Category: encouragement

By Elizabeth Prata

The year was 1962. The couple was young, and it was their first house. They had saved up and moved from a small apartment over a funeral home in the city, to the best suburb in the state. The happy couple now owned 4 acres of rolling hills and wooded yard, a 90 foot chicken barn, and a 100 year old cozy Cape Cod home with a wide front porch, across the street from a pond. They had made it.

It was New England, which meant that the yard was full of rocks. If the wife wanted a garden, the rocks would have to be dealt with. What do you do with all these rocks? They did as all New Englanders had done since the first Puritans had stepped foot onto the rocky land: build a wall.

Being Italian, and knowing the best masons and builders were Italian (yes, the husband was proud of his heritage), they hired Sal and Guido to take the rocks dotting the soil of this lovely yard and the ones all strewn about, haul them to the front of the yard, and build a wall. Being Italian, it would not only be functional, but it would be beautiful. It would also last.

Sal and Guido, knowing that the best walls aren’t held together with cement, but gravity, set to work. Slowly. Sal and Guido did not move fast.

First they gathered the rocks from all about and laid them along the front of the yard. They made sure they could see each one. Once the rocks of all sizes and colors were carefully laid from one end of the yard to the other, they examined each rock, turning it over to check its size and its properties, then laid it back down. Then they did the same with all the other rocks.

This process took a while. The husband was becoming impatient. He could not see any progress. Just a bunch of rocks littering his front yard. He did not see any point to all this examination and care. The old Italian masons told the impetuous young man that anything built to last must be done slowly and carefully. Wait, they said.

There came a day that the old men started piling rock upon rock. They knew each rock well by then, and knew exactly where to place each one. They all seemed to fit! Gravity held the wall together. The careful eye from each of the old masons, knowing where to place each rock for maximum strength and performance had done its job.

At last, the wall was done. It was strong, and it was beautiful.

The wall is real, and the couple were my parents. I grew up here. This is part of the wall, there is more to the left unseen in the photo. There used to be more to the right, but it was done away with to cut a driveway. Fifty-five years later, the old builders’ work is still standing strong.

you yourselves like living stones are being built up as a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood, to offer spiritual sacrifices acceptable to God through Jesus Christ. (1 Peter 2:5)

The Great Builder is building His eternal church from living stones – us. He is taking care to examine each one, turn it over to see all the different properties and facets. He knows just where to place each of us for maximum effect and use. It takes time, but anything well-built takes time.

We are being gathered, shaped, honed for maximum use. One day, the spiritual wall will be complete, the last stone will be laid (Romans 11:25). His spiritual house will stand forever.

But we do not want you to be uninformed, brethren, about those who are asleep, so that you will not grieve as do the rest who have no hope. 14For if we believe that Jesus died and rose again, even so God will bring with Him those who have fallen asleep in Jesus. 15For this we say to you by the word of the Lord, that we who are alive and remain until the coming of the Lord, will not precede those who have fallen asleep. 16For the Lord Himself will descend from heaven with a shout, with the voice of the archangel and with the trumpet of God, and the dead in Christ will rise first. 17Then we who are alive and remain will be caught up together with them in the clouds to meet the Lord in the air, and so we shall always be with the Lord. 18Therefore comfort one another with these words. (1 Thessalonians 13-18)

By Elizabeth Prata

I know there’s a lot of “where are the strong Christian men” themes around. I know that male headship is under attack and the rise of feminism in the church has perhaps caused a seeming widespread dearth of strong and principled male leadership in homes and in the church. But…

I’ll extol the many strong men who ARE laboring, who DO adhere to principles, who MIGHTILY glorify God. I’ll start w/my 4 elders at my church. Diligent, wise, loving men who live moral lives, gently guide, gracefully receive repentance, &teach humbly. You know many others, surely
We see & interact many of them on Twitter every day. You know who they are. We listen to many of them online from podcasts & their church websites. You know who they are. And from that, we know there must be and are others out there too. Godly men are everywhere, busy being godly.

If we shouldn’t overstate that the majority of evangelical women are angling for egalitarianism, we also should not overstate the seeming dearth of godly men. Thank you to men unafraid to lead, unashamed of home headship, unapologetic about submission – because THEY are submitted.

I think that while it’s important to be clear-eyed about the evil times in which we live, and point to evil when we find it, we should also diligently search for and proclaim what is right, what is true what is noble,…wait, Paul said it better:

Finally, brethren, whatever is true, whatever is honorable, whatever is right, whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is of good repute, if there is any excellence and if anything worthy of praise, dwell on these things. (Philippians 4:8).

Barnes’ Notes says

Think on these things – Let them be the object of your careful attention and study, so as to practice them. Think what they are; think on the obligation to observe them; think on the influence which they would have on the world around you.

And not only think on them, look for them, talk about them, proclaim them, exult in them, and thank Jesus for them.

By Elizabeth Prata

The intra-Trinitarian delight of the God-head in each other has always been perfect. The Father gives all to His son. The Son does all His Father does. John MacArthur put it this way:

God is love and because it is His nature to love, that love is expressed in the purest essence of His nature which is the Trinity. That is to say the Father loves the Son perfectly, the Father loves the Spirit perfectly, the Son loves the Father and the Spirit perfectly, the Spirit loves the Father and the Son perfectly and they live in this perfection of intra-Trinitarian love.

For eons, we don’t know how long, the intra-Trinitarian delight had been ongoing in perfection. Yet, God decided to make man. He decided to make His “Party of Three” into a party of infinity. He chose to open His closed circle and include a multitude of humans made in His image within it. In love. For His purposes. Humans who will dwell in infinity love and in infinity time forever.

Why?

That is a good question. It was not because of some lack within Himself. He was not lonely and He was not suffering some kind of lack. God is complete.

Here, Steven Lawson with a short devotional exploring that question explains in nearly poetic language God’s decision to…create.

God’s dazzling display of sovereignty in creation was a primer on His right to rule in matters of salvation. God, who commanded the light to appear on day one of creation, soon would order gospel light to shine into the darkened hearts of spiritually blind sinners. God, who separated the waters on day two, would cause an infinite chasm to separate Himself from sinners. God, who gathered the waters together on day three, would gather sinners to Himself. God, who created the sun, moon, and stars on day four, would omnipotently create saving faith. God, who began to create the animal kingdom on day five, would graciously send His Son to be the Lamb of God to take away sin. God, who created Adam and Eve on day six, would soon re-create sinners into His image. His free grace would perform the second Genesis in the salvation of lost men and women.

And grace upon grace, saved and forgiven sinners are now embraced in that Trinitarian circle of delight and mutual love. It is a mystery to me, and a wonder, and a source of ever-expanding gratitude. To be embraced by an Almighty God as Father, Redeemer, and ministering Priest, is the greatest gift. The fountain of love that flowed internally among the Trinity now flows over human souls, swelling and sweeping and lifting human souls into its holy and sweet current.

By Elizabeth Prata

An excerpt from my devotional reading in the Valley of Vision this morning-

When I sin against thee I cross thy will, love, life, and have no comforter, no creature, to go to.
My sin is not so much this or that particular evil, but my continual separation, disunion, distance from thee, and having a loose spirit towards thee.

Valley of Vision, “Christ the Word.”

Do you ever feel that way? I do, often. The Puritans who penned these prayers were collected by Arthur Bennett in the 1960s through the 1970s times and put together into a collection, in order “to prompt and encourage the Christian as he treads the path on which others have gone before.” It is helpful to read a hundreds-year old prayer and realize our spiritual forefathers in the faith yearned and struggled with similar issues that we do today.

The phrase ‘a loose spirit’ caught me. We live in a casual age. The usual haunts where one might have found formal dress, such as dinner in a restaurant, the theater, or even Proms, have gone by the wayside. The last three bastions of formal dress; church, court, and funerals, see people showing up as if they just rolled out of bed. The outer wear in my opinion is indicative of an inner overall status, even in many Christians. Loosey-goosey attitudes toward study of the word, toward Christ, and toward His laws are wrapped in an attitude of “Oh well, I’m sure God will forgive me.” Or, “Oh, well, there’s always tomorrow.”

The Jesus-is-your-boyfriend attitudes so rampant in the last decade for women, and experiential feelings based theology taught to us by other women have not helped. God is GOD, the I AM, who is thrice holy and august in His magnificence and power. That God is forgotten in favor of the wimpy needy Jesus, as Voddie Baucham famously preached.

The Christian’s walk is tight, not loose. It is a narrow gate. It is a straight way. It is a circumscribed walk, according to the canon of scripture and no more, and no less. We are told to be vigilant, watchful, and sober. That leaves no room for a loose spirit.

It’s easy to puff one’s self up in thinking, well, I’m not embezzling, or fornicating, or engaging in adultery, or murder. “My sin is not so much this or that particular evil” as the Puritan wrote. But it is also sin to have a loose spirit; to leave off prayer, to justify a smaller sin, or to ignore it completely. Anxiety, mistrust of God’s ordination of one’s circumstances, worry, or simple apathy are also ‘non-particular’ sins that can cause a terrible disunion. Worse, a general disunion or distance from Christ is in itself a sin, born from a loose spirit.

Paul advised the Ephesians in chapter 6 to gird up, tighten the belt, snap on the helmet, grasp the shield, cling to the word. Tight, not loose, is the watchword for the day.