15 point challenge to women.

I am taking a class at church right now called Identify. It has been AMAZING. There is so much I could share about what I have learned... and maybe I will get there one day. But saying that this is my attempt at blogging twice in 1 week as apposed to twice in 6 months... I will start small.

They gave us an article to read that is a 15 point challenge to women by John Piper. A lot of the points stuck out to me... here are some of them.

• That the promises of life be trusted so fully that peace and joy and strength fill your soul to overflowing.
  
• That this fullness of God overflow in daily acts of love so that people might see your good deeds and give glory to your Father in Heaven.
• That you be women of the Book, who love and study and obey the Bible in every area of its teaching; that meditation on Biblical truth be the source of hope and faith; that you continue to grow in understanding through all the chapters of your life, never thinking that study and growth are only for others.
• That you be women of prayer, so that the word of God will be opened to you, and so the power of faith and holiness will descend upon you; that your spiritual influence may increase at home and at church and in the world.
  
• That you be women who have a deep grasp of the sovereign grace of God which under-girds all the spiritual processes; and that you be deep thinkers about the doctrines of grace, and even deeper lovers about these things.
  
• That you be totally committed to ministry, whatever your specific calling; that you not fritter away your time on soaps or women's magazines or unimportant hobbies or shopping; that you redeem time for Christ and his Kingdom.
  
• That, if you are married, you creatively and intelligently and sincerely support the leadership of your husband as deeply as obedience to Christ will allow; that you encourage him in his God-appointed role as head; that you influence him spiritually primarily through your fearless tranquility and holiness and prayer.
  
• That you not assume that secular employment is a greater challenge or a better use of your life than the countless opportunities of service and witness in the home, the neighborhood, the community, the church and the world; that you not only pose the question: career or full-time homemaker?, but that you ask just as seriously: fulltime career or freedom for ministry. That you ask: Which would be greater for the kingdom- to work for someone who tells you what to do to make his or her business prosper, or to be God's free agent dreaming your own dreams about how your time and your home and your creativity could make God's business prosper? And that in all this you make your choices not on the basis of secular trends or upward lifestyle expectations, but on the basis of what will strengthen the faith of the family and advance the cause of Christ.
  
• That you step back and (with your husband, if you are married) plan the various forms of your life's ministry chapters. Chapters are divided by carious things- age, strength, singleness, marriage, employment, children at home, children in college, grandchildren, retirement, etc. No chapter has all the joys. Finite life is a series of tradeoffs. Finding God's will, and living for the glory of Christ to the full in every chapter is what makes it a success, not whether it reads like somebody else's chapter or whether it has in it what only another chapter will bring.
  
• That you develop a wartime mentality and lifestyle; that you never forget that life is short and billions of people hang in the balance of heaven and hell every day, that the love of money is spiritual suicide, that the goals of upward mobility (nicer clothes, cars, houses, vacations, foods hobbies) are a poor and dangerous substitute for the goals of living for Christ with all your might and maximizing your joy in ministry to people's needs.