Today I start a new class for women in my area. I will be teaching from the book, Deeper: Living in the reality of God's Love. As I look over my notes this morning, I am thinking back 25 years and reflecting on the things that I have walked through that have continually brought me back to one thing....In God Alone Can We Find True Peace, Happiness and Love.
There are many good things in this life, but if we set our heart or hope even on "good things" we will end up empty rather than full. From the time that Jesus came to redeem God's people the entire plan was to rescue us from the prince of this world and the emptiness of self life laden with sin and independence from God. We need that rescue. Unfortunately often we don't realize we need a true rescue, and look at our Christianity as some fire insurance plan. This view is a sad reduction of the LIFE Jesus came to give us.
A deeper life that goes far beyond the surface of self. A deeper life that is alive and is not reduced to black and white images, but can see things through the Technicolor lens of true beauty, God's Beauty.
People have been searching for as long as we have history to record the search.
King Solomon spoke of this search in Ecclesiastes.
"What does a man get for all the toil and anxious striving with which he labors under the sun? All his days his work is pain and grief; even at night his mind does not rest. This too is meaningless. A man can do nothing better than to ear and drink and find satisfaction in his work. This too, I see is from the hand of God, for without him, who can eat or find enjoyment? To the man who pleases him, God gives wisdom, knowledge and happiness." Ecclesiastes 2:22-26
People have always been wondering, "what is the meaning of life? what is in it for me?"
And, here we see that without God we can not find true life or enjoyment, but with God, with a life that pleases Him, we will be granted wisdom, knowledge and happiness! This is what everyone is looking for.
Just think of how people in this world look for these three things and what has transpired:
- Wisdom is what the New Age is all about
- Knowledge is what Self Help is all about
- Happiness is written in our constitutional rights and is what excess is about, as people search through things or substances ( and lots of them) for happiness.
1. Get Real With God--examine your heart and life. Is your walk with God for show, surface or stagnant. What is getting in the way. Come out from yourself and get real before Him. There is no fear in getting real with the God who loves you.
2. Get Back to Basics--we all need a healthy foundation and for many of us our Christian walk was never built on a solid foundation, but rather it was built on works or appearances of doing good things. This is a faulty foundation, and we need to get back to the basic things in God's word and learn to walk in them and live differently.
3. Get Re-Set for Living Life--as we get real with God and begin relating on an intimate level with the God who made us, and get back to basics for our guide book, we then have put ourself into the place of being re-set, or rebooted for living according to a spiritual software rather than the worldly or carnal software that we have become accustom to as we have been shaped by the world and culture we live in.
If you are in the Livermore, CA area, come join me as we learn about going Deeper in Christ and learn the value of living in a new identity as His. If not, join me on podcast. Pick up a copy of Deeper, and follow along with us. www.cornerstonewomen.
Classes:
Wednesdays Jan 21-April8 9:30 am, 7:00 pm in Livermore
Tuesdays Jan 27- April 15 9:30 am, 7:00 pm by video in Brentwood, CA.
For more information: bethannm@cornerstoneweb.org
Today's Prayer
Lord, The search is over. In you and you alone can my heart find what it longs for. Teach me to live a life pleasing to you and was a result of that life I thank you that you will give me wisdom, knowledge and happiness. It will not be a wisdom of the world, or a happiness of things...but it will be a deep and enduring inner depth that can only come from God.
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1 comment:
Debbie,
I am sooo excited to start this series here in Brentwood. Going deeper has been the theme in our household for the last year. We strive to be unrecognizable. In that I mean totaly transformed in his image in all that we say and do. Pray for us as we ask the Lord to continue to search our intermost being, and cleanse us so we can be totaly full of his holy spirit.
Lori
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