Helping others grow in Christ

So it's been busy as usual in the household of the Lunas. It's not with complaint that I share that, only  stating a fact of life's reality. In fact, I consider it a blessing that we are busy and not idle. It's just a heart issue of mine that struggles with not knowing when to step back and really enjoy this blessing to the fullest. There are nights as I lay down to sleep I try to imagine myself not being so busy as I am, but end up despising the thought of motherhood sitting around and looking relax all the time. I can't imagine any  mother, who is raising a family would find herself busy sitting around more than managing her family's life and home. I thank God for the joy I experience through the busyness of family life. But oh, how I need more of Him for more grace to find true joy!

On top of family life, there is my personal ministry life. Maybe I haven't mentioned it before, but I meet with individual ladies to help them with their Christian life. But with a limited time I can only manage for now to meet once a week. And how ever much I would love to concentrate on one person at a time, it's hard. So I had to put three of my sisters in Christ, who shares the desire to grow in loving God's Word, together in one study.

It has been a great blessing to me for the past month to study the book of 1 John with these group of ladies. And it has kept me on my toes reading and diving into scripture to help them see for themselves the benefit of studying the bible text by text and discuss it. I only hope to share the growth of this group of ordinary women, who has been save by Grace through faith in Christ and whose hearts are so driven to love God and His Word. So I post with the hope of sharing a blessing and glorify Christ in it. And hoping the words I will use to describe will be to boast in Him alone.

It is my prayer to see these women gain, not only the passion to be proud of being a Christian, but the reasoning why they should be so passionate about Christ. As my own mentor have shared with me that "passion without knowledge is empty, and knowledge without passion is cold". And I honestly believe  that learning to study the Word of God for themselves (like the Boreans) is the key to that kind of Christian walk.

As a group we have read through the epistle of 1 John. We looked up some history background. And now we are discussing it chapter by chapter. On my upcoming posts I'll be more specific on what we have studied. But to conclude this article let me share what I use to study with these women. For my personal study I use the New Inductive Study Bible.  It gives us direction as we study it together. Second, I have a list of probing questions to bring about discussion. Sometimes when we really can't say anything else we move on to our next text to observe. I like the method of observation. It helps us break it down and really finding the context, the purpose and meaning of the text. This third tool that we use was shared by my husband. It is a method of studying the bible with someone, it is called "the Swedish Method".  It's simple. It encourages the group to look beyond the obvious. I believe there is always a danger when we become too familiar with the text. I know that I get too confident and think I arrived in knowing the passage because of hearing it, reading it over and over. But we shouldn't cut ourselves short of the blessing we can get from reading and studying every text written. There has to be more than the obvious with God's Word.

So with that said, I just know that there is no end in learning and studying in this life time. Especially when it come to God's Holy Word! It's exciting and I really look forward to greater blessings ahead.