GYC Canada: The Cross Connection: Love & Law Combined

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GYC Canada

Gem Castor

Melody Mason

Keys to Effective Bible Study

Dear Heavenly Father, thank you so much for this beautiful Sabbath you've given us and already for the rich blessings that you've given us.

And now, Heavenly Father, we just plead for your Holy Spirit as we begin this seminar this afternoon.

We just plead that you would open our hearts, that you would open our minds, and that you would speak to us today.

And I just thank you that you have what we need.

10 keys to growing above and beyond devotional life, vibrant life.

Just in quick review, I'm not going to go into detail.

There's so much more than what we just have listed on the screen.

You need to hear the presentation to get the scope of these things, because you just look at the line and you're not necessarily going to know what this is really talking about.

But these were the first 6 keys that we talked about yesterday to growing a vibrant, devotional life.

Talking about our priorities, talking about what it means to linger, to immerse ourselves in the love of God, just growing in that love relationship with Him, not rushing but taking time.

Number 3, we talked a lot about our need for humility, a spirit of humility as we approach him because how can we learn without that spirit?

We talked about what that means practically.

We spent a lot of time talking about what it means to remove spiritual breaches in our life and heart.

So that took quite a bit of time so there's a lot a lot there.

We talked about gratitude as our attitude and then what it means to agonize and pray the promises and I did include 1 screen here if you missed my first presentation.

The power of praying the Word of God has totally transformed my prayer time and my walk with God.

You know, we come to God and we pray, and praise the Lord, He hears our feeble prayers.

It's not about eloquence, it's not about the right words or the right sound, but it's about the sincerity of the heart.

But when we give God back His own Word, He can't argue with His word, right?

We're told in Isaiah 55, His word does not return unto you void.

So there's such beautiful power in praying the promises.

So I actually put together, I started this in my own personal walk and found it was so beneficial.

I put together prayer and promise cards for other people to get started doing it themselves if you're not doing it already.

And you can download these cards from our website RevivalandReformation.org.

This is part of the General Conference Revival Initiative.

There's a hundred cards in the set and you can download them and print them up, whatever colors you want.

It's a little bit of a work to do, but it just really adds some real depth to your devotional life.

Now we are going to pick up in key number 7.

Again like I say you need to go back and hear the first 6, the first 6 keys.

We're just going to go right into key number 7.

I'm going to be sharing the bulk of this presentation and my brother Jim may add in here and there as he has some thoughts.

But key number 7, talking about having a vibrant devotional life.

You know if what we are learning and we're going to go more into in-depth Bible study, but I just want to go ahead and mention this first.

If what we are learning does not translate into our daily life, really what's the point, right?

Because this isn't just a read and then 1 ear and out the other.

And so as we're spending time in God's Word, we're continually asking ourselves, How does this affect my daily life?

And what is the Holy Spirit convicting me that I need to do with what I'm learning today?

And so this is so vital in growing deeper in your devotional life of God.

And I just like to say, be willing to be made willing.

You might say, I'm not always willing as I should be, right?

And sometimes we have to pray, Lord, make me willing to be willing to be willing to be made willing.

Because we're struggling with these different things and we really don't want what we're reading in God's Word to change what we're doing in our daily lives because we just like the way we live.

We like you know or maybe we don't but you know we're just in that bitterness or the struggle that we're having in our heart it's just we can't let it go.

And so it's like, Lord, I can't give this up.

Daily Surrender, by the way, it's like peeling an onion, right?

At a GYC conference a number of years ago, we had a beautiful prayer room and after this prayer session, someone brought this watch to us.

And it was a very elegant, fancy watch, as you can see.

That's the actual watch, and we didn't know if somebody forgot it or what happened.

It said, this watch has not been forgotten, but it is being surrendered.

There have been many layers in my heart between me and God, but now there's 1 layer less.

That person was convicted and they obeyed the conviction of the Holy Spirit.

We weren't talking in the prayer room about watches or anything like this, but they were convicted as they were spending time with God that there was something in their life that was coming between them and God and they needed to let it go.

And you and I have those things and those struggles and so when the Holy Spirit convicts us, we need to listen and we need to obey that voice.

When we don't obey, when we choose to kind of quiet that voice, the voice actually gets less and less.

And the more that you ignore the voice of the Holy Spirit, the less that voice is going to speak to you.

So it's so important to obey and to be made willing to be made willing.

And I know in my life, you know, I've struggled with this, but 1 of the biggest things that God has really showed me, Melody, you know, you're struggling with this or that.

I had another story I was going to tell you, but we've got to get into our Bible study because we're running behind here and starting.

But something that God has really showed me is, Melody, give me your will.

Give me your will and let me change your heart.

Because we don't necessarily want to do what he's calling us to do.

So this has been so foundational for me, and I had an experience a little while back.

I was really struggling, I didn't want to let something go, and I just said, Lord, I choose to give you my will.

Change it." And what he did as a result of that was just like a complete miracle.

You would, if I had time to share, be like, wow, That was so special.

If God is not the Lord of our mundane, He's not the Lord of our life.

God can do more with 1 man or woman who's 100% committed to Him than with a whole army of men and women who are 99% committed.

And as we are in God's word, we need to be obedient to that word.

Okay, so now we're going to go into the fun part, digging deeply in God's Word, and I hope you have your Bibles, either paper or electronically, because we're going to get into those in just a couple minutes.

Think about the Word of God God gives us.

God has given us his word, and you know the way that we treat the word...

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