Happy Monday! It’s day 2 in the first week of our Online Study and I”m so glad you are here!
Here’s today’s message: Please click the arrow below to watch it. I share how we can make sure our lives are BLESSED and not cursed as well as some share things God’s laid on my heart for us. I also announce our key word and verse for the week!
After viewing it, be sure to read below. I’ve got an assignment and answers to many of the questions you all have sent in about the study :-).
[If you’re reading this via email, CLICK HERE to find the video on my website.]
Todays’ Assignment:
Download our Word for the Week: BLESSED (double click the word) to download your FREE printable promise and word for the week, as many times as you want. Stick it everywhere and live like it’s true, girl, cause God wants this for you!
Please read Jeremiah 17:5-8. As you read it, ask God to show You His truth in this passage as it applies to your life – and how it relates to Chapter One where I listed the lies “doubt” whispers or shouts from the sidelines. They really are curses aren’t they?
Journal your thoughts in your notebook and ask God to help you notice this week when you’re tempted to put your hope and find your confidence in the wrong things and people. Then ask Him to help you turn to Him each time for confidence and security that comes from His approval, acceptance and unconditional love.
Don’t Get Overwhelmed if you haven’t read Chapter One yet. I want you to do that first, then watch the video. If you have time answer today’s question. The rest of the week we we’ll be getting to know one another, reviewing the chapter, answering questions at the end of the chapter and discussing them here.
Connect in Community: If you feel comfortable, I’d love for you to be part of the community we’re building here! I want to pray for you. I want to hear from you. Seriously, your thoughts matter to me!! When you have time, share them and read others’. Feel free to stop back by any time. Click “share your thoughts” below this post to be part of today’s conversation.
How Our Online Study Will Work (since I know it might be confusing)
My blog/website will be the “living room” of our online study. We’ll meet here to read my posts, watch videos, find out our assignments and download free resources for the week. The primary place to share our thoughts, prayers and questions will be in the comments section under each post.
As time allows for those who want to, we’ll linger “in the foyer” on Facebook and Twitter. Some will and some won’t. It’s totally up to you! I’ll be there at least a little bit almost every day. BUT the most important gathering place will be right here on my blog.
How will you know when it’s time to connect here? I’ll notify you four different ways.
I’ll Facebook and Tweet it. I’ll send you a note through the Online Study list and include a link back to the post. And, if you’re signed up for Email Website Updates, you’ll receive the whole post in an email that day too. But you’ll need to click on a link to come back to my website to watch videos, download extras or comment and connect.
Remember this is a journey and we’re just getting started. Give yourself time to read today’s assignment and yesterday’s, memorize this week’s verse, pray it out loud and let God love on you! Click “Share Your Thoughts” to do just that!
{Remember, if you’re reading this via email, CLICK HERE to find the video and leave your comments on my website.}
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I also want to say I’ve really enjoyed the video blessed. Renee you are like me very outgoing and I’ve been praying about my priorities and makigng sure especially i have time with God. God has really helped me by bring me the devotionals in my in box every day and reading the devotionals. I sense himn talking to me. I am blind i want to tell everyone. I have the computer that has a speech program where I use keystroke commands to read a line at a time and everything. I’m not able to read the chappters I want to tell everyone, because it is in p.d.f. file. my speech program only reads word files, but I’ve been hearing all the videos, and I’ve been having trouble with being confident in Christ and trusting him well, since, I’ve started this course, I have been feeling more confident in christ and I have been able to hear all the videos so far that you posted thank you renne! This is the best course for me! God is really helping me! Thank you and also, i’ve been having trouble finding where to write my comments I wanted so much to share with the group. now I have been able to find out where to share my comments. I didn’t understand how my computer was reading to me. and now, i’m able to write my comments here thank you!
I’m so happy about this course. I’ve started being more confident since I started this and it is so good to be in this course. and Good to hear you Renee share your hart with us and encourage us. God is helping me every day with self doubt and I’m really learning to trust him, and I’m very happy about this confidence bible study course thank you!
I just started this study this week…1/28/12. I’m a little late…but better late than never. I found this book by God chance…I have been praying for a word for 2012 and the first few weeks I thought my word for the year would be love. I’ve always had a head knowledge of God’s love and at different points in my life, I have felt God’s love for me in a tangible way. However, God had a different word for me. My friend had texted me not too long ago a few scriptures for me to pray and read…and not knowing or putting two and two together…they were about confidence. As I asked God again a few weeks ago about my word…Confidence came to my heart. I was reading Proverbs 31 ministries devotional and saw Renee’s book. Yeah….talk about confirmation! Anyway, here I am a little late but ready to dig in!
The sentence that really stuck out to me in Chapter one was on pg. 24 “He’s led me beyond believing IN Him to really believing Him by relying on the power of His words and living like they are true no matter what my feelings tell me.”
I want that! I want to go from believing IN God to really believing Him! No matter what I face in my life or what circumstances come my way.
I’m not planning on rushing through this study to catch up and be on track with everyone else…I’m going to let God do what He needs to do in my heart in the weeks to come. Thank you God for allowing me to find this study!
I am a week behind and trying to catch up. A group of friends did this study last semester but due to work scheduling I was unable to join them. I was happy to see it offered this semester as an online study! Renee, you said in your video that God has laid on your heart the need to work a little less in order to be able to pour more time into this study, us and ultimately Him. For me, that “thing” to sacrifice is my Facebook account. It is such a time waster that is sucking the joy out of me. How easy it is to sit for a few moments, only having those moments turn into much more. I have been two days without it now and two days into God’s word. I am so looking forward to learning from all of you as we journey together!
Thank you for offering this study online. I have already learned so much from reading some of the book. Most of my life has been spent being cursed by trying to please others and feeling so unworthy and so unloved. The more I dig deeper into His word and learning who He really is and how much He loves me I am being Blessed by the many things He is bringing to my life through Him alone.
So glad to have found this study! At first I was thinking, oh, this doesn’t really apply to me. I have a lot of confidence. Turns out I don’t socially or spiritually (right now). I will go on a mission trip to Uganda in a few months and I’m not sure WHY God wants to use ME and I do not think I am worthy of Him doing anything through me. I know I’m not. But it’s beating me up and making me doubt going when I know it is my calling. It’s hard not knowing anyone on the trip, flying out there alone, and being WAAAAAAAAY out of my comfort zone…socially I am very shy with strangers and spiritually I feel I am not in the right place.
Is EXTREME shyness really a form of self-doubt? I’ve been crippled by it my entire life and it prevents me from being and doing all that I could otherwise be and do.
I am not able to double click on the word.Why is this not working.
Please help me.
Dannie
Thanks for the encouraging words this week. They have been totally refreshing to me. I am getting into the habit of really knowing who God is and how he thinks of me. I absolutely love it. I want to get this new perspective and use it for God’s glory. I loved the word this week Blessed. It totally got me to think that I am blessed in God. He is the one that gives me the strength and hope to work through what he has given me.
a better rendition of “moving forward” check it out!!
Thank you for posting that song. I needed to hear that. I spend so much time looking back and dwelling on what I did wrong, that I forget that my God is just and forgiving. He wants me to move forward and trust in Him! “I will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream. It does not fear when heat comes; its leaves are always green. It has no worries in a year of drought and never fails to bear fruit.” Jeremiah 17:8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sy057HBx0jU&feature=related
TRULY TRULY TRULY: We are moving forward! I pray this song ministers to your heart as much as it does mine!
Dear Sisters,
I need prayer right now. This week started out well. I was so excited about starting this study and even happier when my Bible study at school turned out to follow my. But now my week is going on a downward spiral. My fears and doubts starting taking over Tuesday night. I let in consume me. I missed classes and couldn’t sleep. I don’t want to fall back into the same cycle I was in last semester. Why is it so hard to trust!!! Please pray for me. thanks
Hi Sarah
It is Jan. 23rd and I am praying for you! This is the 2nd time our God’s Girls Bible study group is doing A Confident Heart. God has so much good planned for you that Satan is throwing monkey wrenches trying to discourage you. (it happens to us, too)
My good friend Cindy has suffered from anxiety all her life, and shortly after we started the study the first time, we had put the Bible verses from each chapter on spiral bound note cards and the Praying God’s promises Prayers, too. One night she woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep. She felt an anxiety attack coming on, and got out the note cards, read each scripture and prayer out loud. She was filled with God’s peace and went back to sleep. (There is so much power and comfort in God’s Word)
Lord God Almighty, I thank You for strengthening Sarah’s inner spirit. Please remind her that she is a child of the King of kings, Princess Sarah! Remind her to say, I am totally accepted and loved in Christ, I am totally secure in Christ and I am totally significant in Christ!
Sarah, God wants to do a new thing in your life everyday! What a mighty God we serve!
You have the 10 finger prayer, too. 1-I 2-can 3-do 4 all 5 things 6 through 7 Christ 8 who 9 strengthens 10 me! (I like it better than counting to 10)
May God bless you, Indeed!! Abiding in Jesus, Deb
Yes;I am a male taking this Bible Study.I have what is known as Gender Identity Disorder;I have a female personality.Although biologically male;I do not see myself as one.I do have lots of self-doubts about myself.Raised for the first eight years in a foster home;then taken home with my father and step-mother to grow-up in a very abusive home.I was told that I would not amount to anything;that I was just a piece of trash.I am looking forward to reading the book and doing the Study.I have read Chapter One and I can see where lies and curses have been spoken.I am scizophernic and dealing with suicidal-depression.
Hi Ron
I’m praying for you! I pray you will know who you are in Christ! God has awesome plans for you!!!! Satan is the father of lies, but your Heavenly Father is the Father of Truth. I pray you will know the truth and the truth will set you free.
Heavenly Father, You are our loving Father. There is no one like You, God, full of loving kindness. We thank you Lord for Ron, that you have such good plans for his life. What satan has meant for evil in his life, we know that You can bring such healing and restoration like no other. Please help Lord, we need Your help!
Thank You, Lord for all that you want to do in Ron’s life. Surround him, Holy Spirit, with Your blanket of love like You did for me that night when I wanted to end my life. You want Ron for Your very own dear child just like You wanted me that night. I pray he will know Your great love. Asking all these things in Your precious name, my brother Jesus, Savior and friend! Amen!
P.S. I have great respect for you Ron! Jesus and I are very proud of you!!!!!!!
I am really excited about this study. I look way to hard for man’s approval and get disapointed a lot when I don’t get what I think I need. I really hope that I find the confidnece through this study, to truly depend on God and seek only HIs approval.
So many encouraging comments! Thank you to all! I plan to become more familiar with God’s voice by reading more of his love letters. =)
I am so excited to go through this study. I struggle every day with low self confidence but have written down the verses and really enjoy them. I get an email from Guideposts every day and today was a verse that really spoke to me – Fight the good fight of faith, lay hold on eternal life…. 1 Timothy 6:12. And it says – Believe in what you can become. God made all of us to be individuals and we are all special in his eyes. We as women spend so much time worrying that we are not going to measure up for everyone else and we need to remember that as long as we are living for God and doing it his way, we shouldn’t worry about what everyone else thinks. It is hard to do, but that is what I am going to write down and tell myself everyday.
Hey…already behind…still not sure yet what to cut from my day…but I have an idea… I really enjoyed thinking about Jeremiah 17:5-8. There is a beautiful promise in there…I hope to embrace it and practice it day by day. How TRUST is such an important thing in our walk with the LORD! I have to keep reminding myself that it’s not about how I can accomplish it…it’s about HIS FAITHFULNESS. (Some days believing He is faithful is easier than other days…but I am hoping to come to the point where I never question that…do you think that happens on the earth? Anyway…thanks! And thank you for the “BLESSING” download…I actually put it as my desktop background….Blessings to you!
I finally got my book yesterday and have just read the first chapter. I think that the biggest barrier for me in my relationship with God is that I compare him to all the human expereinces that I had thus far in my life. I have lived through so much abandonment, abuse, dissappoitnments and pain. I use to blame God for my circumstances but I dont anymore. I dont consider myself a victim anymore but rather a survivor. However due to my past I have signifigant trust issues and God is no exception. Rationally I know that God is perfect love but my heart and head tell me a different story. I long to fully let go and surrender but from years of feeling like i had to rely on myself the fear is somtimes paralizing. I am hoping this book and study will help replace my fear with trust and not just any trust confident trust of all the amazing things I know about the father just struggle to beleive them for myself. I thank all of you wonderfully ladies for sharing what is on your hearts it helps to know that I am not alone.
Chrissy
Fear is paralyzing especially if you have been abused physically & emotionally. There are many times in the midst of the storm, I stop and pray. Sometimes it is a simple prayer of protection not just physically but for the MY EARS TO BE GUARDED FROM THE verbal abuse. God has to guard our minds as well as our hearts. What is spoken in to our lives has to be emptied out and we have to learn to not accept anything that is not from God. The more people of faith would poor into me the minute I got home it was stripped away from me so it left me powerless to move forward in my walk with Christ. I would get encouragement & feel the presence of an Almighty God & started to grow in HIM only to be torn down and shredded to the core. Sometimes I send out a text to my friends “just pray” with nothing else then they know I am battling. I feel their prayers because it stops the majority of the time. I have been desperate. I have prayed God deliver me from this horrible world, I am nothing & I can’t handle the abuse anymore just take me. But I feel his presence fill my heart and HE lets me cry it out. God has been so patient with me. I feel like at times I am moving forward in my relationship with HIM & HE IS USING ME. Then others I feel like I have never been further from HIM. You need other people to support you in prayer & to lean on in storms but you need HIM above all. You need to go to him as a child and say Daddy, I am being bullied and your little girl needs you to step in. He is always FAITHFUL.
I am in the process of reading your book The Confident Heart. It has been a blessing to me so far!! When I first heard about this book; I just had a feeling it would be one I could truly apply to my life! Thanks for your insight on how we need to be listening for God on a daily minute by minute basis. I”m trying to be in His Word more so that I can hear from Him more!!
Thanks for all you do!
Leighanne
I do not always hear what is being asked of me. I am reading my Bible more, so that I can learn to listen to His word more. Thank you for doing this online Bible study. I am making more time for me to have a stronger relationship with GOD.
After reading most of the book so far. I have learned to stop and think about what is going on in my life and trying to figure out the big picture instead of just plunging in head first and thinking later. God has bigger plans if I just give him time to put things in order for me.