Hello Ladies and welcome back to our online bible study, we’re on the second week of Get a Life by Vicki Courtney. A special welcome also goes out to any new comers to the study. Please dig right in and get comfortable!
This week we studied about finding our Prince Charming and that lovely myth that a man will make us happy. ** Remember, no husband bashing allowed.** While it would be easy for me to go into many directions with the last two sentences, and while each of us has a different story to tell, the bottom line is that there is no perfect man. There is only our perfect God. He is the only one that truly completes us and loves us unconditionally. He does this with the fullness of His Son. This week we learned about His perfect love that casts out our fear, so do not be afraid to love Him. He said that He will love us perfectly, completely, and without error. Did you hear that? Without error, he did not make a mistake when He chose to love us and He will not change His mind about it tomorrow. He loves us for eternity.
This week we studied about finding our Prince Charming and that lovely myth that a man will make us happy. ** Remember, no husband bashing allowed.** While it would be easy for me to go into many directions with the last two sentences, and while each of us has a different story to tell, the bottom line is that there is no perfect man. There is only our perfect God. He is the only one that truly completes us and loves us unconditionally. He does this with the fullness of His Son. This week we learned about His perfect love that casts out our fear, so do not be afraid to love Him. He said that He will love us perfectly, completely, and without error. Did you hear that? Without error, he did not make a mistake when He chose to love us and He will not change His mind about it tomorrow. He loves us for eternity.
This week’s challenge:
Memorize 1 John 3:16 “This is how we know what love is: Jesus Christ laid down His life for us.”
This week try to view Jesus as your Prince Charming. How does that change how you view your time with Him? Remember back when you first started dating your husband. Remember how excited you were each time you saw him. How you treasured each moment together. Remember how you would read and re-read the letters he wrote to you. Try and approach your time with Jesus this week with the same kind of excitement and enthusiasm.
For Next Week
• Read Week Three in the workbook
Group Discussion- Answer one question or as many as you like
1. What was your favorite fairy tale from childhood with a prince and a “happily ever after” ending? What qualities did you admire in the prince?
2. What is your all time favorite romantic scene in a movie?
3. In what ways has the world sent us a message that a man will complete us? Did you buy into it?
4. Have you found Prince Charming? If so, who is it?
5. Which verse meant the most to you on page 29 and why?
6. Share a favorite moment from this week’s study.
5. Which verse meant the most to you on page 29 and why?
6. Share a favorite moment from this week’s study.
I just love almost all of the Disney movies, my favorite being Sleeping Beauty. She is my princess. ( are your eyes rolling?) This story had a Prince Charming who was willing to fight for her life to rescue her from evil at the risk of his own life. Could there be a greater show of love? Come on, no one else's prince faught as hard as Sleeping Beauty's did!
ReplyDeleteI loved the example's in the book this week for romantic movies, Tom Cruise was great when he said "You complete me" and Titanic, well that is the ultimate sacrifice. It is too hard to pick a scene, I am a softy and love chic flics.
I love the verse on page 29, Romans 8:37-39, because it is a promise that nothing can seperate me from God and His love. In the world we live in where things change all of the time, and where people just stop loving each other for no reason at all I find this promise to be one of hope.
Prince Charming?
Jerry is my Prince Charming and a gift from God. For all of his great attributes he cannot love me unconditionally and I have found that he cannot complete me if I am not complete in Christ. God said He completes me with the fullness of Jesus. He fills in all those issues and the baggage that I carry on a daily basis so that I can be free to accept the Prince Charming in my life through His love and through His eyes.
I loved Cinderella. She had a mean stepmother and had to do all the chores for her stepsisters. But in the end, she was the lovely one who won the heart of her Prince Charming.
ReplyDeleteMy favorite scene in a movie is in Tyler Perry's Madea's Family Reunion. Lisa is being forced to marry the man that bullies and beats up on her, while her sister is scared to love because of what she endured as a child. This wonderful man comes into her life and they make God the center of their lives together.
My own mother believed that we had to have a man to complete us, and it didn't really matter if he was a good man or not once you were married to him. If he cheated on you, at least he left you alone some, was her thought.
I never bought into it. I feel that it is good for a young woman to spend time on her own before she gets married, to see if she likes living with herself. It's a time for introspection.
Well, the world starts us out early telling us that we have to have a man to complete us. It starts with the princess movies, the "Happlily Ever After" stories. I did buy into it. This is one of the weaknesses that I had with my lack of confidence. As a teenager I would do anything for attention from the opposite sex. This is one of the things that led me back to work with our youth. I don't want these girls to "buy into it". I want them to know that they only need One Man to complete them, Jesus. That's the only relationship they should focus on.
ReplyDeleteEven I got a reality check during this study answering the question about living without Jeff. Although Jeff is my prince charming, my completness comes from My God. I really don't know what my life would be like without Jeff in it BUT the one thing I know for sure is that if he were to leave my life tomorrow, no matter if it's by death or whatever, the One constant remains.....Jesus. We as women need to remember that ALWAYS! And if we don't have that type of relationship with Jesus, we need to get it NOW.
PS.....I pray that Jeff doesn't leave my life tomorrow....I was just using that as an example. Just sayin' :)
The verse that meant the most to me on page 29 is: I John 3:1 "See how very much our Father loves us, for He calls us His children, and that is what we are! But people who belong to this world don't recognize that we are God's children because they don't know Him."
ReplyDeleteThis meant the most to me because I know how much I love my children, how much they mean to me. They are a precious gift and they bless me every day. How deeply I love them and would give my life for them! And that is exactly how God feels about us! Even more! Wow! I cannot even begin to imagine the magnitude of His love for us.
How tragic that there are still those who resist this phenomenal love of God! How sad it must make God to be rejected that way. I know I would be devastated if my children rejected me.
It gives me such joy and comfort to know that God loves me enough to call me His child. There is no better feeling.
From Traci Winget:
ReplyDeleteLori, that is my favorite verse too! For years I have told my kids "I love you so very much...and even though I don't understand it, God loves you even more than that." How can He love them more than I do? My love is so deep and profound for my kids...yet it pales incomparison to His great love. I would never have the strength to watch either one of my kids disgraced, tortured and killed on cross for such ungrateful humans. Yet God did. As much as I cannot fathom how anyone could love my kids greater than I can...He looks at me, His child, and can tell me that His love is the greatest love. And He didn't have to 'allow me to be called His child' yet He chose me.
My favie fairy tale is Beauty & the Beast - Disney version. My g'ma sent me the movie not too many years ago...@ 40something! I could not identify w/the beauty...but the beast. Have always felt 'less than' & inadequate, and looked for ways to hide that by trying to find love in the wrong places and inappropriate ways. Not too terribly long ago I accepted the fact that Christ loves me w/His complete love and I am His masterpiece.
I made a book mark from a recent Bible study: "I am loved. Jesus knows who I am, and I'm precious to Him. That's all I need."
Sure wish I'd had this in high school and all the way through my 40's. But I have it now and for all eternity. Jesus is my prince charming.
1. To be honest with you, I was never really into the whole fairy tale scene. I am not sure if I was that way from the very beginning, but my parents divorced when I was 7 so I didn't believe in "happily ever after" after that. I think it is possible now, but only with the right guy.
ReplyDelete2. I think it's a toss-up between The Notebook and Bridget Jones' Diary as far all all time romantic scene for me. The Notebook always makes me cry because I want what they have, but B.J.D. makes my heart smile with anticipation that there is a man who will love me that much.
3. I think the lie that a man will complete us started with Barbies. Remember how incomplete your set was until you got a Ken doll to play house with? I don't think I've bought in, but it sure is nice to have someone.
4. Still looking...
5. Romans 8:37-39 was the passage that spoke to me the most. I am always excited when I see it written that there is nothing I can do to mess up God's love and mercy for me. I am human and since I know that I also know that I can mess this relationship up.