"To Know God and Believe Him"
So far, we have read about the reigns of kings Uzziah, Jotham, Ahaz, and Hezekiah. Again, it is no coincidence that God led us to choose this book as our Bible Study, while He was leading Pastor Brandon to preach on the very same thing! That should be a good indicator to pay attention because God is trying to put His finger on this area! We have studied the following things about these kings: Uzziah, successful and godly, until unchecked pride led to his downfall. Jotham(Uzziah's son), good guy, believed in God but indifferent in many areas of sin in his nation. Ahaz(Jotham's son), wicked, ungodly, worhsipped false gods, and not coincidentally the areas Jotham chose to ignore are the very areas that his own son was ensnared. Hezekiah(Ahaz's son), turned and sought the Lord despite his upbringing and circumstances. He struggled with pride, but ultimately repented so God could heal him. I think we need to start off by stating 3 key facts:
1. Anyone can be held captive (Galatians 5:1 "It is for freedom that Christ has set us free. Stand firm, then, and do not let yourselves be burdened again by a yoke of slavery.") According to this verse, it is possible to be enslaved again to sin. Just because you are a Christian, does not mean you are automatically walking in freedom.
2. God desires for every believer to be free. (Galatians 5:13 "You, my brothers, we called to be free.") There are some areas we may pray for (like physical healing for example) that we will not experience the complete answer until we are in heaven with Jesus, BUT freedom is not one of those things! Freedom is available to every believer, and God calls us to be free.
3. Freedom is not a feeling, it's a choice. (I Peter 2:16 "Live as free men.") We are told to live it period. In many areas, we may continually feel as if we are still bound, but we walk that freedom out until we see the results with our eyes.
You are probably involved in this Bible Study because you want to experience freedom. Maybe when you hear the word "freedom" something immediately pops up in your mind; something you long to be free of. Maybe it is a habitual sin, an addiction. Maybe it is unforgiveness, a bad attitude, or anger. Maybe it is loneliness or depression or you are critical or judgmental. Maybe you are bound in chains of pride and the key to the lock cannot be found. Whatever it is, remember: you aren't alone. Anyone can be held captive, BUT GOD desires for you to be FREE. And to make that happen, we have to start by making a choice to live in freedom. For some, just that knowledge is enough, but for most, those are wistful thought on paper that only the "strong" can attain. So for the majority, we will look at what keeps us in captivity, and what area of freedom we should be enjoying instead.
Captivity defined again is "anything that hinders the abundant and effective Spirit-filled life God planned for you." Today, we are looking at what every believer in Christ should experience: "to know God and believe Him." The word "know" here means at the level of personal familiarity, like that found between a husband and a wife. The absence of that benefit in your Christian life, is an indicator of captivity. In other words, unbelief here directly hinders abundant, Spirit-filled life in you.
"To know God and believe Him." There is a difference (a BIG ONE) between knowing OF God, knowing facts about Him, and KNOWING Him. For example, all of us know OF President George W. Bush. We can spout off facts about him. We know when he was born, where he went to school, his political path and his home state. We know the names of his wife and children and most of us can quote things he has said that stirred us, like after that terrible day when terrorists attacked and President Bush stood in the rubble at ground zero and declared war on the terrorists responsible. I think I loved that man that day. But I think I am safe to say that NONE of us really KNOW him. In fact, probably not one of us has even had a conversation with him. And should there be one of you out there who has actually exchanged words with George W. Bush, there likely still is no relationship there. We don't actually KNOW him. We don't know his likes, dislikes, his pet peeves, frustrations, joys and sorrows. We know about him, but we don't KNOW him. It's like that between you and me too. Many of us know each other; like most of you know that I like coffee, hate styrofoam, love soccer, skiing and shopping, but hate Walmart and leaving the Christmas decorations up past December 26th. But do you KNOW me? Do you know what I dream of? What moves me? What I am terrified of? Or do you just know about me? Do you see the difference? And that is just you and me.
Do you KNOW the Lord? Do you know who HE says He is? Do you know what He thinks about you, and how He feels about you? Do you seek Him, and His heart and share your dreams and fears with Him? Or are you just able to list some facts about Him? You see HE wants to know YOU, intimately. But many times WE don't want to know Him. Why do we do that? Well we have plenty of good reasons; we are busy, we can't see Him, He already knows everything about us so why tell Him, we have been hurt, we don't want to disappoint Him and on and on. When you get right down to it, we can treat our relationship with God like a recipe. We can list off all of the ingredients, and how to put them all together to make a great meal, but we can go through our lives and never actually EAT. In John 6:35 Jesus declares "I AM THE BREAD OF LIFE. He who comes to me will never go hungry..." It doesn't do us any good to carry around the Bread of Life all the time; to talk about it and list off the ingredient list and never actually nourish ourselves and EAT. And likewise, there is such a HUGE DIFFERENCE between knowing ABOUT God, and KNOWING Him. I want the KNOWING Him kind of relationship, because it's really not much of a relationship otherwise. And I want it for you too. To know Him intimately, personally, passionately. Our relationship with God is intended to be just that, a relationship, where there is give and take, sharing and listening, and where we are nourished. I believe that the most important principle comes out of this:
The more we KNOW Him, the more we'll BELIEVE Him.
If you all heard a rumor today, that Di Beals was seen at a seedy bar, dressed "scantily", obviously drunk, and dancing on the bar, I hope that some of you out there who know me (and maybe not even very well!) would say "Oh that can't be true, that is not the Di I know! I know her, I know her character she wouldn't do that, that can't be right." It is the same way with God! When you find yourself in a place where you are having a hard time believing God, and your mind is overrun with thoughts like: "God has left me..." "He isn't going to help me because I did....." "He can't forgive me for....." are you able to stop yourself and say "Wait a minute, that can't be right, that is not the God I know! The God I know, does provide, rescue, set free, deliver, forgive, accept...." You get the picture. God has provided for our freedom, and the more we know him, the more we'll believe Him, and we will stop standing in that jail cell with the door wide open.
Isn't it amazing that we can believe that Jesus is our Savior in just a matter of seconds, but spend the rest of our life on earth believing Him for nothing more? Rhonda and I just came from the Northwest Women's conference this weekend. It was really great for me to be there and just take some time to worship the Lord and grow. Rhonda was in charge of an aspect of the conference called the "Prayer Walk." This is where women at the conference can walk through different "stations" and follow instructions for different types of prayer. There was a place for cleansing, and meditating and expressing worship through painting, but my favorite was the freedom part. Rhonda put out a box of old keys and attached blank tags to each one. The women were instructed to think about what holds them captive, write it on the tag, and leave it there representing leaving that area of captivity behind. At the end of the conference Rhonda stood on the stage before those hundreds of women and held up an enormous ring of keys with tags listing all kinds of bondages. She announced to those women that Jesus had provided freedom for them and that these keys represent that freedom! It is such a powerful picture, and it is true. Now catch this, none of those women had any outward sign of freedom when they walked into that prayer station. At that point, nothing in their lives or circumstances had necessarily changed....yet. They were instructed to write down what they were choosing to be free of, and as they left that conference they now have to choose to believe they are free, and walk it out! WITHOUT KNOWING GOD, THEY CAN'T POSSIBLY BELIEVE, AND WITHOUT BELIEF THEY CAN'T POSSIBLY BE FREE. The key to your area of bondage is available too. Your job is recognize your area of captivity and believe in God to be powerful and loving enough to release your from bondage. I am declaring today that yes you can be free!
Your assignment:
1. I hope you have taken some time to look for similarities in your own life and the lives of the kings you studied last week. Our sin, and areas of captivity, not only affect us, but they affect our children and the generations to come. I hope you are also taking seriously the challenge to memorize Isaiah 61:1-4. This was Jesus' mission on earth, and ultimately it is ours too. When we are feeling beaten and captive we can quote this and remember our purpose and calling in life.
So your first assignment, if you haven't already, is to complete last week's assignment!
2. Beth Moore says "If we can admit our lack of confidence in Him, He is willing to help us overcome our unbelief." For this week, think on areas of unbelief in your life. Where is it that you are struggling to believe God? Confess it to God, ask for His help and then share it with the group. Long or short, I want everyone to share something.
3. For personal study and meditation, think of a time that God was faithful in the past. An instance when you KNEW you felt Him, heard Him, etc. Write it in your journal and then compare it to what you wrote down for #2 (above) thank Him OUT LOUD for not changing. If you found Him faithful yesterday, He will be faithful today too. Do this daily until you sense your attitude changing, the release of the "unbelief chains", or the changing of the circumstances. It is so important for your ears to hear what your mouth is declaring. You may feel shaky saying it at first, but you will grow in confidence the more that you repeat the truth. God is powerful, He does love you, He can heal you and He IS FREEING YOU!
Please share all "Praise reports/testimonies" with the group. You may feel like it is silly, or that you are too busy, but you have no idea how encouraging you are to someone else. Talk talk talk girls, this is what this is all about. Not for isolation, but for encouragement between a group of ladies whose schedules would never allow for all of them to congregate regularly.
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Blessings!
di
posted by Di Beals | 11:11 AM
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