"Sharing God's Gift"

"Sharing God's Gift" -- that is the name of the class at church that I will begin on Saturday. As you may have already figured out, it is on sharing God's Gift--the Gospel, the Good News of Salvation! I received yesterday the material we will be going through, and have briefly looked through it. Please be praying for me throughout the next ten weeks--this is definitely one area that I need to work on! I know that God has commanded us to share His great Gift of Love with those around us, but oh how difficult that is for me to do! Yet I don't want to be ashamed of the Gospel of Christ! I know, because of what Christ has done for me, I have every reason to be bold, every reason to be on fire to share the Gospel, but instead, I have allowed my human nature of fear to overcome such motivations. Consequently, God has been working in my heart and convicting me of my failure to share the Gospel, so when the opportunity to take this class arose, I felt that God was telling me to do it, even though it is definitely out of my comfort zone! Please pray that I will stop relying on my own strength to obey this great commandment Jesus gave and instead, begin trusting in Him, and Him alone, to give me the boldness and confidence to reach out to those who have yet to hear of His wonderful Plan for sinful mankind!

In Him,

Angie

Discontent? Who, me?

Wow! Are you surprised that I'm posting again already? Well, I wasn't really thinking I would post again so soon either, but. . . I just had to!

Sunday School this morning was really good--it was exactly what I was needing. You see, it was on the subject of discontentment. Lately, I've really been struggling with that--while I'm glad that I'm back in the US, things are just a lot different than they are back in Brazil. I've been complaining (in my heart) to God about all those things that are different and wishing that things would be different; that I could be back in Brazil, or even better, that I could have "the best of the two worlds." Those who have been around me recently probably haven't noticed anything, but those feelings were all there inside of me: I really was, in all honesty, discontent with where God has put me, for the place in my life that I am now, and just a lot of other things.

As the video session by Jim Berg that we're going through in Sunday School played, I began to realize the truth of what he was saying. My discontentment is a result of my unbelief of Who God is; I been allowing those many "if onlys . . ." to resound in my heart and to create a desire for something I don't have or a change of circumstances. Something he said that really stood out to me was that if God is enough for me, I won't be tempted to be discontented! That is, if I really, truly, and honestly believe that God is everything that I need, then no matter where I am, what I have, or who I am with, etc., I can always be content! I already have everything I need! And you know, he also pointed out that you really cannot be tempted by what you don't want or desire! Isn't that wonderful to know? Now, the only catch to it all is that I now need to live it out in my life!

Wanting to truly live out the truth that God is everything I need,
Angie