Friday, August 22, 2008

Lies Women Believe


We began working through "Lies Women Believe" by Nancy DeMoss in our Wednesday night class at church about 6 weeks ago.
I have found it to be very insightful and again challenging. The book is based on the premise that Satan lied to Eve in the garden and because she believed the lie, she acted on the lie and the entire human race has been in bondage to sin ever since. Satan's tactics have not changed and he still lies to us whenever he gets the chance. If we believe his lies, we will act on them and our choices and actions will lead us into bondage also. We can be freed from bondage if we can recognize the lies and replace them with the Truth.
So far we have covered the chapters about lies women believe about God, sin, themselves, priorities and marriage.
The challenge comes when you recognize that you have clearly accepted a lie and now must change your behavior to be in agreement with God's Word.
One lie that really challenged me - that word again - was the one that states: I can get by without spending time with God every day. After all these years there are still days when I stay in bed until the last possible moment and then rush into the day without taking time to receive my marching orders. When will I learn? Once again I am making the commitment to be more consistent about my quit time.
If you have read this book please comment about your "challenging" revelations and how you are handling the Truth now that you know.





Monday, August 18, 2008

The Shack


This book by William P. Young has raised quite a bit of controversy. I have just finished reading it and found that it was very insightful and well written. I'm not a theologian so I'm not going to try to deal with the finer points, but I was challenged by what it said about love and judgement. I like to read books that challenge me and this book did accomplish that end.

In Chapter Eleven, Mack has an encounter with Sophia - a personification of God's perfect wisdom. When he is invited to be the judge, Mack claims that he has no experience at judging to which Sophia replies,

You have already proven yourself very capable, even in our short time together. And besides, you have judged many throughout your life. You have judged the actions and even motivations of others, as if you somehow knew what those were in truth. You have judged the color of skin and body language and body odor. You have judged history and relationships. You have even judged the value of a person's life by the quality of your concept of beauty. By all accounts, you are quite well-practiced in the activity. . .

. . .By what criteria do you base your judgments?. . .

. . .Judging requires that you think yourself superior over the one you judge. . .


To which Mack comes to the conclusion that:

. . .All his judgments had been superficial, based on appearance and actions, things easily interpreted by whatever state of mind or prejudice that supported the need to exalt himself, or to feel safe, or to belong. . .

There is more about judgment in this chapter that is worthy of thought and
consideration, but these are the things that challenged and convicted me. I am often guilty of passing judgment, and when I do it hurts me and hurts others. I need to learn to love and leave the judging to God.

On the subject of love, the character called Jesus says,
"All I want from you is to trust me with what little you can, and grow in loving people around you with the same love I share with you. It's not your job to change them, or to convince them. You are free to love without an agenda." p. 181

I am often guilty of withholding my love in an attempt to try to control the people closest to me or to force them to meet my expectations. Focusing on loving them, rather than fixing them, certainly makes a big difference. It does free me to love unconditionally. I recently had a conversation with my 25 year old daughter, Bonnie about these issues. She said that judgmental attitudes and the feeling that she had to live up to a certain standard in order to be accepted had made her want nothing to do with the church now that she was grown and could make her own choices. While she continues to seek a relationship with Christ and to live her life in a way that glorifies Him, she is not actively serving with a body of believers.

While I’m not advocating that we should embrace a “tolerant,” anything goes mindset, I do think that it is very important and often a very difficult task to communicate love and acceptance while teaching truth.

What do you think?