Experiencing God - Unit 1

Unit 1 - God's Will and Your Life

Verse to Remember
John 15:5 I am the vine; you are the branches. If a man remains in me and I in him, he will bear much fruit; apart from me you can do nothing.

I simply adore this verse.  It was even part of the readings at my wedding!  I can nothing on my own, God guides every moment of my life.  As long as I remain on the path God provides for me (my branch) my life will be blessed.



Day 1 - Jesus is Your Way

John 14:6 I am the way, the truth and the life.

Jesus is the way!  When you follow Him your faith and trust grow providing you with a sense of freedom. You do not have to worry about the next step, or any step or situation.  God is planning all of those steps for you, He puts obstacles in your path.  All of it is learn and grow ever closer to Him and His purposes.



Day 2 - Jesus is Your Model

Every experience, every bit of knowledge and wisdom should be brought to a test against the Bible.  We need to hold the truths of the Bible as our guide for everything.  Our faith is guided by the Bible and it will reveal the truth about our experiences.

As you focus on the Word, your focus shifts from being on yourself to where it should be - on God.  God works in our lives everyday, but without knowledge and understanding of the Word, we may be experiencing God but are not able to recognize Him.



Day 3 - Learning to be a Servant of God

The following is directly quoted (in italics) from page 18 of the Experiencing God workbook.  It spoke so loudly to me that I wanted to share it!

The author wrote: 

We are a "doing people". We always want to be doing something. Once in a while someone will say, "Don't just stand there, do something." 
"I think God is crying out and shouting to us, "Don't just do something.  Stand there! Enter into a love relationship with Me. Adjust your life to Me. Let Me Love you and reveal Myself to you as I work through you".  A time will come when the doing will be called for, but we cannot skip the relationship.  The relationship with God must come first.

Maybe this spoke so loudly to me today because for a moment I felt guilty about taking the afternoon to do this, to spend time with this workbook and blog about it. I have preschool lessons to prepare,  accounting cases to grade, never ending laundry to do, so much cleaning to do, tons of unpacking still to do, an incredible amount of yardwork, etc, etc, etc.  Blah Blah Blah you get it!

The funny thing is that when I first did this lesson I did not highlight the "Stand There!" portion.  But today as I reviewed it, there it was - screaming at me!!! 

The relationship with God must come first.  In an effort to change my habits, to make spending time with God a priority, I have been leaving my Bibles and Bible study materials on the table.  I leave it sitting out where I can see it, where it reminds me as I am passing by to spend some time and sit down to do it. Sometimes I may only get in 5 minutes before I am interrupted by some preschooler crisis.  But that is 5 minutes of time with God that I would not have spent before I made this small change!  For those 5 minutes I can stand still and grow! 



Day 4 - God Works Through His Servants, Part 1

Amos 3:7 Surely the Sovereign Lord does nothing without revealing his plan to his servants the prophets.

God reveals His plans as He works through us.  The Bible helps us to understand the ways of God so that when He reveals His plans we can recognize that it is God at work.



Day 5 - God Works Through His Servants, Part 2


God chooses ordinary people to work through.  The Bible calls Elijah, Peter and John ordinary, yet they did extraordinary things.  God working through ordinary people makes them extraordinary.

The author says on page 25 of the workbook:

When you believe that nothing significant can happen through you, you have said more about your belief in God than you have said about yourself.

So do you believe that God can work through you and do significant and extraordinary things?  I believe that!  He is God, and He has the right and the ability to do anything with me!