Some days my written words come easily. Other days I need to show and tell you what’s on my heart. Today is one of those days.
Please {like pretty please even if you don’t normally watch video posts} click the arrow below to “hear” today’s message from my heart to yours. I don’t want another day to go by without you knowing this…
{Are you a note-taker? If so, I created “Video Message Notes” in a PDF and in MSWord just for you. Even included blanks to fill in. 🙂
Today’s Giveaway:
Two friends of mine who serve behind the scenes and are part of our online study, [thank you Donna & Veronica] have donated copies of my book to giveaway today. Together we created 5 gift packs for 5 of you. Each one includes a copy of my book, A Confident Heart {for you or a friend?} and my testimony/teaching message on CD, Letting God Fill My Empty Places.
Let’s Connect {and how to enter today’s drawing}:
I’d love to hear your thoughts about today’s message… and this is an easy way to enter today’s giveaway too. Just click “share your thoughts” right below this post and do just that – share your thoughts. {I love to read them! And pray over you when I do.} I’ll be there reading and sharing my heart with you too.
For More Daily Encouragement join my Confident Heart Facebook page.
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If you aren’t already a subscriber, sign up in my right sidebar where it says “Receive Email Updates” — and you won’t miss a thing! I’ve got more giveaways, short video messages and lots of encouraging posts I’m working on for the coming weeks.
Is this site still active? I notice there has been nothing added or posted since 2012. Thank you for letting me know..Dee
There have been lots of new posts since 2012. You can find them here: https://reneeswope.com/blog-2/
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I am so behind with this Study but I am happy I am getting back on the right track! This message speaks to me on so many different levels! Thank you so much for sharing this with us! I want to be satisfied with Jesus’ love. I know I will begin to understand this and am looking forward to leaning how to be a confident woman.
This was so heart warming. I am at the point in my life where I know I need to grow and filling every empty spot with Him is the only answer. I felt the holes that were still there and I prayed for God to fill them all to overflowing of Him and only Him. With tears running down my face I feel His light and power going all through me right now. I feel like smiling and jumping for joy it just feels that good. Now to daily have Him fill me and just think how much brighter every day will be. Thank you for sharing this. I just found this sight tonight since I couldn’t sleep and have enjoyed reading many of your articles. God Bless you for letting Him use you in this mighty mighty way.
I am very grateful for you and your bible study 1 in this time of my life i have been experiencing a really hard time with a child taken away from based on lies and also being alienated from my child has caused great emotional abuse for him and he is even failing school due to htis and he does not participate! please pray that I get my son back!
I thnk I’ve tried just about every one of those things to fill me. The biggest thing though has been relationships. It’s so hard for me to trust in the unseen – kinda like a Thomas.
I am hoping through this study I will learn to put my trust in God and lean on him when the things of this life fail me.
Hi, Renee. I heard the video. last week on the empty spaces, after, I read all the comments, and as I was reading, I said to myself a lot of these are so me! then, I heard the video again because, you get mopre out of hearing things the secomd time. Now, I’m totally blind, and even though I didn’t see what you were doing. I heard you with the toys and what I loved when when you were filling the jug, and referring to Jesus filling us up and I just tried to picture myself in the story of the woman at the well and I was so peaceful! Renee! you are such an inspiration! I always thank God for you that he uses you so much to help people! as you were talking in that video, I realized so much, how I need to spend more time asking Jesus to fill me up. not looking so much to other people! also, when I’m upset, I look to junk food chips to fill me up! I also love chocolate Renee thank you! and it is so good that we all have the same struggles. I indentified with so many people.
As I read through my email this morning, I found this…and I thank you. So much of the time I feel empty, disconected, unloved…and UNWORTHY of His love for me. It is very hard for me to accept that there is a love for me that is unconditional. I am fortunate to have a husband that loves me for who I am, yet why am I so afraid of losing his love…that I will do something that will take it away? Growing up I never felt loved by my parents, molested by my father…so how would I really know what it would be to truly trust God? My first husband, my high-school sweetheart died from cancer 12 years ago…that love was taken away from me and our family. Please know that I am trying to figure out this emptiness, and I know that I have to never give up…but some days are harder than others. It is helpful to read the comments of others…we are not alone at all. Bless you for sharing this amazing video…my heart has been touched!
Such a beautiful illustration. Thanking God that my heart is becoming more and more confident as I find my complete security in him alone. I’m glad to be taking this journey with each of you.
Echoing so many of the comments here. I don’t think I’ve ever needed and enjoyed a bible study as much as this. It’s like water for my soul! God bless you, Renee! Thank you!!
Wonderful! Our hearts will never rest until we rest in Him.
What do I fill my empty places with…. what do I NOT try to fill them with? My biggest one is my husband, by far. (Well, that and carbohydrates). Years ago when we were dating, we had a period of time when he broke up with me, stopped talking to me, etc. I was completely blind-sided, and completely heart broken. But what I learned then, and what I know now, was that God was getting my attention, to tell me that He wanted to be what I had let my (then) boyfriend become- my confidant, my shoulder to lean on, my friend and even my lover. He (God) was the true lover of my soul. Yet, having learned that lesson so long ago and repeatedly since then, it still so easily fades from my memory. I find that my emotional state so often corresponds to my perception of the state of my marriage, or my worth to how I think he sees me. So thank you Renee yet again for the reminder to look to the Giver of all Good Things, and not to the gift of my husband- who will always disappoint in his humanness. I need to keep Christ on my heart’s throne.
Thank you so much Renee for that powerful example! This week I have realized that I too am looking for fulfillment in the wrong places. I think it would be neat if at the end of filling the jar with “living water,” you put a beautiful bouquet of flowers into it, because that is what filling our lives with Jesus does for us – it makes us beautiful, makes us more enjoyable to others, and adds a spot of brightness to the world around us!
I love that idea with the flowers- the ‘fruit’ of God’s indwelling Spirit.
A very powerful reminder for me today to Put those things that I have been substituting for Jesus in my life back to a place apart from Him and allow him to fill those empty places.
I am getting ready to retire from the military after 25 years of service and this is my last month of work at my job. I have been feeling sad and unappreciated and this message really helped me see how I have placed my security and significance in my work instead of my LORD and how I need to look to Him for these needs.
Brenda, thank you for your many years of devoted service in the military. It is appreciated. Thank you and please know that the Lord has a Plan for the rest of your life. Jeremiah 29:11-13
It’s so easy to start putting those things back into the jar without realizing that when we put those things back into the jar, we’re leaving less room for Jesus to fill our jars up. Thanks for the reminder.
Oh Aly, so happy you felt you could share your experience w/this bible study. I, too, am praying for you. Stay right where you are sweet sister!! I’ve been reading ahead and the next chapter in Renee’s book is one you won’t want to miss either. It’s awesome so far. I’m enjoying this study so much Renee that I can’t control myself, I have to keep reading. ha! Your study is like a bag of Lay’s potato chips-you can’t have just one!! 🙂 Thank you for sharing yourself, your time, and your life w/us. You are a TRUE blessing!!
Great message and illustration- I notice you didn’t fill the jar to the top- leaving room for Him to continue to pour in to me. It is good to be reminded the Living Water (Holy Spirit ) is ever pouring, flowing into the empty places.
Great message and very fitting. Thank you!!
Chips and corn are exactly what I turn to. But now I am turning to God, and slowly the dry places are being touched by the Living Water. Thanks, Renee!
Chips and cookies are my weakness. Crunchy is my comfort. Im praying for us both – and our precious sisters in Christ – to let Jesus pour and pour His living Water and the heart-quenchiing truth of HIS love into our dry and empty places.
This week’s video message was so powerful. I have had a stressful week dealing with teenagers! I was actually looking online at cars yesterday as a way of relieving this stress. Your message was exactly what I needed to hear. Believe it or not, there was a time when I was a single school teacher when I would trade my car in and get a new one when I became extremely stressed. Needless to say, the excitement only lasted a day and then I was stuck with a new car payment and an empty “Jar”. Thanks for your timely message.
thank you so much for those encouraging words.
Just finished reading Chapter 2. As I was reading, I began to cry. It seemed like your words can straight from my life and my heart. Could there be others like me out there? I thought that I was all alone in this world. Thank you Renee.
You are not alone sweet friend. You are not alone. Oh how precious He is to give me words to write that would so resonate with your heart. HE is speaking to you – tenderly, gently but oh so truthfully. You are pursued and loved by an intimate Savior who wants you to know you are not alone. He is there and so are we. We’re in this together and we’re moving closer and closer to the healing place of His love!!
I am amiddle aged married woman with a 23 & 19 year old daughters. Te eldest has graduated from college but is back living at home. The younger one is in college. I have been pondering what God has planned for me in this new season. I don’t want to intentionally fill it up with things that have no significance. He has had me in a season of extreme loneliness. I know that He is the only one that can fill ALL the spaces but to be honest I don’t always act that way. I would love to read your book and get another woman’s perspective in this area. Bless you for serving women so faithfully!
Thank you so much Renee! For some reason in all the years that I have read and listened to the story of the Samaritan woman, I have never notice the metaphor of the water. There really are no empty spaces when we are filled with the living water! Like you, I have tried to fill up my emptiness with people and things, just hoping that their approval or that I have that possession, will fill me and make me feel worth something. I was doing pretty well with the concept of letting God fill those places. Then I moved to Korea. While they are warm people, they can be brutally honest. I am a little overweight (HUGE compared to these little, thin people) and they do not hold back in telling me how fat I am…they do this more to my husband than to me for some reason. While, in the States, I had lost over 40 pounds but have now gained some of it back. I’m not obese, just a little on the chunky side. But because I hear, or see, on a daily basis the laughter or the hurtful words (especially from kids) I feel like I am a blimp. But seeing this video today made me see that I just need to take the yearning for their acceptance and replace it with God’s acceptance. Thank you again for this message!
Oh Lynda, my heart breaks for you!! I too have struggled with my weight for 40 years. But Gods divine timing has allowed me to rejoin Weight Watchers, read Made to Crave, and give me insight into how He sees me. It has been a 2+ year journey with many ups and downs but I can say that He is teaching me to see myself as He sees me!! I pray that these words will encourage you in some way. He truly is Mighty to Save 🙂
I know I am guilty of trying to fill my life with things or people when only Christ can fill that need. Things leave me feeling lost and alone. Christ alone can give me that peace in the midst of difficult and trying times.Christ alone satisfies.
Messages from Christ always seem to come when in need. What a powerful but unique way to see how worldly items and family/friends/bosses/teachers etc, can not full our hearts with the missing unconditional love that we each desire. I too have looked in the wrong places for acceptance and love. After seeing your video, I am going to find a way to put my items into a box to let them go, for it is not what makes me happy. I think that once a month I will return to read/look at what I have placed in the box, then send them on there way as like releasing a butterfly to flutter away. I will pray daily that Christ will show me and others (that I know and love) the way to fully experience His unfailing love for I know deep in my heart, Christ is the only one who can bring TRUE happiness, peace and love. God Bless
This chapter and video confirmed what God has been telling me-that I need to learn to let him satisfy me fully. I’m learning slowly that he is enough. I had a thought yesterday while walking to lunch that i knew it from from him. I have a reminder at work to look to him and shift my dependence on him.
I love that you’re hearing Him speak to your heart and recognizing those nudges from Him. He speaks in whispers that are easy to question or ignore. Keep listening Dallena – His voice will become more and more familiar every time you do!!
As I reread the devotional my heart stung, my breathe was taken away as if to say “Now do I have your attention.” The Holy Spirit has been quietly tapping at my heart, while I pretend not to hear it. I also read a daily devotional by Iyanla Vanzant and it asked “How much confidence do you place in your prayers?” I recently place very little because I am not allowing God to fill my empty spaces, I am trying to do it myself and failing at it.
Thank you for allowing God to use you in such an amazing way, to remind me that He can and He will I must seek Him and allow Him to fill those spaces.
I can not begin to tell you how timely this study is in my life right now.
Well to be honest, I need to catch back up with the online book & Bible study. Because I think everything you are talking about is everything I am going through right now. I want to be a confident woman in Christ. I want to be confident in knowing who I am and who God has made me to be. I want to be confident in trusting Him, and in knowing He has a bigger plan that sometimes we cant see, especially when we are in the midst of problems. I want to know the love of the Lord that is unfailing and never changing. To be honest this has been a struggle here lately. My husband left me and my (2month old at the time) precious baby girl for another woman. My baby is now almost 9 months and is such a sweet blessing and answered prayer in my life. My husband and I have been separtated since a week after Thanksgiving when I found him living with her. Since then he has moved her into our home, as I moved back in with my parents & my daughter. So I guess what I am trying to say is that I for sure need some healing. I need to have the confidence that God gives, because all the insecurites I am feeling right now are overwhelming. I feel like I wasnt good enough. I feel like I gained so much weight being pregnant that that made me unlovable. I know these are the wrong thoughts which is why I probably need the healing!! I want to remain confident in Christ so that no matter what my husband does or says, I will not be shaken or waver. My husband has lied to me so much that even if he was telling me the truth now it would be hard to believe him. I pray for forgiveness & healing. I pray for the other woman & my husband to find salvation and come to realize all that he has right in front of him. I was given a prohetic word (or several rather) about my marriage and total marriage restoration, and his salvation. So I am holding onto those words. i just have to realize that this is in Gods timing & that His timing is perfect!! But in the meantime I want to grow so close with the Lord, where He is all I need. i feel like I do good some days, or most days rather. But then there are those that have me struggling to look to God for all I need. I need to look to Him for my love, peace and joy, and not depend on things that are here one day and gone the next. I pray for all the women out there that struggle with being confident and in knowing who they are in Christ. I pray God will speak to all us women to give us the courage, love and acceptance that our hearts so deepliy desire. And in the meantime we can just serve Him, praise Him and give Him all the glory that is His! Thank you so much for your ministry and for all the precious lives it touches! Blessings to each of you today and always!
I don’t have a husband…but I have a boss…and I applied to another position at another department with better paid my boss is trying to sabotage me. I overheard my boss to someone that I wasn’t mature enough for this position…my boss is a bully, just like my ex-boyfriend the love of my life was, and quite frankly I was hurt but I was not devastated when I overheard him said that, and part of the growth is to the message that I’ve received through this study. ..I walked away from my relationship with my boy-friend long time ago, and I will find a better position and a better boss. I believe this is God’s testing me, and proving to me that he’s enough Bosses,, jobs, promotions, husbands, boyfriends can’t give you the confidence and approval we seek, but God can. I think is possible to get to a place in our lives when we are no longer bound to what other think of us, or seek their approval because we know we have a father that loves us unconditionally and want was best for us…He is enough! We are complete..and we lack nothing!
Amen, preach is girl!! WhoooHooo I love the God-fidence I hear in your words. I had a boss who was a bully — many years ago and I let him have way too much power in my life. I was a baby Christian and wanted his approval far too much. Im praying for God to go before you and give you favor with this new position and for others to recognize your current bosses issues and not let them interfere with the interview process.
Keep letting JESUS define you and lead you to the best position He has for you – no matter what that is your positing in HIM is sealed and secure. There is no better place to be!
Jennifer — you are so much more than the lies you are being told and the way you are being treated. His decision and sin is not a reflection of your lack – but his. Do not let his sin and selfishness have any hold on you. You and your precious baby girl deserve to be cherished and cared for and honored and watched over.
I”m praying for you to take time to let JESUS love you deeply. Please start reading the book and see how He wants to meet you right where you are and lead you into a place of absolute confidence and security in HIM – separate from your circumstances and your husband decisions.
You are valuable, chosen, accepted, pursued, loved and chosen – by the Creator of the Universe. You are cherished by a Mighty God!!! In HIM you will find the love and assurance you soul desires and was created to live in! Amen!!
“His decision and sin is not a reflection of your lack – but his.” AMEN.
Oh friends, I am sitting here telling Jesus I wish I had 10 hands and 24 extra hours so I could type out a little note to each of you. As I am reading your stories and your precious words I am praying for each of you and seriously wishing we were sitting in a coffee shop talking. I’d look you in the eyes, I”d probably touch your hand and I’d encourage you. I’d tell you the truth about YOU – about how precious you are…how much value you hold.
Oh Jesus let these truths of Your unfailing love be the very thing our heart says yes to. Be our enough. Give us a thirst for you that cannot be satisfied by anything or anyone else. YOU are the ONE AND ONLY love that can fill us up. Jesus fill us, fill us and assure us and empty of us of anything that keeps us from receiving all of YOU. In the power of Your Name we pray, Amen!!!
I prayed that prayer with you Renee, and I really needed it today. I did have a small victory though. I was feeling upset about a financial crisis we are going through, and I was going to fill that need with food. I’ve lost all of my weight, but it is easy to go back to the old ways sometimes, especially when you feel alone. However, I stopped and prayed, and while I have to keep giving the problem to God, as I can’t seem to get the worry out of my head, I didn’t eat, and I continue to pray. So thanks for your prayer as well. That one prayer I am sure touched many as it did me, so know even though you don’t have time for each of us, those types of posts, and your video messages change lives, and heal hurts!
This was a really good video! Your illustrations brought the message home in a very clear way!Thanks for sharing with us!
I realize I might be too late but I really could identify with so much of what you have said and what others have said as well. I would love to receive this book and your testimony/teaching message. You have really hit on a nerve with me and it is so comforting to know that I am not alone in my struggles! Even better that God is with me and will bring me through this!!! Thank you!
This is the first video post that I have watched as I usually prefer to read the message. In fact, I didn’t have time to watch it until today, but I am so happy that I did. Even though I’ve read that Bible story many times, I have never thought of what I fill my jar with. You made it so easy to see that only Jesus can satisfy me. Thank you so much! I’m looking forward to watching other video posts!
I have seen this demonstration used before, but never this way. It was always as put God in first then all the smaller things will fit into the jar. This is revolutionary. If will fill our jar with God the other things will have the right place in our loves. Thank you so much for sharing this with us. I am looking forward to putting things back where they belong and being completely filled with the Living Water.
I began to cry when you mentioned unconditional love in your video. The first thing that came to my mind was my cat, MAX. He died in 2009, but for 12 yrs he was like a child to me and he is the only one who has ever shown me unconditional love. I miss him terribly. I long to be filled with God’s unconditional love & struggle daily. Renee you are a true disciple of Christ & your book touches me in many ways. It is like you are talking directly to me. God bless you! Please keep me in your prayers as I continue my journey & relationship with the Dear Lord.
Wow, what a powerful message! I love the visuals! I have to hear, see, touch……what I am learning. I tend to look at others to fill me and shopping for things that I don’t need. I needed to hear this message and am working hard to put my focus back on Jesus filling and fulfilling my desires and needs.
Thank you!
Thank you for the message. I do desire to shift my dependence to the Giver of all gifts and let Him fill me. He is Faithful.
This message came right when I needed it. Thank you for charing it with all of us. God is truly using you for His purposes. I am so thankful for the video and plan to watch it again, taking notes the second time! God bless you!!!
i am 64 and have never been confident and never seem to excel at anything as my mother and husband do
When I truly came back to God, my biggest fear was that I would “fail” as a Christian, fail God. I am now
stepping out in faith to help teach a Precepts class. Your post several weeks ago about being “paralyzed”
was exactly what I was facing as I tried to prepare my lesson for the following week. The phrase, “Do I
believe in God, or do I believe God.” was what I needed to hear. When he says “I am sufficient for you”,
do I believe that and the answer was, if I do, I’m not living that way. Now I am doing your study and it is
“filling in the things I didn’t even know I was looking for”.
What was very powerful for me were the illustrations and most all when we let God fill us up (pouring the water in the empty jar) there will be no empty spaces. WOW…just excellent. Jesus is enough! I will share the message and illustrations with my family, friends and brethren in Christ.
Thanks Renee for this great reminder!
These are things I know in my head. I am at the beginning of understanding them with my heart. I want to be satisfied with God and what he has for me. I just need to allow what I’ve always known in my head about God to become a part of my life. I know that if I could ever get these things into my heart that it would transform my life.
Ditto! My exact thoughts!
I loved the visual you used in this video. It really stirred me to think about how many things I have allowed in my jar that need to come out. I am at the point in life that my children are graduating from college and high school, one just got married. It has been a very hard year for me, very reflective. Watching this made me realize that my children are taking themselves out of “my” jar, as they should as healthy young adults, and as I raised to too. Even knowing this I have mourned the passage of time a little, wondering how they grew up so very fast. I am so convicted by your visual to pray that Jesus will fill my jar just like your water, and that I would use caution with the things I add back. Thank you Renee for such a wonderful message.
This chapter really spoke to my heart. I look to my husband, friends and family to fill the empty spaces in my heart. I try to seek approval and get so readily disappointed when I don’t feel loved or secure in my relationships. I need to stop looking to others to fill those empty spaces and instead look to the only ONE who can. I love what Renee said in the book “Until God’s love is enough, nothing else will be.” SO TRUE!Only HE can satisfy my deepest longings, only HE can satisfy my thirst, HE is MORE THAN ENOUGH! Thank you LORD for Your LOVE that reaches to the deepest part of us and fills us to overflowing!!!
Renee: Thank you for the message. God is giving me a lot of messages about getting away from my addiction to people pleasing and to finding my worth in accomplishments, work, etc. etc. He has dramatically placed me in a new place where I can focus on Him and His plan for my life. I have learned to lean on Him alone and that he is my Provider and Source. Your study is a great reminder to me and is greatly helping me along the path away from self-reliance and people-pleasing to affirming my status as a daughter of the King.
Thank you so much for all your words of encouragement. It is such a blessing to have you come along right beside me in my journey of gaining confidence in my life. You are such an inspiration to so many. Please don’t ever stop these little messages and notes of encouragement. They seem to come at exactly the right time and in the right way.
Your sister in Christ! ~ Erin