Our Guest: Sandra Tracy
Sandra Tracy believes, lives, and teaches others to apply the Word of God in their lives. Sandra has a passion to help people walk in the freedom and fullness of Christ. She worked for the state of Arkansas in numerous capacities for 26 years, including as the assistant to the colonel of the Arkansas State Police. She is now a lead pastor with her husband, John, at Life Church in Little Rock, where they have been for 27 years. Her love for people is evident and contagious. Sandra and John have a married son, a daughter-in-law and a granddaughter.
Key Thoughts and Scriptures:
James 1:22-25 NIV Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says. Anyone who listens to the word but does not do what it says is like someone who looks at his face in a mirror and, after looking at himself, goes away and immediately forgets what he looks like. But whoever looks intently into the perfect law that gives freedom, and continues in it—not forgetting what they have heard, but doing it—they will be blessed in what they do.
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- Sandra grew up in a home where it was natural to be surrounded by prayer and scripture.
- Seeing a young person have such zeal for the Lord created a desire in Sandra to commit to Christ too.
- “So basically we were winging it by faith and actually God was there with us through it.”
- “God, we’ve been teaching this, preaching this, believing you and now here we’re at a moment of ‘God, are you going to answer our prayer?’”
Their son’s health crisis was a stretch of Sandra’s and her family’s faith, but God was faithful in the midst of it all.
- God doesn’t only work inside the church walls.
- People around Sandra saw how she responded to such a tragic situation. God used the situation to draw people.
- For those that were not professing Christians it brought a realization that tragedy can happen to anyone and it’s really how one responds through that.
1 Peter 3:15 NIV But in your hearts revere Christ as Lord. Always be prepared to give an answer to everyone who asks you to give the reason for the hope that you have. But do this with gentleness and respect.
- A struggle of faith and fear became very real to Sandra and she started battling depression.
- Sometimes we tend to go to church and just do it out of routine. It becomes the norm, not a freshness, not a relationship, but just a duty.
- When Sandra needed that encounter with the Lord that would bring her out of that pit, she went to the Word.
“Life is going well, but something’s deeply broken in me emotionally.”
- Sandra went on a quest to seek God for answers.
2 Timothy 1:7 NKJV For God has not given us a spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.
- “What I’ve learned on Sunday, am I living it on Monday?”
- Has God’s Word become real and alive to you?
- Do we really believe that Jesus is the answer?
2 Timothy 3:16-17 NIV All Scripture is God-breathed and is useful for teaching, rebuking, correcting and training in righteousness, so that the servant of God may be thoroughly equipped for every good work.
Psalm 139:13 NIV For you created my inmost being; you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
1 John 4:18 NIV There is no fear in love. But perfect love drives out fear…
- “I need a whole truckload of perfect love.”
1 Corinthians 13 NIV …Love is patient, love is kind…
Romans 8:15 NIV The Spirit you received does not make you slaves, so that you live in fear again; rather, the Spirit you received brought about your adoption to sonship. And by him we cry, “Abba, Father.
- Our Bible is our instruction book.
Galatians 5:22-23 NIV But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, forbearance, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self-control. Against such things there is no law.
- God’s Word is simple.
- Be a doer of the Word.
- Sandra needed to live out love towards the people around her.
It’s not our assignment to worry about people, just to love them.
- Loving people who’ve hurt you and wronged you can be very difficult.
- But in all those experiences, God worked really deep truths in Sandra that she’s been able to draw on to help other people.
- When we apply God’s Word, God’s Word works.
- Kairos means the moment in time when everything shifts or changes.
- There is a war and the enemy is out to kill, steal, and destroy. (John 10:10 NIV)
- We need to know who we are in Christ.
Hosea 4:6 NKJV My people are destroyed for lack of knowledge…
- We need to have people willing to walk with us and teach us how to walk with God.
- God has given us the authority to do what God’s Word tells us to do.
Matthew 13 NIV The Parable of the Sower
- Working out our faith day by day is critical.
- And Jesus shows us how to do it in fellowship, in small groups.
The Shunammite Woman
- She was full of faith.
- The Shunammite woman created a place for the presence of God in her home. She wanted to host His presence.
- Sometimes we think we need to have a big title or name, but we only need to be who God has called us to be.
Psalm 1 GNT Happy are those who reject the advice of evil people, who do not follow the example of sinners or join those who have no use for God. Instead, they find joy in obeying the Law of the Lord, and they study it day and night. They are like trees that grow beside a stream, that bear fruit at the right time, and whose leaves do not dry up. They succeed in everything they do. But evil people are not like this at all; they are like straw that the wind blows away. Sinners will be condemned by God and kept apart from God’s own people. The righteous are guided and protected by the Lord, but the evil are on the way to their doom.
- Our righteousness is not our own. We’re only righteous when we embrace the saving work of Jesus on the cross.
- We can walk a difficult path if we don’t read and apply God’s word in our lives, letting the Holy Spirit renew our minds through it.
Romans 12:2 NKJV And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
The Word of God is our life source.
- We can’t live a spiritual life, a godly life without the word of God.
Psalm 19:14 NKJV Let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, O Lord, my strength and my Redeemer.
1 John 4:4 NKJV You are of God, little children, and have overcome them, because He who is in you is greater than he who is in the world.
Links:
- Life Church
- East End Assembly of God Church, East End, Arkansas
- Teen Challenge
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