This podcast covers Lesson 1 of The God-Dependent Woman Bible Study.
Confidence in God Encourages Dependence on Him
Praise God for His comfort
- Paul describes God as “the Father of compassion” (v. 3) and “the God of all comfort,” the one to whom we should go first in our troubles. Compassion means to not just feel sympathy for someone’s pain but to do something to alleviate it. To comfort means “to give strength, to console, and to aid.” That’s what God does for us. He gives us strength to sustain us through the pain of life on earth.
- The most wonderful thing is knowing that our Lord Jesus Christ experienced this fallen world just like we do. He totally understands every suffering you and I experience. Because He was 100% human as well as 100% God, He knows exactly how to comfort us and sustain us through our pain.
- Most of the time God uses His Word to comfort us. You know how some verses just jump out at you when you are needing comfort.
- God comforts us through people He sends our way. Many people have stories of how God sent someone to them to give comfort during a time of grief.
- God comforts us through the prayers of other believers. Our prayers don’t change God’s purposes for us (Philippians 2:13). But, knowing that others are praying for us gives us strength to endure the pain. When they hear how God has answered their prayer, they receive God’s comfort as well. It’s partnership with God to desire His purposes to be fulfilled. And, God answers our prayers out of His graciousness. 2 Corinthians 1:10-11
- God comforts us through unexpected events.
- God comforts us from the inside through His Holy Spirit who pours out God’s love on us. We can have confidence in His presence with us. We never go through pain alone.
God’s comfort does not always mean deliverance from pain.
- God wants for us women to be God-dependent women. The key to being a God-dependent woman is what can be described as dependent living. It’s relying on His power to get us through all of life—whether we are strong and everything is going well or whether we are in pain and weakness and in dire need of relief. Whatever God brings into our lives that makes us more dependent upon Him is good for us. That’s how we learn dependent living.
- But, the world and even other Christians will try to tell us that God doesn’t want you to suffer and that we have been delivered from all suffering by our benevolent God. If you are suffering, you must have done something wrong so that God is disciplining you. Get right with God, and all your troubles will go away.
- That is not biblical! You see it throughout the book of Acts. You see it throughout all of Paul’s letters. You see it throughout the other New Testament writings. God allows His children to undergo very hard things. The purpose is to teach us to trust Him with all of us, not just bits of us.
- So, every week, I am going to evaluate a popular saying that especially floats around on social media.
Does God not give you more than you can handle?
True or False? “God doesn’t give you more than you can handle.” FALSE
“We do not want you to be uninformed, brothers and sisters, about the troubles we experienced in the province of Asia. We were under great pressure, far beyond our ability to endure, so that we despaired of life itself. Indeed, we felt we had received the sentence of death. But this happened that we might not rely on ourselves but on God, who raises the dead.” (2 Corinthians 1:8-9).
God gives everyone—you and me and your neighbor—more than they can handle on their own in order to drive us to Him. To rely on Him. To gain the confidence in Him so that we will depend on Him more. Life is hard, but God is good. Don’t panic! Trust in the one who has the power to raise the dead.
Reasons why God wants us to depend on Him more than on ourselves
In every podcast, we’ll also cover some reasons from our lesson why God wants us to depend on Him more than on ourselves. From lesson one, we get these reasons.
- We receive comfort from God for ourselves and to comfort others. (1:4)
- He’s more powerful than we are. (1:9)
- We can set our hope on Him to continue to deliver us. (1:10)
- God answers our prayers out of His graciousness. (1:11)
Let Jesus satisfy your heart with confidence that you can depend on Him. Then, live each day as a God-dependent woman!
Buy The God-Dependent Woman Bible Study at Amazon.