i went to a joyce meyer conference this weekend with the santuary of praise women's group (bea's church) and was super blessed by what she taught, and oh my goodness worship with darlene zschech & the hillsong band = amazing. anyways, just some notes of things that really struck me (joyce in italics, my extra comments plain)...
-it takes a lot of nerve to tell someone they're not hearing from God... if you have a feeling about what you're supposed to do and have prayed and tested it all you know how to, and there's no one who can show you it is directly against the word of God, you better follow what your heart is saying! that second part isn't word perfect, cause she said too much for me to remember exactly what she said and get it down... but this whole line of thought was the most impactful word from the weekend for me. the whole saturday message dealing with disapproval from people was so affirming to me and confirmed that i was following the Lord in the things that happened in august.
-statistic: 10% of people will not like you no matter what you do. enough said. no point in trying to please people before God.
-we tell in the light what we learned in the dark (matt 10:27)... the goal is not for me to understand what's happening to me right now, but to be able to understand what other people are going through later, because i've been there. goes back to the next top model chick... you can't have a testimony without a test.
-with opportunity comes opposition.
-we are not full of the Holy Spirit so we can just do easy stuff!
-john 5... Jesus didn't feel bad for the man who had laid beside the pool for 38 years waiting for a miracle, he told him to GET UP and clean up his mess (take your mat). be determined!
i was watching america's next top model this afternoon when i should have been doing homework, and one of the girls on there said at some point "you can't have a testimony without a test." the truth behind that statement just really struck me, cause that's definitely been true in my life. to look at it from a christian standpoint, Jesus says straight up that we are going to have trials, and all through the bible it talks about how when you follow God, you are going to deal with suffering. but i think part of the reason for us going through stuff is that we get the chance to see how God keeps working in our lives in spite of our circumstances, and then it becomes a part of our testimony to talk about what has happened to us and what he's done. as joseph says to his brothers in genesis 50:20, "you intended to harm me, but God intended it for good to accomplish what is now being done, the saving of many lives." God will use the hard times we go through to bring himself glory and minister to others through our testimony about what he's done. it was just cool to me to see yet another example of how there is his truth everywhere, even in shows on mtv, if you just look for it.
