Saturday, October 01, 2005

Believing God For Your Promised Land

This past Tuesday September 27th I started a bible study with some gals from my church Rexdale Alliance. It is a video series for the next 9 weeks and our teacher is Beth Moore. Beth’s is one of most engaging bible teachers gifted with humor in her lessons but more importantly, grounded in her knowledge and teaching of the scriptures in a way that captivates and invites us to draw deeper to drink from the Fountain of Life. I have taken 2 other Beth Moore bible studies and while I eagerly signed up for this one, my concern was whether I could be committed to doing all the homework as I looked at my schedule in the next few months. Yet God knows what I need when I need it and sitting in class and attending the first lesson on this series calling ‘Believing God’ was exactly what I needed to refresh my soul. It is great to be able to sit at the feet of wise and godly teachers and just soak in the word of God. So even though I may groan and feel tired from a busy day of work, my own prayer is that God will use this bible study to continue to sustain me but more than that, fuel a deeper love for His word that will lead to greater spiritual transformation in my life which will ultimately bring glory to Him.

Our first lesson was entitled ‘Believing God For Your Promised Land’. An interesting title that reminds us that God originally promised a large segment of prime property (later termed the promised land) to Abraham and his descendants. New Testament believers are the spiritual seed of Abraham. As Beth Moore said, my ‘promised land’ is the place where my ‘theology’ merges with my ‘reality.’ She notes that John 15 is the New Testament spiritual equivalent of the promised land concept. Our promised land is a place of possession where we are called to possess Christ’s words, much affirmed prayer and the joy of Jesus. Our promised lands are places of God’s unapologetic blessing to the obedient. Our promised land is a place of God abiding in Christ’s love. It is a place where God brings forth a great harvest (Deut 7:7-9) ,(John 15:8). A place that will always involves conquests; we don’t just sit down and receive them, we go forward and take them. Our promised lands are places of great victory over our enemy( Josh 3:10). Our promised lands are places where God is willing to work untold wonders, but He desires two critical preparations from us: faith and sanctification (Num 15:31-34). As Beth said, we can live our whole lives and not enter our promised land because the number one hindrance to one’s calling becoming a reality is unbelief. We tend to whine and wish instead of believing and receiving.

As part of our bible study we are required to memorize verses or statements of faith that will enable us to believe God and so this week the statement of faith we claim is these:

God is who He says He is
God can do what He says He can do
I am who God says I am
I can do all things through Christ
God’s word is alive and active in me

Dear Lord help me to believe You for my promised land grant me deeper eyes of faith to believe you despite all the obstacles, all the visible realities that are contrary to your word. Help me to live a life of authenticity where my theology merges with my reality and my talk is my walk. Help me daily to possess Your word even when our culture and our society opposes Your truth, Help me daily to abide in Your love when I do not feel loved by those around me. Help me to taste the joy of Jesus each day so that truly I will delight in all that You give me whether it be trials or great times, help me to say from that familiar song ‘blessed be Your name, you give and take away but blessed be Your name.’ Lord enable me to have your spiritual eyes to see the harvest that is part of my promised land…to go in and take it and not sit back and wait but to move forward when You command me to move forward. Thank you that our promised lands are places of great victory over our enemy, give me the strength to stand firm and to have a determined resolve to put on the full armor of God so that I will not be shaken by the enemy’s tactics. But most of all O’Lord prepare my heart, prepare my mind, give me a faith like Abraham who believed and it was credited to Him as righteousness, Sanctify me daily and cleanse me so that my heart may always be pure for you said in Your word, ‘blessed are the pure of heart for they shall see the Lord.’ Oh Lord, to see You more, to believe You more make these an all consuming desire in my soul. Let me not whine and wish but with confidence enter in to receiving all the good gifts that You have for me. Lord I don’t want to sit at the edge of my promise land, I want to enter it, so give me courage and boldness as you did Joshua so that I will take hold of that which You are offering to me. In Jesus name.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

Hang in there, sister! (HITS) =) I started Perspectives classes last week; and I am taking it for certificate. I know there is much work ahead of me, but am looking forward to the learning process.

Lisa said...

Hey Meg

What a surprise to hear from you. You guys in Nor Cal kill me with your acronoyms ie HITS...its like valley girl talk!!! :-) Glad to hear that you are taking Perspectives...that's great. i'm looking forward to hearing more of what you think about it.

Hamster said...

Amen to your prayer! Until a few years ago, I did't realize how great a sin unbelief was! As I've been reading and studying the plight of the Israelites and all their complaining, it's clear that their sin was unbelief!

Anonymous said...

anyone got extra tickets to the Leafs game?