Well Ladies, it is already week three and we are pressing through and having our hearts filled with awesome truth! We hope that you are enjoying this study and something Beth said that resonated in day one: "We don't want women in Bible Study camps. We want them in the Bible! We don't want them to become followers of a teacher, we want them to be followers of Christ." We believe that Thursday Night Ladies Night will be a time of renewal as you allow God to "build your house!"
Several years ago I recognized a call on my life into a specific ministry in the church. Due to my flesh nature of being incredibly confident, I took this call as an invitation to "serve the Lord" with everything I was. I was committed and determined to do my best with what He gave me with the thought always in the back of my head, "if ya don't use it ya lose it." I was not doing anything wrong necessarily and people were blessed during that time I served but I had my focus in the wrong place. I was trying to do something for God and all the while He was trying to do something in me.
"You're not going to build a house for Me. I'm going to build a house for you! When God doesn't appear to bless your plan to do something for Him, consider that He wants to do something for you instead...then let him reveal it to you over time, cooperate... work that God blesses always originates with a specific work of His IN us." You see there is a difference here in that many of us work so hard to DO something to PROVE something. We might be trying to prove to ourselves that we are good people; we might be trying to prove to others that we are good people. We might even be trying to prove to God that we are faithful. Girls, God is not calling us to prove ourselves. God wants to do a great thing in us so that we can begin to walk in His likeness. It's not what we do but what we allow Him to do in us.
So, over time I realized that this ministry I had been called to would be the one area I would meet a friend who would allow the Lord to use her to help build His house in me. During about a year's time this friend "wounded" me with truth from God's Word. All the while I was serving and desiring to be more for God wondering why I had to deal with such difficult people. Not yet had I recognized that He was beating the difficult out of me (building my house) so I would love people more like He loved them. Right where I walked in so much confidence, just knowing He was using me, was right where He started construction on my heart so that I would be of more value, not to prove I could do it but to see His Kingdom come! Here I thought that I was doing something so wonderful for Him and He showed me that He was doing something wonderful in me! Sweet Freedom!!
You might be in an area of service or responsibility right now that you were certain God was using you to make a difference but you feel defeated and just plain frustrated. Consider today that it might be right where God wants you but you're not the one who was meant to "build His house," it is you He is trying to build up.
"Anything God has stopped you from doing (or slowed you down during) for Him was only so you'd be still enough to let Him first do something for you."
(All quotes come from our weekly homework)
3 comments:
Awesome food for thought!
Random verse popped in my head after reading this:
Psalm 46:10
"Be still, and know that I am God; I will be exalted among the nations, I will be exalted in the earth."
GOD IS THE MASTER ARCHITECT. EPH 2:10
Amen! :D
I like the one one teacher put it, (can't remember his name right off hand) in explaining that verse. God is the Master Architect alright, and we are the sub-contractors called to build His house. In the end we're going to give an account of why we did or did not do the work He told us to do.
Though I'd be a bit careful around non-Christians referring to God as the "Master Architect" as that's the title the Freemasons use for their God that they worship. XD
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