Be Careful What Books You Read

“Be careful what books you read, 

for as water tastes of the soil it runs though,

 so does the soul taste of the authors that a man reads.”

- John Trapp, English Puritan

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Guarding Ourselves and Wise Woman Linkup!

Watch constantly against those things

 which are thought to be no temptations. 

The most poisonous serpents are found

 where the sweetest flowers grow. 

Cleopatra was poisoned by an asp 

that was brought to her in a basket of fair flowers.

 -Charles Spurgeon

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I love the teaching and warnings of Puritans and preachers of old, they have great insight and wisdom, wouldn't you agree? Now onto our linkup!


 A Wise Woman Builds Her Home is a place to be encouraged in your high and noble calling of role of wife and mother and daughter to the King and we want to encourage each and every single reader out there to build up strong Christian homes to the glory of God.

We would love for you to link up with us---share your posts on  building up your home, homemaking, character, hospitality, femininity, family, tea, recipes, parenting, marriage, etc. we would love to have you share it with us!

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Where to Invest a Child's Time and Wise Woman Linkup!

"Think long and hard about the way you invest your children's time. 

Time is treasure. 

And where your time investment is, there you will find the heart of a child. 

Invest the majority of his time in entertainment, and his heart will be turned to love of pleasure.

 Invest his time in peers rather then family, and his heart will be with the peers more than his family. 

There is a time and place for all good things in balance, but wise parents will steward the treasure of time, and in so doing, shepherd their children's hearts."

-Doug Phillips

Balance is always needed when approaching the investing of time of our children--we never go wrong when we invest time in teaching them about our Lord, His Word, the character He expects from us, and His mission of  loving others and sharing the gospel with them!

" But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you." -Matthew 6:33

Now onto our linkup:

A Wise Woman Builds Her Home is a place to be encouraged in your high and noble calling of role of wife and mother and daughter to the King and we want to encourage each and every single reader out there to build up strong Christian homes to the glory of God.

We would love for you to link up with us---share your posts on  building up your home, homemaking, character, hospitality, femininity, family, tea, recipes, parenting, marriage, etc. we would love to have you share it with us!

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Do You Have a Complaining Heart?

...A murmuring mouth is particularly grieving to God because it reveals discontent in God.

 
Psalm 106 says that one of the reasons God made the people of Israel “fall in the wilderness” was because they “murmured in their tents” (v. 25, 26). This has serious consequences...

1. It Models Satan

The angel Lucifer was the first grumbler. The onset of his fall from heaven was a result of dissatisfaction in his position and the desire to be like God. Writes Burroughs [author of The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment}:

“The Devil is the most discontented creature in the world, he is the proudest creature that is, and the most discontented creature, and the most dejected creature. Now, therefore, so much discontent as you have, so much of the spirit of Satan you have.”

2. It Is Contrary to Who You Are

You are a son and daughter with a heavenly Father who loves you, the deeply beloved bride of Christ, and actual members of Jesus’ body. When you bellyache and complain about every little thing, you mar your royal and treasured position.

“Are you the King’s son, the son, the daughter, of the King of Heaven, and yet so disquieted and troubled, and vexed at every little thing that happens? As if a King’s son were to cry out that he is undone for losing a toy; what an unworthy thing would this be! So do you: you cry out as if you were undone and yet are a King’s son, you who stand in such relation to God, as to a father, you dishonor your father in this; as if either he had not wisdom, or power, or mercy enough to provide for you.”

3. It Is the Opposite of Prayer

In prayer we come to God with requests and with praise and thankfulness in order to commune with him, but when we grumble, complain and murmur we essentially reverse prayer and rehearse all that we aren’t getting or all that God is not doing that we think he should be doing.

“By murmuring you undo your prayers, for it is exceedingly contrary to the prayer that you make to God. When you come to pray to God, you acknowledge his sovereignty over you, you come there to profess yourselves to be at God’s disposal.”

4. It Is Simply a Waste of Time

It accomplishes absolutely nothing. It accelerates personal stress and is downright annoying and draining to listen to.

“How many times do men and women, when they are discontented, let their thoughts run, and are musing and contriving, through their present discontentedness and let their discontented thoughts work in them for some hours together, and they spend their time in vain!”

5. It Swallows Up the Blessing of Mercy before It Arrives

If you covet a particular mercy of God (say, a big raise), when it finally comes, you won’t be thankful for it but will waste it. Coveting a blessing can turn the blessing into an idolatrous curse.

“Discontent and murmuring eats out the good and sweetness of a mercy before it comes. If God should give a mercy for the want of which we are discontented, yet the blessing of the mercy is, as it were, eaten out before we come to have it. … There are many things which you desire as your lives, and think that you would be happy if you had them, yet when they come you do not find such happiness in them, but they prove to be the greatest crosses and afflictions that you ever had, and on this ground, because your hearts were immoderately set upon them before you had them.”

6. It Worsens Sufferings and Afflictions

A murmuring attitude in the midst of affliction increases the affliction. Having a bad attitude in the midst of pleasant or mediocre circumstances poisons your heart and the hearts of others, and how much will this increase if this overwhelmingly negative spirit continues and truly difficult circumstances arrive.

“It in no way removes our afflictions, indeed, while they continue, they are a great deal the worse and heavier, for a discontented heart is a proud heart, and a proud heart will not pull down his sails when there comes a tempest and storm. If a sailor, when a tempest and storm comes, is perverse and refuses to pull down his sails, but is discontented with the storm, is his condition any better because he is discontented and will not pull down his sails? Will this help him?”

7. It Wears the Hopeless Costume of Pessimism

This simply means consistent pessimism is not in line with the sure hope and life-changing power of the gospel. There is an inherent optimism within the gospel that produces hope, love, joy, peace, etc. Positive commands like “rejoice in the Lord” and in everything “give thanks” and negative commands like “do not be anxious” and “do not grumble” all reveal that there is a gospel optimism about the Christian life that is to flavor the personality of a Christian.





By BJ Stockman drawing from The Rare Jewel of Christian Contentment

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The Little Things

Good-Bye Summer & Wise Woman Linkup!

Today we are saying an official good-bye to our summer...school starts for us tomorrow. In a way it is sad to see it leave but we are looking forward to school, fall, pumpkins and acorns and all the wondrous things the Lord has in store for us.

"Dost thou love life?
 Then do not squander time, for that is the stuff life is made of." 

-Benjamin Franklin

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A Wise Woman Builds Her Home is a place to be encouraged in your high and noble calling of role of wife and mother and daughter to the King and we want to encourage each and every single reader out there to build up strong Christian homes to the glory of God.

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The Tests of Life

The tests of life are to make, not break us. 

Trouble may demolish a man's business but build up his character. 

The blow at the outward man may be the greatest blessing to the inner man. 

If God, then, puts or permits anything hard in our lives, be sure that the real peril, the real trouble, is that we shall lose if we flinch or rebel.

-Maltbie Davenport Babcock

Dealing with Difficult Circumstances and Wise Woman Linkup!

“I have learned that in every circumstance that comes my way, 

I can choose to respond in one of two ways: I can whine or I can worship! 

 And I can't worship without giving thanks. It just isn't possible. 

When we choose the pathway of worship and giving thanks, especially in the midst of difficult circumstances, there is a fragrance, a radiance, that issues forth out of our lives to bless the Lord and others.”

-Nancy Leigh DeMoss, Choosing Gratitude

 
A Wise Woman Builds Her Home is a place to be encouraged in your high and noble calling of role of wife and mother and daughter to the King and we want to encourage each and every single reader out there to build up strong Christian homes to the glory of God.

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Four Walls Do Not Make a Home

Four walls do not make a home—though it is a palace filled with all the elegance's which wealth can buy! The home-life itself is more important than the house and its adornments. By the home-life, is meant the happy art of living together in tender love. We enter some homes, and they are full of sweetness—as fields of summer flowers are full of fragrance. All is order, beauty, gentleness and peace. We enter other homes, where we find jarring, selfishness, harshness and disorder. This difference is not accidental. They are influences at work in each home, which yield just the result we see in each. No home-life can ever be better than the life of those who make it.

Homes are the real schools in which men and women are trained—and fathers and mothers are the real teachers and builders of life!

Sadly, the goal which most parents have for their home—is to have as good and showy a house as they can afford, furnished in as rich a style as their means will warrant, and then to live in it as comfortably as they are able, without too much exertion or self-denial.

But the true idea of a Christian home, is that it is a place for spiritual growth. It is a place for the parents themselves to grow—to grow into beauty of character, to grow in spiritual refinement, in knowledge, in strength, in wisdom, in patience, gentleness, kindliness, and all the Christian graces and virtues. It is a place for children to grow—to grow into physical vigor and health, and to be trained in all that shall make them true and noble men and women.

A true home is set up and all its life ordered—for the definite purpose of training, building up and sending our human lives fashioned into Christlike symmetry, filled with lofty impulses and aspirations, governed by principles of rectitude and honor, and fitted to enter upon the duties and struggles of life with spiritual wisdom and strength.

--JR Miller, The Family

Daughters Will Be Products of Their Theology

“(Mothers), our daughters will be products of their theology. Their knowledge – or lack of knowledge – of who God is and what He has done for them will show up in every attitude, action, and relationship. Their worldview will be determined by their belief system. We must teach our daughters that their value and identity lie in the fact that they are image-bearers of the God of glory. This will protect them from seeking significance in the inconsequential shallowness of self-fulfillment, personal happiness, materialism, or others’ approval. Our daughters must know the wondrous truth that their overarching purpose in life is God’s glory."


                                                               

         -Susan Hunt

  

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Change of Character and Wise Woman Link-up!

It is strange that while praying, 

we seldom ask for a change of character,

 but always a change of circumstances.



 -Anonymous 

A Wise Woman Builds Her Home is a place to be encouraged in your high and noble calling of role of wife and mother and daughter to the King and we want to encourage each and every single reader out there to build up strong Christian homes to the glory of God.

We would love for you to link up with us---share your posts on building up your home, homemaking, character, hospitality, femininity, family, tea, recipes, parenting, marriage, etc., we would love to have you share it with us!

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A Wise Man Once Said...

Above all else, guard your heart,

for it is the wellspring of life. 

Put away perversity from your mouth;

keep corrupt talk far from your lips. 

Let your eyes look straight ahead,

fix your gaze directly before you. 

Make level paths for your feet

and take only ways that are firm. 

Do not swerve to the right or the left;

keep your foot from evil. 

Proverbs 4:23-7

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A Lesson Through Hard-Times

"Some of you people of God, when you get bitter waters, 

want to throw them away. 

Do not throw a drop of it away, for that is the water you have yet to drink.

 Accept your afflictions.

They are a part of your education."

-Charles Spurgeon 

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On the Raising of Sons

Sons run on respect just like their fathers, and it is important that they not only see their fathers respected, but they must receive respect in the home as well. It will look different from the respect that the head of the house receives, but sons need to be praised and admired for their achievements and accomplishments just like Dad.

This means mothers treat their sons with courtesy and sister are taught to treat their brothers the same way. Courtesy excludes scolding, running down, picking on, or criticizing. Mothers should not share their son's weaknesses, failures, or sins any more than they should share their husband's. Rather, they should seek to build them up, encourage them, and praise them for their good work.

--from the chapter Mother and Sons,
Building Her House by Nancy Wilson

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Mothers Who Are Not Ashamed

When you go out with your children, lift your head high, put a smile on your face, and be proud to be a mother. You have one of the most important careers in the nation. God Himself is your employer and you are helping to determine the future of this nation.

Be a light in the midst of a society that does not embrace children. Do not be intimidated. Show your love for your children as you speak sweetly to them and are patient with them. If God has blessed you with a number of children, be proud to display your "blessings" from the Lord. You reveal to the world what God is like for He loves children. Jesus did not reject children. He welcomed the children to come to Him...

--Nancy Campbell,  
100 Days of Blessing: Devotions for Wives and Mothers

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The Family Fireside

The family fireside

is the best of schools.

-A. Glaslow

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Called to Lead an Army

You are as much serving God in looking after your own children,

training them up in God’s fear, 

minding the house, 

and making your household a church for God,

as you would be if you had been called to lead an army

to battle for the Lord of hosts.

- Charles Spurgeon

A Wise Woman Builds Her Home is a place to be encouraged in your high and noble calling of role of wife and mother and daughter to the King and we want to encourage each and every single reader out there to build up strong Christian homes to the glory of God.

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COME AND LINK UP!

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Sunday Reflections

Oh, the depth of the riches

of the wisdom and knowledge of God. 

How unsearchable His judgements

and His paths before tracing out!

Who has known the mind of the Lord?

Or who has been His counselor?

Who has ever given to God,

that God should repay Him?

For from Him and through Him
and to Him are all things.

To Him be the glory forever! 

Amen.

-Romans 11:33-6

Do you know Him?

Need a sound church? 

 

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The Sunday Blessing

Because of the Lords' great love we are not consumed,

for His compassions never fail.

They are new every morning;

great is your faithfulness.

I say to myself, "The Lord is my portion;

therefore I will wait for Him.

The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him,

to the one who seeks Him;

It is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.

Lamentations 3:22-6

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The Church in Thy House

 

"The church in thy house."

Philemon 2

Is there a Church in this house? Are parents, children, friends, servants, all members of it? Or are some still unconverted? Let us pause here and let the question go round--Am I a member of the Church in this house? How would father's heart leap for joy, and mother's eyes fill with holy tears if from the eldest to the youngest all were saved! Let us pray for this great mercy until the Lord shall grant it to us.

Probably it had been the dearest object of Philemon's desires to have all his household saved; but it was not at first granted him in its fulness. He had a wicked servant, Onesimus, who, having wronged him, ran away from his service. His master's prayers followed him, and at last, as God would have it, Onesimus was led to hear Paul preach; his heart was touched, and he returned to Philemon, not only to be a faithful servant, but a brother beloved, adding another member to the Church in Philemon's house.

Is there an unconverted servant or child absent this morning? Make special supplication that such may, on their return to their home, gladden all hearts with good news of what grace has done! Is there one present? Let him partake in the same earnest entreaty.

If there be such a Church in our house, let us order it well,

and let all act as in the sight of God.

Let us move in the common affairs of life with studied holiness, diligence, kindness, and integrity. More is expected of a Church than of an ordinary household; family worship must, in such a case, be more devout and hearty; internal love must be more warm and unbroken, and external conduct must be more sanctified and Christlike. 

We need not fear that the smallness of our number will put us out of the list of Churches, for the Holy Spirit has here enrolled a family-church in the inspired book of remembrance.

As a Church let us now draw nigh to the great head of the one Church universal, and let us beseech him to give us grace to shine before men to the glory of his name.

---Charles Spurgeon Devotional, Bible Gateway 


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