We’ve just finished our last week of Living Beyond Yourself by Beth Moore. In week ten we studied self-control and looked at Scripture examples of men who were in control and those who lacked self-control. Our study examined the concept of boundaries and protection, with our body as a prime target.
Beth Moore writes, “The key to self-control is the refusal to allow our enemies (the flesh, the world, or Satan) to rule or hold us captive in any way… Christ has given us the victory over our flesh, our world, and our accuser… They cannot presume authority over us.”
Our self-control reclaims our spiritual territory in who we are and whose we are. Claim it.
In this last chapter, Beth discusses many life areas where we are tempted to lack control. She then offers biblical references to remind us of the importance of standing our ground and walking in faith, not self. If you struggle with self-control, I highly recommend these Beth Moore studies:
- Breaking Free
- When Godly People Do Ungodly Things
Beth concludes our Fruit of the Spirit study with a checklist of activities to keep you grounded in faith. Imagine tending to your garden as you apply these activities.
It is not God’s will for us to be mastered by anything other than Him. -Beth Moore
Turn my eyes away from worthless things; preserve my life according to your word. Psalm 119:37
Living Beyond Yourself Bible Study
Welcome to our ninth week of Living Beyond Yourself by Beth Moore. If you have been reading along with us, we’ve already covered love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness and faithfulness. This week we looked at the fruit of Gentleness. We’ll be completing our study next week with a look at self-control.
Our guest post this week is from Tonya Jones, author of PoeticWord.org She is currently aspiring to obtain her seminary degree in Biblical Counseling with theological studies of the New and Old Testament. Tonya now manages and operates her own publishing company called By Faith Publishing through which she aspires to help others spread the love of Christ through poetry.
Hello Everyone,
I pondered over how I could summarize this ninth week of such an amazing Bible study. Have any of you realized yet, that by studying the Fruit of the Spirit we were given a personal invitation to explore the inner and most sacred components of the heart of our Sovereign Creator, God Himself? And what is so wonderfully beautiful about it, is that we were given front row seats with the Holy Spirit Himself being our tour guide helping us to understand each of their divine characteristics.
Around 5:30 am this Sunday, these tingling sensations in my brain awoke me from a deep sleep saying “that’s it! That’s it!” I sat up, wanting to run to the tallest building overlooking the world and watch these little light bulbs popping on as each of you came into the same truth about our amazing study. I just knew that someone must have discovered what I just had. I wonder how many nights of revelations Beth must have experienced as she researched to find the best narratives for this study. Since I realize that I could probably never put into words with clarity the revelation that suddenly invaded my thoughts last evening, and how my heart overflows with this newfound adoration for our loving all-wise Heavenly Father, I will just stick to giving this week’s summary as best I can.
I applaud Beth Moore for taking these amazing characteristics of God and breaking them down for us to relate to. Her repository is the insights given by the inspired devout men of God, who remember were transformed by the Spirit themselves, “some remembering first-hand accounts” expressed as best they could in scripture the full Fruit of the Spirit giving us all an inside view of the most intriguing attributes of our Triune Creator. Then ultimately, the most important and relevant truth that we all must realize is the only real way that any of us can experience the absolute fullness of this study is through our Faith.
In this ninth week, Beth explored the Greek word praotes, which when translated means gentleness. We learned that Gentleness in the Fruit of the Spirit has three important aspects submission, humility, and teachability. We learned how all of these components make up a gentle behavior that can only be obtained through complete surrender and faith. One can’t completely surrender unless one truly believes “correct”? They go hand in hand.
In conclusion, I’d like to say that I have truly enjoyed this study and look forward to sharing future studies at this wonderful Bible Café™. I must end my summation now for fear that I began rambling to you about the amazing revelations that I just experienced. For those of you who have children will understand this last point probably better than those who don’t. When your child was born, your sole purpose became to teach this little person everything you could about their parents. You instilled in them your beliefs, influenced them with your personalities, and proudly watched as they grew into adult versions of yourselves. Imagine now how God the Father did with us at Creation. Created in their image we needed to become familiar with the attributes that make us part of their unique structure.
Though we got sidetracked and fell into the temptation of the flesh, it was always evident that God the Father’s sole purpose was to help us come into our inheritance of the Fruit of the Spirit. After all, we are His children and He wants us to be just like Him. Scripture reveals how time after time God the Father breathed humility and gentleness toward our rebellious behavior. Yet the one part of the Trinity that I want to conclude with is the gentleness that embodied our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. How humbling it must have been for him to take on human form and leave the comforts of Heaven’s perfectness to come and be Jesus for all of us, to this wonderful Spirit of whom we are now studying. I can’t think of a better teacher- can you?
The Sword of the Spirit is to injure Satan, not the body of Christ. -Beth Moore
Assignment For Next Week
- Read Week Ten in the workbook
- Listen to the Session Ten Audio (optional)
- OR…Listen to the Session Ten Video (optional)
Living Beyond Yourself Bible Study
Welcome back to the Womens Bible Study Cafe™. We’ve finished reading week eight of our study on the Fruit of the Spirit. This week in Living Beyond Yourself by Beth Moore, we focused our study on Faithfulness. We looked at the idea of believability as it relates to God, and Beth Moore gave an example of faithfulness through believing in a God we cannot see.
We see our Lord in miracles and His Word. Believing is walking by our faith, not by our sight. (2 Corinthians 5:7) I watched a blind man walk through our city streets yesterday, and what I saw amazed me. This man had a huge smile on his face, a bounce in his step, and an attitude of confidence in something he could not see: the sidewalk before him. I saw his white walking stick tap and move across the sidewalk and I thought of our Scripture verse. This man walked with JOY and by FAITH that he COULD see.
The blind man was evidence of Hebrews 11:1 -sure of what he hoped for (not falling) and certain of what he could not see (where the sidewalk ends). Do you have as much faith as a blind man?
By faith, we know God loves and cares for us and stands on His promises.
We ended our week with a review of prophecies God said would come true, and evidence supported with facts. God has been faithful to us…unyielding in His love and patience with us. We bring Glory to Him when the fruit of the Holy Spirit reflects in us.
You may not always be aware of another person’s absence but you will quickly be aware of another person’s presence of faith.
And without faith, it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who earnestly seek him. Hebrews 11:6
Assignment For Next Week
- Read Week Nine in the workbook
- Listen to the Session Nine Audio (optional)
- OR…Listen to the Session Nine Video (optional)
Living Beyond Yourself Bible Study
Welcome back to the Womens Bible Cafe™. This week we finished reading week seven of Living Beyond Yourself by Beth Moore and learned about two more fruit: Kindness and Goodness. When Beth compares and contrasts the two fruits, we find Kindness (chrestoles in Greek) means tenderhearted or harmless as a dove while Goodness (agathosune in Greek) means benevolent and active or shrewd as a snake. Our study examined the cords of kindness and examples of Jesus demonstrating kindness to a mourner, a doubter,and a mocker. As in the past weeks, this study was rich with scripture verses and practical knowledge.
Beth Moore writes, “the fruit of the Spirit is absolutely divine. They are impossible goals for the unbeliever, yet attainable-but not automatic-graces for the true believer.” Throughout the past seven weeks of our study, we’ve seen evidence of this.
With God as the Giver, we receive these gifts to do good and benefit those He loves. Beth reminds us to pray we’ll use our gifts as God intended, completing the course He has set before us, and ending with the outcome of Kindness and Goodness towards others.
This is our generation and we have the opportunity to impact it…when we do so with the love of Christ and the fruit of the Spirit as the center of our heart, , mind and soul. We’ve already unlocked the importance of love, joy, peace, patience, kindness and goodness. In the remaining three weeks of this study, we’ll focus on the fruit of Faithfulness, Gentleness and Self-Control.
Know therefore that the LORD your God is God; he is the faithful God, keeping his covenant of love to a thousand generations of those who love him and keep his commandments.Deut 7:9
Assignment For Next Week
- Read Week Eight in the workbook
- Listen to the Session Eight Audio (optional)
- OR…Listen to the Session Eight Video (optional)
Living Beyond Yourself Bible Study
Today’s guest author is SaVonni Yestanti, who describes herself as a grateful mom and teacher to a young son, and a fruit bearer called by God to “finish the race” by telling everyone about the work that He has been trying to complete within her. She was directed by God to offer a unique, judgment-free ministry that focuses on the Freedom that each individual has in Christ. You can follow her ministry at GodGaveMeFreedom.com
We can’t love people if we don’t have the patience to deal with people or the circumstances we may find ourselves in. Specifically, makrothumia deals with our ability, as Beth Moore states in the video series, to “be patient with people who are driving us nuts.” Moore stressed the fact that God is keenly interested in makrothumia because “people will always be the priority over circumstances. God’s priority is going to be how we treat people.”
We are to exhibit patience towards others because God exhibited patience towards us. Looking at the “ungrateful servant,” (Matthew 18), we see the consequences of not exhibiting the patience that is granted to us. Moore talked about the fact that God knew it would be harder to deal with some people than it would be deal to deal with others because those “thorns in our sides” tend to bring out the worst in us. When we bring out the worst that is contained within us, God shaves off that bad stuff, presenting us as a closer representation of His full character.
Unlike hupomone, where we pray about our circumstances, makrothumia requires the releasing of the Holy Spirit within us; it is God’s spirit working through us to show God’s patience to people. We are propositioned by Moore to consider this seriously as the world WILL NOT help us in this regard. Again, the world is not prepared to exhibit patience in our fast-paced society, as everybody wants everything right now. So Moore gave us a phrase to consider: “Patience waits.” We are asked to show God’s patience towards others the way that He shows patience towards us every day.
We are asked to “bear” with one another; to endure…to exercise restraint when dealing with people…. and then we are introduced to another Greek word, anecho, which means “to put up with; forbear.” That does not mean that we are to be gluttons for punishment; what that means is that we are to be slow to respond negatively to persecution and hardship. It is for this reason: just because a situation is hard, does not mean that it is necessary from the enemy; it may be a situation that is created to fix something within us. When this is the case, we have a testimony of overcoming to witness to others. Our testament serves to help others who may be experiencing the very same thing.
To help us further exercise restraint when dealing with others, we were introduced to the premise of judgment and damaging it can be. We learned the Greek term for the word judgment is krino, which means “to pass judgment upon, condemn, take vengeance on.”
Finally, we looked at Biblical forgiveness. We learned that we cannot walk in step with the Spirit if we are so busy keeping a record of wrongs – and we also give Satan a foothold as he notices yet another thing to cause division between us as individuals and between us and God. We are to forgive EVERYONE for EVERYTHING, ALL OF THE TIME, as God commands us, so He can forgive each of us for everything. When we do this, we “wipe the slate clean” and we choose not to grieve the Holy Spirit by whom we were “sealed for the day of redemption.”
You cannot be free to keep step with the Spirit when you are encumbered by the load of unforgiveness. -Beth Moore
Assignment For Next Week
- Read Week Seven in the workbook
- Listen to the Session Seven Audio (optional)
- OR…Listen to the Session Seven Video (optional)
In week six of Living Beyond Yourself: Exploring the Fruit of the Spirit by Beth Moore, we’re asked to consider the fourth Fruit of the Spirit: Patience. We are introduced to different Greek translations for the word patience, as originally recorded in scripture. Moore explains the difference between hupomone patience, which translates into endurance or perseverance inspired by hope, and makrothumia, inspired by mercy and the quality of the Fruit of the Spirit.
Living Beyond Yourself Bible Study
