Acceptance

I read the other day something that I've heard many times but this time I was terribly convicted. Allow me to share. "Whatever controls us is really our God...The one who seeks acceptance is controlled by the people she wants to please".
Wow! It's still hard to think about, but that is me in a nutshell. Many of you know my famous statement, "I have seven children and I home school but I am NORMAL!".
That statement alone has convicted me just because I know that all I really want is to fit in with all kinds of people. I admit, when it comes to just about anything ,I will try to find a way to be accepted. As I was in another one of my mastitis bouts that kept me up half the night I started pondering all the things that I am absolutely convinced of that makes me abnormal from most people. The obvious are that I do home school and more than that is that I have 7 children that are all mine, that I birthed, and that I wanted. But the thing that separates me from most people is what I believe...my doctrine. So, let me try to explain it in common words.


I believe the scripture alone is the source of written divine revelation. The Bible alone teaches all that is necessary for our salvation from sin and is the standard by which all Christian behavior must be measured.
I believe that our salvation was accomplished by Christ alone.
I believe that in salvation we are rescued from God's wrath by his grace alone and that salvation is in no way a human work.
I believe that justification is by grace alone through faith alone because of Christ alone.
I believe that because salvation is of God and has been accomplished by God, it is for God's glory that we must glorify him always.
I believe that we inherited Adam's sin nature and therefore we all are depraved from birth and in need of a savior.
I believe that before the foundation of the world God choose those who would be His based on no work that they would or could accomplish.
I believe that God had a plan before the world began to redeem those whom He called out to be his. Jesus Christ became the atonement for those people.
I believe that I was dead in my trespasses, incapable of doing anything to save myself, and unknowing that I needed to be saved. In my dead state God breathed life into me and in my decayed sinful state of being He said LIVE. My first breath as I came to life was faith and then God, by his grace alone raised me from spiritual death to spiritual life.
I believe that because salvation is a work of God's grace alone that I cannot do anything to fall from that grace. God will keep me to the end and I will then be eternally saved.

Some of these thoughts may be new and radical to you but I am backed by scripture, church history, Jonathan Edwards, Martin Luther, John Calvin, Charles Spurgeon, the disciples and the apostle Paul to name a few.