Mara or Naomi?

In church recently, I felt God touch me in the sermon. It was about God's hand being everywhere. I mean if you were down and you were encouraged by someone, God worked thru them to get to you. Etcetera and so forth. But we were in Ruth today and I felt this was really good for us:

So the two women went on until they came to Bethlehem. When they arrived in Bethlehem, the whole town was stirred because of them, and the women exclaimed, “Can this be Naomi?”

 “Don’t call me Naomi,” she told them. “Call me Mara, because the Almighty  has made my life very bitter.  I went away full, but the Lord has brought me back empty. Why call me Naomi? The Lord has afflicted me; the Almighty has brought misfortune upon me.” (Ruth 1:19-21)

I'm assuming you all know the story and what happened and what wil happen. Well Naomi means "pretty, lovely one" and Mara means "bitter". Are you feeling like a Mara in your life? Do you want to change your name to Naomi? (rhetorically) I certainly do! I feel that in my relationship I've been a Mara, but I am trying to become a Naomi!

I feel that we need to stop being bitter to God (and others). For example, many, many, people have questioned God with this. "If You're so loving, why do bad things happen? If you cared, you stop it!" I have done this and I'm sure you guys have too. But think about it. God mad us in His image and then we (not pointing fingers at anybody in particular Adam & Eve) blew it. Now we are born with a sin nature. God hates bad things as it says in Psalm 11:5-7

The Lord tests the righteous, But the wicked and the one who loves violence His soul hates. Upon the wicked He will rain coals; Fire and brimstone and a burning wind Shall be the portion of their cup. For the Lord is righteous, He loves righteousness; His countenance beholds the upright.

That's all I'm going to say in this matter for now as I'm actually going to be doing my worldveiw class on Thursday and well be watching a video in that matter, so I'll talk more about that then!


Jesus said, "This is eternal life: that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent" (John 17:3)

At the heart of this study, we want you to KNOW GOD and KNOW JESUS CHRIST whom He sent. Knowing God does not come through a program or method. It is a relationship with a person. It is an intimate love relationship with God. Through this amazing relationship, God reveals His will and invites you to join Him in His work. When you obey God, He accomplished through you what ONLY He can do.

Jesus said, "I have come so they may have life, and have it to the full." (John 10:10) do you want to experience life to the full? You certainly can if you are willing to respond to God's invitation to an intimate love relationship with Him. We will help each other move into the kind of relationship with God that will enable you to experience eternal life to the fullest degree possible.

Since you are taking this course, I am assuming that you have accepted Christ as your Lord and Savior and you acknowledge Him to be Lord of your life. If you haven't mad this very important decision, please PM me and I will coach you through it. If you choose not to, this course wil have little meaning to you. :-/
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Now that we got an intro....what next?

You may be frustrated in your Christian experiences because you know Goe has a more abundant life for you than you have experienced. Or you may earnestly desire God's directions for your life and ministry. You may have experienced tragedy in your life and don't know what to do. Whatever your present circumstances, my earnest prayer is that somehow in this time together you will be able to:

Hear when God is speaking to you

Clearly identify the activity of God in your life

Believe God to be and do everything He promises

Adjust your beliefs, character, and behavior to God and His ways

See what God wants to do in your life

Clearly know what you need to do in response to God's activity in your life

Experience God by doing through you what ONLY He can do!

So I think that is a suitable into and now well launch ourselves into prayer and discussion! Any questions you may have are welcomed here! After all, we're all sisters in Christ! And go ahead and answer the Mara/Naomi questions too! Remember to prayerfully consider the questions before answering them.

What is this study???

So this study is using much of the material from Henry T. Blackaby's and Claude V. King's "Experiencing God for youth" study.

Now to begin, I'm going to give you a sad statistic. A poll was taken in America of A LOT of people. The poll showed:
5% of people are thinkers
10% of people think they think, but don't
85% of people would rather die than think

Now this isn't to say they'd rather die than ponder about something, but for example, my mother wanted to do a worldview class in their small group. Nobody wanted to because it "was too much work". Now my hope for you guys is that you will stick to it and find the time to do this "study". I hope you will prove to be the 5%. Yes, it will be a life changer if you come at it with the right attitude. I encourage you to begin reading these with a short prayer.  I am going to lead this and I would appreciate prayer! XD

Now what I'm about to tell you can be tough. I believe(and am pretty sure you all do too) that the Bible is true and what is in it is real. All of it. We take the Bible literally. I will not ask and ask that you do not ask this question about ANY Scripture. "What does it mean
to you? What it means to you isn't the same as it means to me. NO!!! I'm sorry, but that is called relativism and comes from the basis of atheism and I believe it is wrong. For example: John 3:16. If I ask you what it means to YOU, your answer may differ from mine. But if we take the Bible literally, then it clearly means that whoever believes in Christ shall not perish and have eternal life. See what I mean? I want you to ask, "What does it mean?" In a literal, biblical sense. I trust you all to do so. ;-)

This study goes thru 7 realities of experiencing God. Here is a picture of the realities.

The 7 Realities are:

• God is always at work around you.
• God pursues a continuing love relationship with you that's real and personal.
• God invites you to become involved with him in his work.
• God speaks by the Holy Spirit through the Bible, prayer, circumstances, and the church to reveal Himself, His purposes, and His ways.
• God's invitation for you to work with Him always leads you to a crisis of belief that requires faith and action.
• You must make major adjustments in your life to join God in what He is doing.
• You come to know God by experience as you obey Him, and He accomplishes His work through you.

We will be going over each one slowly and in depth. We'll dig deeper into the Scriptures and spend time on each one, making sure all of us understand it.

I would love for y'all to do one thing before you jump in. Please tell us this. In your own words, and commit yourself to the LORD!

I am committing myself to do this study with my fellow "cyber friends" so I can experience God in my life. I trust God to help me experience Him. I will be patient with others and trust God will reveal Himself to that person in His own ways.

If you want to know Christ, but don't know how, please PM me and I'll help you along the path as you begin your journey of walking with Christ.