God speaks through our Children

(Cross post on Ang4him - A Moment in My Life)

Tuesday night I was dealing with some issues which I shared with my House Church. You see, I know God loves me in my head, but sometimes it does not always translate to my heart. I have trouble seeing myself as the beautiful and beloved daughter that He sees me as. I tend to be very hard on myself and this is one of my struggles.

Anyway, Tuesday night we were teaching the kids about worship and Tyler drew the picture below. She said while we were singing, she had closed her eyes and God had told her to draw this picture for me and to tell me that Jesus love me.

So she obeyed. It is amazing how God can speak to us even through our own children. Maybe that is easier for Him at times, because they are more trusting and obedient to Him. My daughter did what He asked without questioning it at all. Myself and many adults I know would worry about whether it was really God who spoke or was it just in my head? Will I look stupid? and so on and so on.

Just another way we need to become as the little children to know Him better!

More on the 7 churches & the Ephesus Church

I think some have misconstrued why I'm writing about the seven churches in Revelation. Do I think what God is revealing to me right now is all there is to it? No way! I believe God in His inifinite knowledge reveals a little to us at a time based on where we are in our life at that time.

What I am writing is what God is revealing to me right now, which is why I encourage everyone else to read these letters. Jesus wrote these to the churches and they were included in God's Word for us to learn from them. God's Word is to point us to our Lord and a deeper relationship with Him.

He specifically pointed out items for which he praised and rebuked each church. I don't believe anything in God's Word is insignificant. I want to know what a letter to my church would say if God was to write one. For what things would He say "Well done, good and faithful servant" and for what things would He say "No, the path is here, come this way."

With that being said, my notes being posted on each of these letters is just the surface of what God is teaching me at this point in my life. I do believe that we can not pinpoint each of these "churches" to our churches now, because I believe we all have a little bit of each in us. However, I do believe we can draw parallels to our day and from that learn where God is pleased with us and where we may need to make some changes.

I do not believe that good deeds, righteousness and holiness are bad things. Exactly the opposite. However, I do believe we must be careful to ensure when we do these things our focus must be on God and our reasons must be because we love the Lord. It is very easy to start doing these things because we think it is what is required to "please" God or because we think we are more righteous than someone else. Our focus in ALL we do must be God. He made it very clear in His Word that we must be holy and righteous, but He also made it very clear that all our good deeds done for the wrong reason are detestable in His sight.

So with that I will continue to share with you what God has revealed to me about these seven churches. My notes at the end are to help me put what He is teaching me in more perspective for myself. To make something kind of abstract more concrete in my own mind. I love the church in the US, however I am also realistic in recognizing we have a lot of problems. I can't change the entire church in the US, but I can change myself and my little personal church that I am part of. If each of us was to do so, imagine what would happen in this country!

Church of Ephesus (Revelation 2:1-7)

With each church I’ll post the scripture reference, a list of the praises Jesus bestowed on them (if any), a list of the rebukes Jesus gave them (if any) and then my notes.

As I’m reading these, God is revealing little things to me about each church and what that church may look like in today’s world. He may not reveal the same things to you, so I encourage you to join me in my study. Please comment on what you are getting from these letters Jesus wrote to His Church.

Church of Ephesus (Revelation 2:1-7)

Praises
* Good deeds, hard work & perseverance
* Do not tolerate wickedness
* Reveal false prophets
* Have persevered and endured hardship for Jesus’ name
* Have not grown weary

Rebuke
* Have forsaken their first love
* Need to repent and do things they used to

My Notes:

Have they become too caught up in rules, traditions and good deeds that they’ve lost their intimacy with God? Have they lost that burning desire to know Him more?

This reminds me of the many legalistic churches in the US which are so focused on rituals, traditions, rules etc that they loose sight of what it really is to have a relationship with Christ. It is what most think of when they think of religion. It is why I explain to people I am not "religious", I just have a relationship that I'm continuously developing with my Savior/God. It is easy to loose sight of our "first love" though and get caught up in the "deeds". This is a good reminder of where our focus should be.

7 Churches in Revelation

Juan brought up something to our house church on Tuesday that really stuck with me. I've been thinking about it ever since. He mentioned how we all study the letters of Paul to guide us and to help us in our walk with Christ. However, in Revelation chapters 2 & 3, Jesus himself wrote a letter to the 7 churches (through John), but he (Juan) has never heard a sermon on what we can learn for our church and for our walk from this letter. If you have a red-letter Bible, check it out. These words are in red because they are directly from Jesus to John for these churches. If we are willing to put so much weight on Paul's words, shouldn't we put just as much if not more on Jesus' words?

So based on this I have been reading these two chapters and journaling my initial impression of each of these churches. What does Jesus praise them for? What does Jesus rebuke them for? Do I see these "churches" in our world today?

I'm going to be sharing this with you in the next few posts. I won't be using any commentaries or any other books/notes on these two chapters. You will just get what I get from reading and praying about these. I hope you'll join me and comment on what you get out of them as well.

Another thing Juan talked about which we'll be doing and I encourage you to do is to ask yourself a few questions:

Which church am I/my church most like?
If Jesus was to write a letter to my church, what would he say?
What would he praise us for?
What would he rebuke us for?

I think these are very important questions. I encourage you to read these two chapters, meditate on them and pray about them. Open yourself to the message God has for you and take it to heart. Make the necessary changes to step into His destiny for you. I won't necessarily be sharing all of this with you, but you can be assured myself and my house church are going to be asking ourselves these questions and making changes where the Lord instructs us to.

Free Bible Commentary Links

As promised I'm going to share a couple of my favorite sources for Free Bible Commentaries. This may come in very handy if you choose to do the one Bible Study I mentioned in my last post. I print out a chapter at a time and leave it in my notebook for my study time.

Today I have two resources I use that I wanted to share. If you have others, please feel free to share.

e-Sword at http://www.e-sword.net/

This is actually a free Bible software program that you can download onto your computer. Once downloaded you can add Bible Commentaries and tons of other tools. There are certain versions and tools that do require payment, but you can get tons of stuff for no charge.

I like this tool because I have it on my laptop at all times. Therefore, if I am somewhere and do not have internet access I can still access this. You can also sent up a Bible reading schedule for yourself, take notes and highlight items directly in the program.

Study Light Free Commentaries at http://www.studylight.org/com/

This is a wonderful resource which includes many different commentaries. Each one listed has a short summary about the commentary. Once you choose one you can choose the book you want and then the chapter you are wanting. Some are verse by verse commentaries.

This is the resource I'm using alot right now for my study. I'm doing Romans and I've chosen two commentaries and print one chapter at a time to keep in the front pocket of my Study Note (Ang4him Romans Commentary) notebook.

As I mentioned, if you have any good resources for free bible commentaries, please share!

Bible Study

I'm back! But more importantly, today I want to finally take the time to share with you what I learned from the Mike Bickle CDs I had told you about. He recommended two different ways to study the Bible during the time you've scheduled for Study time. The key is to have a focus. Don't just flip/flop through the Bible and to whatever takes your fancy at the moment.

The first way is to read 10 chapters a day. Set aside 30 - 60 minutes at least in order to be able to read and focus on what you are reading. By doing this you can get through the New Testament once every month. Can you imagine what God could show you by reading the New Testament once a month?!

The second way is to study a book of the Bible, one at a time. Mike suggests choosing your top 10 books and determining an order. This enables you to focus. He calls this your "juicy" list. Then he suggests you find two commentaries. There are a lot of free commentaries online that you can use. (I'll share some I've found in one of my future posts). You don't have to be picky, these will just assist you along the way. Also, get a notebook. Basically when you are done you will have a commentary of your own. I'm labeling my notebooks "Ang4him Commentary of ____"

In order to get the most out of this you need your study time to be consistent and scheduled. Set your study times and protect them. (I'm still working on this but it gets easier with time).

1. Choose one paragraph/section at a time to read. Note: you will not get through a book quickly, however you will really be diving into God's Word and building a relationship with Him.

2. Read the commentaries on this section after you've read the section in the Bible. While reading the commentaries, highlight ideas that excite you.

3. Notebook -
a. list at the top the section you are reading (ie. Romans 1:1-7).
b. Title - write the Title for the section in your own words (these may be wordy at first, don't worry about it) - Don't use the commentary's title - think about it yourself!

4. Write notes from the commentary. Try to paraphrase the ideas you've highlighted in the commentaries. Or you can write them word for word. Writing things down helps us to absorb and focus on the ideas. Then write in your own words a summary of what the section is teaching you, what it is about, etc. Ask yourself who, what, where, when, how & why?

5. Journal/prayer: Ask the Lord to do to your life/heart what the passage speaks of (if applicable).

Both of these study methods appeal to me for different reasons. So I've decided to do both. Obviously trying to do both at once is too much, especially at first and I'm setting myself up to fail. So I'm going to alternate. I'll take a book of the Bible to study first (I've chosen Romans) then once I'm done, I'll switch to reading 10 chapters a day for a couple months. I'll let you know how it goes. If you decide to do one of these I'd love to hear from you.

I'll post a listing of free online commentaries in the next couple days.