Battle-Ready

"Like a sailor I once saw pounding a soldier 'because', said the sailor, 'he insulted my mother,' so my Lord is insulted and His Church slighted. And, believe me, under this double injury, I smart. The Church has many adversaries. Can my sword sleep, then, in my hand? Never!"

~ Leonard Ravenhill ~
Why Revival Tarries

Sisters in Battle,

One of the greatest compliments - and challenges - spoken over me was by my children several years ago. You see, we have always loved movies - battle movies in particular. Among our favorites is the Lord of the Rings trilogy. These films are rich in spiritual allegory and I believe they are a gift to the Bride to remind her of her many foes and her call to defend, liberate, and to advance - that ours is battle, not respite.

The compliment? The challenge? That I remind them of the warrior princess of Rohan, Lady Eowyn. Her highest scene - protecting the injured King of Rohan from the witch king and his nazgul. Facing great terror. Cutting off the dragon's advancing head. Killing the witch king as no man could. (Scene) Indignant, the witch king seized her throat hissing, "No man can kill me!" At the same time the little hobbit who, all but Lady Eowyn believed had no business being in battle thrust his dagger into the witch king's leg, compelling the evil one to let go of Eowyn's throat. Now freed from his grip, she ripped off her helmet to reveal the powerful truth hidden behind the armor - and defiantly announced, "I am no man!" as she thrust her sword through his helmet killing the beast.

This battle was for the little hobbit.

This battle was for Lady Eowyn.

My sons paid me that compliment as they gave me a trading card of Eowyn. A prized possession from their collection. I keep this card my wallet - to remind me of who I've been crafted and called to be. A warrior princess of the Great King and His Kingdom. The picture of the Christian life is likened to the soldier in battle. Do we see ourselves as soldiers in battle?

Ours is not the time for the summer soldier and sunshine patriot, for the battle for Truth and liberty is fierce in our land, in our day. We must not deny. We must not shrink back. We must be people of emergency. So much is riding on it....

I pray you are invigorated and animated by what you have read so far in Let Us Highly Resolve and When A Nation Forgets God. One is the why; the other the how. Are these books stirring you? Are you getting a fire in your belly?

As you know, I am the kind of person who reads several books at once. I have books everywhere I frequent so I can make the most of my time - powder room, master bath, night stand, coffee table, car, purse. Presently, I'm reading our books for September as well as gift book from our own Katy Kelton titled Why Revival Tarries by Leonard Ravenhill. I find it hard to read this silently and find myself many times wanting to jump up and shout with joy in affirmation. A powerful read! A needful read! Yesterday, it's message broke me to tears and drove me fervent prayer. THANK YOU KATY!

I want to share some of this treasure with you. From the Foreword:

"Great industrial concerns have in their employ men who are needed only when there is a break-down somewhere. When something goes wrong with the machinery, thees men spring into action to locate and remove the trouble and get the machinery rolling again.

For these men a smoothly operating system has no interest. They are specialists concerned with trouble and how to find it and correct it.

In the kingdom of God things are not too different. God has always had His specialists whose chief concern has been the moral breakdown, the decline in the spiritual health of the nation or the church. Such men were Elijah, Jeremiah, Malachi, and others of their kind who appeared at critical moments in history to reprove, rebuke, and exhort in the name of God and righteousness.

A thousand or ten thousand ordinary priests or pastors or teachers could labor quietly almost unnoticed while the spiritual life of Israel or the church was normal. But let the people of God go astray from the paths of truth, and immediately the specialist appeared almost out of nowhere. His instinct for trouble brought him to the help of the Lord and of Israel.

Such a man was likely to be drastic, radical, possibly at time violent, and the curious crowd that gathered to watch him work soon branded him as extreme, fanatical, negative. And in a sense they were right. He was single-minded, severe, fearless, and these were the qualities the circumstances demanded. He shocked some, frightened others, and alienated not a few, but he knew who had called him and what he was sent to do. His ministry was geared to the emergency....

.... Those who know Leonard Ravenhill will recognize in him the religious specialist, the man sent from God not to carry on the conventional work of the church, but to beard the priests of Baal on their own mountaintop, to shame the careless priest at the alter, to face the false prophet and warm the people who are being led astray by him.

Such a man as this is not an easy companion. The professional evangelist who leaves the wrought-up meeting as soon as it is over to hie him to the most expensive restaurant to feast and crack jokes with his retainers will find this man something of an embarrassment, for he cannot turn off the burden of the Holy Ghost as one would turn off a faucet. He insists upon being a Christian all the time, everywhere; and again, that marks him out as different...." (A.W. Tozer)

Wow!

That was just the Foreword.

Leonard was born to godly parents. His mother laid hands on her two-hour-newborn infant and asked that God make him a preacher or not let him live. How God honored her request! The boldness of a mother! May there be found some mother Ravenhill in us as we raise and disciple our children.


Some Leonard Ravenhill quotable quotes:

I'm astounded, bewildered, confused, baffled when people tell me there are 75 million people in America that are filled with the Holy Ghost and we're the most rotten nation on earth.


Someone asked me, "Do you pray for the dead?" I said, "No, I preach to them!" I think every pew in every church is death row. Think about that! They're dead! They sing about God; they talk about God, but they're dead! They have no living relationship (with God).


I'm sick and tired of (only) reading about church history; let's make (some) by the grace of God!


I'm embarrassed to be a part of the (so-called) church of Jesus Christ today because I believe it's an embarrassment to a Holy God!

I read through Hebrews 11. These staggering men and women through faith subdued kingdoms, wrought righteousness, obtain the promises, stopped the lions; women received their dead raised to life again. All the devilish things (they endured) and not one ever had a Bible! Well, in God's Name, (what) are you and I going to do when we stand before Him?! When I get there, I'll have to face up to having the whole revelation of God. Finney didn't have a bigger Bible; Wesley didn't have a bigger Bible, but somehow they got nearer to the heart of God. They got a revelation from God, they got convictions of the Spirit and they laid their lives on the line.


***********

What shapes your thinking, shapes your living!


For Christ's Crown and Covenant & His Kingdom Advanced ~

Jill Grier
Visionary Christian Home Educators
http://www.livingwaters.com/good/
http://reformedgirlcrusader.blogspot.com/
http://www.carepages.com/carepages/NicholasWilliamBraveheart
www.V-CHE.info
Isaiah 58:11-12, Nehemiah 4:14
“I am. I can. I ought. I will." ~ Charlotte Mason

Why So Serious About an Open-Handed Issue?

“Education involves the training of the whole man and of all the faculties, of conscience and of the affections, as well as of the intellect...A purely non-theistic treatment of [English]...would not merely falsify the truth of the subject, but would necessarily make it an instrument of conveying positively anti-theistic and anti-christian ideas. All history is a product of divine Providence, and is instinct with the divine ends and order... It is self-evident that a non-theistic or a non-christian treatment of...history would be utterly superficial and misrepresenting. It cannot be questioned that morals rest on a religious basis, and that a non-theistic ethics is equivalent to a positively anti-theistic one. The same is no less true of science in all its departments...If God is not therein recognized he is denied, and a non-theistic science has always been and will always be a positively atheistic and materialistic one.”

~ A. A. Hodge ~

“Religion in the Public Schools,” The New Princeton Review 3, 1, 1887

Why so serious about an 'open-handed' issue?

THE SHORT ANSWER - The educational means and methods of our covenant children is not an open-handed issue of little consequence.

THE LONG ANSWER - We American Christians are more and more bound by antithetical group-think, political correctness, and populous power - - - and this is propagated by state certified, state funded preK through postgrad institutions as well as from the tithe funded and tax sheltered pulpits across our land. Gone are the days when those who educate and teach us care about what is right and true. Where are the men with chests? Where are the valiant and noble warrior Shepherds of our age?


As you may or may not know, tragically, less than 10% of professing born again Christians have a biblical lens through which to interpret the world and it's philosophies and theories. In truth, most professing Christians today are practical atheists meaning they conduct life without thought or care to what God has to say about it (Psalm 10). These professing Christians who function as atheists bifurcate faith from fact, head from hands, biblical conviction from public square, personal beliefs from public behavior. They vainly 'allow' Christ to be Lord over Sunday morning and Wednesday evening and small group, but place themselves as lord over the rest of the days and activities.

This fact has had a devastating effect on the individual, the family, the church, and the culture at large.

Professing Christians no longer think differently than the unbeliever. Professing Christians no longer conduct life differently than the unbeliever. Truth is - we do what we are! We may 'talk the talk', but our actual walk exposes us as what and who we really are. What shapes our thinking, shapes our living. They are utterly and always connected. Ideas have consequences. The faith in Christ that saves us from the just and deserved wrath of God involves an internal transformation that has external implications! "Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewal of your mind, that by testing you may discern what is the will of God, what is good and acceptable and perfect." (Romans 12:2)

We are no longer equipped - and no longer equipping - to "(We) demolish arguments and every lofty opinion raised up against the knowledge of God and take every thought captive to obey Christ." (2 Corinthians 10:5) Many of us are actually held captive by false assumptions and outright lies and don't know it. Does a fish know it's wet? In our Christ transformed diligence, we are to "See to it that no one takes you captive by philosophy and empty deceit, according to human tradition, according to the elemental spirits of the world, and not according to Christ." (Colossians 2:8) Romans 12:2, 2 Corinthians 10:5, and Colossians 2:8 are the foundational passages for loving God with all our mind and strength, intellect and vigor, orthodoxy and orthopraxy. This the goal for the education of the Christian mind. This is to be the great effort of educating the child of a Christian.

When only a fraction of professing Christians think and conduct life differently than the world, we have a huge captivity problem - which is a curse on everyone because the blessings and the cursings of a people and a nation rest squarely upon the shoulders of God's people - the regenerate. "If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, and pray and seek my face and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven and will forgive their sin and heal their land." (2 Chronicles 7:14)

We are to be a blessing, not a cursing. We are to represent Christ and His will in this world. We are His ambassadors. We are to represent our King and His crown rights in this paradise lost. We are to be about His business by subduing entropy and decay and promoting His truth and treasure to all of life.

This is to be the grand charge of educating the child of the Christian. It comes down to discipleship - we are charged to make disciples, teaching them to obey everything whatsoever Christ has commanded, God makes converts - education and life together is discipleship. The curriculum disciples and the people disciple; the teachers and the peers. Message and messenger. Both are connected. Both are critical to the process. Content and context. "A disciple is not above his teacher, but everyone when he is fully trained will be like his teacher." (Luke 6:40) This is not merely referring to the personality and character of the person or people doing the teaching, but the content of that teaching as well - what is being taught - the curriculum. We see the fruit of the what is being taught and the who is doing the teaching in America today - and it is not pretty - especially from those who take on the name of Christ. (CHRISTian)

You see the education of our children IS a gospel issue.

The call on the Christian life is to be conformed more and more into the image of Christ. To represent Him. To be about His business on earth. To speak His truth. To do what He did. To love people enough to liberate. Liberate from lies. Liberate from idolatry. Liberate from the consequence of ideas. Liberate from tyranny. Liberate from folly. Liberate from ignorance. Liberate from captivity. Perhaps in this great assignment, God will use us as a vessel to free them from Satan's grip. (Read 2 Timothy 2:24-26)

This is why we remain on earth even after we are made alive in Christ - born again. We have a work to do - to advance Christ's crown rights over creation; which is the carrying out of loving God and loving our neighbor. We live and proclaim Christ's rule and reign over individuals, over families, over church, over civics, over academia, over labor and vocation, over finances, over ethics, over leisure, over justice, over ministry and philanthropy - over everything. This is gospel-in-life! We need a good dose of it! The good news of the gospel isn't just for personal salvation and for eternity to come, IT IS FOR THE LIVING IN THE WHOLE, INTEGRATION OF LIFE HERE AND NOW - for Christ's name sake and glory, and for the benefit of others! We must be educated in this way of thinking and doing. (James 1:22-23)



Why must we speak up? Why must we risk being thought of as 'judgmental', 'legalistic', or - my personal ascribed label - 'divisive'? Why? Because we must be faithful to our King! As much as He cares about His people. He cares about His name more. "And I will vindicate the holiness of my great name, which has been profaned among the nations, and which you have profaned among them. And the nations will know that I am the LORD, declares the Lord GOD, when through you I vindicate my holiness before their eyes." (Ezekiel 36:23)

There is more to 'taking the name of God in vain' than using His name as a expletive - truly, it comes down to calling oneself 'CHRISTian' yet thinking and acting like a captive child of the devil.

We must stop cutting our children in half. Today, King Solomon knew this - that a good parent would never allow her child to be cut in two. "As we see our schools, our churches, and our campuses constructing false dichotomies that sever our children's personal beliefs from their public behavior, their facts from their faith, and their head from their heart, do we tacitly let the king carry out his gruesome work or do we cry, 'NO - don't cut my child in two!'" (Everett Piper, Ph. D. in The Wrong Side of the Door - Why Ideas Matter, and President of Oklahoma Wesleyan University)

Too many professing Christian parents dismiss and deny the consequences of sending the children God has given them to steward for His name sake to government agenda institutions. Too many professing Christian parents see no threat of their child being cut in two. This is willful ignorance - agressively maintained!

The research data on the success of the public schools in indoctrinating the children of professing Christian parents with humanistic or neo-pagan worldviews is overwhelming. "The Nehemiah Institute’s worldview PEERS test shows that 83-percent of the children from committed Christian families in public schools adopt a secular humanist or Marxist socialist worldview. At the SBC’s 2002 annual meeting, the Southern Baptist Council on Family Life reported, among other disturbing things, that 88-percent of the children raised in evangelical homes leave church at age 18. Barna Research reports that only 9-percent of born-again teens believe in moral absolutes, and more than half believe that Jesus sinned while He was on earth. We believe the fact that 80-percent of Christian families send their children to public schools is a prime reason for this lost legacy." (E. Ray Moore, Exodus Mandate)

Amen!

How can we continue to believe that 14,000 seat-hours of God-ignoring, Christ-hostile, historical revisionist, materialistic, absolute truth reviling, and humanistic indoctrination is not a gospel issue? This is the lunacy of cognative dissonence to the utmost! I am very public about the utter folly of Christian parents thinking it is benign to send their children off to 14,000 seat-hours of secular humanist (or even 'Christianized' humanist) institutions. I am no fan of 'to each their own' since the child (or parent) who claims the name of Christ yet who thinks and acts like the world brings shame to His name, obscures His majesty, and confuses the glory of the gospel-in-life before the captive Lost and the World. This is a big deal. This is a critical point lost on most Christians. This is a critical point lost on most of the church of America.

This is why I am so serious about this open-handed issue. I am attempting to stand against evasive, noncommittal attitude toward Christian truth that is destroying the church and its witness.

"I can see little consistency in a type of Christian activity which preaches the gospel on the street corners and at the ends of the earth but neglects the children of the covenant by abandoning them to a cold and unbelieving secularism."

~ J. Gresham Machen ~

Theologian and Founder of Westminster Seminary and the Orthodox Presbyterian Church

“It is absolutely impossible to separate religious ideas from the great mass of human knowledge...where these are not positively implied they are virtually denied.”

~ A. A. Hodge ~

“Religion in the Public Schools,” The New Princeton Review 3, 1, 1887

Ambition - Godly Ambition Needed

"God's pattern is to make you strong - so you are useful."

~ Eric Ludy ~
Bravehearted Gospel and Ellerslie Mission
http://ellerslie.com/The_Ellerslie_Passion.html

Ladies,

It was so nice to have you in our home last night (May 2010). I'm thankful for those of you who took time to make it.

I need to catch you gals up to speed:

The biggest change is that there will not be a typical V-CHE Tuesday class next year. These class sessions are scheduled to be recorded on MP3 media and will be available throughout the year online on a new V-CHE website (in development - to be launched sometime in September). This material will now be called V-CHE PRIME. PRIME will open this clarion call and information to any and all on the world wide web. Perhaps the year to follow will allow more confidence and ability in hosting a series of webinars - only God knows. May the Lord alone be magnified in this and may His people be emboldened to live out a biblical worldview for the benefit and joy of others.

2010-2011 will be a 'closed session' of intensive learning, fellowship, and accountability. It is called V-CHE AMBITIOUS. Many Christians have a negative, visceral reaction when they think of ambition - and this reaction is off base. We should be ambitious! Ambitious for God. Ambitious for being all God has designed us to be - for His glory, our joy, and the good of our neighbor. Ambitious for the integrity and craft and calling of our family to advance His kingdom in wartime. We ARE at war. Dare I admonish you - - - we are to be ambitious! This is part of loving our God. "You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself." (Luke 10:27 esv)

We will be reading a critical selection of books this next year in AMBITIOUS. A book club, of sorts. Here is the syllabus of books for 2010-2011:

Sept - Let Us Highly Resolve by David Quine

When A Nation Forgets God by Dr. Erwin Lutzer

Oct - Real Family Values by Robert Lewis

Nov - The Bravehearted Gospel by Eric Ludy

Dec - The Me I Want to Be by John Ortberg

Jan - Just Do Something by Kevin DeYoung

Womanly Dominion by Mark Chansky

Feb - The Radical Disciple by John Scott

The Discipleship Handbook by Dr. Peter Hammond

Mar - Assumptions by Christian Overman

Apr - Serious Times by James Emery White

May - Dug Down Deep by Joshua Harris

All but two books are available through CBD online (http://www.christianbooks.com/) and on Amazon (http://www.amazon.com/). Few are available as used books, as they are largely newly published books. Please understand, they are less expensive overall to buy at once (due to shipping), but may certainly be purchased monthly or by semester. There is no registration fee for next year. Books are tuition enough....

Scholarships (partial and full) are available for those who have need and who are accepted into the study.

V-CHE AMBITIOUS will be open only to those who have completed V-CHE PRIME in good faith and diligence. You must apply to participate. I will be the only person reading and making decisions in this application process. The application is attached. PLEASE DO NOT BE OVERWHELMED BY THE APPLICATION. Some ladies last night mentioned this application was more 'intense' than their bible college application. (That's sad, isn't it.) The questions are useful in assessing your level of personal interaction with the content covered in V-CHE and your commitment level for this next year. Be honest with yourself and with me. I am not legalistic.

The bar is raised in V-CHE AMBITIOUS. This level of commitment and accountability will not be appealing to everyone. We understand that. There is a season for everything. This is our season to rejuvenate and regroup; it may be your season to cut out everything that is extra in order to focus on the quiet importance in your life. THAT'S A GOOD THING!

Our ultimate accountability is to the Lord. We are to do all we do as unto Him - not as unto man. Diligence and excellence, not perfection. Whether you've attended V-CHE for the past 5 years in Wichita or this was your first year, I heartily encourage you to pray about joining us next year.

In the end, this next year will not be me teaching. We will be sisters in the Lord sharpening one another as iron sharpens iron; encouraging faithfulness to God, to self, to family, and to culture, and fanning the flame of one another. 2010-2011 will be relational and intimate. We will meet once a month in the comfort of my living room. We will stimulate. We will think. We will challenge. We will rejoice. We will cry. We will pray. We will laugh. We will exhort.


http://ellerslie.com/The_Ellerslie_Passion.html

Watch INTERCESSION. Eric Ludy - The Bravehearted Gospel.

Despise not the young!

This breaks me....

Let's close in the breach! Let's soak our shields in water and lock arms and advance! (Thank you Heather!) No holes. No breaches! No woman left behind.

Let's endeavor to be useful to God - outward focused. May we be strong, so we are useful. May we prayerfully consider locking arms as warrior sisters in Christ for our families and for our church and for our culture - for the joy of the nations - for His name sake.

My heart is full of love for you girls.

"God, you have made this life; and you have called me for more than just to save me. You have rescued me so that I can become a rescuer. Who needs rescue? Who needs help? Who needs me to stand in the gap and take the hit?.... When you behold Christ, you will say, 'God - do it ALL within me - - - for Your glory. Make me strong. Make me strong to give.'"

~ Eric Ludy ~
The Bravehearted Gospel
"Intercessor"

Serving His Kingdom Here and Now ~

Jill Grier
Visionary Christian Home Educators
http://www.livingwaters.com/good/
http://reformedgirlcrusader.blogspot.com/
http://www.carepages.com/carepages/NicholasWilliamBraveheart
www.V-CHE.info
Isaiah 58:11-12
“I am. I can. I ought. I will." ~ Charlotte Mason