DISCLOSURE: Over the next 5 weeks there will be posts related to a Bible study that I'm currently doing. For those of you who aren't into that kind of thing, please feel free to skip over them. I'll try to post other parts of my crazy adventures for your enjoyment. FYI, there will be multiple cooking and craft attempts coming up soon. **
I went into this Bible study not fully anticipating that God would speak to me during the intro to the book! If this is any indication, it seems that God is going to give me a hard look at my heart. To hold myself accountable to the completing the study, I wanted to share with y'all at the end of the week the lessons that God has taught me. There were some big ones just in the first week!
- We need to make the study of God's word intentional. I'm a master of making to-do list and then pushing things off to the next day (or week) because it isn't a high priority. While this study focuses on being intentional in the study of God's word, it made me realize that there are many areas of my life where I'm not living it intentionally. I say that I'm going to call, e-mail, or text friends, but then weeks or months go by before I realize that I haven't. I say that I'm going to read a chapter a day in whatever book I'm on the Game of Thrones series (currently A Feast for Crows), but some days I'm not making an intentional effort to get that chapter in. I say that I'm going to exercise 5 days a week, and while I've made more of an intentional effort to do so lately, it's been a process to get to that point. I want the things I do with my life to have purpose, and do that, I must make an effort to live my life with intent.
- "If we can so easily remember catchy lyrics and memorable movie lines, how much more should we seek to remember the words of our Lord and Savior?" WOW! This is the line from the intro that really spoke to me. My friends all make fun of my insane ability to remember song lyrics after hearing a song just one time. Back in the day, I was in Bible Drill, and had memorized tons of scriptures. I can still quote a good many of them, but it's become more difficult. I guess this goes back to that whole being intentional thing. I haven't made an intentional effort to memorize God's word. I do make an effort to memorize song lyrics. Songs speak to me more than just words, so I have plenty of hymns memorized, but it's not the same as knowing the actual scriptures that the hymns are based on. I need to be more intentional not just in learning God's word, but committing it to memory.
- The law, specifically the Ten Commandments, pointed out people's sin, thereby making them aware of it. WHOA! This one was a hard pill to swallow because I don't like having my faults pointed out to me. This statement made me rethink how I view the pointing out of my faults and how I go about pointing out the faults in others. It's one thing to criticize, it's a different thing to point faults out in a loving way as to make someone aware of them. Many times we are blinded to our own sin, and we don't become aware of it until someone points it out to us. God didn't give us these laws to set us up for failure because he knew that we would want to do them more knowing they were forbidden. He gave them to us to point out our shortcomings to help set us up for success in the future.
- The biggest thing that I've gotten out of these three days is that the motivation behind someone's confession didn't matter to him. When the thief on the cross next to him confessed, Christ didn't care about his motivation. How many times am I more concerned with what motivates someone to apologize to me rather than just accepting their apology? Answer: ALL THE TIME! I try to focus on the why and on them more than focusing on me doing what I should do.
I was only planning to do this at the end of every week, but the first two days hit me so hard that if I wait until the end of the week, these posts will go on forever.
"For God so loved the world that he gave his one and only son [so] that whoever believes in him shall not perish, but have eternal life." - John 3:16
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