Dawn R. Deem Stephens

Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord,
fully pleasing to Him and desiring to
please Him in all things.
Colossians 1:10

Here are the questions we will discuss in our second shoe Bible Study. Feel free to add your answers and comments to this blog!

Rain Boots  and Ruth

When do you wear rain boots?  Why do you wear rain boots?
Look at two things that rain boots (and Jesus) should do for us.

Ruth 1:6-21
1. Get us through the “muck” in life without making us dirty. -
 What was going on in Ruth’s life at this time?
 Who was her spiritual role model and how was she holding up?
 What do you do when life is muddy?
 What protects you from getting dirty during life’s difficult situations?
 How are you as a role model to others? – Do you point them to God?

Ruth 2 1-15 *vs 13,
2. They do their job, and are not afraid to stand out.
Rain boots today have the craziest and fnciest of designs. It is hard not to notice someone who is wearing them. And if they wear them, you assume they have a job to do that requires hard work.
 What does Ruth do to get herself a position in this new land?
 Even though Ruth is different and stands out, what makes her accepted?
 How does yours precede you?

Ruth 3-4
3. They make us feel protected and safe.
Rain boots allow us to walk places we might ordinarily stay away from. They offer us protection and safety. God does too.
 What does Ruth attempt to gain by going to the threshing floor?
 How does Boaz handle her request? – what does she do in the mean time?
  (2:18) What are you doing as you wait on God?
How safe do you feel as you walk (live) in Christ?
Put on your rain boots and get going!

Walk in a manner worthy of the Lord,
fully pleasing to Him and desiring to
please Him in all things.
Colossians 1:10

Here are the questions we will discuss in our first shoe Bible Study. Feel free to add your answers and comments to this blog!

High Heels  and Sarah

When do you wear high heels? Why do you wear high heels?

Consider Sarah’s character. Read Gen 12:5,10-17; 16:1-8; 17:15-21; 18:9-15

Look at three things that high heels (and Jesus) should do for us.

1. Boost our confidence. – Heels make us stand taller and give us better posture.
Jesus should make us stand taller too.
Why is it difficult for you to be confident?
What areas are you confident in and why?
How do confident people act?
Based on that how can we become more confident in Christ?
In what way was Sarah confident? In what way did she lack confidence. Is being
confident in yourself the same as being confident in God?

2. Cause us to walk slower and take smaller steps.
Has God ever slowed your pace of life down?
Why is it important to “walk” slower?
How was Sarah slowed down? Are you prepared to walk at God’s pace?

3. Make us rely on other muscles.
What part of you hurts if you wear high heels too long?
Do we rely on other members of the Body of Christ in our walk?
When other members of the body hurt, how do we help?
How was Sarah forced to rely on others? How did she do at helping others when they
hurt?

“Well Bust my Buttons, why didn’t you say that in the first place!”

You have to admit this is one of those lines that totally dates the movie. Isn’t it great that we don’t have to go through a door keeper like that to meet God. We sure feel that sometimes we have to repeat ourselves to Him again and again although, don’t we? It is all in how we perceive Him. This week we will deal a lot with perceptions. Mainly the ones we make of God and ourselves.

The first step to meeting God is opening the door of your heart to Him! My friend Susanne just reminded me of the sign on the door. “Doorbell out of order, please knock”. Dorothy knocks and the little man in the green suit doesn’t see them. It takes some convincing to get him to let them in.

As a child, you may have learned the verse, “Behold, I stand at the door and knock . . “. My teachers always told me He stood at the door of my heart. As a child, that struck quite an image in my head. But image or not, we have to let him into our lives. It’s the first step in getting to know Him.

Once He comes in, we need to prepare to meet with Him. How prepared are you for a meeting with God?
What do Dorothy and the other characters do to prepare for the all important encounter with the Wizard?
How do you think they feel after they are all spruced up? – We will share about times where we went to a lot of trouble to be and look our best. Then will ask each other:
What have you done and do you do to prepare to meet God? – Again, it’s all about perception.

Ever notice the type of fear Dorothy and the characters have as they walk down the corridor to meet the Wizard? Do you posses that same fear of God? – Why do we need to fear God?
What is happening to future generations “fear” of God. How can we maintain a healthy fear of Him? Do we truly have the right perception. If you think you do, then then keep reading!

Their first encounter with the wizard had to be a bit disappointing. They went to him with a request, and left with a task to get rid of the witch. Ever taken a request to God, and He gives you a task to get rid of sin in your own life? – If we struggle with that, our perception of Him needs to change.

The characters believe the task is impossible. They spend the next several minutes complaining about how incapable they are to succeed. They only embark on the mission because what they want from the wizard is important enough to risk their lives -and they have each other! – a lesson for us, as well. How bad do we want the thing we are asking God for? Do we solicit help from our friends to overcome the “sin” God is asking us to get rid of?

When they get to the witch’s castle, she sees them and sends the monkeys to kill them all except the lion. They are unable to harm Dorothy however because of the mark on her forehead (in the book version). In Oz good always overcomes evil. If Dorothy really knew that, she would have been much braver. Do we know and believe that? – and isn’t interesting that thebook version marks Dorothy’s forehead? (All you bible scholars will know why that’s important!)

Once they defeat the witch (evil), they return to the wizard and discover the power is something within themselves, not in the smoke and mirrors. Where are you getting God’s power? Is it inside of you? Are you able to conquer the evil around you? We’re back to letting Him in your life again.

This week’s lesson is really pretty simple. But it takes a life time of discovering and respecting God. Having the right perception of who He is means continually working to get to Him. It all begins with opening the door!

Today I am preparing a Bible study for a ladies group. We have been using the Wizard of Oz as a starting point for our lesson. So far we have covered how “the yellow brick road” and “somewhere over the rainbow” represents our salvation experience and journey with Christ. We’ve covered how we’d do better and be better Christians if only we had a brain, a heart, and courage. It’s been a very fun and educational study.

Tonight our lesson is called “Wicked” – the witch saga. Now I do have tickets to see this highly acclaimed broadway musical in May when it comes to my town and I can’t wait. – but I havent seen it yet, and I hate to admit, I have not read but the first chapter of the book. So my lesson is more based on the Wizard of Oz book and movie. We will first discuss how in the movie portrays Glenda and the wicked witch of the west to be such opposites. I think it fascinating that movies of old were written so simply. Bad was bad, Good was good. So unlike my daughter’s favorite movie right now: “Twilight”. (Which I love and enjoy, but continually caution my daughters about the view taught in that movie- that evil is good) -

That’s a complex lecture and discussion for another time. My point, in the Bible Study tonight, is to get the women thinking about which witch they feel they are more like. The world we live in today allows us to feel we can have a little of both witches in us and be OK. The whole philosophy behind bad being good or how bad is bad, how good is good messes with our understanding of God himself. He is all good. There is no evil within Him. And as Christians we are called to be like Him. In Eph. 4,  He says be Holy for I am Holy. I’m afraid we use that verse to lower our standards of God instead of raising the standard of ourselves.

Kathy Howard tells a story that really hits home in the standard of God’s Holiness. She, like me, asks her teenage children to clean their room. They go and “clean” it. And when she comes to check over it – she determines it is not clean. The child insists it is and explains what s/he did to clean the room. Then the parent points out what else needs to be done.

Now when Kathy asks to her children to clean their room they ask, “Your version of clean or mine?”

We do the same thing with God’s Holiness. We determine how “clean” we want to be and expect that to be good enough.

The rest of the nights study addresses how we can be like God and become “all good” like Glenda. I have 3 points to help the ladies get there.
1. Celebrate when we overcome sin.
We’ll take a moment to sing “Ding Dong the witch is dead!”

We are so skeptical that the sin in our lives can never truly be killed or defeated. “We ask, “Is it really dead?” Before Dorothy came to Oz the munchkins were inslaved by the wicked witch of the east. When the house fell on her, – the witch was dead and they were free. When we accept Christ into our life, our sin is dead. We are no longer a slave to it, yet we live in fear of it even after we give our lives to Him.
2. Don’t let your guard down. There is new sin just around the corner.
I love the fact that right after the celebration there appears a new wicked witch. And as Glenda says, “She’s even worse than the other one”. We can never let our guard down against evil and sin. We are to be prepared for battle each and every day.
3. Rest in God and know He can turn the bad into good.
For this point, we will refer to the poppy scene. The beautiful, but poisonous poppies. The wicked witch means these to stop Dorothy. And they do. – But notice how her friends cry out for help. How often when sin is poisoning our friends lives, do we cry out for God to rescue them? -And then comes the snow. It freezes the poppies, Dorothy awakes and is ready to finish the journey.

Now don’t miss this! – She’s rested and more awake then before the poppy incident. What was meant for her defeat, was used to make her stronger. Ladies, when we are going through the rough times. Rest in God. He will rescue us and make us stronger in the end!