Tried With Fire

Carrie Sandom opened her talk at TGCW12 by mentioning a whodunit she recently read. As much as she enjoyed the book, it couldn't tell her how to bake a birthday cake for her sister or give her directions to the Orlando Airport. Why not? Because it wasn't written for that purpose. Well, what about the Word of God? "In order to understand it, we need to know the purpose the authors' had in writing it. The Bible is not going to tell me how to bake a cake for my sister's birthday. It's not even going to help me get to the airport tomorrow. but what it does tell me is absolutely life-changing. In fact, it is more important than any novel, any recipe book, or any city map. We need to let the Bible speak to us and not come to it with the wrong kind of questions." Her statement gave me quite a bit to ponder. I don't know about you, but I have come to the Bible far too often with too many wrong questions.  I would readily agree that the Bible is not a re...

I've been listening to these talks from the Gospel Coalition Women's Conference re: word-based women's ministry ( here , here , and here ). Concurrently, I've been realizing my own lack in really understanding the importance of the Word and the singularity of the Word as the sole source of authoritative revelation of God from God. It's better late than never, but part of me wishes that I had been taught how to read, study, and rightly value the Word a long time ago. But reading and studying involved the mind, and the mind was somehow at odds with the Holy Spirit. Or so it was taught and inferred. During a severe trial, I read the Word night and day. But I was looking for messages from God about me and my situation rather than the revelation of who He is and letting that change me and my perspective. To make matters worse, a friend, who I looked to as a spiritual mentor, advised me that I could only take verses as promises from God when the Holy Spirit "an...

There is no room for the attitude that what I do with my money and my body and my work and my relationships is up to me as long as my heart is fully committed to Jesus. None of this is up to me because He fills all of it. The Spirit is in me to tell me, yes, who Christ is, but also to tell me who I really am and to provide everything for me in Christ that I could actually be that person. Paige Benton-Brown ~ In the Temple, the Glorious and Forgiving God  from The Gospel Coalition Women's Conference 2012.