IMPRESSED!

     As Mom's and Wive's we have a responsibility to "Make the Home."  It goes so much farther that making the bed, making meals, doing endless chores, and keeping the kids alive!  We set the tone in the home.  Proverbs talk about how it is better to remain on the roof top than dwell in the home with a contentious wife.  In mine and Paul's experience this is a very true statement.  So how to be that Wife and Mom that draws the family in instead of repels them, causing a desire for roof top living?  I have found my behavior towards my family is either drawing in or pushing away in direct correlation to my being IMPRESSED with REDEMPTION.  The "Gospel."  I have heard people say, "Preach the gospel to yourself every day."  I had know idea what they were talking about.  "Jesus died for my sins so that I can go to heaven."  I'm thinking how is reciting that going to make a difference.  Like saying the pledge of allegiance anything can become so routine that it looses it meaning.  How often did you as a child growing up saying the pledge of allegiance think about every word and the weight it carried?
     So how do I get IMPRESSED with the Gospel of Redemption?  I have found for me just staying it to myself each day over and over doesn't impact me much.  But, as I continue to get up every morning before my babies and get into reading the bible in some way (bible study home work or just reading it and looking up words in the Greek and Hebrew), God through His Word preaches the Gospel to Me!  The whole focus of God's word is that we are separated from Him by sin.  We can not return to Him by anyway but the One He planned on giving us from the foundation of creation.  God knew before creating the entire world that we as a people would rebel.  He and Jesus had a plan to save us from separation with Them!

"For all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God, being justified as a gift by His grace through the redemption which is in Christ Jesus"  Romans 3:23-24
"In Him we have redemption through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of grace..." Eph. 1:7
"In Whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins." Col. 1:14
     At our church our Pastor says one thing more than anything else.  "God has taken care of our greatest problem!"  When I keep my eyes on that care God has taken with me all the other hard stuff of this life looses its color a bit.  We have trials in this life as a result of the fall of man kind and our own choices.  He walks with us through them.  What a lover.  Truly working even the terrible for my good and His glory.

Don't forget the COFFEE!

     Today I am so IMPRESSED.  I just had to share! I can't impress myself with the Gospel but I have found if I remain consistent in spending time with my Jesus in the mornings reading and better understanding His word, HE WILL IMPRESS ME!

Then impressed, I live better!