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 hate that I feel this way but when I lost my husband to cancer I also lost my confidence in who I am. I have tried to remain involved in our church and continually ask the Lord to help me know what it is I am supposed to do with my life now without my husband. I feel like my life hasn’t moved forward much in the last 3 1/2 years and I do doubt myself in areas I never did before. I found this online study through a friend that is battling cancer and it seemed like something that God was showing me I needed. I am really hoping I can learn to trust the Lord with my life so I can feel blessed and have the hope and confidence I need to do whatever it is God has in store for my life.
{{{Hugs}}} to you sweet sister!
Renee, I can’t thank you enough for doing this Bible study. It couldn’t have come at a better time for me and where I stand today.
My shadowing and doubt is that I’m not good enough…I wasn’t good enough for my own birth mother to keep me, nor was I good enough for the family that adopted me, I wasn’t good enough to take places, or to be seen, not to mention nothing I said was ever good enough. I am the “Sam” ( Samaritan) in more way than one. After all her failed marriages no one wanted to do anything with her but talk about her. I stood at that well waiting for God, finally taking off my armor ( not His armor) and met God.
my story so that when I leave comments you have some understanding if I’m negative . I was abandoned at two weeks old in a house that was going to be she wanted to adopt me and her husband divorced her as well. She had 7 of her own natural kids, one with cerebral palsy. (She had a heart) I never really heard of God…we went to church on Sunday’s but when back at home God was no where to be found. My brothers and sister was always drinking and doing drugs causing a lot of trouble. I can remember being hiding away when her family comes to visit. The holidays to this day are very painful for me, when she would go see her family during those times I was locked in the trunk of the car and was told never to say a word. If my brothers and sisters had friends over them would lock me in the closet. I would wet and mess my clothes and in return get a whipping for that. I was never in any of their family portraits. My nickname was the “negro baby”. I cry as I write this. Condemned, neighborhood kids out playing heard a baby crying. I assume the proper steps where taking but no one seems to have paperwork to back it up. I am a mixed child, and they family that adopted me are white. (I am not one for the color fights….God made us ALL) My mom was divorced from her family because Life back then was such a horror. Mom let a man move in before I started school, while she was at work this man she loved would sexually abuse me. I would run to tell her and in return I would get a whipping and she would let him whip me as well because I was telling lies. This went on til my 5th grade year. During the summer time I was sexually abused by a brother and a cousin. At 16yrs old I was raped. Things just never seemed to go away.
I never knew what a confident heart was or if I even had one…still to this day I search for that heart, I can say this if it was for sale I would have bought mine a long time ago.
My daughter brought me to God, and now for 8 years I live to get closer to God and be the woman he made me to be.
Today I know I am a Child of God and no matter what others do or say……He is my mother and father!!
But, I need that Confident Heart.
Blessed
It is so hard to have a loving image of God the father when you didn’t have a great image of one yourself. I did not have it nearly as rough as you but it wasn’t easy. The Love Letter from God did amazing things for my heart and if you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it (it’s one page so it’s short).
http://www.fathersloveletter.com/Media/FLL_single.pdf
My prayers are with you that this will bring ABUNDANT blessings.
I can’t thank you enough for sharing this letter by our Father!
thank you
Thank you for sharing this. A few months ago I was struggling with the fact that I do not have a relationship with my father, and soon realized that I do have a relationship with my Heavenly Father.
Thank you for sharing this. I have never seen it before, but WOW!!!!!!
Patricia, thanks for sharing this too!
Michelle, my heart cries for you, dear sister! Oh how He loves us & no one can love us like Him!
Thank you Sherry!! I hold to Him tightly 🙂
Hi Renee and everyone,
I pre-ordered this book months ago and when it arrived I never made the time to read it. For many years I was lost. For the past 2 years I have not been able to get the devil out of my head. I listen too much to his lies and allow too many negative thoughts into my head. I not only doubted myself, but I doubted God also. When I prayed and didn’t get the answer I wanted, I blamed him for everything wrong in my life. I expected God to do more for me than I was willing to do for myself. I need this study so I can learn to stop doubting myself and to put my trust in God. To put God first in my life and really listen to what he wants for me… not what I want for myself. I love the word Blessed. When I stop to think about it, I’ve had a blessed life. I just need to stop listening to the negative voices telling me how non-blessed I am.
Wow! There are so many things about this book and you Renee, that connect directly to my past and my present. I have always been so insecure, so self-doubting and so hungry for approval that it is just very sad. Last year’s vision for our church was to be trees planted in deep waters to be fruitful… and I hear it again here. God has great things for me in this study. Just reading the acknowledgements… I cried, it hit me and I honestly open my heart and share that I am always living under a shadow of deep and sad doubts about myself and God. It is time for my breakthrough! My heart is full of joy as I start this journey! Thank you for this book and for reaching out to those, who like me are striving to be free and trust the Lord!
P.S I live 3 years in Ethiopia…. love your little Aster!!!
Renee, I wanted to let you know how excited I am to take part in this online study. It’s been several years since I have been a part of a small group Bible study, so I am looking forward to connecting with other women and going deeper with the Lord. Two of my best friends are doing the study with me as we live far away from each other and would never be able to join a group together in person. I am excited at how God is going to use this book to deepen our faiths and our friendship. Isn’t technology amazing??
A part that sticks w/ me is: Listening to Doubts Whispers. Especially ” I can’t do this.” What stands out so much to me is “how quickly these thoughts weasel their way into our minds and disguise their voices to sound like ours.” How easily this happens to me. For yrs I’ve been dealing w/ this. I have improved but wow are they subtle and hard to notice. It’s frequently w/ my performance at work, intelligence in general or capability and being liked/accepted by people. But I’m learning that my security and confidence doesn’t come from my performance at work, what my boss thinks of me or whether so and so likes me . I constantly think someone doesn’t like me and it really bothers me. Part of me wants to say to myself “well if so and so doesn’t like me, that’s just too bad,” but that’s probably not a healthy thought either.
I have felt God Stirring me recently to lay aside a few things and to find time to spend alone with him. It is very difficult to find this time but I know that without it we became stale in our relationship with God. As I listened to your video tonight I knew it was confirmation that I have to do this to truly receive the full meaure of God’s blessing for my life so that I can be a blessing to others. It is easy to dine off of what others recieve but I believe that God is calling us up higher to dine directly with him. Thank you Renee for sharing from your heart and helping us rekindle the fire within us. Many blessings !
I thought of the lyrics to this song tonight as I read through everyone’s comments:
Blessed assurance, Jesus is mine!
Oh, what a foretaste of glory divine!
Heir of salvation, purchase of God,
Born of His Spirit, washed in His blood.
This is my story, this is my song,
Praising my Savior all the day long;
Amen! And Amen!!
I love this song……..thank you!!!!!
This is my first time going thru this book and I am so excited what God is going to teach me. Last night I had the privilege of listening to a message by one of our pastors. He spoke on the sermon on the mount. He defined blessed as “being in a position of favor with God.” I thought it was very interesting how this study and that message focus on the same word! It just made it clear that this is the study I need to be doing! Thank you Renee for writing this book and leading this study!
I am learning more each day and want to not only believe in Him, but believe Him. I have never had a transparent relationship with anyone. There have always been strings attached to love. I want to know this transparency that God has to offer, love as it is meant to be! Love that only God can give!
Very cool! I had forgotten that I signed up for this online study. In the last month and a half or so I became sick of all of my excuses, my good reasons and doubts about doing that “one thing” that I believe God has been nudging me to do for awhile. Too busy, too old, too young, not qualified, not together enough, too tired, too undisciplined, what if I fail, what if I can’t— all cover ups for my lack of confidence. OR perhaps my lack of confidence in Him being able to empower me. As I stood in the hot shower pontificating, my mind fast forwarded to 10 years from now. Do I want to still be having this internal dialogue with myself in ten years or am I going to launch out—– The next day I launched into that “one thing”. Not sure how it it will go but it doesn’t matter. All that matters is that I keep obeying and trust Him with the results.
And so—- when I got my email reminding me about this study—- well, it is certainly timely!
Looking forward to all God has for me in this study!
This is my 2nd time attempting to read this book. The first time I was overwhelmed by how Renee seemed to be writing my life story. I am excited to begin reading again and hearing what Renee and others have to say.
I took each verse that was mentioned in chapter one and rewrote them in my journal inserting my name. I also marked each verse in my Bible with a little pink heart to remind myself of the truths I need to come to when I become fearful.
I’ve spent so much of my time in circles where worth is measured by performance and where there is such pressure to be “perfect” that it has become way too easy to forget that this is not how God evaluates us. I’ve read chapters 1 and 2 so far, and I am so thankful for this study. The biblical reminders of why we can be confident of our identities in Christ are so humbling, and the prayers at the end of the chapters have really spoken to me. Looking forward to reading more!
Thanks, Renee, for doing this study. I tried to do it a few months ago, but many distractions got in the way, including a second job. I no longer have the second job, and I hope to be more focused and get farther than 2 chapters this time. I really need this study and I am hopeful it will change my life. I have never ever felt good about myself, no matter what I hear from others. The voice inside never agrees. I want to fight that voice and convince myself that God’s truths evern apply to ME.
Thank you for your video Renee. You gave me hope in finding time when you said to give a little. Step by step, little by little, I can find myself in God’s presence. I am very busy; no cliche here: wife, mother of 2 adorable little children, full time teacher, and doctoral student. I put my hope and confidence in the Lord that He will help me daily. Without Him, I’m empty.
Today was great. God answered my morning prayer. Now, I’ll go and dive into his word before I call it the night.
Good night everyone. God bless and keep you till we meet again here.
It is as if Renee has been looking at my life. Chapter 6 is my life. Chapter 9 is my mother’s. A friend and I are doing this study as prayer partners and accountability partners. I can’t wait for the next lesson.
Thank you Renee for doing this online study. Your prayer at the end of chapter one “take me beyond believing in you to truly believing you” spoke to my heart. The confidence I need is in gods word. This
journey will help bring me closer to him.
Hi Renee and group!
Am glad to be part of this study … just watched the video and the thing that really spoke to my heart was to make time to spend with just the Lord – reading His word, talking to Him, listening to Him and just loving on Him – especially hearing the part that God can take a little and make it alot. I have a difficult time just sitting still and loving the Lord but I’m about to start practicing doing just that.
The same message resonated with me too. Sometimes we just fill we need to give a lot; we do, but one step at a time will get us further. Have a great journey here with all of us.
I am so thankful for this study. The enemy has plagued me with doubts about my abilities since as long as I can remember. When I was a student, I never had confidence that I could do the work. Now as a teacher of almost 20 years I still struggle with the feeling that I do not have what it takes to do a good job, even though others see the opposite. When I think about being a wife and mother, I get fearful of whether or not I can do it. I try to tell myself that God has equipped me and I can do all things through Him but I still have not been able to break through these doubts and fears. I am SO tired of living this way. I want to REALLY believe God and stop letting the enemy steal from me. I want to be able to walk with Him confidently no matter what He calls me to do. I told God I want to fight these doubts and fears until they no longer have power over my life. I don’t want to settle for less than God has for me.
I am so blessed to be apart of this Bible study and I know we will never be the same when it is over, God is going a new thing and He is calling his daughters to the light of his word. Renee thank you for sharing your life with us . God bless !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!