Women in the Word

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9/14/2015 7:01 am  #31


Re: Acts

Acts 6
 
S: 6: 4  But we will devote ourselves to prayer and to the ministry of the word.
 
O: The apostles had to spend actual time in the word, and not just expect the Holy Spirit to just show them everything. But, using their will and flesh, they also had to make an effort to learn and understand the word. They also devoted themselves to prayer.
 
A: We want to see God at work, we want God to lead us, but how much time do we spend in prayer? Not, asking him for things, or telling Him our problems, but seeking Him, seeking His heart, seeking His purpose, seeking to change our heart , seeking to align our mind and attitude with God, and seeking to know and understand Him.
 
6:10 But they could not withstand the wisdom and the Spirit with which he was speaking.
When people can't answer the logic and truth of the Word, they can get defensive and angry
 
6:15 And gazing at him, all who sat in the council saw that his face was like the face of an angel
They had a chance to see the truth if his innocence, but did not heed their gut. They refused the accept the truth that was in front of their face.

 

9/14/2015 11:22 pm  #32


Re: Acts

“But they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke.” (Acts 6:10)

Reading this verse reminds me of 2 Timothy 1:7, “The Lord has not given us a Spirit of Fear but of power, strength, and a sound mind.” I have often allowed fear to have a stronghold in my life. Yet, God word tells us “that neither life or death, principalities or angels, nor height or depth can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus are Lord. God is love; Perfect love casts out all fear. Knowing that God’s Spirit abides in us we can boldly proclaim the gospel .By allowing God’s Spirit to give us wisdom not from this world but from above, we are able to be bold and not fear.  I am reminded of Paul who in a letter to the Ephesians asked for prayer so that he could boldly speak the gospel. I too would like a faith that is fearless and total devoted to God both in my words and deeds.

And pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.” (Ephesians 6: 20)


Theresnoplacelike Home

 

9/15/2015 12:49 am  #33


Re: Acts

Love this. Stephen stayed true to who he was and what he believed. He didn't fear the rumors or lies.

Theresnoplacelike Home wrote:

“But they could not stand up against the wisdom the Spirit gave him as he spoke.” (Acts 6:10)

Reading this verse reminds me of 2 Timothy 1:7, “The Lord has not given us a Spirit of Fear but of power, strength, and a sound mind.” I have often allowed fear to have a stronghold in my life. Yet, God word tells us “that neither life or death, principalities or angels, nor height or depth can separate us from the love of God which is in Christ Jesus are Lord. God is love; Perfect love casts out all fear. Knowing that God’s Spirit abides in us we can boldly proclaim the gospel .By allowing God’s Spirit to give us wisdom not from this world but from above, we are able to be bold and not fear.  I am reminded of Paul who in a letter to the Ephesians asked for prayer so that he could boldly speak the gospel. I too would like a faith that is fearless and total devoted to God both in my words and deeds.

And pray on my behalf, that utterance may be given to me in the opening of my mouth, to make known with boldness the mystery of the gospel, for which I am an ambassador in chains; that in proclaiming it I may speak boldly, as I ought to speak.” (Ephesians 6: 20)


Theresnoplacelike Home

 

 

9/15/2015 5:32 am  #34


Re: Acts

Yesterday in Acts 6 my verse was 7: The Word of God continued to increase, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly...

Application: the Word continues to increase today, and it can increase in me. I pray the Spirit will help me to share His word.

 

9/15/2015 5:42 am  #35


Re: Acts

Today in Acts 7 I was drawn to vs. 49 & 50
I tend to get caught up in what I can do...and it is a reminder that actually, I can do nothing. I pray that I will rely on the Spirit to do His work thru me.

I also thought a great deal about vs. 60. I need to be more like Stephen and not get so offended by what unbelievers are doing...they truly are blind and do not know. I can pray for them and share with them but like Stephen I need to be looking up to Heaven and not down on them.

 

9/15/2015 10:16 am  #36


Re: Acts

Acts 7

Wow, what an amazing chapter today. So much to see.
 
S: 35 "This Moses, whom they rejected, saying, 'Who made you a ruler and a judge?'--this man God sent as both ruler and redeemer by the hand of the angel who appeared to him in the bush.
 
39 Our fathers refused to obey him, but thrust him aside, and in their hearts they turned to Egypt,
 
A: The Israelites, certainly at least the rulers, were doing the same thing with Christ. They did not want to obey His teachings and His call for discipleship and accept Him as their ruler and judge. They did not want to be judged at all and they wanted to rule their own lives by their own standards.
 
O: I see this not just among unbelievers in our society who do not want Christ to rule over them and want to pursue their own way. They say the same thing, who is Christ that I should make Him my ruler of judge. They want to be their own rulers and have no one judge them.
 
However, we also sadly see this among believers as well. Yes, we trust Christ for salvation, and we do submit to His teaching on living lives free of intentional ongoing lifestyle sins. However, are we really allowing Christ to rule all areas of our life? Even things that are not sin per say, but minimize God’s ability to use us? What about things that are just for our comfort and pleasure but prevent us from spending our energy and time doing God’s work and advancing His kingdom?
 
Do we as believers refuse to obey the things God convicts us of and thrust it aside and turn in our hearts towards things, pleasure, desires, and priorities of this world? Sadly, I sometimes do. And maybe this is why the Church in North America is weak and is not impacting society. Maybe this is why we loose our children to secularism, atheism and false doctrine.
 
S: 54 Now when they heard these things they were enraged, and they ground their teeth at him.
57 But they cried out with a loud voice and stopped their ears and rushed together at him.
 
This is how people respond today when they are challenged to admit that they are sinners, to leave their sin and to reject their own desires, plans and goals, to reject the things of the world and to serve God and allow Him to control and be master of their life. They become angry and enraged that you call them a sinner, angry and enraged that they cannot do as they desire. And yes, they stop their ears not even wanting to hear the truth.
 
As believers we need to make sure that we keep our ears open to hear the conviction of the Holy Spirit about anything in our lives that need to change and anything in our heart and attitudes that need to change. We must guard against stopping our ears so that we can continue to live as we desire.
 
S: 55 But he, full of the Holy Spirit, gazed into heaven and saw the glory of God, and Jesus standing at the right hand of God.
 
O: He saw what was of true importance and value and that was eternity, not the earth. He saw our real hope, which is heaven.
 
A: Our hope is not that things on the earth will go well for us, but that God has an eternal purpose and plan for us.
 
60 And falling to his knees he cried out with a loud voice, "Lord, do not hold this sin against them."
 
Would that I could forgive like this. Truly he was filled with the Spirit. May I pursue God and more and more constantly throughout the day in prayer and spiritual awareness and in the meditation of the word so that I would be so full of the Spirit as this.

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9/16/2015 8:53 am  #37


Re: Acts

Acts 8

S: Acts 8:4 - Now those who were scattered went about preaching the word.

O: It is amazing to me that after being persecuted, seeing Stephen stoned, and having some imprisoned that they did not just run away and hide. Yes, they left to go to safer places, but they immediately started preaching the Word and making more disciples.

Such a single-minded focus on evangelism and not on self.

A: This is convicting about how passionate and urgent we should be about sharing the Word and how much we need to decrease our focus on self and on our comfort and our problems.

Optional GMG Discussion Question:
God put Philip in the position to minister to the Eunuch. Name a time when God has caused your paths to cross with someone who needed you to minister to them. 

I had a co-worker that really struggled with the technical aspects of the job. I would even try to tutor her on the weekend, but she just could not grasp it. She ended up being let go because she just could not do the work. She was a believer. And you would ask, well why would God put her in that circumstance. Well she was so instrumental in giving me a kick start to dig deeper and really grow in my faith. I think God used her in a special way in my life at that time. Later, I was able to really be there for her with spiritual guidance and wisdom that she really needed. So God used that situation to strenghten both of us in our faith.

When I was teaching Sunday School the lesson plans are always about all the great triumphs in the Old Testament, David and Goliath, Joshuah and the Battle of Jericho. 

But, I think that does a disservice to kids to understand that God does not always work like that and that He has a plan and that plan is not always for certain things to go well on this earth. But, His plan is for eternal things.

So, I taught them that God usually has 3 purposes:

(1) To conform us to His image
(2) To edify the body of believers
(3) To reach the lost

And I encouraged them to look at things that happened in life from this perspective.

     Thread Starter
 

9/16/2015 8:58 am  #38


Re: Acts

esuzannah wrote:

Yesterday in Acts 6 my verse was 7: The Word of God continued to increase, and the number of disciples multiplied greatly...

Application: the Word continues to increase today, and it can increase in me. I pray the Spirit will help me to share His word.

The Bible does say in the last days the harvest will be ripe and that we need to just be willing to work to harvest it. It is hard because it sure seems like so many hearts and hardened to the Word today. But, yes, we need to see that so many people are hurting and lost as well and they need us to reach out to them.

I think you make a great point that if the Word increases in us, that is the first step in seeing it increase in others.

esuzannah wrote:

I also thought a great deal about vs. 60. I need to be more like Stephen and not get so offended by what unbelievers are doing...they truly are blind and do not know. I can pray for them and share with them but like Stephen I need to be looking up to Heaven and not down on them.

I cannot imaging the degree of spiritual maturity and filling of the Holy Spirit to be able to say those words at that time. Yes, a lesson for all of us to not take things personally, but always look at things spiritually.
 

     Thread Starter
 

9/16/2015 10:14 am  #39


Re: Acts

I have been so busy between my son having surgery last week and my other son having issues with milk and now today my oldest is running a fever and not to mention just chasing after 2 little ones... I'm going to try to catch up.  So for now I'm not going to SOAK but I am going to answer the discussion question.

Acts 8
I feel like God has put me in my friend's life to maybe help her get closer to God.  She also has 2 young boys the same age as my boys.  They go to church "when they feel like it".  Well, I have been trying to get more involved in the church the past couple years and signed up to do the nursery class during Sunday School.  She has turned down this position before when asked about it.  I didn't do it last year because I was pregnant.  This year they asked both of us to do it and she decided that she could help out every now and then.   Better than nothing right?  Both families are gone a lot on the weekends as my family lives 3 hours away and we do a lot of camping, but we are trying to be there as much as possible.  We also convinced them to attend the adult bible study when we weren't doing the nursery class so our kiddos could go to sunday school.  Their oldest doesn't do much talking (he is almost 4) and she runs a daycare at home so the only adults he really sees is his parents.  He LOVED sunday school and was so excited to show his parents what he did.  I'm hoping that these small steps brings her and her family closer to the Lord.

 

9/16/2015 4:37 pm  #40


Re: Acts

amberlkuntz wrote:

I have been so busy between my son having surgery last week and my other son having issues with milk and now today my oldest is running a fever and not to mention just chasing after 2 little ones... I'm going to try to catch up.  So for now I'm not going to SOAK but I am going to answer the discussion question.

Acts 8
I feel like God has put me in my friend's life to maybe help her get closer to God.  She also has 2 young boys the same age as my boys.  They go to church "when they feel like it".  Well, I have been trying to get more involved in the church the past couple years and signed up to do the nursery class during Sunday School.  She has turned down this position before when asked about it.  I didn't do it last year because I was pregnant.  This year they asked both of us to do it and she decided that she could help out every now and then.   Better than nothing right?  Both families are gone a lot on the weekends as my family lives 3 hours away and we do a lot of camping, but we are trying to be there as much as possible.  We also convinced them to attend the adult bible study when we weren't doing the nursery class so our kiddos could go to sunday school.  Their oldest doesn't do much talking (he is almost 4) and she runs a daycare at home so the only adults he really sees is his parents.  He LOVED sunday school and was so excited to show his parents what he did.  I'm hoping that these small steps brings her and her family closer to the Lord.

amberlkuntz,

Praying right now that God will continue to be with you as you shepherd those little ones, and that He will help everyone return to full health soon, and that He will give you the strength to deal with everything. I pray that  you will find time of refreshing as well.

 

     Thread Starter
 

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