Duty or Delight - End of Week 5

By Linda

Have you ever felt that God REALLY wanted you to get something? Not physically, but to understand something in such a way that the knowledge traveled from your head straight into your heart and manifested itself in the way you live? The past four weeks we have been learning so much about God’s love for us…how He has: chosen us, redeemed us, promised us and supplied us.  It is really sinking in. How can I not love a God who loves me (and you!!!!!) so much? How can I help but delight in Him?

In our fifth week of study Tammie brought us to that very thing ~ our response to His love.  The title for this week was Knowing God has Commanded Us.  We began the week with the passage in Mark where Jesus was asked what was the most important commandment. "The most important one," answered Jesus, "is this: 'Hear, O Israel, the Lord our God, the Lord is one. Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind and with all your strength. The second is this: 'Love your neighbor as yourself.  There is no commandment greater than these"   (Mark 12:29-31).  I don’t know about you, but this command seems daunting yet I believe each one of us yearns to be able to love God and others like this.  

Tammie began the week by teaching us what it means to love God and finished with showing us what it means to love others. To Love God:

1) Forms the beginning and end of our worship.

2) Is to trust His leadership in all our living.

3) Is to worship Him in Spirit and Truth.

4) Is to choose to love people.

5) Requires God-given heavenly skill.

We learned that how we love God and love others has much to do with how we delight in Jesus.  Loving God is not about keeping the rules but rather delighting in our relationship with Him. The human relationships in our lives can often be our greatest challenge. We need the Spirit’s power to help us do them well. Tammie points out that we were never meant to do this without Him.

This past week I heard another bible teacher speak on loving God with all we have. She made the point that God will never ask us to do something we are unable to do. Along with this, she reminded us of 1 John 5:14-15: “This is the confidence we have in approaching God: that if we ask anything according to his will, he hears us. And if we know that he hears us--whatever we ask--we know that we have what we asked of him”.   Doesn’t this fill you with joy and hope?  As we pray and ask God for a supernatural love of Him and others, He will surely answer!!

Here are the three things to know this week:

1) You will be completing the final week of homework, week six. It begins on page 130,  Knowing God Has Secured Our Victory. 

2) Last week we completed our last memory verse. Continue to refresh your spirit with the five verses we have memorized over the course of this study. 

3) Lastly, here is your video segment:

I can’t believe we are so near the end. Keep up the good work! It is so encouraging to know that as you have been studying God’s Word it is transforming your relationship with Him to one of delight.

Duty or Delight - End of Week Four

There are two times a year that I invariably take stock of my diet and commit or rather re-commit to healthy living.  They usually fall about six months apart and erupt from a season of excesses in both food and fun.  The first instance comes with an abrupt but sensible beginning, January 1^st.  New Year, new you.  The second culminates usually at the tail end of vacation.  Just one week of lavish and indulgent living propels me into the rigors of re-evaluating my cupboards and addressing what needs to stay and what needs to go. 

That is how I spent my day today.  After a week of sumptuous tasting foods in copious amounts, I felt this pressing need to re-evaluate.  After clearing out what was left in my fridge and cabinets, off I went to the grocery store.  I filled my cart with tons of fruits and vegetable and every kind of organic anything I could find.  But I wasn’t finished yet.  Next stop, the vitamin aisle.  As I perused the shelves, I couldn’t help but be dumbfounded by the array of different kinds of multiple vitamins and the specific needs they filled.  From Women 50+, to Special Menopausal Formula, to Women’s Active Mind and Body, to… you get the picture.  I finally landed on the one that I knew fit the ticket, High Potency Multi-vitamin Supplement.  Now if I am going to do the vitamin thing why mess with anything that is low potency or mediocre potency, only the high potency stuff for me.  Go big or go home, I always say.

This past week in our study Duty or Delight we learned about a high potency of sorts.  This whole week we focused on how to live a highly potent spiritual life.  Anyone feeling like they would prefer to settle on a low or mediocre potency brand of spirituality rather than the high full throttle kind we learned about?  Not me either.  I want to live in the fullness of what God has offered to us.  Thankfully our author didn’t just leave us with the thought that is possible but she gave us guidelines on how to actually make it happen.  These were her points on how to trigger that kind of potency:

1) Rely on His leadership.

2) Yield to His pruning.

3) Regularly practice repentance.

4) Inspect your crops often.

5) Set yourself apart.

6) Do not give up.

Each day’s lesson was filled with useful information and guidelines that taught us how to live in that kind of power.  How I hope that you were blessed by what you learned and are putting it into practice.  There was some tough learning this week but empowering.  Please be encouraged to give it a try and see if it makes a difference.  You will never know what you are missing out on unless you do what you have learned.  Just as all the healthy food and high potency vitamins won’t make a bit of difference if I don’t actually take them, all that you have learned this week won’t come to fruition in your life if you don’t apply the guidelines that you learned to make it happen. 

Here are the three things to know this week:

1) You will be completing week five of the homework starting on page 108 Knowing God Has commanded Us. 

2) Your memory verse is Ephesians 1:19 “And what is the immeasurable greatness of His power to us who believe, according to the working of His vast strength.”

3) Lastly, here is your video segment.

I hope that you are getting much out of our study and that God is blessing you with a freedom in the Spirit as you progress through the work.  I know that it is hard but a battle fought for is more apt to be one that is memorable.  Keep up the great work and don’t get discouraged for “you will reap a harvest if you don’t give up”.

Love you all so much!

Duty or Delight - End of Week Three

Promises, promises. 

Boy: “But Dad you promised?”

Dad: “I never promised I would do that.”

Boy: ‘Yes you did.”

Dad: “When did I say that I would do that?”

Boy: “The other day you said that you would do that.”

Dad: “No, I said maybe I would do that.”

Boy: “See, I told you, you promised.”

Dad: “I said maybe.”

Boy: “See you promised.”

Dad: “So, you think maybe is a promise?”

Boy: “Yeah.”

Dad: “Then what does no mean?”

Boy: “Maybe.”

Hmmmm.

Have you ever had this conversation?  Has anyone tried to hold you to something that you never actually promised to do?  No matter how you try to explain that you never actually committed to the thing, they are convinced that you did.

Now let me ask you this.  Have you ever been the boy in this conversation with God?  Have you expected Him to do something for you that perhaps He has never actually promised in His Word but you are convinced it is there?  For example, give you that beautiful house that is set on the hill that is way out of your financial league, or open up that position at work that you think for sure was made for you, or how about bringing you that gorgeous godly man you have had your eye on (never mind that he is already taken).  Have you ever believed that God would do something for you that wasn’t clearly stipulated in scripture?  Did you find it frustrating when it didn’t come to pass?  Did you feel like maybe God wasn’t being faithful to His promises?  Well perhaps you are like the boy in our conversation that thought a no was a maybe and a maybe was a promise. 

I think many of the things, when we really get down to it, that we are trusting God for are maybe’s.  They are the desires of our hearts that are birthed in the grey areas of scripture.   I have found myself “in the grey” more times then I would like to admit.  Trying to figure out if I can hold God to a clear promise for what I desire.  I love it when I can find a verse in scripture that just nails my request.  Because I am certain that God is faithful to keep His promise, I am most excited when I can find something that is that specific in His Word.  Then I know that it is mine.  No “maybes” about it! 

Do you sometimes get confused about this whole promise thing?  How do we know what God has promised us and what He hasn’t?  This past week in our homework we focused on six promises that we can receive and stand on.   Ones that we can, without a doubt, take to the spiritual bank.  No maybe’s just resounding yes’s.   They are:

1) God is our faithfulness.

2) God is our transformation.

3) God is our protection, always.

4) God is our Rock. 

5) God is our Counselor.

6) God is our inheritance, and we are His.

How I hope this past week has been a real boost to your faith as you meditated on this relationship we have with our Creator.  I have been praying that He has made what He has promised to you obvious as He ministered to you through His word.  I have been asking Him to expand your perspective to how He sees things and then wrap you in His love and comfort as He does. 

He loves you so and that is a promise!!

Here are your three updates for this week:

1) You will be starting on week four of the homework (boy that is so hard to believe) beginning on page 84.  The week’s topic is Knowing God Has Supplied Us.  If you want to learn how to walk in the power of the Spirit then this is the week for you.  

2) You confidence booster/memory verse is:

“I pray that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father would give you a spirit of wisdom and revelation in the knowledge of Him.  I pray that the perception of your mind may be enlightened so you may know what is the hope of His calling, what are the glorious riches of His inheritance among the saints.”  Eph 1:17-18

3) Lastly, here is your video:

We are half way through our study and I hope that you are enjoying your time with the Lord and with each other.  Great job ladies.  Keep at it.  Surprises await. 

Love you much!

God makes a promise; faith believes it, hope anticipates it, patience quietly awaits it.

Duty or Delight - End Week Two

“I can’t get no… satisfaction”

Those song words have been playing over and over in my head this past week.  In my BC days, (before Christ) I might have been rocking and rolling with the music not paying much attention to what I was saying but enjoying the rhythm and radical mindset that gripped my generation.   Fast forward to June 2012 and it isn’t the rhythm that grabs me but the sentiment.  Amen Mr. Jagger.  Who knew you were so spiritual?  Were you aware when you belted out the words how true they were…at least spiritually speaking? 

This past week in our homework, we learned about how nothing will ever satisfy us quite like Jesus. 

“Looking for satisfaction apart from God assails us all.  We look for it in positions we hold, places we live, vehicles we drive, addictions we practice, brands we wear, and knowledge we possess.  All idolatry and disobedience come from looking for satisfaction apart from Christ”  (Duty or Delight P39).

What is that you say?  “All idolatry and disobedience come from looking for satisfaction apart from Christ”.  Do you mean to say that my obsessive tendencies towards perfection and my covetous nature are really just a litmus test of where I am actually seeking my satisfaction?  When I prefer to manipulate and deceive those I love by coloring the truth to get what I want, am I really just seeking the satisfying outcome that comes from reaching my perceived goal?  When I choose to do things my way instead of walking in obedience to His way, have a just erected an idol of self-reliance?   Or is it when I yield my life and the outcome of my efforts to His power and perspective, there is where I will find the true soul filling satisfaction that I am after?  It’s there that I will realize that not only is He the giver of everything I need but He is everything that I need.

Hmmmm.  (This is me pondering.)

So here are the three things that you need to know this week:

1) You will start on week three of the homework Knowing God Has Promised Us on page 60. 

2) The memory verse for this week is:

“We have also received an inheritance in Him, predestined according to the purpose of the One who works out everything in agreement with the decision of His will, so that we who had already put our hope in the Messiah might bring praise to His glory.”   Eph 1:11-12

3) Here is this week’s video.

Love studying with you all!!

Duty and Delight - End Week One

Don’t you just love it when God brings the same message across your path through several different venues whether through a person, a speaker or some kind of written material?  That is precisely what happened to me the other day as I was working on week one of our homework in Duty or Delight. 

I have been slowing reading through a book on systematic theology.  Yes, I know what you are thinking.  Is she for real?  Sometimes I scare myself when I say these kinds of things.  Is this the same chick who can’t remember her cell phone number and who repeatedly has to read the same exact pasta box over and over every time she cooks to find out how long to boil the noodles?  Me, reading a book written by such a noteworthy scholar as Wayne Grudem with degrees from Harvard. Westminster Seminary and Cambridge?   He seems to be way out of my league.   I don’t know where this kind of appetite for study comes from but it is real and it is genuine.  No pretention here folks. Love learning about God.

So anyway, there I was perusing the chapter on God’s incommunicable attributes (that means ones that are unique to only Him), when I zeroed in on the first one, God’s independence.  Mr. Grudem’s definition reads as follows “God does not need us or the rest of creation for anything, yet we and the rest of creation can glorify him and bring him joy.”  (Systematic Theology by Wayne Grudem p. 160) He went on to talk about how God is perfectly able to accomplish His purposes without our assistance and while He doesn’t need our help that doesn’t mean that we don’t matter to Him.  He pointed out that this is the key to true significance.  Our significance isn’t because of what we do or how we can serve Him but because God decided that we would be important to Him!  We are significant because He says so. 

I was thinking about what we have studied all week about “Knowing God has chosen us” and the common pitfalls we stumble through.  I would have to say that Mr. Grudem’s definition fits beautifully into our first category of a twisted theology.  I think if we aren’t careful we can turn things upside down and think that God needs us to do this or that which is why we were chosen.  While we get to glorify Him through our lives and bring Him joy, He doesn’t need us for anything.  We don’t serve God out of obligation but out of choice.   A pastor put it well to me once when I was overwhelmed by ministry burdens, “Arlene, you don’t got to, you get to”. 

I think it is our constant struggle with wanting to feel significant and to make a difference that clouds our theology and trips us up.  What if we actually chose to believe that we are already significant because God says so!  Can’t you just feel the chains of bondage to approval addictions breaking?   What if we were to actually not only believe but act like we believe we are accepted in the beloved apart from anything we do?  That we are significant to God because of the very fact that we are His?  Would that, could that be enough?  This is what I want in the very core of my belief system.  The ability to grasp the concept that I don’t need to work myself to death to earn His approval but to know with every fiber of my being that I already have it.  While I am not as bad as I was when that pastor changed my perspective, I confess I am not completely resting where I would like.

So how did you do this week with your homework?  What pitfall did you relate to the most?  Our twisted theology?  Our insecurity?  Our fear or our shame?  I am fairly certain that God’s spiritual hammer hit the nail on the head for at least one of them for you too. 

Ok then here are your three reminders to keep you on track:

1) You will be working on week two of the homework Knowing God Has Redeemed Us.  You will start on page 37 and work through to page 59.

2) Your memory verse is “We have redemption in Him through His blood, the forgiveness of our trespasses, according to the riches of His grace that He lavished on us with all wisdom and understanding.”  Ephesians 1:7-8

3) Lastly, here is the recap video for you to watch.

We will be meeting next Tuesday, July 10^th at 9:30 to have worship, discussion time and fellowship.  Can’t wait to see you all.  Miss those I know and looking forward to meeting those I don’t. 

To those of you who are participating only through this blog, we would love for you to leave a comment to let us know how you are doing.  We are very aware that you are just as much a part of this Bible study as those that are meeting together.  We haven't forgotten that you are there.  Let us know how God is speaking to you.  We look forward to hearing your comments and getting to know you. 

Love you all so much!!