Hey Girls!!!! Book Choices

For our next season of Bible study we are going to read through a book together and discuss it.  Here are your choices.  Please let me know your top 3 choices.  I have to pick by Monday!!!

So Long Insecurity: You’ve Been a Bad Friend to Us by Beth Moore


Beth' s passion to see God free women from their insecurities and fears evolved into an online survey of more than 950 women and 150 men that ultimately resulted in the publication of this book, So Long, Insecurity. Partly autobiographical in nature, Beth Moore uses stories, prayers, and practical ideas to nudge women out of insecurity and into knowledge of their God-given dignity. No matter your age or status, you can learn to battle insecurity with God's truth.

Finding God's Will: Seek Him, Know Him, Take the Next Step by Greg Matte

Sometimes God's plan seems elusive---but maybe we need to shift our perspective. Examining God's encounter with Moses in the burning bush, Matte invites you to see God's will not as an event, but as a process to be lived. Discover how to focus on pleasing "thee not they," expect God's power, and more

The Grace of God by Andy Stanley

Nobody deserves the sin-free life and glorious future that God offers---but remarkably, it's ours for the taking. Why? Because of God's grace! Join Pastor Stanley as he warns against the pitfalls of legalism and explores the transforming power of God's unmerited favor, lavish love, and kindness. Then come to terms with your own "grace story"!

Forgotten God: Reversing Our Tragic Neglect of the Holy Spirit by Frances Chan

Today's church admires the gift of the Holy Spirit, but have we neglected to open it? Chan tears away the wrapping paper and the ribbons to uncover the source of the believing community's true power for witness and service. He issues a compelling invitation to understand, embrace, and follow the Spirit of the living God.

Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God by John Piper

In Think: The Life of the Mind and the Love of God John piper shows us the intricate continuity between the Christian faith and intellectual development. Focusing on the life of the mind helps us to know God better, love him more, and care for the world around us in thoughtful ways.
While we must value the experiential an emotional elements of our faith, the intellectual aspects are far too often neglected and as Piper says in this book, we also need to practice careful thinking about God. Piper contends that "thinking is indispensable on the path to passion for God." So how are we to maintain a healthy balance of mind and heart, thinking and feeling?
Piper urges us to think for the glory of God. He demonstrates from Scripture that glorifying God with our minds and hearts is not either-or, but both-and. Thinking carefully about God fuels passion and affections for God. Likewise, Christ-exalting emotion leads to disciplined thinking.

One Thousand Gifts: A Dare to Live Fully Right Where You Are by Ann Voskamp

Just like you, Ann Voskamp hungers to live her one life well. Forget the bucket lists that have us escaping our everyday lives for exotic experiences. 'How,' Ann wondered, 'do we find joy in the midst of deadlines, debt, drama, and daily duties? What does the Christ-life really look like when your days are gritty, long---and sometimes even dark? How is God even here?' In One Thousand Gifts, Ann invites you to embrace everyday blessings and embark on the transformative spiritual discipline of chronicling God's gifts. It's only in this expressing of gratitude for the life we already have, we discover the life we've always wanted ... a life we can take, give thanks for, and break for others. We come to feel and know the impossible right down in our bones: we are wildly loved --- by God. Let Ann's beautiful, heart-aching stories of the everyday give you a way of seeing that opens your eyes to ordinary amazing grace, a way of being present to God that makes you deeply happy, and a way of living that is finally fully alive. Come live the best dare of all!

Having a Mary Heart in a Martha World: Finding Intimacy with God in the Busyness of Life by Joanne Weaver

An invitation for every woman who’s ever felt she isn’t godly enough, isn’t loving enough, isn’t doing enough.
The life of a woman today isn’t really all that different from that of Mary and Martha in the
New Testament. Like Mary, you long to sit at the Lord’s feet…but the daily demands of a busy world just won’t leave you alone. Like Martha, you love Jesus and really want to serve him…yet you struggle with weariness, resentment, and feelings of inadequacy.
Then comes Jesus, into the midst of your busy life, to extend the same invitation he issued long ago to the two sisters from Bethany. Tenderly, he invites you to choose “the better part”–a joyful life of intimacy with him that flows naturally into loving service.
With her fresh approach to the familiar Bible story, Joanna Weaver shows how all of us–Marys and Marthas alike–can draw closer to our Lord: deepening our devotion, strengthening our service, and doing both with less stress and greater joy.

Sun Stand Still: What Happens When You Dare to Ask God for the Impossible by Steven Furtick

If you're not DARING TO BELIEVE GOD for the impossible,
you may be SLEEPING THROUGH
some of the BEST PARTS of your Christian Life.
"This book is not a Snuggie. The words on these pages will not go down like Ambien. I’m not writing to calm or coddle you. With God’s help, I intend to incite a riot in your mind. Trip your breakers and turn out the lights in your favorite hiding places of insecurity and fear. Then flip the switch back on so that God’s truth can illuminate the divine destiny that may have been lying dormant inside you for years.
In short, I’m out to activate your audacious faith. To inspire you to ask God for the impossible. And in the process, to reconnect you with your God-sized purpose and potential."

Discerning the Voice of God: How to Recognize When He Speaks by Priscilla Shirer

Shirer, a popular women's conference speaker, author, and Bible teacher, invites readers to become acquainted with the Voice that has spoken from a fire and a cloud, and hear from some of the most well-known Christians in history about how God speaks to them.

The Power of a Whisper: Hearing God, Having the Guts to Respond by Bill Hybels

'Without a hint of exaggeration,' says pastor and author Bill Hybels in his new book, The Power of a Whisper: Hearing God, Having the Guts to Respond, 'the ability to discern divine direction has saved me from a life of sure boredom and self-destruction. God's well-timed words have redirected my path, rescued me from temptation and re-energized me during some of my deepest moments of despair.' In The Power of a Whisper, vision is cast for what life can look like when God's followers choose to hear from heaven as they navigate life on earth. Whispers that arbitrate key decisions, nudges that rescue from dark nights of the soul, promptings that spur on growth, urgings that come by way of another person, inspiration that opens once-glazed-over eyes to the terrible plight people face in this world---through firsthand accounts spanning fifty-seven years of life, more than thirty of which have been spent in the trenches of ministry, Hybels promotes passion in Christ-followers' hearts for being wide open to hearing from God, and for getting gutsier about doing exactly what he says to do.

Becoming More Than a Good Bible Study Girl by Lysa TerKeurst

Is Something Missing in Your Life? Lysa TerKeurst knows what it's like to consider God just another thing on her to-do list. For years she went through the motions of a Christian life: Go to church. Pray. Be nice. Longing for a deeper connection between what she knew in her head and her everyday reality, she wanted to personally experience God's presence. Drawing from her own remarkable story of step-by-step faith, Lysa invites you to uncover the spiritually exciting life we all yearn for. With her trademark wit and spiritual wisdom, Lysa will help you:

* Learn how to make a Bible passage come alive in your own devotion time.
* Replace doubt, regret, and envy with truth, confidence, and praise.
* Stop the unhealthy cycles of striving and truly learn to love who you are and what you've been given.
* Discover how to have inner peace and security in any situation
* Sense God responding to your prayers The adventure God has in store for your life just might blow you away.

Seeking a Heart like His

So, we have just completed our last night in the Bible study Seeking a Heart Like His.  I have learned so much about David and God...but I've also learned so much about myself and the study of Scripture from one of the precious women that came. 
I have done several of these studies in the last 4 years...at least 3 or 4 a year.  I have a wonderful group of very faithful women who attend each study each week.  They are a tremendous blessing to me because I love knowing that there are a small group of women who are willing to put in the time and work because they are really doing this life with Jesus and know how important being connected to Him through His Word and being connected to others is.  I love my faithful friends who want to study the Word consistently and are willing to share the journey.  I have also learned in this ministry that God has called me to that He brings to each study exactly who He wants.  There are some girls who come to certain ones and some who have been to only one.  He constantly reminds me that it is not about me but about each woman who comes and what He wants to teach them.  (That really helps me not to get discouraged when people don't come...it is between them and God.)
This season God brought Dianna to Bible study.  She has blessed my heart week after week.  The first night she admitted to not wanting to come but that 2010 and 2011 were about getting herself where she needed to be in many areas because she knew she wasn't there.  It was time to take care of Dianna.  She said she decided on the very last day to buy the book after much pursuit from our precious Savior (isn't that a wonderful thing about Him...He wants us!)  She told me up front she was going to miss some and wasn't sure about the homework.  I don't think she was sold the first night...but after the first week of homework, the Word of God had captured her heart.  On week two, she told me she had no idea when she sat down to start the homework (I think that day) that it would be so intense and that she loved it.  Tears pooled in her eyes when she said she had no idea what she had been missing.  Each week she would tell me how God was dealing with her heart and how much she loves it.  She reminds me that she didn't want this and now she can't get enough.  She tears up when she talks about what she is learning.  On our last night tonight after having attended every one with homework completed while telling what she has learned for the past 10 weeks...she didn't have a story about David.  Her story was about a woman reading the Word with fresh eyes and an open heart.  She said she had been stagnate in her relationship with God.  Reading the Bible and praying but not moving forward with Him...but she has learned that is not His desire.  Dianna loves to read His Word right now and talks about her Savior with passionate tears.  She moving on with God...building history with Him now.  A woman after God's own heart.
I LOVE IT...and I am convicted by it.  Sometimes, I read the Word routinely...to get my daily reading done...to get my homework done.  I am so over that.  I will not be stagnate.  I want Dianna's passion for the Lord.  I want to love when God deals with me because it will show me we are going somewhere.  I want a passion that is shown in tears when I speak about my God and how He is working in my life...that's the joy of our salvation that David begged for after asking for a clean heart.  Create it in me, Lord. 

God plans ahead

So, one thing I love about our God is He so doesn't do things the way I do. One of a million examples is that He plans ahead instead of reacting to what happens.
I am seeing such a beautiful example in the two areas of Scripture I am studying right now. In the early books of the Law, we are seeing God made provisions for a king the people wouldn't have for hundreds of years...in 1 Samuel with Saul and then King David. (Right now we are seeing how epically David failed at keeping some of those original laws laid down by God.) God didn't react to the sin of the people wanting a king by coming up with guidelines on the spot...He planned for it...having the best in mind for the kings that would come.
Obviously, the most perfect example is in Christ...He wasn't an afterthought. He was planned from the beginning. God was not reacting to our sin when He thought of the cross. Jesus was always part of the plan.
I find that so comforting...mostly because I sin all the time. I need a God who has a plan for my life that is not reacting to the ways I mess things up. I need to know that He is always working for my good. That He loves me more than I understand and has me in the palm of His hand. I need that.

Feelings

You know when you are overcome by a sinful emotion in response to a situation you can't control...when your natural reaction to finding something out or seeing something is just sinful and painful...and so often (at least for women) not rational. Some things just hurt...an emotion that just stings...like jealousy or regret. I hate knowing what I'm feeling is sin. That it is so not of God but you can't control it...and then being convicted for feeling it. It just feels yucky. I feel like my spirit is all gunked up with things I know better than to feel...lessons I have already learned and should be over feeling. But like a lost puppy...here it is again. UGH. Why can't I be passed this?