9.12.18 Recap

Good Morning Sisters!

”If this doesn’t light a fire in you, your wood is wet.”  LOVE LOVE LOVE!!! This statement captures the night perfectly! Karen’s message was right on time! What a gifted teacher she is! The Holy Spirit was spoke so clearly through her and her words pierced our hearts with God’s deep love and grace. I took four pages of notes! The stories, the movie clip, the teaching...it was WONDERFUL!  LOVED the Monsters, Inc. movie clip illustrating how we are to face our monsters with no fear. I have included her notes below. We were SO very blessed to have a beautiful new lady join us. Taryn is a friend of Karen’s from church and is a nurse. She lives in Cary has an 11 year daughter and an 8 year old son. For those of you who could not be with us please know that we covered you and your families with an abundance of grace, love and prayer.

Below are a just a few nuggets of truth that I gleaned from last night:

* We need to trust God like we do the brakes on our car...we don’t think twice about it.”

* Your story matters. It is a gift from God to us to give us the strength we need.

*God does not take a blind eye to your broken heart.

*God speaks to you through His word. What is it that YOU want God to do. Do you trust Him to do it”?

*Get out of the boat!  Walk through the storm with God. He will take you to the other side.

*Don’t let fear be your enemy.

*Pray with authority.

*Satan has no bullets. He has no power over you.

*Invite your friends to study. They need to learn their identity in Christ. They need to get out of the boat too!

*Having the Holy Spirit is like a power tool in the life of a believer.

*The Word is your cloak of Peace. The word protects you from the flaming arrows.

*What is your battle plan? Your armor is the Word of God.

After Karen’s teaching we said our affirmations and prayed. I know there are a lot of folks needing prayer right now. We stormed Heaven last night for you! THANK YOU for your prayers for sweet Lily Rutledge and for Tracey and her family.

We took our authority in Christ over Hurricane Florence and positioned ourselves securely in God’s Peace. Philemon 1:6 tells us that “our faith is effective when we acknowledge everything good.” Romans 16:20 says “The God of Peace crushed the enemy under our feet.”Ephesians 1:21 says “Our Lord Jesus is far above all principality, dominion, power and might and EVERY name that is named.” That name includes Florence. As believers we are God’s light in this world and when the world panics we remain at REST. Our Lord Jesus is far greater than any storm! We trust in Him!  He has already delivered us! We fight FROM victory, not for it!

Next week we will continue our study on Peace with Chapter 11 entitled “Above all Else Guard your Heart.”

GREAT NEWS!!!  Website is only a few days from being ready to launch!  It looks GREAT!!! SO excited for you to see it! PLEASE send in your JESUS STORY if you have not done so. Your Story Matters!!!

MARK YOUR CALENDARS…

EVENTS COMING UP:

Wed. Oct. 10th

Bill and Cathy Alsop will be here. Bill has been with us several times and is such a powerful man of God. He has been in ministry for over 35 years teaching about the Holy Spirit, the gifts of the Spirit, spiritual warfare and the power of grace-grace. Bill has ministered in tent meetings, churches, conferences, and home groups throughout the years and we are so thankful and blessed to have he and his lovely wife Cathy with us in October.

Fri. Oct. 26th “A Night of Celebration” to launch our website and celebrate ALL that Jesus is doing through this ministry. We also want to offer people an opportunity to lock arms with us as a Partner of Hope. Monthly financial partnership is important as it helps us to teach God’s truth, heal hearts and bring hope to broken lives.

Event will be held at a beautiful model home in North Ridge Country Club (compliments of Wendy & David Schenck) from 7-00-10:00.  Event planners and coordinators: Wendy Schenck, Jen Ward and Tracey Margosian.

Evites coming soon!

I love you sisters!!! Covering you and your families with Psalm 91. May His overwhelming peace flood over your whole being and may His very presence be your strength.

Love,Sherry:-)

Karen’s notes:

@chasingsacred is a young woman I follow on Instagram and yesterday she said this.  ... "your God given influence is right where you are with the people you are with". That's similar to what I always say... bloom where you are planted and that's what I'm trying to doing tonight, I'm blooming where I am planted. You see I have been rooted here in this study. I have come faithfully each week and sat under the incredibly encouraging teaching of Sherry.

Sherry is an encourager. Did you know there is actually a spiritual gift of exhortation? To exhort means to emphatically encourage someone to do something. And Sherry has encouraged us not only to do, but to be.

In this day and age where it's always go go go hustle and bustle you have to do this and do that, but Sherry has taught us that scripture says how we can truly BE and to just relax and rest in the rhythms of God's grace.

Note that exhortation can sometimes be about direction you should take or a warning of things to come and what you must do to prepare. And tonight I feel that the Lord is not only calling out to you, but strongly urging you, lay down your fears, and come to Him. There is work that He wants you to do and He is trying to prepare you for it. Be open to receive what the Holy Spirit has for you tonight.

Sherry has taught us relentlessly about our heritage and of our inheritance. For those of you who were not here during Bills first visit he told the story of a man who lived in the woods in shabby clothes right next door to a mansion. One day he gathered the courage to knock on the door. The butler opened the door and the man with shabby clothes said please tell me whose home this is, it is so magnificent and beautiful. To his surprise the man said his name! That mansion was his, but he never knew it so was not able to take advantage of the warmth inside and the blessings that awaited him until that day when he recognized that it belonged to him.

When you are unclear on your identity this is how you walk through life as a believer. Much to my surprise, and I say that because I'm just being me, but I know that many of you look up to me, and it's not just because I'm taller than most of you 📷but it is because of how I walk out my faith, the things I share week to week and how you've seen me handle the storms and trials.

I can tell you right now that what you see is what you get. I'm not one to put on airs. I have no time for that. What you've seen is honest to goodness genuine version of me and that is the only version you will see because there is no other.

Did you know that right now I am going through one of the worst storms I have ever been in in my life? There is deep hurt and pain, but I can still stand here and tell you GOD IS FAITHFUL. I'm not worried about it, I'm just not, and because I'm not my response to it has lessened the effect the enemy wanted this occurrence to have on me in the first place. It has not produced the fruit of anxiety and fear that he wanted, but strength and peace and faith that Christ intended us to have because I know He'll take care of it.

I can't change it, fix it, or take it back. There is NOTHING I can do about it. And even if I could why wouldn't I want to hand it off to the one who makes ALL THINGS turn out for good?

You see ladies, I have taken the advice of Sherry and the scriptures she's taught on our God-given identity and now I get it, now I finally understand. You see l understand my identity. It's like the devil be saying...I'm gonna get her with this, and I be like "oh no you didn't!!!" Oh sure he tries stuff but to the level I let him have access and go along with worry and fear and doubt is the level I am affected by his schemes.

In John 10:10 He tells you right there what the enemies plans are! He comes to steal, kill and destroy, but Christ has come that we might have life, and life to the full! So why are we surprised when we get attacked? It's reminds me of the time I prayed very specifically for something and then it happened. Now the funny thing is, I was shocked!! Seriously I was in utter amazement. The Lord looks at me and says, "uh why are you so surprised? Isn't  that what you asked for?"

You see we ask, but are we asking in faith? Are we believing He's gonna do it? Those things he hasn't given you yet, be thankful maybe you were never supposed to have them in the first place.

Do I always respond this Way? Being able to say, well the Lord is going to take care of it? No, no I haven't, but it's in those times where I just have taken the advice of my friend Bill and said "this, this is on you Lord" you take care of it. What? You mean you're not spending hours upon hours each day worrying about it, letting everything else go and becoming ineffective? No, I'm not.

You see God placed truths in His Word  about fear, money, the devil, trials etc cuz He knew we'd need them. That if not prepared we would not only be buffeted by the wind and rain of the storm but that our house would crash because they were built on sand.

Have you ever been at the beach and you're carrying all that stuff you know you always bring to the beach? And you are lumbering along because you've got a lot to carry, and then it happens...you reach the beach and are walking on the sand and then what happens? You slow down to a turtle’s pace!! It's hard to walk in the sand, ah but walking on the solid rock that, that my friends is sooo much easier!

In Hosea 4:6 it says, "My people perish from a lack of knowledge."  

Knowledge of the God of the Bible and the truths in His Word produce peace, confidence, rest, bounty, strength, endurance, perseverance, holiness, fruit, love, grace and so much more! It is the solid rock upon which we stand. He doesn't want to see you striving and straining.

Ladies when Christ was given the keys to the kingdom He made us a copy! This life is a journey. It is a personal walk of faith for each of us who have chosen to follow in the path of Christ. Bill said the other day that he has waited for 30 years for God's timing in a certain thing. You are not alone. It doesn't matter how long you've been a believer or what the situation you've got to trust in God's timing. He does not take a blind eye to what you are going through.

And can I just say DON’T GO IT ALONE, DONT! There are plenty of women in this group who are strong and love the Lord who can and want to be friends with you and support and encourage you. If you are not getting mentored or are not a mentor and would like to be one, please speak to either Sherry or myself afterward.

I've sat down with a few women from this study and they've shared their problems and issues and we talk about it. But I never want our sessions to be just that, talk. Ephesians says we war not against flesh and blood but principalities and powers! We are in a battle sisters so I come up with a battle plan with them, one they can implement and take steps to bring about the desired goal. And so far it's worked very well. We shed the light of Christ on the situation.

You see the light always outshines the darkness. And oh is there darkness in this land. People are hurting and crying out. They are mean to one another, scared and broken! But the things that have been prophesied will come to pass. This is why the Lord is pleading with you tonight and encouraging you and yes, exhorting you to the place He wants you to be. A place of knowing fully who and whose you are so that you are no longer a slave to fear.

I want to tell you about something the Lord told me almost 2 years ago. He said to me, "I want the women to understand the baptism of the Holy Spirit. They are going to need it for what is coming."

I want to explain to you that the baptism of the Holy Spirit doesn't make you any better than anyone else it just makes you better than you were. It's like the example my friend Neil gives...a carpenter is building a house, sure he can do it with a hammer and nails but it would be done faster if you had an automatic nail gun. So you could think of the HS like a power tool in the life of a believer. Again it doesn't make you any better than anyone else, it makes you better than you were.

You see the Lord is grooming us. He is preparing us for the next stages of our day to day lives and our involvement in His work and our part in this ministry.

I don't have all the answers I don't know all the why's I just know if He says it, He'll do it. Our job is to just be patient and wait.

Acts 1:4-8 says,

"We are commanded to wait for the promise

We shall receive power

We will be witnesses"

I know that some of you are seeking the baptism but may be afraid or disappointed that it hasn't happened yet, but know that if Christ promised it, it is yours in His timing.

I was speaking to a friend recently and we were discussing faith in God and how some things come easy for us to believe in yet other times it's so difficult. The Lord had given me the example in the past that I am to trust Him like I trust the brakes in my car! I don't even think twice about that. I press on them, they slow me down and stop me it never enter’s my mind that they may not work!  This is how we are to trust our Father. We can take Him at His Word.

Numbers 23:19,

“God is not a man, that He should lie,

Nor a son of man, that He should repent.

Has He said, and will He not do?

Or has He spoken, and will He not make it good?”

So I ask you...what is that thing that you have been asking Him for?  What is it that you want Him to do? Do you trust Him? You can. He IS faithful.

In Matthew 14:22-33 we read the story of where Peter walks on the water. Jesus tells him to get out of the boat. Surely the boat was a place of safety during that storm that had arisen on the lake, yet Jesus tells us to get out of the boat and come. So what is your response to this? I say we need to get out of the boat. We need to stop letting fear be our leader and our guide. Stop listening to the wind of the storm. Stop watching the waves of chaos around you.

I can tell you right now that wherever you are with Him, you are safe. There are many women right here in this study who have come safely through the storm.

Satan exercises power but has no legitimate authority Satan may be holding a gun to you but he doesn’t have any bullets, and my knowledge of Christ and His Word tell me I’ve got the bullets!!

Doubt, it happens. I know because I still have them at times. For those of you who have been here for a while know I've been coming for the past 3 years. I was alone, drowning and broken when I walked in here and from the moment I walked in I was welcomed, told I was beautiful, was armed with truth about my real identity and I have never looked back! Still doubting? Let me ask you, have you ever gone mountain climbing? They are massive structures reaching high into the sky and yet God breathed and they came into being. Do you think for a second He’s not gonna take care of you?

These words of truth from scripture should light a fire under you, and if it doesn’t Your woods wet!!

Stop being selfish. You depressed about your situation? Give your time to someone else. Ask them how they are doing. Take the focus off of you. We are here to walk with each other and lift each other up, let's do it!!

How do you pray to get answers? Pray with authority. Pray using the Word of God as your guide.  "Lord, may your kingdom come and your will be done in __________life.” Fill in the blank with the person you are praying for and watch what God will do!

So tonight, the Holy Spirit says to you, take my hand, get out of the boat and be afraid no longer. Walk in the power and authority you have as daughters of the king! Renew your mind by staying in the Word. Be ready in season and out of season.

Love,

Sherry :-) Copyright © 2018 Sherry Braswell Ministries, All rights reserved.