UNDER CONSTRUCTION

Women's Ministry at FBC is currently under construction!

 We are looking for a few women who will prayerfully consider being a part of a team to help plan and lead events, retreats, and bible studies for the women @ FBC and in and around Augusta.

 We would like to build a team of women and have them work where they feel most  comfortable and where God is calling to lead and serve.

 If you love to plan and organize we want you!! (If not we want you too!)

If your really good at leading a bible study we want you!!(if your not we want you too!)

 If you want to minister to other women like you, or not like you we want you!  (If you need ministered to we want you too!)

If your a women seeking God's will for your life, We Want you!

Please contact Christina Cox for more Information and to be a part of what God is doing at FBC!  Women of all ages and backgrounds are Welcome and encouraged to be a part of this!

                                                                                              Join us for the Women's Retreat!  

Date: Friday & Saturday September 7-8 2012

Time: Check in begins at 5 p.m. Dinner is served at 6 p.m. and Session 1 will start at 7 p.m. We will end Saturday by approximately 4 p.m.

Location: Westminster Woods (Fall River, KS)

Cost: $60 (includes meals, lodging, retreat goodies!)  some scholarships are available!





Join us as we dig into the story of Ruth and Naomi and see how we can find shelter in God!

Session 1: Making God your firm foundation
Session 2: Learn how to approach changes (which we all face) through the account of Ruth and Naomi.
Session 3: The importance of supportive friends. 
Session 4: The hardships of Ruth and Naomi. (Service Project!)
Session 5:  Jesus, our Redeemer. He’s our covering and protection.
Session 6: Reflection and Prayer (Prayer stations!)
Session 7: Time to celebrate! (Affirmations!) 

Friendships are important. Critical, even! The best way to encourage friendships is to give opportunities for them to develop! Activities, worship, and time together all contribute to women sharing stories and growing closer to each other. The Cozy Mountain Lodge retreat will help you do just that!   We hope you will consider joining us for this years retreat! 

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

A Woman's Heart! Bible Study: Week 7 A Heart that Interceeds

Day 1 The Holy Calling of the Priesthood




We are to be in the world, not of the world, and protected from the world.  


We are the light of the world!  We cannot hide our lamp-stands under the bushels of spiritual monasteries.  Yet we cannot let the darkness rub off on us.  How do we accomplish such a balance?  The answer is found in Matthew 10:16 "I am sending you out like sheep among wolves.  Therefore be as shrewd as snakes and as innocent as doves." 


 God never called us to naivete.  He called us to integrity.  There is a very big difference between the two.  Like Paul, we must be aware of what is out there before we walk into the middle of it.  We must recognize situations that demand an extra degree of consecration, preparation, and protection.  


It is about purity--purity maintained in the midst of an impure world.  Understand this vital precept: Maintaining purity in ministry is the result of nothing less than deliberate devotion.  We must guard our minds and put on our armor.  A war rages out there.  And we are satan's favorite prisoners.  


Day 2 A Peculiar Priest


The responsibilities Jesus Christ assumed in His earthly ministry parallel those of  the priests.  He worshiped in the temple, He instructed the people in God's laws, He blessed the people, He determined God's will, He interceded for the people, and He sacrificed at the altar.  He sacrificed Himself at the altar.  


The Messiah would be both Priest and King! 


Because Jesus lives forever, He has a permanent priesthood! (Hebrews 7:24)


Christ's indestructible life did not simply allow Him to assume a title of  honor.  It allowed Him to burst open every believer's grave and shout, "Where, O death, is your victory? Where, O death, is your sting? (1 Corinthians 15:55) "Blessed and holy are those who have part in the first resurrection.  The second death has no power over them, but they will be priests of God and of Christ and will reign with him for a thousand years" (Revelation 20:6)








Day 3 The Open Door


Because Christ has faced our every  temptation without sin, we never face a temptation that has no door of escape.  


Do you realize what it means to us that Christ was willing to become a man and be tempted as we are tempted?  

God became flesh so that He could dwell among us

Jesus faced every temptation known to humanity so He could identify with us

God the Father provided a door of escape for every temptation

Only Christ was in a position to unlock the door of escape (He became the door)

Two things  about a believer's temptation never vary: (1) We always have an open door, a way out. (2) Every door we refuse to walk through makes the next one harder to enter. 

God never convicts us of sin to make sure we know how wretched we are, for He calls us the righteousness of God in Christ.  Rather, God convicts us through His Holy Spirit because He is grieved when fellowship between us is broken.  

Day 4 The Right Hand of God

Hebrews 8:1-2  We do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven,² and who serves in the sanctuary, the true tabernacle set up by the Lord, not by a mere human being.

Aaron could fulfill his duty to the letter of the law.  He could work His hands to the bone and never miss a sacrifice, but he could not truly meet the people's need.  He was powerless to make unrighteous persons righteous.  How could he?  He could not even make himself righteous.  But "we do have such a high priest, who sat down at the right hand of the throne of the Majesty in heaven." Hebrew 8:1  


The old covenant was based on a shadow.  The new covenant was based on a Savior.  Christ made it possible for an external covenant to be obsolete and a new covenant to be injected straight into the point of our need: the heart.

My God will meet all your needs according to  the riches of His glory in Christ Jesus

Philippians 4:19

Day 5 Heaven, the Blessed Adoption Agency


As God's  adopted children. perhaps we  need more discipline at times than anyone to conform to our Father's house.


Romans 12:1-13 tells of why God wants us to be disciplined.  


verse 6 ~It's the child he loves that he disciplines; the child he embraces, he also corrects.


1 John 3:1-2


 V. 1 What marvelous love the Father has extended to us! Just look at it—we're called children of God! That's who we really are. But that's also why the world doesn't recognize us or take us seriously, because it has no idea who he is or what he's up to.


These verses overwhelm  me every time I read them. As God's children, we are the recipients of lavish love-a love that covers the lack of recognition this world system gives us, a love that motivates us to keep trusting even when we have no idea what God is doing.  


You are not illegitimate, my beloved sister. You have been planned and purposed. Your Father has acknowledged you as His child. "Let the  little children come to me, and do not hinder them, for the  kingdom of heaven belongs to such as these." Matthew 19:14

Have a Beautiful Day!

Christina

Lesson with a Hairbrush (Beth Moore)

Knoxville airport all waiting to board planes:

I had the Bible on my lap and was very intent upon what I was doing. I'd had a marvelous morning with the Lord. I say that because I want to tell you it is a scary thing to have the Spirit of God really working in you. You could end up doing some things you never would have done otherwise. Life in the Spirit can be dangerous for a thousand reasons not the least of which is your ego...

I tried to keep from staring but he was such a strange sight. Humped over in a wheelchair, he was skin and bones, dressed in clothes that obviously fit when he was at least twenty pounds heavier. His knees protruded from his trousers, and his shoulders looked like the coat hanger was still in his shirt. His hands looked like tangled masses of veins and bones. The strangest part of him was his hair and nails. Stringy grey hair hung well over his shoulders and down part of his back. His fingernails were long. Clean, but strangely out of place on an old man.

I looked down at my Bible as fast as I could, discomfort burning my face. As I tried to imagine what his story might have been, I found myself wondering if I'd just had a Howard Hughes sighting. Then, I remembered reading somewhere that he was dead. So this man in the airport...an impersonator maybe? Was a camera on us somewhere?....

There I sat trying to concentrate on the Word to keep from being concerned about a thin slice of humanity served on a wheelchair only a few seats from me. All the while my heart was growing more and more overwhelmed with a feeling for him. Let's admit it. Curiosity is a heap more comfortable than true concern, and suddenly I was awash with aching emotion for this bizarre-looking old man.

I had walked with God long enough to see the handwriting on the wall. I've learned that when I begin to feel what God feels, something so contrary to my natural feelings, something dramatic is bound to happen. And it may be embarrassing. I immediately began to resist because I could feel God working on my spirit and I started arguing with God in my mind. "Oh no, God please no." I looked up at the ceiling as if I could stare straight through it into heaven and said, "Don't make me witness to this man. Not right here and now. Please. I'll do anything.  Put me on the same plane, but don't make me get up here and witness to this man in front of this gawking audience. Please, Lord!"

There I sat in the blue vinyl chair begging His Highness, "Please don't make me witness to this man. Not now. I'll do it on the plane." Then I heard it..."I don't want you to witness to him. I want you to brush his hair."

The words were so clear, my heart leapt into my throat, and my thoughts spun like a top. Do I witness to the man or brush his hair? No brainer. I looked straight back up at the ceiling and said, "God, as I live and breathe, I want you to know I am ready to witness to this man. I'm on this Lord. I'm your girl! You've never seen a woman witness to a man faster in your life. What difference does it make if his hair is a mess if he is not redeemed? I am on him. I am going to witness to this man."

Again as clearly as I've ever heard an audible word, God seemed to write this statement across the wall of my mind. "That is not what I said, Beth. I don't want you to witness to him. I want you to go brush his hair."

I looked up at God and quipped, "I don't have a hairbrush. It's in my suitcase on the plane. How am I suppose to brush his hair without a hairbrush?"

God was so insistent that I almost involuntarily began to walk toward him as these thoughts came to me from God's word: "I will thoroughly finish you unto all good works." (2 Tim 3:7) I stumbled over to the wheelchair thinking I could use one myself. Even as I retell this story my pulse quickens and I feel those same butterflies.

I knelt down in front of the man, and asked as demurely as possible, "Sir, may I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?"

He looked back at me and said, "What did you say?"

"May I have the pleasure of brushing your hair?"

To which he responded in volume ten, "Little lady, if you expect me to hear you, you're going to have to talk louder than that.

At this point, I took a deep breath and blurted out, "SIR, MAY I HAVE THE PLEASURE OF BRUSHING YOUR HAIR?" At which point every eye in the place darted right at me. I was the only thing in the room looking more peculiar than old Mr. Longlocks. Face crimson and forehead breaking out in a sweat.

I watched him look up at me with absolute shock on his face, and say, "If you really want to."  Are you kidding? Of course I didn't want to. But God didn't seem interested in my personal preference right about then. He pressed on my heart until I could utter the words, "Yes, sir, I would be pleased. But I have one little problem. I don't have a hairbrush."

"I have one in my bag," he responded.

I went around to the back of that wheelchair, and I got on my hands and knees and unzipped the stranger's old carry-on hardly believing what I was doing. I stood up and started brushing the old man's hair.

It was perfectly clean, but it was tangled and matted. I don't do many things well, but I must admit I've had notable experience untangling knotted hair mothering two little girls. Like I'd done with either Amanda or Melissa in such a condition, I began brushing at the very bottom of the strands, remembering to take my time not to pull. 

A miraculous thing happened to me as I started brushing that old man's hair.... Everybody else in the room disappeared. There was no one alive for those moments except that old man and me. I brushed and brushed and I brushed until every tangle was out of that hair. I know this sounds so strange but I've never felt that kind of love for another soul in my entire life. I believe with all my heart, I—for that few minutes—felt a portion of the very love of God. That He had overtaken my heart for a little while like someone renting a room and making Himself at home for a short while. The emotions were so strong and so pure that I knew they had to be God's.

His hair was finally as soft and smooth as an infant's. I slipped the brush back in the bag, went around the chair to face him. I got back down on my knees, put my hands on his knees, and said, "Sir, do you know my Jesus?"

He said, "Yes, I do." Well, that figures.

He explained, "I've known Him since I married my bride. She wouldn't marry me until I got to know the Savior." He said "You see, the problem is, I haven't seen my bride in months. I've had open-heart surgery, and she's been too ill to come see me. I was sitting here thinking to myself what a mess I must be for my
bride."

Only God knows how often He allows us to be part of a divine moment when we're completely unaware of the significance. This, on the other hand, was one of those rare encounters when I knew God had intervened in details only He could have known. It was a God moment, and I'll never forget it.

Our time came to board, and we were not on the same plane. I was deeply ashamed of how I'd acted earlier and would have been so proud to have accompanied him on that aircraft.

I still had a few minutes, and as I gathered my things to board, the airline hostess returned from the corridor, tears streaming down her cheeks. She said, "That old man's sitting on the plane, sobbing. Why did you do that? What made you do that?"

I said, "Do you know Jesus? He can be the bossiest thing!" And we got to share. 

I learned something about God that day. He knows if you're exhausted because you're hungry, you're serving in the wrong place or it is time to move on but you feel too responsible to budge. He knows if you're hurting or feeling rejected. He knows if you're sick or drowning under a wave of temptation. Or He knows if you just need your hair brushed. He sees you as an individual. Tell Him your need!

I got on my own flight, sobs choking my throat, wondering how many opportunities just like that one had I missed along the way...all because I didn't want people to think I was strange. God didn't send me to that old man. He sent that old man to me.

John 1:14 "The Word became flesh and made his dwelling among us. We

have seen his glory, the glory of the One and Only, who came from the

Father, full of grace and truth."

How many Hairbrush moments have you let go by?  I am sure I am not alone in my regret for not  obediently following through with things God has asked me to do.  But those few times when I have been obedient, will be in my heart forever like I am sure this is for Beth Moore.  

Have a Beautiful Day! 

Christina