True Identity Ministries Blog

The book of Romans was written by a man named Paul. Born and raised in Hebrew tradition, he was a persecutor of Christians. After a run in with God on the road to Damascus, Paul turned his life over to God. The first missionary, he traveled much of Greece and the east ministering to the Gentiles. This is a letter he wrote to Christians in Rome. In Romans 4, Paul brings up the story of a man named Abraham. Abraham was the founding patriarch of the Israelites and a man well known in the Old Testament.

Of all the righteous men and women in the OT, it would be hard to surpass that of Abraham. In fact, in Isaiah 41.8, God calls Abraham "my friend."

The question being posed in Romans 4 is one in regards to faith vs. works. Was Abraham called righteous because of his faith or because of his works?

V. 1-3
"So how do we fit what we know of Abraham, our first father in the faith, into this new way of looking at things? If Abraham, by what he did for God, got God to approve him, he could certainly have taken credit for it. But the story we're given is a God-story, not an Abraham-story. What we read in Scripture is, "Abraham entered into what God was doing for him, and that was the turning point. He trusted God to set him right instead of trying to be right on his own."

V. 2 makes an excellent beginning statement in favor of faith. Paul says that Abraham could certainly have taken credit for God's approval of him, IF he had been justified by works. But Abraham did not take credit for anything at all. The account of Abraham's life is not an Abraham-story, but a God-story. Therefore a story only God could take credit for.

Who is taking credit for your story? When all is said and done, will your life be a God-story or a self-story?

Moving on to v. 3, this is a reference from Genesis 15. In the chapter God makes a covenant with Abraham; His famous promise. It's a beautiful picture. God takes Abraham outside and points to the heavens. He proceeds to tell Abraham that his descendants would be as numerous as the stars in the sky. This to a man who was well in age and without any children. Can you imagine looking at the billions of stars in the sky and hearing God tell you there would be descendants from you that number as many? Abraham believed God at this and it was counted to him as righteousness.

You see, before there was time, before God created man, He had a plan for Abraham. A plan that was already in motion at the time of Genesis 15. What became a turning point for Abraham was the moment he entered into what God was already doing.

Just as God had a plan for Abraham mapped out, He has a plan mapped out for each and every one of us as well. God is not a respecter of persons, but delights in the plans He has for all of us. That plan for us is already in motion.

At the beginning of each day, are you committing yourself to God?

For a turning point, we must enter into what God is already doing. Some of you may know the plan right now and some of you may be asking how you can enter into a plan at work if you don't know where the plan is. I know there are times in life where you hit a wall. You come to a standstill and you are wondering where to go.

What can you do?

1. Read the Word of God.

• Recently I have heard some sound direction on more than one occasion from my Pastor. "Do all of the revealed will of God for your life and God will lead you in discovering the unrevealed will of God for your life." (John Lindell)

What would be the revealed will of God? That you be:
Saved
Filled with the Spirit
Sanctified (Holy)
Submissive to Authority
Giving Thanks
You do what you know to be His will, then He will reveal to you more.

2. Pray

• In any relationship you have, you must communicate with the other person in order to know what's going on. It's the same with our relationship with God. We must be in communication with him DAILY in order to know what He is doing.

3. Fast

• Some things only come by fasting and praying. Sometimes it requires from us to set aside a need in order that we may seek God for direction.

When you commit to seek God, there is no way you can miss what He is doing.

Are you adding God into what you are doing, or entering into what He is doing?

Yes, invite God to be a part of your life, but the wrong approach is if we go about our day, tagging God onto certain parts. That is a life of convenience, not a life of righteousness.

Abraham simply took God at His word and acted accordingly. He understood that he must rely completely on God.

Above I have posed some questions throughout the study in order that you might think about the passage a bit more. Again, I hope you would read the passage for yourself and allow God to minister to you. Here are the questions again...please take a few moments to think about your answer.

• Who is taking credit for your story? When all is said and done, will your life be a God-story or a self-story? In what way(s) can you give glory to God?
• At the beginning of each day, are you committing yourself to God? How?
• Are you adding God into what you are doing, or entering into what He is doing? In what area(s) are you struggling to surrender to God? Perhaps take a moment to say or write out a prayer repenting from your lack of submission and asking the Holy Spirit to change your heart from the inside out.

I would encourage you to check back in the next few days for part 2...it only gets better!

Study Questions:

1.What lies have you believed about God?
2.How has believing those lies manifested itself in the way you live (e.g., attitudes, actions)?
3.What lies have you believed about yourself?
4.Take time to affirm the truth: Psalm 139:13-18
5.What specific steps of action do you need to take to align your life with the Truth you have seen about yourself?

Challenge: Renew your mind (your thinking) by the Word of God. Read the following passages aloud. What do these verses about the character of God and His heart toward His children? Psalm 100:5, Psalm 23, Psalm 121, Romans 8:28-39

Homework: Read chpt. 4, Lies Women Believe…about Sin.

[Exerpt from Justeina's book Fitness By Faith]

Are you familiar with the “do it yourself” stores such as the IKEA store? These stores sell home furnishings at very reasonable prices. The reason they are able to sell their merchandise at a cheaper rate is because all of their items require assembly once you get them home. They give you a box with the instructions and all the materials and you have to take the furniture home and assemble it yourself. I’m sure most of you have gone to a store looking for furnishings and you look at the display and it looks so great and you can already picture right where you want it to go in your home, so you grab the slip of paper with the merchandise number on it, you take the slip to the sales associate, pay for the item and in return they give you a flat box full of small parts and pieces and just expect you to figure it out on your own. As much as you try begging them to just sell you the display, they aren’t going to give in. If you want the piece of furniture you are going to have to do the work of assembling it all on your own.


My husband and I experienced this recently because we had a new baby on the way. We needed furniture for the new nursery; so we made a trip to the store and picked out different pieces of furniture for our baby’s room. The displays looked great and I knew right where I wanted to put each piece. Of course what we made it home with was not the beautiful put together displays. It was four different flat boxes full of little (and I do mean little) parts and pieces that we would have to assemble. By “we” I of course mean my husband, and it ended up taking Kyle over five hours to put just one dresser together. I am sure he would want you to know that it wasn’t because he didn’t know what he was doing. It was simply because assembling the pieces of furniture took lots of time and lots of work!

You know, God does the same thing to you and me. He prepares for us different packages requiring assembly throughout life and then asks us to put them together. There is a good example of this in the lives of David and Solomon. In 2 Samuel 7 David decides he is going to build a temple for the Lord to dwell in. God tells David that he doesn’t want him to build it, but that he has plans for David’s son Solomon to build the temple. In fact, God was telling David I’ve never asked you to build the temple for me. I didn’t give you a temple package. I am giving it to your son Solomon.

In 1 Chronicles 28 at the end of David’s reign he charges his son Solomon with what God has called him to do. Solomon finds himself as King in place of his father David. As he steps into his new position, David hands him a package that should have read, “assembly required”. David handed over all of the parts and pieces that were needed to build the new temple for God to dwell. He gave him all the instructions for every detail of the plan. As David hands him the package he tells Solomon to “Be strong and courageous, and do the work. Do not be afraid or discouraged, for the Lord God, my God is with you…” I am sure that Solomon would have much rather just received the display. He would have rather stepped into his position of King with the temple already built. But that wasn‘t God‘s plan for his life. God wanted him to go through the process of building it.

The same is true for you and me today. It was and is very necessary that God takes us through the process of building a healthy lifestyle. He will drop off a full package for you. It will soon have every part, piece, instruction, and tool needed to build it. Now hear God‘s voice declaring over your life today, “Be strong and do the work.” In 1 Chronicles 28:20 it says that God would not fail or forsake Solomon until all of the work for the temple was finished. It didn’t mean that God was going to leave as soon as the work was done; it just meant that God would see the work through until completion.

More info on Fitness By Faith

This past weekend was the women's conference at my church. I had been anticipating the conference for a whole year; a conference with the theme of dream.

We all have dreams. We all have things God has placed in our heart for eternal purpose. Some we work hard for. Some we hold to ourselves. Some we are excited for. Some we are afraid of. But all stir something inside of us for more.

The thing about a dream is that generally, they wait a while before making an appearance. You get what I'm saying, right girls? We all have been pregnant with a dream, and for many, they have yet to birth the dream. It's a long and hard journey to seeing your dreams actualized.

If God has placed a dream, or many dreams, in your heart, than know that no matter how long or hard the wait, they will come to be. If your dream be a God dream, than it His His plan and purpose for your life.

I absolutely love what Paul says in Ephesians 3.20-21 (MSG),

"God can do anything, you know—far more than you could ever imagine or guess or request in your wildest dreams! He does it not by pushing us around but by working within us, his Spirit deeply and gently within us."

So many women fail to see their dreams come to pass because they give up too soon. Too tired. Too impatient. Discouraged. Disconnected. Disheartened. There are many things on this earth that aren't being done because people are failing to see their dreams through.

Hebrews 10.35-36 in the NLT says,

"So do not throw away this confident trust in the Lord. Remember the great reward it brings you! Patient endurance is what you need now, so that you will continue to do God's will. Then you will receive all that he has promised."

Girls, one of the keys to seeing your dreams come true is to be patient. My prayer for each and every one of you is that your dreams would no longer collect dust. That your dreams would no longer make you afraid. My prayer for each and every one of you is that you would commit to endure, no matter the cost.

I dream to see women all across the earth rise up and live out the dreams God has placed on their heart. I truly believe that if women would endure to see their dream through, there would be a significant shift on the earth. I believe the Kingdom would advance in a way that it never has.

God can do anything you know! So go for it. Go for that dream you have pushed to the back of your heart. Go for that dream you believe could never happen. It won't be easy; but anything of worth is difficult. Imagine the possibilities for other people if YOU would step out and say "yes, Lord." God uses individual people for great causes. You are one of those people.

Dare to to make a difference. Yes, YOU. Dare to Dream!

It’s almost a laughable question isn’t it: Is Facebook ruining my life? Unless you have experienced the dangers of facebook as millions of people already have. In the culture of social networking you would be hard pressed to find someone without a social account such as facebook. Many studies have ranked Facebook as the most used social network by worldwide monthly active users, followed by MySpace. Listen to some of the statistics that can be found on facebook’s own website. They have More than 500 million active users and 50% of the active users log on to Facebook in any given day. The average user has 130 friends and all combined, people spend over 700 billion minutes per month on Facebook. There are over 900 million objects that people interact with (pages, groups, events and community pages) on facebook and the average user is connected to at least 80 community pages, groups and events. The average user creates 90 pieces of content each month and there are more than 30 billion pieces of combined content (web links, news stories, blog posts, notes, photo albums, etc.) shared each month. With those types of statistics you and I would have to agree that there is definitely room for disaster and danger within our facebook frenzy.


I can’t tell you how many stories I have heard from people that have seen betrayal, discouragement, and very painful life changing experiences come into their life through the world of facebook. Now most of us are aware of some of the common sense dangers that we can find on facebook and any other social network. Things like identity theft, information that leads to burglaries, and open doors to sexual predators. But what about those hidden dangers? The ones you may have never paid much attention to? The ones that in the end have the potential to ruin your life. My hope is that as we expose those things today, you will be able to approach the facebook world with greater wisdom and prevent a facebook façade.

As I researched for this article I reached out to my facebook friends for help (I didn’t say facebook doesn’t also have its advantages!) and asked them to share with me some of the potential dangers facebook would hold for a Christian. Over and over they mentioned facebook and gossip. Let’s face it; facebook is another form of a social circle, and in any social circle there is the danger and likeliness of gossip. I honestly believe even more so for online networking. We tend to be a bit braver when we are sitting alone at home typing away at the keys than we would be with a face to face conversation. Don’t misunderstand what all fits into the category for gossip. Gossip is any information that is made spacious or wide whether it’s true or not. So anytime you and I take information about someone else and make it spread wide we are involved in gossip. God’s word says about gossip in Proverbs 11:13 in the Message bible that, “A gadabout gossip can’t be trusted with a secret, but someone of integrity won’t violate a confidence.” We need to be very careful about the information we spread around on facebook. Gossip will be sure to destroy relationships of all types.

Another danger I have seen on facebook comes with our status updates. Have you ever noticed how many people enjoy venting through their status update? It’s quite hysterical, but very dangerous. Especially when you consider that many times people are venting about their job, their marriage, or other relationships. It’s just not professional or honoring. Be very cautious about what you are putting in your status update. Wisdom will likely lead you towards keeping those updates very light hearted. Never use that feature to vent out your frustrations with your employers, employees, or your family members. Even if you leave them unnamed, trust me someone out there will know exactly what you are referring to. It will not only put your own career in jeopardy, but can also cause a relational blow up! Learn to trust God with those frustrations, he can handle them.

We also need to be very careful to not use those status updates as a form of incoming affirmation. Think about how many times you have posted something and then you wait to hear comments from all your friends. As my close friend put it, “we post things and expect for people to comment back because we think what we had to say was so very important that everyone should leave comments.” It is so true. Not only do we wait to hear everyone’s comments back to us, but we also start to base our “facebook” value off of those comments back. If no one comments we feel a little less valuable. It becomes a source of affirmation to us.

One of the most dangerous places of all that we can find ourselves in on facebook is in an emotional relationship outside of our marriage. Too many times I watch as married friends link up with men and women from past relationships and become facebook friends. In the beginning it seems so innocent. But a natural curiosity takes over and they begin to visit that person’s wall and look through their pictures or maybe even begin to make comments back and forth. Before they know it they are sending daily messages to one another. And so the emotional bond begins, and it won’t likely stay only emotional. It doesn’t have to be an ex or past relationship. It can be anyone of the opposite sex. We need to use wisdom with the friends we choose on facebook. Remember, it’s not a contest to see who can get the most friends. It is meant to be a way to keep in touch with the people you care about the most. Don’t wait until you are already in the middle of an ongoing “facebook” relationship to see the danger it poses to your marriage. Prevent it now by choosing your friends very carefully and steering clear from any hint of emotional bond to someone of the opposite sex.

Finally I have to mention the danger facebook poses as a time thief. How many of us can admit how much of our time facebook can consume. You log on for a quick check in the morning and before you know it you are still checking an hour later. So often we can become consumed with facebook world. We give it priority often over our marriages, our job, sometimes our children and most frequently it robs us of our own quite time with God. Do a self evaluation and see just how much of your time you are giving to the facebook frenzy. Is it the first thing you do each morning? The last thing you do before bed? Do you have facebook on your mobile so that you can stay connected at all times? There is another word for that…and it’s called an idol. God warns us about idols in scripture. Anytime we put something else in priority over Him we have ourselves an idol. Don’t allow facebook to continue to be a time thief in your world.

Although there are many undercover dangers with facebook, it can also be an amazing networking and connecting tool. If we apply a little wisdom to our social networking it really can be a blessing. But if we don’t heed the warning signs we could be left telling our own story of how facebook ruined our life.


xoxo
Justeina