"With all we've learned and as our series concludes, what now? Will we simply have another study under our belts orwill we have Scripture in our bones? What happens next with us?"
I hope to have a heart filled with faith and expectancy when I ask God for wisdom, knowing that He delights to give it. I hope to resist the magnetic pull of this temporal world to shrink my life into a wilting wildflower in a dying meadow. I want to live for what endures. I want to live for Jesus.
And, Lord help me, I want to persevere in trials, sufferings, and persecutions, and not whine myself into a pathetic lather. For once in my life, I want to know what it's like to count it all joy when I fall into all sorts of difficulty. When deformed desires surface in this flawed heart of mine, I want to rush them to Jesus and request His swift healing. I want to watch my mouth, for crying out loud. Don't you? Our religion is utterly futile if we don't.
I want to keep the poor on my radar at all times and stop protecting myself from the pain and plight of others. Don't you? I want to love my neighbor as myself. I want to live in full expectancy of the glorious return of our Savior Jesus Christ. I want to pray more for the sick. Don't you?
Oh, Jesus, help us. Indwelling Holy Spirit, make us who, without You, we are not. Abba Father, do not let us get away with meaningless living. Rescue us from mirroring the image of this grotesquely disfigured world. Do not let up on us until we've done Your will. As James himself said, help us to "think of how we regard as blessed those who have endured" (5:11). This moment we sit before you dying to live differently. Help our unbelief. Do this through us, Jesus.
-Beth Moore
And there are just a few little statements taken from her last session that I want to remember.
Immunity from community = no ministry
Have the guts to say NO.
It's still a little bit a lot...AMEN!!
Mercy Triumphed.
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