“I’m starting my very first Bible study.” It doesn’t matter to me if it’s one of Priscilla Shirer’s, Kelly Minter’s, Jennie Allen’s, Kay Arthur’s, or any other Bible study author’s series. It moves me every time I hear it because nothing has brought me more fascination
and freedom
and wonder
and awe
and joy
and delight
and correction
and direction
and transformation
and liberation
and PURE GOD-BELIEVING FAITH than the Spirit of God stirring up my heart and mind through the pages of Scripture. I have had such a blast with Him there, ruined for less than a lifetime spent with Him in those glorious phrases. When I hear that somebody is just beginning to journey with Christ through a cracked-open Bible, my heart skips a beat and my memory stirs up a whirlwind. I remember my first in-depth journey so well and how a light came on in my soul and how I could hardly stand to shut my Bible at the end of the day or wait to open it the next morning. I’d put my kids on the school bus in the morning and dart back inside and pull out my Bible and the notes I’d taken the day before. I’d somehow stumbled across this thing called a “tabernacle” in the pages of Exodus during my Scripture reading one day and I could not get enough. I read and read, flipping back and forth from the Old Testament to the New. I bought my first Strong’s Concordance and looked up every place I could find the word “tabernacle.” That was all I knew to do but it was enough. Then I started getting commentaries and reading books theologians had written on it. When that journey was over, I fell into honest-to-goodness despair because I was certain I’d never experience anything like that again. I was wrong. Praise God.
“I just finished the last page of _____________________ Bible study.” (Often I’ll get a picture of that final page, complete with their own handwritten answers to questions on it. And don’t think I don’t enlarge them and read them either. I don’t have this nose because I’m not nosy.)
Listen, to finish an in-depth Bible study series is no small accomplishment in this increasingly attention-deficit culture. For people (like me!) who are becoming conditioned to sound bites and a sum total of 140 characters, getting through a Bible study course that demands anywhere from 6-10 weeks of 4-5 hours of homework a week is titanic. You are already an exception to the cultural rule by the time you finish the third week. Somebody needs to tell you what a stud you are for finishing one. So, today, I’m volunteering. You’re a stud.
“I’m doing Breaking Free.” I don’t care who it is, those words get to me every time. That series nearly killed me to write – the warfare was hellacious – but the study also means the most to me personally. I’ll tell you when those words get to me most: when they’re coming from a young woman – college age – who has not yet walked down the aisle with a man carrying more baggage than a 10-armed bellhop. It’s NEVER too late to find liberty in Christ. Never! I don’t care if you’ve been married half a dozen times or you’re on the cusp of your eighty-fourth birthday. But facing and dealing with some bondage prior to decisions that change a whole life-trajectory is less painful by a long shot. Of course, we’ve got to do more than finish a study. We’ve got to actually enter into full fellowship with Christ in those pages and receive His words down into our bones as doers of the Word and not hearers only. In the words of James, “humbly welcome the message implanted within you, which is able to save your souls.” (James 1:21 The NET)
“God got me through cancer treatment with His Word.” I have no greater respect for a sister in Bible study than the one who sticks to it and keeps her face to the page and her heart open to the heavens when her prayers have been answered differently than she hoped and no one would blame her if she shut her Bible. Nothing has moved me more through the years than hearing from a small Bible study group that one of their own who was battling terminal cancer literally studied the Word of God until she could no longer hold her eyes open and God carried her Home. They’ll often send me pictures of her and tell me how they miss her and how she challenged them to be faithful to the very last breath. Flabbergasts me every time and makes me hope and pray to be faithful under such strain and able to say with that sister, “I have fought the good fight, I have finished the race, I have kept the faith.” (2 Timothy 4:7)
“I caught the Bible study bug. I’ll study the Scriptures for the rest of my life.” That’s it right there. It doesn’t get better than that. No book is like the Bible because no other book is gorgeously laced with living, breathing words of God. I love Christ’s claim in John 6:63 – “The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you — they are full of the Spirit and life.” A lifetime is not long enough to get to the bottom of the immense, unimaginable riches that can be found in Christ “in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.” (Colossians 2:3) You’ll just never waste a second in the Scriptures. That’s the long and short of it.
“I’m teaching my first Bible study class.” To see God raise up young teachers is one of the greatest highs of my entire life. To see them study hard and start practicing the disciplines that Bible teaching demands and not just seeking a platform is incredibly thrilling to me. There is no short cut to it. Teaching still takes the same kinds of things it took in the first century: spiritual gifting, perseverance, diligent study, the work of the Holy Spirit, profuse prayer and enough people skills for people to be able to stand us. And, on top of that, it subjects us to stricter judgment just like James 3:1 says but, if we’re called, we’ve got to get out there and do it anyway and receive the difficulties as discipline. A fiery passion alone cannot sustain us. We must also have obedience and follow-through and the capacity to get back up especially after we’ve been harshly criticized. And we will be. That’s part of the growing process. That’s part of God testing our mettle. Proving us genuine.
My man needs me so I’m going to have to close. I’ve rambled enough anyway. I meant for this to be about a paragraph long but, of course, y’all know me. That’ll be the day. All this came from one little tweet I got today from a woman who said she’d just finished a Bible study. And I thought to myself,
I never get over hearing that.
Good grief, I love y’all so much. Stay in the Scriptures.
I started James this month. I live in a small town and I’m doing it by myself. I chose one of your studies on purpose because I’ve done several before and I knew I would not walk the journey alone, but with a trusted friend. Thank you for all the work you put into them!
Beautiful!!!! And you never know when someone says those words what that means for the future, too……..a decade ago I was the one saying “I’m about to start Believing God.” I had NO clue that it was about to sink into my marrow and send me on a crazy journey. I am now a missionary in South Africa. When I arrived, guess what was in my luggage? Some of the women here have done a Bible study or two. But things like DVDs and workbooks aren’t sold here. So tonight-for the first time- a group of women in Africa are going to experience full interaction with workbooks and you projected up onto the brick walls of a little hut. (I’m sure they’ll have a good chuckle at the accent and big hair. That’s not something they’ve seen before!) As I help them put on our blue ribbons, I will probably weep at the memory of who I was before that study and who I am now. And the fact that halfway across the world, I can minister to these women simply by hosting a group and letting Jesus use my “Mama” once again. DANG it’s beautiful.
I love you Liz! You shine so brightly with the love of Jesus. I am sad that we didn’t get to reconnect before you headed of into the adventure that you are now on. Praying for you and your group of ladies as you dive into God’s word together. Look forward to seeing you when you get home 🙂
Hey Beth, I was so excited at the greatness of our God I had to tell you! I have an Israeli friend whose birthday is today, January 23rd. Her name is Michal, and reading Portraits of Devotion today, you make mention of Michal! It set my feet to dancing! Love you so!
This is just wonderful!
I am getting ready to lead my first women’s retreat! I am a pastor’s wife and we have been at this church for almost 16 years! This is the first time I have been given the opportunity to speak to a large group of women at my own church! I am so excited but could use any prayers I can get! I have invited my childhood BFF to speak with me as well! Her husband was also a pastor until a strep infection invaded his body and attacked his organs. He now lives in a nursing home not able to move or communicate much on his own. Our topic is Everybody has a story and I am so glad she is coming to share hers! Pray for us as we speak that God gives us HIS words and that our women come with open hearts!
Dear Jennifer,
That is so exciting! I am praying for you and your friend as you teach at the retreat! Blessings to you!
Sherry
Thank you Sherry!!!! So appreciated!!
Beth, I just love you! I love your enthusiasm, your passion, your love for Jesus and His Word! Thank you for being an example to those of us who also desire for women to be in the Scriptures and to be CHANGED by those Scriptures! You help fan the flame!
Many prayers and blessings over you, my sister in Christ!
Kristi
I remember my first venture into studying the Word. It was none other than A Woman’s Heart (the pink one with all of the bible flipping!) I learned SO much in that study (like how to look up a verse). And I have grown into the woman that I am in large part due to the ministry that you and other bible teachers have. I will eternally be grateful to you, Priscilla, Kelly, and Kay for mentoring me, challenging me, molding me, and walking side by side with me as I walk out this thing called life. I am in love with Jesus more and more because of your contribution to my life. I just LOVE how HE works and how HE teaches us!
I remember my first Bible Study… I was 17… Lost, guilty and broken
Thank you for this post. The past three months have been tough and today… Let’s just say my steering wheel took a beating. This post made me smile and remember. I remember… Passion exploded in my heart that night! I was never the same!
Getting ready to start here & There. Now & Then! So excited. Did CHILDREN OF THE DAY last fall. Nothing I enjoy more, than an I depth Bible Study!
Thank you Beth for your love and service to the body of Christ. You and Kay A have taught me great spiritual truths to live by over 30 year span….How to live through things I thought would kill me…turning grief into glory for His names sake. Gods word is truly amazing, alive, active and victorious when believed and owned. Getting ready to lead Children of The Day soon. Love you Siesta Mama!
Hey Beth!
I know you receive so many comments, emails, tweets but I just had to comment on this post! First let me say thank you from the bottom of my heart for You and Your heart and your ministry to all of us women. You are a true gift and treasure and you have helped touch, change, bless, and teach me more than I could express in words!
I am part of your Siesta Scripture Memory Team and I’m praying I may be able to celebrate with everyone in January of 2016! I love, love, love it!
Next, I was halfway through my second pregnancy and we had big plans to celebrate after my ultrasound which would reveal if we were having a boy or girl! We had a daughter who was 13 at this time, big age difference I know! We didn’t plan it this way but after a very difficult season we were excited to add a new member to our family! Side note: I KNOW that one of the things the Lord used to get me out and through was your “Get Out of That Pit” book…Changed my life, helped saved my marriage and my family!!!!
Back to the original story: during the ultrasound we found out we were having a boy and he had some serious issues. He was born 6 1/2 weeks early with ultra long gap esophageal atresia (his esophagus did not connect), a heart defect, a laryngeal cleft and Down syndrome. Whew!!
He was in the hospital, MUSC in Charleston, SC for 3 months when after a failed surgery to connect his esophagus and an incredible amount of prayer and a word from God we had him flown by medical jet to Children’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts. Trying to make a very long story a bit shorter, he would wind up having to undergo 59 more surgeries and being in the ICU for the next year and 10 months. We finally were able to have him flown back to SC straight back to MUSC and finally HOME for the first time on April 22, 2011!!! (Good Friday) (He was born on February 12, 2009) So we were not able to bring him home for 2 years, 2 months!!! I know…crazy!!! I said all this to say that during this time the ladies ministry in my church had decided to do your Bible study on Esther and I was so sad because I could not participate. My husband and I were going back and forth from SC to Boston to be sure our daughter had one of us with her. A precious friend sent me the Esther workbook and dvd’s so I could go through it while I was in Boston! I just cried I was so excited! The hospital had these little sleep spaces for the parents of children in the ICU and late at night after Gracen was asleep, I would go downstairs and watch your dvd and do my homework. It blessed me so much but one night in particular I know that I know that God was in my little space with me and spoke to me so clearly I just cried and cried and I knew how much He loved me, cared about me and my family and was helping us every step of the way!
I could tell you so much more but I have written so much already! Thank you for hearing God and following your call and passion even when I know it is not always so easy to do!! You are truly touching hearts, changing lives, and being God’s hands and feet to so many!!!!
You have helped me, blessed me, spoken to me, and loved me more than you will ever know!!!
May God bless you and your family back more than you could ask or imagine!!!!
Thank you again from the bottom of my heart!
Misty Sanders
I appreciate you sharing this… I am one of those who is now teaching out of her own relationship and study of God’s Word. As a matter of fact we are about to do curriculum development at church for a program we will call “reboot. live fully alive” which is a series of classes and events designed to help people find God’s healing power in their lives and then walk out that healing in the context of community. I’m so stinking excited at times I can hardly breathe and I definitely ain’t sleeping ’cause God is getting me up early to just spend time with him and journal through it.
Your encouragement as a Bible Study teacher by book and video spurred me on to pursue my own wealthy-in-Christ calling. You personal encouragement to me through the blog comments, Twitter and Life Today have spurred me on into my destiny…
Back in the day when I cracked the spine on my first of your studies I used to sit in the back of the church pressing play on the DVD player and watching the videos thinking, “God, if I could only be 1/10 of who she is then I would be really GOOD!”
Back then I thought I heard God whisper, you don’t have to look like that, sound like that or EVEN… (yes, I know…) wear your hair like that… 🙂 I thought my mind was slipping as well, or I was just wishful dreaming… But then. Yeah, then. I heard, “This is the starting place not the ending place. Just be ready to go when I tell you…”
I have done that. Sat for two year just writing out my heart on a blog wondering if I would ever be leading in ministry again. Giving up places and people I dearly loved to move further into my calling and destiny. Following God like Abram and Sarai through the desert.
Right after I met you at Life Today in 2012 I sat at lunch with a friend explaining how God was bringing me full circle through my interactions with you when I least expected it.. As a matter fact had given up on having an opportunity to just say thank you! to your face. I said, “It’s kind of neat how God has brought me from that young woman just wishing she could be 1/10 of who Beth Moore is to allowing her to speak life to me the way she has done. It is so affirming.”
That evening we were in a class at church together when the teacher said, “Right now, in Christ you lack nothing you need to do everything He has called you to do…”
And me in my smug, silly self leaned over to my friend and said, “In that case, I want to be ALL of who Beth Moore is…”
And bam! Just like that God said, “NO! That’s not it. Beth Moore doesn’t have anything you don’t have – All you need is Me!” Oh snap. Nothing like a throw down moment with the God of the Universe. That serious course correction has compelled me to the place of peace and learning- growing deeper in who He is in me and I in Him. It is opening doors and allowing me to be fully alive. And it all started in a little Baptist church with 8 women in 2003 when I just wished I could be 1/10 of who you are. Now I am all of who He created me to be and that indeed is more than enough. I love your heart for us and your kindness to these fledglings coming up behind you. You spur us on beloved of God. You spur us on and I love you as if I have spent every single day of my life with you.
MB
Oh yes! Thank you Beth! God has given Me so many opportunities to share Breaking Free! and it is Thrilling for me! almost as soon as I replace one, I am giving it away! But do have one copy that is truly unfit t share 😉 I’ve written in it so much and it is an absolute staple to me! God Bless you for that book, and so many many more Bible studies! my second favorite was one I saw on life today about approaching Gods word! WOW!!! and of course everything else you do!
Mrs. Moore you have inspired my life. So has other speakers like Joyce Myers. Have you ever considered coming to a little town in Illinois and speaking. I know you would really just touch so many people. It was just a wish. Thank you
I’m a newcomer to the Siesta Scripture Memory Team, and because of this, my Sunday School class has asked me to provide a new memory verse for them ever week. God’s word is truly sustaining and life giving!
April Here and my scripture is Luke 8:18 Be sure to pay attention to HOW you hear. To those who are open to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But to those who are not listening, even what they think they have will be taken away from them. (I capped How because I kept changing the word to “what” because that is what my brain said it should be. Then I discovered it really says “how” NLT
Logan Kansas
Thank you, Beth, for your hard word studying and bringing to us what God has laid on your heart. I have done several of your studies now, and read a couple of your books and you have helped me tremendously. I am in the middle of “Believing God” and am LOVING it. God’s timing is perfect as usual – my dear friend is suffering from heart problems due to chemo for her lukemia and we are getting so much from this study. You are such a blessing. I am planning on seeing you when you come to Cincinnati in June.
The Bible study fever began in me while doing “Breaking Free” in spring of 2013. Since that time, and MANY studies later, My fever hasn’t broken yet! I am about to begin “The Patriarchs”, & cannot wait!
Beth, thank you so much for inspiring me to seek God through the study of His Word. It is thrilling & alive to me in a way I never could have imagined or dreamed would be possible. God speaks through studying scripture! God bless you as you heed to His call.
Beth,
I love you and what you do! Your studies have brought me closer to Jesus. Your gift is amazing and has helped me understand more deeply the love of Christ. I pray for you often and will continue to do so. Be blessed!
Beth, just finishing the second part session
of “Children of the Day” at our women’s bible
study in Sacramento, CA ~Love it!
Praise, worship, & study how good is that~
Linda May. Winnipeg.
God sent his Son into the world not to judge the world, but to save the world through him.
John 3:17 NLT
Cheryl IJzer, Amsterdam, the Netherlands (Europe).
“Want Hij weet, hoe mijn wandel is; toetste Hij mij, ik kwam als goud tevoorschijn.”Job 23:10, NBG
Sandy Poole Duncanville Tx, But God show his love for us in that while we were still sinners, Christ died for us. Romans 5:8 ESV.
Sharla, Boise, ID “Great is your name and greatly to be praised. Your greatness is unsearchable.one generation shall commend your works to another and shall declare your mighty acts.” Psalm 146:3-4 ESV
Beth, I just wanted you to know my good news. Gay may have already told you. I worshipped with you at Curtis’ church right after Thanksgiving. I had bile duct liver cancer. Your sweet friend prayed with me at the end of the service. Last weekend my family and I traveled to Houston to hear the results of my six weeks of radiation/chemo before Christmas. God is healing my body. I have no active cancer cells, no cancer anywhere else in my body, and only a few wounded cancer cells smoldering in the fire. The doctor said go live your life and I will see you in 3 months.. By then the other cancer cells should be completely dead. How great is our God!!! I feel so blessed and most of all so humbled. I am now in a Bible study doing Children of the Day. I can’t wait for the blessings to come from this study. Please keep me in your prayers as my healing is continuing.
Judy from Crawfordsville, IN Ps. 33:7 NASB “You are my hiding place; You preserve me from trouble; YOu surround me with songs of deliverance.
9 So let’s not get tired of doing what is good. At just the right time we will reap a harvest of blessing if we don’t give up.
Galatians 6:9 (NLT)
Lisa Moss
Lancaster, Tennessee
“But those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength. They shall mount up with wings like eagles; They shall run and not be weary; They shall walk and not faint.”
Isaiah 40:31 NKJV
Kristi
Anchorage, Alaska
Jude 1:2 (KJV)
Mercy unto you, and peace, and love, be multiplied.
Michelle Brownell – Sturgis, Michigan
I will instruct you and teach you in the way you should go; I will guide you with My eye.
Psalm 32:8 NKJV
Th for such encouraging words! God sent his Son to save the world through him.