Are they yellow hibiscuses? Maybe one of you botanically gifted people can tell me. :0)
Y’all, I’m sorry. I had every intention of getting back to blogging this week after the Southern Baptist Convention, but I’m afraid I need another week off.
In case you haven’t heard yet, issue-wise, things almost could not have gone worse. Tom Ascol, Voddie Baucham, and Javier Chavez all lost to other candidates. Rick Warren read a 6-minute ode to himself and his “accomplishments,” and the majority of the room gave him a standing ovation. Practically everything those of us on the doctrinally sound side voted for was defeated, and practically everything we voted against passed. Doctrinally sound Christians at the mics proposing biblical changes were interrupted, reprimanded, cut off, and had their microphones turned off by the leadership on the platform. The liberal contingent in the Convention has made it crystal clear that Christians who stand for fidelity to Scripture aren’t welcome in the SBC. (More on all of this later. I think.)
It was very bad, and to be sure, it was genuine spiritual warfare. Well, you don’t just walk off a battlefield without some injuries. The last several days (in addition to some things going on in my personal life) have left me more spiritually wounded and exhausted than I’ve ever been in my life, and, to be honest, I just don’t have anything to give right now.
I don’t mean to sound dire and dramatic. I just need to spend a little extra time by myself with the Lord this week, and I’ll be fine. Pray for me, if you think about it.
I hope all of you have a wonderful week, and I look forward to being back with you soon.
Michelle Lesley 
Praying for you Michelle.
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I feel you pain! 😦 Felt this way, too. There is a time to grieve then back to the fight. Enjoy the patio, cold glass of tea and relax.
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The parable of the ten virgins seems to come into my mind so frequently and I am sadly aware that five virgins were wise but five were foolish. Half the confessing Christians! So many! Grappling with this truth is so painful because we love the brethren. I check myself, I warn my adult children to stay in the faith. Know the gospel! There are so many wolves. It also appears that the Lord has removed his hand of restraint over evil. We watch and pray.
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Praying for your regeneration of spiritual strength. It is indeed warfare. Rest up,dear soldier of Christ🙏✝️🙏✝️🙏 ✝️
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You most definitely have my prayers sweet Lady! Looking forward to your return when you’re rested and ready.
With much love and admiration for all you do!
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Rest up, dear sister in Christ. May the Lord give you strength to continue on in the battle… I know I am thankful for your ministry and your firm stand on being doctrinally sound. I pray that your faithfulness to our dear Lord and Savior carries you thru these hard days. ❤️
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Michelle, yes prayers for you and your family. After your exhausting time at SBC you need time to yourself.
I too am so broken hearted about the out- come of this SBC. LORD HELP US!
Rest and refresh and may the Lord bring you peace as you read and reflect on His Word
SIC ( sister in Christ)
Marlane
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Rest and rejuvenate! Praying for you.
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Will be lifting you up in prayer.
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Michelle, I am so very sorry to hear that you are hurting and worn slap out. The convention sounds like a complete disaster — and horrifically one-sided with who was allowed to speak and who wasn’t, and no doubt there is much information to still discern and ponder. I am glad you are taking time to step away and rest, both with your blog and in your personal life. I have prayed Psalm 23 for you. Resting in His arms is the best place to be right now.
With many virtual hugs and prayers,
Shannon
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Dearest Michelle,
I’m not going to go into the beating up of the sbc or the demonic influences around Beth Moore and others that are so easily spotted if one is seeking the infallible word of God and has a relationship with our Lord and savior Jesus Christ! I’m not even comfortable with using the word Christian because it’s meaning has become so watered down and distorted just like so many other truths in Gods word.
I am a 66 year old women and somehow by God’s grace I stumbled across your blog a few years back. I am 37 years married and we have a beautiful son and daughter with our first grandchild. Our greatest blessing among many is the beautiful warriors they have become for Christ and Gods truth. Our daughter has the best spiritual leader a family could ask for and our 35 year old single son is a servant of such integrity, wisdom and knowledge that Gods reasons alone is still single.
As you will note upon reading I am not a writer and ask forgiveness that you are able to decipher the true meaning of the words I have written to you. I would love to go on and be more in-debt but know you receive many many emails and your time God has given you is so spread out between your love of the Lord, the family He has blessed you with and the women’s lives you try so desperately to reach and enrich. Which is the true reason I am finally being compelled to write and enter your very busy life.
Thanking you is not enough for all that you have done for I am sure even women around the world. You are a mighty mighty warrior for Jesus Christ our Lord and Savior. I am having to constantly remind myself that there is a remnant and so so narrow is His way to life everlasting that few will enter. Truth be known probably fewer than we want to imagine. You stay with Gods truths in all things and do not fall away from Gods word that is not to be changed or altered.
Unlike you I gave up on the sbc many many years back and have only kept my eyes on God and Jesus Christ my Lord and Savior. I am so fortunate when the Lord places special men and women across my paths. I was sadden to read your email/blog about the results of sbc. Sorry but I don’t do Facebook, instagram of twitter so your sight that I read I am assuming is what the world calls a blog? I prayed that believers of Jesus Christ might receive some glimmer of hope or a slight hope of justice with a delay of the sbc being saved upon earth in this very evil wicked world that Satan has dominion over for but a short time. I guess in a fleshly since we would like to believe sbc is what the Bible mentions being the true church and alas it appears it will not be either. Only the remnant will be the saints of God’s glory and His church.
So I send this letter to you with great encouragement and strength. As you well know God will give you strength to continue for those of us who so desperately need to be reminded that there are a few, the continued remnant and Lord willing as each of us continue to keep our eyes above on Gods infallible word the few or Lord willing the many remaining that still might be able to come to know Jesus Christ as their Lord and Savior who was sent by God the Father to die on the cross for our sons that we All might come to be saved and have everlasting life! Amen.
Be strong, courages and of good faith, continuing the race God has placed before you for His truth is that He will see you through to the end regardless of the tough valleys ahead or the beautiful mountain tops you have yet to see.
A bond servant of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ
Cara
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God bless you with spiritual renewal, Michelle. We had to leave a church we belonged to for 15 years over doctrinal mandates about false teaching and New Age things that they simply turned a blind eye to. It was devastating for us because we had trusted that leadership 100%. So, while it’s not the same magnitude as what is going on at the SBC, it has the same flavor, and it’s still wounding and so hard to take. Much love and encouragement–God’s got this mess too! Remember 2 Timothy 3:1-5:
3 But understand this, that in the last days there will come times of difficulty. 2 For people will be lovers of self, lovers of money, proud, arrogant, abusive, disobedient to their parents, ungrateful, unholy, 3 heartless, unappeasable, slanderous, without self-control, brutal, dnot loving good, 4 treacherous, reckless, swollen with conceit, lovers of pleasure rather than lovers of God, 5 having the appearance of godliness, but denying its power. Avoid such people.
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May you relax and enjoy some respite. Thank you Michelle for shining a light on the atrocities that are amuck within the SBC. It’s a sad time to say the least. May the Lord bless you while you take a break and spend some time in prayer.
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Prayers for restoration and revival in your life Michelle. I will continue lifting you up in prayer my sweet and faithful sister ✝️.
Sent from Yahoo Mail for iPad
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Praying our Great and Awesome God will give you special times with Him and spiritual refreshment.
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I am praying for you Michelle for rest, restoration, healing and insight. I am praying for all of the churches and individuals who are fighting for Gods biblical truth and doctrinally sound teaching and the continued message of Gods inherent Word and our salvation in Jesus Christ. May God bless you and give you strength and perseverance.
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Praying for you, Michelle, and the SBC and Founders and all the good men who care more for the Word of our Lord than the praise of men.
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You will be in my prayers, Michelle….
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Praying for you Michelle. Thank you for all you do.
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I am so very sorry, it’s so sad to see what is going on in churches today. All we can do is pray and continue in the battle. It’s good to take time to rest and regroup as we all need that. A time to gather our thoughts, to pray, to be in Gods word where our souls will be fed and refreshed for the battle still ahead. It is Gods battle and He uses His children. God Bless you Michelle and all you do to speak truth. I pray for a wonderful rest in mind, body and soul 🥰🙏
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And yes those are Hibiscus, I love them but so do my deer 😬
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Lifting you up in prayer! Hoping you will come back rested. Thank you for all of your hard work!
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You deserve a break, Michelle! WOW! I am new to your blog and have been trying to catch up on everything for the last week, sometimes staying up until the wee hours of the morning. I have been a Christian for a long time; grew up in a SBC home. My husband and I finally left the SBC last year, after a couple of decades of trying to find a conservative SBC church in our very woke neck of the woods. My husband has always been diligent on keeping up with the issues, and I listen to what he says, but I am thankful he found your blog as I need to do this work myself. I truly appreciate your articles and how they are backed up with screenshots and links that support the facts. And your commitment to living life in keeping with God’s Word and not backing down in the face of criticism and unkindness. You have done a extraordinary job on the issues – obviously you have spent countless hours on research. Thank you for practical advice on how others can do this. I am grateful that you love the people you call to repentance and that you are praying for them. I am deeply saddened that this year’s convention ended the way it did and understand that you are grieved and exhausted in every way. May the Lord refresh you this week as you rest in Him.
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You have my prayers. I am pretty spiritually wounded, too, and I wasn’t even there,. I can’t imagine all that you are trying to untangke right now, but you have my prayers while you do and while you take care of whatever is going on in your personal life. Rest, sister.
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I’m so sorry Leslie. I saw the clip of Rick Warren. Honestly it made me want to vomit. I will keep you in my prayers!
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Yes, those are yellow hibiscus! Please take whatever time you need – you’ve been such an inspiration. Rev 2 & 3 Christ will keep his church pure – rest sweet friend
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Siding with Truth is always right, even when it’s not popular. Stand your ground.
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I belong to a solid Baptist Church and my pastor watched online. I watched some because I work. We feel like you do. I will pray for you this week. I love your website and come here oftn.
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Oh, how disappointing! I’ve only recently “discovered” you and am so relieved that I’ve never taught men, preached to men, or claimed any spiritual authority over/above men! I wracked my brain going back over the years (I’m 62) and boy, was I nervous until I figured this out! The situation at the convention breaks my heart; I grew up Southern Baptist. Take ALL the time you need before writing here again. I’m praying for you as you sort this and other things out. We will be right here when you feel like returning. Warmly, Jan Box
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Thank you for your kind words, Jan. Welcome aboard! You know, even if you had taught men, if we confess our sin, He is faithful and just to forgive us our sin and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness (1 John 1:9). All you have to do is confess and repent. He is gracious and merciful to forgive. :0)
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Wow! I did not expect this outpouring! Thank you all so much for taking time out of your schedules to minister encouragement to me and to pray for me. It means more to me than you’ll ever know. I’m doing fine, and I’ll be back ASAP – hopefully next week. I already have lots of things piling up in my mind that I want to write about! :0)
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Praying for a time of refreshing for you!
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I’m praying for you as I weep over all that happened at the SBC. I love you and the Lord knows. Rest in Him. Your Sister, Conni Hudson
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Dear Michelle:
We were on vacation when we heard your news of the SBC conference. My heart is saddened and grieved, but even more so when I texted my pastors to ask if they had seen the negative news of what happened with the SBC, only to hear that though no one from our church attended, he had listened to it online and was encouraged and uplifted by what he had seen. Obviously, he must have seen online only what the SBC wanted him to see, blocking out all the negative things online that were either taken out/removed from those pastors who were not there to see and/or hear the true events that occurred. I hope that you will be able to share those things with us when you return from your needed rest, so that I can forward them on to my pastors, who I believe do not know the truth about what truly went on at the conference. Am hoping that what I forward to them will change their minds about staying with the SBC. If not, I’m afraid I’ll be looking for another church outside of the Southern Baptist denomination, and possibly without my husband joining me. My hope is in the Lord, who made heaven and earth, and who holds the truth in his holy hands.
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Rebecca- I certainly understand your concern and grief. I don’t know how to tell you this, but the entirety of the Convention was livestreamed on the Acts2 app. Nothing was edited out by the powers that be in the SBC. So either your pastor only saw certain parts of it, or he agrees with the unbiblical aspects of it that he saw.
Rather that going to the trouble of sharing links and clips with him, I would suggest setting up an appointment with him and asking him some probing questions about his position on things like women “pastors” and women preaching to men, what he thinks of Rick Warren and whether Saddleback should be disfellowshipped, what he thinks about the ERLC’s actions over the last several years (and maybe whether he would have voted for or against the motion to abolish the ERLC), etc. That should tell you what you need to know more quickly and with less effort.
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Remembering you in prayer. Take time to rest and rejuvenate with the Lord. Thank you for your faithful work that has been instrumental in teaching Biblical discernment I’m only just learning. Been a huge stepping stone in my walk with Christ. Bless you. PS. remember that we serve a Living God. Not a denomination or association. As it seems they all are subject to fallibility.
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Yes Michelle, I think the more liberal faction will win out. Perhaps it is good to have clear examples of that majority, or seeming majority. May be time to face the gangrenous parts and cut them off.
Jana Walczuk
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I will also add that a fair fight is one thing but the tactics of cutting mics and insults and intimidation are despicable. Hard to believe they are fellow believers. And they are being deceived and opening the door for more deception.
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Michelle,
Take all the time you need to guard & rest your body, mind, & spirit! Spiritual warfare is very taxing!
God bless you and all the work you do for Jesus!
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