This week Chelsey dives deeper into Psalm 73:28, "But for me it is good to be near God; I have made the Lord my refuge, that I may tell of all your works." The Lord revealed to Chelsey that these 3 commands are choices we have to make. We have to choose to be near to The Lord. We have to choose to make Him our refuge, and we are called to tell the world of His works.
The Lord made it clear to her that while He desires to be near her (He slways it), He desires to be her refuge, and He desires her to share of the amazing things He does...that it's her choice to be obedient in all 3 of these things.
What does Psalm 73:26 Call us to Do?
- Be near to God! This doesn't change because of circumstances, this should be a constant in all of our lives.
- Make The Lord our refuge - we need to stop turning to earthly things to fill this void and create a false safety net.
- We are to tell of all His works. The Lord calls us to share the amazing things He does in our life (in His timing, not always right away) but to give examples to the world around us that The Lord is moving even in our days!
How Do we Live This Truth Out?
- Get in His word even when we don't feel like it. His word NEVER returns void (Isaiah 55:11). We grow nearer to The Lord by having a growing relationship with Him.
- First we need to ask Him to reveal what things we turn to when we should be turning to Him. Repent of not turning to Him, receive His forgiveness and choose Him daily as your refuge!!
- Share what God is doing in your life with someone! It can be family, a neighbor, a friend, your barista at Sbux, just SAHRE HIM and what He's doing in your life with anyone that will listen, it will always bless them! (Remember Isaiah 55:11).
Q & A
- How do you handle being friends with non-believers?
- Proverbs 17:17 - A friend loves at all times. - The Lord will call me into relationship with people who love Him and those who don't know Him. He calls me to love them and how them the hands and feet of Jesus. There are friendships I've had for years where they are not walking with Jesus but they fully respect my faith and what's important to me.
- Proverbs 11:14 - Where there is no guidance a peoples fall. - God calls us to walk in wisdom so if you're finding yourself feeling tempted within friendships who don't respect you, your faith, cause you to stumble due to their lack of guidance this is where we have to lean into the Holy Spirit and ask The Lord what to do with these friendships.
- What are you favorite stories in the Bible?
- I love 2 Chronicles 20 - King Jehoshaphat's pleas with The Lord when He is facing something he doesn't know what to do with is such a testament to how we feel when we cry out to God in the same way. His words in vs. 12 are, "For we are powerless against this great horde coming against us, for we don't know what to do but our eyes are fixed on you.
- Habakkuk - this short book is a powerful one. It gives great perspective on God working in the midst of things we don't understand as well as us seeing we are able to go to God with all of our feelings and trust that He hears us.
- John 4 - The Woman at The Well - This was the first story in the Bible that opened my heart to fully accepting the truth that Jesus loves me regardless of what my past sin was. I am redeemed in Him and I'm filled with joy to speak of the redemption He's worked out in my life.
- Do you think social media is a distraction or blessing? How do you balance screen time when you find yourself with lots of time on your hands?
- I think it can be both a blessing and distraction. The Lord gave me Matthew 6:19-25 last year when working through discontentment. This is what I use to keep my social media time as a blessing. When it begins to cause me to feel tripped up by my emotions or falling into feeling of discontentment I know I need to take a break and get my heart back aligned in what God wants to use this for.
- For balancing screen time, I don't get this perfect but one thing that has worked is all apps on my phone are locked until 9AM. I also set a time limit for the day on IG at 40min a day. (this is the only form of SM I have). So setting limits and alarms are helpful! The Lord gave us boundaries for a reason so we certainly need them in all areas of our life.