Welcome to the Womens Bible Cafe™ and our Faith Dare study! We are reading and discussing The Faith Dare by Debbie Alsdorf.

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Guest Blogger Debbie Alsdorf
This is the beginning of a 30 day faith challenge, The Faith Dare. Today represents an important mental shift that will help us get ready for the spiritual re-boot that will happen as we daily walk out the Biblical Truth we are reading in each day’s dare.
Why do we need to challenge our thoughts and beliefs?

Because if we don’t hold on to faith in God, we will learn to live according to our own understanding, reasonings and emotions.

Life is filled with challenges. From small to large, each day we are presented with many choices. Will we trust God? Will we put our faith in Him? Or will we live like the rest of the world, just getting by, pushing ourselves to be better, stressing ourselves to try harder? Scripture has much to offer us, much to teach us, and much to challenge us with.

For instance…let’s think of the Samaritan woman. She was a woman like us. She had a past that she hoped could be changed into a better future. She put up with  disappointing relationships and the circumstances of the day. She was a sinner and she knew it. It’s not that she was proud of it, but she knew her steps and mis-steps. Her view was changed the day she met a Jewish man at the watering hole, a man who promised her that if she drank the water he gave her, she would never thirst again. She hoped it could be true, and maybe you hope it could be true too.

It’s time to drink from God. Time to live our lives differently. This is the season to look up into his eyes while listening closely to his voice. When we do we will find the source that will fill us in such a way that we will never thirst again. Now is the time to begin.

Let’s begin the re-boot with a Scriptural base:
Colossians 3:1-3, 5, 7, 17

Taken from The Message ( highlighted emphasis mine)
“So if you’re serious about living this new resurrection life with Christ, act like it. Pursue the things over which Christ presides. Don’t shuffle along, eyes to the ground, absorbed with the things right in front of you. Look up, and be alert to what is going on around Christ, that’s where the action is. See things from His perspective. Your old life is dead. Your new life, which is your real life–even though invisible to spectators, is with Christ in God. He is your life…That means killing off everything connected with that way of death…That’s a life shaped by things and feelings instead of by God…You’re done with that old life… Let every detail in your lives, words, actions, whatever, be done in the name of the Master, Jesus, thanking God the Father every step of the way.”

Let’s begin our reboot:

Power down from self, and come to Christ each day, for the next 30 days. How? By determining an intentional space of time where you will power down from everything else for about 15 minutes as you read that day’s pages in The Faith Dare Book. Reading is not enough, you will then respond to what you have read by being still enough to listen to God speaking to your heart.

The first section is a preparation for the dare. It speaks of trials and tests actually producing something within us, and this section is an important part of the dare. After the introduction you will then start the 30 day dare. You may want to journal and you will want to end with prayer. That intentional time is step #1, the rest comes in practicing walking out the truth that you just processed. Walking out the truth, is the dare. If mornings are hard for you, try doing the reading and processing before bed, with a plan to practice the DARE the entire next day. Always remember to pray, asking God’s Spirit to do the work of freedom within you as you dare to walk by Faith in the Promises of God.

Open up to new possibilities, experience the difference he makes in a surrendered life. I am praying for us all, each day, during this time. I am daring my self as I am daring you….to run into the arms of Jesus, learning to reframe our lives in the truth of His Love for us.

Assignment For The Week

• Read The Introduction,  and Chapters One and Two in the Faith Dare book
• Beginning on the 1st of the month, start reading the first dare…then on the 2nd the second dare and so forth…..
• Each daily dare ends with three journal questions for you to answer. Use the book or a personal journal and complete these daily.
• Each daily dare ends with a “Daily Prayer.” If you have a smart phone, I want you to read the prayer aloud and RECORD your own voice saying the prayer. Use the voice memo app on your smart phone if you have this, and then later in the day play back your own voice with the prayer.
• Join a small group discussion at the Womens Bible Cafe™