We all have challenges. We all get discouraged. We all, at some point, experience the feeling we’re the only ones doing all the work. Yet the question lingers: “What are you doing here?” Are we following God’s leading, or are we running the other way? Are we doing what God has asked or are we focused so much on the problems, we’ve lost sight of God?Contributor: This week Ruth shares with us about the time when she went as a Student Missionary to Poland to teach English. She went to teach English...but was that her sole purpose? God was going to use her in a way that she never expected.

We all have challenges. We all get discouraged. We all, at some point, experience the feeling we’re the only ones doing all the work. Yet the question lingers: “What are you doing here?” Are we following God’s leading, or are we running the other way? Are we doing what God has asked or are we focused so much on the problems, we’ve lost sight of God?Contributor: This week Ruth shares with us about the time when she went as a Student Missionary to Poland to teach English. She went to teach English...but was that her sole purpose? God was going to use her in a way that she never expected.

Free sharing permitted under the Creative Commons <a rel="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0/us/">BY-NC-ND 3.0 (US)</a> license.

Starting with Jesus

Reflect and Renew February 2023

Heather Bennett

From Wisdom to Foolishness

As I started learning that I was idolizing food, how do I learn to see God as, you know, my God?

I mean, those things try to creep in, but I don't just control it anymore.

All learn and grow together in our walk with Jesus.

We will definitely be encouraged and challenged as we hear from the experiences of others.

In life, we have lots of daily choices to make.

Those choices are going to affect our lives, either for good or for bad.

This week's Renewed Devotional opened with a fascinating story about Stephen Smith and how his pride, arrogance, and disregard of counsel caused him 28 years of trouble.

The story highlights how our choices can affect the rest of our lives.

You can read the story about Stephen Smith at startingwithjesus.com forward slash renew.

Our Bible story this week is focused on Solomon.

It's all about the choices that he made and where his choices led him.

When Solomon began ruling over Israel, God asked him in a dream what he wanted.

Of all the things that Solomon could have asked for, he asked for wisdom.

God not only gave him wisdom and an understanding heart, But the Bible tells us that God was so pleased that He also gave him riches and honor.

Leaders from around the world heard of Solomon's wisdom and traveled to his palace just to witness it for themselves.

What a beautiful way to show those leaders God's power and blessings on King Solomon and his people.

As time went by, Solomon started relying more and more on his own wisdom.

Instead of the wisdom that came from God, he started to change.

The choices that he made little by little led him to become proud, selfish, and even cruel.

His heart was turned away from God and the Bible tells us that Solomon even worshipped false gods.

In 1 Kings 11, verse 1, it tells us that Solomon loved many foreign women.

God had given specific commands, though, not to intermarry with people who didn't love him.

Could it be that Solomon had an addiction to women?

Or maybe even the attention that those women gave him?

Just like we struggle with addictions today, Solomon struggled with his own weaknesses.

The Bible tells us that it was his wives who turned his heart away from God.

God loved Solomon, just like he loves each of us.

It wasn't until the very last warning from a prophet of God that Solomon actually realized the choices he was making were not in harmony with God.

We have a wonderful story of Solomon turning back to God before it was too late.

But what a heartache it had already caused.

The consequences of those actions would affect the rest of his life.

Today we're going to hear from Steve and Mary and where they were looking for happiness before their relationship with God.

Food addictions, movies, and video games were just some of the addictions that they struggled with.

Yet today, they have a beautiful story to share with us of how the choices they made to put God first has radically altered their lives.

We weren't raised as close to God as we are now.

We kind of were more so raised that God exists and you do whatever you want and ask for forgiveness and who cares if you're really sorry about it.

And so there wasn't a true relationship there.

There wasn't a true Understanding and Love for God the way we have now we kind of specialized in entertainment or worldly things that take up our time and kind of became that that idol worship almost like what Solomon did I mean he was he was doing idolatry with different idols of different gods and just because of the different wives and he was focused on many women he was focused on a variety of other things that he should not have been putting his time into and Looking back at our relationship We had Thousands of movies we had you know tons of video game consoles we had You know we went out to movies we ate out a lot we had you know all these obsessions that were just kind of fleeting and kind of pointless.

And I mean, yeah, they were fun in the moment, but there was really nothing of substance there.

And such, even our relationship was kind of built on these lackluster entertainment pieces.

During that time, We liked movies, as he said, but we also liked to eat.

And weight is something I had struggled with my whole entire life.

When we got to the point of eating and eating and eating, I actually ended up getting to 330 pounds.

At 21 years old, I couldn't walk 1 mile to a waterfall.

I couldn't barely walk into the grocery store without getting out of breath.

Well, long, long story, but I ended up losing about 150 pounds.

And the biggest issue was, and that was before we came to God, and the biggest issue was I didn't break that addiction to food at that time.

Well, and that's kind of, you know, playing into the fact that it was these little baby steps of things, these little small choices that just kind of kept compacting themselves over the years, you know, from the sitting and eating or the snacking or the entertainment things that kind of caused us to sit there and just eat together.

Yeah, so even after I lost the weight before, again, this is before we came to God and before we gave up the movies and all of that, I just learned how to control the weight.

I learned how to be able to binge on food and then purge on exercise.

Before God, even though I had been doing those things, it wasn't healthy.

And so as we came into the church and as I started learning that I was idolizing food, I started trying to transition that.

How do I learn to see God as, you know, my God, not food as my God or as my idol.

So it took me a few years, but I no longer have that food addiction.

So often we have pressures of society, right?

Like always telling us how we should act, how we should be, how we should act, how, you know, social media.

And when we came into the church and as we started to actually study God's Word, which, you know, again, had Solomon looked back at the scripture, looked at, you know, things that Moses had written and things that David had written, it would have impacted him differently than kind of just going with the flow of things.

I mean, we purged all of those movies and video game consoles and everything because it was a distraction.

It was such a distraction that if I would have kept going on the video game train, I probably wouldn't be married right now.

We were heading down that road because of him staying up until 3 a.m.

You know playing video games and 1 thing that I had really put in front of me is thou shalt not put evil before your eyes.

My favorite type of movies were horror movies.

I stopped watching the horror movies cold turkey.

And it's funny how there's no way I can even think about watching 1 of those now, because God has, because I was willing to give it over to God, He's also changed my heart.

And it just reminds me of Galatians 6, 9, where it says, let us not become weary in doing good for at the proper time, we will reap a harvest if we do not give up." And I mean, we have reaped the harvests of those things, because at that time, getting rid of the game systems, getting rid of the food, getting rid of the movies.

But now we get to, we live right by the Rocky, right in the Rocky Mountains.

And so now we get to hike some of the highest mountains in the country and we get to see such beauty and we get to bring our boys up in that because we've changed and we've decided to allow God to lead us.

And so like Solomon, he recognized his poor choices and almost too late, like we recognized our poor choices after studying more of God's word And so we were able to actually grow a relationship between 1 another.

You know, instead of just being entertainment in between us, it was us.

And then we were able to spend time in the mountains.

We're able to spend time together, you know, even if it's just sitting and having a conversation or building something.

And 1 thing that I'm able to do now, because over the past about year and a half, I really loved myself the first time in my life.

God Cares for Elijah

It may not be fancy, our home is small and kid-worn, but all of this is overlooked when seeing the joy that people feel when they are invited and feel included.

The fellowship with 1 another always makes up for everything else that might be lacking.

Join Heather this week as she reviews the lesson so we can all learn and grow together in our walk with Jesus.

This week our Bible story is found in 1 Kings chapter 17.

It's an incredible story about a woman who had almost nothing.

In fact, she was preparing to die with her son.

And yet she shares the little that she has with the prophet of God.

In that moment, she can't see the future, and she can't see what hope she has.

All she has for assurance is the words that Elijah says in verses 13 and 14.

Do not fear, go and do as you have said, but make me a small cake from it first, and bring it to me, and afterward make some for yourself and your son.

For thus says the Lord God of Israel, the bin of flour shall not be used up, nor shall that jar of oil run dry until the day the Lord sends rain on the earth." This was not a woman of Israel, but an outsider.

Yet somehow, some way, she chooses to put her faith in the God of Israel.

She chooses to trust that there would be still more flour and oil even when she uses everything she has for the man of God.

The Bible tells us the bin of flour was not used up, nor did the jar of oil run dry according to the word of the Lord which was spoken by Elijah.

Did you have a chance to read the Renew devotional this week?

You can find it at startingwithjesus.com forward slash renew.

Or to simplify it even more, we could just say sharing with others.

Just like the widow showed hospitality to Prophet Elijah, have you ever shown hospitality even if you didn't know how you would do it?

In our devotional this week, Merle shares with us a story about some unexpected guests who came to lunch.

How stressful it was as a hostess and yet when the guests left her home they were blessed and kept saying oh how nice it was to spend Sabbath together in someone's home.

Have you ever experienced some last-minute guests and didn't feel prepared?

This week we hear from a woman who is a mom and a grandma.

She's learned that Even though there may not be enough to eat, it may not be fancy, and our homes may even be a little messy, all that is often overlooked when we see the joy that people feel when they're included.

The fellowship with 1 another makes up for everything that might be lacking.

You might want to get a pen and some paper to write down some tips that she's going to be sharing with us that makes hospitality easier for her.

I grew up in a home where hospitality was important.

It was not talked about as much as it was just lived.

All my life, I witnessed my parents and my grandparents and other extended family share what they had with others.

1 event as I was growing up made a big impression on me.

My parents took me to a prayer meeting each week, and 1 evening, I was about 12 or 13, the pastor related that he had received a phone call from a man from another state who said that his nephew was going to be visiting our church the following Sabbath.

The nephew was not a churchgoer and was going to try 1 more time to visit a church.

His uncle was afraid that he would never ever enter a church again if he did not find a friendly church on the following Sabbath.

I remember watching for the man's nephew.

When I finally saw him, he was already leaving, So I quickly got my mom's attention so she could go after him before he got into his car and drove away.

When my mom saw what was happening, she dashed out after the young man and invited him home to eat lunch with us.

Praise God the young man later found a wonderful connection with our pastor and his son, who was about the same age.

The nephew became like another son to our pastor and he went on to become a pastor himself in a large church in the Midwest.

Throughout the years, in his sermons, he would occasionally tell the story of the lady who chased after him in the church parking lot and how that changed his life.

In our family, it not only was typical to have company over on Sabbath, but through the years, we had several different young people stay with us for various reasons, several months at a time.

When I was an adult and got married, I found I enjoyed having people over and wanted the same values that I had experienced in my home growing up.

My husband and I have had many different children and adults live with us through the years.

We have also enjoyed hosting countless Sabbath lunches in our home.

I have found so many blessings in watching people enjoy a simple Sabbath lunch while making connections and friendships with others in the warmth of a home environment.

There may not be too much to eat, it may not be fancy, sometimes paper plates.

Our home is small and kid-worn, but all of this is overlooked when seeing the joy that people feel when they are invited and feel included.

Even with all of the many meals that I've prepared and served, there are still times when I feel insecure about my house or about my food.

But God always helps me through it, and afterwards I wonder why I ever had self-doubts.

Another story that I wanted to share was not long ago when I was talking with a couple after church.

They didn't seem to be in a hurry to leave and I ended up telling them that they were welcome to come over and eat canned baked beans and Big Franks with us if they really wanted to.

I went to get my husband who was talking with another family who was visiting and another lady who was talking with them.

My original couple made their way over and joined the conversation.

Now I was getting nervous about how to end the conversation as it was getting later and later and I needed to get home to make and serve my baked beans and hot dogs.

After quite some time my husband turned to me in front of everyone and said, Could we invite everyone over?

What could I say but meekly, sure, we can figure out something.

I think I served spaghetti and salad or something like that.

I don't think we started eating until 3 o'clock, by the time it was all said and done.

But I just laughed and said, have you ever had such a late Sabbath lunch?

Everyone knew it was put together at the last minute, but they were all so happy to be able to continue to visit, share their testimonies, and get to know each other.

I want to share 3 different types of hosting Sabbath lunches that I have found made it easier for me.

1 type of hosting, I'll call it last minute invitation.

If I'm feeling like I can't plan ahead and I'm not sure if I'm up to having company or not, I buy and make some extra food for Sabbath lunch.

Then I go to church and pray and see who God impresses me to invite over.

I usually am talking to someone after church and if I feel impressed to have them over, I say, Hey, would you and your family like to join us today for lunch?

I feel that people don't have high expectations when asked spur of the moment.

I find it easier and less stressful ahead of time when I don't know if I'll have company or not.

Usually the guests are so grateful to be asked, and sometimes, months or years later when talking, they mention how we were the first ones to have them over.

Another type of hosting I call the plan-ahead invitation.

This is sort of an in-reach opportunity where I plan ahead and call up people and invite them.

When inviting ahead, I see who the Lord puts on my mind.

I like to invite people that I don't know very well or people who have just joined or transferred into our church.

Then I like to invite others who I think they might connect with.

I've been at our church many years, and I know the members fairly well.

I really enjoy introducing new people with others in the church that have something in common.

It's fun to watch the friendships blossom and the new people get acquainted quicker and become integrated into our church family.

Usually, people ask if they can bring something.

Whenever they do that, I like to take them up on that, as it helps them feel a part of the meal.

It also is not so overwhelming for me as I prepare for company.

I might have them bring a vegetable tray, maybe dessert, salad, or bread.

Sometimes I will also see people at church that I will invite last minute, along with those I've invited ahead of time.

The third type of hosting I call the plan for guests or visitors invitation.

I usually will have 1 or 2 couples help me plan a meal and bring food to my house.

I usually invite guests, or if no guests come, I will ask other church members.

When visiting a church, it's always nice to have an invitation to someone's house on Sabbath.

I have visited other churches and have always been thankful when someone invited us over.

I still distinctly remember an invitation to a home in Pocatello, Idaho when we were traveling through.

I don't remember much about the meal or the home, but I remember the warmth and love shown to us.

1 thing I wanted to mention that really makes the Sabbath Fellowship special is the conversation.

We have found that it is a real blessing to have someone in the group give their testimony.

We usually do this toward the end of lunch and then along into the afternoon.

Mount Carmel

My marriage wasn't going well, and I would like to think that I was doing everything I could to keep it together.

But it seemed like no matter what I did, it got worse and it got worse.

I cried out to God 1 early morning, and I said, Lord, I need a miracle, and I need it now.

I'm so glad that you'll be joining me today.

We will be learning and growing together in our walk with Jesus.

You will surely be encouraged and challenged as we study week by week and hear from the experiences of others.

You may be wondering why it's Katie and not Heather.

Well, Heather's husband was in a very serious accident a few weeks ago and she had recorded everything through week 7, but week 8 and on we hadn't recorded yet.

And so while she's helping her family and helping her husband with all the rehab and surgeries and recovery, I'm going to be taking over for now and we'll just see where this goes.

I'm so glad that you're here with me today and that we are going to talk about prayer this week.

Our Renew devotional focuses on prayer, especially with the story of Elijah.

You can always read the devotional for yourself if you just go to startingwithjesus.com slash renew.

I love the story of Elijah, and I really like how Merle brought out that all these miracles that happened to Elijah were a direct answer to prayer.

And so let's look at these 4 principles that Merle brings out from the story of Elijah today.

The first point is that Elijah did not limit God.

When Elijah prayed for the widow's son who had died, he was praying for God to restore his life, which is really amazing because this had never been done before.

I had never realized that but Elijah did not have a Bible story to look back and say you know what God you helped to raise someone else's son and so you can raise this boy." No, no 1 had ever seen God raise anyone to life before and yet Elijah knew that God's power had no limits.

Do we realize that when we pray maybe in the morning for our devotions or when we're going through a hard time, God's power has no limits.

The second point was that it wasn't the length of his prayer there on Mount Carmel.

Remember he's there right in front of all of these prophets of Baal, all the children of Israel, well at least not all, but many of them, are all gathered around there.

And the prophets of Baal had been going all day long.

Now they're tired, they're exhausted, they're cut, they're bleeding.

I'm sure some of them are passed out because when you lose a lot of blood you just you can't stay conscious.

So you have Elijah that's there right in front of his altar.

Water's been poured over filling the ditch around it.

He didn't pray a really long or eloquent prayer.

No, he prayed with trust, faith, and confidence in God And that was what brought the answer.

And sometimes we feel, oh, as a busy mom, I didn't get a lot of time to pray today.

I wasn't able to go into my closet and spend 15, 20, 30 an hour in prayer.

Where you're at in life right now, it's the prayer of trust, it's the prayer of faith, it's the prayer of confidence.

And so if you don't have a lot of time to pray, it's good to pray long prayers.

Series

Reflect and Renew February 2023

Elisha Accepts God’s Call

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Sponsor

Recorded

Reflect and Renew March 2023

Four Lepers Find Food

18m

Reflect and Renew March 2023

God’s Care for His Servants

13m

Wilderness Wandering

Into Canaan

36m

A Fresh Look at Country Living

3. How God Led Us

1h

Reflect and Renew July 2023

An Angel’s Special Secret

17m

Great in God's Sight Season 1

Mark: One Young Man

10m

Reflect and Renew April 2023

God’s Special Messengers

11m

Seminars

Connecting to the World Through the Health Message

1h 9m

Fair Weather Faith

44m

Elijah

02 When the Brook Dries Up

48m

The Three Angel's Messages

02 The Everlasting Gospel

1h 7m

Sound Doctrine