Belief

I just heard the most wonderful, convicting, and faith-induced talk with Beth Moore (what an incredibly anointed and gifted woman, who practices what she preaches). The beauty of it all is that we can all live a life that is as fulfilling as hers.

Jesus Christ wants each and every one of us to experience the hope, encouragement, and fulfillment through using our giftings for His glory every waking moment. However, in order for us to do this we must embrace a faith-induced obedience. This means that when we reach the point of unbelief in life we have the choice to disobey God's calling and plan for our life (it may be fearful and not as enticing and I have done this a thousand times over) or we can step into the promised land He has for each of us and re-characterize ourselves by taking a step of faith and believing He will carry us through and do what He says He has promised (Joshua 4:19-5:12). When we take this step of faith, between unbelief and disobedience, we will no longer allow shame have a hold of you. We also will not allow that shame of our old reputation pull us down any longer (we are a new creation).

Just like the Israelites (In Joshua) were brought full circle by God in Gilgal (circle), they allowed him to break their old cycle and thus they inherited all God promised them. The more insight we can gain from which point our cycles go wrong every time, the more we can reverse that cycle.

For me, I compromise my standards and values in every relationship. I tell myself I will not date someone who will not be the head and the spiritual leader. However, everytime, I fall into this cycle of believing I can help and fix the guy I am dating in becoming the man of God I know he can be. There are several problems with this scenario....I intitally am not trusting God to do that work in that guy, I am being sucked under by trying to keep myself and my boyfriend spiritually grounded, and I compromise other values in the meantime (thinking that may fix the problem). Now that I have identified this bad cycle, I must work on reversing it, in order to demonstrate faith in my Lord Almighty and to receive all He has promised me.

We must not become enslaved by unbelief and failure like the Egyptians, and like the enemy is constantly trying to bring upon us. "Often a wounding precedes our full reception of God's promises, but healing always follows (Beth Moore, Belief series)!!!" We must stop being victims of our shame and the entanglement that the enemy brings. Prevailing belief always leads to the promised land, where we will naturally learn how to use our giftings and love for the glory of God!