Category: Spiritual Growth

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Bible Study Spiritual Growth

Being Fruitful

Strawberries by Pablo Fernández Burgueño

One of my goals for 2010 was to study and implement the fruit of the spirit from Galatians Chapter 5 in the Bible.  I took a wonderful online bible study course from Beth Moore entitled Living Beyond Yourself.

It was only a 10-week course, however, it took me nine months to complete. It was challenging. There were moments when I couldn’t take the heaviness of the material because I was quite convicted. And yet, I trudged through it. 

Throughout the year, I was presented with several challenging situations that tested whether my fruit was developed or not. It was sobering. I cried. I laughed. I danced. I screamed. I prayed.

I went through every emotion while going through the course and I came out victorious. I can look back at the year and say with confidence that I have much more developed “fruit on my tree” than this time last year. Now, here comes the fun part… maintaining the fruit. It’s a journey!

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Spiritual Growth

Pressing Past Fear!!!

As I sense God moving me into a new direction, I’ve started feeling a little fear. This is unusual because I’m pretty bold and courageous. Yet God is doing something new, big and exciting that I can’t really explain. Some days I struggle with private fears and self-doubt. I hope this short video teaching from Beth Moore will encourage you just like it encouraged me. Move boldly into your future and be FEAR FREE in Jesus Name! Enjoy!

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Spiritual Growth Work Place

Shedding Shame

Recently I did a presentation in front of some “important” people. It was interesting because I had everything planned out perfectly. However, as God would have it the presentation turned out differently. The Lord wanted me to share something personal with the audience that I did NOT want to share. In fact, as it got closer to my presentation time, I privately struggled with “sharing my business.”

I battled with feeling ashamed that people would look down on me or think differently about who they thought I was in Christ.  

I asked myself the question before standing up. Do I really care what people think? To a certain degree I do care.  However, I care much more about what God thinks. I knew I had to do what He wanted. He required I “shed my shame and go for it!” The room was silent. Did it work? I don’t know.

I do know one thing. Time will only tell whether or not my story made an impact on the people in the room. Even if it didn’t impact them… it sure impacted me.

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Spiritual Growth Work Place

Success is…

Do you remember the Robin Givens character in the movie, Boomerang? She was the strong, successful Corporate boss who dominated Eddie Murphy. Well, that was supposed to me. I had a plan. Go to college. Get a good job. Get promoted and then become the boss. At least, that’s what I thought for a few years in my life.  My self-perception was so mired in my title and accomplishments that it became a stronghold in my life. In other words, I was in bondage to my warped definition of success.  I thought my success was about what other people thought of me. Success was all about impressing people. It didn’t matter what I felt like  inside. It didn’t matter that I wasn’t helping others. It was all about me and it was a lonely existence.  Today, almost 20 years after Boomerang appeared in theaters, I can honestly say, I’ve changed. Success is simply doing my best to fulfill God’s will for my life, regardless of whether anyone notices or not. God sees our actions, but more importantly he sees our hearts.

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Spiritual Growth

Burn a Hole in it!

This is a picture of chicken bouillon in my cabinet. Of course, it looks weird because it has a hole in the bottom of the container. Well, there’s a reason for that. A few weeks ago, while cooking dinner, I tried to open the bullion container, it wouldn’t open. I did everything to open it. I used a towel . I beat it. I twisted it and even got a tool to open it. Still nothing. So instead of giving up or settling to cook without it, I decided to burn a hole in it. You heard me. I got a match and burned a hole in the bottom to melt the plastic.  Ten seconds later… voiola… I was plopping bullion cubes into my boiling water… victoriously. The moral of the story is: In life, doors will close, things will look bleak and you can do everything you can to succeed. Even when you’re at the very edge of trying to breakthrough whatever is holding you back: DONT QUIT! Kick in the door, knock down the walls, break out, break through, burst forth… whatever you’ve got to do… just do it!