Songs of Old

How deep the Father’s love for us, how vast beyond measure.

I love the old hymns. The intensity of the language is always something that moves me even when I was too young to fully understand what I was singing.

Be still, my soul: the Lord is on thy side. Bear patiently the cross of grief or pain.

As I have gotten older, I have come to have a better understanding of those amazing words that I have uttered for some many years.

My Jesus, I love thee, I know thou art mine; for thee all the follies of sin I resign.

One of my favorite hymns has been on my heart for weeks. I find myself spontaneously humming or breaking out into song as I go about my day.

Come Thou Fount of every blessing
Tune my heart to sing Thy grace;
Streams of mercy, never ceasing,
Call for songs of loudest praise
Teach me some melodious sonnet,
Sung by flaming tongues above.
Praise the mount! I'm fixed upon it,
Mount of God's unchanging love.

Your wellspring of blessings overflows transforming my heart and to me sing of your grace. Your never ending mercy brings me to sing praises to at the top of my lungs. Teach me the beautiful songs that are sung by angels. I am unwavering on your foundation of unchanging love.

The poetry of old cannot be fully broken down into modern language doesn’t really do the hymn justice. However it causes me to stop and think about what I am singing. I realize that it is the cry of my heart as I sing something that comes to my head.

Take my life, and let it be, consecrated, Lord, to Thee

The songs of old are overflowing with intensity, complete surrender and reckless abandon. I can only imagine the intense relationship these authors had with their Savior.

Be thou my vision, O Lord of my heart.

It saddens me that these beautiful songs are becoming less and less known today. I have been thinking that I would love for the kids to learn and hopefully come to love the songs of old. My ultimate goal for educating them is to teach them for the eternal. In other words, everything I teach them, I want it to have an eternal value not just a here and now value. We have such a small amount of time to learn as much as we can, I want it all to really count. So I am thinking I am going to do a hymn study with the kids during the next few months. It will be a great way to introduce them to the poetry of old and even Shakespeare.

Jimmie has a great selection of links to resources for doing a hymn study. My goal is to at least scratch the surface of some of the most powerful hymns in the next few months.

Do you have a favorite hymn?

Mommy Lesson 25 - An Act of Worship

I'm in the midst of battling the cold the kids gave me and it was so windy today that my fall allergies just made everything worse. So I am not totally thinking clearly to blog. But something has been on my heart the last couple weeks about mommyhood that I really want to share. Tonight I was browsing some older posts and I discovered I had written about it before so I am going to just copy and paste it here.

Mommyhood is an act of worship to the Lord and as moms we need to remember that as we handle the day to day stuff that ranges from mundane to absolute craziness. Before you think I am just a crazy person hear me out. The Bible says that everything we do is to be done for the Lord and that includes the role of being a mom and a wife. Not just at our job or ministry but everything else in our lives too.

Here is a post I wrote in 2008 that talks about it. And I feel the same now as I did then.

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Did you know that every act throughout your day is to be an act of worship to the Lord? God has called every one of us to live a life of worship. We are to wake up with a heart of worship and keep that heart of worship all day even when we go to bed, we should be in a spirit of worship.

Worship is simply an act of love and devotion. In Colossians, we are exhorted to do everything for the Lord giving thanks.

Colossians 3:17 And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

Colossians 3:23-24 And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ. "Do it heartily," with love for the Lord and integrity. Do it thoroughly with passion and eagerness to please the Lord and do it with great enthusiasm, delight and pleasure in Him. In other words do it as an act of worship for the Lord.

So… to put this into perspective for me.

When I am giving Baby G her third bath of the day, (Yes, really, she is the messiest eater I have ever seen.) I am to give thanks to the Lord while bathing her with enthusiasm and delight.

When I am picking up the living room, cooking a meal, dusting the house, vacuuming, folding laundry, washing dishes, I need to be doing it for the Lord as an act of devotion and worship to Him because this is what he has called me to do. I will be honest out of that list, folding laundry and washing dishes are not my favorite chores. I do not always do them with an attitude of worship to the Lord.

Let me encourage you this week, as I work on this. With everything, you have to do this week, do it for the
Lord with an attitude of worship.

Romans 12:1-3 Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of the worked, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.

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The funny thing is that Little G is still one of the messiest eaters I know and she also gets dirty just thinking about playing outside. And I still have to remind myself daily when I am getting tired of a task that I am doing it for the Lord. It's a lesson I am sure I will keep on learning over and over again.

Why we Keep Our Children in the Church Service

***The purpose of this post is not to condemn those who put their children in Sunday School or Children’s Church. My intent is to encourage those who are thinking about keeping their children in service with them and to help the curious understand the reason behind our decision.***

I love the sound of little ones worshiping the Lord during church service. I love seeing all the little faces sitting next to their parents as they listen and observe what is going on around them. Recently, our church has been blessed with some new families visiting our church and that just makes me giddy inside. Because watching families come together and worship together is an awesome sight to see. God designed families to be together and during church services, it is important that families worship the Lord together.

When we decided to keep our kids in service with us we knew that it was what God wanted us to do. We also knew that there was a bigger reason but we weren’t able to identify it at that time. Since then, our reasons for keeping our children in service have grown enormously and every Sunday, it seems we add another reason to the list. When you make the decision to worship together as a family, it is imperative that you know why you have made that choice. It is not easy to keep young toddlers quiet and still in service, it is hard work to train them. Remembering the reason you have chosen to keep your children with you in service will help you stay the course when the going gets rough. The reward for your hard work is eternal and not always immediate.

The first reason we had for keeping our children with us in service was simple, the toddler class teacher could not keep our Little Man in the room. The second reason was because while the kids were in the toddler room, we did not see any actual teaching going on. The kids were not made to sit for a story or for songs, there was just free play. This saddened me so much. Two year olds can sit for stories and they love songs. However as time went on we developed many more important reasons for keeping our kids in service with us. The first reason is because we deeply believe it is the parents’ responsibility to teach and train our children in the ways of the Lord. Proverbs 22:6 speaks directly to parents about training children. If our children are sitting next to us, watching us as we praise and worship the Lord, give our tithes and offerings, and attentively listen to the message, they will follow our example. Children are little mirrors, if you watch them; you will see yourself in their attitudes and actions. Children will also mirror each other if you let them. Proverbs 22:15 says folly is bound in the heart of a child. When children are together often, acts of foolishness will be the outcome. Even the most attentive Sunday School teacher cannot be aware of everything that happens amongst the children. As parents we have decided to not allow our children to sit near other children in service. (We actually sit in front row center for all to see. My kids are rarely if ever a distraction.) We want as few distractions as possible during service helping them be more successful in sitting still and paying attention. What we do goes right along with how we train our children all the time. We keep our children close to us, training them and pruning them as needed. Some have likened this Tomato Staking, if you let a tomato plant to grow on its own, it will grow out of control and the fruit you reap will not be good. If you stake a tomato plant causing it only to grow up and pruning it as needed, watering it and making sure it has plenty of sun, the fruit you reap will be very good. (If you have ever tasted a fresh tomato straight off a well trained vine, you know what I mean.) You can apply the very same concept to training a child.

Children are called to worship with the men, women and elders throughout the Bible. I went over Old Testament verses, and New Testament verses a while ago. In Deuteronomy 6:4-9 the Lord is very clear about our responsibility as parents to teach our children in the ways of the Lord. We have chosen not to take that responsibility lightly and are very determined to do as the Lord instructed. I am not saying that Sunday School is wrong; I know that there are a lot of children’s ministries out there that reach children who would otherwise not get to hear God’s Word. I am just saying that Sunday School isn’t the best choice or God’s design for parents raising their children to walk in the ways of the Lord.

An Act of Worship

Did you know that every act throughout your day is to be an act of worship to the Lord? God has called every one of us to live a life of worship. We are to wake up with a heart of worship and keep that heart of worship all day even when we go to bed, we should be in a spirit of worship.

Worship is simply an act of love and devotion. In Colossians, we are exhorted to do everything for the Lord giving thanks.

Colossians 3:17
And whatsoever ye do in word or deed, do all in the name of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks to God and the Father by him.

Colossians 3:23-24
And whatsoever ye do, do it heartily, as to the Lord, and not unto men; Knowing that of the Lord ye shall receive the reward of the inheritance: for ye serve the Lord Christ.

"Do it heartily," with love for the Lord and integrity. Do it thoroughly with passion and eagerness to please the Lord and do it with great enthusiasm, delight and pleasure in Him. In other words do it as an act of worship for the Lord.

So… to put this into perspective for me.

When I am giving Baby G her third bath of the day, (Yes, really, she is the messiest eater I have ever seen.) I am to give thanks to the Lord while bathing her with enthusiasm and delight.

When I am picking up the living room, cooking a meal, dusting the house, vacuuming, folding laundry, washing dishes, I need to be doing it for the Lord as an act of devotion and worship to Him because this is what he has called me to do. I will be honest out of that list, folding laundry and washing dishes are not my favorite chores. I do not always do them with an attitude of worship to the Lord.

Let me encourage you this week, as I work on this. With everything, you have to do this week, do it for the Lord with an attitude of worship.

Romans 12:1-3
Therefore, I urge you, brothers, in view of God's mercy, to offer your bodies as living sacrifices, holy and pleasing to God—this is your spiritual act of worship. Do not conform any longer to the pattern of the worked, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what God's will is—his good, pleasing and perfect will. For by the grace given me I say to every one of you: Do not think of yourself more highly than you ought, but rather think of yourself with sober judgment, in accordance with the measure of faith God has given you.