Loving Well Session 4

Our last session of Loving Well was Wednesday night.  What a great night to our ending session.

Our give-away winners were Linda Coen who won the Loving Well tote bag and Heather Wright who won the dark chocolate bar.  

Thanks to all the Girlfriend's who attended the Bible studies for the Spring session.  I'm currently looking into our Fall studies.

Notes From Loving Well Session 4

Beth started out this session with a question:

What if you're married to testy?

Beth stated that baggage attracts baggage. We have to ask ourselves what attracts us to such unhealthy people. Her answer was that there is something unhealthy in us if we are attracted to unhealthy people continually.

But she said, "God really does transform lives", speaking of her own marriage.

Two things if you're married to testy:

• You pray like crazy.  Since God looks at the married couple as one flesh, Beth believes you have the capacity to pray over your spouse unlike anybody else.
• Pray for God to make you loving and to not let you answer testy with testy.

Persevere and believe God because He does want you to have a strong marriage.  His specialty is raising the dead.  He can raise up a dead marriage.

The last difficult person to love is "Far" - the stranger.

We will never be more Christ-like than when we love people who do not love us.  The person who does not love us has given us an opportunity of our life.  It's our opportunity to shine in this selfish world.

She read Matthew 25:34-40 and said this was our Biblical mandate across the globe and not just in our personal world.

The person who would not even appear on our radar unless we allowed God to give us that awareness.

The question asked was "who is out of our world?"

God will challenge us to love people beyond our small world and take on a global perspective.

She challenged us to be people who have a heart for the world, for people in need, for people who will never come to us but we will have to go to them.

It is dangerous to live a spirit-filled life, she said, because we will do things we didn't intend to do when God is filling us and overwhelming us with His Spirit.

Strangers take all sorts of shapes and sizes.  We are called to love afar, a stranger.

There are two reasons for this:

• It is an opportunity to love with no strings attached, with nothing we can get back in return from them.  We were encouraged to pour out our life into another.  Until we are pouring out our life like a drink offering, we will never be happy.  We need to keep dipping into the loving well and pouring out.
• Loving from afar relieves us of the burden of self-absorption. We need to pour out our life completely into other people so we can be healed.  We need to help someone who cannot help us and love someone who cannot love us back.

Beth finished with Revelation 19:6-7 stating that "God is all about ministering to people, still about the people. The beauty of it is this: when it's all said and done, and we're all in heaven together, it's going to be good."

"Then a voice came from the throne saying: 'Praise our God, all you his servants, you who fear him, both great and small!"  Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: "Hallelujah! For the Lord God Almighty reigns.  Let us rejoice and be glad and give him glory! For the wedding of the Lamb has come, and his bride has made has made herself ready."

The word "glad" in the NIV is not a passive word.  In the Greek it is "Agalliao" meaning ecstatic joy.  The New Testament word, Beth said, for joy is mostly Chara.  Agalliao is when Chara gets physical.

The dictionary meaning is this: to exalt, rejoice with exuberance, show ones joy by leaping, skipping or dancing.

"Let's do the hard thing and get out there and love.  We have no higher calling than that" - Beth Moore

The four-part series has ended, but as long as we live on planet earth, our challenges to love will not end.

We can't give up on loving our:

• Joy
• Testy
• Foe
• Far

Keep on loving well!

This summer, join a summer Online Bible study (OBS).  Many have been posted on the Girlfriend's of Faith Facebook page.  You can also host a Bible study of your choosing in your home as well.

Loving Well Session 3

Last Wednesday evening 21 amazing Girlfriend's shared in the Loving Well Bible study session 3.

I look forward to these girlfriend's coming into class. The chatter among them is music to my ears.

At the beginning of class, we drew names for a special project we would all participate in at the end of class. What was that project?

Writing an encouraging note to the person on our slip of paper.  It was inspiring to see women sharing their cards with each other with huge smiles, hugs and prayers.

Part of our class project was bringing in food items for the Faith Tab food pantry.  We have collected items over a time period of 8 weeks and will be delivered to the food pantry Wednesday, June 10th.

Notes from Session 3

In session 3, Beth Moore talked about reconciliation versus restoration.  She said that reconciliation may never occur even when we have forgiven or apologized.  Restoration may never happen because some relationships are not meant to be restored or reconciled if they are toxic.  She also added that we should never minimize the power of an apology.

We went through our 4 confessions of love once again.  This is our continued memory work.  Each women received a laminated colorful 4x6 card with the 4 confessions of love printed on them.  A great reminder for us when it's difficult to love.

We looked at John 15:9 where the word "abide, dwell or remain" is used in this passage.  They are all the same word that is now used in the Greek and translated in I John 4 for "live." 

What is God saying when He says "dwell in my love?"

Beth stated that in order for us to do what He's called us to do, to be what He's called us to be and to love who He calls us to love, we are going to need to live in a constant awareness of His love for us.

He wants us to live in that reality.

Why is it so critical that we do?

Because we will never love well until we feel like we have been well-loved.

She related that "Testy" is difficult to love but "Foe" is impossible to love.  It only comes from God.  We don't have it in us to do this on our own.

In this session, we were given 4 points about love:

Let's start loving because we're loved - not so we can be loved.
Human love will still seek to satisfy itself. Without divine love, we will be self-seeking in our love.  Proverbs says: "what a man craves most is unfailing love."  We need to refrain from seeking our cup of love to be filled elsewhere or to get approval.

We were reminded of the story of Leah in Genesis 29:31-35.  Leah was trying to get love and approval from her husband in her bearing of children, except with the last child.  With this child, Judah, Leah said "This time I will praise the Lord."  

Let's learn to love with God's love.
Le'ts not love small or have a self-seeking love. What is difficult to accept is this: these people in our life that we cannot escape, have been assigned to us, positioned in our life, placed in our life to give us gain with our pain.  They bring out the worst in us, but we need this "worst" to be brought up and out until we do not bite the bait any longer.

Let's learn to love with insight - Philippians 1:9-10
It's never been a Biblical mandate to love blindly.  We need a love that knows.  A heart that is smart.  Ask for insight into our "testy" and our "foe."  When we do, we will have a love and compassion for them. Insight brings compassion.  It will also remind us to deal with our stuff.  If we do not deal with our stuff, we will be them someday - testy.

To see hard love as an offering on His altar.
Sweet to His senses is us sacrificing in order to be obedient to Him. How do we respond in Christ likeness in our love?  We say:           
Even though you do not love me, I will love you first because           God loved me first.  I'm willing to make a sacrifice for you.

This is how we initiate Christ in relationships.

With our foes, we need to forgive, bring it to the altar as a gift. Sacrificing our rights, all we would want to say, the grudge we would like to hold - lay it down and forgive.

When we don't forgive, it keeps the power over us.  Our hanging onto it is what keeps it happening over and over again.

Let's love well!  

Loving Well Session 2

Continuing with our Loving Well study, last Wednesday we viewed session 2.

Such a lively discussion we had in our small groups at the end of this session.  As a facilitator, I certainly enjoy the chatter, laughter, tears and prayers that these Girlfriend's of Faith share each Wednesday.

Beth Moore rehearsed with us our Four Confessions of Love once again:

• God is perfect love
• Nothing can separate me from God's perfect love
• God pours His perfect love into my imperfect heart
• Accessed, I can love anyone through anything

As a group we are memorizing these four confessions, so when we encounter our "testy" and our "foe", we can repeat these to ourselves in order to respond in a healthy way.

These are my notes from this powerful session:

We want powerful things done through us, but not to us.  He's never going to do through us what we've not allowed Him to do in us.

We will not love well until we feel well-loved.

We were asked a question:  When God is showing you His love, can you recognize it?

We have so much history that we've been blinded to the recognition of God's love.  We need to not just "know it" but experience it down in our spiritual gut that we are completely loved and cherished by God.

If this does not get through to us, we will be unhealthy believers all our entire lives.

Anything is easier than loving.  The love of God must be ministered to us before it can be ministered through us.

These are two points Beth brought out in this session:

God is perfect love.  Our first statement of confession.

God is not only love, but He's perfect love.  We know a lot of things by memory and intellect that have never made it through to our hearts.  if it was getting in, it would be getting out.

If God is love, then it's not just a feeling to God.  It's who He is. Love is something God is. Love is part of God's God-ness.

Nothing you can do can make God love you less because it's not an emotion to God.  It's an expression of His being God.

We think God is like us.  He's not.  It's impossible for Him to love you less.

What does perfect love mean? "Complete".  Teleios in the Greek: complete, to reach its goal.

Look at John 4:18:  "perfect love casts out fear."  When we are in a state of fear, we are not letting God's love accomplish its goal in us. Perfect love refers to a love which is mature, not hampered by insecurity or anxiety (which is characteristic of immature love).

We are not yet mature in how we allow God to love us, as long as we are fraught with insecurity and anxiety.  It is the outgrowth of unbelief and rooted in pride.

Nothing can separate us from God's perfect love.  This is our second statement of confession. It's pretty much self-explanatory. Read Romans 8:38-39.

We sit in the seat of "joy" because:

• God rejoices over us - literally means dances, skips, leaps, spins around in joy  
• He sings over us  

"For the Lord your God is living among you.  He is a mighty savior.  He will take great delight in you with gladness.  with His love, He will calm all your fears.  He will rejoice over you with joyful songs." - Zephaniah 3:17 NLT

Let us continue to Love Well......