A Woman's Heart Bible Study! Week 10: Mended Hearts, Eternal Ties!

Day 1 : A Peek at the Promised Land
Then have them make a sanctuary for me, and I will dwell among them. Exodus 25:8 
Psalm 116: v. 15 Precious in the sight of the Lord is the death of his saints.  


Are you standing at your own Kadesh-barnea? Have you found yourself on the brink of the place for which God has long been preparing you? A Location? A place of Service? A Circumstance? A Position? Something for which you sense  He has been preparing you for a long time?  Now that you see God fulfilling His promise to use you and have  gone through  excruciating  preparation toward that end, are you filled with fear?  An overwhelming  feeling of  unreadiness? A sudden emotion that this may not be what you wanted?  A little sorry you volunteered to go wherever and do whatever? Do you feel like a grasshopper beside the task?  God will deal with those feelings and will bring them to a place of dismissal if you confess them to Him and invite Him to give you the courage to accept His personalized plan for you.  




Day 2: Home to Jerusalem
Joshua told the people, Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.  Joshua 3:5


Imagine that. Throughout Joshua 7-18 the Lord's Army  took one piece of land after another.  It enjoyed the ecstasy of victory when it obeyed God in battle and the agony  of defeat when it failed to follow its Victor.  The land divisions began, and the Israelites settled into a strange land that God had called their own.  




Day 3: The True Tabernacle
Before God breathed a soul into the first man, the blueprint for a Tabernacle had been designed --One that would somehow, someway miraculously  encase the Creator of all the universe inside the parameters of human flesh.


Sacrifice and offering you did not desire, but a body you prepared for me; with burnt offerings and sin offerings you were not pleased. Then I said, Here I am--it is written about me in the scroll-- I have come to do your will, O God. Hebrews 10:5-7


The Word became flesh and {Tabernacle} among us. John 1:14




Day 4: The New Tabernacle
Do you not know that your bod is a temple of the Holy Spirit, who is  in you, whom you have received from God? You are not your own; you were bought at a price. Therefore honor God with your body.  1 Corinthians 6:19-20

A healthy, holy tabernacle provides the best environment in which a healthy  holy soul and spirit can thrive.  




Day 5: The Intimacy of the Holy of Holies
Blessed are  those you choose and bring  near to live in your courts! We are filled with the good things of your house, of your holy temple. Psalm 65:4


If you stop short  of a willingness to fellowship in His sufferings, you stop short of the indescribable experience of His Holy of Holies! 




Philippians 3:10: I want to know Christ—yes, to know the power of his resurrection and participation in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death.


My friend, how He beckons you. How he longs for you to enter through the veil He tore for you.  We only have this one experience to know Him as mortals.  We can live our lives on the outer perimeters of our salvation, in Christ but not with Christ, or we can accept the challenge to enter and behold His glory.  






Ladies I hope you have gained so many truths from this study, that God spoke to you and showed you His truth!  I have so enjoyed our journey together! 

Have a Beautiful Day! 

Christina 

A Woman's Heart Bible Study! Week 9: The Heart of the Testimony

Day1: The Mercy Seat
Jesus is the Mercy Seat.


This is Love: not that we loved God but that He loved us  and sent His Son as a Mercy Set (atoning sacrifice) for our sins. 1 John 4:10


But God demonstrates His own love for us in this: While we were still sinners, Christ died for us.  Romans 5:8


In the depth of our depravity Christ died for us.  He did not wait for persons to get as close as possible through obedience to the law and righteous living.  Never once did He proclaim to His Father: "Close Enough! This one made it !"  In the breadth of our separation from God, Christ died for us.


In the moment in all of history  when humanity  could not have been  further from God, Christ died for us.


He who  knew all things  died in advance for the most  depraved deed I would ever  commit. Although I was not present in the crowd that dreadful day , my sins most assuredly were.


His holiness had to forsake His own Son so that through His sacrifice Christ could intercede on our behalf. Jesus experienced  the excruciating pain of being forsaken by God so that  we might not have to.  And because  He did "we have peace with  God" (Romans 5:1)


Day 2: The Gardner's Shears
I have told you this so that my joy may be in you and that your joy may be complete. John 15:11


The budding rod foreshadowed the fruit that would be produced to preserve Christ's witness after His physical departure from earth.  


In John 15 We read about the task of the gardener.  The Gardner has one main task; to  create an environment  in which the best crop can be produced.  The conditions for fruit bearing are twofold: (1) The branches must stay attached  to the vital lifeline of the Vine so that they can be nourished. (2) The branches must be pruned so that they can produce a greater crop of fruit. 


God has a perfect image planned toward which He is  growing us. 
What is He pruning? Dead works and sucker shoots!  Dead works are services that will not stand up under the cleansing fires of  Christ's judgment.  Sucker shoots ate activities and energy consumers that grow wildly out of control and contribute nothing  to God's intended image for us.  


Hebrews 4:12 For the word of God is alive and active. Sharper than any double-edged sword, it penetrates even to dividing soul and spirit, joints and marrow; it judges the thoughts and attitudes of the heart.


When God uses His Word as our pruning  instruments, it is a lot less painful because it is sharp and quick. 


When we refuse to learn the precepts in the Word, He is sometimes forced to  transfer that lesson outside the Word. 


No matter which tool God uses, His Word is still the key to our growth in His image.  Allowing our Gardner to prune through His Word sometimes helps us avoid pruning through our circumstances.  But even when  it does not, the Word makes our circumstances far more bearable. 


People will know us by our fruit!






Day 3: The Ten Commandments
Read the 10 Commandments
Aren't you thankful for absolutes, for black and white? Some things are right, and some things are wrong. Period.

To be perfectly honest, if God were not caring through us, we would probably not care about others. Without being rightly related to God, we are not motivated to make right relationships with others a priority.

God is not the only who never changes.  Human nature never changes.  With all my heart I believe that human nature cries out to  be stopped, to be saved from itself, to be confronted by a standard, to discover pure black and white, to  realize the importance of  absolutes. God delivered those words to Moses without apology or hesitation.

If we could only accept that God's commands are for us, not against us.  The Ten Commandments were not only given to provide a pure standard for living.  They  were also given to evoke fear and reverence for  the Holy One, who possessed the authority to give them, so that obedience and blessing might result.




Day 4: Finished Work
Let us  not become weary in doing good, for at the proper time we will reap a harvest if we do not give up. Galatians 6:9 


Moses: Aaron! What have you done?
Aaron: I just pitched a few earrings in a fire and look what popped out! 


Moses: Say, God about those tablets....
God: Get back up here.
Moses: What do you mean we're going without You?
God:  I'll Kill them if I go on!
Moses: I'll kill them if you don't!  If You're not going, don't send us away from here. Look at them.  They're mourning.
God: OK Moses. I will do as you asked.
Moses: We will build a place for Your name.
God: I will accept no disobedience this time, Moses.




It had been the worst year of his life and the best year of his life.  Funny how often that happens when the Lord is your God.  (I can so relate to this!)


Day 5: A Cross in the Desert

May I never boast except in the cross of our Lord Jesus Christ, through which the world has been crucified to me, and I to the world.  Galatians 6:14


Not on the basis of your freewill offerings, not on the basis of your good works, not on the basis of your obedience, not even on the basis of your burnt sacrifices but only  on the basis of the cross will I  come and dwell among you.  

Have a Beautiful Day! 

Christina

A Woman's Heart! Bible Study: Week 8 Hearts Beyond the Veil

Day1: Radiant Intimacy:


2 Corinthians 3:18 And we all, who with unveiled faces reflect the Lord’s glory, are being transformed into his image with ever-increasing glory, which comes from the Lord, who is the Spirit.


So great was God's glory that entrance behind the veil for the masses had to be withheld 
The light of the glory of His presence shines two  ways: it sheds light  on the knowledge of God Fod so that we can learn to see Him more clearly, but it also sheds light on us so that we can  see our own sin more clearly.  Remember, the closer you approach the Light, the brighter it shines on you.  This is the marvelous two-edged sword of intimacy.  We see Him more clearly . and  we see ourselves more clearly.  It is the perfect safeguard against pride.  


Intimacy with God shows! 






Day 2: A Room with a View


We had to draw again!  (I am regretting now never taking an art course in High School/College)  So here is another nicer drawing of the Tabernacle.






Every piece  of information we need to know about God is contained in this one small book.

You see, ours is a God of  few words.

When you consider His Word from  this perspective, you come to realize that every one  of the 66 books He inspired as a part of the whole is vital.  The Old Testament continually points forward to Jesus' life.The  New Testament Letters point back to His life on earth and forward to His life to come.

The walls   that witnessed the ark of the covenant from four different angles draw a  wonderful representation of the Gospels, which witnessed Jesus' life from four different angles .  Nothing in scripture is accidental or coincidental.

No Matter how deep I sink into a pit o f despair, His hand can extend that much deeper to lift me out .  No matter what heights  this human experience  can boast, God's ways are higher.  Everyday  I spend with Him, I am lifted out of insignificance to  ascend and take my place in God's high calling in Christ Jesus.


Day 3: The Ark of the Testimony
When God ascribes a name to anyone or anything, He expresses something specific about the recipients' character, nature, and destiny.

And because God approached us with His will for this bible study, He is obligated to use it as a tool through which we can approach Him.  Our approach is  always based on His approach.  And His approach is is always for the  expressed purpose of our approach.

  Read Psalm 103  out loud, as a praise to the Lord.
verse 8.  The Lord is compassionate and gracious, slow to anger, abounding in Love.

Day 4: God on the Move
The Ark was formed in three layers: gold  on the outside, wood in the center, and gold on the inside.  The gold on the outside represented God the Father.  The wood in the center represented the One who became incorruptible humanity and thus the center of  our salvation: God the Son.  The gold on the inside could represent only the Holy Spirit.

Christ in you, the hope of glory. (Colossians 1:27)

David sought the Word of the Lord!  When all else fails, read the instructions.  Better yet, before all else fails, read the instructions! How many mistakes I have made in noble endeavors by moving on impulse rather than according to God's Word.

The Tabernacle had to be a tent because Go chose to be on the move with His people.
No matter where the Israelites went, the poles bore constant witness that God would be their traveling companion, continually testifying : "God with us! Emmanuel!"

Isaiah 30:21Whether you turn to the right or to the left, your ears will hear a voice behind you, saying, “This is the way; walk in it.

Listen Carefully, God often whispers! 

Day 5: The Meeting Place
"There above the cover between the two cherubim that are over the ark of the Testimony, I will meet with you." (Exodus 25:22  Many scholars believe that the mercy seat and the two cherubim represent  the Trinity.  (HMM!)

Had there been  no plan  for death, there would have been no possibility for mercy.  How fitting that both the first and last objects in the tabernacle pointed to access by death.  Whether in God's approach to persons or in our approach to God, there is no approach at all without death--the death of "the Lamb that was slain from the creation of the world.  (Revelation 13:8)

John 20:10-13 Tells us that two angels were present in the tomb after Christ's death.  One at the head and one at the foot.  Can you imagine the divine appointment  as God called out the names of two of HIs cherubim and beckoned them before the throne, then sent them to earth  to guard the most precious body that ever lived.

Ladies I hope this is blessing you as much as it is me!  

Have a Beautiful Day! 

Christina