Holding on to Hope 4

Does God really care about our sorrow?

Psalm 34:18, The Lord is close to the brokenhearted
and saves those who are crushed in spirit.

Please stop here and follow the link below to a short video that is crucial for you to watch to get the fullness of today’s topic.

http://lifetoday.org/video/?search=Beth%20Moore then look for the video that is dated Wednesday, June 27^th, 2012. Don’t forget you can fast forward to 7:39 to start the story that I want you to hear.

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He doesn’t look at you in the middle of this storm and in the middle of these raging waters and say, “I sure hope she is a good swimmer, I guess we’ll just wait and see.” Are you kidding? That is not the God that we serve. Sometimes we are the vessel that God uses to speak a word to just like you just watched with Beth, and then sometimes we are the one who has a need and God begins to prepare the heart of someone else to tend to us.

Deuteronomy 31:6 says,
  ⁶ Be strong and courageous. Do not be afraid or terrified because of them, for the Lord your God goes with you; he will never leave you nor forsake you.”

My question for you tonight is, “Do you believe that?”

My biggest experiences that I have had with God and the times that I have been pulled furthest out of my comfort zone are the times when God lays something on my heart for someone. You always know when this takes place because you can feel the HS pressing so heavily upon it. I will tell you that almost every time I have internally fought with God over it, but when I pushed away the pride and humility and bent the knee, the most beautiful thing takes place. Through our obedience…He uses us.

Let me ask you this, what is the worst thing that could happen to you if were obedient to God and went to the very person that God has laid on your heart and shared with them what it was he had to say. I know several times I have even started the conversation out like this, “I know this sounds crazy but God loves you so much that I believe he has laid this on my heart to share with you.

A few years after I had given my life over to Christ I felt God molding my heart in the direction of women’s ministry. I had really struggled with this and still dealt with so much pride and humility over the changes that God was requiring me to make. I wasn’t sure how it would really look like and was even more worried about when he showed me what it looked like how I would be able to conform to it. One day I had called my step mom Mona in a slight panic over some things that God had been revealing to me and she said this, “Why are you so worried about acting or looking like a fool for Jesus, when you have acted a fool for Satan for so long?” Isn’t that the truth…

I’m going to share with you that although God may have given me the opportunity to stand up here for these 8 weeks and share with you the things that he has laid upon my heart; don’t think for a second that he isn’t using this opportunity also to reveal to me every week the areas of my life that still need to be sifted and changed. Whether it is dealing with the humility of mispronouncing words or the nerves that some weeks I can’t shake. Or the simple fact that my mouth at times over speaks my faith, He is sure to let me know that it is not about me. We are a group of women from all types of walks and each with a different story. God has placed us here together to grow and learn and receive the freedom and healing he was waiting for us.

So the question is, Does God really care about the hurt and pain and insecurities that we hold inside? Let’s take a look at what the Bible says about that.

Psalm 139 says,

O Lord, you have searched me
and you know me.
² You know when I sit and when I rise;
you perceive my thoughts from afar.
³ You discern my going out and my lying down;
you are familiar with all my ways.
⁴ Before a word is on my tongue
you know it completely, O Lord.
⁵ You hem me in—behind and before;
you have laid your hand upon me.
⁶ Such knowledge is too wonderful for me,
too lofty for me to attain.
⁷ Where can I go from your Spirit?
Where can I flee from your presence?
⁸ If I go up to the heavens, you are there;
if I make my bed in the depths, you are there.
⁹ If I rise on the wings of the dawn,
if I settle on the far side of the sea,
¹⁰ even there your hand will guide me,
your right hand will hold me fast. (Jesus…)

¹¹ If I say, “Surely the darkness will hide me
and the light become night around me,”
¹² even the darkness will not be dark to you;
the night will shine like the day,
for darkness is as light to you.

¹³ For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
¹⁴ I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
¹⁵ My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place.
When I was woven together in the depths of the earth,
¹⁶ your eyes saw my unformed body.
All the days ordained for me
were written in your book
before one of them came to be.

¹⁷ How precious to me are your thoughts, O God!
How vast is the sum of them!
¹⁸ Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand.
When I awake,
I am still with you.

He knows our needs, even when we just need our hair brushed…I think we all know that there was way more than a physical need met there.

You see I think we can hear all these wonderful things about Gods love for us and the power of the cross. We can listen to how guilt is not from God and that it is a crafty scheme from the devil and how we are to gear up and fight against the strongholds that the enemy tries to lure us into. We can be taught what the word of God says about our life here on earth and the gift of eternal salvation and how one of the few things that we are promised here on earth are the day that we are born and the day that we die.

We've spent each week leading up to this one sifting through the ultimate plan and purpose for this tragedy and yet day after day some of us are still just as lost, if not more lost, then when we started. We can slap scripture cards over every inch of our homes, cars and offices and show up for Bible study and church every week, and continue to walk through every physical step known to man to find some reasoning in all of it. But all of that will not mean a thing if we don’t believe and accept that our Father loves us and cares for us and is capable of healing our hearts and filling this emptiness in our life.

We have to come to a place with him, a place that no one can bring you to other then you and Jesus himself. It has to be built on the foundation of trust, in which some of us have lost through this storm, and the willingness to be healed. Matthew 10:30 says, But the very hairs on your head are numbered.

We are left with one vital choice, are we going to choose fear or faith? The definition of faith that we as Christians live by is this, Now faith is being sure of what we hope for and certain of what we do not see. Hebrews 11

I don’t know about you but I can tell you from my experiences in the storms of this unruly life have rarely offered me a clear picture as to why they are taking place. It isn’t until I am willing to grab hold to the uncertainty of what it is that I’m going through and lay it at the feet of Jesus that I begin to understand the hope in which I have in my LORD. And then I have to choose to stay on my knees until my faith and my hope in my God carries me to the other side.   

I wanted this scripture to be what I prayed over us tonight in closing.

Ephesians 1:17-23
¹⁷ I keep asking that the God of our Lord Jesus Christ, the glorious Father, may give you the Spirit of wisdom and revelation, so that you may know him better. ¹⁸ I pray also that the eyes of your heart may be enlightened in order that you may know the hope to which he has called you, the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, ¹⁹ and his incomparably great power for us who believe. That power is like the working of his mighty strength, ²⁰ which he exerted in Christ when he raised him from the dead and seated him at his right hand in the heavenly realms, ²¹ far above all rule and authority, power and dominion, and every title that can be given, not only in the present age but also in the one to come. ²² And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, ²³ which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way.

I wish I knew how to put a song on here so you could here this.

He knows my name

I have a Maker
He formed my heart
Before even time began
My life was in his hands
I have a Father
He calls me His own
He'll never leave me
No matter where I go

He knows my name
He knows my every thought
He sees each tear that falls
And He hears me when I call