Sharing a little of His word....

I just wanted to share a few thoughts that keep ringing in my head from some bible study and preaching I heard yesterday and last night .... I wanted to share these in case it touches someone else out there ....

I recently started a Beth Moore bible study, Living Beyond Yourself. Yesterday I was reading about living a crucified life: living not for your own will but dying to yourself and living for God's will. There was a statment that just keeps ringing in my head. She said,

"Never misunderstand pain [emotional, physical, spiritual] as permission to forego the will of God."

"Never misunderstand pain as permission to forego the will of God."

I just thought that was a powerful statement because so often people say, "Oh, well, God would never want me to suffer so I'll...[you fill in the blank]." But what God wants is for you to keep His word ... even when it's difficult.

Another interesting thing I heard was last night while watching a show featuring pastor Henry Wright from Pleasant Valley Church in Thomaston, GA, author of A More Excellent Way. The focus of his book is connecting the dots between our sins and our diseases. It was a very interesting discussion. My husband borrowed this book from a friend but had to return it and now we are thinking about buying a copy of our own.

He was talking about blessings and curses. He said that when you follow God's word, He will fullfill His promises and offer you blessings. However, when you don't follow His word, you are essentially following a different word (Satan's word) and as the consequence, you receive Satan's "blessings" (aka curses).

... kinda makes sense ...

He also talked about how he did a word study and looked up the word "if" as it applied to the scriptures in Deuteronomy about blessings and curses. IF we obey the Lord and follow His word, we will receive blessings - he found that this "if" meant quickly, we'll receive the blessings quickly - but IF we do not follow His word, we will receive curses - he found that the different word "if" used here meant slowly - we will recieve curses slowly, in time... which is how diseases work.

.... hhmmmm...

...just a few things that I thought were interesting and I felt the urge to share, just in case it touches someone else out there...

Additional note:
Please don't get angry with me if you have an ailment and say "I'm not a sinner!" We are all sinners. I think we need to all pray and ask God to reveal to us how we can better follow His word. I'm doing this myself...