by Gloria Furman

“I can’t believe we’re wasting a good family hair day,” I joked as I marched my three little ducklings out the door on the way to the Emergency Room. I was kidding about the hair, but it’s a rare occasion when I can manage my children’s multiple hair-types and have a good hair day myself. Nevertheless, we strutted up the catwalk… I mean sidewalk… into the reception area at the ER.

I explained our non-emergency situation to the receptionist. One of my daughters had a swollen bug bite that spread into a mysterious rash on her leg. The weekend had just started; the outpatient clinic was closed. So here we were in the ER, with awesome hair do’s and an itchy leg.

That morning felt like every other morning in my life (minus the collective great hair and the hospital visit). It wasn’t until later that I caught on that it was a big day for my itchy-legged child. It usually took a great deal of coercion for my little girl to allow a doctor-type within a ten-meter radius. There were always crocodile tears, tantrums, and lollipop bribes involved.

“Come here, my dear, let me see your leg,” the nurse gave my daughter instructions. As silent as a kid with a stolen Oreo behind the couch, my normally doctor-phobic preschooler extended her leg.

“Now I’m going to take your temperature.” With her eyes squinting and jaw set, my little girl leaned her ear in the nurse’s direction.

“Alright, my dear, now hop down and stand on the scale to see how much you weigh.” I held my breath for this one. I normally shared in the fun of weighing myself on the scale, too, while holding an upset preschooler. But that time, like a professional wrestler who dutifully weighs in before a match, my child took off the gloves and willed herself onto the scale all by herself. I grinned like a clown. My daughter smiled shyly. “I did it, Mommy,” she whispered. My heart soared– this marked some significant growth for her.

Pitching Heart Fits

Incidentally, in the weeks leading up to that morning I had been angrily and bitterly preoccupied over her temper tantrums. “I don’t know how much more of this I can take,” I would repeatedly tell myself.

Remembering my complaints, the state of my own heart came to my mind. Outside of the restraining, redeeming, and compelling grace of the Lord Jesus in my life, I’m as rebellious and angry as can be. A child might pitch fits on the floor when they don’t get what they want, and I do the exact same thing in my heart.

I was glad for the time I sat on that blue polyurethane chair in the waiting room. God was doing his surgery in my heart. What grace do I have that was not freely given to me by my heavenly Father? Remembering the Lord’s kindness toward me led me to repentance of the bitterness and anger I had been holding onto those weeks. Only Jesus can sufficiently deal with our bitterness, anxiety, anger, and frustration. Through his work on the cross, we’re invited to repent of our sin and cast our burdens on him (and stop laying them on the backs of our children).

Heart Rest

Our hearts can echo the plea of the psalmist who prayed, “Help us, O God of our salvation, for the glory of your name; deliver us, and atone for our sins, for your name’s sake!” (Ps. 79:9). And the Lord will hear our cries, because only Jesus could bear the weight of our sin on the cross, and be declared to be the Son of God in power according to the Spirit of holiness by his resurrection from the dead (Rom. 1:4). Our loving Shepherd invites us to come to him for rest: “Come to me, all who labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest” (Matt. 11:28). Weary sheep keep their eyes fixed on their Shepherd who always gives them everything they need.

As we left the hospital my child sauntered into the parking garage proudly carrying a prescription for anti-bug-bite-swelling-itchiness. I left with a renewed appreciation that Jesus has already done for me what I could never do for myself.

Jesus said in John 12:32, “And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself.” When the weariness of life as a sinner living in a fallen world with other sinners overwhelms us, then the gospel refreshes our soul. We dare not build our hope on anything less than Jesus’s blood and righteousness.

ABOUT THE WRITER
Gloria Furman (@gloriafurman) is mostly from Texas. In 2008 she moved to the Middle East with her husband Dave to plant Redeemer Church of Dubai. They have three kiddos plus another on the way. Gloria is the author of Glimpses of Grace: Treasuring the Gospel in Your Home (Crossway 2013) and Treasuring Christ When Your Hands Are Full: Gospel Meditations for Busy Moms (Crossway 2014).

by Gloria Furman

On one of our recent flights we sat in the back of the plane next to a family with four young kids. We joked together about how they seated our noisy broods next to the white-noise producing engines.

When the plane started rolling down the runway for takeoff, our neighbors’ youngest son started to lose his cool. He threw off his seat belt, began kicking the chair in front of him, and fought his mother’s attempts to restrain him. He screamed at an octave that few human beings could reach as the plane lifted higher and higher into the sky.

A flight attendant made her way to their seats and asked the mother if she could help, insisting that the boy remain in his chair with his seat belt on. They had a brief conversation, and the flight attendant returned with some pillows. The mom gingerly arranged the pillows behind and in front of her son, cushioning his torso from the seat and the belt. Then the sobs that wracked his body slowed to whimpers. If you were sitting close enough to him you could see how his knuckles went white as he gripped his mommy’s forearm.

Perhaps the only thing hotter than the tears streaming down the little boy’s face were the annoyed glares directed at his family from other passengers. The passengers knew their peace was disturbed, but I don’t think they realized the child was in agonizing pain from the abdominal surgery he just had days before.

Although we all live in this fallen world that is rife with disease, heartache, and sin, the presence of pain isn’t obvious to all of us all the time. Proverbs 14:13 says even in laugh­ter the heart may ache. We have wounds of all kinds. Some of us bear scar tissue from trauma that only the Lord knows about. Ordinary life for many people means a pervasive awareness of pain.

Our circumstances beg the question: How do you cling to God’s grace in a pain-filled mundane?

It’s a significant question. The disabling, chronic pain that my husband began to experience a few years into our marriage has marked my own “ordinary” life. So I knew this question had to be addressed when writing about God’s grace in the home. Here’s a brief excerpt from Glimpses of Grace: Treasuring the Gospel in Your Home, from the chapter titled, “God’s Abiding Presence in Our Pain”:

“When I introduced my working definition of the mundane as the normalcy of your daily life, I’m certain that some of you cringed as you read it. Your mundane isn’t simple or ‘ordinary,’ by any means. Your daily life is marked by complicated situations and extraordinary pain. I can only imagine what pain is represented in those who read these words.

Yesterday morning a Christian teacher was mercilessly shot to death because he was telling his neighbors about Jesus. The mur­derers plotted against him, stalked him, and filled his body with bullets. I woke up this morning praying for his family; my heart is very heavy for his wife and their children. Most of us don’t live in the daily reality of being killed for our faith, which Jesus said is a strong potential (Luke 11:49). But now the daily mundane for this small family is marked by martyrdom.

One year ago this week some precious friends of ours lost their two-year-old son in a car accident. Not a mundane moment goes by when they aren’t aware of their loss. They would also say that not a moment goes by when the Lord is not aware of their pain, too. His abiding presence is a grace to their grieving hearts. Both of these families hope in Christ and his triumph over their pain.

My story is different from theirs, and so is yours. But the same God who ministers to them in the pain of their mundane can give us grace, too.”

by Christina Fox

I once did a study with my children on the names of God. We started by looking at their names and what they mean. I remember laughing at the irony of how my children perfectly reflect their name’s meaning. (Who gives their child a name that means “strong-willed?”)

My own name means “Christ follower.” Unlike my children, I did not come out of the womb reflecting the meaning of my name. Rather, it was when God gripped my heart with his amazing grace that I finally became a Christ follower.

Onesimus, in the book of Philemon, had the same experience. He was a slave who had stolen from his master, Philemon, and ran away. He came to faith in Christ through Paul’s ministry. In fact, Paul refers to himself as Onesimus’ father because Paul directly shared Christ with him (v. 10). The Book of Philemon is a letter Paul wrote to tell Philemon that Onesimus had come to a saving faith in Christ. He also asked that Philemon allow Onesimus to return without fear of punishment.

Onesimus’ name means “useful.” Paul used a play on his name when he wrote, “Formerly he was useless to you, but now he has become useful both to you and to me.” (v. 11) Once a useless, rebellious slave, Onesimus became useful through the grace of God.

Philemon is a tiny book and often overlooked but it’s packed full of gospel truth. And the truth is, before Christ, I was just like Onesimus. I was a thief, a runaway slave, a prodigal child. Deserving punishment for my sins, I feared returning home to my Master. I was ashamed; I felt worthless and unloved.

And then, in stepped a substitute, one willing to take all my punishment in my stead. The Son of God in the flesh took the death penalty for me, wiped the slate clean, gave me his righteousness, and allowed me to return home without fear.

Patterned after Christ’s example of sacrificial love and empowered by the Spirit, Paul substituted himself for Onesimus. “So if you consider me a partner, welcome him as you would welcome me. If he has done you any wrong or owes you anything, charge it to me. I Paul am writing this with my own hand. I will pay it back” (vv. 17-19). Martin Luther put it this way,

“As Christ doth for us with God the Father, so doth St. Paul with Philemon for Onesimus. We are all God’s Onesimi, to my thinking.”

Because of Jesus, we are welcomed home. The grace of God saved us through the death of his Son, changing us from useless to useful. No longer slaves to sin and runaways from grace, we are now children of the living God. We can take joy that we are Onesimi of God. Taking on this name means we’ve found our true selves in Christ. We’ve found our home in the Kingdom and our future as heirs with Christ (Rom. 8:12-17). Through Christ, we have become who we’re meant to be.

Not only am I Onesimus, but I have other Onesimi in my life. Paul shows me in Philemon what gospel love looks like. He reminds me that when I have been wronged or wounded, I need to extend the same forgiveness that I’ve received. As he reminded Philemon, I’ve been forgiven for much more than the sins committed against me (v.19).

The story of Onesimus and Philemon is a story of mercy, grace, and forgiveness. Because of the gospel we find ourselves in this story, too, as the grace of Jesus transforms us.

Have you found your true self in Christ?

ABOUT THE WRITER
Christina Fox is a homeschooling mom, licensed mental health counselor, writer, and coffee drinker, not necessarily in that order. She lives in sunny South Florida with her husband of sixteen years and their two sons. Christina blogs at To Show Them Jesus.

Since the release of Glimpses of Grace last week I’ve gotten to answer some questions about the book.

One question kept rising to the surface:

There are lots of homemaking books. What’s different about this one?

It’s true– there are shelves full of books about the how-to’s of homemaking. There are even how-to books and blogs about how to sort through the vast sea of how-to resources for homemaking!

But Glimpses of Grace is hardly a how-to manual for homemaking, and if you’ve been in my home then you know that I’m the least qualified person for giving advice on how to be a perfect home manager. There are no cleaning schedules, to-do lists, pantry diagrams, or chore charts in this book. If you’re looking for advice on how to get melted crayon wax off the floor board of your car then you’re in the wrong place (but if anyone knows any tricks I’m all ears).

Glimpses of Grace is a theological reflection on how the extraordinary gospel of Jesus Christ transforms our ordinary lives in the home.

If you’d like to do some further reading or listening about the “why” behind this book, here are just a few places online where this important question was addressed last week:

• Podcast interview with Tony Reinke on the Desiring God blog
• Book review by Christine Hoover on the TGC blog
• A picture of the need for treasuring the gospel in your home: Gospel Stability for Life in Spin Cycle
• Q&A with David Burnette on the Radical blog

Glimpses of Grace: Treasuring the Gospel in Your Home from Crossway on Vimeo.

Don’t miss this time-sensitive promotional deal from Crossway:

Purchase a copy of Glimpses of Grace from your favorite local or online retailer from June 3-7 and receive a free copy of the ebook as well as the ESV Study Bible Online (ESVBible.org Web App & Ebook)! To redeem your free extras, simply scan and email your receipt to glimpses@crossway.org before 11:59am on Friday, June 7.*

*Any receipts that are not legible, not included, or believed to be fraudulent will be disqualified. Limited to one promotion per person.

Glimpses of Grace: Treasuring the Gospel in Your Home officially releases TODAY!

Many have compared the process of publishing a book to having a baby. You carry this baby around in your heart, you give it a name, and a team of supportive people help you bring it home.

I’m deeply grateful for the ministry of Crossway and for all their hard work in publishing this book. They’re offering a special promotional deal this week– check it out:

Purchase a copy of Glimpses of Grace from your favorite local or online retailer from June 3-7 and receive a free copy of the ebook as well as the ESV Study Bible Online (ESVBible.org Web App & Ebook)! To redeem your free extras, simply scan and email your receipt to glimpses@crossway.org before 11:59am on Friday, June 7.*

*Any receipts that are not legible, not included, or believed to be fraudulent will be disqualified. Limited to one promotion per person.

Even just the title of this book flies my heart straight to Jesus, kindling afresh my desire to see him as he is. I’m reminded each day that only God’s strength can sustain and empower me for service, yet I’m tempted to desire worldly strength.

JI Packer’s new book, Weakness is the Way: Life with Christ Our Strength, emboldens those beset with weaknesses with the truth that our human frailty becomes real spiritual strength in and through Christ alone.

Teaching from passages in 2 Corinthians, Packer describes “life with Christ our strength.” In typical Packer fashion, this book draws the reader through the scriptural defense of an idea and hurls you into your daily mundane with a glorious picture of who God is.

“The Christian way of life and service is a walk of weakness, as human strength gives out and only divine strength can sustain and enable.”

I think this book is brilliant not only for its faithful interpretation and pastoral application of the biblical text, but in the way it led this reader to this conclusion:

If you know the God through whom this kind of a life is possible, how could you ever want to live any other way than by his strength made perfect in your weakness?

Weakness is the Way by J. I. Packer from Crossway on Vimeo.

Here are a few quotes from the book:

“God-taught hoping leads to God-given strengthening. When, humanly, we are weak, then in the Lord we are strong. So it was for the apostles and their colleagues two millennia ago, and so it can and should be today for you and me.”

“The sense in which the Christian life is essentially a pathway of weakness along which God leads us, sustaining and strengthening us for service as we go, is now becoming clear. With regard to tasks and relationships, it is often right, and part of our calling, that we should embrace options in which we may easily find ourselves out of our depth, and in which we know that we cannot hope to succeed without God’s help. And with regard to circumstances, it is often the case that in God’s sovereign providence unforeseen difficulties arise, throwing us back on the Lord for support and subjecting our faith and faithfulness to very grueling tests. One way or another, God works out in all our lives the baptismal pattern of through-death-into-new-life-with-Christ, which the rite itself models as under-the-water-then-up-from-under.”

“It is time now to take to heart [Paul’s] triumphant concluding comment on this aspect of his life situation: ‘Therefore I will boast all the more gladly of my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ may rest upon me. For the sake of Christ, then, I am content with weaknesses, insults, hardships, persecutions, and calamities. For when I am weak, then I am strong’ (vv. 9–10). So lean on Christ, the lover of your soul, as Paul did, and in all your ongoing weakness, real as it is, you too will be empowered to cope and will be established in comfort and joy.”

Weakness is the Way: Life with Christ Our Strength by JI Packer  is available for purchase on Amazon.

by Gloria Furman

Some mornings you just wake up feeling exceptional. Like the other morning when I was jarred to consciousness by the bizarre sensation of having hundreds of breadcrumbs sprinkled over my head and eau de garlic filling my nostrils.

I opened my eyes to see my toddler son shaking an empty pizza delivery box over my head. “Mommy, you wake up? Pizza all gone. I get more yummy food.” He dropped the box on the floor and darted away. As I sat up, breadcrumbs comingled with drops of garlic sauce rained into my bed. On cue, my alarm clock started beeping. I wondered how many people in the history of the world had ever been woken up in the same manner.

“If This Happened to You, Then…”

Forget the pizza party, because I had already invited myself to a personal pity party. Shuffling toward the bathroom and leaving a trail of garlicky crumbs behind me, grumbling bubbled up out of my heart and escaped my lips. Then the 60-second snooze went off on my alarm. I grunted and forcefully fumbled the buttons to turn it off. I was devolving into some kind of garlic-covered gorilla.

All morning long I blamed my crummy attitude on the pizza crumbs itching my scalp and every other thing that wasn’t going my way. I didn’t want to be the only one at my pity party, so I made sure to let everyone know how upset I was. Later as we all drove to lunch I whined to my husband. “I had one of those mornings. First, it was the pizza box…” I indulged my bitterness, rehearsing all of my grievances. He listened, and then he responded. “That’s a really crazy morning. But none of these things are your biggest problem right now, are they?” I looked over at him—he was smiling. “Oh, this is funny? If this happened to you, then…” While I was mentally preparing a rebuttal, something happened. Hope-filled conviction.

The Better “If/Then” Arguments

The circumstances of that morning were exceptionally chaotic, but not a one of them gave me an exception to sin. The Holy Spirit brought a different “If/Then” statement my mind: “If then you have been raised with Christ, seek the things above, where Christ is, seated at the right hand of God” (Col. 3:1). I had not forgotten God’s call on my life to be holy as he is holy (1 Pet. 1:15-16). I had, instead, imagined that my circumstances gave me just cause to stomp around and hurl my rotten bananas attitude at my family. Holiness is out of the question when you’ve been driven to this point, right?

Outside of the grace of God in the gospel we all remain in our guerilla, law-breaking sin. We’re justly condemned under the wrath of a holy God. But praise the Lord—he sent the Messiah! The “If/Then” statement in this passage contains good news about provision for our holiness:

“I have been crucified with Christ. It is no longer I who live, but Christ who lives in me. And the life I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me. I do not nullify the grace of God, for if righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose” (Gal. 2:20-21).

Certainly, chaotic circumstances need to be handled, but our most desperate need is to be delivered from our sin by the crucified and risen Christ. Our hope for holiness is not by excusing our sin, evading the demands of holiness, or pretending we’ve met God’s perfect standards. Our hope for holiness is by affirming God’s grace and living by faith in the Son of God who was delivered up for our sin and raised for our justification (Rom. 4:22-25). If righteousness were through the law, then Christ died for no purpose.

Treasuring the Gospel on “Those” Mornings

When you feel like the only reasonable thing for you to do is to let your circumstances carry your heart away, treasure the gospel. Take pains to remember that Jesus gave himself for you because he loved you even as you were dead in your sin (Rom. 5:8-10). Beloved, he knew your rebellious sin nature and he died for you anyway. Treasuring the gospel means that we live lives of repentance, rejoicing that we no longer live, but it is Christ who lives in us.

There is no hope for the garlic sauce stains on my pillowcase, but there is ever-abounding hope for you and me, sinners rescued by a merciful Savior. Our sovereign God is powerful enough to use frustrating circumstances for his gospel purposes in our lives. And we’re free to enjoy his grace and extend it to others as he grows us in Christ-likeness, teaching our hearts to yearn for even more grace upon grace.

ABOUT THE WRITER
Gloria Furman (@gloriafurman) is mostly from Texas. In 2008 she moved to the Middle East with her husband Dave to plant Redeemer Church of Dubai. They have three kiddos plus another on the way. Gloria is the author of Glimpses of Grace: Treasuring the Gospel in Your Home (Crossway 2013) and Treasuring Christ When Your Hands Are Full: Gospel Meditations for Busy Moms (Crossway 2014).

I remember one particular occasion when our oldest child sat with me during what she refers to as “big people worship service.” The believing community took part in communion during the service. And as the bread and juice trays were being passed she excitedly whispered, “What’s this for?” I promised to explain everything and told her to just watch and listen.

In the car on the way home she was eager to share with her siblings about the things she had seen and heard:

“Guess what– they eat snacks at big people worship service, too! I ate a granola bar from Mom’s purse. Then later someone gave Mom a little juice and a little bread. What did you guys have for snack?”

At home we re-read the account of the Lord’s Supper (Luke 22:17-20) and she asked questions for clarification. Some of her questions were zingers! I was thankful for how the Westminster Shorter Catechism helps us talk with our kids about the Lord’s Supper. The simplicity and memorability of the statements helped keep me on track with Scripture.

Here’s how the catechism asks and answers questions about the Lord’s Supper, using language that a child can understand and an adult can endeavor to meditate upon:

Q. 133. What is the Lord’s Supper?
A. The eating of bread and drinking of wine in remembrance of the sufferings and death of Christ.

Q. 134. What does the bread represent?
A. The body of Christ, broken for our sins.

Q. 135. What does the wine represent?
A. The blood of Christ, shed for our salvation.

Q. 136. Who should partake of the Lord’s Supper?
A. Only those who repent of their sins, believe in Christ for salvation, and love their fellow men.

by Gloria Furman

As you were growing up your mom may have encouraged you to clean your room saying, “Cleanliness is next to godliness.”

You also may have learned the axiom that literal, physical cleanliness—like dust-free baseboards and mildew-less grout—are not credits to your personal holiness. It’s possible for one to clean her house so perfectly that guests could eat off the floor, though she is a desperately depraved housewife who is far from God.

It is soul-liberating news that unsoiled bathroom floors are not a requirement for fellowship with a holy God. Yet in a very real sense, spiritual cleanliness is godliness. I began to appreciate aspects of that particular kind of cleanliness when reflecting on the testimonies of believers in Christ who had been previously influenced or possessed by unclean spirits. Dead in their trespasses and submitted to the wills of unclean spirits, these men and women behaved in accordance with the unclean, ungodly character of the spirit that occupied their “house.”

These men and women testify to the lordship of Christ over every power as he “cleaned house” and sent the Spirit of truth to indwell them forever. Indeed, whether we have a similar testimony or not, all those who are not in the flesh but in the Spirit ought to praise the Father and the Son for sending the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit can never be served an eviction notice. Not ever. Contrary to unclean spirits, the Holy Spirit’s fruits are godly: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control (Gal. 5:22-23). That’s why Christians are instructed to “walk by the Spirit, and you will not gratify the desires of the flesh” (Gal. 5:16), and not to “grieve” (Eph. 4:29) or “quench” (1 Thess. 5:19) the Spirit. We’re reminded of God’s comprehensive, unmitigated ownership over us; he doesn’t merely pay rent. “Or do you not know that your body is a temple of the Holy Spirit within you, whom you have from God? You are not your own, for you were bought with a price. So glorify God in your body” (1 Cor. 6:19-20). What a thrill and a wonder it is to have been given God’s Spirit! And what an assurance and Assurer he is of God’s love as he occupies our hearts.

In his book Of the Mortification of Sin in Believers, John Owen said this of the Spirit’s dwelling in our hearts, and the consequential yearning for holiness that he produces in us:

“Among those who walk with God, there is no greater motive and incentive unto universal holiness, and the preserving of their hearts and spirits in all purity and cleanness than this: That the blessed Spirit, who has undertaken to dwell in them, is continually considering what they give entertainment in their hearts unto, and rejoices when his temple is kept undefiled.”

The Spirit is repulsed by something that is more despicable than filth and more deadly than rogue germs; he hates sin.

Cleansed by the blood of the Son and enabled by the Spirit who desires to please the Father in everything, we can make war against our sin and put to death the deeds of the flesh.

Similar to how our resolve to keep a clean house comes and goes, our desire to fight our sin is fickle. When you sense your willpower for sin-fighting to be waning, let your heart be bolstered by the never-diminishing commitment of Jesus Christ to complete the good work he started in you. Sealed by God as God’s forever, praise God for his inscrutable wisdom to give you the Spirit of holiness as a guarantee of his future grace (2 Cor. 1:22).

And marvel at the fact that all of this… including the gift of the indwelling Holy Spirit… has given by God so that you might enjoy him forever.

———–

Related Links:

• The Mortification of This Mother’s Sin by Priya Samuel
• Struggling with “Struggling With” Sin by Beverly Chao Berrus
• On Fighting Worldliness and Fruit Flies by Melissa McDonald
• On Killing Your Sin – a Desiring God video featuring JI Packer

ABOUT THE WRITER
Gloria Furman (@gloriafurman) is mostly from Texas. In 2008 she moved to the Middle East with her husband Dave to plant Redeemer Church of Dubai. They have three kiddos plus another on the way. Gloria is the author of Glimpses of Grace: Treasuring the Gospel in Your Home (Crossway 2013) and Treasuring Christ When Your Hands Are Full: Gospel Meditations for Busy Moms (Crossway 2014).