Week 1: Will You be Chosen to Receive Your Blessing?
Thank you so much for joining me on this online journey through Tested by Fire. This first video will be slightly longer than most of our sessions together because it includes some of my testimony and some background on the book. Watch the introductory video below to discover what you can expect from this study and dig into some Bible teaching to prepare your way. I pray that God blesses you as we gather around His Word. If you like to follow along with notes, click here to view and print some prepared notes to accompany this session. See you in the Scriptures!
Watch the Video
Are you ready to leave the desert and enter into your personal Promised Land?
Week 1 Assignment
Complete days 1-3 of week one in your workbook. Don’t forget to invite God’s Presence to meet you there!
Optional Suggestion:
When Joshua was finally ready to lead the Israelites into their Promised Land, he gave them this command. Joshua told the people, “Consecrate yourselves, for tomorrow the Lord will do amazing things among you.” Joshua 3:5 Do you believe that God is about to do amazing things in your life? Ask God to show you what you can offer Him as an act of consecration over the next eight weeks. What can you do to show God that you would like to present yourself holy to Him in preparation for His mighty work? Perhaps it’s giving up a television show you watch or cutting back the time you spend on Facebook. Maybe it’s time spent shopping each week or giving up a particular food. Maybe it’s relinquishing a particular activity or finally doing something you know God’s been prompting you to do. Wherever He leads you, ask Him to help you keep your commitment to Him and trust Him to provide. He will honor your step of faith by revealing Himself. Let’s get ready to see God move!
Thank you for the online bible study. What a blessing and encouragement it has been and I am excited to leave the desert and enter into my personal Promise Land.
Royetta
Doubling Gap Church of God-Secetary
Thanks Royetta! I’m thrilled you’re taking the journey. God has a beautiful inheritance waiting for you, and He’ll equip you to enter in. Blessings!
Kelley,
I too have felt for many years that something was missing. I did not understood what I was being told. I always felt that everyone else must surely understand and that I was not getting it. About 3 years ago, during a time I was on a job assignment in Reno Nevada, I went to a church near where I was staying. It was a female pastor and for the first time I began to see things better. Now your writings and just the first bible study lesson has for the first time put things in a format so I can see a path. I can see what I must persue and with your help I pray I will get there.
My question is why did it take so many years. Were the pastors I had since childhood unable to open my eyes. Were they just saying the words and not delivering the true message. Or has The Lord just now opened my heart and eyes. Did he feel I needed to wait till now. I have always felt I was a Christian but now I now there is more to it. God Bless your ministry.
Dave Vest
Hi Dave! I have pondered those same questions in my own journey. Were my pastors not really teaching, or was I just not receiving? Whatever our history, God’s Word teaches very clearly that the job of opening our eyes to understand the truth of scripture rests solely with the Holy Spirit.
John 16:13 teaches that it’s the Spirit’s job to “guide you into all truth.” One of my favorite scriptures about this is Luke 24:45, when Jesus finally gave the disciples understanding of all that had taken place through the cross. “Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.” They had lived through it with Jesus, even heard teaching from Him explaining what would happen, but they still didn’t understand it until He supernaturally empowered them to. We can hear all kinds of truth and not understand it without the intervention of the Holy Spirit to enlighten us and cause us to understand. And the Spirit will enable us to understand when our hearts are open and ready to receive it.
Take heart in this truth: You are exactly where God intends you to be. He has brought you here in this time to this place in order to give you the understanding He’s giving you now. I encourage you not to worry about your yesterdays… instead set your eyes firmly on Jesus and follow Him into what He has for you today. Whatever it is… it’s going to be good. 🙂
Hi! I just got over a illness and had to miss work. I was wondering if anyone would help me get a copy of the book. I really want to do this study but my funds wont allow me to get a book.
Thanks and God Bless
Hi Kelley! Starting almost a week late…my daughter just returned safely from her travels and I have gracefully left my beautiful grandsons back in her care. Could not wait to drive home and get my boom out
Meant book and watch the week one video and get started. I do love my Jesus but it wasn’t until a very dak moment almost 30 years ago that I truly began my journey of loving Him, getting to know Him, developing and deepening my relationship with Him! Praise God! This video was enlightening and I will be starting to read my workbook asap! Thank you!God bless!
I’m so glad you’ve joined us Mary! It often does take those dark moments in our lives to make us realize how very desperately we need our Savior! But I love how faithful God is to reveal Himself to us in those moments when we cry out and draw near. They become opportunities for God to reveal who He is, to show us the depth of His love, and to recognize that He is for us. Thanks for your post. I look forward to hearing from you again!