This session will look at how to creatively connect during your devotions and experience personal communication with God that goes beyond the ceiling.

GYCSE 2018: Focused - When All Else is Blurred

<p>This session will look at how to creatively connect during your devotions and experience personal communication with God that goes beyond the ceiling.</p>

<p>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.</p>

GYC Southeast

Beyond the Book: Connecting with God

Michelle Doucoumes

Breaking the Blockage

Father in heaven, thank you so much for the chance to be here.

Thank you for the chance to take time to learn about taking time with you to figure out more about how we can connect with you.

How we can break through some of the barriers that we face in our connection with you and just improve that relationship and Lord I just pray that you would lead and guide in this and that it would be your words and the things that you want shared would be the ones that are shared and so Lord I just pray this and thank you in Jesus' name, Amen.

So it was a Sunday afternoon, and I was heading to a meeting with some students, a student group that I work with.

So I was stopping to get some wonderful Chinese food on the way to this meeting.

And I had this thought in my mind that 1 of the students specifically, I wondered if they had been able to eat lunch.

I know this student and sometimes they're really busy and for whatever reason thought was just in my mind You should ask him if he needs lunch So I texted and didn't get anything didn't know anything should I get him lunch not get him lunch I just felt like you know, I should get him lunch.

I thought specifically that this 1 person might need lunch.

It was very interesting because I walked into the room and just as I walked in other students were telling this student, you know, you really should go get some food.

Because it turned out he hadn't eaten breakfast or lunch.

And then I was like, hey, I actually brought you lunch.

And 1 of the other students said, you know, that's what happens when you have personal devotions.

And I thought about that, and I thought that was a really interesting conclusion to come to, that they would think that I had known to bring the student food because I'd had personal devotions.

Now I have to say, I did have personal devotions that day and there was never any voice of the Lord that said, you should bring food for this student.

Nothing had happened that hadn't even been in my mind during that time when I had my personal devotions.

But is there something about our personal devotions that is meant to really connect us with God in a way that we would not be connected otherwise, in a way that is going to change not just that part of our life, but how we live our life during the day.

And if so, how do we get that connection and how do we grow that connection?

And that's what we're talking about this afternoon.

Do you feel like your connection with God is everything you'd like it to be?

All right, someone said no or they wouldn't be here.

I don't think any of us would answer that, yes, we think it's everything we'd like it to be.

I want to piggyback on the woman's story.

Something popped into my head, do something for someone, what happens?

And for those listening on the recording, what she was saying is that basically if we get an idea to do something good, why not do it, right?

Whether that impression was from the Lord or just from our own head, it's not going to hurt to do something good.

We're gonna come back to that a little bit as well.

But we read of people in the scripture who had this walk with God that I will say I wish I had.

Scripture talks about Abraham as a friend of God.

He knew God so well that he knew when God was telling him to sacrifice his son, even though that would normally not make sense.

People like Moses, who could see God and have an understanding of God that not many people had.

People like Joseph, whose faith persevered under so much trial.

People like David, if you read the Psalms and look at the intimacy between David and God, I realized, wow, this man really had a walk with the Lord.

The guy who was translated because he walked so closely with God.

And we think of the early Christians, people like Paul, the apostles, the early church, and all the amazing things that they did.

And I think about this and say, well, why is my life not quite like theirs?

How did they get their life to be like that?

And I read an interesting quote about this in seventh volume of the Testimonies, page 33.

And it says, what the Lord did for his people in that time, this is in the context of the early church, it is just as essential and more so that he do for his people when?

All that the apostles did, every church member is to do.

So do you believe that God wants you to have a devotional life and a connection and a filling of the Holy Spirit with Him that is just as strong and more so as even the apostles and some of these great men that we read about in scripture?

I can't say I'm there to that yet, but I believe it.

And so then the question is, why don't we?

And so we're going to look at more in this session.

How do we break that blockage and have that really close relationship with God?

I was just there recently a couple weeks ago for the first time.

And it's interesting, the story of Berlin, East and West Germany, the divisions there, and this whole wall was built, not just a wall, but a wall with watchtowers and a second wall and some places landmines and guard patrol and all of this just to keep people from leaving East Berlin, East Germany and escaping into the West.

And so very much a blockage and they talk a lot about when I was there they were celebrating the reunification or the time when the wall came down.

When basically they were allowed to freely cross and people just came out and with their own hands and hammers just started whacking down this wall.

There's some sections that they preserved, but they were so eager to go through that they just started breaking it down, and very little of the wall is left today.

Well, scripture tells us in Hebrews 4.12, the word of God is living and powerful and sharper than any two-edged sword, piercing even to the division of soul and spirit and of joints and marrow and is a discerner of thoughts and the intents of the heart." The Word of God is meant to break down those walls in our connection with God so we can really have a union with Him.

But does it always work like that or have you ever felt it was a little dry when you're reading your devotions?

Like maybe this is supposed to be the sharp sword and you're like is there a power button here somewhere?

I mean, I'm reading it But what is it doing and there's still this stuff going on in my life So I want to look with you at 5 areas 5 principles that I have found have helped in my life, in my devotional life, and to talk about those with you this afternoon.

What is the first thing that you like to do when you wake up in the morning?

You're admitting it and I know it's true, right?

Many of us have our phones beside our beds.

We wake up, we look at what time it is, what the weather is, what's going on, if we have new notifications, if messages have come up.

What do you do first thing when you get up?

All right, so we do different things, and I know that Not all of us are morning people, but there is a power in what we put first.

And in this I'm not just talking about what we put first in the day, but what we put first in our lives.

I have found this to be a bigger challenge than even waking up in the morning.

And that is, do I spend time with God when I'm busy?

Janelle Dietrich

Devotional CPR – Simple Tips On Reviving Your Devotional Life

Heavenly Father, Lord, I want to thank you so much that you are a personal God that desires to have a relationship with each and every 1 of us.

And Father, I pray that you would please be with us now.

As we seek to understand more of how we can practically have a deeper relationship with you, I pray that you would guide my words and I would honor and glorify you.

So my section is called Devotional CPR, Simple Steps to Revive Your Devotional life.

Now, how many of you were born and raised in the Seventh-day Adventist Church?

You know, it is a blessing, but I also found that there's something, that there's a downfall in being raised in the SCA church.

I remember when I was very, from a very young age, my parents would take me to these evangelistic meetings that our church was having, and I would see all these new people coming into the church, and they were just so passionate and on fire, and whenever they would read the Bible, they would cry.

And I'm like, what is it that they have that I don't?

And I almost kind of felt jealous of whatever it is that they had.

Well, it wasn't until I was in college that someone, my friend Karen, actually taught me how to personally study the Bible.

I will admit for many years my Bible actually looked like this and I actually did have to dust it off, because I never read it.

But when I was in college, I went through an experience where my heart was absolutely shattered.

And it was during that low point in my life that I actually started to seek for God.

And I was like, you know, I know that you can help me because the Bible says so, but I just don't know how.

And she actually studied the Bible with me every single day for about 7 weeks until I was able to do it on my own.

And I remember the first time she ever studied with me I was I was writing an essay about compassion and what compassion is and I'm like you know I don't even know what compassion really means and so she was like well hey why don't we study the Bible and see what the Bible has to say about it?

And I don't even remember exactly what verse it is that she took me to.

But I remember she said, Janelle, I want you to reread this verse, and I want you to put your name in it.

And I remember I read it and I became that person that cried when I read it.

And that was the very first time that I ever realized that Jesus loves me.

You know, we hear all these things, Jesus loves you, Jesus loves you.

But it wasn't until I realized that Jesus loves me that it honestly hit and penetrated my heart.

Now like I mentioned earlier, this section is called CPR and the way that this kind of came about, throughout the years my friend Karen taught me some things.

And just in my own personal study time, this method kind of developed.

And I know that there is many methods to studying the Bible.

This is my personal method that I'm just sharing with you guys.

And the way that this came about is I was actually teaching some other people how to study the Bible.

And there is this 1 woman, and she was having a really hard time remembering all of the different steps and things that I was going through.

And I was like, man, Lord, I need an acronym or something to help her to remember this method.

And I looked down at my paper that I had everything written out on, and it was almost as if the Lord was rearranging it in my mind, and this acronym came out.

Michelle, if you could pass out the handouts.

Sorry, I should have gave you a little bit more warning.

And this is basically a method of understanding what it's saying and then how to personally apply it to your life.

So I'm going to try to go a little slower so Michelle can pass out the papers.

Now C stands for understanding the content slash the context of whatever you're studying.

So this is after we went through everything that Michelle talked about, after you spent some time praying with God.

This is when you're about to study a verse, a passage, or a story, and you want to understand what does this say.

So for every 1 of these acronyms, we're gonna have a question that goes with it.

So C stands for content slash context, and you're understanding what does this say.

Now in order for you to do that, we're going to introduce another acronym and this acronym is DARE.

So DARE, we're going to start off with D.

My degree is in English, and my best friend during that time was the dictionary, because there's a lot of words that I just had no idea what they meant.

And if you look at your handout, there's 2 different kinds of definitions that I wanted to introduce you guys to.

So the first 1 is something that's very simple.

You can get an app for it on your phone, you can use your computer, and that's actually looking up the dictionary definition.

So that first blank under D is dictionary definition.

And so this is an example of that, and a word that I know that all of us have heard many times.

But when you look up the definition, you're like, oh, well, that's something that, you know, I didn't really think about.

So this is just off the dictionary on my computer.

I typed in the word mercy, and I want you to look at this definition.

Mercy means compassion or forgiveness shown towards someone whom it is within one's power to punish or harm.

That's a really deep definition when you think about it.

And now imagine you're studying a verse where it's talking about God's mercy.

If you were just to plug in this definition for where it says mercy, it takes on an entirely new meaning.

And we're going to go more into an actual example of studying and breaking down a verse in a little bit, but for this sake I just wanted to kind of give you a little bit of an example.

The next 1 is looking up the definition in the original language.

Now I'm sure that there's a lot of different resources that you personally like to use.

I'm just going to share the 1 that I like to use and then maybe at the end when we have a Q&A time, we can all share some other resources.

But my favorite free resource is called blueletterbible.org.

And in a little bit, I will actually show you how to use this to look up the original language of that verse or of the word so you don't have to take Greek or Hebrew even though if you do, That's awesome.

My husband's currently taking Hebrew right now.

And it's actually really fascinating, some of the things he's learning.

You don't have to take the class here at Southern in order to understand what the word means when you're studying the Bible.

So our next 1 is gonna be A, and A stands for ask questions.

Now this is specifically asking questions that only the verse can answer.

And for that, I actually want to show you an example.

So if you look on your handout, you will see a list of questions.

These questions are going to correspond to this verse or passage, I mean, that's up on the screen.

It's found in Mark 1, verses 40 through 42.

And it says, Now a leper came to him, imploring him, kneeling down to him, and saying to him, If you are willing, you can make me clean.

Then Jesus moved with compassion, stretched out his hand, and touched him, and said to him, I am willing be cleansed.

As soon as he had spoken, immediately the leprosy left him and he was cleansed." Now I want you to look at the questions that I have listed and you're gonna pick up on what I'm doing.

I have specifically listed out questions that only this text within the text can answer.

So I'm not gonna be like, what was the name or what do you think the name of the leper was?

Like if you're looking at your verse, you'll be able to find the answer.

Do you notice how I used the verbiage of the text?

I didn't say who came to Jesus, I said who came to him.

It may seem kind of tedious, but it does make a difference.

From the passage, you can tell who is the him we're referring to, it's Jesus.

But I want you to practice using the verbiage of the text.

So, we answer the first 1, who came to him?

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Series

Beyond the Book: Connecting with God

Breaking the Blockage

Transcript

Description

Parent Series

Parent Conference

Sponsor

Recorded

Attachments

Parts

Breaking the Blockage

50m

Devotional CPR – Simple Tips On Reviving Your Devotional Life

38m

Sound Doctrine