Week Ten/Day Five: “The Display of His Splendor…The Display of His Presence”

Welcome to Week Ten/Day Five!

Wow.  Can hardly believe that we’ve come to the end of our journey.
It feels like just yesterday that I was just preparing and trying to figure out all the details for this bold new adventure of  online study.  Breaking Free has undoubtedly been the most difficult bible study that most of us, if not all of us have ever had to partake of. And I have to agree with Beth and say that I cannot say that this trip has been all fun, but this much I know…not one of us is sure to forget it!

I need to take a moment before we delve into our final lesson to tell each of you how very very blessed I have been to be on this journey with you.  It hasn’t been easy by a a long-shot but I do pray that each of you can say, yes Michelle, it has surely been worth it!  It may seem that you have been brought through the ‘wringer’…literally and your strength has been sapped.
In light of that…what better scripture to wrap up with than this:

 

The three goals that Beth writes about praying for all of us that partake of this study are:

1. That if you are not yet free, you will cooperate with God fully until you are.
2. That you will know how to maintain your freedom.
3. That you’ll always know how to get back to the freedom trail if you ever lose your way.

As we approach these last steps of our journey together, we each have a different road ahead of us, but we all have the same glorious destination.  We have shared some awesome moments in the last 10 weeks, but now its time for us to go our separate ways with God. I’ll miss you and you may miss me too, but never confuse missing my companionship along the way with needing my companionship. I leave you in the hands of the only One you need.

I too am so very proud of you.  You’ve worked so hard. More importantly though….God is proud of you.
Think about just how far you’ve come….Now…..Look Up!
May God be your hiding place, may He protect you form trouble and my He incline your spiritual ears to listen carefully while  He surrounds you with songs of Deliverance.

And as we close on our final lesson, nothing could be more appropriate than to conclude with the scriptures that started it all…bringing us ‘full circle’.

Isaiah 61:1-4 The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me because the Lord has anointed Me

To preach good tidings to the poor;
He has sent Me to heal the brokenhearted,
To proclaim liberty to the captives,
And the opening of the prison to those who are bound;
2 To proclaim the acceptable year of the Lord,
And the day of vengeance of our God;
To comfort all who mourn,
3 To console those who mourn in Zion,
To give them beauty for ashes,
The oil of joy for mourning,
The garment of praise for the spirit of heaviness;
That they may be called trees of righteousness,
The planting of the Lord, that He may be glorified.”

4 And they shall rebuild the old ruins,
They shall raise up the former desolations,
And they shall repair the ruined cities,
The desolations of many generations.

Allow me to pray Beth’s closing prayer over each of you:

A Healing Captive
O God, who frees the captive Do not liberate this carnal slave for freedoms sake.For I will surely wing my flight to another thorny land.

Break instead, each evil bond and rub my swollen wrists, then take me prisoner to Your Will, enslaved in Your safekeeping.

O God, who ushers light into the darkness, do not release me to the light to only see myself.
Cast the light of my liberation upon Your face and be Thou my vision.
Do not hand me over to the quest of greater knowledge. Make Your Word a lamp unto my feet and a light unto my path and lead me to Your dwelling.
O God, who lifts the grieving head,
Blow away the ashes but let Your gentle hand upon my brow. Be my only crown of beauty. Comfort me so deeply, my Healer, that I see no other comfort.
O God, who loves the human soul too much to let it go,
So thoroughly impose Yourself into the heaps and depths of my life that nothing remains undisturbed.
Plow this life, Lord, until everything You overturn becomes a fertile soil, then plant me, O God in the vast plain of Your love.
Grow me, strengthen me and do not lift Your pressing hand until it can boastfully unveil
...A Display of Your Splendor.

God bless you Freedom Fighter! ~ ms, ❤

Week Ten/Day Four: “The Display of His Splendor…The Display of Satisfaction and Peace”

Welcome to Week Ten/Day Four.
Today we’re going to look at the splendor of 2 things:
The beauty of Satisfaction found in God and the beauty of God’s Peace.

Firstly, Beth shares how we simply ‘must’ find satisfaction in God because dissatisfaction or emptiness (empty places) in our lives actually become the enemy’s playground.

None of us have reached adulthood with out some holes in our lives. Some have more than hoers due to hurts and traumas, but we all have holes. You can be sure the enemy has flagged that hole as a target. We spend untold energies in anger and bitterness over why those holes exist and who is to blame. But healing can only begin when we recognize how vulnerable those empty places make us, tally the cost of filling them with useless things and seek wholeness in Christ alone.
No one can take away the holes of childhood traumas. The damage cannot be undone. But it can and must be healed.
Satisfaction in God is how our lives get to display His Splendor.

In reading Isaiah 58:6-12, we see a two ends of the spectrum: fasting and satisfaction. While fasting speaks of emptiness, satisfaction speaks of fullness. God promises that those who empty themselves of other pleasures will have themselves filled by something only HE can give.

Beth shares about her trip to India and the compassion which gripped her heart and life as she witnessed first hand the oppression there.
Captives truly set fee are the most compassionate people in the world.
But as we seek to minister to others, may we allow the Holy Spirit to purge and purify our motives.  If we’re not fully satisfied with God, those ’empty places can cause you to reach out from your need for affirmation and attention rather than from the overflow of a fulfilling relationship with Christ. Are you ministering out of your own need or out of the overflow of your satisfied heart?

Secondly, The beauty of experiencing God’s peace is like no other.
The key to peace in each of our lives is submitting to God’s authority through obedience. That obedience may not come easy and it is often times costly but it is well worth it to have peace flowing like a river within us.

“For you shall go out with joy,
And be led out with peace;
The mountains and the hills
Shall break forth into singing before you,
And all the trees of the field shall clap their hands. – Isaiah 55:12

Obedience to God often entails not going our own way, not doing what we please, and not even speaking as we please. But if peace is the fruit of righteousness, then joy is the wine from the fruit! Joy ultimately flows from obedience!
Peace is the fruit of righteousness that, in essence, is obedience to God’s commands.

The wine that flows form the ripened fruit is Joy! And that’s when we can sing….”I’ve got a joy like a river, joy like a river, joy like a river in my soul!

Week Ten/Day Three: “The Display of His Splendor…The Display of His Glory”

Welcome to Week Ten/Day Three.

Weeks ago, we studied the benefits of our covenant relationship with God.
Today, we’ll look at benefit #2: “To Glorify God”
God’s glory as the way He makes Himself known or shows Himself Mighty.
He proves who He is by causing the believer to be what is otherwise impossible and to do what is otherwise impossible.

When God delivers His children, they never have to escape by the skin of their teeth.  The Israelites were impoverished slaves in Egypt, but when God delivered the, they left ‘with the riches of the Egyptians.  The Hebrew word for plunder is ‘nasal’ meaning to snatch away.

In “Streams in the Desert”, Mrs, Charles E Cowman writes:
“The gospel is so arranged and the of God so great that you may take the very enemies that fight you and the forces that are arrayed against you and make them steps up to the very gates of heaven into the presence of God!
To be more than a conqueror is to take the spoils from the enemy and appropriate them to yourself.
What he had arranged for your overthrow, take and appropriate for yourself!

In Genesis 15:14, God declared that the Israelites would come out with great possessions!
In Exodus 12:35, we see this Word and promise fulfilled as the Israelites did as Moses instructed and asked the Egyptians for articles of silver and gold and clothing. They had nothing in slavery, but God delivered them with ‘riches’!
What God appropriated to the nation of Israel in a tangible sense, New Testament believers can apply in a spiritual sense. God also desires to accomplish works in our lives that stand up to the flames of fiery trials.

 

“Now if anyone builds on this foundation with gold, silver, precious stones, wood, hay, straw,13 each one’s work will become clear; for the Day will declare it, because it will be revealed by fire; and the fire will test each one’s work, of what sort it is.”
– I Corinthians 3:12-13

You don’t only escape from captivity with nothing to show for it. God desires that you ‘take your plunder’. And let that plunder be the “Display of God’s Splendor” in your life. Let God bring you forth from your time in slavery with gold, silver and costly stones. What is your plunder? God wants to bring us out of our captivity with “possessions”.
Don’t hold back. You are boasting in the Lord your God! By His mighty power you have escaped richer than before!

Don’t just reclaim surrendered ground.

God wants to enlarge your borders and teach you to ‘possess’ the land He is sending you to!

 

Week Ten/Day Two: “The Display of His Splendor…The Display of His Renown”

Welcome to Week Ten: “The Display of His Splendor”
Day Two: “The Display of His Renown”
This week we’re exploring qualities God can boast about…elements in our lives that display His Splendor.
2 Peter 1:3-4 tells us that His divine power has given us everything we need for life and for godliness.

By His divine power, God has given us everything we need for living a Godly life.

We fulfill the high calling to display His splendor when we reach up and fully receive the benefits He bowed low to give us.

Let’s take a look back at those benefits:
1. Knowing and Believing God

2. Glorifying God

3. Satisfaction in God

4. God’s Peace

5. Enjoying God’s Presence

Benefit 1: Knowing and Believing God
We are never more beautiful than when others can look at our lives, hear our testimonies and our ‘confessions of His Goodness in our lives and say, “yes, it is true”. That’s what it means to be ‘living proof’!

In Isaiah 26:8, the prophet Isaiah says: “Your Name and Renown are the desire of our hearts”.
The Hebrew word for name is ‘shem’. Shem means ‘the idea of a definite and conspicuous position…a mark or memorial of individuality”…By implication, honor, authority, character’.

Deuteronomy 28:9-10 says: “If you keep the commands of the Lord your God and walk in His ways, THEN all the peoples of the earth will ‘see’ that you are ‘called by the Name of the Lord’ and they will fear you.”

The Israelites were a people ‘of God’s name’. The concept of a ‘name’ is much more than a title.
The Israelites (as are you and I) were called forth as a nation to show the definite and conspicuous position of the one true God in their lives.  The name you and I are called most in reference to our spiritual beliefs is “Christian”.
We are a people of ‘Christ’s Name’.

The concept of God’s ‘Renown’ is the ‘swelling of the acceptance of God’s name’.

O God, You are my God; I earnestly search for you…” – Psalm 63

The more time you spend with God, the more you want to know God.  The yearning described in both Isaiah 26:8 and Psalm 63:1-7 comes from the heart and soul of a person who has truly known God.
People who know God well want God well-known. Those who truly know His Name (and all it implies) always want HIS Fame.

Yet, If my motivation for my relationship with God is what He can do for me, I will have a lust for His power without a yearning for His presence.  And that’s dangerous. Your original motivation for this study may have been to find deliverance, but I am praying that you have found the Deliverer!
Knowing God and believing Him displays His Splendor most when our soul’s desire is for others to know and believe Him too.

Oh, God, may we allow You the Joy of boasting over us with these words:
“My Name and My Renown were the desire of their hearts!”

“Yes Lord, walking in the way of Your laws, we wait for You; Your Name and Renown are the desire of our hearts.” – Isaiah 26:8

Week Ten/Day One: “The Display of His Splendor…A Planting of the Lord”

Welcome to Week Ten/Day One!

I can hardly believe we are approaching the last miles of our journey together.
Over the last nine weeks, you have been actively living out Mark 12:28-30.
This journey has required the full participation of your heart, soul, mind and strength.
Consider these 4 areas. We can sing “I love you, Lord” with warm, fuzzy feelings, but our actions reflect the reality of our hearts. We actively love God with all our hearts when we surrender to His authority because we know and rely on the love God has for us (I John 4:16).

Today’s Treasure scripture:

“They will be called Oaks of Righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His Splendor”
– Isaiah 61:3

“They will be called oaks of righteousness, a planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor.” – Isaiah 61:3

The goal of our journey is wrapped up in this solitary statement. Christ came to set the captives free so they can be called a “planting of the Lord for the display of His splendor.”

The Hebrew word for ‘called’ is ‘Qara’ meaning“to cry out, call aloud, roar; to proclaim, pronounce, preach…celebrate…to be named; to read aloud.”

The Hebrew word for ‘righteousness’ is ‘tsedheq’ reflecting ‘honesty, integrity, liberation’.  No matter what our strongholds have been, God can plant us deeply in His love, grow us by the water of His Word, and call us “oaks of righteousness”.

In considering these words, let’s take a quick look at the opposite of these: deception, corruption, captivity. Take heart if your stronghold was really ugly like mine. The “prettier” strongholds like ‘self-righteousness, arrogance, pride and a judgmental spirit’, are far uglier to God because they tend to veil the need for a new heart.

In the original language, the words ‘display and splendor’ are the same Hebrew word. Pa’ar means ‘to embellish, beautify, adorn; to glorify; be glorified; bring honor, give honor.”

Like Moses, whose face shone with the Glory of God in Exodus 34, the life of a captive set free radiates the splendor of God. To display God’s splendor is to radiate His beauty. We’re called to be the radiance of God’s beauty on this earth. You see the more we gaze on the beauty of the Lord as we seek Him, the more our lives absorb and radiate His splendor.

We will find that others won’t understand our freedom and may even despise us. We can’t count on others always calling us as God sees us. Now, imagine Christ, your Bridegroom, boasting about how beautiful you are because of the time you’ve spent gazing on ‘the beauty of the Lord’.

So, we rest in the ‘knowledge’ that GOD Himself calls us and sees us and sings over us with Joy.

 

 Principle Question: 
What is God’s absolute priority commandment for you and me?

Personal Question:
Read each of the references below and write any insight you gain concerning our representation as an oak, a strong tree planted by the Lord: Psalm 1:1-4; Isaiah 60:21; Jeremiah 17:7-8; Matthew 12:33

Week Nine/Day Five: “The Steadfast Mind…Taking thoughts captive”

Welcome to Day Five: “Taking thoughts Captive”

What is God’s goal for our thought life? to think deep thoughts?…to think only happy thoughts?…not to think at all?…or, to think with the mind of Christ?

“Let this mind be in you that was also in Christ Jesus…” – Philippians 2:5

“Let this mind be in you, which was also in Christ Jesus…” – Philippians 2:5

God’s goal for our thought life is that we have the Mind of Christ and think His thoughts in every situation and area of our lives.   But before we can get controlling thoughts out of our minds, they must become Christ-controlled thoughts while still in our minds.  We must learn to ‘take them captive’ to the obedience of Christ. In other words, just as scripture says every ‘knee’ shall bow, God wants to empower us to make every ‘thought’ bow to the obedience of Christ!

As I write this I remember a quote from a beautiful fellow journey walker that God joined my path with in my road to healing. Last year the Lord opened a Divine door for me to meet Jo-Ann Fore, author of When a Woman Finds Her Voice and be a part of her book launch team.  In her book, she wrote the following quote which I was given the honor of designing an illustrated picture for her:

“Sometimes we have to walk all the way ‘through’ our negative thoughts, identifying them, then ‘reframing’ them with Truth before we can let them go.” – JoAnn Fore
{When A Woman Finds Her Voice}

So many time we run to a scripture and repeat it and repeat it and finally, exhausted and worn out from the battle of the ingrained thought, we give up. But it is here that we can ask the Lord to help us do the necessary ‘work of walking all the way through that thought process, bringing it step by step to the light of Truth in Scripture, identify them for what they are (separate and apart from what happened to cause us to think that way) and reframe them in the Love and Light
of The Truth of God’s Word.

Beth gives us practical steps on how to do this:
1. Search God’s Word for scriptures.
Find scriptures that speak the mid of God to your specific stronghold. Look up key words using a bible concordance or topical bible tool.  Be sure to include scriptures of God’s unfailing love and forgiveness in your list.
2. Write these scriptures on note cards

Write them on index cards and keep these ‘Truth Cards” in easy and every day reach (purse, car, kitchen counter, work desk, etc) or all these places at once! When the the going gets tough, take out these ‘Truths” and confess them over yourself and your situation.

3.  Take these truth cards wherever you go
May seem silly to some, but for you it may be exactly what you need to do. Remember, the woman with the issue of blood did whatsoever she needed to do to get her healing!

4. Avoid as many forms of deception as possible
Remember, you’re deprogramming and ‘re-programming’. Coming out from under the influence of a long-term stronghold can be like coming out from under the influence of a drug. The person coming out from under the influence of lies desperately needs a season of intense deprogramming. Until you are less vulnerable, flood your mind primarily with truth and secondarily with materials that line up with Truth.

Finally, believing and speaking the truth is good and its the start but the strongest force will be ‘applying’ the truth, not just as a one time occurrence, but as a lifestyle…day in and day out. “Take every thought captive” is a present active participle that expresses continuous and repeated action.

In my neuroscience class, I learned about the ‘plasticity’ of the brain which is basically how the brain is able to ‘regenerate’ and ‘renew’ itself in its thought patterns and processes.

As we connect our memories and actions to new thought patterns, our brain literally creates new ‘roadways’ which connect that emotion to a new thought and reaction.  You see, God literally was telling us that we are to ‘renew’ our ‘minds’ by thinking on whatsoever was pure and noble (Phil. 4:8) and therefore have the Mind of Christ!

But this is something we must choose to do. Self-centeredness is our human default mode so we need to starve the flesh and purposely feed the spirit in order to walk  victoriously in the Spirit.
Then, scripture tells us when we have been renewed in our minds, we will be able to tell what God’s will is for us…and isn’t that what we are all always asking?  The renewed mind is able to test and tell what is God’s good and perfect and pleasing will is…simply because it has taken every thought captive to the obedience of Christ and has therefore been “Renewed”!

Week Nine/Day Four: “The Steadfast Mind…Deprogramming and Reprogramming”

Welcome to Day Four of The Steadfast Mind.
Today’s lesson is entitled “Deprogramming and Reprogramming” which leads me to talk a bit about the physics law of vacuum and empty space.  According to the ancient philosopher Aristotle, Nature abhors a vacuum. In physics, this is known as “horror vacui”.  Aristotle based his conclusion on the observation that nature requires every space to be filled with something, even if that something is colorless, odorless air.

This principle is at work in our spiritual lives. When the Holy Spirit begins to convict us of sin, the idea of starting a self-improvement plan immediately comes to mind. We put forth our best effort to defeat our worst habits. But every attempt to get rid of unclean thoughts, attitudes, and desires is destined to fail because getting rid of one creates a vacuum in our souls. As soon as we empty ourselves of one vice, others move in to take its place, and we end up just as bad or worse than when we started.

This very same principle holds true for our thought life.  Beth lays it out this way: 1. Recognize the captor (lies, enemy); 2. Stand in agreement with God (admit, confess, repent);3. Tear down the lies (deprogramming); 4. Putting up the truth (reprogramming)

When it comes to strongholds, satan fuels the mental tank with deception to keep the stronghold running strong. Deception is the glue that holds a stronghold together. By the time a stronghold exists, our minds are covered with lies.

“I learned that if you don’t listen to God and obey in the early stages, the longer you wait, the less discernment and strength you have.”  – Beth Moore

We can be forgiven, however, and still not be free. And if we’re not free, we will soon cycle back into sin. You must determine to be free by ‘fully’ cooperating with God, allowing Him to open your eyes to mind-binding lies and seeking the Divine strength necessary to tear them down.

Tearing down the lies is just first part of the process.  As in the physics law of the vacuum, you must not leave that ‘space’ empty but rather be determined to put up “TRUTH” in its place.

In the battlefield of the mind, we MUST apply God’s T.K.O.:
1. deprogramming: Tearing down strongholds (2 Cor. 10:5); and
2. reprogramming: Replacing lies with TRUTH (Phil. 4:8).
In this way, all which is torn down is now ‘replaced’ with whatsoever is true and noble and just and trustworthy.

Beloved, as you allow the Holy Spirit of God to walk you through this process, MY prayer was ‘voiced’ long ago by the Apostle Paul and I can say it no better than he….

“For this reason I kneel before the Father, from whom every family in heaven and on earth derives its name. I pray that out of His Glorious riches He may strengthen you with power through His Spirit in your inner being, so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith.

And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love, may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to “grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ”, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be ‘filled’ to the measure of all the Fullness of God.

20 Now to him who is able to do immeasurably more than all we ask or imagine, according to his power that is at work within us, 21 to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus throughout all generations, for ever and ever! Amen.” – Eph. 3: 14-21

 

Week Nine/Day Two: “The Steadfast Mind…A View from the New”

In ancient Corinth, we toured the ruins of what was once a thriving city. I saw a fortress in the distance on top of the tallest mountain.  I asked the guide to identify the structure. She responded, “It’s an ancient stronghold. Virtually every ancient Greek city had a stronghold or a fortress on top of the highest peak in the vicinity. In times of war, it was practically impenetrable and unapproachable. It was the place of hiding for the governors of the cities ‘in times of insecurity’.”

Today’s Treasure: 
“We demolish arguments and every pretension  that sets itself up against the knowledge of God, and we take captive every thought to make it obedient to Christ.” – 2 Corinthians 10:5

Let’s break this verse down a bit:

Phrase 1: Divine power to demolish strongholds’ (verse 4)
The word for demolish is kathairesis, meaning ‘demolition, destruction of a fortress.” The original word for stronghold comes from the word “echo” meaning to ‘hold fast’.  The derivative, ochuroma, means ‘a stronghold, fortification, fortress. Used metaphorically of any strong points or arguments in which one trusts.”

The word demolish implies a kind of destruction requiring tremendous power; to be exact, Divine power.  Strongholds are like concrete fortresses we’ve constructed around our lives block by block, ordinarily over the course of years. We created them, for protection and comfort. Inevitably, however, these fortresses become prisons.

Human effort is useless in demolishing strongholds. No amount of discipline or determination will do it.  Satanic strongholds require Divine demolition. Discipline and determination often help in opening your life to the supernatural power of God, but only HE can provide the Divine dynamite.

Phrase 2: “We demolish arguments and every pretension (verse 5).
The Greek word for arguments is logismos meaning “a reckoning, calculation, consideration, reflection. In the Classical Greek writers, (logismos) was used of the consideration and reflection preceding and determining conduct.  These arguments are our rationalizations for the strongholds we continue to possess in our lives.

The Greek word huspoma means “something made high, elevated, a high place…figuratively of a proud adversary, a lofty tower or fortress built up proudly by the enemy, PRIDE. The enemy will also stir pride in us to keep strongholds from being broken. Humility is a necessary part of the mind-set for someone ready to be free.

In the body of Christ, the proud are never the free.

Phrase 3: “That sets itself up against the knowledge of God” (verse 5).
The Greek for ‘sets itself up’ is ‘epairo‘ meaning ‘to hoist up as a sail’…to lift up the eyes, meaning to look upon.
If Satan’s goal is to be worshipped. Satan can’t get people to worship him directly, he accomplishes his goal by tempting people to worship something or someone other than God.

God created us to worship. According to the definition of epairo, the gaze of our eyes determines the focus of our worship–what or who is the object of our primary focus.  Whatever we worship, we will also obey.

Arguments and sails serve both to propel and to determine the direction of the vessel.  God leads us with cords of human kindness, with ties of love.  Satan, the ultimate counterfeiter, desires to lead us.  Strongholds are the cords of the yoke by which satan attempts to lead us. He presses the yoke on our necks as he leads us with cords of falsehood and ties of lies.
The last part of this phrase says: ‘the knowledge of God’. The more we know God’s Word, the quicker we recognize satan’s attempts to cover it.

Phrase 4: “we take captive every thought” (verse 5)
The phrase ‘we take captive’ comes from the Greek word ‘aichmalotizo, meaning, ‘a prisoner, captive, to lead captive…by implication a repeated and continuous action. We’re looking for a quick fix, but God’s after lasting change.
But, to possess a steadfast mind is to practice a steadfast mind.

Through Divine power of the Holy Spirit we can take our thoughts prisoner instead!

Phrase 5: ‘to make it obedient to Christ”
This war is for freedom and the battlefield is the mind. God wants us to be victors. We don’t become victors by conquering the enemy. We become victors through surrender to Christ. Victorious lives flow from victorious thoughts!

Principal Question:
How does God desire to lead His children?

Personal Question:
Think about a stronghold you’ve experienced. What part did insecurity play?
Explain in general terms.

{Week Nine/Day Two of Beth Moore’s Breaking Free bible study lesson}

Week Nine/Day One: “The Steadfast Mind…A View of the Old”

 

This week we get to go over a very powerful ‘ground’….the mind!
The mind is the battlefield that satan desires to overtake. Even if he knows he can’t have your heart, he will go for your mind because there can be nothing more grievous than a Christian with a defeated mind. And if he can get to your mind, he knows, sooner or later, the resolve of your heart will weaken.

 

Beth states that In-depth study and deliberate “APPLICATION” of truth is not just helpful but an absolute necessity for those who choose liberty.

Trusting God is more than just mere knowledge of scripture…it is putting our hearts in His hands and allowing Him to take control, trusting in His love and goodness, faithfulness and wisdom above all else. It is believing Him when He says “I know the Plans I have for you, plans to prosper you and NOT to harm you, plans for a future and a GOOD end. 

Today’s Treasure is one of my all time favorite ‘daily’ scriptures. It is one of those key scriptures that I have learned to not only repeat but to ‘practice’ on a daily basis…and guess what ladies…..it works!!

“You will keep in perfect peace whose mind is steadfast, because he ‘trusts’ in you.” – Isaiah 26:3

Principal Question:
What can happen to those who have knowledge of God but don’t think it worthwhile to retain it?

Personal Question:
By any chance, are you still waiting to see the first signs of fruit from a previous valley? Can you think of ways God could use the lapse of time to bring forth an even greater harvest?

Enjoy your study. And have a PEACE FILLED and STEADFAST day!