Our guest blogger today is Emily Dalton, who is a Summer Intern at FBS. Emily is a student at Berry College and feels a strong calling toward ministry. Emily grew up at FBS and her words will touch your heart at the deepest level!

While doubt is an unpopular problem to admit bearing, I can personally attest to many dark nights full of deceiving whispers. Whether I wasn’t sure if God was who He said He was, if He ever could truly love me, and if I was truly His, the questions flooded and the fear overwhelmed me time and time again.  Doubt, I think, is one of Satan’s two-edged swords, because not only does he whisper lies to us about the security of our salvation or the character of God, but he also tells us we’re the only one who deals with it. 

Recently, I was reading in Luke 7 the story of John the Baptist in prison and he sends someone to ask Jesus “Are you the one who is to come, or shall we look for another?”  What a sweet affirmation that I am not the only one who has dealt with doubt.  Even John the Baptist, who lived in the wilderness, ate nasty locusts, and baptized Jesus, had a moment when he said, “Is He truly the One?” I love Jesus’ response in this passage.  He says, “The blind receive their sight, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, the poor have good news preached to them.” (Luke 7:22, ESV).  Jesus Christ, the Son of God, is not offended by John the Baptist’s question.  He is not surprised by it.  But, what I love even more is that He does not simply answer with a yes.  Jesus responds with six eyewitness signs of His power and deity.

Sometimes having faith strong enough to believe in what God is calling me to believe just feels bigger than me.  Sometimes life looks so broken, it’s hard to believe God is good.  I am learning that having those thoughts is completely normal, because our enemy is very real.  The key, though as Jesus is revealing to me, is how we combat it. 

• ·         First of all, Scripture is to be our sword.  We see very clearly when Jesus is tempted by Satan in the wilderness (Matthew 4), He repeatedly quotes God’s Word. From the depths of my heart I know His Word can truly set me free. 

• ·         Second, Jesus does not respond with a simple yes, but with multiple signs He has performed.  What a relief.  I am not called to simply believe God will be faithful because He said so, but when Satan whispers lies, I can point back to time after time of God’s faithfulness to me.  These signs are to be my tool to combat the devil. 

This past spring I went on a mission trip to Brazil.  While I was overjoyed and excited to be there, a very large part of me was overwhelmed with fear and doubt.  Time and time again, I thought of all the things that could go wrong.  I kept whispering to myself, “God will deliver me. He is in control.”  But that nasty beast, doubt, kept rearing his ugly head in my heart and mind.  In the end, I looked back and saw how God had been working all around me when I didn’t even know.

This past fall, my mom and her best friend were flying home, when suddenly the plane’s engines failed.  As the plane plunged rapidly toward the ground, my mom frantically texted my family to tell us one last time how much she loved us.  Miraculously, the plane regained power in one engine and made a very abrupt and rough landing.  Although shaken up, my mom and her best friend survived.  As I boarded my own plane months later for Brazil, not only did I have God’s Word as my weapon against my persistent fears and doubts, but I also was claiming the faithfulness of the same God who rescued two very dear pieces of my heart when they were headed for a fatal crash. 

Embracing the freedom from fear and doubt has been a sweet gift from the Lord to me as I continue to reach out for that freedom on a daily basis. You, too, can overcome Satan’s whispers of deception with God’s Word and the beauty of your story He is writing.

For more imperfect words of what Jesus is teaching me, checkout emilykatherined.blogspot.com

Our guest blogger today is Susan Feaster. Susan is one of our Life Group Connectors for FBS Women's Ministry. God may not answer your prayer the same as He answered Susan's, but He always answers in the way that fits with His plan for your life. You can trust Him to work all things for your good!

 

HANNAH AND ME

 

Hannah had a significant impact on my life.  I relate to Hannah.  You see, our stories are quite similar.

Many years ago, I was a young married woman who wanted very much to be a mother.  Yet I remained childless.  And month after month, as it became obvious that conception had not taken place and no baby was on the way, I became more and more despondent.  My husband and I longed to be parents, but it seemed that was not going to happen.  The doctors recommended that we consider adoption.

During this challenging period of my life, I turned to the Scriptures, and I became acquainted with Hannah.  I had known about Hannah since childhood.  But my focus had always been on Samuel, not on Hannah.  I suppose it would be more accurate to say that I became reacquainted with Hannah.

I turned to the book of 1 Samuel and read these words:

“She (Hannah) was deeply distressed and prayed to the Lord and wept bitterly.”  (1 Samuel 1:10 ESV)

I related to Hannah.  I was deeply distressed.  I wept bitterly.  And often!  I prayed to the Lord. 

Please, Lord!  You know how much we want a baby!  Please, please, please…….Why can’t I get pregnant?  Please, please, please.

Even so, month after month passed and no baby was on the way.  I began to pray Hannah’s prayer.

“O Lord of hosts, if you will indeed look on the affliction of your servant and remember me and not forget your servant, but will give to your servant a son, then I will give him to the Lord all the days of his life.”  (1 Samuel 1:11 ESV)

That was my prayer.  While I didn’t pray those exact words, that was the prayer of my heart.  After all, saying things like “if you will indeed look on the affliction….” is not really my typical vocabulary! And just as He did for Hannah, God heard the cry of my heart.  He not only heard, but He answered.  Just as we were about to initiate adoption proceedings, we learned that God had answered our prayers and we were going to be parents!  Several months later, a few weeks ahead of schedule, I gave birth to a son!  And a few years after that, our second son was born. 

When Brian, our first son was born, I prayed Hannah’s prayer a second time…..this time her prayer of thanksgiving:

“For this child I prayed, and the LORD has granted me my petition that I made to Him.  My heart exults in the LORD.”  (1 Samuel 1:27; 1 Samuel 2:1 ESV)

That was my prayer again three years later when Brandon, our second son, was born.

Hannah’s story – and mine – taught me a few life lessons.  First and foremost, I learned about the sovereignty of God.  I learned that God is in control.  Doctors are wonderful, but they don’t have all the answers.  They are, after all, only human.

This experience in my life was a reminder that God hears and answers prayer.  The answer may not always be what we want or expect – although in this case, for me, it was – but He always hears and He always answers.  God heard Hannah’s prayer and honored her request.  He did the same for me.  And He can do the same for you.  What an awesome God!

Through this life experience I also learned persistence.  I learned to never give up.  I learned to keep on praying.  My prayer wasn’t answered the first time I prayed it.  Or the second.  I prayed this prayer for months.  I continued to pray.  I prayed “without ceasing”, as we read in the New Testament.  My answer came after I continued to pray, not knowing when God would answer, but knowing that He would answer.

Through it all, I learned a lot about the character of God.  I learned about His faithfulness.  I had been taught all these things from childhood, but now I was learning these lessons personally.  This experience reaffirmed my confidence in, my trust in, a God who said “Call to me and I will answer you.”  (Jeremiah 33:3 ESV)

I’ve never forgotten these lessons.  Now that I am no longer a young woman, these lessons remain core beliefs for my life.  God is sovereign.  God answers prayer.  His answer is always best.  I can trust Him.

My sons are grown men now with sons of their own.  And every time I look at them, every time I think of them, I am reminded that God answers prayer.

Our guest blogger today is Tonja Smith who leads our Single Moms Ministry at First Baptist. Thank you Tonja for blessing us with information about the Passover!

THE LORD’S PASSOVER

 

“These are the feasts of the Lord, holy convocations which you shall proclaim at their appointed times. On the fourteenth day of the first month at twilight is the Lord’s Passover.” Leviticus 23:4-5

 

Several years ago I began to study the Feasts of the Lord as outlined in Leviticus 23.  I cannot understate the change in my heart that came with learning about these Feasts. I read and studied realizing there was a lot to glean, but it wasn’t until I began to actually celebrate the Feasts that the dim picture began to clarify and become multi-dimensional. They are a key that opens up layers in the Scriptures. Every time I seek God’s face through His Feasts, He blesses me in ways that I don’t believe I could receive in any other way. The depth of what our Savior did for us, and will do for us, is so beautifully outlined in these Feasts.  When I started this journey, the Scriptures literally began to come off the pages of my Bible and transform my life. I became a doer of the Word and not merely a hearer, as outlined in James.

 

There are 7 Feasts of the Lord (Leviticus 23) and together they depict the entire redemptive career of Messiah. The spring feasts are Passover, Unleavened Bread, First Fruits, and Pentecost. These were all fulfilled completely and to the letter by Jesus when he came the first time.  The three remaining feasts occur in the fall and will be fulfilled when Jesus returns. They are all set to the backdrop of agricultural harvests, but symbolize the picture of human history through the ages.  Spring has come and we have been in the summer for 2000 years, but I personally believe we are nearing the end of summer and fall is near.

 

The Passover is the foundation for all the feasts, and it is directly linked to two more, the Feast of Unleavened Bread and the Feast of First Fruits, all of which fall within a 7 day span. To understand more fully the sacrifice made by Jesus, we can look at the original Passover of Exodus, the deliverance of the Israelites from slavery in Egypt. After over 400 years as slaves, the Lord delivers them through Moses, who is a “picture type” of the Messiah to come. Ten plagues come on Egypt, each one aimed at false gods they worshiped. The tenth plague was severe and God instructed the Israelites very specifically in Exodus 12 how to be protected and delivered from the plague. All the firstborn in Egypt would die, except for those that followed the specific instructions of the Lord as spelled out in Exodus 12. Here is how Jesus fulfilled the Passover:

 

“On the tenth of this month every man shall take for himself a lamb, according to the house of his father, a lamb for a household….your animal must be without defect….you are to keep it until the fourteenth day of the month, and then the entire assembly of the community of Israel will slaughter it at dusk. They are to take some of the blood and smear it on the two sides and top of the doorframe at the entrance of the house in which they eat it.” Ex 12:3,5,6,7

 

This was fulfilled by Jesus when He entered Jerusalem on the tenth day of the first month, to the cheers and praises of the people. “Hosanna to the Son of David! Blessed is He who comes in the name of the Lord! Hosanna in the highest!” Mat 21:9 This is a quote of The Hillel, Psalms 113-118, which is recited at each Passover Feast, and this scene of the Triumphal Entry also fulfills Zech 9:9.  Hosanna in Hebrew is Hoshiana which means “save, please!”  For four days Jesus was in Jerusalem observed by all, questioned by the Pharisees and Sadducees, put on trial, inspected and found blameless – the lamb without defect. He was crucified and died at the precise time that the Passover lambs were being slaughtered in the Temple on the fourteenth day of the month.

 

“Pick out and take lambs for yourselves according to your families, and kill the Passover lamb. And you shall take a bunch of hyssop, dip it in the blood that is in the basin, and strike the lintel and the two doorposts with the blood that is in the basin. And none of you shall go out of the door of his house until morning. For the Lord will pass through to strike the Egyptians; and when He sees the blood on the lintel and on the two doorposts, the Lord will pass over the door and not allow the destroyer to come into your houses to strike you. And you shall observe this thing as an ordinance for you and your sons forever.” Ex 12:21-24

 

What happened in Egypt was an actual event that brought freedom from slavery for the Israelites.  It was a physical foreshadowing of what would later be an actual event when Jesus, the Passover lamb, would bring freedom to the world through the shedding of His blood. All who apply the blood of Jesus to the doorposts of their heart will be saved!

“BEHOLD THE LAMB WHO TAKES AWAY THE SIN OF THE WORLD!” John 1:29

 

The Last Supper with his disciples was a Passover Seder He celebrated with them, His family, where He showed them the significance of what He was about to do.  The bread would symbolize His body, unleavened (sinless), and broken for us. There were 4 cups of wine, each symbolizing something different, but He drank the cup of redemption which symbolized His blood shed for the New Covenant of freedom from sin.

 

The Passover has been celebrated by Jews and many Christians alike for over 3,000 years now. Spartanburg is blessed to have Beth Shiloh Messianic Synagogue where Rabbi Andy Meyerson leads Jewish Christians to worship our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. I hope you will be able to join us for the Passover Seder this year for the entire community of Spartanburg. I invite you to join with us to celebrate all that Christ has done for us during the Easter Season. Don’t miss the blessing!

 

 

Tonja Smith

April 2014

THE HUSH OF GOD

Our guest blogger today is Karyn Wilton.  Karyn is the Co-Director of our Women's Ministry and is the wife of our Senior Pastor, Dr. Don Wilton. She is a wife, mother, grandmother, daughter, sister,friend, and women's ministry leader. Karyn was born and grew up in South Africa and has traveled the world in ministry. Most of all, she loves the Lord with her whole heart and has a strong passion for mentoring young women. Thank you Karyn, for sharing your words and thoughts!

Be still and know that I am God
Psalm 46:10 KJV 

I walked back into my home to a deafening silence after leaving my daughter at college for the first time. That night and the following days I became acquainted with a hush that I had not experienced before. I could not help but meditate on the hush that was now the new resident in my home.

As the hush became more prominent, my mind could only compare this new companion to the hush of God that we experience from time to time in our lives. The times when you so wanted to hear a word from Him but all you knew was that gentle hush. The time you so longed to know His will, whether you should go this way or that; but yet as you reached out all you could grasp was the gentle hush that led you to an abandoning faith. Like the little one who takes his first steps not realizing his father walks behind him with outstretched arms ready to catch him lest he falls. The father allows the little one to experience his brave little steps by himself until he begins to waver. The father stands prepared to steady or soothe at a moment’s notice.  I think our Heavenly Father hovers ever watchful with a holy hush as we take our baby steps of faith. He desires us to be courageous and daunting while He delights in us and our walk of faith.

            How beautiful it is to see a father or mother rush in to soothe a distressed child. All that is needed is for the parent to swoop up the child and whisper into the ear of the little one, “Hush, hush my child.”  A peaceful calm suddenly rests on the once distraught child.

Have you ever known the hush of God? Has there been a time when you longed to hear his voice, but had to continue walking in faith? At the right time when you started to falter, His unconstrained love and grace swept you up into His arms and He said, “Hush, hush my child. Be still and know that I am God.” Rest in Him today knowing that He is watching over you even when you experience the hush of God.

            Prayer: We praise you, our Heavenly Father for taking such good care of us. Help us to welcome those times when we experience your heavenly hush. Thank you for working out all things for your purpose. We adore You. Amen.

It's What's Inside That Counts!

 

Our Guest blogger today is Susan Feaster.

Married to Al for almost 42 years; mom to Brian and Brandon; Nana to AJ and Christopher.

Loves her family, travel, good books, and good coffee.

Most of all, loves Jesus.

Can be found blogging about life and faith at www.susanssittingroom.blogspot.com

Thank you Susan!

Wednesday, March 12, 2014

I remember the day when my husband said to me "Did you know you have wrinkles?"

That is NOT a good conversation starter! We were in the car at the time, and my first response was to pull down the sun visor and flip open the mirror so I could see for myself. I was relieved to see that they weren't REAL wrinkles. He was talking about those little crinkles at the corners of my eyes......the ones that are there because I smile a lot. There are more of them than there used to be.......in part, I must admit, because I'm not as young as I used to be! But mostly because I'm still smiling! A lot!

In addition to my "crinkles", I have what I refer to as my "Howdy Doody lines".  (Some of you may not be old enough to have any idea who Howdy Doody is!  He was a puppet who had a TV show back in the 1950s.) Howdy Doody lines are the ones that go from the sides of my nose down to the corners of my mouth, and from the corners of my mouth downward. You may have them too. In my case, they are partly genetic. My mother had them. But, like the crinkles, they are mostly due to the fact that I smile, and laugh, a lot. A lot!

There is quite an industry devoted to getting rid of wrinkles. And, in the interest of full disclosure, I must tell you that I have contributed to that industry......both as a consumer who uses those anti-aging/anti-wrinkle products, and once-upon-a-time as an Independent Beauty Consultant selling lots of pink tubes full of anti-aging/anti-wrinkle products to other consumers. It's true that I don't get super excited when I notice a new wrinkle. I have often said that I don't mind getting older, but I really don't want to look old! And it is certainly true that, thanks in large part to the products in the pink tubes but also thanks to good genes, I don't look my age.

But the reason I bring all this up in the first place isn't really about wrinkles.....or the lack of.  It's more about the reason I have the wrinkles that I do have. All those cleansers and creams in the pink tubes can minimize or postpone the appearance of the wrinkles that come from aging. But my wrinkles......the crinkles and the Howdy Doody lines......are not so much from aging as from behavior. As I said before. I smile a lot. I laugh a lot. A lot. And there's a reason for that.  I choose to be happy.  I choose joy.

Yes, my life has its share of stresses. We can all say that, I'm sure. We live in a world full of stress.  And we live in a world where, like it or not, wrinkles are a big deal.  A world where, fairly or not, we are judged by outward appearance.  And that makes me incredibly sad.  Because it’s what’s on the inside that counts.  A joyful heart.  A thankful heart.  A committed heart.  A heart that loves Jesus!  That’s what really matters.

Not wrinkles or crinkles or Howdy Doody lines or hair color or skin color or size or shape.  Not the label in your jacket or what logo is on your purse. 

It’s what’s inside that counts.

 

Welcome to the brand new Women's Ministry Blog of First Baptist Spartanburg.  We will post blogs written from the heart of women of all ages from First Baptist Spartanburg.  We hope as we share these heartfelt messages that they will conect our hearts to one another and bring us closer to the Lord Jesus Christ in our daily lives!