Don’t copy the behavior and customs of this world,

but let God transform you into a

NEW person

by changing the way you think.

Then you will learn to know God’s will for you, which is good and pleasing and perfect.”

‭‭Romans‬ ‭12:2‬ ‭NLT‬‬

Happy NEW Year!

There is no better way to start a NEW Year than by believing God wants to do NEW things in your life. Is this biblical? YES! Yesterday we looked at Isaiah 43 and remembered Who God is… Today, we look at who YOU are in this NEW life Jesus has given you, continuing to transform you through HIS infinite grace. This NEW year you can continue to be transformed by Grace Himself through His living word.

Challenge: Take at least 15 minutes today, asking the Lord to give you verses from His Word to transform the way you think. Google verses that relate to the struggles you are facing if you don’t know the scripture references. Write them down, post them where you will see them frequently. Screenshot them on your phone. Commit to thinking on them and praying them over yourself and loved ones.

JESUS is the WORD made flesh. Inviting more of the Word into your life and mind is inviting Him there as well. He loves you so much and wants to continue to transform your heart to know Him more, love Him more, and love others more.

Take it another step! Google free printables for your verses and put them in frames in your home for the NEW year. Ask God to saturate your life, mind, and heart with NEWNESS through His living, active word. Nothing will transform you from the inside out like He can!

Narrow your focus: Select one verse for each of these areas that pertain to your life:

* Your relationship with Jesus

* Your marriage

* Your mothering

* Your home

Post them (in real life surrounding you)

Pray them Speak them Believe them!

“Every word of God proves true. He is a shield to all who come to him for protection.” Proverbs 30:5

I’d love to hear your verses!

Praying for you!

Amy

New Here? See what’s going on below!

New Year Bible Challenge 

I’ll be honest, I get sidetracked in life, how about you, friend? A few years ago, I was tired of spinning on a hamster wheel, feeling like I was making no progress in areas of my life. I prayed and God told me that this was not the way He desired for me to live. He showed me through His word that I AM His daughter, and that there is a better way. A refocused, narrower way. We can ask God to make our vision clearer for our lives, more effective to know Him better and see Him more clearly right where we are. To have more peace and fulfillment in our relationship with Him, our marriages, our mothering, and our homes. He will flood those areas of our lives with new clarity and breath and life and beauty when we ask Him and meditate on His Word towards those areas in our lives. His Word brings beauty to the most mundane parts of our lives! By the end of January, if you join us, you will be folding laundry, or reading to your children, or having a conversation with a friend, realizing you are standing on Holy Ground with Jesus, doing exactly what He created you to do, communing with Him and doing good work for His glory, right where He has placed you! Join us here at Refocused Bible Study to REFOCUS through His Word!

Study started New Year’s Eve, but jump in anytime!

The Downloadable Study is FREE HERE

You can buy the study here: Buy Refocused

If you can’t buy the study, no worries! Take the Reading/Verse writing challenge for FREE: Refocused Bible Reading/Verse Writing Plan

Join our online group on FB HERE: Facebook GroupCHALLENGE: Monday through Friday, before looking at social media,

1. Engage in God’s Word using the study or reading plan and prayer.
2. Then, comment on this blog, the FB page, or Instagram and answer the question I pose. If you don’t have time to say much, just say, “I did it!” And we will cheer you on! Interact and be held accountable by myself and others to start this year out remembering WHO GOD IS, that YOU ARE HIS DAUGHTER, and the GOOD WORK HE HAS FOR YOU on the road ahead!

As this year ends, and a new one begins,

REMEMBER.

Who God IS “I am the LORD, who opened a way through the waters, making a dry path through the sea. ” Isaiah 43:16 NLT 

Who You ARE

“Because YOU are precious in my eyes, and honored, and I love you.” Isaiah 43:4 NLT

What HE created YOU for

“I will say to the north, give up, and to the south, Do not withhold; bring my sons from afar and my daughters from the end of the earth, everyone who is called by my name, whom I created for MY GLORY.” Isaiah 43:6-7

REFLECT

What has God done for you, His daughter, created for His glory, whom He loves this past year? Give him thanks. He is so good. Our faith grows by recognizing how active God really is in our lives. He is always working on our behalf. The Word says that Jesus is always interceding for us in front of the Father. If you have started a relationship with Jesus, he has given you his Holy Spirit who is teaching you, guiding you, and never leaving you. There are things on this side of heaven that He has done for us this past year which we will never know about until we see Him face to face THAT DAY! So even if this year has been your hardest yet, cling to the verse above that says “I Love You.” You are loved by the Creator of the universe, the God who formed you. He has your eternal good in mind at all times.

New Year Bible Challenge 

I’ll be honest, I get sidetracked in life, how about you, friend? A few years ago, I was tired of spinning on a hamster wheel, feeling like I was making no progress in areas of my life. I prayed and God told me that this was not the way He desired for me to live. He showed me through His word that I AM His daughter, and that there is a better way. A refocused, narrower way. We can ask God to make our vision clearer for our lives, more effective to know Him better and see Him more clearly right where we are. To have more peace and fulfillment in our relationship with Him, our marriages, our mothering, and our homes.

He will flood those areas of our lives with new clarity and breath and life and beauty when we ask Him and meditate on His Word towards those areas in our lives. His Word brings beauty to the most mundane parts of our lives! By the end of January, if you join us, you will be folding laundry, or reading to your children, or having a conversation with a friend, realizing you are standing on Holy Ground with Jesus, doing exactly what He created you to do, communing with Him and doing good work for His glory, right where He has placed you!

Join us here at Refocused Bible Study to REFOCUS through His Word! Starting today, New Year’s Eve!

The Downloadable Study is FREE HERE

You can buy the study here: Buy Refocused Bible Study

FB HERE: Facebook Group

Challenge: before looking at social media:

1. Engage in God’s Word using the study, your Bible, and prayer.
2. Then, comment on this blog, the FB page, or Instagram and answer the question I pose. If you don’t have time to say much, just say, “I did it!” And we will cheer you on! Interact and be held accountable by myself and others to start this year out remembering WHO GOD IS, that YOU ARE HIS DAUGHTER, and the GOOD WORK HE HAS FOR YOU on the road ahead!

Praying for you!

Amy

The rush of Christmas is upon us. I just wrapped twelve presents (with the help of my two daughters) and it took us at least an hour. (Because you know when your wrapping area gets so messy, no one can find where they just set the tape? or the scissors, etc?) That is us. Soon we will gather with extended family.  We  we will take these twelve presents, play with cousins, eat an obscene amount of barbecue and hash (because we are in the south and it’s our little family tradition), and then we will head back home for our next big Christmas get together occurring Christmas Eve.

I host that get together so there will be food to be bought, a house to clean,( and then clean again afterwards), and a cake to bake. After we bake and ice the cake, we will set the sole survivor of a ceramic nativity set my kids used to play with when they were little on the center of the cake and place candles around it. Then we will sing “Happy Birthday” to Jesus, blow out the candles, and head to church like we do every year.

The next part of the season is my favorite: the exhale on Christmas Eve when the house is once again put back together, the kids are peacefully sleeping, and the anticipation of the coming morning rests on us like a happy cloud. Our hearts are centered on what we are celebrating, and we know that if it were just Him – He would have been enough.

But Jesus didn’t stop at just giving us Himself.

He gave us each other.

He gave us heaven with no more slaying of animals.

He gave us teaching our daughters they can talk to God anytime they want, like He’s their best friend, because Jesus came.

He gave us so much, it’s hard to take it all in.

As we take it all in over the next few days, let’s let out praise.

Mary did this when she found out she was the one chosen to carry the Messiah in her womb.

Mary’s Song of Praise: The Magnificat

“And Mary said, “My soul magnifies the Lord, and my spirit rejoices in God my Savior, for he has looked on the humble estate of his servant. For behold, from now on all generations will call me blessed; for he who is mighty has done great things for me, and holy is his name. And his mercy is for those who fear him from generation to generation. He has shown strength with his arm; he has scattered the proud in the thoughts of their hearts; he has brought down the mighty from their thrones and exalted those of humble estate; he has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent away empty. He has helped his servant Israel, in remembrance of his mercy, as he spoke to our fathers, to Abraham and to his offspring forever.””

Luke 1:46-55 ESV

May our souls Magnify Him this Christmas.

May our spirits truly rejoice in Him and Him alone.

In remembering all He has done, and in anticipation of all He has promised to do.

When God fulfilled what the angel had told Mary, and she held Jesus in her arms, she treasured the miracle that was happening right before her eyes.

“But Mary treasured up all these things, pondering them in her heart.” Luke 2:19

Treasure the miracle of Jesus with us, friends. Ponder it in your hearts. How compassionate a Savior to walk in our shoes, to live in a body like ours, to weep with us, and then to suffer the death and shed the blood that was required for us to live with Him forever.

In every get together, in every present unwrapped, in every piece of wrapping paper picked up from a messy living room floor, in every dish you prepare and wash, ponder in your heart what a LOVE this must be for us to be celebrating over two thousand years later.

My Refocused Bible Study Friends: New Year’s is coming in just a few weeks!  A new year is upon us!  It’s the perfect time to

REMEMBER WHAT GOD HAS DONE

AND REFOCUS ON THE PERFECTER OF OUR FAITH!

Redeem New Year’s resolutions by fixing your eyes on Jesus with us for the road ahead.

“I have glorified my name, and I will do it again.” John 12:28

Many of us have seen God do amazing things in the past that brought glory to Him through our lives. We just want to see Him do it again in the year to come! Our desire is to bring God glory for everything He’s done in the past year, and ask Him to bless and help us be faithful in all we do in the year ahead, refocusing on what matters most: our relationship with Him, our marriages, our mothering, and our homes.

Happy ANNOUNCEMENT: I have created a series of emails to walk you through Refocused Bible Study starting December 31st! It’s all FREE! 1) Just click below and and put your email in to download the study. {And Send the link to friends!!!}

2) Print the study

3) Starting December 31st you will receive an email for each day of the 21 study! Sign up for a FREE Printable copy of Refocused Bible Study and Email Course>>> HERE <<<

If you want to buy a hard copy of Refocused Bible Study, it’s Here:

Refocused Bible Study

Let’s do this, girlfriend!

Praying for you, Amy Terry

“This happened so the power of God could be seen in him.” John 9:3

We all have it.  That one thorn in our side, that one impossible character flaw, that one health issue that threatens to steal our joy.  And we have probably all asked God the question:

WHY?

Why do I have to deal with this?  My life would be so much easier if God would just heal it, take away the struggle, change me.  We pray and plead and believe.

And sometimes he decides to heal us.

“6Then he spit on the ground, made mud with the saliva, and spread the mud over the blind man’s eyes. 7He told him, “Go wash yourself in the pool of Siloam” (Siloam means “sent”). So the man went and washed and came back seeing!” John 9:6-7

But other times, in his sovereign goodness, he decides to withhold the healing, to let us keep the weakness, the struggle.  He did this when Paul pleaded with him to take away  his struggle.  But, he also gave Paul a reason why he decided not to heal him.  It is the same reason, the same purpose of our struggles today.

WHY?

“”8Three different times I begged the Lord to take it away. 9Each time he said, “My grace is all you need. My power works best in weakness.” So now I am glad to boast about my weaknesses, so that the power of Christ can work through me. 10That’s why I take pleasure in my weaknesses, and in the insults, hardships, persecutions, and troubles that I suffer for Christ. For when I am weak, then I am strong.””  2 Corinthians 12:8-10

So that the power of God can be seen through you.  If life was always easy peasy, would we need his power?  No, instead we would be self-sufficent and bee bop through our days in our own strength and energy.

When we let Jesus meet us in our weaknesses, our blindness, our short-sightedness, he shows up, and he shows off.  He shows that he is powerful.  He shows that we can rely on him.  He shows that he is merciful when we fail him.  But most importantly, he shows you and others the power of a very alive and helpful God.

Rely on him and you will be falling at his feet saying what the blind man said in John chapter 9:

“Yes, Lord, I believe!” the man said. And he worshiped Jesus. John 9:38

Walk with Life Himself today!

I made a very short video out in the sunshine today to go with chapter 9 below:

Share

Look at the birds. They don’t plant or harvest or store food in barns, for your heavenly Father feeds them. And aren’t you far more valuable to him than they are? Matthew 6:26

“Me and Grandma’s just sitting around together, going out in the sunshine, listening to the birds. We just have to trust the good Lord, he’s in control and He’ll take care of us.” Papa’s voice had a gentle trust only decades of walking with God can create.

He’s not scared. He’s steady.

Just think of all the things he’s lived through. All the intersections of faith he’s stood with Jesus at, choosing to keep holding his hand and walking along, not sure of all the details, but sure of the decisionto turn worry into trust. 
 I think the sound of his voice when he’s said, “Just listening to the birds,” said it ALL.

It said I know I’m a child of God, though he’s in his late eighties. 

It said, I know the nature of my Abba. I’ll sit still in this storm, taking in the beauty of nature He created. 

Should he be worried? 

Should we be worried? 

The President said this week we will see many deaths. It’s going to be a hard week for our nation.

Oh, the irony.
This is Holy week.
The week.
The week our Savior rode in to Jerusalem as honored King, knowing it would be the week of his death.

But in the face of death, Jesus’ trust in His Father did not falter.

He knew it had to be the week of death, to be the week of RESURRECTION.

This week, let your Father resurrect faith that’s been fallow.
Fallow: Inactive, nothing seems like it’s happening.

Join me in praying and asking Him now to help us really walk with Him as a dearly loved daughter this week. Let’s ask Him to help us die to our grown up, worrying selves, and live with a childlike faith, like my grandfather, all the way up to our eighties. What we are walking through with Him in this pandemic is going to give us the tone of trust our grandchildren will hear. 

This tone of trust can only come from walking with Our Heavenly Father as a child; for us, as a Dearly Loved Daughter. 

Turn worry into trust this week. 

Everytime your mind wanders to worry, 

Say OUT LOUD, I trust you, Father. 

The sooner we say it aloud, the sooner our tone will take on trust. The fallow faith in us will become fertile and fruit will grow where land has been barren. What a harvest this Easter week will bring, just by trusting our Father in the face of fear. 

The empty tomb gives us all the faith we need to say, I trust you, Father! 

Dear Daughter, 

Behold the birds this week. Feel the warmth of the sun on your face. As you do, tell me every worry, and I’ll help you trust me. 

Behold Jesus, my Beloved Son, this week. I gave Him because I Love You, Daughter. Walk like a Daughter with me this week. 

Your tone will be trust and your testimony will be timeless. 

Love,
Your Father.

💗✨Walk Like a Dearly Loved Daughter this week! To sign up and join my Monday Devotion Tribe, Click HERE: https://mailchi.mp/860bc28771fb/deardaughterdevotions ✨💗