Christ Centered Decorating- Advent Arrangement

I thought that I would start a series on Christ Centered decorating for Christmas. I have been so inspired since a company called Doorposts had a contest on decorating your home with Scripture. So many of the entries were so lovely and inspiring. Ever since then, I have been attempting to decorate my home more with Scripture. So, I thought that would share some of my ideas for decorating at Christmas since the whole reason is Christ come to earth. I would love it so much if you would share how you incorporate Scripture in decorating your home.

Today I am sharing my homemade Advent arrangement. When searching for Advent ideas this year, I had seen many resources that have a reading everyday. I had also seen traditional Advent wreaths with the four candles. (I think I might even have one of those somewhere). But, I have little children and wanted to have something every day for them to do. My little ones just love candles so I decided to make an arrangement where we could light one candle every night. So, each night we light a candle, sing a Christmas hymn, and read a section of Scripture. It has been really lovely so far!

(I must add a disclaimer. I am not a professional decorator. I just am a mother trying to make my home lovely and Christ exalting for my family.)

As you can see, I used two cookie trays as the base. I then used wine glasses and mason jars that I had and turned them upside down. Underneath each glass I put cinnamon sticks and pinecones. Finally, I put some pretty flowers, berries, and foliage around. The picture cuts off the two taper candles that I have for lighting on Christmas Eve and Christmas. The lighting isn't very good as I took this pictures after the kids have gone to bed. It is a big display for our table but the boys are quite excited about lighting all of the candles. It is much nicer in person!

(Also, you'll notice that we only have 24 candles instead of 25. We started a day late so I just put out 24.)

Well, here you are. I hope that it might inspire you a little. As mothers, it is our lovely joy to set before our children memories that will hopefully lead them closer to the Lord. As this beautiful season continues, I pray that you will have multiple opportunities to impress the truths of the gospel upon your children's hearts.

Heaven Can Give No More

Artist: Ron DiCanni

 "O God, take me in spirit to the watchful shepherds, 

and enlarge my mind;

Let me hear good tidings of great joy, 

and hearing, believe, rejoice, praise, adore,

my conscience bathed in an ocean of repose, 

my eyes uplifted to a reconciled Father;

place me with ox, ass, camel, goat, 

to look with them upon my Redeemer's face, 

and in Him account myself delivered from sin;

let me with Simeon clasp the new-born child to my heart, 

embrace Him with undying faith, 

exulting that He is mine and I am His.

In Him Thou has given me so much that heaven can give no more."

~ The Valley of Vision

Prayer for Our Nation Monday- Arkansas

Another Monday is here my friends! What a blessing that we can come before the Lord in prayer. This week we will be praying for Arkansas.

"Wonderful, Holy God, we come before you today in prayer for the state of Arkansas and the people who live there. We just pray that you would do your mighty work in the hearts of those who are lost. Please impress upon their hearts their desperate need for Your salvation. Please give strength and wisdom to those who are serving you in Arkansas and who labor to preach Your Word. May they be refreshed in You Father, for Your glory. May their hearts be dependant upon You alone and not their own strength. You are the One who saves from sin and we praise you greatly for Your love and kindness. In Your wonderful name, Amen."

"The secret of a beautiful life is living in unbroken fellowship with Christ, under the influence of His presence, and the inspiration of His love and grace." ~ J.R. Miller

Love Letters

 I read this today and it was just a perfect reminder of the loveliness of Christ, especially as we are approaching the Advent season celebrating His birth. And, just to make it consistent, it is by Spurgeon! I promise that I do read more than just him!

"The Scriptures point to Me!" John 5:39

"Jesus Christ is the Alpha and Omega of the Bible. He is the constant theme of its sacred pages; from first to last--they testify of Him!

We catch a glimpse of Him in the promise of the woman's seed;
we see Him typified in the ark of Noah;
we walk with Abraham, as He sees Messiah's day;
we dwell in the tents of Isaac and Jacob, feeding upon the gracious promise;
we hear the venerable Israel talking of the coming Shiloh; and
in the numerous types of the law, we find the Redeemer abundantly foreshadowed.
Prophets and kings, priests and preachers, all look one way--they all stand as the cherubim did over the ark--desiring to look within, and to read the mystery of God's great atoning sacrifice!

Still more manifestly in the New Testament we find our Lord--the one pervading subject. It is not a single gem here and there, or dust of gold thinly scattered--but here you stand upon a solid floor of gold; for the whole substance of the New Testament is Jesus crucified, and even its closing sentence is bejewelled with the Redeemer's name!

We should always read Scripture in this light--we should consider the Word to be as a mirror, into which Christ looks down from heaven. And then we, looking into it, see His face reflected as in a mirror--darkly, it is true--but still in such a way as to be a blessed preparation for seeing Him--as we shall see Him face to face!

This volume contains Christ's love-letters to us, perfumed by His love. These pages are the garments of our King, and they all smell of myrrh, and aloes, and cassia. Scripture is the royal chariot in which Jesus rides, and it is paved with love for His children. The Scriptures are the swaddling bands of the holy child Jesus--unroll them and you find your Savior!

The quintessence of the Word of God--is Christ!"

~ Charles Spurgeon

Prayer for Our Nation Mondays- Arizona

 

Well, this is the late edition of Prayer for Our Nation Mondays! Sorry about that! I have just been trying to clean up from the Thanksgiving holiday. How precious it is that we can thank our Lord for His provision in our lives. Thanksgiving is so wonderful! But messy!

 The state we are praying for this week is Arizona!

"Dear wonderful Lord, we just come before you today in prayer for the state of Arizona. We pray that you would reach those who are in need of You and need the wonderful news of your gospel. Please be pleased to save them and draw them to Yourself. Please Lord. Please give wisdom and courage to those who know you in Arizona and sanctify them more and more in Your truth. Allow those who know You to be great witnesses of your grace and give them boldness in proclaiming Your gospel. We praise You for Your goodness and faithfulness in our lives. Thank you for the gift of salvation and the grace that You daily give us. Thank you for how good You are. In the precious name of our Savior, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Spurgeon

It is a Spurgeon-esqe type of week! This was too good not to share:

"If sinners be damned, at least let them leap to Hell over our bodies. If they will perish, let them perish with our arms about their knees. Let no one go there unwarned and unprayed for."

~ Charles Spurgeon

Petition with Thanksgiving

I wanted to bring to your attention this week a wonderful sermon from Charles Spurgeon on the blessings of prayer and thanksgiving. I really feel tempted to just quote the whole sermon as it is such a precious reminder of God's  rich grace and blessings He has poured our in our lives. Even in the midst of suffering, we can because of His goodness say "Blessed be the name of the Lord". Here are Spurgeon's reasons...

"We are to pray about everything, and with every prayer we must blend our thanksgivings. Hence it follows that we ought always to be in a thankful condition of heart: since we are to pray without ceasing, and are not to pray without thanksgiving, it is clear that we ought to be always ready to give thanks unto the Lord. We must say with the Psalmist, "Thus will I bless thee while I live; I will lift up my hands in thy name." The constant tenor and spirit of our lives should be adoring gratitude, love, reverence, and thanksgiving to the Most High..." 

I pray so much that my life would have "adoring gratitude, love, reverance, and thanksgiving" for my great Savior.

"This blending of thanks with devotion is always to be maintained. Always must we offer prayer and supplication with thanksgiving. No matter though the prayer should struggle upward out of the depths, yet must its wings be silvered o'er with thanksgiving. Though the prayer were offered upon the verge of death, yet in the last few words which the trembling lips can utter there should be notes of gratitude as well as words of petition...Supplication and thanksgiving so naturally run into each other that it would be difficult to keep them separate: like kindred colours, they shade off into each other."

 I had never thought of thanksgiving and petition being so related together and intertwined.

 "I need not stop to quote other instances, but it is almost always the case that David by the fire of prayer warms himself into praise. He begins low, with many a broken note of complaining, but he mounts and glows, and, like the lark, sings as he ascends. When at first his harp is muffled he warbles a few mournful notes and becomes excited, till he cannot restrain his hand from that well-known and accustomed string which he had reserved for the music of praise alone. There is a passage in the eighteenth Psalm, at the third verse, in which indeed he seems to have caught the very idea which I want to fix upon your minds this morning. "I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised: so shall I be saved from mine enemies." He was in such a condition that he says, "The sorrows of death compassed me, and the floods of ungodly men made me afraid. The sorrows of hell compassed me about: the snares of death prevented me." Driven by distress, he declares that he will call upon the Lord, that is, with utterances of prayer; but he does not alone regard his God as the object of prayer, but as One who is to be praised. "I will call upon the Lord, who is worthy to be praised;" and then, as if inspired to inform us of the fact that the blending of thanksgiving with prayer renders it infallibly effectual, as I shall have to show you it does, he adds, "So shall I be saved from mine enemies."... 

 These passages have really made me think about my own prayers. Are they primarily filled with my own petitions or do I offer thanksgiving to my precious Savior for His work in my life? I have found that far too often my prayers are filled with my own interests and seem ignorant of what Christ has already done. I pray that my prayers would be more like David's in the Psalms- that even in great pain or agony I can choose to give thanks.

"We have abundant cause, my brethen, for thanksgiving at all times. We do not come to God in Prayer as if he had left us absolutely penniless, and we cried to him like starving prisoners begging through prison bars. We do not ask as if we had never received a single farthing of God before, and hardly thought we should obtain anything now; but on the contrary, having been already the recipients of immense favours, we come to a God who abounds in lovingkindness, who is willing to bestow good gifts upon us, and waits to be gracious to us. We do not come to the Lord as slaves to an unfeeling tyrant craving for a boon, but as children who draw nigh to a loving father, expecting to receive abundantly from his liberal hands. Thanksgiving is the right spirit in which to come before the God who daily loadeth us with benefits. Bethink you for awhile what cause you have for thanksgiving in prayer.     And first you have this, that such a thing as prayer is possible, that a finite creature can speak with the infinite Creator, that a sinful being can have audience with the thrice-holy Jehovah. It is worthy of thanksgiving that God should have commanded prayer and encouraged us to draw near unto him; and that moreover he should have supplied all things necessary to the sacred exercise. He has set up a mercy seat, blood besprinkled; and he has prepared a High Priest, ever living to make intercession; and to these he has added the Holy Ghost to help our infirmities and to teach us what we should pray for as we ought. Everything is ready, and God waits for us to enquire at his hands. He has not only set before us an open door and invited us to enter, but he has given us the right spirit with which to approach. The grace of supplication is poured out upon us and wrought in us by the Holy Ghost. What a blessing it is that we do not attempt prayer with a peradventure, as if we were making a doubtful experiment, nor do we come before God as a forlorn hope, desperately afraid that he will not listen to our cry; but he has ordained prayer to be the ordinary commerce of heaven and earth, and sanctioned it in the most solemn manner. Prayer may climb to heaven, for God has himself prepared the ladder and set it down just by the head of his lonely Jacob, so that though that head be pillowed on a stone it may rest in peace. Lo, at the top of that ladder is the Lord himself in his covenant capacity, receiving our petitions and sending his attendant angels with answers to our requests. Shall we not bless God for this?
    Let us praise his name, dear friends, also especially that you and I are still spared to pray and permitted to pray. What if we are greatly afflicted, yet it is of the Lord's mercy that we are not consumed. If we had received our desserts we should not now have been on praying ground and pleading terms with him. But let it be for our comfort and to God's praise that still we may stand with bowed head and cry each one—"God be merciful to me a sinner." Still may we cry like sinking Peter, "Lord save, or I perish." Like David, we may be unable to go up to the temple, but we can still go to our God in prayer. The prodigal has lost his substance, but he has not lost his power to supplicate. He has been feeding swine, but as yet he is still a man, and has not lost the faculty of desire and entreaty. He may have forgotten his father, but his father has not forgotten him; he may arise and he may go to him, and he may pour out his soul in his father's bosom. Therefore, let us give thanks unto God that he has nowhere said unto us—"Seek ye my face in vain." If we find a desire to pray trembling within our soul, and if though almost extinct we feel some hope in the promise of our gracious God, if our heart still groans after holiness and after God, though she hath lost her power to pray with joyful confidence as once she did, yet let us be thankful that we can pray even if it be but a little. In the will and power to pray there lies the capacity for infinite blessedness: he who hath the key of prayer can open heaven, yea, he hath access to the heart of God; therefore, bless God for prayer.

  This last quote from Spurgeon's sermon was my favorite. What a beautiful thing to read this week as we celebrate Thanksgiving! After reading this I have felt my heart just overflowing with thankfulness. How very, very precious! What a wonderful Lord we serve!

 I pray that you have a very blessed week with your family and a lovely Thanksgiving.

Blessed be the Name of the Lord! 

(For those you who want to read the whole sermon by Spurgeon, it is here for you to enjoy!)