In the next few posts, I hope to share my impressions from the weekend to encourage any reader in the way we were encouraged. I have also asked women who attended to write some of their impressions, so that I can post those also.
These are taken from my notes from the first session.
Hebrews 4:16 Let us
then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive
mercy and find grace to help in time of need.
God tells us that He wants us to come to Him with
confidence.
The Greek word translated confidence is parrhesia
(par-rhay-see'-ah); out-spokenness, i.e.
frankness, bluntness, publicity; by implication, assurance: bold, confidence, freely, openly, plainly
(-ness) to be frank in utterance, or
confident in spirit and demeanor:
That describes the way we are to come to God.
Just before this, Hebrews
4:13 says “ And no creature is hidden from his sight, but all are naked and
exposed to the eyes of him to whom we must give account.”
Whew! Naked and exposed!
Our view is
Naked and exposed = shame
In God’s design, because Jesus is our high priest who
understands us, sympathizes with our weakness, and offers the sacrifice for our
sins…because of Jesus, while we are naked and exposed, we can be confident and
bold.
We usually come to God apologetically, I’m so sorry. I hate
to bother you with my problems.
Why do we not come to God with confidence? Lack of boldness
is not an emotion problem that requires a change of feeling. It is a belief problem that requires a change
in what we believe.
People often say that you can’t trust emotions, that
emotions lie. Emotions tell you the truth about
WHAT YOU BELIEVE. If you feel condemned, unloved, unacceptable,
unworthy, you come to God hesitantly with fear.
At the fall, the serpent caused Eve to question God. She
moved away from confident trust in God to a small doubt about God
goodness. We don’t have to fully believe
a lie, but if we just question the truth a little, we will move away from
God. When Eve turned from God to another
source; death, suspicion, deception, distrust entered.
When I don’t fully trust God, trust His goodness, His mercy,
His grace, then I will draw back, move away from him. Or I may go toward him,
but with such fear and shame that I don’t look up into His face.
Galatians 3:13, Christ redeemed us from the curse of the law
Christ came and redeemed us, bought us back, restored us to
a position that was ours before the curse.
Genesis 2:25 And the
man and his wife were both naked and were not ashamed. Man started out naked and exposed, but
unashamed, confident.
In order to have boldness and confidence to come to God, we
need to know and believe three things.
1.
God had chosen you.
John 15:16 You did not choose me, but I
chose you
Eph 1:3-4
Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed
us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places, 4 even as he chose us in him before the
foundation of the world, that we should be holy and blameless before him.
1 Peter 2:9 But you are a chosen race, a
royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for his own possession,
2.
God loves you. Agape love that is unconditional.
1 John 4:9-10 In this the love of God was made manifest
among us, that God sent his only Son into the world, so that we might live through
him. 10 In this is love, not that we have loved God but that he loved us
1 John 4:19 We love because he first loved
us.
3.
God cherishes you.
Col 3:12 God's chosen ones, holy and
beloved,
Eph 5:1 Therefore be imitators of God, as
beloved children.
Jer 31:3 I have loved you with an
everlasting love;
God doesn’t love you because He has to. God
adores you. God cherishes you.
Zeph 3:17 The Lord your God in your midst, The Mighty
One, will save;
He will rejoice over you with gladness, He
will quiet you with His love,
He will rejoice over you with singing."
Understand that. God rejoices over you. I picture a mother
holding a child in her arms, singing over the child. Except this word does not
indicate a soft lullaby. Hebrew word translated singing is
OT:7440 a creaking (or shrill sound), i.e. shout (of joy or
grief):
So, it is actually, He rejoices over you with loud joyful
singing. God is crazy about you.
If we understand these facts, and we receive them and
believe them, our emotions will follow. When our beliefs line up with God’s
truths, then we will have the confidence to go to God naked and exposed, but
confident and bold.
Psalm 139 speaks to how much God thinks about us. David
wrote this Psalm, as a prayer to God, expressing David’s realization about how
involved God was in his life. I am going to rewrite this psalm with a slight
change, changing it from third person to first person, so that we can read it
as God telling us how much he thinks about us, how involved He is in our lives,
and how close He is to us.
Psalm 139
My child, I have examined your heart and know everything
about you. I know when you sit down or stand up. I know your thoughts even when
your far away. I see you when you travel and when you rest at home. I
know everything you do. I know what you are going to say even before you say
it, Lord. I go before you and follow you. I place my hand of blessing on my
head. Such knowledge is too wonderful
for you, too great for you to understand! You can never escape from my Spirit!
You can never get away from my presence! If you go up to heaven, I am there; if
you go down to the grave, I am there. If
you ride the wings of the morning, if you dwell by the farthest oceans, even
there , my hand will guide you, and my strength will support you. You could ask the darkness to hide you and
the light around you to become night— but even in darkness you cannot hide from
me. To me the night shines as bright as day. Darkness and light are the same to
me.
I made all the delicate, inner parts of your body and knit
you together in your mother's womb. I made you so wonderfully complex! My workmanship is
marvelous—Understand that. I watched you
as you were being formed in utter
seclusion, as you were woven together in the dark of the womb. I saw you before
you were born. Every day of your life was recorded in my book. Every
moment was laid out before a single day had passed. How precious are my thoughts about you, my
child. They cannot be numbered! You
coudn’t even count them; they outnumber the grains of sand!
And when you wake up, I am still with you!
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