Missing Grace – Missed and Misunderstood

Ministered

These past two weeks I had the privilege of being ministered to by Life Action Ministries.  I think that they are a great ministry and what I find most amazing is how sometimes the simplest truth is the most life changing.  I grew from Life Action’s ministry because they ministered to my spirit, my family, and my needs.

Salvation

Before they even came to our church, I had no doubts that I was a Christian and that I had committed my life to Christ.  I knew that by faith in God’s grace alone through Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross that I had eternal salvation.  Life Action had even explained that the point of this summit was a “revival,” which is reviving . . . you can’t revive something that has not already had life.  I have had God’s life, but something was definitely missing.

Squeezed

On the first or second day, Steve from Life Action Ministries explained that an orange, when squeezed, squirts out orange juice.  However, if you take out all of the juice out of the orange, inject ink into the orange, then squeeze it, the orange will squirt out ink not juice.  Our lives are like the orange.  If we are living in Christ and we are filled with the Holy Spirit, when squeezed we pour out the fruits of the Spirit: love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control.  If we are living in disobedience and not according to the Spirit, when squeezed we pour out fear, despair, anxiety, bitterness, hostility, hypocrisy, selfishness, harshness, and rage.  It was as if Steve held up the mirror of God’s Word and it didn’t look like the mirror I had been using.  My mirror had a special […]

Holistically Love Jesus

Honestly, most Christians hear the word ‘holistic’ and they begin to run in the opposite direction.  We envision people doing yoga and Ohmmmmming and we quickly add on a mental image relating to a “new age” lifestyle.  I was one of those people.  Wow, I have come a long way from being so quick to jump into one idea (at least I hope I have).

Being holistic has nothing to do with yoga, ohmming, new age, or voodoo.  I assure you.  It has everything to do with realizing that God made you as a whole being.  Remember that verse about loving the Lord with all of your heart, soul, mind, and strength (Mark 12:30)?  Everything that God has given us should work together interdependently to love Him.

Merriam-Webster defines holistic as “relating to or concerned with wholes or with complete systems rather than with the analysis of, treatment of, or dissection into parts.”  The example offered by the dictionary is “holistic medicine attempts to treat both the mind and the body.  When describing our walk with Christ, holistic means looking at our life and body as a complete system rather than pulling our life and body into parts.

Let me ask you a question.  Do you find that we as Christians tend to dissect ourselves when we seek to love God?

  • Have you ever spent tons of time using your mind to read the Scripture, then forgot to involve your soul and heart?
  • Have you ever used your strength to serve Christ, but forgot to pray to find out if your chosen service was God’s will?
  • Have you ever worshiped God with your heart and completely left out worshiping Him with your strength because you were too timid to move?
  • Have you ever given God […]

The Unsettled Mom

The Unsettled Mom | Boholistic Mom

Settling.  What an interesting word, right?  Settling down, to settle, unsettling, or settling up.  As American’s we are even familiar with the term “settler”; the American pioneers who settled in the land west of the original colonies.  The original German work setle was literally a place to sit, a seat.  Yet with all these perfectly adequate definitions of the word settle, we have a definite malaise when we think of someone settling for something.  Such as a women settling for a guy who doesn’t treat her right or someone settling for second best.  It appears that taking a seat and settling can be a bad thing.

I think that we need to become unsettled moms.  Not because settling down is bad, but rather because we’ve been settling so long for things that are not God’s best that we do not even recognize what his best is.  The reason that I bring this up is not to forcibly upset your norm . . . but because I realize that my norm needs to change.  I need to become unsettled to follow God’s will for my life.

I want to talk with you about a trend in parenting that I’ve been seeing lately.  It’s parenting by excuses.  Not only that, it’s parenting by excuses and other mothers helping you feel excused by offering their own failures as examples to ease your conscience.  So really, you end up deciding that you are doing a good enough job because you’ve heard all the ways other people have done worse.

What a load of CRAP!  Do we really want to parent […]

Seeking Excellence

Seeking Excellence | Boholistic Mom

“Not that I have already obtained this or am already perfect, but I press on to make it my own, because Christ Jesus has made me his own. Brothers, I do not consider that I have made it my own. But one thing I do: forgetting what lies behind and straining forward to what lies ahead, I press on toward the goal for the prize of the upward call of God in Christ Jesus. Let those of us who are mature think this way, and if in anything you think otherwise, God will reveal that also to you.” – Philippians 3:12-15 ESV

There is no beating around the bush with this one.  In fact, I’m going to come right out and ask you.  Are you seeking excellence in your life due to the upward call of God in Christ Jesus?  Are you pressing towards the goal to win the prize?  Or you hoping to just sneak by unnoticed?

I’ve been in both places before.  I have muddled through life simply checking the boxes.  Check!  I went to church.  Check!  I prayed with my kid before bed.  Check!  I read a devotional online.  Check! Check! Check!

Dude!  Does that sound like a relationship or a fulfillment of a regulatory contract?  This Boholistic Momma doesn’t like to be fake, inauthentic, or insincere.  When I live like I’m checking off a list, I’m not giving my best to Christ and I’m not being the person that I was created to be.

I am created in the image of God.  He made me to reflect Him.

“Now the Lord is the Spirit, and where the Spirit of the Lord […]