Getting Started

I am excited about doing a Bible study online via this blog.  I love to study the Bible, I love to discuss what I have studied, and share insights and thoughts with others.  I pray there will be participation and I want to encourage you to use the comments section to share your remarks, thoughts, and your answers to the "Consider" section.  Offer your own considerations. Please participate with full enthusiasm. 


I began to think about this type of Bible study after reviewing the statistics on my first blog, "Thoughts From Tennessee," which is a blog I use to keep in touch with my mother in Colorado and my daughter, Miranda, in northwest Tennessee.  I share photos, routine moments in life, and sometimes deeper thoughts and feelings.  I have three official followers: my mother, Miranda, and Tracy, my husband.  But a few months ago, as I looked over the  statistics that Blogger provides me about my blog, I noticed there were hits from Russia, China, Germany, and several places in the US.

It occurred to me that although no one but my closest family may officially follow my blog others might happen upon my blog accidentally...OR not so accidentally. Then I began to pray about another type of blog with more eternal ramifications than recipes and favorite photos.  I began to plan a blog that studied the Word of God and began to pray that God would use the blog in many ways to meet the needs of people anywhere, everywhere, even if just one person, somewhere could be touched, it would be a precious effort.

Much credit for my first topic of study goes to Mike Bickle, pastor at International House of Prayer in Kansas City.  I have never met him in person but I have watched his sermons on Facebook, YouTube, and his website, mikebickle.org. He has taught me so much about loving God and the love God has for me.  He impressed upon me the fact that no one else can give my love to God but me! A unique part of Jesus' inheritance has been given to Him through me specifically.  No one else can love Jesus exactly as I can, as you can...we were given life to love Jesus in our own special, unique way. 

Now you may have discovered this truth long ago but I was 50 years old when I heard Pastor Mike preach about this and it hit me like a ton of bricks. I was going through a particularly difficult time and I happened upon a sermon by Pastor Bickle "by accident." Tracy and I were going to a small, country church outside Bowling Green, KY when I heard Pastor Mike's sermon on a Saturday night.  The next morning the pastor at that church preached on the very same scripture, Matthew 22:34-40, emphasizing our uniqueness before God, just as Pastor Mike did the night before.  

I knew God loved me before these sermons, I had known that since I was a small child, but it seemed like a generalized love, a face in the crowd, mass love.  God loves people, God really loves His people. But these two sermons really opened my eyes to my special position with God through His Son, Jesus, and the ministry of the Holy Spirit.  The floodgates opened that day and as I bowed at the altar my only thoughts were, "I didn't know, Lord, I didn't know." Since then I have thought maybe there were others who didn't know. So that is why I decided to start with this topic.  

Pastor Bickle always says take his sermons, copy them, and pass them out and even take the credit.  But I thank him for the foundation of this study and I will build upon it and hopefully we will all build upon it, lesson by lesson.

So please join me in this adventure. And please pray that someone, anyone, out there finds what they need through the presence of God on this blog...salvation, revelation, fellowship, peace, community. That is my sincere prayer for each of us. 

Consider:

1. Do you feel that God loves you specifically?

2. What was a "new truth" that you discovered later in your walk with Christ?

3. Will you pray for that this blog will reach those in need of God's love?

May the Spirit of God lead us into all Truth...