The Christian Homekeeper™

I was moving some things over from the old blog and came upon this old post. Every now and then, I like to go back and read this. It causes me to commit anew my life and ministry to the Lord and to tremble in His sight at what I do and why I do it. Its so easy to let my eyes fall away from Jesus. Its so easy to think I’m living such a holy life so God should be pleased with me. This post helps me remember that my righteousness is like filthy rotten rags before my Holy God, and without Him I cannot do what is right, not even live a life that is worthy of Him.

I got a letter from a board member today asking about another ministry that she is participating in. There are some things in the ministry that are bothering her and she just wanted some input.

While I was replying to her, I was struck hard by the importance of accountability in all ministries, especially thinking of our own here at T2CHK.

We have from the beginning had a very high standard of behavior and accountability at T2CHK which came from the high standards we set at CHK and T2.
Sometimes I wondered if we could reach those lofty goals of such high standards. I knew that it would be hard to live up to them under our own strength and so we would have to rely on God totally to help us live holy lives before all these women. They can’t see our daily life, but eventually our daily lives show through in our posts on the message board. And our responses are so very telling in where we are with God.

What I realized as I wrote to this member, was that God has been so faithful in my own life and faithful in guiding this ministry, shedding His blessings over us daily. We set a high standard that was based on God’s Word and have relied on Him to give us strength to attain those standards. We hold ourselves accoutable to each other and to outside people in our lives. We are constantly measuring ourselves by the standard of the Word. Sometimes it is painful to administrate those standards. When we teach women to respect their husbands by showing them gently that their posted words are disrepectful, it’s hard. When we have to teach women not to be judgmental about issues that God does not judge us for, that’s hard to do. When we have to repent for sins of our own, its hard.

But I don’t ever want to give that up. I want to continue to work at teaching the things God has given me to teach, and that means constant measuring by the Word, repenting, growing.

There seem to be so many bogus ministries out there, online and elsewhere. There are ministries which use the Name of Jesus simply to further their own agenda. And there are ministries that preach the Word but fail to give an appropriate example of the Christian Life.

I don’t want us to ever be lumped into those groups! God, help me to live a life worthy of Your calling! The member who wrote to me did not identify the ministry she spoke of. I counseled her to measure the ministry by scripture and to measure the actions of the leaders by God’s demands for church and ministry leaders as found in His Word. This has strengthened ny own resolve to live a holy life, and to hold up our ministry to God’s Standards of holiness and godly Christian behavior.

God help me to do so.