Family Update... School has begun!

All three of my precious kiddos are in school now! Wow! What a fun time this is for our family! Jake is doing so well in intermediate school. He rides his bike to school everyday and has a routine for his homework. He is making wonderful grades, and I couldn't be more proud of the way he is keeping his things organized. Praise the Lord! He is really growing up. If you don't believe me, just call him sometime and talk to him for a minute on the phone. He sounds so grown! He is showing me this year that he is really very capable of keeping up with assignments and turning stuff in on time. He is also such a help to me at the house. He helps me so much. I never dreamed that he could take so much off of me - but he does every day! He officially has an extra hour of awake time after his brother and sister have to go to bed. He needs it most days just to finsih up homework and have a little down time. What a blessing he is to his Momma and Daddy!
Then there is my Maddy-Bella. Oh she is indeed a beauty! She is taking her new challenges and running with them! Her Spanish teacher this year ONLY speaks in spanish! Talk about full submersion! She is doing great! Yesterday she said, "Mommy, I wrote in Spanish in my draft book today!" I am so proud of her and excited for the opportunites that will come in her life from this program! My favorite thing that is going on in her life right now is the way that she is listening to God. She hears His voice and it is so encouraging to this momma! Please ask me about this if you want to know more. I promise it will be an encouragement to you to. It has really made me want to have a more child-like faith. I want to feel conviction as quickly as she does. I don't want a hard heart - and I see the ways that God is protecting her from that. Wow! She is a delight to my heart and my spirit. What a breath of fresh air!
And last, but not in any way less than my first two, there is Jared. Oh what a joy! I asked him what his favorite part of his first day of school was, and he quickly said, "the whole thing!" He is feeling so grown up, and loving his school. He is going to learn so much about being a big kid this year. That is a little hard on me, but he is no longer a baby, and it shows. He is so precious. I am so proud of him! The first day of school he also said, "Hey Mommy, there is a girl in my class - in a yellow dress - and she doesn't love God." I said, "Oh, were you talking about God today in school." His response, "No ma-am". So, I said, "Oh. Well, how do you know that she doesn't love God?" After much talking, I am still not certain how it all came about, but he and another little boy were telling her she was rude because she doesn't love God. Oh boy! I had to explain that if they ever wanted her to love God, they had better stop telling her that she is rude and start loving on her. It was such a hoot! Yeah that he is already talking about God - one way or the other. Ha!

Great and Precious Promises....

2 Peter 1:4 “And because of His glory and excellence He has given us great and precious promises. These are the promises that enable you to share His divine nature and escape the world’s corruption caused by human desires.”

The word for share is “Koinonos” and it means a partner, associate, comrade, companion; a partner, sharer, in anything of the altar in Jerusalem on which the sacrifices are offered; sharing in the worship of the Jews.

2 Cor 7:1 says, “Because we have these promises, dear friends, let us cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or spirit. And let us work toward holiness because we fear God.”

What are these great promises? Just above 2 Cor. 1:7, Paul takes a look at what God has promised. Read 2 Cor. 6:16-18. Look at these promises…. These are promises straight from God’s mouth… He says:

I will live in them and walk among them.
I will be their God and they will be my people.
I will welcome you
I will be your Father, and you will be my sons and daughters

Wow! Precious promises indeed. I need to spend about an hour on each one of these just to begin to ask Him to open my eyes to what He means here. He will live in us. LIVE IN US! Not just dwell among us – although, that was perfection in the garden…. He will abide, reside, make His home, LIVE IN us! A holy, perfect, untainted God will dwell within our frail bodies that are dying and weak. He calls us His people! He welcomes us – not just as a friend, but as a Father – a perfect, loving Father. As we BELIEVE these promises, we will become free from the temptations of the world, because they are NOTHING compared to the precious promises we have. So, he says, again, “let us cleanse ourselves from everything that can defile our body or spirit.”

Woah, even a quick list could be days long. How much do we let corrupt our bodies and especially our spirit’s? We fill ourselves with food, tv, entertainment, activities, phone calls, magazines…. The list goes on and on… but aren’t we killing our spirits? The very One who lives inside us has the smallest pull on our hearts. He has the smallest voice in our minds. We are defiling our spirit… every day, in so many ways. Soap operas – defilement. That racy novel by that “wonderful” author… defilement. Why do we fill ourselves up with it? Why, when we have those great and precious promises? So, he says, “let us work toward holiness because we fear God.” We don’t fear God. That is why. We don’t fear God, and we don’t really love God. We love the world. One last thought…. 1 John 2:15-17, “Do not love this world, nor the things it offers you, for when you love the world, you do not have the love of the Father in you. For the world offers only a craving for physical pleasure, a craving for everything we see, and pride in our achievements and possessions. These are not from the Father, but are from this world. And this world is fading away, along with everything that people crave. But anyone who does what pleases God will live forever.”