A Firm and Stable Heart

I've got such a heavy heart tonight. I sat down to complete my bible study for my weekly meeting, and as I began studying I just felt confused. So I stopped and prayed and just asked God to reveal through His word...the lessons He would have my heart to hear. I've felt that way going through this study from the beginning, which I have to be honest is a weird feeling for me. Then as I was working through tonight, I came across three things in this study that are biblically wrong(as far as I can tell...saying that Iknow I am a sinner..so I am open to being corrected). Things that I am not willing to compromise on. One specifically is the Sovereignty of God. To me, that is an issue I will not compromise on. If you've been following my blog at all, or if you've just stopped in...I'd encourage you to pick a previous post and read through it...my prayer is that you will be captivated by a God-given passion for God's word. See...having grown up in a non believing home, I never heard God's word, and never understood Christianity...in fact I thought it was often something that just wasn't available to me, because I wasn't good enough or "chosen" like others were. I often felt my family just wasn't good enough for God, and that was the way it would be, I wasn't born into it..so there was no use trying. So when I heard the gospel at 16, I knew that was what I had believed in my heart all along, and now I finally knew the name of my Savior! I called upon Jesus and my life has never been the same. In college, I was discipled for about 18 months by a good friend, and I remember being told, "one day you'll pick up the Bible and you won't be able to put it down" I longed for that night!! Til one afternoon my junior year of college, I began in the early afternoon in Hebrews and I finished somewhere around 5 am somewhere in Revelation! It was an amazing night...I remember just being captivated by the utter perfection of God's word...and how at my every thought or question there was an answer waiting for me in the passages of scripture!

As I was studying tonight, I became discouraged...my mind starting thinking...what is going on with this study? How can it be so wrong on such key points....and then I thought...wait...what about the millions of women throughout the world that attend ladies bible studies...and just take the content of the study as truth without questioning it, because we as children of God FAIL to seek God in His word? Bottom line, the passion that I have for God's word and the transformational power of His word is a GIFT! It comes from God, it has nothing to do with me, and I want to make that clear because I do not piously sit here at my keyboard saying...get in God's word...I say that passionately crying out as a sister in Christ...let's get in His word girls!


"For Ezra had set his heart to study the law of the LORD and to practice it, and to teach His statutes and ordinances in Israel" Ezra 7:10. See...we like Ezra need to set our hearts to study the word of God! Set means to be firm, to be stable. We need to cry out to God and beg Him to give us firm and stable hearts....that our hearts would passionately pursue Him through His word that we would be transformed by the renewing of our minds (Romans 12:2). God's word is so clear on the necessity of being well versed in Scriptures...and it has nothing to do with being holier than others, being able to claim position or authority over others...but rather everything to do with living a life that gives glory to God.


"Do not conform any longer to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind. Then you will be able to test and approve what is God's will is - His good, pleasing and perfect will." Romans 12:2 (NIV)

"Be diligent to present yourself approved to God as a workman who does not need to be ashamed, accurately handling the word of truth. " 2 Timothy 2:15


See..we have a responsibility...to go therefore and make disciples....as commanded by Jesus in Matthew 28:19...and how can we make disciples of others if we ourselves are not first disciples? A disciple is a pupil (student) or an adherent of the doctrines of another (definition from dictionary.com). So we must study God's word if we are to be Christ's disciples. In the beginning was the word and the word was with God and the Word was God...we are in fact reading Jesus' written words...Jesus is the Word. We are to be in the word...to be in Christ...to be disciples of Him that was can in turn go and make disciples. That doesn't mean we are all to go to the mission field..look around you...do you have lost family members? Are your children lost? You don't have to go far to see those who need Jesus, just go through a drive through at any fast food restaurant, talk to the clerk at the gas station. But how do we share Jesus if we don't know Him that well ourselves? We've got to get to know Him through His word...we've got to be well versed in Scripture so that if we encounter a bible study and it proposes something that seems confusing to us...we can question why...and "bounce" it off of THE truth! To see if what people are teaching is truth.


It is my heart's deepest desire to have an accurate handling of God's word to His glory, that I may not be ashamed...but in all things point God's people to Him, point those who need Him to Him...and share my passion for God's word with others. God's word is the only absolute truth our world will ever know. I am seeing in myself the utter depths of my own depravity the more and more I study scriptures...and the more and more I see the standard that God has set for me, the more I see how short I fall...which makes me see how amazingly perfect my Savior is. The more I study God's word...the more I see myself for who I really am..a sinner...a broken, disgusting sinner...saved by a marvelous Savour! I long to be so filled with scripture.....just as the words of the sweet Psalmist, "But his delight is in the law of the LORD, And in His law he meditates day and night" Psalm 1:2.


Please, let's as sisters in Christ commit to praying for one another...that was would have firm and stable hearts to read and study God's word that by His infinite grace we would then apply it and be transformed by the renewing of our minds in Christ Jesus.