Category: Devotions

45 Bible Verses on Pursuing Holiness

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verses-holiness

  • Leviticus 19:2 ESV
    Speak to all the congregation of the people of Israel and say to them,You shall be holy, for I the Lord your God am holy
  • Leviticus 20:7 ESV
    Consecrate yourselves, therefore, and be holy, for I am the Lord your God.
  • Leviticus 20:26 ESV
    You shall be holy to me, for I the Lord am holy and have separated you from the peoples, that you should be mine.
  • Psalm 51:10-12 ESV
    Create in me a clean heart, O God,
        and renew a right spirit within me.
    11 Cast me not away from your presence,
        and take not your Holy Spirit from me.
    12 Restore to me the joy of your salvation,
        and uphold me with a willing spirit.
  • Psalm 66:18-19 ESV
    If I had cherished iniquity in my heart,
        the Lord would not have listened.
    19 But truly God has listened;
        he has attended to the voice of my prayer.
  • Psalm 97:10 ESV
    O you who love the Lord, hate evil!
        He preserves the lives of his saints;
        he delivers them from the hand of the wicked.
  • Psalm 119:1-3 ESV
    Blessed are those whose way is blameless,
        who walk in the law of the Lord!
    2 Blessed are those who keep his testimonies,
        who seek him with their whole heart,
    3 who also do no wrong,
        but walk in his ways!
  • Psalm 139:23-24 ESV
    Search me, O God, and know my heart!
        Try me and know my thoughts!
    24 And see if there be any grievous way in me,
        and lead me in the way everlasting!
  • Proverbs 16:17 ESV
    The highway of the upright turns aside from evil;
        whoever guards his way preserves his life.
  • Isaiah 35:8 ESV
    And a highway shall be there,
        and it shall be called the Way of Holiness;
    the unclean shall not pass over it.
        It shall belong to those who walk on the way;
        even if they are fools, they shall not go astray.
  • Isaiah 52:11 ESV
    Depart, depart, go out from there;
        touch no unclean thing;
    go out from the midst of her; purify yourselves,
        you who bear the vessels of the Lord.
  • Amos 5:14 ESV
    Seek good, and not evil,
        that you may live;
    and so the Lord, the God of hosts, will be with you,
        as you have said.
  • Romans 7:12 ESV
    So the law is holy, and the commandment is holy and righteous and good.
  • Romans 12:1 ESV
     I appeal to you therefore, brothers, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your spiritual worship.
  • Romans 13:12-14 ESV
    The night is far gone; the day is at hand. So then let us cast off the works of darkness and put on the armor of light. 13 Let us walk properly as in the daytime, not in orgies and drunkenness, not in sexual immorality and sensuality, not in quarreling and jealousy. 14 But put on the Lord Jesus Christ, and make no provision for the flesh, to gratify its desires.
  • 1 Corinthians 3:17 ESV
    If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy him. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple.
  • 1 Corinthians 6:19 ESV
    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
  • 1 Corinthians 15:34 ESV
    Wake up from your drunken stupor, as is right, and do not go on sinning. For some have no knowledge of God. I say this to your shame.
  • 2 Corinthians 7:1 ESV
    Since we have these promises, beloved, let us cleanse ourselves from every defilement of body and spirit, bringing holiness to completion in the fear of God.
  • Galatians 5:22-25 ESV
    But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control; against such things there is no law. 24 And those who belong to Christ Jesus have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires.25 If we live by the Spirit, let us also keep in step with the Spirit.
  • Ephesians 1:4 ESV
    even as he chose us in him before the foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him…
  • Ephesians 5:3 ESV
    But sexual immorality and all impurity or covetousness must not even be named among you, as is proper among saints.
  • Ephesians 5:27 ESV
    so that he might present the church to himself in splendor, without spot or wrinkle or any such thing, that she might be holy and without blemish.
  • Philippians 2:12-16 ESV
    Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, so now, not only as in my presence but much more in my absence, work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, 13 for it is God who works in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure.14 Do all things without grumbling or disputing, 15 that you may be blameless and innocent, children of God without blemish in the midst of a crooked and twisted generation, among whom you shine as lights in the world, 16 holding fast to the word of life, so that in the day of Christ I may be proud that I did not run in vain or labor in vain.
  • Colossians 3:5-10 ESV
    Put to death therefore what is earthly in you: sexual immorality, impurity, passion, evil desire, and covetousness, which is idolatry. 6 On account of these the wrath of God is coming. 7 In these you too once walked, when you were living in them. 8 But now you must put them all away: anger, wrath, malice, slander, and obscene talk from your mouth.9 Do not lie to one another, seeing that you have put off the old self[c] with its practices 10 and have put on the new self, which is being renewed in knowledge after the image of its creator.
  • 1 Thessalonians 4:4 ESV
    that each one of you know how to control his own body[a] in holiness and honor
  • 1 Thessalonians 4:7 ESV
    For God has not called us for impurity, but in holiness.
  • 1 Thessalonians 5:22 ESV
    Abstain from every form of evil.
  • 1 Thessalonians 5:23 ESV
    Now may the God of peace himself sanctify you completely, and may your whole spirit and soul and body be kept blameless at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ.
  • 1 Timothy 6:11 ESV
    But as for you, O man of God, flee these things. Pursue righteousness, godliness, faith, love, steadfastness, gentleness.
  • 2 Timothy 1:9 ESV
    who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began
  • 2 Timothy 2:21 ESV
    Therefore, if anyone cleanses himself from what is dishonorable, he will be a vessel for honorable use, set apart as holy, useful to the master of the house, ready for every good work.
  • Hebrews 12:1 ESV
    Therefore, since we are surrounded by so great a cloud of witnesses, let us also lay aside every weight, and sin which clings so closely, and let us run with endurance the race that is set before us,
  • Hebrews 12:14 ESV
    Strive for peace with everyone, and for the holiness without which no one will see the Lord.
  • James 1:21 ESV
    Therefore put away all filthiness and rampant wickedness and receive with meekness the implanted word, which is able to save your souls.
  • 1 Peter 1:15-16 ESV
     but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct,16 since it is written, “You shall be holy, for I am holy.”
  • 1 Peter 2:9 ESV
     But you are a chosen race, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession, that you may proclaim the excellencies of him who called you out of darkness into his marvelous light.
  • 1 Peter 2:11 ESV
    Beloved, I urge you as sojourners and exiles to abstain from the passions of the flesh, which wage war against your soul.
  • 1 Peter 2:24 ESV
    He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness. By his wounds you have been healed.
  • 1 Peter 3:11 ESV
    let him turn away from evil and do good;
        let him seek peace and pursue it.
  • 2 Peter 3:14 ESV
    Therefore, beloved, since you are waiting for these, be diligent to be found by him without spot or blemish, and at peace.
  • 1 John 1:7 ESV
    But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus his Son cleanses us from all sin.
  • 1 John 2:1 ESV
    My little children, I am writing these things to you so that you may not sin. But if anyone does sin, we have an advocate with the Father, Jesus Christ the righteous.
  • 1 John 3:6-10 ESV
    No one who abides in him keeps on sinning; no one who keeps on sinning has either seen him or known him. 7 Little children, let no one deceive you.Whoever practices righteousness is righteous, as he is righteous. 8 Whoever makes a practice of sinning is of the devil, for the devil has been sinning from the beginning. The reason the Son of God appeared was to destroy the works of the devil. 9 No one born of God makes a practice of sinning, for God’s seed abides in him, and he cannot keep on sinning because he has been born of God. 10 By this it is evident who are the children of God, and who are the children of the devil: whoever does not practice righteousness is not of God, nor is the one who does not love his brother.
  • 3 John 1:11 ESV
     Beloved, do not imitate evil but imitate good. Whoever does good is from God; whoever does evil has not seen God.

The Early Riser Who Isn’t a Morning Person

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psalm 30-5My son is an early riser who really isn’t a morning person.

That means most days, he wakes up at the first hint of light and then grumps about it for the next hour.

Most of my kids have gone through this phase of waking mom up too early.  Over time and with training, most of them grew out of it.

Although, I do have one daughter who is simply a morning person.  She can bounce out of bed far too early and jump all over the house cheerfully with a running monologue about everything she wants to do that day—all while I’m laying back down on the couch to avoid fully waking up.

She’s always been like that.

Not my son.

The other day, it was the worst ever.  He woke up.  He woke me up.

Then, he yelled about everything he asked for.  Cereal.  Drink.  Blanket.  Curious George, Mickey Mouse or Thomas the Tank Engine.

He asked.  I gave.  He screamed.

Finally, I lifted that tiny bundle of morning-angst right up, set him into his crib and told him we needed a restart.  We’d try again in a few minutes.

Sure enough, about five minutes later, I once again greeted his sweet face with a “good morning” and a fresh start.

Bless his heart, that boy had started the day determined to be in a funk.  But a ‘restart’ button on the morning was what he really needed.

Maybe we do, too, sometimes.

Our emotions, they can overwhelm and overpower us.

And, while God created us with these feelings to be indicators of how we’re doing as we navigate the big wide world of life, He didn’t mean for those feelings to trample us underfoot.

Still, there are days that instead of bossing our feelings around, we feed those little monsters until they’re towering beasts.

We feel sadness, and we feed the sadness, giving into melancholy, reading sadness, listening to sadness, watching sadness, talking about sadness.

We feel anger, so we feed the anger.  We ‘vent’ and rage, we call our friends and get riled up all over again, we make speeches and post on Facebook.

In her book Wherever the River Runs, Kelly Minter writes:

“A high school student recently told me that she actually enjoys being sad, writing in her diary for hours about how she and her boyfriend continually break up and get back together.  She was like a melancholy teenage moth admitting her attraction to the sparkly light of drama.  I looked at her and as lovingly as possible said, ‘You’ll get over that’”

I remember those days.  Somehow when you’re a teenager, melancholy feels good because that’s when you know you write the best poetry.

But here we are all grown up and mature and I haven’t always truthfully gotten over that.

Some days, I let my feelings run crazy and pull me right along with them.

In the book of Ruth, we meet a woman named Naomi who endured great tragedy.  If anyone had the right to feel despair or sadness or deep grief, it’s her after losing her husband and two sons while living in a foreign land.

Yet, Naomi had a choice:  Give In or Find New Strength.

After she trekked back home to Bethlehem, she made a speech to her old friends:

“Do not call me Naomi; call me Mara, for the Almighty has dealt very bitterly with me.21 I went away full, and the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi, when the Lord has testified against me and the Almighty has brought calamity upon me?” (Ruth 1:20-21 ESV). 

Her sorrow engulfed her whole identity.  She couldn’t be Naomi any more.  Now, she was Mara–“bitter.”

She was giving in.

She spills out the intensity of how it feels like God has abandoned you—The Almighty…The Lord…has done this to me, has dealt bitterly with me, has brought me back empty, has testified against me, has brought calamity upon me.

Oh, how so many of us have felt this also, that somehow–even though we know it isn’t true–it feels as though God has abandoned us or, even worse, set Himself against us.

In her Bible study, Ruth, Kelly Minter writes:

“Although there will be weeping in this life, the direction in which we weep is what truly matters” and  “What we do while we’re weeping makes the difference” (p. 22 and p. 45).

She calls it “weeping forward.”

It’s not staying stuck.  It’s not allowing grief to subsume us.

It’s choosing to get up each new day and confess all that sorrow to God, not faking or pretending everything’s great, but choosing this:  Choosing to overcome.

Choosing fresh starts and new mercies.

Choosing to keep going.

Choosing, if we have to, to weep forward.

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Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2015 Heather King

The Post Where I Finally Cave and Drink the Pumpkin Spice Tea

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Psalm 68

I’ve finally caved.

I held off as long as I could, longer than I ever have before.

But I’ve done it.

I’ve taken down the summer wreath from my door, the one in nautical blue and white stripes with seashells and an anchor.

In its place, I slipped up the fall wreath, a sign to everyone who comes to my door that I’ve finally accepted the end of summer.

Mostly.

Usually, I’ve baked two or three batches of pumpkin bread, ginger spice cookies and pumpkin pie by now.  Maybe I’ve made baked apples in the Crock-Pot.

Not this year.  Not one pumpkiny, gingery, cinnamon-heavy, apple-based dish so far.

But I did finally pour the steaming hot water into my mug with a pumpkin spice tea bag as a treat before bed.

pumpkin spice

And, I’m stocking up on baking supplies and the chocolate, graham cracker, and marshmallows we’ll need for S’mores.

I stopped burning the honeysuckle and wildflower scents in my wax burner and pulled out ‘cashmere’ and ‘apple spice.’

Maybe I’ll even make this all official by unpacking my leaf-and-pumpkin decorations and dotting them around the house.

Fall is my favorite season.  I could be happy in sweater weather all year long.  The pumpkin patch is my happy place.  Baking season is heaven to me.

Walking among the crunching leaves, tucking away acorns and pine cones as treasures, smelling the scent of fireplaces carried by the wind, is deeply healing to my rushed soul.

But this year, unlike any year I ever remember, I’ve been holding onto summer with both hands, my feet firmly planted.  The calendar is all-out dragging me along and you can see the grooves in the dust where my feet refuse to move.

School is in session, but I’m pretending it isn’t. I’m going through the motions: homework, agendas, reading logs, packing lunches. But my brain is still thinking beach, daytrips, rest.

I can’t recall any time I’ve gripped so desperately to a passing season.

And there’s the thing, the essential truth in all of this: These seasons, they do pass.  It’s this inevitable moving on in life.

Usually, I’m a move-on kind of girl.

Sometimes, though, we are so trapped by looking back that we’re missing the beauty of now.

Maybe that’s me.  Yesterday, it was 66 degrees outside for my morning walk.

Perfection.

Yet, what if I stubbornly refused to enjoy it, whining and complaining all the while about the lack of bathing suits, a water park, and the long summer nights?

Well, I’d miss this, of course.  I’d wake up one morning to temperatures below freezing, I’d be hurled into snow days, icy road conditions, and the layers and layers and layers of clothing I’d need to put on my children before sending them out to the school bus in the morning.

Maybe we hold onto seasons because we don’t like change.  Any change.

Maybe we just ‘know’ that what’s coming isn’t as beautiful as what’s been.

Maybe I woke up one morning after my oldest daughter’s ninth birthday 9 and realized I’m halfway to her leaving my home and heading off into independence and college and a world with less mom in it.

So, what mom wouldn’t want summer to last just a little bit longer when that same girl is now starting her last year in elementary school?

But I read this in the Psalms:

May the Lord be praised! Day after day He bears our burdens; God is our salvation. Selah (Psalm 68:19 HCSB).

Day after day, God is at work in me. Day after day, He is bearing burdens for me, lifting me up, helping me forward, walking alongside me.

This daily gift tells me that anywhere I go, any season I’m in, every time I leave something behind and begin anew, He is right there with me.

The blessed place isn’t where I’ve been; it’s anywhere He is.

I’ve been re-reading the story of Ruth lately, how she left her home in Moab and traveled to Bethlehem, to a foreign nation and a strange people with her mother-in-law after the death of her husband, her brother-in-law and father-in-law.

She could have stranded herself in mourning or imprisoned herself in the past.

She could have arrived there with Naomi and holed herself up in her room, crying from homesickness and wallowing in loneliness.

Instead, when she arrived in Bethelehem, she asked Naomi:

“Let me go to the field and glean among the ears of grain…” (Ruth 2:2 ESV).

She fully engaged in the act of living in this place at this time in this very season.

She basically pulled out the pumpkin spice tea, nailed up the “bless this harvest” sign, and baked a loaf of pumpkin bread.

So, that’s what I’m doing, too.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2015 Heather King

Custard Didn’t Have a Last Stand

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1 timothy 6

“Custard’s last stand.”

That’s what I hear my daughter say while playing in her room with her sisters.

I thought I probably just misheard.

Then I hear it again.  Nope.  I didn’t get it wrong.  “Custard’s last stand.” That’s what she said.

Goodness knows why in the world this subject has even come up at all, but at this point, I  pop my head in the room and say, “Custer.  Custer’s last stand” and I give them the 30-second history lesson.

My daughter pauses, shrugs and says, “Well, I like to say it my way.”

Now, sometimes this might be cute, funny, or creative, but this time I pipe up with, “But that’s wrong.  Custer is an actual person’s name from an actual historical event with an actual way to pronounce it.  And it is Custer, not Custard.”

She’s not impressed.

After all, we like the way we do things, don’t we?  We’re not generally jumping with joy and feeling all blissful when we’re corrected and asked to change.

She makes me wonder: how often do I shrug my shoulders at the Holy Spirit when He corrects me?

“Well, I like to do it my way.”

Is that what I say?

Is that what we say?

This remarkable, astonishing grace of God covers over the filth of our sin.  He drenches us with mercy and washes that grime away.

We are clean.  Made new.  Totally beloved children of God.

But in our efforts not fall into the pit of legalism, we’ve wobbled and teetered and sometimes crashed onto the other side.

I see it everywhere, the reveling in grace so fantastic that we avoid the call to holiness and sanctification.

The Holy Spirit corrects us and we shut Him down because we like to do things our way.

And, besides, there’s grace.  He loves us all equally, right?  He can never be disappointed in us, right?  He can never love me more or less than He does now, right?  He loves all of us sinners just the same, right?

That’s what we say.

But there’s some untruth we’ve mixed in there.  Jesus was disappointed with people; He was disappointed in the disciples at times.  God was pretty frequently disappointed in Israel.

I’m sure He’s been disappointed in me.

And, while I know He always loves me completely, I also know He’s more pleased when I obey Him than when I disobey Him, and He loves the humble heart, and He is amazed by great faith.

And there’s this:  

“but as he who called you is holy, you also be holy in all your conduct, since it is written, ‘You shall be holy, for I am holy.'” (1 Peter 1:16 ESV).

There are countless verses telling me to set myself apart for Him, to obey Him, to turn away from the flesh and all ungodliness, and to choose holiness over continual sinning.

I’ll tell you one thing the Bible does not say:  “You’re forgiven and loved by God, so sin all you want without feeling bad about it because God loves you anyway.”

Our conversations about failure have changed in the church.  We’ve learned not to hide it away.  We’ve stopped pretending we don’t all sin and we’re being open, honest, vulnerable about the shocking fact that we are in fact human, are in fact a mess, and are in fact imperfect and in need of a Savior.

We’ve shattered age-old fake holiness and now point with joy to God’s forgiveness and grace.

Amazing, amazing, amazing grace.

But what then?

Have we begun to glorify failure?

I sat around a table of women and one shared her struggle as we all nodded our heads in agreement.  Yes, yes, yes—we do that.  We get it.  We understand.

And then she does it. She shrugs and says, “But that’s just normal, right?”

Yes, it is normal.  But normal isn’t okay. 

God calls us out of normal and into holiness.

Do we pursue righteousness in our own strength?  Can we make it on our own?  If we just try hard enough, do we somehow attain perfection on our own merit?

No.  Way.

We are all of us utterly dependent on the redeeming grace of Jesus and completely incapable of earning salvation on our own.

I’m a mess.  It’s the plain truth of the matter.

And, I’ll tell you I’m a mess because I never want to act like I’ve got all this figured out or gotten my own self together.

But I’ll tell you something else, every single day: I want to be less mess and more Jesus.

I don’t want to stay rooted in sin because that’s just who I am and God will forgive me anyway.

I want to lean into Jesus more.

I want to respond like Christ, react like Christ, love like Christ, live like Christ .

I’ll get it wrong.  We all will.

But sanctification means not giving up the holy pursuit.

It means coming to Christ anew, confessing the sin, starting fresh, trying again….with His help, in His strength, through His grace looking more and more like Jesus every day.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Live Generously (Because our Kids are Watching How We Live)

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2 Corinthians 9

He said he learned generosity from his mom.

I read an article this week that said the founder of Chobani, Hamdi Ulukaya, watched his mother give to others.  Now he in turn will give, donating at least $700 million to Kurdish refugees and refugees around the world fleeing ISIS. This is what he said:

“Today, I dedicate my signing of the Giving Pledge to my mother and I am publicly committing the majority of my personal wealth—along with everything else I can do—to help refugees and help bring an end to this humanitarian crisis.”

I’ve watched the videos this week and seen the pictures of families crammed into every available space onto boats desperate to escape civil wars and persecution.

And I’ve cried over the children.

Maybe I can’t give $700 million, I think, but surely I can give something!

It would be easy to read an article like this and shrug it off, thinking, “well, if he gives so much, surely my small gift won’t matter.”

But that’s not it at all.

That’s missing the challenge to give as God compels us, give in obedience, give every little bit we can, give because maybe we are setting the example for our kids who will one day learn to give, as well.

I am reminded to Live Generously, not hoard and protect my own resources with stinginess and self-preservation.

This in turn reminds me that living a generous life is about so much more than money anyway.

Today, the librarian chats with me as she checks out my books.  She says I remind her of her niece…the way I look, my facial expressions, and how patient I am with my kids.

Oh, she was generous, so generous with her encouragement as I chase my two-year-old away from the automatic door openers and back to the checkout desk.

I think about the time this very same librarian watched as my kids (who are old enough to know better!!!!!) started playing with the poles that mark the check-out line and they absolutely would not leave them alone and I about shot a hole through the floor when I looked at them with my laser eyes.

Still, today, she chooses to live generously, to slip in the sweetest word of praise just when my Mom-heart needs it.

How many times have I been the one feeling defeated, feeling worn, feeling overlooked or undervalued, and someone slips me that word of courage?  You are doing a great job.  I see you.  Well done.

And this week I have struggled, oh I have struggled, in anger about someone’s hurtful words toward my kids.

I pray in the night and I tell God all my woes.

I hear it back, just the whispered reminder:

Extend generous grace.

This is what it means to live generously: To pour out to others without holding back, fully aware of how God has poured Himself out for you.

Generous with our money.

Generous with our talents.

Generous with our time and our attention.

Generous with encouragement.

Generous with grace.

Generous with forgiveness.

Generous with patience.

I consider Paul on those days when I want to stop answering the phone, stop reading emails, stop answering to the name, “Mom,” stop being responsible and doing things like making dinner and washing laundry.

Paul said,

I will most gladly spend and be spent for your souls…. (2 Corinthians 12:15a ESV)

and

Even if I am to be poured out as a drink offering upon the sacrificial offering of your faith, I am glad and rejoice with you all (Philippians 2:17 ESV).

and

For I am already being poured out as a drink offering, and the time of my departure has come (2 Timothy 4:6 ESV).

Paul chose to be spent, to be totally poured out for the sake of the church.

Oswald Chambers writes,

Are you willing to give and be poured out until you are used up and exhausted–not seeking to be ministered to, but to minister?

Some days not so much.

And, while I understand the health of caring enough about ourselves as women and as moms so that we are healthy enough to care for others, I recognize this:

The calling to a generous life is a calling to pour out, to empty yourself in service, to love sacrificially and selflessly, not for our own purposes and not just for the benefit of those we love–but as an offering to the Lord.

I myself become the offering, poured out at the feet of Jesus, pleasing and acceptable to Him when I live with generosity and He, in turn, enriches me so that I can be generous on every occasion (2 Corinthians 9:11).

“No one has ever become poor by giving” ~Anne Frank

Please visit Samaritan’s Purse to see how they are serving refugees and how you can support that effort.

Please visit Ann Voskamp’s page to find 5 Ways to Stand Up, Be the Church in the World’s Worst Refugee Crisis Since World War II, including organizations to support and ways to give.  She also gives you a list of items they desperately need and where to send them.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

 

20 Bible Verses on Finding God in the Storm

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verses-storm

  • 1 Kings 19:11-12 ESV
    And he said, “Go out and stand on the mount before the Lord.” And behold, the Lord passed by, and a great and strong wind tore the mountains and broke in pieces the rocks before the Lord, but the Lord was not in the wind. And after the wind an earthquake, but the Lord was not in the earthquake. 12 And after the earthquake a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire the sound of a low whisper.
  • Job 38:1 ESV
    Then the Lord answered Job out of the whirlwind…
  • Psalm 55:8 ESV
    I would hurry to find a shelter
        from the raging wind and tempest.
  • Psalm 107:25 ESV
    For he commanded and raised the stormy wind,
        which lifted up the waves of the sea.
  • Psalm 107:29 ESV
    He made the storm be still,
        and the waves of the sea were hushed.
  • Proverbs 10:25 ESV
    When the tempest passes, the wicked is no more,
        but the righteous is established forever.
  • Isaiah 4:6 ESV
    It will be a shelter and shade from the heat of the day, and a refuge and hiding place from the storm and rain.
  • Isaiah 25:4 ESV
    For you have been a stronghold to the poor,
        a stronghold to the needy in his distress,
        a shelter from the storm and a shade from the heat;
    for the breath of the ruthless is like a storm against a wall,
  • Isaiah 29:6 ESV
    you will be visited by the Lord of hosts
    with thunder and with earthquake and great noise,
        with whirlwind and tempest, and the flame of a devouring fire.
  • Isaiah 32:1-2 ESV
    Behold, a king will reign in righteousness,
        and princes will rule in justice.
    2 Each will be like a hiding place from the wind,
        a shelter from the storm,
    like streams of water in a dry place,
        like the shade of a great rock in a weary land.
  • Isaiah 43:1-2 ESV
    But now thus says the Lord,
    he who created you, O Jacob,
        he who formed you, O Israel:
    “Fear not, for I have redeemed you;
        I have called you by name, you are mine.
    2 When you pass through the waters, I will be with you;
        and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you;
    when you walk through fire you shall not be burned,
        and the flame shall not consume you.
  • Isaiah 54:11 NLT
    O storm-battered city,
        troubled and desolate!
    I will rebuild you with precious jewels
        and make your foundations from lapis lazuli.
  • Nahum 1:3 ESV
    The Lord is slow to anger and great in power,
        and the Lord will by no means clear the guilty.
    His way is in whirlwind and storm,
        and the clouds are the dust of his feet.
  • Zechariah 10:1 ESV
    Ask rain from the Lord
        in the season of the spring rain,
    from the Lord who makes the storm clouds,
        and he will give them showers of rain,
        to everyone the vegetation in the field
  • Matthew 7:24-27 ESV
    Everyone then who hears these words of mine and does them will be like a wise man who built his house on the rock. 25 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house, but it did not fall, because it had been founded on the rock. 26 And everyone who hears these words of mine and does not do them will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand. 27 And the rain fell, and the floods came, and the winds blew and beat against that house, and it fell, and great was the fall of it.”
  • Matthew 8:26 ESV
     And he said to them, “Why are you afraid, O you of little faith?” Then he rose and rebuked the winds and the sea, and there was a great calm.
  • Mark 4:39 ESV
    And he awoke and rebuked the wind and said to the sea, “Peace! Be still!” And the wind ceased, and there was a great calm.
  • Luke 8:24 ESV
    And they went and woke him, saying, “Master, Master, we are perishing!” And he awoke and rebuked the wind and the raging waves, and they ceased, and there was a calm.
  • Hebrews 12:18-19 ESV
     For you have not come to what may be touched, a blazing fire and darkness and gloom and a tempest 19 and the sound of a trumpet and a voice whose words made the hearers beg that no further messages be spoken to them.
  • James 1:6 ESV
    But let him ask in faith, with no doubting, for the one who doubts is like a wave of the sea that is driven and tossed by the wind.

What astronauts put on first (and other lessons from outer space)

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psalm 104

In one corner of the exhibit, a crowd gathered around the volunteer standing next to the space toilet and explaining how astronauts go to the bathroom in zero gravity.

A few steps away, an older volunteer stood next to a space suit holding up pieces of astronaut gear.  Every time a new group walked over to him, he started into his speech: “Here is the one thing astronauts put on first” as he holds up a diaper.

Kids wrinkled up their noses and giggled with embarrassment.

The museum guides at the National Air & Space Museum sure know how to attract a crowd.  Of course, once they have your attention, they explain more than bathroom mechanics in outer space.

My youngest daughter, as she puts it, “Loves space. I loves everything about space.”

So, for her sixth birthday, we made the trip to the museum to celebrate.

We wandered through exhibits about planets, peered through telescopes and watched videos of shuttle launches.

It’s a humbling experience to stand in front of an exhibit that plots our point on planet earth and then earth in the solar system in the galaxy in the universe.

A week before, I had read an online article about an upcoming meteor shower, how if you stayed up until about midnight on one particular night, you could see shooting stars all across the night sky.

I’ve never seen a shooting star in my life.

So, I dared to stay awake and then dragged a fleece blanket and a small pillow out to my deck and watched.

And waited…..

I saw at least five airplanes, one shooting star and one other maybe-shooting star out of the corner of my eye.

You can’t sit still in the quiet of midnight watching the night sky and not be struck by the vastness of it all and the smallness of you.

In a world of social media that too often feels so noisy and all about us, how powerful to see it’s really all about Him.

Then there’s clicking through the images that New Horizons sent back of Pluto.  It took nine years for this spacecraft to make it out there and the first images of the flyby made it to us in July 2015.

I sat at my kitchen table and yelled for my kids to come over to see this incredible outline of a heart on Pluto’s surface.

“Come check this out!” I told them.

I felt incredibly vindicated when I saw that astronomers themselves are indeed calling it Pluto’s “heart” (so I’m not just crazy and making things up).

Seeing the impression of a heart so beautifully etched on the side of a distant dwarf planet expands your vision a bit.

What a great, grand universe.

What a great, marvelous God.

How detailed He is.  How artistic.  How creative and powerful.

How He must have chuckled when the first images of Pluto’s heart spot finally made it back to little ol’ us.

He engraved these details and all this beauty on the most distant reaches of the world and the universe.

Then, like an excited parent, He waited as we hunted for the treasure, made the discovery and finally tore off the wrapping paper of this long-planned gift.

And to think that this God of greatness is mindful of us, loves us, listens to us and tends to us.

No wonder the Psalmist wrote:

Oh, magnify the Lord with me,
    and let us exalt his name together!
(Psalm 34:3 ESV).

Magnify Him.

My thoughts default to the microscope at the museum, how it magnifies the tiniest specks of detail so that we can see the microscopic with our limited human eyes.

I think of the magnifying glass my kids use to blow up our faces to huge distorted proportions and how they laugh at our nose and eyes out of proportion.

We usually magnify to make the small bigger.

But that’s not what magnify means in this Psalm.  We don’t take a small God and make Him bigger.

As Louie Giglio says in Passion:

There’s telescopic magnification and microscope magnification, and it’s blasphemy to magnify God like a microscope…But a telescope puts its lens on unimaginable expanses of greatness and tries simply to help them look more like what they are. That’s what a telescope is for.

Shining our telescope of faith on God doesn’t make Him bigger than He is, it helps us see how big He really is.

Half an hour staring into a night sky, a day walking the exhibit of a space museum, a few minutes clicking through images of a distant dwarf planet, and I’m saying like the Psalmist:

Oh, magnify the Lord with me!

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Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2015 Heather King

 

Why I Want to Really Know My Kids

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psalm 119

I was about 22 years old, married without kids, teaching other people’s children in the classroom when I started praying this prayer:

Lord, when I have children, please help me know them, not just the great things about them, but their sin and weaknesses, too.  I want to know what’s wrong so I can wade waist-deep into the mess of sin if needed to help them choose repentance and find grace.

As a teacher, you come face to face all of the time with the parenting phenomenon My-Child-Is-Perfectitis.

It’s thinking that your child could never do anything wrong, and evil influences from other less-perfect children or teacher error is to blame for any supposed wrongdoing.

Then I brought my own first tiny bundle of perfect babyhood home from the hospital when I was 24.

Even her doctor declared she was the “most perfect little baby” when I brought her in for the first appointment.

I beamed.

But I knew the truth: She was beautiful and a treasure and a gift, but she wasn’t perfect.

Maybe it’d be easier as a mom to shield my eyes from any of my kids’ mess-ups or mistakes.

It’d feel so much more comfortable focusing on what my kids do right and overlooking anything they do wrong.

(Okay, I’ll admit it, sometimes I just want to pretend I don’t see my kid take the extra cookie so I don’t have to actually roll my sleeves up and deal with it.)

But easy isn’t really what I’m looking for as a mom. I don’t want to do what’s comfortable; I want to do what’s best for my kids with the eternal in mind.

I’m thinking about this today in light of new scandals and news bulletins about prominent Christians who have fallen, sometimes repeatedly, into sexual sin.

I’m not one to engage in debates or public bashing here on the blog, but I’m processing Ashley Madison and the Duggars and other Christian leaders stepping down or being ousted from ministry because of adultery, pornography and the like.

What’s a mom to do in a world like this?

I know what’s true:

Even the best Christian parents have adult children who reject the faith and make bad decisions.

Of course, that doesn’t mean tossing my hands up in futility and just letting my kids do whatever they want.  I’m willing to pour myself out in this parenting effort.

But it does mean letting go of the pressure of perfection and realizing that far more depends on prayer than depends on my performance.

And there’s nothing I can pray more powerfully than for God’s mercy. God, in all my imperfections and in all the ways I fail, please draw me children to You anyway.  Mercy, Lord, I need so much mercy.

There’s something else that catches my attention as a mom, though.

Sin isn’t always “out there.”

I read an article on Jim Bob and Michelle Duggar’s response to the newest reports about their son and it breaks my heart:

‘This wasn’t something they ever imagined was possible,’ the source told People. ‘They so strictly limit their exposure to these sorts of outside influences – from websites to even the sort of television they watch, if they turn on the TV at all – that they were absolutely baffled by how this could have been possible.’

They thought that by keeping the world out, they could keep their kids pure, but their best efforts at that weren’t enough.

I’m a pretty protective mom about what we watch, listen to and read as a family, and that’s right and good.

Yet, if I teach my kids that holiness is the same as avoiding the world, we’re in trouble.

The far harder work is teaching our kids how to overcome temptation from within and temptation from without and choose to obey God no matter what.

Jessie Clemence wrote about this on her blog this week also:

I want this to go farther than just behavior management. I know we could cancel the internet service, destroy the technology, and isolate ourselves in our home. But that’s not what I’m looking for. I want to raise kids who seek God with every aspect of their lives. I want to raise kids who understand that porn and bullying and affairs break God’s heart and fall far short of the love of Jesus.

You cannot protect your kids from sin.

You cannot.

Because sin is in them.

It’s not the world that is sinful.

It’s humanity.

And that means us.

I’d rather make the effort now to know the true state of my kids’ hearts—the good, the bad, and the ugly—and battle right there with the truths about repentance, and holiness, and grace.

If we say we have no sin, we deceive ourselves, and the truth is not in us.9 If we confess our sins, he is faithful and just to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness. 10 If we say we have not sinned, we make him a liar, and his word is not in us (1 John 1:8-10 ESV).

 

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2015 Heather King

 

20 Bible Verses to Encourage Those Who Teach

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verses-for-teachers

  • Deuteronomy 11:18-19 ESV
    “You shall therefore lay up these words of mine in your heart and in your soul, and you shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes.     19 You shall teach them to your children, talking of them when you are sitting in your house, and when you are walking by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise.
  • Deuteronomy 32:2 ESV
    May my teaching drop as the rain,
        my speech distill as the dew,
    like gentle rain upon the tender grass,
        and like showers upon the herb.
  • Psalm 32:8 ESV
    I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go;
        I will counsel you with my eye upon you.
  • Proverbs 1:2-5 ESV
    To know wisdom and instruction,
        to understand words of insight,
    3 to receive instruction in wise dealing,
        in righteousness, justice, and equity;
    4 to give prudence to the simple,
        knowledge and discretion to the youth—
    5 Let the wise hear and increase in learning,
        and the one who understands obtain guidance,
  • Proverbs 4:13 ESV
    Keep hold of instruction; do not let go;
        guard her, for she is your life.
  • Proverbs 22:6 ESV
    Train up a child in the way he should go;
        even when he is old he will not depart from it.
  • Matthew 5:19 ESV
    Therefore whoever relaxes one of the least of these commandments and teaches others to do the same will be called least in the kingdom of heaven, but whoever does them and teaches them will be called great in the kingdom of heaven.
  • Matthew 10:24 ESV
    A disciple is not above his teacher, nor a servant above his master.
  • Matthew 19:14 ESV
    but Jesus said, “Let the little children come to me and do not hinder them, for to such belongs the kingdom of heaven.”
  • Luke 6:40 ESV
    A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher.
  • Romans 2:18-23 ESV
    nd know his will and approve what is excellent, because you are instructed from the law; 19 and if you are sure that you yourself are a guide to the blind, a light to those who are in darkness, 20 an instructor of the foolish, a teacher of children, having in the law the embodiment of knowledge and truth— 21 you then who teach others, do you not teach yourself? While you preach against stealing, do you steal? 22 You who say that one must not commit adultery, do you commit adultery? You who abhor idols, do you rob temples? 23 You who boast in the law dishonor God by breaking the law.
  • Romans 12:6-7 ESV
    Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; 7 if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching;
  • 1 Corinthians 15:58 ESV
    Therefore, my beloved brothers, be steadfast, immovable, always abounding in the work of the Lord, knowing that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.
  • Ephesians 4:11-14 ESV
     And he gave the apostles, the prophets, the evangelists, the shepherds and teachers, 12 to equip the saints for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ, 13 until we all attain to the unity of the faith and of the knowledge of the Son of God, to mature manhood, to the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ, 14 so that we may no longer be children, tossed to and fro by the waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by human cunning, by craftiness in deceitful schemes.
  • Colossians 3:16 ESV
    Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.
  • 2 Timothy 2:2 ESV
    and what you have heard from me in the presence of many witnesses entrust to faithful men who will be able to teach others also.
  • 2 Timothy 2:15 ESV
    Do your best to present yourself to God as one approved, a worker who has no need to be ashamed, rightly handling the word of truth.
  • 2 Timothy 3:16 ESV
    All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness,
  • Titus 2:7-8 ESV
    Show yourself in all respects to be a model of good works, and in your teaching show integrity, dignity, 8 and sound speech that cannot be condemned, so that an opponent may be put to shame, having nothing evil to say about us.
  • James 3:1-2 ESV
     Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness. 2 For we all stumble in many ways. And if anyone does not stumble in what he says, he is a perfect man, able also to bridle his whole body.

We Celebrate Courage in This House (Because We Aren’t Naturally Courageous)

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joshua1
Bravery doesn’t run rampant in this house.

My girls and I freak out about bugs.

We grab for a dry towel when water splashes into our eyes.

We talk through all possibilities and potential scenarios so we won’t freak about what’s new and different.

We inch into doorways when there’s a room full of new people.

We’re not adventurers or discoverers, explorers or conquerors.  We’re not risk-takers or rock-the-boaters.  We’re not the movers or the shakers.

No, we’re planners and organizers.  We’re the faithful and the hard-working and the folks dipping their toes in all gentle and nervous on the side of the pool to test the waters before jumping in.

That’s why we celebrate every victory in our house, every display of courage and every hint of bravery.

When my most fear-prone daughter announced this was the year she was really going to ride an actual roller coaster instead of the kiddie ride at Busch Gardens, we cheered her on.

I took pictures.  We celebrated and high-fived after her victory.

And when my older girls went on to try out other roller coasters, we looked straight in their eyes and told them we were so proud of the courage in them.

Even when my one daughter tried a roller coaster and hated it and complained that it was creepy and made her afraid, we still celebrated because she tried it.

She doesn’t have to ride again—that’s wisdom.  In Let’s All Be Brave, Annie Downs says, ‘The road to courage is lit by God’s wisdom.”

But to overcome her fears and try at all—that’s courage.

We celebrated a daughter not crying or freaking out over allergy testing and a toddler who climbed up onto the potty.

In just a few days, we’ll cheer them on as they step onto a yellow bus and head off to a new classroom, with a new teacher, and new classmates.

I’ve been spending all these years of motherhood cheering for my daughters to have courage.

I tell them:

It’s okay to make mistakes, so just give it a try.

I tell them:

God is with you, so don’t fear.  Just relax and trust Him.

I tell it to them and maybe along the way I’m preaching to myself.

Sure there are plenty of other kids who have faced down bigger and badder roller coasters than we’ll ever dare to try.  We’re no daredevils after all.  But still, that’s not the same as true bravery.

Bravery doesn’t require doing what everyone else is doing or trying to keep up with or match the accomplishments of others.  Courage is so personal; it’s not about you being like anyone else.

And, while not feeling any fear at all can make you look courageous on the outside, it can also make you foolhardy.

That’s not what courage is.

Being brave isn’t the same as being unafraid.  Bravery means doing the right thing no matter what, even if you tremble in your sneakers and even if your stomach flip-flops with fear.  

You trample all over the anxiety and the worry and the fearfulness and you do it anyway.

You don’t let fear control you, imprison you, or hold you back from what God has called you to do.

Those men and women of courage in Scripture didn’t follow God without facing their own fears.

When Mordecai told Esther that she needed to petition King Xerxes for the rescue of her people, she told him why that was too much to ask:

“All the king’s servants and the people of the king’s provinces know that if any man or woman goes to the king inside the inner court without being called, there is but one law—to be put to death, except the one to whom the king holds out the golden scepter so that he may live. But as for me, I have not been called to come in to the king these thirty days” (Esther 4:11 ESV).

Esther, the poster-child for Biblical courage, was scared out of her mind.  She knew she couldn’t obey God on her own so she asked her to people to fast and pray with her for three days before she finally set one foot in front of the other and walked into the throne room to see the King.

She was terrified.  But she took a stand anyway.

That’s being brave:  Obeying God even when you’re afraid.

God’s calling can cost us.  It can be frightening and unsettling.  He can ask you to face down giants or ask you to face down change or ask you to face down the unknown.

In all circumstances, he tells His people to “Be strong and courageous.”  He knows, after all, that we aren’t naturally strong or naturally courageous.

But He also knows we take courage from His presence.

Heather King is a wife, mom, Bible Study teacher, writer and worship leader.  Most importantly, she is a Christ follower with a desire to help others apply the Bible to everyday life with all its mess, noise, and busyness.  Her book, Ask Me Anything, Lord: Opening Our Hearts to God’s Questions, is available now!  To read more devotionals by Heather King, click here.

Copyright © 2015 Heather King