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CBN.com – Recently, Terry Meeuwsen spent time with this dynamic teacher and learned more about the founding and impact of Beth's teaching ministry and Beth's greatest desire for other Christians today.
TERRY MEEUWSEN: You have, as youve traveled around the country, had thousands and thousands and thousands of women come to your conferences. As you meet them, as you talk to them, as you teach them and feel back from them, what are you hearing from the Body of Christ today? What are women speaking to you?
BETH MOORE: One of the things I think theyre attracted to is that I would be a hypocrite not to make clear the kind of sin and stronghold I come from. Its very important to Keith and I. Keith is my sweet man, and we both come from just all sorts of bondage. Talk about just coming into the same house bringing every kind of baggage you can imagine! God performed a miracle with our lives and He brought us healing. I love what Psalm 107 says: 'He sent forth his word and he healed me.' I think that what women need to hear is that there is life after failure. I can tell you one thing: I sure ought not to be in ministry because thats exactly what He did for me. Im alive, pulled out of a pit. Im going to tell you something, and there are people in the Body of Christ who dont even believe this is possible. I was a believer in Jesus Christ while I was wigged out for seasons of my life, in all sorts of self-destructive ways. I just lived in complete defeat. I would cycle in and out of it because you cant stay there. The Word is clear. We cant just continue on with no conviction and no desire to repent. I was miserable in my sin, but I didnt know how to stop the cycle until God began to teach me His Word. The more He put His Word in me, and the more I began to believe what it said, and the more I began to memorize, there was a renewing of the mind. I thought like a defeatist. I thought like a victim. I began to think differently about who I was because Gods Word said I was "this" even though I felt like I was still "that."
TERRY MEEUWSEN: Where did your love and passion for the Word come from? When I go to my Bible bookstore they have what I call 'the Beth Moore wall' (laughs) because you have done so many studies to help people get into the Word of God.
BETH MOORE: You know, Terry, some things are taught, and other things are caught. Im telling you, I caught that one. I was in my mid-20s. Id been asked to teach a Sunday school class of women in their later 20s. I knew there was a position open. Id been urged to do it. I knew I was ill-equipped for it. This was at the point where I knew John 3:16. I would have told you, 'I believe anything thats in here.' I just had no clue what was in it. I just did not know the Word. I didnt even know how to approach it. Being my sanguine self, I would decide what I wanted to talk about in Sunday school and see if I could find a Scripture to back it up. This was my depth. I opened our church bulletin one particular Sunday in my misery because Id just had another terrible Sunday school class, and I knew it was. I had gone to the worship service, I opened the bulletin, and it said that they were going to be starting a Bible doctrine class at our church on Sunday nights. Instinctively, I knew in my heart, 'Child, you need to go.' I knew the Holy Spirit was leading me to do that. Ive got to tell you, I did not want to. If Ive ever done anything that I considered in those early years to have been sacrificial for the name of God, it would have been to make myself go into something that would have bored me to tears, but I absolutely had to learn the Word of God if I was going to teach Sunday school class. So I remember going in and getting a seat and having all my paper and pens out, my Bible out. Picture it with all the gold edges. A man walked to the podium, a former football player. He walked to that podium and his Bible was the biggest mess that I had seen in my life. I thought, Well, look at the state his Bible is in. He threw that thing open and he began to teach. I never turned to a single place that he told us to turn. First of all, I had no idea where it was. Secondly, I was mesmerized. Id never seen anyone with a passion for Gods Word like that. When it was over, Id not taken a single note. Id not touched my pen. I sat and stared at him. As soon as that class ended, I didnt want to talk to a soul. I picked everything up, ran to my car, got in it, shut the door, burst out in tears and said, 'I dont know what that was, but I want it. I want it.'
TERRY MEEUWSEN (reporting): Make no mistake about it. Beth invites, persuades, and encourages anyone within the sound of her Texas drawl to want it, too. Its a fever she says she "caught" that transformed her life. Her students represent the abcs of christiandom Anglicans, Baptists, Charismatics and Jesus lovers of every kind. Her teachings are found on videotape, DVD and the Internet. Her latest work, Believing God, was born out of personal conviction and a passion for more of God.
BETH MOORE: Weve got to know the Word of God. That is our absolute stability. That is our offensive weapon against the kingdom of darkness. But in some parts of the Body of Christ and the part that I was so deeply steeped in that Ive loved so much for so long, we are wielding the sword of the spirit, but were scared of the shield of faith. We dont know how to walk in present and active believing, where our noun of faith becomes our verb of believing. God wants us to believe Him to be huge, even if we dont know what to believe Him for in a particular situation and circumstance. I can believe God to be God, to come and show Himself mighty and merciful in that situation even if I dont really know biblically what Im to ask Him for.
TERRY MEEUWSEN: As a woman of God today, what you would like to see God do through you?
BETH MOORE: I want women to love Jesus! That is what I would give every single thing I have for, every earthly good Ive got. That is the greatest desire of my heart. Every now and then, when well be studying something together in a small group, or in a large group, when I look upon a womans face and I can tell she heard Him, thats everything. I guess I want them to say, 'If they can see it in me, or they can see it in another Bible school teacher, Sunday school teacher, pastor, whomever it may be, if they can see something in them that they wish they had, pray for it. Pray for it. 'He who did not withhold his own son, why would he withhold anything of that much value?' the Word of God says. Pray for it.
TERRY MEEUWSEN: I just want to, on behalf of so many of us whove been blessed by your studies, thank you.
BETH MOORE: Terry, its just been inconceivable. I thank you. Gods good. He can just pull a life out of a pit, cant He?
TERRY MEEUWSEN: Amen, sister. Amen.
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