Holy cow - I hardly know what to write this morning. I feel like i have had 4 cups of coffee and are too nervous to write or type. I don't like coffee (even though i have tried to because it looks grown up and cool) and have had nothing this morning before my time with Him! I am just so pumped over my Bible study last night and the video was incredible.
I want to explain one thing about the Mr. Linky. I am not expecting anyone to be doing the study with us, day by day or watching the video each week to comment with Mr. Linky. I am just using what I learn each week from the video to try to get some of the blog world thinking and talking to each other about the things of Him and Believing God!!! So don't feel like you can not fill out the questions if you have not done your homework or seen the video. Oh yes, it will give you more depth and such to do all that, but not a must for the online world!! K?K!
Believing God can do what He says He can do - oh yeah baby!!! He is still in the miracle business!! Yeppers, don't you dare think He is not - He is!!! My love for Him and passion to share His Word, etc. is a miracle. I have not always been this way. I have loved Him dearly since very young, but not always wanted to put myself out there to share and be heard. It is a miracle.
She discussed last night the difference between 2 extremes we find in the body of Christ. Cessationism and Sensationalism. Cessationism is those that "believe" He no longer performs miracles and that He is done working in our lives in awesome ways. Sensationalism is those that believe we can seek, claim, and know He is going to do something every time we ask. They prioritize what God can do over what who He is. I know both spectrums. To me both groups are just really missing out. The first group "Cess" miss all the great things He still does today. And i guess they think the sun coming up and going down each day is just on a battery or their heart beating and lungs working is just on a timer. No!! He still does it all! The second group "Sens" is missing a really cool, awesome, reverent, holy, etc. relationship - He is a relational Lord - with the King! I see so often those that are believing Him for a miracle over every single thing - just wanting Him to move they way they see fit - miss the internal changing and become bitter and doubtful. That is not it either!
Let me say, as Beth did also last night, that I am all about Him healing and doing miracles and moving among us in powerful ways. But when we begin to just seek Him about what He can do for us instead of who He is - that is a problem and not scriptural. I would go on to say that when our prayer lives are more about what He can do for us or grant us than just praising, worshipping, confessing, etc, then there is a problem - Ouch, that stepped on my toes!!! Prosperity preaching must GO!!!!!!!!
The other huge point Beth - can I call her just Beth, hope so! - made last night was determining what we can claim as ours and what we need to understand was for the people of that day. To the best of my knowledge and understanding she basically said that in the Old Testament God moved mainly in external ways. Parting of the Red Sea, defeating a people, slaying a giant, bringing the rain, putting out manna, - those were things that they could tangibly see and He was responsible. But in the New Testament He moves still externally, but more so internally. He healed a lady, but then said go sin no more. He made so many demons come out and therefor a new heart was established. In our own lives today - we are New Testament believers - it is mainly a heart change that He is seeking. He may choose to heal us from certain diseases, but He may be waiting for a heart change before He does the body change! He may be waiting on a heart change before He changes our exterior situation.
So now in our day - we must first seek to understand that the priority is a heart change before we can know He is going to do the miraculous external things. We can go to the Old Testament and we should!!!!! to find examples of things He had done externally there and then sift it through the way He moves today. He is still powerful and mighty enough to do the immediate things before a heart change has occurred, but that is His prerogative!!! I can't question all that! (Can you hear that old song by Bobby Brown - My Prerogative)
Now was that good stuff or what!!!!???!?!?!?!!!!!!!!!!! Awesome Lord!! Thank you!!
1) Are you trying to live The Faith without faith? What evidences in your life tell the opposite is true?
2) Are you often looking for external results without a heart change? How do you know?
3) Have you ever been on one the above extremes? What was that like?
4) What kind of miracles have you seen Him do - internal and external?
5) Explain this to your best understanding, "Faith can not be separated from hope."
Now girls, I am going to a swim park today. I will not be able to check email all day. BOOO - I hope when i get back and throughout the weekend you will take the time to think about all this and then post your questions. Remember you do not have to be doing the study, just something to think about and post about. Believe, my friends, Believe!!!
6 comments:
Right now, I'm still trying to figure the Mr. Linky thing out, but I just want to say that faith can not be separated from hope because faith is not a reasonable conclusion that is figured out on paper. This is where hope comes in, because hope believes what faith sees. I believe that God is real by faith. But because of so many experiences in faith that God has brought us through, I also believe God on the paper of my journal, where He showed Himself mighty in areas where no one else could come through--He did! Yeah God!
Praying for fun today at the pool, Leigh!
Love,
holly
My middle name is hope!! I know the Lord named me that for a reason!
Leigh thanks for checking on me I did have meningitis. I am still recovering and made a couple of trips to the ER. I am so glad that I am getting better. It was awful!!!
love jenny
Hi Leigh,
I have never done a Beth Moore study, and have only seen snippetts of her on video but I have heard so many great things about her. I'm going to the Women of Faith conference in Cleveland next week, including the pre-conference, which Beth (can I just call her Beth? lol!) is leading. Your post is helping me get even more excited about seeing her!
Leigh,
I just found your post from LPM. I just posted, a few days ago, about Believing God and how growing in a relationship with Him brings so much to our lives... God called me in the Fall of 2006 to start leading Bible Studies (a HUGE deal for me since I have a terrible fear of public speaking). I choose to Believe God and led Breaking Free (Jan 2007) - it was incredible. Needless to say God has me hooked and now He has me leading Bible studies and I was just named the women's ministry coordinator of our church. Believing God and stepping out in that faith has completely changed my life. God's plans are ALWAYS better than anything we can ever imagine!!
God bless you sista Leigh!!
Kim
1) Trying to live faith without faith? Wow…how to answer that…hmm. Well, practically from the time I walked into church I was taught that “without faith it is impossible to please God.” So, naturally I figured I have to catch this faith thing and now; so, trying…yes…always trying to live faith. In my trial of the faith process, I seem to have been faithless many times. Even now I try to live by faith, yet even in my knowing and believing I fall short due to fear that maybe my faith will fail…oh, and yes…it will fail. But all in all I cling to 2 Tim 2:13 that tells me He will remain faithful even if I am faithless.
2) I am always looking for external results, but not without a heart change. I cry out to God continually and know my heart is not always in the right condition, but I know that when I get up off the floor I need to outwardly walk upright. I also know that because (as a single person) God is my only covering, I seek incomprehensible provision. I am certainly not perfect because, yes, the opposite is also true. I am unquestionably a spoiled American, and sometimes want more than what I need. My expectations are not to see God give me everything I want; however, I do have a tendency to be dissatisfied with certain things.
3) I have certainly been involved in “extreme faith.” I grew up during the faith movement, and then the healing movement…and any other kind of movement. I used to believe that if one was sick, or poor, that their life must not be right with God. I was humanistic in my belief that what I said had power to change the “atmosphere,” my health, and/or my well being. Funny thing happened…not real funny…more like ironic…I was hours away from dieing from severe acute pancreatitis, my doctors put me on morphine to make the transition easier, and I received a call from a dear friend who asked me what I had done to constitute where I was…I don’t remember much from those weeks of hospitalization, but I remember that conversation. I didn’t expect God’s healing then…I would have preferred that He take me out, but He had another plan. I think with all my experiences I am on a pretty even keel now.
4) Externally, He delivered me from a life that was headed for destruction if I had continued on the path I had planned, and He healed me…I should not be writing this now. Internally, He changed my heart of stone…I had no idea who He was, and I didn’t care to know, but He drew me in and held me close to Himself until my yuck melted away and I could say “I love you” back.
5) Faith cannot be separate from hope. Well, Holly did a pretty good job of explaining…you ROCK my friend! I could not be so eloquent, so I’ll just say: If faith is the “substance of things hoped for,” (Heb 11:1) than the two cannot be separate. Faith puts feet to that which we hope for. I hope for Christ’s soon return…I will do something to help others hope for his soon return because I believe so deeply my hope becomes a faith I want to share.
Love this post, Leigh!! I am still alittle behind in the study... but working my way to get caught up. But I wanted to post a comment on what you wrote here. I have so often looked for external results without a heart change. The way I know this is that whenever me and my husband have pursued something "our way" we fall flat on our faces. And that has been often. When my husband lost his job recently we just "gave up" and gave it over to God knowing and believing that He would provide exactly what we need at the right time - His time. It was hard to not try and fix it ourselves, but we had done that so many times in the past and failed. So this time we placed our faith in Him completely and He delivered! My husband now has an awesome job, in a good enviroment, and financially it was a BIG answer to prayer. Faith can't be separated from hope because "faith is the substance of things hoped for." You can't have one without the other. Our God is so good and so faithful to take care of us. We sometimes just don't like His timetable. :-)
Blessings to you and yours~
Karen
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