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Confidence vs. Self-Esteem

Monday, September 17th, 2012

God commands us to have confidence over and over in Scripture. We are to be bold and courageous (Joshua 1:9), we are to walk boldly to the throne of God to receive help in time of need (Hebrews 4:16), and we are to reach out to the lost (Matthew 28: 19-20), which requires boldness. To have confidence is not sin. We derive our confidence from God.

Self-esteem is not the same as confidence. Self-esteem is thinking more highly of yourself than you ought to think (Philippians 2:3). But humility and confidence are not opposites. People who are greatly used by God are BOTH humble and confident. They know who they are in Christ, and they boldly follow God and lead others closer to Christ.

When God commands us to walk boldly to His throne to receive help in time of need, He wants to grant us confidence so that we possess that confidence, and that confidence is OURS. The confidence that I have in Christ is MINE. It belongs to me because God gave it to me.

So many Christians (like this Beth Moore Basher) say that we’re not allowed to have confidence, because it’s God’s. Oh, really? Just because it came from God doesn’t mean it’s not given.

Most women think they are pieces of dirt. And because we think of ourselves as garbage, believing lies from the enemy, we accomplish nothing for Christ. Instead of splitting hairs about the word “confidence,” I would much rather tell a woman that she is dearly loved by Christ, who gave up His life for her. God created her for a purpose, and she needs to ask God what her gifts, talents, and life purpose is. After salvation, when God is in the process of transforming her, she becomes more and more beautiful. You can see it in her face. She becomes more and more like Christ.

And as she becomes like Christ, she can stand on the Word of God and not believe the lies from the enemy that are crippling. She then has deep confidence in God, and it’s HERS. The confidence belongs to HER, and it shines out of her face.

It’s not a sin to be confident. To be used by God full blast in your life, you must be bold as a lion. Yes, it comes from Christ, but it’s GIVEN to us. That confidence permeates every aspect of our lives, and we are used maximally for His kingdom.

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Rebuttal to a Beth Moore Basher

Sunday, September 16th, 2012

rebuttal-to-a-beth-moore-basherI listened to 16 minutes of this man‘s venom towards Beth Moore. I was going to listen to the whole one-hour show, to see if anything he had to say had validity. But the condescending, contemptuous way he referred to his fellow believer in Christ was sin. If he is sinning, he is not walking by the Spirit. If he is not walking by the Spirit, nothing he has to say is worthwhile, especially if he’s trying to make a spiritual point.

I have no idea if I agree or disagree with the theology of Beth Moore, but no two people on this earth will agree about everything. That doesn’t mean she’s Satan. She’s not. Last January I took her study on the book of James, and it was excellent. I grew spiritually. I saw nothing that was theologically incorrect, and my father is a seminary professor with a doctorate in theology from Dallas Theological Seminary. I’ve had a solid foundation of Scriptural training in the Christian schools that I attended as a missionary kid, and I’ve spent thousands of hours in the Word of God. None of this is boasting. I live with my face smashed in the dust because God is everything and I am nothing. What I’m saying is that Beth Moore wasn’t off in her theology in her study of the book of James, which is the only one I’ve done so far.

The radio show host began by bashing the person who introduced Beth Moore. He paused the man half-sentence and twisted his words. The man (who introduced her) said that his confidence came from God, but the radio show host said that he had his confidence in himself. If the radio show host can’t even hear a clear sentence, his pompous, puffed-up heart has plugged ears from the get-go.

Then he starts reading long reams of Scripture without telling us why. He says that we can’t memorize a Scripture verse without in essence memorizing the whole chapter. This is ludicrous. And, by the way, it’s ironic, because Beth Moore memorized the entire book of James and encouraged each of us women to do the same during the one Bible study I took. Sheez.

He also bashes her as a preacher. For heaven’s sake, she teaches WOMEN. No man can be offended by a woman who teaches women, no matter what you believe is Scriptural. This radio show host was prideful, smug, and critical of someone who has a deep spiritual walk with God and is having a powerful impact on women across the nation, causing the women to repent of sin and draw closer to God. I’m going to pray that this man repents of HIS sin.

* * * * * * * * * * *

Okay, I’ve listened up to the 36-minute mark, which is all that I could stand. He mentions confidence as sin. (Beth Moore said, and I quote, “confidence in God.” She never said her confidence came from outside of God, but that she was discouraged and felt incapacitated for the work that God had called her to do.) I will address this in Part 2: Confidence vs. Self-Esteem.

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The People on Facebook are Real (Synchronized Prayer)

Monday, May 14th, 2012

synchronized-prayerAre the people on Facebook real? I’ve had so many people tell me that virtual friends aren’t real people. Well, I have a Facebook friend that I’ve never met. She lives in an exotic country I’ve never visited. But one day she was going through a crisis in her life and was asking prayer over Facebook. I began praying for her every day.

Suddenly God woke me up in the middle of the night to pray fervently for her; then I went back to sleep. The next day I told her on Facebook that God woke me up to pray for her, and another Facebook friend said God had woken her up at the same exact time. The odds that this would happen is impossible. This woman I was praying for was making a major life decision at the exact moment we were praying, and since the country she lived in was on the other side of the world, God used two American women to pray for her in the middle of the night by waking us up. We had synchronized prayer. The woman we prayed for decided to recommit her life to Christ, after having gone through an agonizing decision.

You see, God considers my Facebook friend a real person, or He wouldn’t have used me spiritually in her life.

This is not to justify spending hours upon hours on Facebook, neglecting the flesh and blood people in our lives, especially our spouses and children. Facebook can be idolatry just like anything else. The key is to ask God what you should be doing at each moment. If you feel guilty that you’re not doing something, for heaven’s sake, get up and go do the thing that you know you should be doing.

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Spending Time with God

Thursday, May 10th, 2012

spending-time-with-God

So many mothers have told me that spending time with God is something they don’t have time for. They drift throughout the day, doing whatever comes up. They feel frustrated with their lives because they get nothing done. They feel foggy, and they blame their lack of relationship on the fog. The problem is that they haven’t made spending time with God a priority, or they would do it. There’s something about connecting with God that makes the whole rest of your day better. Stop beating yourself up, and just do it. The Word of God never returns void.

Just reading the pure Word of God is wonderful. You don’t need any fancy stuff. The book of Psalms is a great place to find comfort during sorrow, and Proverbs is a great place to find wisdom. If you prefer reading a story, there are so many in Genesis. Or the stories of David in 1st Samuel, or of Elijah in 1st and 2nd Kings.

Silence, I mean opening up your spirit to God, is more important than the amount of Scripture you read, if you expect to actually live it. For example, let’s say you read a verse in Proverbs about anger. It convicted you. Now look up. Stop what you’re doing. Chew on the verse. Ask God to make that verse a reality to you. Even in the midst of kid noise, you can silence your own heart and open yourself up to God.

If you want to delve deeper into a particular topic, you can look up every verse on that topic in a Bible concordance. Then read the verses and surprise yourself. Right now I absolutely love reading about prayer and challenging myself to have a deeper prayer life. But in the past I’ve looked up verses on pride, anger, rest, and many other topics.

One day I was spending time with God, reading His Word, and my daughter came into the room. I have to say that it’s usually better to be totally alone with God so that you can give God your undivided attention and hear Him. But on this particular day, I let my daughter watch me as I studied and wrote down what God was teaching me from His Word. She smiled at me, left, and came back with a Bible and a sheet of paper. She opened up her Bible to Ruth and started copying down Ruth. You see, my 6-year-old girl wanted to be like Mommy. What I was doing looked delightful to her because she saw how delighted I was in what I was learning. It was a sweet moment I will never forget.

Another time my son Nathaniel was sick with a snotty nose. So I stayed home from church with him while everyone else left. I opened the Bible study that I was doing, and he did it with me. We had such a deep spiritual conversation, and every Scripture seemed to apply to a specific sin issue in his life. It was as if God had orchestrated for us to be home that day, and for me to land directly on the verses that my son needed. I saw visible spiritual growth in my son’s understanding. I tell you, it’s moments like these that make a grown woman cry for joy. But if you’re not studying your Bible, these moments will not happen.

I was just talking to my sister the other day over the phone, and I was telling her how desperately important it was to know the Word of God. If you don’t spend time in Scripture, God can’t bring the verses to your mind when you need them, to convict you of sin, or to know what to say to someone in need; to comfort you at just the right time, or to give wisdom for a major decision. You must study the Word of God. Choose to read pure Scripture. Proper Bible studies can be great, or they can be an anvil around your neck. Ask God before studying each topic. But please, at least pick up and read the pure Word of God. You will never regret having done so.

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