You've Been A BAD FRIEND

Saturday was truly just what this girl needed. It had been a rough week, just exhausted and in need of a break from mommyhood and wifeyhood and just sometime with women and JESUS. Praise the LORD He delivered (duh) and I was recharged. I want to tell all of you about the simulcast because if you weren't there I am so sad, it was so good and Beth was so encouraging and REAL. She loves her some Jesus and she just threw her heart right out there for every woman to see, all 300,000 or so of us!

The Topic- So Long Insecurity ; You've Been A Bad Friend. Seriously, what girl doesn't need to hear this? If you think you don't well, I don't believe you. I feel like it is just part of being woman and here is the truth, insecurity is such a trap. It roots its ugly self down deep in us, maybe from something we experienced as little girls growing up, maybe the middle school boys making fun of your zit on your nose? Or because you bought a puffy coat but should have bought a pea coat because all the thugs wear puffy coats. What? Where'd that come from...anyways, we all have dealt with it somehow and let me say this...it is BONDAGE! And girlfriend it is time for you to be set FREE! FREEDOM actually happens to be my word of the year. I know it to be true because in the last year I have felt like a brand new woman. I feel so happy! Really really happy and I think it is because I have truly been encountering Jesus and it is wonderful. Anyway...I want to tell you about the simulcast so this could get lengthy...I'll share my notes with you...here ya go...I hope it touches you even though there is no incredible music team leading you in worship and no beautiful humble blonde speaking these words aloud to you from a stage. To see this womans heart was incredible, she really was burdened by this topic of INSECURITY. She said it was a horrible battle she began about a year or so ago and she said she wasn't going to take it to her grave and so God worked on it in her life...and now he is using it in ours. I hope you can pull some good truths that encourage your soul from my notes.

There are many things Beth said that stuck out to me, one being that we Christian women are to be POSTER CHILDREN. Before and Afters because of what Christ has done in us! We are meant to be freed and secured in the marrow of our bones. Grace came that we may be complete and made NEW. If we don't look different and we claim Christ, we need a self check...

She centered her message around Ephesians 4:17-24 (NIV-see also NLT)

¹⁷So I tell you this, and insist on it in the Lord, that you must no longer live as the Gentiles do, in the futility of their thinking. ¹⁸They are darkened in their understanding and separated from the life of God because of the ignorance that is in them due to the hardening of their hearts. ¹⁹Having lost all sensitivity, they have given themselves over to sensuality so as to indulge in every kind of impurity, with a continual lust for more.

²⁰You, however, did not come to know Christ that way. ²¹Surely you heard of him and were taught in him in accordance with the truth that is in Jesus. ²²You were taught, with regard to your former way of life, to put off your old self, which is being corrupted by its deceitful desires; ²³to be made new in the attitude of your minds; ²⁴and to put on the new self, created to be like God in true righteousness and holiness.

We were taught Christ, so we are to live as Christ

...REMEMBER WHAT YOU WERE TAUGHT...

A SECURE WOMAN is:

Saved from herself (can I get an amen?!)
The human mind is twisted by idolatrous self interest. Security would set us free from a life of Narcissism (excessive preoccupation with self). A narcissist has the most insecurity of anyone. At the heart of our sin is the fact that everything is curved back to us.

"Did they see I was there?"

"Did they say something about me?"

Beth likened it to shaving off wood and watching it it curl up and under. She encouraged us to curve out and up, up to God.
Insecurity is its own form of Pride...WOAH...We need to know our place and be secure that we may think LESS OFTEN of ourselves!
KNOW YOUR PLACE. You are a daughter of the MOST HIGH KING. Seriously, live in that. Who cares what others think, we only need to please the LORD GOD our maker.

Entitled to Truth
We as women, daughters of Christ, we get to KNOW, BELIEVE and WALK OUT TRUTH!

WE ARE ENTITLED TO THE TRUTH!

We need to weed out the lies in our life....like the one our culture believes and tells us as women "to be valuable we must be sensual". The last thing the enemy wants you to know is truth. Where are you going to find truth? God's word.
Beth shared that if we live a life withdrawn we will just get into deeper darker places, places of addiction and what not. It is in those places the enemy pours lies into our lives. A friend of mine wrote an incredible song about Satan being a bitter friend in a beautiful disguise...oh that he is...and he is also the Father of Lies. You my dear sister, don't deserve that crap.

Clothed with Intention
A woman dresses on purpose...DRESS ON PURPOSE!!!

Proverbs 31:25
She is clothed with strength and dignity (The quality or state of being worthy of esteem or respect),
and she laughs without fear of the future.

Not one of us will walk in security on accident.
We have say "woah, that was the old me...I need to put on the new me and try this again." If we do not have a power greater than us taking over we just can't do it!!!!

We cannot wait until we feel secure to act secure!
It begins in our minds!!

Upended by GRACE
Grace takes up the space in a secure woman.

Ephesians 4:32

Instead, be kind to each other, tenderhearted, forgiving one another, just as God through Christ has forgiven you.

Grace others just as Christ as graced you.
How likely would we be to forgive if we were SECURE?

***A huge reason we are easily offended is because we are insecure***

Grace turns everything around. People who really believe that they have been graced will forgive others. It begins with whether or not we believe WE ARE FORGIVEN!!!

Hebrews 10:19-23
¹⁹Therefore, brothers, since we have confidence to enter the Most Holy Place by the blood of Jesus, ²⁰by a new and living way opened for us through the curtain, that is, his body, ²¹and since we have a great priest over the house of God, ²²let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith, having our hearts sprinkled to cleanse us from a guilty conscience and having our bodies washed with pure water. ²³Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.

There is no more powerful tool the enemy may use against us than guilt. Do not be downtrodden dear sister. Pick up your face and let HIM sprinkle your heart with HIS cleansing blood. BELIEVE you are forgiven.

Did you say it?

Did you mean it?

THEN RECEIVE IT!

We sometimes think that if we give up our bitterness or unforgiveness we lose, not so. This example was good because the previous night I was acting...a little stubborn with my husband, it had been a long week, I was in great need of rest in all sorts of ways but I was just mad and bitter and angry and sad and all kinds of emotional hormonal junk but there was something in me that wanted to hold the power and not make peace. But you know what...I was sitting there sulking in my passenger seat and it wasn't doing any good, just making me more and more miserable. I once heard Rhea Briscoe say that bitterness shows on people and "honey it is not attractive." Lets make ourselves attractive and let go of our bitterness.
How much has pride damaged our lives?? When we chose not to forgive someone, it is like an ugly tapeworm eating us up inside, eating us alive. Do you have tapeworm? I'm doing my best to get rid of mine...

Rebounded by LOVE

Ephesians 5:1-2
Be imitators of God, therefore, as dearly loved children ²and live a life of love, just as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us as a fragrant offering and sacrifice to God.

We will never move forward in our security if we do not live like dearly loved children of God. For Lillie's baby dedication I sang "Jesus Loves Me", playing it on a grand piano in a gigantic marble chapel...when I was rehearsing I could barely get through the song...because I was singing that Jesus Loves Me...Really? Me, this girl? Yes. Jesus loves me. In the emotion of the moment and knowing where I have been and what he has brought me from, what he has saved me from what he has blessed me with I was in awe and overwhelmed that Jesus. Loves. Me.

Beth also said that if our hearts do not heal...they harden...lets get our hearts healed by Jesus.

When we know we are loved we love.
When we know we are forgiven we forgive.
When we know...

1 Peter 4:8

Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins.

Exceptional in Life
Beth encouraged us to stick out like a healthy green thumb and be lights and a difference in our generation.

Celebrate being female. God does not want us to brace ourselves through life and its trials, he wants us to be exceptional through it.

The "except her" person! That people wonder what it is about you...that they wonder why you are happy, why you are exceptional through situations, why you radiate ......

SECURE

All because of Jesus.