Tag: Discipleship

Book Review: Perfect Lies

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Perfect Lies: Overcoming Nine Hidden Beliefs That Stand between You and a Healthy, Joy-Filled Life

We all have negative thoughts and lies that affect our daily lives — things that society, culture, or even our family members have caused us to believe about ourselves. Jennifer Crow’s book, Perfect Lives Lies addresses this issue and gives practical steps to overcome it.

Beginning with her own incredible emotional struggle (which became a physical issue), Jennifer openly describes her inner issues that all were rooted in one thing: lies. As she sought God through the darkness, He revealed to her that she was not seeing herself accurately. She was allowing lies to affect her entire life–lies about how God and other people view her, etc. Jennifer addresses nine specific lies including “I am unlovable” and “I am unacceptable”–lies that are far too commonly found within our hearts.

I was especially able to relate to her struggle with feeling like she had to perform a certain way in order to be loved or appreciated. I definitely struggled with that in the past.

This book is incredible not only in the subject matter (because it’s something we all can relate to) but in her method of teaching the reader to overcome these things. Jennifer’s answers are rooted in the Word of God and she teaches her reader to seek God rather than offering a simple 1,2,3 formula. God is truly the only one who can help us overcome negative thinking, and she brings the reader back to the Word as the source of truth.

I highly recommend this book and know that I will be passing it along to friends who have been struggling against these things. Jennifer Crow is a gifted writer and this book is well worth the read.

I received a copy of this book from Tyndale Momentum in exchange for my honest review.

Guest Post: Receiving God’s Love

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Featured authors

 

Receiving God’s Love
 
By Sheri Rose Shepherd
Bestselling Author and Bible Life Coach
 
learn more ▶
 
Think how powerful it would be if we spoke the truth about how God feels about us at least as often as we silently said negative things about ourselves or replayed in our minds all the hurtful things that have been said about us. The truth is, we are not what others say about us, and if the men we love speak hurtful words to us that make us feel unworthy, we don’t need to repeat them any longer. Instead we can learn to rest in God’s unchanging love for us.

Even if no one has ever said anything kind to you, your Prince Jesus longs for you to breathe in the tender love, compassion, and kindness He feels for you. If you’re ready to have Jesus, the lover of your soul, become reality to you, I invite you to do the following . . .

Breathe In His Love . . .

For the Spirit of God has made me, and the breath of the Almighty gives me life. (Job 33:4)

You know that feeling of exhilaration that sticks with you after you’ve spent time with a guy you know you’re falling in love with? As you part, you take a deep breath and feel waves of delight washing over you. Or you know the joy that wells up inside when your man unexpectedly says something so sweet that you feel treasured? You replay those words over and over in your mind because doing so gives you a lift.

Breathe His truth in; allow the words of your true prince Jesus to echo in your heart and soul.

After you consider God’s words to you—”I have loved you with an everlasting love” (Jeremiah 31:3)—whisper toward heaven, “I love You, Lord.”

Sing about His Love . . .

Each day the LORD pours his unfailing love upon me, and through each night I sing his songs, praying to God who gives me life. (Psalm 42:8)

When I was learning to let myself receive God’s love, I would actually sing love songs to Him. Though they had been written for a woman to sing to a man here on earth, I began to understand that if I would crave God’s love first, He would meet my needs. Only then would I be able to give and receive love.

Today I love worship songs that sing of God’s love for us. I blare them throughout my house in the mornings so Satan will not be able to whisper lies to me any longer. Consider doing the same.

Write Love Letters to Him in a Journal . . .

Connect your heart to heaven by writing love letters to your Lord. It is amazing what happens to your heart as you begin to express your love in writing to the only One who will never walk away from or reject you. Hang on to this treasure of truth: how you feel about yourself will never change God’s love for you.

Let Us Pray . . .

Dear God,
I confess I do not feel worthy of your love. It is hard for me to believe that You even love me. Help me, Lord, to look to You for my worth. Forgive me for not allowing myself to receive Your love. Forgive me for looking to others to make me feel like I have value when You are the only one who can validate me and love me the way I long to be loved. From this day forward, I choose to let You love me so I can love others. In Jesus’ name. Amen.

I will sing to the LORD as long as I live.
I will praise my God to my last breath!
May all my thoughts be pleasing to him,
for I rejoice in the LORD. (Psalm 104:33-34)

For more teaching from the Your Heart’s Desire book and Bible study, visit www.biblelifecoaching.com.

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Guest Post: “Desiring a “Happily Ever After”: Fighting the Temptation to Give Up on Love and Marriage”

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I am so blessed to have the privilege of sharing the next few articles from author Sheri Rose Shepherd on my blog! She offers wisdom and encouragement that is biblically based and I will be posting articles from her over the next three weeks. If these apply to someone you know, please share the posts with him/her!

 
 

 
Featured authors

       
Desiring a “Happily Ever After”
Fighting the Temptation to Give Up on Love and Marriage
 
By Sheri Rose Shepherd
Bestselling Author and Bible Life Coach
 Sheri Rose Shepherd
learn more ▶
 
I don’t know where you stand today with the man you love or loved—or if you are single, divorced, separated, or widowed. I can tell you, though, that if you’ve been hurt, you can be sure Your heavenly Father knows how hard it is to love and forgive the one who caused you pain. Yet regardless of the relational devastation you face, no one can keep you from finishing strong for God’s glory!I was raised in a non-Christian home. My parents have each been married and divorced to three different people. As part of several blended families, all I understood about marriage when I was growing up was “unhappily ever after.” But then I became a Christian at twenty-four and married my husband, Steve, just a few years later. Because of my love for God and my husband, I honestly didn’t think anything could shake my own marriage or faith.

In the summer of 2007, however, my happily ever after was wiped out and my faith was tested. The family foundation I had worked so hard to build and protect was almost destroyed, along with my ministry, in that season of my life. I truly believed that God had forsaken me.

I had just finished writing my book for mothers about raising sons to become godly husbands. As I excitedly ran upstairs to e-mail the manuscript to the publisher, I suddenly felt as if something dark hovered over me. My passion for the book’s message was drowned out by the fear of an attack from the enemy that could come against me and my family if I stepped on his territory . . . young men and their future marriages.

I called the publisher and said I’d need to wait and pray for courage before submitting the manuscript. I went to my son, Jake, who was eighteen years old and a senior in high school at the time, and asked him if he had any plans of rebelling against his faith once he graduated from high school. I told him I was willing to give him freedom to find his own faith in Christ, but I didn’t want to put out a book about raising boys if my own son was going to walk away from the Lord. He reassured me that he was strong in his faith and that he felt I should publish the book. I decided to take the chance to make a difference and sent in the manuscript.

The book began climbing the charts, and everything seemed to be going well. I even began speaking with my son at conferences for mothers of boys. Then three months into my book tour, my fear of attack hit. My husband had taken a job that we had both prayed for. This job appeared to be a blessing; however, his new position required him to violate some of the boundaries we had put in place to protect our marriage, and we ended up separated.

There I was in the public eye of ministry, fighting to save future marriages, and somehow my own marriage was falling apart. My son was devastated by the division between me and his dad. It was too hard for him to deal with all his confusion, pain, and anger, so he took a break from his faith and began using drugs and alcohol to comfort himself. I had always known to run to God for cover when there was a great attack, but now I felt like He had left me alone on the battlefield to fight for myself. It appeared that all I had believed about God and all my effort to build a strong foundation for my own family had been shattered. My pain, my shame, and my life were an embarrassment. I felt as if I were battling an out-of-control fire that would burn up everything I loved and lived for. Every night I would cry myself to sleep as I struggled to understand why God had not protected me while I was attempting to accomplish something for His glory.

One night I could not take it anymore, so I fell to my knees and told God I either wanted Him to fix my family or I wanted to quit the ministry. Then I felt the Lord asking me a bigger question: Was My life, given on a cross for you, not enough for you to finish strong even if it means surrendering the life you wanted? For the first time I realized that my heart’s true desire was to feel loved and secure, and yet no man on earth could love me the way my Lord does. In that moment of crisis I found the true meaning of following Christ. God had not forsaken me, but He did want to free me from depending on others to give me my happily ever after.

That night I gave my heart’s deepest desire to God and chose to follow Him at any cost. In exchange, He gave me something so much better; He gave me peace that was more powerful than my circumstances. My faith was no longer in people; it was in Christ alone. Although nothing outwardly had changed yet, I had been changed. Today, Steve and I have celebrated twenty-five years of marriage, and our son serves God with His whole heart. He and his bride have given us our first grandbaby girl. However, to be honest, restoring our marriage was excruciatingly painful and more difficult than either of us expected. As hard as this trial was, it taught me a valuable lesson: our Lord is the God of comfort and the author of a new beginning. He can and will rebuild a beautiful life out of any broken heart willing to make a change. He will use one sacrificial choice; one act of forgiveness; one sincere, repentant heart; and one woman who is willing to step out in faith and start rebuilding with His love for His glory.

I lift up my eyes to the mountains—where does my help come from? My help comes from the LORD, the Maker of heaven and earth. (Psalm 121:1-2)

For more teaching from the Your Heart’s Desire book and Bible study, visit www.biblelifecoaching.com.

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Book Review: Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline

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Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual DisciplineThere is so much that I could say about this book. It is so rare that a book resonates my own heart’s desires and passions. As I read it my heart felt like I was visiting with a friend who completely understands the desire that God placed in my heart over a decade ago…a wiser and more experienced friend. And this is just what I needed to read.

Kingdom Journeys: Rediscovering the Lost Spiritual Discipline is written by Seth Barnes–the founder of Adventures in Missions. The book is phenomenal and is a must-read for any Christian who feels like something is missing from life. Seth begins by presenting the problem currently present in my generation: the sense of entitlement to a comfortable life. We are consumed by a worldly desire for success, yet there is a great sense of discontentment and lack of fulfillment when we are considered to be “successful” in the world’s eyes. In the Church, we force ourselves to practice Spiritual Disciplines (which are important), only to find that the change we expect to find eludes us. Seth poses that this is because we have neglected Jesus’ primary teaching tool: the Kingdom Journey. Jesus did spend some time teaching with words, but His primary teaching tool was His own life and example. Jesus was constantly going and sending His disciples out, and they never returned unchanged.

I know from my own life that this is true. I constantly fail at being a “good Christian girl” in terms of many of the Spiritual Disciplines. I go to church and a Bible Study regularly, I read books in addition to reading the Bible. But none of these things have impacted me nearly as much as actually GOING and serving, especially in different cultures. When you leave the familiar, your heart is able to be changed in amazing ways because you are forced to rely on God and on the community with whom you travel. My 10+ mission trips (ranging from 1 week to 3 months in length) have radically impacted my life and my faith, and I feel so alive while I am serving. When I am on a “Kingdom Journey”, I know that this is what life is all about. I feel fulfilled and can see God at work so much more clearly. This book has awakened my desire to live like Jesus and to not live a safe, comfortable life (despite the fact that our culture drags us into such a life).

 Seth masterfully mixes real life stories and Scripture to create a compelling argument for missions/Kingdom Journeys. I highlighted so many quotes and have so much to continue to ponder and live out. Some of the quotes I loved are:

“Restlessness is an itch that, if left unscratched, is a curse.” (pg. 45)

“We can’t be fully transformed in our own backyard. We need to journey.” (pg. 47)

“Routine is normal, even healthy, but if the ruts go too deep, our spirits begin to wither.” (pg. 57)

“Through discomfort, I’ve learned to depend on God when my natural instinct is to rely on my own skills and talents.” (pg. 57)

“For a spiritual discipline to be worthwhile, it must create space for God to change us from the inside out.” (pg. 62)

“You can’t be remade until you first allow yourself to be unmade.” (pg. 63)

“A Kingdom Journey is most effective when we abandon what we think we cannot abandon. With less, we discover the core of who we are.” (pg. 82)

“In the worship of security we fling our lives beneath the wheels of routine–and before we know it, our lives are gone.” (pg . 82)

“People need pain to grow. So much of spiritual maturity has to do with how we process pain. Discipline entails embracing the painful or unpleasant in the short-term in order to realize long-term gains.” (pg. 87)

And those are only my favorite quotes from the first 100 pages! This book is filled with wisdom that convicts. Seth speaks biblical truth and it needs to be considered by all who truly want to live like Jesus did.

I have already written too much…buy the book. Prepare to have your perspective changed–if you are open to it. Adventures in Missions offers short-term mission trips (Kingdom Journeys) that range in length from a week to a year. I traveled with them to Haiti in 2010 and it was truly an incredible experience. If you want to experience missions in a fresh, biblical way, go with AIM. If you are really looking for adventure, go on the World Race: 11 countries, 11 months, traveling just like Jesus commanded His disciples to travel. I have a friend who went on the World Race and her life was radically transformed.

Get the first chapter for FREE here: http://kingdomjourneysbook.com/

Quote to Ponder…

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“We are called by God to live as our uniquely created selves–our temperament, our gene pool, our history. But to grow spiritually means to live increasingly as Jesus would in our unique place–to perceive what Jesus would perceive if he looked through our eyes, to think what he would think, to feel what he would feel, and therefore to do what he would do.” 

–John Ortberg

Looking Back at 2008…

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This has probably been the most crazy year of my life thus far. It has been filled with trials and challenges, but also with joy and growth…I’m 26 years old today–and I’m now closer to 30 than 20. Such a strange thought! I don’t feel like I could possibly be nearly 30, but I guess that’s a good thing. 🙂

In December 2007, I began praying that God would make me “uncomfortable.” I realized that I was not growing in my faith because I was comfortable where I was in life…when you look at the example of any biblical character, they grew the most when God challenged them and presented new situations to them. So, I began to pray that He would do the same with me. And He did not disappoint. The most obvious example of that is that I now live in Pennsylvania, where I’m experiencing my first “real Winter”. 🙂 The growth that has occurred this year is remarkable, and I can’t wait to see where I am at this time next year! I have learned that being comfortable is overrated–and boring, actually. 🙂

In 2008:

I attended the “Passion” conference in L.A., by myself, and was forever changed by that event…I was given an opportunity to teach in Dubai for the 2008-2009 school year…I had to quit my job at ADP because they changed their mind about giving me time off to lead my mission team to New Orleans…I decided to move to Pennsylvania without a job, trusting the Lord in His guidance…I spent six days driving across the United States with my Mom (and saw things like the Grand Canyon, Painted Desert, and other things in the nine states we drove through)…I went to seven new states this year, bringing the total to 31…I had pneumonia for 13 weeks…I spent an amazing month in New Orleans, serving the Lord and serving others…I took about 15,000 pictures…I spent 5 months unemployed and watched the Lord provide for me in miraculous ways…I now have an incredible job with a growing lobbying firm, where I can finally use my degree and my passions…I got in my first car accident, and had to buy a new car…I learned a valuable lesson about friendships–it’s okay to let some go, because some people are “toxic” to our lives…I drove in snow for the first time…I’ve lost some friends and gained new ones, and my life has been so blessed by my new friends in Pennsylvania…I’ve learned that it’s okay to accept help from others…I found a new church here in PA that is healthy, missions-focused, and I’m ready to dive in and serve…

2009 is going to be an interesting year, that’s for sure. Two of my good friends and I decided to give up ice cream (defined as anything that is “frozen dairy”) for a year. It will most definitely be the hardest thing I’ve given up! However, it will be a constant reminder that I’m trying to be even more healthy when it comes to food than I already am, and I am going to succeed this year in losing the weight I gained while I had pneumonia. 🙂 So, I’m eating a lot of ice cream today! If the Moravian shoe thing I tried (see prior posts) is accurate (Ha!), then I’ll be engaged by next Christmas. Not counting on that, but I wouldn’t mind! 🙂

Most of all, I’m excited to see what the Lord is going to do in my life and in the lives of those around me. He called me here to Central Pennsylvania for a reason, and I’m excited to see what He has in store! 🙂

The Cost of Being a Disciple

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APU is known for having phenomenal speakers each year, who come from all over the nation. One of our favorite speakers is Francis Chan, a pastor from the LA area. He comes each year for at least 5 chapels…I missed his 3 chapel series because of DC last Fall, so I was so glad he came today…

But it was also one of the most challenging messages I have heard in a long time. So I am going to share my thoughts here…

He talked about how success is often measured today in numbers…pastors love when their churches are growing, when there are tons of people attending each week…but he pointed out that in the Gospels, whenever Jesus had large crowds around, He was skeptical…

Luke 14:25-34 says, “Large crowds were traveling with Jesus, and turning to them he said: ‘If anyone comes to me and does not hate his father and mother, his wife and children, his brothers and sisters–yes, even his own life–he cannot be my disciple. And anyone who does not carry his cross and follow me cannot be my disciple. Suppose one of you wants to build a tower. Will he not first sit down and estimate the cost to see if he has enough money to complete it? For if he lays the foundation and is not able to finish it, everyone who sees it will ridicule him, saying ‘This fellow began to build and was not able to finish.’ Or suppose a king is about to go to war against another king. Will he not first sit down and consider whether he is able with ten thousand men to oppose the one coming against him with twenty thousand? If he is not able, he will send a delegation while the other is still a long way off and will ask for terms of peace. In the same way, any of you who does not give up everything he has cannot be my disciple. Salt is good, but if it loses its saltiness, how can it be made salty again? It is fit neither for the soil nor for the manure pile; it is thrown out. He who has ears to hear, let him hear.'”

Numbers are not everything…because not everyone is following Jesus genuinely…

This is a passage I have studied many a time before; but as usual, Francis posed a question to us all that made us think in entirely new ways…and I was astounded.

He said this: What if Jesus were in chapel today, speaking? What if He told us this parable, and then asked us to follow Him right then, to just walk out the door without telling anyone…leaving everything behind…would we follow Him? And if He told us that we had to pick up a cross, and walk with Him to a hill to be crucified (as the scripture says) to our old life…to everything we have known…would we do it?

The Event Center was quiet, as people pondered the meaning of this question…

Would I do that? Could I do what the disciples did in John 6, when things started to get tough?:

“From this time many of his disciples turned back and no longer followed him. ‘You do not want to leave too, do you?’ Jesus asked the Twelve. Simon Peter answered him, ‘Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.'”

Then Francis began to talk about the salt portion of the scriptures. He even brought salt, as is his style…he always has great object lessons…anyway, he had salt that was good, and salt that was worthless.

He poured a pile of the good salt onto the podium, making a small pile. He then poured the bad salt (or the “white specks”) over that until the pile was quite large. He stood back, admired it, and said “Wow! That’s a great looking pile!” He then asked us what good that pile was, what it was worth to anyone…nothing. The Bible says that the white specks were not even good enough for the manure pile, because manure has redeeming value, and the white specks have none…

Not good enough for manure?

It seems that in Christianity today we have lost the meaning of what it truly means to be a disciple, a follower of Christ. Churches don’t mind having the worthless salt mixed in with the good salt as long as their churches are growing and the numbers are getting higher…but what does Jesus say? The opposite!

What is wrong with this picture? Churches should be helping people to grow, and to become true disciples of our Risen Lord…

In closing, he asked us to consider whether we were the salt, or just a white speck…

And that is something I am deeply pondering today.

I don’t know if I could just leave everything and everyone behind, like Jesus says so often in the Gospels…I don’t know that I could do it!

Yet, that is the cost of being a disciple…

(NOTE: If you ever want to watch an APU chapel, use the link in the sidebar. Our basketball games and other events are also available live and online.)