Know and Believe God (Day 2.1)
November 23, 2009 by Christine
Filed under BF-Week 02
Welcome to the second week of Breaking Free with Beth Moore! Thank you for returning to the Bible Study Cafe as we grow in faith and Break Free.
Last week we studied four kings and the challenges they faced. In Audio Session Two, we learn about three kinds of suffering-physical, mental, spiritual-and we thought about the one we are presently in. We learned about Jesus, the suffering servant, and wounding in our own lives so that God can bring it to healing. This week of Breaking Free, Beth is leading us through five primary benefits God plans for His children.
In today’s lesson, we’re asked to describe the God we know. When I described the God I know and believe, I found these characteristics: God is loving, protective, healing, providing, caring, teaching, listening, funny, patient, kind and forgiving. Without hesitation, I thought of my personal relationship with Him and how I know Him. I realize I discovered an intimate relationship with God when I accepted Christ as my Savior.
Accepting my Savior is the key to my freedom. If I seek freedom from eating, I find myself captive to my eating habits. If I seek freedom from other people, such as my children, spouse, parents or friends, I find myself captive to pleasing them. People, food, money, sex, alcohol, drugs, shopping, etc do NOT set me free, the Son sets me free. Knowing the Son sets me free, what am I doing to spend more time in intimacy with God? Am I ready to be set free, or am I comfortable in my bondage? God wants each of us to Know and Believe in Him.
Prayer Requests
Father, I’m asking that You make Yourself fully available to all the women participating in the Breaking Free Bible study. May each us know you and believe you with all our heart, mind, soul, body and strength. May our relationship with you be intimate and bathed in love. Fill our hearts with your wisdom and heal our souls with your words. We accept your son Jesus as our Savior, set us free. In Jesus name we pray.
Week Two Memory Verse (see scripture card in back of your workbook)
“You are my witnesses,” declares the LORD, “and my servant whom I have chosen, so that you may know and believe me and understand that I am he. Before me no god was formed, nor will there be one after me. Isaiah 43:10
Beth Moore Quotes
- God is anxious to help us overcome our unbelief -Beth Moore
- The ability to believe God develops most often through pure experience -Beth Moore
Today’s Scripture Verses
However, as it is written: “No eye has seen, no ear has heard, no mind has conceived what God has prepared for those who love him” 1 Corinthians 2:9
Since ancient times no one has heard, no ear has perceived, no eye has seen any God besides you, who acts on behalf of those who wait for him. Isaiah 64:4
So if the Son sets you free, you will be free indeed. John 8:36
Let’s Talk About It!
How would you describe your relationship with God, what characteristics would you use to describe Him?
Breaking free,
God to me is ALL Powerful, All Knowing and ALL Loving. He gave me His Grace and without that I am nothing. I was asked once to write my life in 6 words…This is what I came up with:
Broken But Blessed By His Grace
God is everything to me as Christine listed above…” loving, protective, healing, providing…”. What a great list!!
I made a discovery today when it said to describe positive and negative experiences that have had impact on our present level of trust. I wrote “There hasn’t been a time when I didn’t Trust in God-Just times I didn’t trust Myself.” Hmmm looks like the only negative in this equation is me.
My prayer today is that He continues to pursue us, making us desire more and more of His Love and Grace. That He calls our hearts to seek Him, draw nearer to Him and love Him more and more. That as we work on our issues of trust and brokenness that He removes the scales from our eyes and our hearts. Thank You Lord for loving us. I lift all of us up to You and thank You for drawing us together to learn more and more about your Love. Amen!
‘BROKEN BUT BLESSED BY HIS GRACE”–Theresa’s description fits my life perfectly! I’ve had a lot of bad things happen in my life, but God has given me grace for all of them, and I love him passionately and desperately! Right now I’m dealing with my insurance company about a $17,000 medflight bill they denied. Please pray that I would find favor with my appeal. Thanks!!
Kathy
God is….
all-knowing, all seeing, compassionate, caring, my provider, my strength, my peace, my redemption, my Savior.
My relationship with God is awesome…when I allow it to be. When doing today’s studies and answer the question about my relationship with God I realized (yet again) that when I do not feel close and personal and intimate with Him it is because I have stepped away. He is always there waiting to draw me closer…as close as I will allow Him.
Trusting Him….ahhhh, the trust issues. I have trust issues in my “natural” life and isn’t it just about right that I allow them to flow over into my relationship with God? I KNOW that God is in control. I do. But, much like Jesus himself I find myself asking “Why have you forsaken me?”, “How can this be your will?”
Reminding myself that just because I don’t understand it doesn’t mean God is not in it. Praying that I will know the things that eyes have not seen, ear has not hear and no mind has conceived…..
my relationship with god…i would say has been distant. i’ve been away from the church for a long time but i always had the foundation of him.
i would describe him as loving, faithful, and forgiving.
prayer request…can you please pray for healing for our family. we are sick with horrible coughs that will not go away. my oldest has had his since october, the rest of us, it went away for a while but has returned much worse this time. this is why i joined an online bible study, i missed the last month of bible study at my church due to sickness. thanks!
Praying for the health of your family Nicole!
My relationship with God? Challenging! growing? often has been rebellious…Yet I have always felt a desire to do more with my life, to know what it is that God really wants of me…so add “questioning” to that list…How do I see God? …seems at present He is “lawmaker, judge and disciplinarian”. I envy people who say things like “the Lord told me, or was going to do such and such and the Lord showed me to do such and such”. I feel I have been a lifelong Christian, born into church going believing family, baptized, confirmed and recommitted (may I say several times?) myself through my adult life, but lack that intimacy that people speak of. I journal, for last several years on regular basis, and do devotional readings, Bible studies, and pray, but have to admit that something is still lacking. Have been prayed over for Baptism of Holy Spirit.Have more than once asked Jesus to be Lord…. Believe in all of it, but still He is the god of Santa Claus…if I do good, I’ll go to heaven, if I do bad, there’s consequences. Loving? or judgmental…Forgiving? or righteous….Seems that as I try to walk in obedience, that the harsh god outweighs the God that others have been describing, and the God that I intellectually believe is there…but the other god has overshadowed Him for most of my life. I guess that going to a church where grace has been so taken out of context to mean “everything goes”, that I cringe back from that god…a god of mercy without righteousness. Love without discipline…but the discipline is what I rebel against and what makes Him seem harsh…….Can I add complicated to my relationship?
Pam I am praying for you. I have been in the place you are at. I would love to chat with you if you feel up to it. Just click my name and it will take you to my blog. My e-mail address is there.
Pam–
I thought of God that way for a really long time….I distinctly remember being told as a child that I would get a “black mark” by my name if I wasn’t “good”. So I kind of grew up with the mental image of God frowning down on me from his throne with his big black Sharpie waiting for me to mess up… But then, I began to realize that I couldn’t reconcile that picture and the one that the Bible spoke of…the one that forgave over and over again when His people sought him whole-heartedly. I really liked the idea of God as “Papa” in the book “The Shack”. I know that some religious leaders are not fans of the book and in no way do I consider it doctrine of any sort, but the picture of this warm, loving, humorous Papa is one that I really, really like. Also, after I had my son, it completely changed my view of God. I heard a message once about how we love our kids comparing to the love God has for us as His own children. If He loves me even half as much as I love my little Aiden…WOW! That’s some serious love. So yes, he is a God of discipline…but loving discipline to help us grow–just as we are to our children and (hopefully) as our parents were to us. Praying for you, xoxo!
Thank you both, I’ll do that Theresa, and Christy, what you wrote is so true. My mom used to say that when you had children of your own you knew how you could love them the way a parent does. I never had children, but have wondered how parents could have such patience. It is a kind of love that is so special. At Thanksgiving, I should be truly greatful for the fact that God has chosen to discipline me, rather than allow me to continue in a path He did not want me on. But, the Bible says that all discipline seems painful at first….so guess that’s where I’ve been for a few years now..a spoiled kid saying “all the other kids get to do it!” and somehwere remembering my mom saying “and if they all jumped off a bridge I should let you do that?”. God cares enough about me to not let me do what “all the other kids” are doing, so to speak. If I let myself think along that path, it is pretty incredible to believe…God is truly doing a work in my heart with this study. Thank you for your prayers and caring! I truly believe that as Beth says we will be breaking free and loving God in whole new way by the end!
God continually amazes and perplexes me. I’ve walked with Him for awhile now and although I know He is the same yesterday, today and tomorrow – I change . . . and so has my awareness of Him. To me, He is my comforter, my encourager, the only one that I can trust with all my thoughts, fears, insecurities, He is the one who collects my tears, He gives me peace and patience in my trials, He is my friend, I love that you used the word funny, Christine, because I love that about God – that He can laugh! I love that He is such a creative creator – and that He loves music …Couldn’t we all go on & on about who He is to us?
I love Pam’s honesty – and I know God respects her openness …I think most of us go through those times when we know God is there, but we so want to feel it – - we want something tangible . ..I’m going through several trials right now that I don’t understand and I want God to send me an e-mail telling me what to do …I want to understand why the heartache? But I know He has gotten me through other things and He is with me,now. So, Pam, hang in there – keep seeking with your honest heart!
He is complicated, complex . . . but I wouldn’t want to do life without Him!
My relationship with God is odd. I truly see him as my father. Never having met my father I chose to accept God as my dad. Yet there are things that have happened that I am so hurt over and feel such anguish. My relationship with my mother is the worst strong hold in my life and I can’t get seem to figure it out. I know that God is ever powerful, I am his child, and he can help, yet I struggle with all of this pain. I am a mother and when I see my son hurting all I want to do is comfort him and help resolve the source of his pain. So why can’t I get the help that I am praying for from my father. I don’t understand, and the guilt I feel for feeling this way makes a bad situation worse.
My post keep getting deleted.. anybody else have this problem? I post and it shows up and then it is gone when I come back??
Jennifer
Your posts are showing up in the comments section. There is a delay from the time you post to the time it appears…simply because we attract spam (being a women’s website) and we need to moderate the comments. We allow 100% of the posts to go through if you are participating in the study…sorry for the frustration
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he is all powerful, all knowing, all seeing, compassionate, loving, comforter, the god who sees, provider, healer,strenght, redeemer,savior. father. my relationship with god is growing even if at times i feel like i don’t know what he is doing or feel like he may be distant at times.
God is my everything. I never knew what unconditional love was til I met Him. God has given me so much love, forgiveness, grace, He is so passionate about everything and makes me feel like the only women on earth. My realationship with Him is pretty new on my part. As I read, pray and worship and get to know Him the more I fall in love with Him. Blessings