The Promise Keeping God

Most believers have a favorite promise in Scripture that they have memorized and cling to during hard times--often even more than one. Personally. I have always been partial to Isaiah 40, in which we read, “Fear not, for I am with you; be not dismayed, for I am your God; I will strengthen you, I will help you, I will uphold you with my righteous right hand” (v. 10). I remind myself, on a regular basis, of this biblical promise as well: “…nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord” (Romans 8:39).

The promises that God gives us are almost too numerous to count. He promises to provide our needs (Philippians 4:19), forgive our sins (1 John 1:9), produce fruit of the Spirit (Galatians 5:22-23), grant eternal life in Christ (John 11:25-26), and to be with us always (Matthew 28:20). Some Christians look at such promises and say that we must claim them in order for them to be true for us. We must believe them with all our heart and they will come to pass. As though we can click our heels three times, squeeze our eyes shut, and recite a verse over and over and the next thing we know, God’s promises are delivered into our hands.

God’s promises are not true because we believe in them. They don’t come to pass because our faith is great. God’s promises will come to pass simply because God said them...to read the rest of this post, visit Christward Collective.

Coming Soon: Closer Than a Sister

I’m excited to tell you about a new project I've been working on with my publisher, Christian Focus Publications. My next book is titled Closer Than a Sister: How Union with Christ helps Friendships to Flourish (Focus for Women) and comes out this fall.

We live in an age where there is less and less face-to-face community. More people work at home than ever before. Our interactions with others most often take place through an intermediary device. We know what our friends are doing moment by moment throughout the day on social media, but seldom do we know what is going on in their heart. All of this makes the concept of friendship hard to define and even more confusing to know how to live out in our daily lives.  

Closer Than a Sister: How Union with Christ helps Friendships to Flourish (Focus for Women) is about Christian community, and more specifically, community among women in the local church. It is about our need for Christian friendship and fellowship—real life, face-to-face relationships. Such friendship begins with our unity in Christ—for our union with Him creates and shapes our unity with others in the Body of Christ.

My book paints a picture of “sisterhood” by looking at descriptions of the church in the New Testament. It helps us see how important community is, what it looks like, and how to cultivate it. Specifically, it describes relationships that involve service, discipleship, encouragement, exhortation, and growth. It also takes a look at some of the challenges we often face in community. My hope for Closer than a Sister is to encourage readers to live out the unity we have through Christ in the local church.

Author Jen Wilkin wrote the foreword to Closer Than a Sister. She wrote: 

"No other kind of friendship can offer the strength of Christian friendship. It is, just as the Bible promises, a ‘cord of three strands, not easily broken’ (Eccles. 4:12), joining those who enter it with the strength of a covenant keeping God. Christina Fox knows that this bond is both sacred and sacrificial. In Closer Than A Sister she offers insight into how we can weave the cords of our friendships to last through any season. Like all good gifts, Christian friendship is to be sought and stewarded with wisdom and grace. The benchmark of lesser friendships will not do. You hold in your hands a primer on how to weave (and allow yourself to be woven into) that blessed tie that binds." 

Stay tuned for more about the book! If your church is interested in hosting a book launch party or in having me come and share about sisterhood in the church, send me a message. And I look forward to telling you more about Closer Than a Sister soon!

Note: This post may contain Amazon Affiliate links.

When We Hunger

When my children were young, they knew exactly who to come to for food. They tugged on my shorts and asked for something to eat. As they’ve gotten older, they tend to forage for themselves. But every day, around 4:30, one of them will come to me and say, “When’s dinner? What are we having?”

As adults, we often forget what children know intuitively. We forget the One who meets our needs, not just for food but for all things—including salvation.

Deuteronomy 8

The book of Deuteronomy finds the Israelites about to enter the Promised Land. But before they entered, Moses had to prepare them for what was to come. He reflected on what happened during their forty years of desert wanderings, including the reason they wandered. He reminded them of God’s law, his covenant promises, and the punishment for failing to follow God’s commands.

In Deuteronomy 8, Moses explained to the Israelites that their time in the wilderness was to humble and test them (vs.2). Instead of giving them what they wanted right away, God let them hunger. “And he humbled you and let you hunger and fed you with manna…that he might make you know that man does not live by bread alone, but man lives by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (vs. 3). As a good Father, he made sure their clothes did not wear out, nor did their feet swell (vs. 4). And also like a father, he disciplined them (vs. 5).

They were about to enter a land flowing with water, filled with wheat and barley, vines and trees. A land where they would lack nothing. But, Moses warned, the temptation would be for them to forget God in the new land. With all the good things they would have, “then your heart be lifted up, and you forget the LORD your God, who brought you out of the land of Egypt, out of the house of slavery.” (vs 14). With such abundance, they would forget all that God had done for them in freeing them from slavery in Egypt and sustaining them in their journey through the wilderness. And worse, the temptation would be, “beware lest you say in your heart, ‘My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.’ You shall remember the LORD your God, for it is he who gives you power to get wealth, that he may confirm his covenant that he swore to your fathers, as it is this day.” (vs. 17-18). Once they forgot God, they would then turn to other idols and worship them instead of God, “and if you forget the LORD your God and go after other gods and serve them and worship them, I solemnly warn you today that you shall surely perish” (vs. 19).

Hunger Makes Us Remember

As creatures, we are dependent upon our Maker. All things come to us by his grace, “he himself gives to all mankind life and breath and everything” (Acts 17:25). “He covers the heavens with clouds; he prepares rain for the earth; he makes grass grow on the hills. He gives to the beasts their food, and to the young ravens that cry” (Psalm 147:8-9). Even more, we are chosen, saved, sanctified, and glorified by God’s grace.

But we are sinners, and prone to wander. Just like Israel, we quickly forget our need for God. We forget who God is and what he has done. That’s why God lets us hunger and often makes us wait for the manna to fall. It humbles us and reminds us that we need his grace. In fact, allowing us to hunger is a grace as well.

Not only do we forget our need for God and his grace, but such forgetfulness often leads to pride, “My power and the might of my hand have gotten me this wealth.” We readily trust in ourselves, thinking that what we have comes through our own hands. We are ungrateful and fail to give God the thanks he is due. Such forgetfulness also leads to idolatry (vs. 19) as we turn to worship the gifts rather than the Giver.

Jesus, the true Israelite, quoted from Deuteronomy 8 when Satan tempted him to turn the stones into bread to feed himself. Jesus responded, “Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that comes from the mouth of God” (Matthew 4:4). Unlike Israel— and unlike us—Jesus never forgot his Father. Though hungry, Jesus waited on God and became the perfect, sinless substitute for our sins.

God provided our greatest need through Christ who freed us from sin and brought us back into right relationship with God. We are united to him by faith and in him we have all we need. In John 15:5, Jesus taught us to abide in him in complete dependence, “I am the vine; you are the branches. Whoever abides in me and I in him, he it is that bears much fruit, for apart from me you can do nothing.”

Deuteronomy 8 is a helpful passage for us all in our own desert wanderings. It is a reminder to remember and not forget the God who provides all things. And to know that when we hunger, it is a grace which causes us to remember what Christ has done for us and run to him— like a child.

God Only Has Good For You

“The universe always balances things out.”

As I sat there watching the TV, I shook my head. Of course, I don’t expect perfect theology from every TV show I watch, but this line in particular seemed to stick out. It was not a hopeful line.

In fact, it was precisely because things were going well in the character’s life that he sensed trouble was probably right around the corner, that the universe was about to balance his good fortune. It stuck out to me not because it was an especially scandalous or shocking idea — in fact, just the opposite. Though the error rang loudly in my own ears, I knew how commonly people think this way, whether they realize it or not.

But not a week later, the shock did come. I heard an echo of the same sentiment, but this time it wasn’t coming from my TV screen, or from the mouth of a non-Christian friend. This time, it came from me. I was marveling over the blessings God had given me and how he answered long-time prayers in a big way. As I considered these blessings, my first thought was, “I wonder what trial lies around the corner?”

To read the rest of this post, visit Desiring God, my writing home today.

Praying for the Hearts of Our Children

From the moment I first learned I was expecting, I started praying for my child. And I haven't stopped since. 

When my boys were young, to be honest, many prayers centered on me—my strength and endurance to make it through the day in once piece. Motherhood was especially hard then; the cloud of depression darkened my days. I always felt insufficient, weak, and helpless as a mom. More often than not, my prayer set on repeat was, "Help me, Lord!"

Through the years, I've prayed about many things for my children. They were chronically sick for a long time and I prayed repeatedly for healing. I've also prayed for their behavior, their friendships with other children, their education, for our relationship as a family, and even for their future jobs, spouses, and children.

But above all, the prayer I keep coming back to time and time again is a prayer for their heart. The status of their heart before God, their salvation, what they believe about Christ, and the work God is doing in them is the prayer that supersedes all other prayers I may have for them.

The Heart of the Matter

Why the heart? Because the heart is the core of who we are. When the Bible talks about the human heart, it doesn’t mean our real heart— the one that beats in our chest and keeps our body alive. It also isn’t referring to the heart shaped candies or chocolates we give those we love on Valentine’s Day. The Bible uses the term ‘heart’ to mean our inner self, who we are as a person, our identity. The real us. This inner self includes our thoughts, our desires, our feelings, our personality, our motives and intentions, and the choices we make. “As in water face reflects face, so the heart of man reflects the man” (Proverbs 27:19). “Watch over your heart with all diligence, for from it flow the springs of life” (Proverbs 4:23). 

Because we are sinners, our hearts are prone to sin. What we need is a new heart. God promised this in the book of Ezekiel: “And I will give them one heart, and a new spirit I will put within them. I will remove the heart of stone from their flesh and give them a heart of flesh, that they may walk in my statutes and keep my rules and obey them. And they shall be my people, and I will be their God” (Ezekiel 11:19-20). This is what the Spirit does in us when He awakens our dead heart to life. He gives us a new heart, a heart capable of responding to God in faith and living to love and obey God. Theologians call this awakening ‘regeneration.’ “But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ” (Ephesians 2:4-5).

The truth is, the heart of the matter is the heart. What our children need most is a new heart. They need the Spirit to bring them from death to life. They need the Spirit to work in them, sanctifying and transforming them into the likeness of Christ. So even as I pray about other things for my children—friendships, education, behavior, etc.—those things are ultimately about the heart as well. For as God transforms and changes their hearts through the work of the Spirit, it changes how they choose friendships, their attitude toward school, and their outward behavior.   

From the Prayers of Paul

I've learned this lesson about praying for heart matters from the Apostle Paul. He wrote letters to various churches. Some were struggling with real trials, hardships, even persecution. In those letters, he mentions the prayers he is praying for them. He doesn't mention praying for their physical and temporal needs—though he may have done so. (Jesus taught us to pray for our daily needs in Matthew 6:11). The prayers he prayed for them were not focused on the temporary but on the eternal. He prayed for their hearts, for God's work in them, for their growth in faith. He prayed for the work of the Kingdom and the spread of the gospel through them. He prayed for their spiritual strength and endurance and encouraged them with the hope they had in Christ. 

When I consider praying for the hearts of my children, Paul's prayers are an excellent model for doing so. If you desire for God to work in the heart of your child, consider praying the prayers of Paul.

Here are a few of them:

From Ephesians 1:16-20:

"I do not cease to give thanks for you, remembering you in my prayers, that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of glory, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and of revelation in the knowledge of him, having the eyes of your hearts enlightened, that you may know what is the hope to which he has called you, what are the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and what is the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe, according to the working of his great might that he worked in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly places."

From Ephesians 3:13-19:

"For this reason I bow my knees before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth is named, that according to the riches of his glory he may grant you to be strengthened with power through his Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith—that you, being rooted and grounded in love, may have strength to comprehend with all the saints what is the breadth and length and height and depth, and to know the love of Christ that surpasses knowledge, that you may be filled with all the fullness of God."

From Philippians 1:9-11:

"And it is my prayer that your love may abound more and more, with knowledge and all discernment, so that you may approve what is excellent, and so be pure and blameless for the day of Christ, filled with the fruit of righteousness that comes through Jesus Christ, to the glory and praise of God."

From Colossians 1:9-12:

"We have not ceased to pray for you, asking that you may be filled with the knowledge of his will in all spiritual wisdom and understanding, so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God; being strengthened with all power, according to his glorious might, for all endurance and patience with joy; giving thanks to the Father, who has qualified you to share in the inheritance of the saints in light."

From 2 Thessalonians 1:11-12:

"To this end we always pray for you, that our God may make you worthy of his calling and may fulfill every resolve for good and every work of faith by his power, so that the name of our Lord Jesus may be glorified in you, and you in him, according to the grace of our God and the Lord Jesus Christ."

All that our children are flows from their heart, so whatever it is we pray for them, may we never fail to pray for their hearts. 

We Need Each Other

We went to Alaska a few years ago to visit relatives. Our cousins asked what we wanted to do during our visit.

I immediately piped up, “Hiking!”

They talked about a few nearby trails, casually mentioning a recent bear attack.

“A bear attack?” I asked in a raised high-pitched voice. “Never mind, we don’t need to go hiking...”

One of the cousins responded, “We’ll be fine. The person who was attacked was out by herself. We’ll be safe because we are together.”

Created for Community

Do you ever think that life would be easier if we could do it on our own? Relationships are messy, complicated, hurtful, and more often than not, frustrating. The more complicated the relationship, the more appealing is leading a solitary life. But as the poet John Donne once wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main.”

In fact, it’s not by accident that we are “part of the main” rather than individual islands bobbing our way through life. God created us to be in community...to read the rest of this post, visit Servants of Grace.