Guard your Hearts and Minds

On Friday morning I was in the bank to withdraw cash for the first time in years!  I have a debit card and almost never need hard cash. As I was standing in the long line, waiting for an available cashier, I was taken aback by how debt was being advertised in the most enticing way possible on all different levels!  We don’t have any loan except for our home and vehicles and I praise the Lord that I don’t need to visit the bank often.  If I was exposed to all the ‘wonderful things’ you can do with a loan, I’m not sure if I would have been able to stay out of debt for so long.

  

As I was driving home after visiting the bank, I thought of how we are enticed on every corner in every area of our lives, physically as well as emotionally and spiritually.  And if we don’t have safety regulations in place to guard our minds, we can very easily fall into temptations that can lure us away from the calling on our life, the true life God intend for us!  

Over the past week I had to double check my safety regulations in the temptation of becoming discontent with my life as a full time mother in comparison with godly women who have resigned from their responsibility of being a full time mother. For a moment these women’s ‘freedom’ and ‘the fun they have’ was luring me away from my joyful, but sacrificial life as the home schooling mother of my many, beautiful Blessings, like God called me to be!

There are three places you can use as reference on wisdom in living life:

Society and what the World wants you to be;

The church and how fellow brothers and sisters in Christ want you to be; and

The Word of God and what God wants you to be.

When it came to motherhood and being the wife God wants me to be, I’m not at all enticed by Society or the World any more, but I sure have a struggle to guard my mind, when I look at fellow brothers and sisters in Christ and how they interpret life.  

After this past week, I’ve realized again, I can only rely on God’s word to guide me in true wisdom of living a God honouring life!  

Here are a few of my favourite verses:

1 Corinthians 15:58

“Therefore, my beloved brehtren, be ye steadfast, unmovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, forasmuch as ye know that your labor is not in vain in the Lord.” 

Jer. 6:16

“Thus saith the Lord, Stand ye in the ways and see, and ask for the old paths, where is the good way, and walk therin, and ye shall find rest for your souls,...”

Deut 28:13

“And the Lord will make you the head and not the tail; you shall be above only, and not be beneath, if you heed the commandments of the Lord your God, which I command you today, and careful to observe them.”

2 Cor 10:5

“Casting down arguments and every high thing that exalts itself against the knowledge of God, bringing every thought into captivity to the obedience of Christ,”

Gen 1:28

“Then God blessed them, and God said to them, ‘Be fruitful and multiply; fill the earth and subdue it; have dominion...”

Ps. 127:3 

“Behold, children are a heritage from the Lord,

The fruit of the womb is a reward.”

Mal 2:15

“But did He not make them one, 

Having a remnant of the Spirit?

And why one?

He seeks godly offspring.”

Ps. 127:4-5

“As arrows are in the hand of a mighty man; so are children of the youth.  Happy is the man that has his quiver full of them.”

Ps. 113:9

“He make the barren woman to keep house, and to be a joyful mother of children.  Praise ye the Lord.”

Ps 128:3

“Your wife shall be like a fruitful vine

In the very heart of your house,

Your children like olive plants

All around your table.”

Titus 2:4-5

“...admonish the young women to love their husbands, to lover their children, to be discreet, chaste, homemakers, good, obedient to their own husband, that the word of God may not be blaspheme.”

1 Tim. 5:14

“I will therefore that the younger women marry, bear children, guide the house, give none occasion to the adversary to speak reproachfully.”

Prov. 31:27

“She looks well to the ways of her household, and eats not the bread of idleness.”

Is 40:11

“He will feed His flock like a shepherd;

He will gather the lambs with His arm,

And carry them in His bosom,

And gently lead those who are with young.”

Matthew 16:25

“For whosoever will save his life shall lose it;

and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it.”

Matthew 6:19-21

Do not lay up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust destroy and where thieves break in and steal;

But lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust destroys and where thieves don not break in and steal.

For where your treasure is, there your heart will be also.”

Matthew 6:33

“But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you.”

Ps. 32:8

“I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;

I will guide you with My eye.”

Pr. 14:1

“The wise woman builds her house, 

But the foolish pulls it down with her hands.”

Phil. 2:14-15

“Do all things without murmurings and disputing; that ye may be blameless and harmless, the sons of God without rebuke, in the midst of a crooked and perverse nation, among whom ye shine as lights in the world.”

1 Thessalonians 5:18

“In everything give thanks for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus concerning you.”

Ps 37:3-4

“Trust in the Lord, and do good;

Dwell in the land, and feed on His faithfulness.

Delight yourself also in the Lord,

And He shall give you the desires of your heart.”

In my battle to reestablish my contentment as a mother, trying to validate my choices, I was almost like the man described in James 1:5-8:

“If any of you lacks wisdom, let him ask of God, who gives to all liberally and without reproach, and it will be given to him.

But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for he who doubts is like a wave of the sea driven and tossed by the wind.  

For let not that man suppose that he will receive anything from the Lord;

he is a double-minded man, unstable in all is ways.”

After I filled myself with God’s truth, there was no doubt in my mind at all. I could testify of “the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, which guard my heart and mind through Christ Jesus.”   Phil 4:7

May these verses also bring you peace and contentment in your high calling of motherhood

With love

Linnie

“All Scripture is given by inspiration of God, and is profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, thoroughly equipped for every good word.”

2 Tim. 3:16