Where is my treasure hidden in my home?

In my home where is my heart? Where is my treasure?

"For where your treasure is there your heart will be also." Matthew 6:21

I had to ask myself last night these questions after listening to a convicting sermon on the Centrality of the Home. Where have I hidden my treasures? Under my search for joy, peace, comfort... between the opinions of others, the expectations of the world... behind good behavior and a perfect home? Is that where my treasure is hidden... why my heart is tightly found wrapped around?

I realize that storing my treasures under, between and behind all these things only sets me up for failure. I am doomed to a life of frustration and emptiness.

So where is my heart? Where is my heart in disciplining my children? Keeping my home? Responding with respect to my husband?... for my own personal gain? So I can lay my head snuggly on my pillow at night free from guilt and shame? To impress? or is it to ultimately glorify God and give Him praise and honor that He deserves? To display Christ? To give a glimpse of the invisible God? Tor raise children to love the Lord with all of their heart, soul, mind and strength and to walk in all His ways?

My treasure should be buried deep with in the eternal glory and supremacy of Christ! Hidden in Him... in the gospel of Christ... no where else! Hidden anywhere else and the goal of righteousness is lost... Christ is not honored and glorified as He so deserves... eternal souls are lost... homes are destroyed little by little over years of daily destruction... unity of marriage is desinigrated... hearts are all ultimately left in a constant state of dispair and discontenment as the kingdom of God is lost in our minds and hearts.

The value of our treasure being in heaven is everlasting and incorruptable!!

Oh God, please bring my heart and mind into the constant subjection to Jesus Christ... hiding my treasure daily, daily in the cross of Christ! Father guide me into your holy and righteous will... shine Your light upon my path today in my home. I pray that my treasure is hidden in Christ and that I will exhaust myself for it's eternal, everlasting and incorruptable value. Oh, in the moments when perspective is hard to see, where everything seems upon my head and I can feel the weight of sin on me may I remember where my treasure is hidden... not in temporal fleeting things and opinion but in the eternal... in heaven, with Christ.

JOYfully in Him,

The Gospel in Parenting~Piper

We are all better, praise God.

With my mind being pretty much consumed in thoughts on parenting I want to share these encouraging videos by one of my favorite preachers, John Piper. Sometimes I think that it is easy to put to much emphases on the law and not on the gospel, on works and not on grace, on discipline and not on training, on ourselves and our anger and not on God and His mercy and love. There has to be a balance between them, but most importantly we as parents need to realize that the gospel should be the foundation of all our parenting efforts.


Spankings don't save kids...


The gospel saves kids...



JOYfully in Him,

Lead by Example

"The children will follow the example, instead of following the advice." ~Lord Palmerston

Lord, let our words of encouragement and direction to our children not only speak to them but be a strong reality in their life as they see them living actively through us day to day.

JOYfully in Him,

Ministers at Home

The convictions that flowed through my heart and mind after my dark room of self examination have made me yearn to do something, to truly live for Christ, forsaking everything else. I began to pray fervently and deeply that God would grant me a bolder ministering spirit and a willing heart to serve and labor in love and for Him to lead me in the right direction. After thinking a lot about being a ministering spirit to those around me and laboring in love for Christ I realized something, I must start at home. Home is my calling, my ministry, my battle ground, it is where my laboring in love for Christ must begin.

My husband has been just as convicted as me and probably more. He called me the other night after struggling with what to do... study or minister... he chose to minister but one thoguht he had was maybe he should come home and minister to his children and then it occured to him, there is already a minister at home that he trusts with his children... me. I quickly realized that he is right and began examining myself as a minister and mother to my children. I found a lot of things that I needed to pray about and begin working on with this new perspective in mind. I have been thinking a lot lately about parenting and one thing that I just realized from my husband's sermon this morning... how would Jesus parent my children? Talk to them? Encourage them? Love them? Discipline them? Respond when they willingly and rebelliously sin? React to the constant demands of the day? How would He show them to be peacemakers, to love one another, to obey, to serve, to be respectful and to simply live to glorify His Father?... how have I been?

Here is the thing, I am a minister. A minister to my children and all those who enter my home. I have a very high, holy and crucial calling! It may not seem very important on most days but when we have our perspective focused on His will we will recognize the truth. With this idea or fact of being a minister at home I am refreshed and encouraged in my calling as well as stricken with immense responsibility as I serve His kingdom. It is not that my calling has changed in anyway but my perspective has which for me changes a lot of things with in my mind considering my calling as a joyful wife, mother and homekeeper.

JOYfully in Him,

Sally Clarkson on Self Government

"The idea behind self-government is that all of us have a power and authority over life that comes from within that can help us to master problems, obstacles, and can use our self-will to achieve great things. It is not about gutting out life in the flesh without the power of God, but it is the idea that we have a moral character that can be strengthened and under girded by our will and by practice. He who has cultivated this kind of strong character is useful and productive in almost all areas of life. It is what helps a believer to exercise faith and courage and perseverance in the midst of trials. It is what helps a pianist to practice long hours, an athlete to exercise rigorously in order to become a champion, a missionary to master a language and remain faithful in a foreign country until there is a multiplying ministry; a wife to bear up with grace when married to an immature husband; a mother who continues over and over to practice patience with a sick or rebellious child–governing life by mature, faith-based choices, not by feelings."

I found her complete thoughts very encouraging and self convicting. Enjoy some time as you visit I take Joy this afternoon as I always do, swimming in her thoughts.

JOYfully in Him,