Promote His Kingdom

Hello from the Advanced EXCEL practicum! My time at home has been busy but full of lessons and blessings from God. Through each assignment, day, and week, the Lord has shown Himself to me in a richer and deeper way.

As I started my discipleship class teaching Spiritual Disciplines, God began to teach me and grow me spiritually. The Lord is using my discipleship classes with the girls at my church to grow me in my relationship with Him. It has been a joy to see His blessings overflow from each class that I teach.

In my first class that I taught, we learned that it is important to discipline ourselves for the purpose of Godliness. Searching God’s Word, each girl read right and wrong motives that they found. We learned that one wrong motive is promoting ourselves rather than God’s Kingdom.

The Lord showed me that I needed to improve in this area of my life. As I went to work during the week, God keep asking me, “ Is this action or service promoting My Kingdom or yourself? ” Each word I said and action I did was echoed by God’s question. I could not resist the Holy Spirit’s conviction, and so I committed my works to promote His Kingdom. As I decided to promote the Lord, God granted me joy as I served in each situation. It was a joy of serving the Lord with my whole heart, motives and actions.

Each one of my discipleship classes opened up areas of learning that God had before me. Therefore, I anticipate my future classes, as I look forward to see what else God will have for me to learn. I encourage you to see if your thoughts, what you say, and what do ultimately promote God’s Kingdom or yourself. You might be surprised at what you find.

In Christ,

Melissa Feeny

God’s Mold for me

God has really been using my Discipleship lessons in order to “break” me. My most recent lesson covered the topic of worship. Before my class, I purposed to organize and to layout the lesson in a way that we could experience worship. Even though we all worked through a meditation activity and sang a truly worshipful song, the lesson felt somewhat “dead.” Maybe everyone was just tired, or perhaps my lesson plan was extremely monotonous. I couldn’t put my finger on it. When the lesson was over, I felt like a total failure. I began to believe the lies that Satan put into my mind: “I can’t really teach,” and “I don’t think that anyone is getting anything worthwhile out of these lessons; my classes are not doing any good!”

After the lesson, God told me that I needed to spend some time with Him. During my date with God, I told Him all of my frustrations and concerns. As I poured out my heart to Him, God reminded me that in order for Him to make me into something useful, He needed to break me. He needed to break me of my pride, my sinfulness, and my selfish thoughts. These discipleship lessons are just a part of God’s plan to mold me and to make me into what I ought to be. Even if no one else learned anything from the lesson, I certainly did. God taught me a great deal. He revealed to me that the purpose of these struggles is not to cause me to lose hope or to despair over my imperfectness. Instead, I need to realize that God wants to break me so that He can form me into the mold that He has picked out for me.