Several months ago, I began compiling a list of biblical principles that could help guide my attitudes and actions. I wanted to share the fruit of my labor with other fellow believers, as I have found these principles to be so profitable and practical, thus far. I have committed to memorizing them, meditating upon them, praying over them, and applying them to my daily circumstances. I earnestly believe that these principles are relevant and beneficial for believers in every season of life. I pray that the following 5 principles will stir up your sincere love for God--a love that is marked by steadfast, Spirit-dependent obedience to His word.
1. Hide- I will hide God's Word in my heart
"I have hidden your word in my heart that I might not sin against you." (Psalm 119:11)
About a month or so after giving birth to my second daughter, I eagerly (and somewhat delusionally) retrieved my bag of pre-pregnancy clothes from the closet. In a rather unsightly, see-saw-esque motion, my hips worked desperately to shimmy into shorts of various shapes and sizes--to no avail. Absolutely nothing fit.
No sooner had I pulled the bag's drawstring closed than sin reared its ugly head. I'm so big, I thought to myself. Why won't anything fit? I need to get my pre-pregnancy body back. In the meantime, I need to buy new clothes. I hate the way my hair looks, too--I'm so sick of these dead ends and silver strands. The women on Pinterest look a million times better than I do. I wish I could look like them.
Like a sweeping wildfire, discontentment, ingratitude, joylessness, and envy had completely engulfed my attitude. Sin is masterfully deceitful in that way (Hebrews 3:13). Without much warning, it wages war on the believer's heart. That is why the principle of hiding God's word in our hearts is so relevant and necessary. We need an arsenal of readily-accessible, God-breathed truths (2 Timothy 3:16) to effectively fight against our sin.
In those times when I am being tempted to idolize a certain body image, I need Proverbs 31:30 to swiftly remind me that beauty is vain. In those times when I am being tempted to grumble about my current wardrobe and covet newer, name brand items, I need the corrective prodding of 1 Timothy 2:9-10, which admonishes me to adorn myself with good works rather than costly attire. In those times when I am being tempted to envy the praiseworthy appearance of another woman, I need Proverbs 31:30 to promptly redirect my attention to the fear of the Lord, which is what truly makes a woman worthy to be praised. I need to know and instinctively rely upon God's word in the heat of the battle.
Sin is no light and fluffy matter for the believer. We realize that our self-serving sin cost Jesus His perfect and precious life; therefore, in grateful response to His sacrifice, we ought to make it our conscious desire each day to fight against it. Psalm 119:11 makes clear that there is sin-fighting power to be harnessed through the memorization of scripture. So then, let us seek to uphold this first principle by committing God's instructive word to our sin-susceptible hearts.
Questions for Personal Reflection:
↠ How are you proactively hiding God's word in your heart each day?
↠ Does God's word have a regular, dominating influence on the way that you think and act?
↠ What are some specific truths from God's word that you need to hide in your heart right now to keep you from sinning?
2. Hasten- I will obey God's Word without delay
"I will hasten and not delay to obey your commandments." (Psalm 119:60)
Recently, my 2-year-old has been cultivating her barista skills. Most mornings, as I set out to prepare my coffee, she insists on helping me. A few weeks ago, upon her eager request, I scooped her up and positioned her next to our Keurig machine. She retrieved and inserted the K-cup, pressed the buttons, and smiled with delight as we watched the hot coffee stream down into the mug.
Next came the sugar. With her unsteady hand gripped securely in mine, I helped her to maneuver the heaping spoonful directly above the Jacuzzi of steamy, aromatic liquid. I was so close to taking my long-awaited first sip--or so I thought. As soon as I released my hand from hers, the spoon veered to the left and completely overshot the rim, resulting in an explosion of white granules all over our kitchen counter.
In the moment that ensued, I was confronted with two opposing opportunities: I could either obey my own sinful desires (spew with anger), or, I could obey God's righteous rules (stay patient and kind). Much to my humble delight, God used this principle to direct my heart swiftly towards obedience to His commands. Instead of reacting in sinful anger, He helped me cling immediately to 1 Corinthians 13:4 and remain patient and kind toward my daughter.
It's not enough to merely hide God's word in our hearts. As believers, we should also strive to obey His word expediently in accordance with the example of Psalm 119:60. Whether we're withholding forgiveness from our children or giving our spouse the cold shoulder, we all have the tendency to consciously entertain our sinful desires longer than we ought. Although we may know what God's word says in regard to our sinful behavior, we suppress His truth rather than submit to it time and time again.
But thanks be to God that we no longer have to remain slaves to our sinful desires. Through Christ, we have been freed from our enslavement to sinful desires and are now capable of obeying God's commands by God's empowerment (Romans 6:17).
Hastened obedience to God's word is a principle that absolutely matters to the believer. Let us then apply it to our lives prayerfully and steadfastly. Doing so will result in the rewarding fruit of sanctification and spare us from the ugly consequences of our own sin (Romans 6:20-22).
Questions for Personal Reflection:
↠ Is your day-to-day obedience to God's word marked by willing, hastened submission or stubborn, delayed suppression?
↠ In what ways have you been obedient to God's word without delay recently?
↠ What are some patterns of blatant, reoccurring disobedience in your life that need to be confronted and then prayerfully conformed to Psalm 119:60?
3. Have- I will have the attitude of Christ Jesus
"You must have the same attitude that Christ Jesus had." (Philippians 2:5)
As any parent can attest, babies have impeccable timing. Whether you're just sitting down for a meal or finally stepping into the shower at the end of a long day, they can somehow sense your preoccupation and immediately turn on the water works.
Take, for instance, the evenings when my husband is out. On those nights, my 4-month-old will often transform from Jekyll to Hide. Without fail, that's her cue to fuss excessively and to rob me of my plans, my time and my energy.
One night this past month, in typical "Daddy's Night Out" fashion, she put up an hour-and-a-half long fight before finally succumbing to sleep--thereby ruthlessly sabotaging "Mommy's Night In". However, in the midst of her bed-time mutiny, God provided me with a practical opportunity to meditate upon this third principle: the loving attitude of Christ.
God's word says that we know what true love is by looking at what Jesus did for us. It says in 1 John 3:16 that, "He laid down His life for us". Simply put, His love for us came at a high cost to himself--it cost Him everything.
As I paced to and fro in the nursery that night--willing my daughter to fall asleep with every fiber of my being--I was both challenged and instructed by this truth. My love for my daughter, if it is to look at all like Christ's love, should be costing me. It should be costing me my time, my plans, and my energy. My love for her should be costing me just as Jesus' love cost Him.
We are commanded to imitate the selfless and sacrificial love of Christ. We are called to lay down our very lives for others just as Christ did for us (1 John 3:16). Therefore, we lay down our time to love others like Christ. We lay down our preferences to love others like Christ. We lay down our possessions to love others like Christ. We lay down our conveniences to love others like Christ. We lay down our physical comfort to love others like Christ. We lay down our personal agenda to love others like Christ. We lay down everything in order to display the costly, cross-bearing, committed-even-unto-death type of love that Christ lavished upon us.
So, fellow Christians--as we interact with those who interrupt our plans, demand our time, and deplete our energy, let us conform our me-oriented attitudes to the loving attitude of Christ. Furthermore, let us rejoice when we love others at a high cost to ourselves. In loving this way, we are having the same attitude that Christ Jesus had.
Questions for Personal Reflection:
↠ How are you loving others at a high cost to yourself?
↠ What is the attitude of Jesus like according to God's word?
↠ Can the people in your sphere of influence attest to your Christ-like attitude and love?
4. Hope- I will hope in the truth of the Gospel
"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--by grace you have been saved..." (Ephesians 2:4-5)
I was made aware of my sin for the first time when I believed in Jesus. I was made even more aware of my sin when I married my husband. Now that I'm a mom, I feel like the full-blown poster child for sin! Parenting makes me painfully aware of my own sin each and every day. Despite my most valiant efforts, our toddler manages to completely exhaust my patience and kindness with her foolishness and disobedience (Proverbs 22:15).
A while back, I was having a particularly trying day with my oldest daughter. It all started when she woke me from my slumber (much too early, might I add) demanding food. The rest of our day was polluted with non-stop whining, tantrums, and utter insubordination. As a result, I spent the whole day lecturing, correcting, and disciplining. By sundown, I was put-off by my own child altogether--after all, her behavior had been atrocious on every level.
But as I settled down for bed that evening, my frustration turned to despair. I sat and wondered why my daughter just couldn't get her act together. What's more, I wondered why I couldn't get my act together. Why couldn't I manage to go a single day--let alone a single hour--without reacting impatiently, harshly, and irritably? I was deflated by my own sinfulness as much as I was by hers.
However, that night, while reading my Bible in bed, I read a passage from Titus that revitalized my despondent heart. After a long and weary day of parenting a foolish and disobedient child, this verse reminded me that I, too, was once foolish and disobedient. In similar fashion to my daughter's behavior, my behavior was atrocious on every level. Essentially, I was an insubordinate, defiant "toddler" in God's sight--willfully contradicting His commandments over and over.
And what did He do in response to my rebellion? Titus 3 says that in goodness and loving kindness, God extended mercy to me and saved me from my own self-destructive, hell-bound behavior. He saved me because He is good--not because I was good. He gave me the gift of grace that I did not deserve instead of the gavel of justice that I did deserve.
Oh, how I need these sweet reminders of the Gospel every single day. When the reality of my own sin threatens to annihilate my hope, I must cling to what Jesus has done on my behalf. God has forever pardoned the guilt of all my sin--past, present and future--by sending Jesus to live the perfect, sinless life I could not live and to die the sinner's death I deserved.
Likewise, when the reality of my daughter's sin becomes more than I can bear, I must remember the mercy of God that I have been shown--so as to persevere in loving and forgiving her despite her sinfulness.
Hoping in the Gospel, every second of every day, is the most important principle we could adopt as believers. So, my fellow saints wearied by sin, I pray that you will join me in actively thinking upon the truth of the Gospel. At the risk of Jesus' sacrifice becoming old news rather than good news, let's preach the Gospel to ourselves every day--meditating upon the beauty of its sin-pardoning, joy-restoring power at all times.
Questions for Personal Reflection:
↠ How has the Gospel of Jesus Christ been actively shaping your attitude, interactions, and agenda?
↠ Does the reality of your sin and the sins of others drive you to the grace of God or to the depths of despair?
↠ What are some Gospel truths you can start hiding in your heart and applying to your daily circumstances?
↠ How has the Gospel of Jesus Christ been actively shaping your attitude, interactions, and agenda?
↠ Does the reality of your sin and the sins of others drive you to the grace of God or to the depths of despair?
↠ What are some Gospel truths you can start hiding in your heart and applying to your daily circumstances?
5. Hold Out- I will hold out God's word to all people
"And he said to them, 'Go into all the world and proclaim the Gospel to the whole creation.'" (Mark 16:15)
I can vividly remember what my life was like prior to becoming a Christian. In the angst of my adolescent years, I can recall being plagued by feelings of uncontrollable rage, bitterness, hatred and hopelessness in response to the circumstances of my life. Try as I might to change, I felt imprisoned by my own emotions.
I was also paralyzed by anxiety and fear. I would agonize over the brevity of life and the imminence of death. I was troubled deeply by the seemingly hopeless and unsearchable fate of all mankind. What is waiting for me beyond my final breath, I wondered. This fear of dying brought me to literal tears on multiple occasions.
But God graciously held out His word to me. As I began to read the Bible for the very first time, God's word became an agent of comfort, meaning, and hope in my life.
God's word brought comfort to me as I read Psalm 34:4, which says, "I sought the Lord, and he answered me, and delivered me from all my fears." Wow, I thought in amazement. There is a God who can deliver me from my fear of death!
God's word shed a spotlight of meaning onto my life as I learned that the seemingly "normal" teenage emotions which had been holding me captive were actually called sins, and that He was a God who could forgive my sins (1 John 1:9) and free me from them (Romans 6:22).
Finally, God's word introduced me to the hope of eternal life--whereby I would be saved from the eternal punishment for sin as a result of believing in the perfect life, sin-bearing death, and grave-conquering resurrection that Jesus Christ executed in my place (John 3:16).
God's word has radically transformed my life. It turned my fear into peace, my bitterness into forgiveness, and my death sentence into everlasting life with the God who made me and loves me. I am now completely convinced of its value and power.
Furthermore, the Bible itself has much to say about the value and power of God's word. The Book of Romans confirms that God's word is instrumental in the saving of His people--that as people hear His word, faith in Jesus is made possible (Romans 10:17). In the Book of Acts, we see that as God's word goes forth, more and more people begin to follow Jesus (Acts 6:7). Isaiah 55:11 makes clear that as God's word is shared with others, God Himself will ensure that it brings about the impact He has purposed. Additionally, 2 Timothy 3:16-17 reveals that God's word is a valuable resource to teach us, correct us, and to train us to be more like Jesus.
So, fellow believers, let's cultivate the habit of holding out God's word confidently and consistently to those around us (our children, our neighbors, our spouses our co-workers, etc.)--remembering how God, in great kindness, held it out to us. It's our responsibility and privilege to share it--it is God's divine task to cause it to change people's hearts.
Questions for Personal Reflection:
↠ How has God's word changed your life?
↠ Which people in your sphere of influence need to hear God's word?
↠ Are you generous with God's word? Do you share it regularly with both Christians and non-Christians alike?
To those of you reading this blog, please bear in mind that these principles are simply not possible to live out apart from the help of the Holy Spirit that God gives us. I do not share these principles as someone who has mastered them once and for all--but as someone whose heart is ever-so-prone to wander and, therefore, must be prayerfully anchored to biblical truth.
I pray that by imperfectly, yet faithfully living out these 5 principles in my own life, I can display to my daughters the supreme value of treasuring and obeying God's word, of hoping in the Gospel alone, and of sharing the hope I have found with a broken world. I pray also, fellow believer, that these principles will become commonplace in your life--that by the Spirit's enabling, they would help you to walk in manner worthy of the Lord and to love Him with your whole heart, mind, body and soul.
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