COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. (BP)–Everyone in the room took a deep breath.
“When God exhales, we all want to inhale deeply,” Beth Moore told 8,000 women in the Colorado Springs World Arena. “If God is going to be breathing, we want to take it all in.”
With that, the author and Bible teacher from Houston welcomed women to the Living Proof … Live event in Colorado Springs, Colo., May 14-15, an event sponsored by LifeWay Christian Resources of the Southern Baptist Convention. On day two of the event, participants were joined by satellite with 35,000 other women in 165 locations around the country.
Moore told the group that no one was there by accident.
“I want you to know that the person sitting next to you doesn’t have it together any more than you do,” she said. “Don’t think that you don’t belong here. You do. God has wooed you here. You are not just attending a conference. You are in a holy sanctuary.”
Throughout three sessions, Moore led a study of Deuteronomy 4. The passages relate to the children of Israel as slaves in Egypt, as wanderers in the wilderness and as free people in Canaan.
Moore compared the Egypt period to the time a Christian spends enslaved by sin. Sins are addictions, she said, and these addictions can take any form — rage, sex, unforgiveness, bitterness and mind-altering substances.
“We all have our addictions,” she said. “We just don’t all have the same addictions. Sin is like a drug. We keep upping our doses, craving more to get the same feeling.”
Moore said when God repeats Himself, He means business.
“He says over and over, ‘Remember, you were slaves in Egypt.’ He wants us to remember that we were slaves in our addictions and sins. That was the place of our oppression,” she said.
Some Christians choose to live in the place of oppression because it’s not all bad, she said. In fact, it can be comfortable.
“We don’t like to have to change our behavior,” Moore said. “But the purpose of God’s discipline is changed behavior. He’s never out to just make us feel bad. God only causes or allows the consequence of sin, and His discipline when it can change us.”
Moore said, “We start dying when we stop changing. If you’re still drawing breath, there are still areas where God wants to change you and draw you nearer.”
Between enslavement in Egypt and freedom in Canaan, the children of Israel spent time in the void of wilderness, Moore said.
“God loves us too much to let us stay where we are,” Moore said. “God will ‘pester’ us to death to move on.”
Moore told the women that staying connected to God through the Bible is crucial as they leave their wilderness.
“The reason these conferences end on Saturday is because all of us go back and serve our churches on Sunday. But let me tell you — and make no mistake — we cannot live on just the Word of God we get from our worship services. We need more of the Word than that.”
As a relationship with Christ grows, Christians move from the wilderness to freedom, “becoming extremely effective in what God has asked you to do,” Moore said.
Joining Moore’s Bible study by satellite were women from several denominations and affiliations, including Baptists, Bible and Fellowship churches, Methodists, Presbyterians, Assemblies of God and a group from the International Mission Board’s Missionary Learning Center.
Moore will speak at six more Living Proof … Live events in 2004. She will also speak at two LifeWay Christian Women’s Conventions this year, July 8-10 in San Diego and Dec. 2-4 in San Antonio. For more information about the events, visit to www.lifeway.com/women.
–30–
(BP) photo posted in the BP Photo Library at http://www.bpnews.net. Photo title: POINTING TOWARD CANAAN.
