Our stories are the training ground God uses for His glory.

He uses what broke us to birth empathy in us

Your story is so meaningful because it comes through places you though you wouldn't ever recover from.

Romans 8:28 calls for in all things God works for the good of those who love Him.

We don't go through these trials just to move on. We go through them to move others.

The devil would love nothing more than our pain to make us bitter, but God wants to use our stories to make us better equipped.

When you share your story, you will go back and look at the moment that broke you. You will see how it redirected your prayers, refined your standards and revived your dependency on God alone.

This is the moment when we share our stories and our heartbreak becomes holy ground.

Any pain in our story, isn't the end of our story. Its the activation of it.

This is an area of discipleship I believe we are called and commanded to do. Its the one area that God says, test me in this. Let me show you that when you fully trust me, I am worthy of your trust. Not in a do this and God does that.

Its a posture.

Its a position of surrender before the Lord to seek Him and what He desires you to do, not because of what I am saying, but ask Him Lord is this an area I need to trust you with?

Show me what you want me to know. Show me what you want me to see and do in response to this.

This may or may not be an overnight discovery for you. But its still something to consider, discover and seek God over what, when and how He wants to live out more and more sacrificial lives for His glory.

This rest is necessary. We have so many habits and addictions waiting to devour us and we need to have rest physically and digitally from what can potentially overtake us. There are even so many opportunities for us to sin with the access that we have digitally.

Opportunity to covet. Opportunity to lust. Opportunity to put trust in man or self. Opportunity to fear. Opportunity to feel insecure. The list is long and its never what it was meant to be.

What did God intend this life to be about? Its always been about HIm. The glorification of our savior. To know HIM. To love HIM. To serve HIM. To point other people to him.

We need clarity and sobriety of our minds to do all these things well and what gives us clarity is to have more space for that clearer mind to happen.

chrome://external-file/7%20Rhythms%20of%20a%20Disciple.pdf.pdf

If you want your words to carry power, you have to stop speaking like a beggar and start praying like a BELIEVER.I think so often, we talk TO God and not WITH God.

So often we forget that its a two way relationship. A two way conversation and that just as much as God desires to hear from us, He also desires that we hear from Him.

1. Stop praying uncertain prayers about things God has already promised like healing, provision, and peace. Know His will and declare it.

1 John 5:14 says "this is the confidence we have in approaching God; that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us.

2.We don't need to pray "God be with me.."

You don't need to ask God to be with you, He promised He already is. Instead thank him for his present and walk in it. Hebrews 13:5 says I will never leave you or forsake you.

Declare God is with you now and always. I walk with His presence, not apart from it.

Is this God's plan for your life?

A book you read over and over again? A book you study every single day?

A book He wrote for you. A book that transcends time. A book that will speak to whatever you are going through at any given time that will give you wisdom and discerment on how to raise your kids, to take that job or not take that job. To buy a home or not buy a home. Should you forgive and how to forgive. So much more.

Its all there!

Its revelevant. Its true and its for you and its for me.

Let's take a shallow dive into the waters of what it looks like and why we are to study the word of God!

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The Bible Recap https://www.thebiblerecap.com

The Bible Project https://bibleproject.com

When I think back on my deepest formed relationships in life and how they were developed it is abundantly clear that those relationships developed by investing time in one another.

We can spend time with people and then we can invest time with people.

When we invest in a deeply connected manner we yield a return on our investment.

When we spend time, I see it as the more superficial experiences where we exchange pleasant sterile formalities that lack the true depth of deep relationship building.

Today I want us to consider what it looks like to deepen our relationship with our creator, God. What does that look like?

The purest form of courage is to rescue other people. We all need rescuing from time to time and its important that we see ourselves as usable by God for the benefit of his kingdom and for his glory.

What does the bible say about this topic?

Spiritual Gifts test https://spiritualgiftstest.com/spiritual-gifts-test

So many of us go around in life in our day to day activities with surface level questions, answers and conversations. I have learned that we can validate each other in our humanity when we are honest with ourselves,

Honest with God (who knows it all anyway) and with others.

Most people have a narrative and that narrative says we are the only one. And that simply is not true. When we think and feel like we are the only one, we tend to isolate, to think less of ourselves, we are inclined to shrink back in feeling small and insignificant.

So much of our lives are spent in comparison to others through a lens of social media outlets that leave us feeling less than. And this narrative simply is not true.

The truth is, we matter!