Ever since the new year started my heart has been aching for more. I feel like even though I grew a whole lot spiritually last year that I still want more. And I fully believe that that is a good thing and that God is pushing me and wanting to me grow even closer to Him. I took advantage the other day of the FREE Beth Moore ebooks and downloaded quite a few that I've heard are amazing. I started reading Breaking Free, and even though I am not far into it it still has definitely captured my heart and attention. In Breaking Free, Beth Moore lies out nine lessons that will help us with reading this book and two of them have really stuck with me.
"Any sacrifice we make in our quest for freedom
will be wholly consumed and blessed by God."
will be wholly consumed and blessed by God."
She mentions that to be liberated by Christ we have to make sacrifices. God intended me to read this. He wanted me to realize that I cannot become closer to Him without letting some things go and committing completely to him. "We fear making sacrifices. But the irony is that we make a lot of sacrifices when we are not living the will of God." How true is this statement?! When we don't give up things/idols in order to glorify God and for Him to take control of our lives we truly are sacrificing. "He will bless." The more we give up to grow closer to our Lord, the more we gain. So why wouldn't we want to sacrifice certain things that we think we need just because we are afraid of what may happen without them?? We are scared of the unknown, but we should know that He will provide even more than we can dream of the minute we give it all up for Him.
"To live in the freedom God has purposed,
we must recognize and forsake all other gods."
we must recognize and forsake all other gods."
This definitely goes along with the lesson that I have above, but even more solidifies that fact that we must sacrifice and forsake everything that is a distraction that we put before The Lord. "We're going to discover idols we did not even know we had." It is crazy to me to think how many things are idols to me. My heart breaks over this and I pray that I can be broken of these things.
This is what I want my goal to be more than anything this year. I want to be completely broken from all things that I have made my idols and fully rely on God for everything. I want to sacrifice the things I think I need for what God knows I need and what He can only give me. I am so ready to see what more God has for my life. I have made a list of a few ways I think will help me to do this.
I pray that I take this list and apply to it my life. I pray that I sacrifice and am broken doing so. I pray that 2014 is the year of change and that my heart grows closer to the Lord and that I desire the Lord and his word more than I ever have before.
Playing catch up! I'm with you on all of your goals, no trips to Target for a few months for me. And spending more time with Him and the Word than social media. It's amazing the sacrifices I'll make for late night readings of tweets & such and not enough sacrifices for the One who died for me! So selfish of me, but you helped me see the truth in this life and how God can help!
ReplyDeleteI'm excited to see what this new year holds for you!!! :-) And I LOVE your new blog look. You're really figuring this whole blog design thing out! :-)
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