Revive Our Hearts...Thy Will March 4, 2008

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Ok, so you can see I am getting through this series a little slowly and am a little back-logged on my broadcasts but this one was really awesome.  I don't know how many of you have areas in your life where you just really feel you must have control over the situation and don't completely trust God to take care of it for you....well I have had one area that stands out like a sore thumb....in any event whenever I have to deal with this situation, I always end up trying to control it so as to minimize any hurt that I might experience...and prior to each situation I pray and I pray and it never fails.....God always gives me a chance to do the right thing by leaving it all in his hands and by providing me with articles, sermon's, etc. and this is no exception.

I truly hope this is a blessing to you ladies out there and may help put some things in perspective....God's Will!!!

You can listen to it here if you prefer: http://www.reviveourhearts.com/radio/roh/today.php?pid=9825

 

Thy Will

7

Series: The Lord's Prayer, Part 2

Tuesday, March 4 2008

Leslie Basham: Here’s Nancy Leigh DeMoss:.

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: We’re not praying to a stranger. We’re not handing over the reins of our life to someone who doesn’t know us; but when you’re praying to your Father who knows and loves you, and you have a relationship with Him—a Father who cares for His children, who loves us, and who can be trusted—that helps us to say to that Father, “Lord, Your will be done.”

Leslie: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss. It’s Tuesday, March 4.

Last month, Nancy did a great job explaining the first words of the Lord’s Prayer: “Our Father in heaven, hallowed be Your name.” That phrase is an important step in getting to a more difficult phrase to pray and believe. Here she is in a series called The Lord’s Prayer.

Nancy: We come today to the next petition in the Lord’s Prayer, which I think may be the hardest four-word prayer to say and mean it. Because as we pray, “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” there rises up in some of our hearts that fear that says, “What might happen if I really prayed and meant it, ‘Thy will be done?’”

On the other hand, it’s a part of this prayer that is easy to pray glibly without thinking about it and without really meaning it, as I’m afraid millions of people do, and all of us have done at times. How often do we just breeze through the words of the Lord’s Prayer?

Perhaps some of you in your church pray this prayer every week. Somebody was telling me today that they pray this prayer as a family at night. I think that’s a good thing if you’re praying it and thinking about it.

But how often do we just pray through these words, “Thy kingdom come, Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven”? Did we think about it? Did we mean what we were saying?

When we pray, “Thy will be done,” it implies that we’re asking God to overrule our will if it’s not the same as His, and that’s tough. That’s tough to pray because we’re born wanting our way, wanting our will. Just ask your two-year-old. The first word they learn—and they don’t have to be taught—is “No!”

There’s this conflict of wills. We’re born with this will that wants to have it our way; and to come to the place where we bend or bow our will in subjection to the will of God and say, “Lord, Your will be done,” is not an easy thing to say. It’s not an easy thing to pray and mean it.

Now, as we come to this petition—and we’re going to spend a few days on this—I want to focus in this first session on the aspect of submission to God’s will in our personal lives as we pray, “Thy will be done.”

As we pray this, it’s important for us to remember where we started in this whole series. We’re praying to whom? To our Father. This is a relational prayer. It’s a family prayer.

We’re not praying to a stranger. We’re not handing over the reins of our life to someone who doesn’t know us or to someone that cannot be known, to someone who doesn’t care about our lives.

I wouldn’t walk up to a man on the street, a stranger, and say, “Thy will be done in my life.” But when you’re praying to your Father who knows and loves you, and you have a relationship with Him—a Father who cares for His children, who loves us, and who can be trusted—that helps us to say to that Father, “Lord, Your will be done.”

Now, praying this prayer doesn’t mean that we will not face pain and suffering. You know, “If I just pray, ‘Lord, Your will be done,’ I’m surrendering to God’s will and everything will go okay in my life.”

Everything will go okay in your life as God defines okay but not always as we think of okay. Jesus prayed, “Thy will be done,” and within hours, in essence, was hanging on a cross.

He knew, when He prayed that prayer, that that was where it would lead. That’s a scary thought, but we’ll see as we get into this subject and look at the Word of God that it is the only way to live as a child of God.

As we’ve said about this prayer, the Lord’s Prayer is not just a way to pray; it’s a way to think about all of life. It’s a way to live all of our lives, with this heart attitude of submission to the will of God.

Let me start by addressing the second part of this petition: “Your will be done on earth as it is in heaven.” I think to help us know how to pray, “Thy will be done,” it helps to know how God’s will is done in heaven, because that’s the way we’re praying that God’s will be done on earth.

How is God’s will done in heaven? You remember, perhaps, Psalm 103:20. It says, “Bless the Lord, O you His angels, you mighty ones who do his word, obeying the voice of his word!”

That’s a wonderful description of what is taking place in heaven at this very moment. There are angels around the throne of God. John says in the Scripture at least 100 million—myriads of myriads of angels.

They are mighty ones. They are powerful ones. They are created beings. They are not as powerful as God, by any stretch; but they are mighty ones. And what do they do? They do God’s word. They obey the voice of His word.

The angels exist to do God’s pleasure. They’re His messengers. They’re His servants. When God says, “Be still and wait,” that’s what they do.

Can you imagine at the cross, as the angels watched the beloved Son of God? They had known and loved Him in heaven, and now they see Him, without a word, as a lamb going to its death, the sacrificial Lamb of God being hung on a cross.

Can’t you imagine those angels were just chafing at the bit? “Let us go down and destroy the Romans!” Just imagine God holding them back: “Wait. This is part of the plan. Don’t go down yet. It’s not time. Don’t rescue Him from the cross. I care about redemption so much that I’m willing to give up My Son at this moment.”

God said, “Wait.” The angels waited. The angels have no will of their own. To do God’s will is the reason they live. It’s what they delight in doing.

So, how do the angels obey God? How is God’s will done in heaven? In heaven, God’s will is done always, instantly, gladly, joyfully—not reluctantly, but cheerfully.

Phillip Keller, in his book on the Lord’s Prayer, says, “In heaven, it is no hardship to do the will of God, but a joy.”¹ Do you want to know how God’s will is done in heaven? Look at Jesus—not just the angels, but Jesus.

This was the ruling principle of His life, as He demonstrated here on earth: “Thy will be done.” In all of eternity past, every moment He spent on this earth, and for all of eternity yet to come, this has been, is, and will be the ruling principle of Jesus’ life. Whenever His will as a man was contrary to the will of God, He didn’t insist on His will, but He surrendered His will to the will of the Father.

Ladies, that’s what makes a cross in your life. When your will crosses the will of God, and you say, “Not my will, but Yours be done,” you go to the cross. You die to your will, as Jesus demonstrated for us.

Jesus said in John 5:30, “I seek not my own will, but the will of him who sent me.” More than that, Psalm 40:8 says, speaking of Jesus, the coming Messiah, “I delight to do Your will.”

That’s the heart attitude I want to have about the will of God. I usually end up doing the will of God sooner or later, sometimes kicking and screaming, dragging my heels. I see some looks that maybe some of you relate to that.

You know, it’s good to do God’s will, even if it’s later than sooner; but how much better to delight to do the will of God!

I want to have a heart attitude that doesn’t wrestle with God; that says, “Lord, this is hard, and this is not what I would want; but more than what I want, I want to do Your will because You are my Father. You are my Savior. You are my God. You are my Lover. You are my Lord.”

It’s the glad acquiescence to the will of God, the will of the one that we love. Jesus always wanted to do His Father’s will. It’s a characteristic of children who have a healthy relationship with their father to want to please their father.

That’s why these words of Jesus in John 8:44 are so sobering. Jesus said to the Jews, “You are of your father the devil, and your will is to do your father’s desires.”

Listen: If you do not have, deep down in your heart, a desire to do the will of God, then you need to ask the question, “Am I a child of God?” Jesus said your will is to do your father’s desires, based on what you really want in life.

I’m not saying you’ll never struggle with the will of God; but if you don’t have, deep down, this desire to please God, then you need to say, “Do I even have a relationship with God as my Father?”

We can’t pray “Our Father” and claim to be His children, and then say, “I’ll have it my way.”

• To pray this prayer is to pray, “Not my will.”
• It’s to relinquish our own will, our own sense of how things should be done.
• It’s to put self-will to death.
• It’s to align our hearts to His will, asking,
  • “Lord, what would please You in this situation?
  • What would please You in our family?
  • What would please You in relation to my children’s lives?
  • What would make You happy?
  • What is Your will?”

It’s not telling God what I would like to see happen. It’s not asking God to bless or to fulfill my will. It’s seeking to know God’s will on a matter and then praying and asking for that will to be done.

Amy Carmichael said, “And shall I pray to change Thy will, my Father, until it accord to mine? But no, Lord, no; that shall never be. Rather I pray Thee blend my human will with Thine.”²

She’s saying, “I’m not going to say, ‘Lord, would You adjust Your will to fit what I think will be to my pleasure,’ but, ‘Lord, adjust my will to fit according to Yours.’”

So as you pray these words, as you pray The Lord’s Prayer, “Thy will be done,” is it your intention to know and to do the will of God? Is that what you want? Is that what you really want?

Is God’s will being done in your life? Do you gladly, wholly obey God? If not, then when we pray this prayer, we’re praying vain repetitions—mindless, mechanical repeating of words that we don’t really mean. We’re not thinking about it.

In so doing, we profane the name of God. We can’t love God and ignore or reject His will. Those just can’t go together. If you love Him, you will want to do what pleases Him.

I love seeing couples who have been married for a long, long time, and they’ve worked hard on their relationship over the years, and they’ve come to really love each other in a deep, intimate way. I’ve talked to some of those wives, and I see there’s just this delight in pleasing their husband.

Now, they had to work hard to get to that point, and they had some bumps along the way. Every marriage does. But they’ve come to the place where they just want what will please their mate, because what will make them happy is to know that their mate is pleased.

If you love God, if you’ve been walking with Him, you want to do what pleases Him. To pray for God’s will to be done, we need to know something about what His will is.

For “Thy will be done,”it means we need to be on a life-long search. “Lord, I want to know Your will.”

“Show me Your ways, O Lord; teach me Your paths. Guide me in Your truth and teach me, for You are God, my Savior.” That’s a prayer from Psalm 25:4-5 I’ve prayed many, many times over the years. “Lord, I’m ignorant. I don’t know. I know what I want, but show me what You want.”

Let me remind you that the Word of God is the will of God. We don’t need more than what God has given us in this Word that He illuminates and applies to our hearts by the power of His Holy Spirit in order to know what the will of God is.

If you’ve got a Bible, you’ve got the will of God. How many of us, even as so-called Christians, regularly make choices and decisions that are contrary to the Word of God; while claiming to be Christians, praying this prayer, “Thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven,” but making choices that are not consistent with the will of God as it’s expressed in His Word?

The will of God is the Word of God. The Word of God is the will of God. The Scripture says, “Rejoice always . . . give thanks in all circumstances” (1 Thessalonians 5:16-18). That’s the will of God.

So if I’m not rejoicing in a circumstance, I can’t pray, “Thy will be done.” I know what God’s will is. Now I need to do it—to make the choice to submit my will to God’s. It’s not enough to just pray, “Thy will be done.” Then I need to exercise my will to submit it to the will of God.

First Thessalonians 4:3 says, “This is the will of God, your sanctification; that you abstain from sexual immorality.” That’s the will of God. You know what it is; so are you playing around with an emotional affair in your workplace, on your email or IM, playing with fire, saying, “I can survive this”?

God says, “The will of God is that you abstain from sexual immorality,” and anything that would lead to sexual immorality cannot be the will of God for your life. So we see that’s God’s will. Therefore, we surrender. We say, “Yes, Lord,” to His will in that matter.

As you pray for your children, pray for God’s will to be done in their lives. I was hearing a conversation the other day with a parent whose child is sensing that the Lord may want them to go to the mission field, and for a parent, that’s a struggle, to lose their child to another part of the earth that may be perhaps a dangerous place.

I know parents who have had to walk through that. As a mom or dad, would you want to stand in the way of God’s will being done in your children’s lives? Don’t push your children to choose a career where they can just make more money if that’s not God’s will for their lives.

That’s a very freeing thing for a son or daughter to know, “My parents want God’s will for my life, and they’re willing to support me as I seek God’s will.” I don’t necessarily mean financial support, though it may involve that as well.

Are you intentional about seeking to know what would please God? You can’t know God’s will if you’re not in God’s Word, if you’re not reading it, studying it, meditating on it, asking God to apply it to your heart.

God’s will isn’t just something that comes to us like a flash, or like God just gives signs and wonders generally to communicate His will. Why should He need to do that when He’s given us His Word?

Are you seeking to know what would please God? Is there anything that you know to be God’s will that you’re not obeying? Think about it. Is there anything in the aspect of God’s will that you’re holding back on, saying, “I want to have it my way rather than God’s way”?

People sometimes write to us at Revive Our Hearts, and they say about this situation or that, “How can I know what God’s will is? Should I marry this person? Should I take this job? Should we move here?” Or, “My husband and I have different opinions now about what God’s will is; how can we resolve this?”

You know what I’ve discovered in my own life? More often than not, the problem isn’t that we don’t know God’s will; the problem is that we don’t want to do God’s will. We wish God’s will were something other than what it is.

So the question is, “Are you willing to do God’s will?” Can you say that your heart is wholly surrendered to His will, no reservation, no holding back?

When we say that, and when we pray this prayer, I know that in many of our hearts there’s a fear: “What might that mean if I really said and meant it, ‘Thy will be done’? Am I going to be miserable? Is God going to make me do something I don’t want to do? Am I going to have to be one of those missionaries in one of those dangerous parts of the world?”

Or (a fate worse than death to some women), “Will I have to stay single? Does that mean I’ll never get a husband?”

Or for some women struggling with infertility, “If I really pray, ‘Lord, Thy will be done,’ does that mean God might not give me the child that I long to have?”

Or for a mom who has a little baby she’s holding in her arms or a teenager that she’s sending out of the nest, “If I pray, ‘Thy will be done,’ might I lose this child? Might my husband die?”

We have some older listeners. Perhaps you deal with the fear, “Will I have to go into a nursing home? How will my needs be met? Will I be alone at the end of my life? Might I lose my health?”

“Might God require me to give my life savings away or to take a job in a ministry that would require a major cut in pay?” At different seasons of life, we have different fears about what God’s will might mean.

Can I just remind you that, according to Romans 12:2, the will of God is good; it’s acceptable; and it’s perfect. Do you believe that? Do you really believe that? If the will of God really is good, acceptable, and perfect, why would we ever reject it?

To want anything, to desire anything other than God’s will is to desire less than the very best for my life or the lives of those I love. We can’t always see how that’s true, but it is true.

It’s the character of God that will help us to delight and to trust in His will. His wisdom, the fact that God knows everything. One commentator on the Lord’s Prayer said something I thought was very true. He said,

The root reason why we find it so difficult to accept the will of God is that we so often in our heart of hearts think that we know better than God. . . . That is why so many people would really rather pray, “Thy will be changed” than “Thy will be done.”³

Do you in your heart of hearts trust that God knows, really knows, what’s best? Someone has said—and you’ve heard me say it before, and I’ll probably say it many more times, I think it’s so gripping—“God’s will is exactly what we would choose if we knew what God knows.”

One day we will see and we will know, and we’ll look back and say, “Why did I insist on having it my way?” I know women today who are in miserable marriages, in some cases because they chose to marry someone outside of the will of God.

They knew it was not God’s will. It could not have been God’s will based on Scripture, but they said, “I want to be married (or remarried) worse than I want to know or to do the will of God.” And they’ve ended up miserable!

Now, you may choose your own way and end up happy for a while, because sin does have pleasures for a season. But in the long run the only way to be happy in Jesus is to trust and obey.

Trust His wisdom. Trust His love. If we really believe that He is wise and loving and trustworthy, then there’s nothing to fear in the will of God.

Can I remind you that ultimately, God’s sovereign will will be done? It will be done. “Our God is in the heavens; he does all that he pleases,” Psalm 115:3 says. Ephesians 1:11 tells us He “works all things according to the counsel of his will.”

One writer said about this phrase of the Lord’s Prayer, “No man [or woman] can violate and resist the gracious will of God without in the end being broken by that will.”⁴

Remember that when you’re wanting to go your own way. Nebuchadnezzar, the king of Babylon (we talked about in the last session) learned the hard way. Remember how he pursued his own will?

He was given a chance to repent and to humble himself, but he wouldn’t do it. Ultimately, he ended up a madman, a crazed man. I don’t know what his mental disorder was, but he went crazy, out in the fields eating grass, living like an animal.

When finally he was brought to repentance and humility and came back to his senses, here’s what he said:

At the end of the days I, Nebuchadnezzar, lifted my eyes to heaven, and my reason returned to me, and I blessed the Most High, and praised and honored Him who lives forever,
for His dominion is an everlasting dominion,
and His kingdom endures from generation to generation;
all the inhabitants of the earth are counted as nothing,
and He does according to His will among the hosts of heaven
and among the inhabitants of the earth;
and none can stay His hand
or say to Him, “What have you done?” (Daniel 4:34-35).

God will have His will. God will have His way. It’s a good will. It’s a good way. It’s right.

Choose it. Say, “Lord, Your will be done,” and then thank Him that He will do it.

Leslie: Every time you say the Lord’s Prayer, you pray, “Your will be done.” Maybe you didn’t quite realize what important words you were saying. I’ve been saying this prayer all my life, but Nancy’s teaching has been helping me appreciate the deep meaning this phrase contains.

The phrase we looked at today, “Your will be done,” is all about surrender. If this isn’t a topic you’ve studied much—if you’ve never consciously surrendered your will and future to God—you’re invited to connect with this crucial topic by reading a book Nancy wrote called Surrender: The Heart God Controls.

It won’t take you long to read it, but it will take a lifetime to practice. Ask for Surrender when you call with a donation of any amount to 800-569-5959, or get more information at ReviveOurHearts.com.

When you share Christ with someone and they are saved, it’s more than just a one-time decision, like casting a vote. It’s the entrance into a lifestyle, a day-by-day exploration of God’s kingdom.

The Lord’s Prayer presents this idea, and Nancy will explain it tomorrow on Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.

 

Revive Our Hearts...A lifestyle of Prayer...March 3, 2008

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Hi there everyone, I just listened to this broadcast this morning and thought it was really encouraging!!!  I wanted to pass it along to those who do not get a chance to listen to Nancy Leigh DeMosses broadcasts....if you would like to listen to it instead of reading you can go to this link and click on the listen button in the upper right corner.

 

A Lifestyle of Prayer

 

11

Series: The Lord's Prayer, Part 2

Monday, March 3 2008

 

Leslie Basham: Jesus talks about praying in an inner room. Holly Elliff says, “You should go to the inner room any time possible.”

Holly Elliff: I think, especially for moms sometimes, that inner room may be the laundry room or it may be your car while you’re waiting on kids to get in it. But you know it can be any place where you are able to get a few minutes with the Lord.

Leslie: This is Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss. It’s Monday, March 3.

The disciples of Jesus asked, “How do we pray?” His answer was profound. It’s the topic of our current series, The Lord’s Prayer. Last week Nancy unpacked the phrase “Your kingdom come.” Earlier in the series she talked about some of the preliminary words of Jesus, about the motives for prayer, and the need to get away and pray alone.

Some friends have been listening to this series, and they’re about to reflect on the challenges and joys of getting alone with God. We’ll hear from Nancy, along with Kim Wagner, Jane Green, and starting us off, here’s Holly Elliff.

Holly: We had the experience this week with an older woman named Lorene that we’ve known for a long time. She is a precious woman of God, loved prayer. Her funeral was this week; my husband led the service.

Her son, who is now in his forties, gave a eulogy for his mom, and it was so sweet. One of the things he said was, “Everything was a matter of prayer for her. Every detail of her life.” He said, “She didn’t make coffee in the morning without praying while she got out the coffee pot.”

He walked in two days before the funeral and found her already dead in her home. She was on her knees beside her bed with her hands up on the bed, her head on top of her hands, her glasses in her hand, her Bible right next to her. That’s how she died. She knelt down there to pray and the next thing she knew when she opened her eyes again . . .

Nancy Leigh DeMoss: She’s seeing the Lord!

Holly: . . .was the face of Christ. That’s just an astounding thought.

He said, “It was such a fitting end to her life because that’s the way she lived. Every moment of her day was about getting to God. And it was just a neat picture of that.

Nancy: A picture of prayer as a lifestyle. When you live that way and you pray that way, then really death becomes for the believer, for the praying believer, just the next step into the presence of the God that you’ve been living with and talking to all along, to the physical presence of the Lord.

Kim Wagner: We’re in His presence right here, right now. But it is so exciting to think about when we are removed from this flesh and this restraint and it is just the next step for a believer. I can’t wait.

Nancy: We tend to think of heaven and eternity as so removed from life here and now. So we live with this very detached, I think, sense of not being connected to eternity, to the presence of Christ. Really, the Lord’s Prayer calls us to live a life that is lived in the light of God’s presence and in the light of eternity and in the light of spiritual realities, to live, not this secular disconnected life, but a life that is all about the kingdom of God, the will of God, the power of God, the glory of God.

I’ve been very convicted as I’ve been studying this series of the whole thing of motives. I’m seeing this is such a huge issue in my life. How many things through my life have I lost all hope of reward because of doing them to be seen by others, doing them to make an impression? I could just want to curl up and never show my face again.

But that’s when I’ve got to get to God for grace and say, “Lord, You see what a mess I am. You see how unlike Christ I am. Thank You for shining Your light and Your Spirit and Your Word in my heart. I repent. But even that’s a gift from You. To change my heart is something that only You can do.”

This is not a matter of me striving or struggling to become a better Christian. “I’m not going to have impure motives.” Well, I do have impure motives. So I lay my heart before the Lord. I say, “Lord, You know all things. Wash me. Cleanse me. Change me. Sanctify me.” Only God can change my heart.

So I don’t want to put people under bondage of trying to live up to one more law. I want to say, we are law breakers. I am a law breaker. This Lord’s Prayer has shown me more ways than I ever realized that I’m a law breaker and not praying and living in a way that’s pleasing to the Lord. But hopefully what that will do is get me to Christ, get me to the gospel, get me to the cross, to that which can liberate and change my life.

Holly: I think the life of Christ is such an example of His constant confrontation of wrong motives. I mean, it’s all through the New Testament. We talked about it earlier as you were teaching, Nancy. You talked about how controversial it was to the Jewish world that Christ could call God His Father. What a controversial statement that was.

And I sat there thinking. All of His life was controversial. Everything Christ did as He came to earth was controversial. But it forced men to examine their hearts and to think about why they did what they did. When He confronted the rich young ruler about his wealth, Jesus was looking at his heart. And when he confronted the Pharisees, it was because He could see the motivations of their hearts, and they couldn’t or hadn’t thought about the motivation of their hearts.

That’s what I love over and over in the New Testament. If we’re reading, studying God’s Word, we’re going to be constantly confronted with truth that doesn’t let us get too far down the path if we’re really asking that question, “What's the motivation of my heart?”

Kim: If we bear the name of the holy God and yet we’re living in unholiness, we’re negating the truthfulness of that statement that we are bearing the name of a holy God. But this quote really hit me strong from Nietzsche that says—and of course he was an ardent antagonist to Christianity—he says, “Show me that you are redeemed, and then I will believe in your redeemer.”

I fear that the church today does not reflect that we serve a holy God. My greatest burden and concern today is that I want people to know what my Father is like. We as a church, I believe, are not showing them what the Father is like, what Jesus is like.

Nancy: In fact, then, they oftentimes choose to reject Christ because the ones who bear His name give such a witness that is unwinsome, unholy. And they say, “If that’s what a Christian is, if that’s who Christ is, then I don’t want Him.

Holly: I do think it’s tragic that, as believers, we so many times look so much like the world; there’s no distinctiveness in our life. There’s nothing about us that draws other people in, a winsomeness that makes them say, “What is that in that person? I want to know what that is.”

Jane, it’s like you said, when you first came to Christ you assumed that every believer did everything you read in Scripture. How tragic is it that so many times we look so unlike Christ and so unlike Scripture that we’re not even recognizable as believers.

Nancy: It’s easy to settle into that and think, “Everyone else around us is living that way. Nobody’s really living at this supernatural level of the Christian life or so few are, and then to begin to rationalize, justify, make excuses for our own subpar Christianity. We think, “Well, I’m doing as well as people around me, most of them anyway,” when God is calling us in the Sermon on the Mount and in the Lord’s Prayer to a lifestyle that is radically other than the way of the world and its kingdom and its righteousness.

For us to be content to live in the world’s kingdom or the way that the world’s kingdom does is to betray the name of Christ our King.

Holly: It’s really an amazing thought to think of how much God would desire to do in our nation if we were listening, if we were praying in accordance with His will. If those of us who are genuinely believers were actually getting up every day and praying through the course of our day, “God, we desire for Your kingdom to come.” I think we have missed so much of what God desires because we have lost the mindset to pray in accordance with His will.

I love that Jesus so well exemplified that balance of the need to get to God about everything in His life while He walked the earth, so much so that His disciples saw it and said, “We know that You pray. Teach us how to do the same thing.” They knew it was important to Him.

I love reading through the New Testament. For somebody who doesn’t understand this concept, I would encourage them to just get their Bible out and start reading through the New Testament, recording what they see about the life of Christ in relationship to prayer. Because I think that does show us how to take the moments that we’re living out on earth and see them in light of eternity, which is what Jesus was all about.

Kim: Jesus wasn’t living in a monastery. He was dealing with the dirty junk of society. He was tired. He was hungry. It was difficult. Even so He was able to keep that continual fellowship with the Father.

Jane Green: Holly, we would see that if we would do what you said, take our Bibles and just start going through and marking them about the life of Jesus. We would see that He got up early in the morning and He went away by Himself to pray. Nancy, I don’t think that’s something that most people do. Their mornings are filled with getting the kids ready and getting out the door and going to work. Sleep in as late as possible because they’ve watched TV so long the night before.

I remember when I first saw that Jesus went away to pray. . . I personally like to get up in the morning. I was also very pleased when I saw that Jesus did that because I thought, “Okay, then it’s all right for me to do that.”

Holly: He also prayed all night.

Jane: Yes, that’s true.

Kim: Nancy asked me how can people cultivate this? I think you just mentioned a couple of practical things. People are so busy, but what do they really want to do? If you really want to meet with God, if you really want to cultivate a lifestyle of prayer, you do have to choose to turn off the TV or not stay up late doing whatever kind of activities. You have to choose to go to bed in time to get up and meet with God or to . . .

Holly: To make adjustments in your life.

Nancy: And, Jane, you did that as a young believer.

Jane: I did.

Nancy: You made some choices that people today, in many cases, would consider very radical.

Jane: Yes. I still get comments on the choices that I have made—to not have a TV is one thing. We just recently got a computer and I can definitely see where email, thinking that I need to check those before I go to bed and then you respond to them. It’s a choice.

I can remember one young woman saying to me that she couldn’t do that because she didn’t have the time. She wished that she could develop the relationship with the Lord that she saw that I had, but she didn’t have the time. I asked her, “What do you do in between 4:00 and 5:00 in the morning (because that’s when I’m doing this)? So what are you doing then?”

Nancy: Another thing that God prompted your heart, as I remember. You were a runner. You were a marathon runner.

Jane: Yes.

Nancy: And you made some choices—not that running was wrong—but I remember you telling me that . . .

Jane: It was taking up too much of my time, time that could be better spent.

Nancy: So we’re not saying that running is wrong or that doing email is wrong. It’s choosing your priorities and living your life by them and saying, if you don’t have time to cultivate your relationship with God . . .

Jane: Something’s wrong somewhere if you don’t have that. It comes down to self-control, too.

Kim: It’s a discipline of the heart.

Holly: And going back to realizing that it’s critical. I think we do what we want to do lots of times. So what really matters to you, you will find time to do.

Jane: Yes. It’s like Dorothy said. She’s had a heart for revival for all of these years, and she’s been praying.

Nancy: Dorothy is an 80-year-old woman who’s been attending these Revive Our Hearts sessions.

Jane: Yes. When I heard that she had that heart and that she’d been praying for that for all of these years, and when I look at the United States, I don’t see it going that way. But it’s not stopping her from praying. You said something earlier, that sometimes prayers are sowing seeds that are not rewarded for years to come.

We live in such an instant society that we want to see results right now. I think if we’re not getting an answer to a prayer, we have a tendency—I’ve had a tendency—to quit praying about it then. To hear about how Dorothy’s been praying has really encouraged me.

Kim: Jane, when Nancy started the sessions on the Lord’s Prayer, she brought up the idea about going to the inner room, the inner closet. I thought of Jane immediately. Did you, Holly? The first evening we ever shared with Jane, she shared with us about how literally she took that.

Jane: When I became a believer, I started reading through the New Testament and I got to Matthew 6. and it says, “Go into your inner room and shut the door.” I was sitting at the kitchen table when I read that. I looked up and I thought, “Well, the inner room in this house is going to be the bathroom or the basement.” So I tried the bathroom for several days and found it to be uncomfortable.

So then I went down into the basement and in the basement of this home—I was renting a home that was unfurnished—there was a rocking chair down there. So that became my prayer chair. What I found was that while I was there, I was not distracted by other things. When I went there and I shut the door, I was going there to pray. In that scenario, I was not distracted.

Holly: I think, especially for moms sometimes, that inner room may be the laundry room or it may be your car while you’re waiting on kids to get in it. But it can be any place where you are able to get a few minutes with the Lord.

Nancy: And you know it’s more than a physical place. I was reading this morning a quote by Oswald Chambers in My Utmost for His Highest, and I just so related to the need for this. He said, “We must have a selected place for prayer and when we get there, the plague of flies begins.” He’s, of course, talking about being distracted. You can go into that inner room and all of a sudden you have these thoughts come whirring around you from every direction.

He says, “The plague of flies begins. This must be done and that.” I’ve said often that my “to do” list all of a sudden multiplies when I sit down in that quiet-time chair, and I start thinking of all the things that need to be done.

So Chambers is speaking about Matthew 6:6 where it says, “Go into your room and shut the door.” Chambers goes on and says, “Shut the door.” It’s not just the physical, literal door. It’s concentrate, set your mind and your heart on the Lord. He said, “A secret silence means to shut the door deliberately on emotions, and remember God.”

So I have a place, I have a chair. I live alone. It can be quiet. But my heart can be not quiet. That’s where it’s a call, not just to shut the literal door but to shut the door of your heart. Shut the world out and say, “Lord, I want to concentrate and focus on You.”

That does not come easily for me. But it’s a battle I find I’ve got to wage. That’s why we’re calling women in Revive Our Hearts to a counter-cultural revolution. Even within the Christian world, what it looks like as a woman—single, wife, mom, empty nester. All four of us women sitting in this conversation are really in varied seasons of life.

What does it look like? What does it mean to be a kingdom-minded woman? Even in the Christian world today, it is going to go against the grain. It’s going to go against the flow. You’re going to look like a salmon swimming upstream. People are going to, even in the Christian world, think you’re nuts.

I talked with a woman in the last week. She and her family have changed churches within the last year. But she said,

In the church we were in, our marriage issues were not getting resolved, our life issues were not being dealt with. I would look around and I would hear all these great sermons and I would say, "Is anybody doing anything about this? Is this changing anybody’s life?”

It wasn’t changing my friends. We would be in our small group, but nobody wanted to talk about spiritual things. Everything was material things, temporal things, earthly things. Here we were with marriage issues. My husband and I never had a good marriage all those years. We would actually say to people, "We need some help." And they’d say, "That’s nice" kind of mindset. We just decided we wanted to get serious about our faith.

So they went to a very small church, not because it was small, but it happened to be. And now people are getting into their life. They’re getting into the Word. They’re making choices.

She said, “Everything about our lives has changed—how we look at everything, what we do,” Their marriage issues, the way they're raising their children, their whole value system. Everything is different. Well, they now have got an eye for the kingdom of God. They’re taking God seriously.

I’m sure some of their friends at their former church—and I’m not saying there aren’t godly people in that former church. But I think some of the circle they were running in are probably looking at them now and thinking, “You have gone off the deep end. You’ve become a fanatic. You’re taking this way too seriously.”

Holly, the way you’re parenting your children I’m sure a lot of people look at and say, “That’s just too extreme.” But you’re doing it with joy. You’re doing it under the leading of the Holy Spirit. You’re just saying, “We’re not going to just let our kids grow up.”

Holly: The fact that we have children . . .

Nancy: The fact that you have eight children is counter-cultural because for so many, that would be, “You’re nuts! You’re crazy.”

Holly: Some days we believe that.

Nancy: And some days you probably feel that. But under the Lordship and the leadership of Christ, you’re saying, “We’re not only going to have the children God blesses us with.” That’s radical enough.

“But, we’re not going to let those children just grow up and fit into the world system. We’re going to be intentional about the way that we shepherd their hearts, about the way we parent, about the way we model Christ to our children. This is not going to be a category of our lives that we reserve for Sunday because my husband’s the pastor and my kids are pastor’s kids. This is the way we’re choosing to live our lives for the sake of Christ and His kingdom.” And that’s living the Lord’s Prayer.

Holly: I think the word intentional is a key word to really wrap up what we’re talking about because it is an intentional lifestyle choice. To live in light of eternity, to live governed by God’s Word and by His Spirit and to be connected to Him in prayer is intentional. It has to be intentional or it does not happen.

Nancy: And you may not have a lot of company on that journey, but you will have the company of Christ.

Leslie: I’ve been listening, thinking, “That’s the kind of life I want.” I’m so grateful for other women who encourage me to pray and explain the deep meaning in a passage like the Lord’s Prayer. Embark on a lifestyle of prayer with the help of Nancy Leigh DeMoss and her series called The Lord’s Prayer.

When you order the series on CD, you’ll hear today’s conversation Nancy had with Kim Wagner, Jane Green, and Holly Elliff. We had to cut the conversation short because of time restraints, but you can hear the entire dialogue when you order the CD. Plus meditate with Nancy on the Lord’s Prayer. When you order this teaching series on CD you can listen whenever a quiet moment presents itself—in the car or wherever—and you can pause the CD about prayer, to pray.

Order The Lord’s Prayer by calling 1-800-569-5959, or you can order online at ReviveOurHearts.com. Nancy mentioned prayer as an important part of a counter-revolution. Discover more of what she means by counter-revolution at ReviveOurHearts.com.

“Thy will be done.” It’s one of the most difficult and meaningful ways to pray. Find out why when Nancy picks up her series on the Lord’s Prayer. Please be back for Revive Our Hearts.

Revive Our Hearts with Nancy Leigh DeMoss is an outreach of Life Action Ministries.

Notes from Financial Class Session 2 Nerds and Free Spirits

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This session is about relating with money.

The flow of money in a family represents the value system of how it operates.  What you do with money screams who you are.

Emergency Fund Savings:

Men of think...."it's boring or not sophisticated to have a budget".....and on the other hand women think: "It's the most important key to our financial plan"  so you can see that men and women think differently about finances in a marriage.

Men take note, having an Emergency Fund and a Budget will revolutionize your marriage!!  Women need to feel secure in regards to their relationship to money. 

Shopping:

Men get good deals by negotiating for them....Ladies get good deals by hunting for them....She hunts he kills it when she finds it.....

Financial Problems:

Men lose self-esteem because money represents a score card to men...Women face fear/terror because with women, money usu. represents security.

Marriage and Money...Can we Talk?

The number one cause of divorce in America is money fights...7 out of 10 disagree and 57% of divorce couples state it is due to financial troubles.  This is the Number 1 opportunity in a marriage to make it better.

You need to agree on spending...which means agree on unity in your marriage which means agree on your fears...Get oneness and unity.

Who does the Financial Decision-making?

Both of you do!!  This is not a situation where husband makes me do all the finances and pay the bills so he has a way out and can blame the wife....or where the husband does all the finances and the wife has no clue about where the money goes....Or that you do your finances and I do my finances....The marriage was set up from the beginning that two shall be one and that is the way it is to be with the finances....both on the same page both communicating about them....no secrets.....Any debt you bring into a marriage is now Our debt....not yours or mine....any money that is inherited is not your money it is now Our money....

both of you do the financial decision making...One can prepare the paper but both of you decide what numbers go on the paper.

The partner with the natural gifts of numbers and organization can prepare the budget, but the decision-making must be done by both.

Nerds in a marriage are the ones that like doing he budget because it gives them control, and they feel like they are taking care of loved ones.  The Free Spirit feels controlled, not cared for, and can appear irresponsible to the nerd.

Then you have a Budget Committee Meeting

Whoever prepares the budget then brings it to the table and you follow a few rules...

#1 Give the budget to the Free Spirit and just sit back and be quiet....let them look it over, give their input etc.

#2 It is a meeting not a Weekend long Summit...it is to be short, like no more than 30 minutes....

#3 The Free Spirit needs to work with the Nerd and end up with the best marriage...bring that level of unity to your marriage.

#4 Never again say..."Whatever you want to do".....this is a cop out and you need to have an active say in decision making that is best for your family.

There will be more on this later but the Budget Committee meeting is to happen every month and prior to the first of the next month....Every dollar is to be spent on paper before the first ....this way you know where your priorities are, and if you have printed it out you can put it on the fridge or someplace where you can refer to it easily.  If something comes up and you need to move money around you sit down and have a quick Budget Committee Meeting, make the changes and then continue on....No money is to be spent on items outside of what is on the budget without being discussed with one another!!

Singles and Money

Time, Poverty and fatigue can lead to poor money management. Beware of Impulse buying, which can be brought on by stress or even by the "I owe it to myself" syndrome.  Singles can fall into loneliness spending, eating out just to have people interested in them.

A written plan gives the single person empowerment and self-accountability and control.

Prevention

Develop Accountability relationships, not your shopping buddies but friends who are willing to hurt your feelings to keep you online.  Those friends who will look at you in love and say you are being Stupid!!! and promise to keep telling you so for your own good.

This is someone with whom to discuss major purchases.  This is someone with whom to discuss your budget. 

So this is for Singles and married Couples...couples find another couple that you can share these points with and ask them to be your Accountability Partners...the workbook suggests pastoral staff, parent, relative, boss, etc.  Whoever you feel comfortable that has your best interests at heart.

Kids and Money.

Teaching your kids how to handle money is not the school's responsibility.  It is your responsibility.  Proverbs 22:6-7 Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.  The rich rules over the poor, and the borrower is servant to the lender.

teach are children about money and debt, get rich quick doesn't work...Work steady and hard that is what works.

Pay Commissions, not allowance; we have enough people in our society who expect to be made allowance for.

You need the bones of strength to be able to manage money...Words are powerful.  If you work you g3t paid; if you do not work, you do not get paid.  Work creates money and you make different decisions...Teach by example.

Be Age-appropriate

If the children are young, use a clear container to save....Visual reinforcement is powerful  Explain about insurance, 401's IRA's Voting.....

Money is finite....you don't deserve it unless you have the money.....meaning purchases....you have to have the money in order to buy it and that goes for children as well...Just because you want, want want, whatever you see in the store....you need to save up.

Use three envelopes for ages 5-12: Saving , Spending and Giving.

Somewhere around 13-15 years old, open a checking account for the child and teach him/her how to un it by monthly reviews.  Put money into the account at the first of the month and now they have a new chore to balance their checkbook each month.  If they bounce a check, they need to go to the bank in person and apologize to the bank for writing a check that bounced....that means you lied that you had money in the account.

If your child wants to buy a car...they can save up their money and you can do something called Matching...match them dollar for dollar up to a certain agreed upon amount...it might 5,000.00 or 2000.00 whatever is feasible for your family.  pay Cash!!!

You have the ability to change your family tree and your children will have an inheritance of Character, work ethic, honesty and more.

Next session we will get into the basics of budgeting!  By the Way....I"m the Nerd and my hubby is the Free Spirit

God Bless~~

Notes from Financial Class I am taking Session 1

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Since there are many that I know that I have talked to about the Dave Ramsey class we are taking I thought I would just post my notes here for anyone who might have interest instead of on various forums.

The first session was on Super Savings learning to Save money.

If we keep doing little things all int he right direction and keep going, we will get to where we want to go.

Money moves around, you have to make it behave not let it control you.

There are 7 steps to getting out of the mess we created without getting overwhelmed about the whole process....it takes time!  And believe me once you work the program, you will think it is going to take forever but it is still progress.

Dave calls these Baby Steps

1-A 1,000.00 Emergency fund....if your income is less than 20,000.00 a year then your Emergency fund only needs to be $500.  You need to do this as fast as you can as quickly as you can.  Put the money in a savings account that you have quick access to in case of an emergency not in a Mutual Fund.  Every where you see extra money, change, etc. set it aside for that emergency fund.

(While you are working on your first step, you do not pay any extra on credit card debt, keep current and pay the minimum payments......stop all contributions to 401 plans and savings while you have debt...that money needs to go towards the steps as you are working on them.)

2-work you your debt snowball.  This is listing all your debts from largest to smallest excluding your house mortgage.  Once your Emergency fund is set aside, start taking any extra money you find and applying it to the smallest debt...when that amount is payed off, take that full amount you were paying each month and apply it to your next debt and keep working at each debt, snowballing your payments so you are putting larger and larger sums of money to attacking the next debt.

3-Save up 3 -6months of living expenses...not income but living expenses....put them into a savings account or another type of account that gets some some interest to make money while it is sitting there(a Money Market account from a Mutual fund company).  This is the rest of your emergency fund....don't spend it unless it is an emergency.

4-Invest15% of your household income into Roth IRA's and pre-tax retirement plans.  This is where you can start up your retirement savings again if you stopped doing that earlier in step 1.

5-If you have children, and are planning on them attending college this is where you start saving money for this education.....you can do this at the same time as number 4.

6-Pay-off your Home early...get rid of your mortgage!!!

7-Build wealth and give it away!!!

 

Savings must become a priority...pay yourself first and pay your bills next.  The analogy was given that if there was a disease that broke out and your child contracted it...and you found out there was medication that could be given to save your child, you would do anything possible to save your child's life, you would do anything, work as hard as possible to be able to pay for the medication for your child......this is the same thing.....do anything and everything possible to focus on getting out of debt....cut out everything that is not necessary, don't buy things you don't need and put that money towards your Emergency Fund or your debt snowball.  When it becomes important people save!

Saving money is a way of life, it is a sign of character...it is a means of survival...its about emotion and contentment...I don't have to impress you or anyone.  It is more important to send children to college(if that is what you are choosing to do or a trade school) and to change your family tree than it is to be in debt.

The bible says in 1 Timothy 6:10 For the love of money is a root of all kinds of evil.

You are not bad or good because you have money....the difference between saving and hoarding is your attitude and your heart.  Proverbs 21:20 says In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has.

Wise people save money and how you treat that, how you react to it determines whether you are a saver or hoarder....someone with a clenched fist is a hoarder....

You should be saving for 3 reasons...1)Your Emergency Fund (1000.00) there will be unexpected events and expenses...count on it ....it is going to rain) 2) Purchases and 3)Wealth Building

Your Baby Step 3 the 3-6 months of Expenses should be in a Money Market account...Mutual fund with CD Rates...there are no penalties for taking the money out...it is a short term savings NOT an investment....It is INSURANCE it does not make you money....it costs you money to protect your assets....park your money and do not touch it.

Your purchases.....instead of borrowing/using credit cards to purchase items ....pay cash by using a sinking fund approach....

here is the example he gave ...say you borrow to purchase a 4,000.00 dining room set...Most furniture stores will sell their financing contracts to finance companies.  This means you will have borrowed at 24% with payments of 211.00 per a month for 24 months...so you will pay a total of 5064.00 plus insurance for that set!!!

However, if you save the same 211.00 per month for only 18 months you will be able to pay cash and it will only be 3798.00!!!!  When you walk into a store with cash in hand and show that you have cash in hand they will be willing to negotiate the price down to make the sale!!!  Cash Discount!!!

One nugget of information....One definition of maturity is learning to delay pleasure (impulse spending)  Children do what feels good; adults devise a plan and follow it!

Or how about this example say you want to purchase a 4600.00 car....set aside 464.00 in a cookie jar for only 10 months....since we have pledged to borrow no more, this is the only way to make a purchase....

Wealth Building...Retirement and college funding, etc.

Discipline is a key ingredient....Hebrews 12:11  No discipline seems pleasant at the time, but painful.  Later on, however, it produces a harvest of righteousness and peace for those who have been trained by it.

It is a marathon not a sprint...its tough....it is a process over time...there is not get rich quick scheme out there!

If you save your pizza money or cable bill money..say 100.00 a month and invest that in a mutual fund with an average of 12% interest from the ages of 25 to 65 there is no one that should retire broke...that is 1.176 million dollars!!!

gourmet coffee at $5/day at $150/month is 19,371,943.00 invested from age 16 to 76 at 12% interest!!!! That's if you never take it out and spend it!!

putting your money into an account with Compound interest is a mathematical Explosion...you need to start now!!!

So that is my notes from the first session and we are actually on like session 6 or something, so I will get the rest posted here but take heart.....You CAN be out of debt, if you believe it it will happen, if you don't think it is possible, you are only making the journey that much longer....Take Control of your money and be a good steward of what God has blessed you with!!!...make a plan and stick to it....next session will start talking about getting a plan started!!!!