Monday 11 April 2011

Did you hear that?? IT WAS GOD!!

So tongiht was our April PWOC fellowship.  I was speaking, and just before I spoke I had to lay a little smack down on Satan...  he thought he was going to get the best of me, but God had it all under control!  I took a deep breathe and all I remember is Talking, I heard some laughter, (with me not at me!) and off we went!  God really showed up this evening!  I am including my lesson from tonight in this blog,  God is good!!


Good evening Ladies!  I want to begin with a prayer this evening,  Let us pray.

Ladies I have an exercise that I would like to do with you all,  if I could ask you all to bow your head and close your eyes. Just listen to the words that I am speaking to you, let them just flow through you. 

God Loves you
God already knows you intimately
God Loves you
God wants you to talk to him
God Loves you
God created you in his image
God Loves you
You were made perfectly by Gods hands
God Loves you
God wants to overflow you with Love and joy
God Loves you
God wants a relationship with you
God Loves you
God has put you here for a reason
God Loves you
God wants to comfort you in your times of trial and hurt
God Loves you
God wants to fill you up with LOVE
God Loves you
God wants to help you grow
God Loves you
God wants to help you up when you fall, and WE ALL FALL
God Loves you
God wants to give you immeasurable peace
God Loves you
God wants you to let go
God Loves you
God wants you to come to him
God Loves you
God wants you to surrender
God Loves you
God wants you to come to him like a child, we are ALL his children
God Loves you
God wants to bless you
God Loves you
God wants to forgive you
God Loves you
God wants to heal your hurts
God Loves you
God wants you to open up
God LOVES YOU!

Ok ladies you can open your eyes, there is tissue on the table if you need it.  Let me tell you now, if you are here looking for a one size fits all answer on how to hear from God that IS NOT what this is!  I am not perfect and I DO NOT have all the answers, but God has allowed me this wonderful gift of being able to hear him and know it’s him without question. Right now I would like to share with you now an amazing illustration of US as Beings.  Go with me here ladies! 




CIRCLE 1(mere man “non-Christian”)
Ok so these circles represent us in different stages of life again go with me here ladies!   Before we come to know Christ this is how we look.  We are seated on the throne of our life and God is on the outside.   We try and deal with life with our own understanding and we fail time and time again we get lost in this wide web we have created of trying to deal with things like
Gossip, lying, stealing, pornography, jealousy, lust, pride, adultery, addiction,
When we try and deal with these things on our own we become worn out and tired, our anger and irritability becomes magnified. 
The further we are from the word of God, the more things fall apart!

1 Corinthians 2
Paul’s Message of Wisdom
1 When I first came to you, dear brothers and sisters,[a] I didn’t use lofty words and impressive wisdom to tell you God’s secret plan.[b] 2 For I decided that while I was with you I would forget everything except Jesus Christ, the one who was crucified. 3 I came to you in weakness—timid and trembling. 4 And my message and my preaching were very plain. Rather than using clever and persuasive speeches, I relied only on the power of the Holy Spirit. 5 I did this so you would trust not in human wisdom but in the power of God.
6 Yet when I am among mature believers, I do speak with words of wisdom, but not the kind of wisdom that belongs to this world or to the rulers of this world, who are soon forgotten. 7 No, the wisdom we speak of is the mystery of God[c]—his plan that was previously hidden, even though he made it for our ultimate glory before the world began. 8 But the rulers of this world have not understood it; if they had, they would not have crucified our glorious Lord. 9 That is what the Scriptures mean when they say,
“No eye has seen, no ear has heard,
      and no mind has imagined
   what God has prepared
      for those who love him.”[
d]
10 But[e] it was to us that God revealed these things by his Spirit. For his Spirit searches out everything and shows us God’s deep secrets. 11 No one can know a person’s thoughts except that person’s own spirit, and no one can know God’s thoughts except God’s own Spirit. 12 And we have received God’s Spirit (not the world’s spirit), so we can know the wonderful things God has freely given us.
13 When we tell you these things, we do not use words that come from human wisdom. Instead, we speak words given to us by the Spirit, using the Spirit’s words to explain spiritual truths.[f] 14 But people who aren’t spiritual[g] can’t receive these truths from God’s Spirit. It all sounds foolish to them and they can’t understand it, for only those who are spiritual can understand what the Spirit means. 15 Those who are spiritual can evaluate all things, but they themselves cannot be evaluated by others. 16 For,
“Who can know the Lord’s thoughts?
      Who knows enough to teach him?”[
h]
But we understand these things, for we have the mind of Christ.

BUT…
Romans 10:9-17
  9 If you confess with your mouth that Jesus is Lord and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. 10 For it is by believing in your heart that you are made right with God, and it is by confessing with your mouth that you are saved. 11 As the Scriptures tell us, “Anyone who trusts in him will never be disgraced.”[e] 12 Jew and Gentile[f] are the same in this respect. They have the same Lord, who gives generously to all who call on him. 13 For “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”[g]
 14 But how can they call on him to save them unless they believe in him? And how can they believe in him if they have never heard about him? And how can they hear about him unless someone tells them? 15 And how will anyone go and tell them without being sent? That is why the Scriptures say, “How beautiful are the feet of messengers who bring good news!”[h]
 16 But not everyone welcomes the Good News, for Isaiah the prophet said, “Lord, who has believed our message?”[i] 17 So faith comes from hearing, that is, hearing the Good News about Christ.

Circle 2 (a Christian)
When we accept Christ into our hearts he starts to grow in us what are called the fruits of the spirit. 
Galatians 5:22-23
Love, Joy, Peace, Patience, Kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. 

As he grows these fruits in our lives he starts dealing with all the sin in our lives one by one.  While this transformation is happening, we are changing gradually on the outside, suddenly our language isn’t so foul, our attitude isn’t so nasty, our whole person just changes.   And he also makes it possible for you to know more quickly when you have sinned…  While we are here we will have an open communication with God.  I pray about EVERYTHING!  I mean EVERYTHING!  Ok, when I wake up, my first thing I do is to eat, I struggle with over eating, so my first prayer ISNT “God what cereal should I eat today?”  My prayer would be “God please help me to keep my portions under control.”  Then I would get dressed, my prayer here wouldn’t be, “God what should I wear today?”  It would be “Please help me to not dress in an inappropriate manner, God help me to choose clothing that is tasteful”    one thing we DON’T want to do is to cause anyone else to stumble and fall.  I pray often that God would help me bite my tongue and control my anger.  In this SELF AWARNESS, I have to be EXTREAMLY picky about who and what I spend my time around.  For me something that I have personally struggled with a LOT in my life is Alcohol, this is something that I just CAN NOT be around.  There is nothing wrong with a glass of wine, but I am an all or nothing kind of girl.  This makes it VERY hard for me to be around anyone drinking.  Also I have the tendency to become like what I am around….  Anyone else out there like me?  If I am around someone who is cussing a lot, I start to do the same, God has worked this out of my life so much that I can’t even watch TV shows with Cussing in them…  well there goes 90% of Cable TV, so we cut off the cable in our home.  Doesn’t mean you have to, my struggle isn’t your struggle.  I have to be very picky about who I hang out with; I pick up bad habits QUICK!  Joyce Meyer puts it like this:  “If you are going to hang around people of this world, you better make sure you are affecting them and they aren’t INFECTING you!”  I loved that because that’s exactly what happens to me.  I let myself become infected with the JUNK of the world. 

---à Leading me to the last circle…




Circle 3 (a fallen Christian)
When we sin we take Christ OFF the throne of our lives and we take control again.  The longer we stay here the more and more we look like a mere man without Christ on the outside. 

When I really gave my life to Christ I was not hanging out with the best group of people.  Anytime one would call, I would get very nervous and literally sick to my stomach.  When Christ got ahold of my heart, he began to show me what was not ok.  I would be around these people and they would begin to gossip…  and I would join right in and when I would get home at night God would replay the entire conversation in my head and show me JUST how ugly it was and just how UGLY I was being.  This only happened one or 2 times before I got it and I realized that God was talking to me through images or “moving pictures” or “visions” if you will.  I was able to pray through this and Ask God to lead me to what his will was.  I was afraid that he was going to tell me to cut ties and that is EXACTLY what he had asked me to do.  This was NOT easy to just pull away and let myself grow in Christ.  If I had stayed around these people I would have stunted my own growth, I would have fallen into old sin and pushed God to the back burner.  Instead I asked God to help me out and help me let go of what I couldn’t control anyways.  This was the beginning of God growing me!    Now its not like God just takes everything away and that’s the end of it….  NO you have to work for it.  You did nothing for forgiveness HOWEVER when we are growing in Christ, we are constantly changing, learning, we will slip and fall and when we do its important that we Confess the sin ( which is our attitude) and we Repent for what we did (ask for forgiveness, this is our action) Sin stunts our growth and the sooner we deal with it the sooner we can move forward with God and learn more… 

How God Actually speaks!
Now onto the HOW God actually speaks to us… 
Visual- visions
Auditory- words in your head… 
Kinesthetic- sense (like you just know you have to call someone!)

How to DISCERN the voice of God
#1 Does what I have seen, sensed or heard line up with the Bible. Does it fit the demeanor of God
*The BIBLE is your filter.

#2 Does it produce the fruit of the spirit?  Galatians 5:23
#3 All truth have the ability of setting people free?
Releasing you from the power suffering has over you…  you may have to still suffer, BUT the power it has over you will be let up. 



God has unlimited ways of speaking to us.  Because of that, I polled about 20 women who in my eyes are strong women of faith and these are some of the answers I got back! 

Through Music-music speaks when words can not
Reading-I can hear God speak to me through them by a single sentence stopping me in my tracks like I want to read on but I can't
through song, music and times of praise and worship
unexpected kindness shown to me, a quiet moment in my day where he reveals facts, sometimes hard lessons that I am resistant to learn
you have to be seeking Him to hear Him. You have to know Him -(studying the Bible) to recognize Him voice.
Through our children
Gut instinct- there is NO SUCH thing as a gut instinct….  THAT’S GOD!!
A whisper- almost like a thought but you know you didn’t think it.
Dreams or visions
Still small voice
Through other people.
One lady said that when God wants her to be quiet she shows her a picture of SHHHH  in her head!  Wish I had that!

God cant drive a parked car ladies, its up to us to put it in drive and he will guide us once we do this!

2 comments:

  1. YAY GOD !!!! way to go Amber, great message ! "garbage in, garbage out" has been a struggle for me too...to let go of exhausting people, tv shows that make me cringe more than laugh.Personally, i can no longer listen to radio, there seems to be no more actual 'singing' and the lyrics are in no way encouraging or even enjoyable. it has always struck me that we use music to teach our children many things (abc's, books of the bible, etc) but then we let them listen to music that degrades women, promotes violence, drug use & overt sexuality....Love you girl!! do you mind if i post this as a note on FB ?

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  2. don't mind at all! thank you for your kind words!

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