeat and theirs.  That’s why.  So that they know your smell.  So that they know everything about you.  Why do they come here and the first thing they desperately need to do is nurse?  So that from your breast they look into your eyes.  Why?  ‘Cause God designed you to nurture them.  And you know what our culture says, that’s not good enough. You need to go share Adam’s curse ’cause Eve’s curse is not enough for you.  That’s what our world says.  And our world says as soon as you can, you rip that baby from you and hire somebody else to do what God created you to do instead.  That’s what our world says.  God says, ‘I’ve given you to this man to be his suitable helper.’ What does our world say?  Well, let him go find somebody’s else’s wife to be his right arm, and then you be the right arm of some other man.  That’s what our world says.  When we have the greatest gift, the greatest calling, and the greatest opportunity in the world, because the hand that rocks the cradle is the hand that rules the world…There is nothing more beautiful, nothing more powerful, nothing more precious than authentic, strong, submissive womanhood, and there is nothing that is in shorter supply, except, authentic, strong, passionate, protecting, providing manhood.  And as a result our houses are not order, they are in complete disarray. And we are raising men who are weak and have not been given permission to stand up and lead their homes, and women who are unprotected and completely dissatisfied because somebody told them they could have it all, and rather than enjoy and embrace this incredible powerful gift of womanhood and motherhood, that instead they should go out and share Adam’s curse and pay somebody else to do the menial job, the menial task, of raising and nurturing their children.  God help us.  Don’t buy the lie.”

Voddie Baucham, Getting Our Houses in Order (Part 2 of ‘The Children of Ceasar’)

“Women sigh for fame.
They would be sculptors, and chisel out of the cold stone forms of beauty to fill the world with admiration of their skill.
Or they would be poets, to write songs to thrill a nation and to be sung around the world.

But is any work in marble
so great as her who has an immortal life
laid in her hands
to shape for its destiny?”

-JR Miller

I saw this quote on A Wise Woman Builds Her Home.  You can find the inspiring article here.

You are *not* a legalist if by faith and love for the Lord you obey His law – people will tell you you are, but you are not.

You are a legalist if you keep God’s law in order to gain or keep your salvation.

You are *not* a legalist if you believe professing Christians should obey the Lord, with love & humilty.

You are a legalist if you believe that your obedience makes you more acceptable to God than others who are not on your level.

You are *not* a legalist if you have high standards, or if you are more precise in your understanding of obedience.

You are a legalist if you think your higher standards make you more righteous.

You are *not* a legalist ifyou exhort others to obey God’s word.

You are a legalist if you bind men’s consciences to man’s tradition.

You are *not* a legalist if you come to a matter that scripture does not directly address and by prayerful study reach a conclusion & implement it in life and home.

You are a legalist if another believer prayerfully considers the same matter & reaches a different conclusion & you think you’re more acceptable to God because of your conclusion.

You are *not* a legalist if you don’t watch TV, don’t listen to rock music, don’t practice birth control, homeschool, dress modestly, etc.

You are a legalist if you believe those things are the signs that you are true Christians and they are not, and you are therefore more acceptable to God.

We are getting to think like legalists if we think our difference make us superior spiritually.

We are all tainted by legalism of some sort, and if you haven’t come to grips with it, likely you are one and don’t see it.

Want to know the standard of being a Christian? Read the 5 chapters of 1 John – he nails down what a real Christian is.

This post is all my notes after listening to the CD, Holiness, Legalism, and the Sufficiency of Scripture, by Jeff Pollard. Excellent sermon.

Related Article (and great discussion over at Stacy’s McDonald’s blog):

“Legalist Hunters” and the Hypocrisy that Empowers Them

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Check out ‘Homemaking Internship‘ by Carolyn Mahaney (Girl Talk) – here’s an excerpt:

“God has called us to be the keepers of the home; thus I want to urge you to give careful attention to your education for this profession…Many girls enter marriage and motherhood without a clue as to what’s required, and they quickly fall into despair. We must tell our daughters of the sacrifices that homemaking demands—but also of the unsurpassed rewards it offers…Think of your daughter as your homemaking intern.”

Thanks to Paula and Laura and for introducing me to this great article!

Related Article: If You’re Not Raising Your Daughters To Be Homemakers…