Quarterly Basics Devo | Transitions

2022 | THE FALL ISSUE
THE GOD OF TRANSITIONS!

When your words came, I ate them;
they were my joy and my heart’s delight,
for I bear your name, Lord God Almighty.
Jeremiah 15:16

Hello there my friend,

I hope you are having a great start to Fall 2022!

For those of you who are new to The Basics With Beth, welcome! In today's Devo, I want to give you an update on what the Lord is up to at the BWB and I want to encourage you in the basics of your faith with a short exhortation on: "transition."

"TRANSITION"
A WORD OF ENCOURAGEMENT

Transition is an exciting and scary word, all at the same time! It implies movement from one thing to another. It describes a "not yet, but almost" season. Are you in "transition?"

For those of you who've had babies, you know all about transition. It's that time in the labor and delivery process when your body goes from active labor to intense labor with contractions on top of one another just prior to delivery! I remember going through "transition" as we delivered all four of our kids. It was the exhilarating feeling of "...here we go, the baby's almost here ... buckle up, hunker down, stay focused, there's no turning back now..." and also the temptation to say, "...I can't, this is too hard ... I want to quit ... get me out of this hospital and take me home now..."

In life, we all go through various seasons and loads of transitions. Both the exhilarating "Here we go" and the "I want to quit" seasons! Going from single to married, from married to parenting, from working to staying at home, from preschoolers to teenagers, from a house full of kids to an empty nest, from a small business or church to a growing one and from a full-time career to retirement. We face the old giving way to new, we face gains and losses -- and we ourselves are in the continual state of growth and transformation in Christ -- which is one transition of glory to the next!

In other words, life is: transition!

The way we handle transition will determine the level of our joy and peace. If we despise and disdain transition, we will be moody, angry, aloof and living in our own pity party. If we embrace transition by faith, we will experience the peace that passes all understanding and the joy of expectation as we navigate challenging moments and ultimately the experience of life on the other side of transition.

In the past few years we have ALL faced a lot of transition!
How DID you do?
How ARE you doing?

Over the past year, my husband and I have faced numerous big and overlapping transitions. At the Lord's direction, we've been transitioning and passing the baton of Valley Family Church (the church we pioneered and have pastored for the past 30 years -- our life's work!) to the next generation of leaders - namely, our kids and staff. We sold our dream house in Michigan -- a lake house we prayed and believed God for, for 20 years -- a house we loved! With those proceeds, we purchased a smaller cottage on a nearby lake in Michigan and we built a new dream house in Florida. In the process of all of these moves, our beloved 8-year old tea cup poodle, Jonesie, passed away unexpectedly. We were devastated.

That's A LOT of transition within a short time frame.

Any one of those transitions could send someone over the edge, but by God's grace, we've had His peace and joy throughout the transition process. We aren't completely through all of these transitions quite yet; we still miss our sweet Jonesie, but we take one day at a time as we keep our eyes on Jesus and follow His lead.

One thing that has kept our spirits lifted up is listening to and singing these three worship songs. We have had these three songs on repeat...I hope you enjoy an oldie, a classic and a new one!

This Blood

Wonderful, Merciful Savior

A Thousand Hallelujahs

Of course, Jesus is our best example of navigating transition. He faced incredible seasons of transition. Leaving heaven as the God who created all things (John 1:1-3) and coming to the Earth in the form of a human baby (Hebrews 10:5-7) was a huge transition! Being the sinless, spotless, eternal God the Son who enjoyed fellowship with God the Father from eternity past (1 Peter 1:19) then sacrificing Himself to die on the cross for the sins of others (namely, you and I!) (1 Peter 3:18) and to be forsaken by His Father was a massive transition.

How did Jesus navigate transition? With joy!

He look ahead. He had an eternal perspective. He saw the invisible. He believed the impossible. He focused on the joy set before Him. He knew if He could get through the painful seasons of transition, He would indeed save and give birth to an eternal race of Redeemed People!

Jesus handled "transition" by keeping His eyes on the bigger picture, the eternal joy ahead of Him -- we can do the same if we keep our eyes on Him and the joy awaiting us!

"And let us run with endurance the race God has set before us. We do this by keeping our eyes on Jesus, the champion who initiates and perfects our faith. Because of the joy awaiting him, he endured the cross, disregarding its shame. Now he is seated in the place of honor beside God’s throne."
Hebrews 12:1-2, NLT

Let me pray for you:

"Father, I pray for everyone facing transition. I ask You to give them more grace from Your throne of grace to help them keep their eyes on Jesus, to trust in Your love for them, and to rest as You lead and guide them to get through every transition - with joy. In Jesus' Name! Amen."

HEY, CAN WE GET YOUR HELP?
LET'S GET TO 100,000 FOLLOWERS!

In a short 6-months, The Basics With Beth has almost hit 100,000 followers on Pray.com (we are at 84,500 right now!) and that means thousands of people are getting the Bible basics every week!

If you've not yet started on pray.com, come join us by going to: pray.com/bethjones and help us get to 100,000 followers! Each week, we upload 2-3 podcasts and one TV program on Pray.com to feed your faith -- this includes full length sermons, short "basic thoughts" recorded in my car and a variety of interviews. (Many of you who are new to The Basics With Beth have discovered us there!)

As the leading App for Christian content, over 10 million people are connected to Pray.com on a regular basis.

What kind of results have we seen on Pray.com?

Crazy growth! Get this ...

>> On the Pray.com App, over 12.2 million minutes of our radio podcasts and TV videos have been heard or viewed!! To put that into perspective, it would take me over 8,130 years of preaching every Sunday at Valley Family Church to reach that many minutes of sermons heard or seen!

It's hard to wrap our heads around the way God is using our digital content these days, but we are so grateful He is multiplying our messages and using The Basics With Beth Bible teachings to reach more and more people!

I thought you might enjoy seeing our recent dashboards.

Left pic: This shows our video views and reach from Pray TV.
Right pic: This shows our podcast listens and reach from Pray Radio.

CLICK TO GET PRAY.COM

EVERYTHING IS FREE!

As you can see, we are passionate about helping people get the Bible basics! So, over this past year, we decided to make EVERY DIGITAL RESOURCE available for FREE!

That means...

>> We decided to make EVERY ONLINE COURSE in The Basics University available for FREE!

>> We decided to make our 7 Basics ebook available for FREE!

>> We decided to make all ebook translations of our Basics Bible studies, now in over 27 foreign languages, available for FREE!

>> We decided to put ALL of our podcasts on Pray.com so you could listen to them for FREE!

>> We decided to put all of our TV shows on Smart TV via Roku, Apple and Amazon Fire for FREE!

Why?

Because we are legitimately passionate about helping YOU (and people around the world) get the Bible basics, so you can live the life God intended and do the stuff He's ordained for you!

So, be sure to jump in and take advantage of all of the freebies! Check out these courses (below) in The Basics University.

THE BASICS UNIVERSITY

ENROLL NOW AND TAKE EVERY COURSE FOR FREE!

HOW DO WE PAY FOR ALL OF THIS?

You may wonder, how in the world does all of this happen? How are we able to make all of our digital content FREE? Of course, as you know - in life, nothing is really free -- it costs somebody something to make it free.

In this case, it costs us time and energy to create, make and maintain that all of the freebies happen and we are happy to do it!

It costs us to money to pay for all of the work that is required to make our content easily available to you -- we pay staff; we pay for all the hosting sites we need to use (Mailchimp, Smart TV and Online Platforms, Video and Audio Editing Apps and Website Platforms, etc.); we pay for podcast services and we pay for our slot on Pray.com ... and lots of other "cost of doing business" expenses.

So, if we are making all of our digital content available for FREE, how do we pay for all of this?

It's sort of miraculous and we can describe it in three words: BASICS NINJA WARRIORS!

The Basics Ninja Warriors are people just like you! They are passionate about taking the gospel basics to the ends of the earth and they are the ones who partner with us to donate financial gifts to The Basics With Beth (an outreach ministry of Valley Family Church) on a regular basis. Through the generosity of our Ninja partners, we are able to make all of our digital resources available for FREE!

Perhaps you'd like to partner with us to join the
Basics Ninja Warriors with a one-time or monthly gift of support?

You can help us continue taking the Bible basics to hungry hearts around the world by donating here:

CLICK TO BECOME A PARTNER - A "BASICS NINJA WARRIOR"

WHAT IS GOD DOING? TESTIMONIES!

I remember reading this passage as a new Christian and it touched me:

"We always pray for you, and we give thanks to God, the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ. For we have heard of your faith in Christ Jesus and your love for all of God’s people, which come from your confident hope of what God has reserved for you in heaven. You have had this expectation ever since you first heard the truth of the Good News. This same Good News that came to you is going out all over the world. It is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives, just as it changed your lives from the day you first heard and understood the truth about God’s wonderful grace." (Colossians 1:3-6, NLT)

The idea that the good news of Jesus that came to me "...is going out all over the world. It is bearing fruit everywhere by changing lives..." really spoke to me.

At that time, little did I know that the Lord would call me to teach His Word and to write books that would be translated into over 27 languages to help the gospel continue to go out all over the world. :)

Once I did sense God's call to ministry to speak and write, I think this passage is the reason that I have prayed that the Lord will use my words to "produce eternal fruit." This way of thinking and praying came from this passage in Colossians 1.

Doing gospel work is a funny, faith-thing because often we don't know if what we are doing is actually producing eternal fruit? We hope so. We pray for it. We preach for it. We write for it. But, we don't have a "balance sheet" like a business person would. We can't measure heart changes like a sports score board. Sure, there are some indicators of our effectiveness, but the truth is most people don't send in testimonies or thank you letters or donations, to let us know we are helping them. (I am sometimes guilty of that too! I don't always send a thank you note to preachers who have really blessed my life. I don't always send a donation or testimony of the impact they've had on my life -- they likely won't even know until heaven!)

Preaching the gospel is a faith adventure like no other!

We keep going because we believe God is using our words, messages, podcasts and books to produce fruit everywhere.

But, every once in a while we see glimpses. We see a social media post or someone sends us a photo or a testimony and our hearts are encouraged to keep on going!

Here are a few testimonies that have encouraged us recently and we hope you are encouraged, too!

Left pic: "Getting a Grip on the Basics" now in Kathmandu, Nepal
Right pic: "Getting a Grip on the Basics of Prayer" in neighborhoods in America

Left pic: "Getting a Grip on the Basics" at Bethesda Church in Louisiana
Right pic: "Getting a Grip on the Basics for Teens" at Elevate Church in Ohio

Left pic: "Getting a Grip on Generous Living" in Liverpool, England
Right pic: "Getting a Grip on the Basics of Serving God" at Rhema Bible Training College in Oklahoma

Left and Right pics: Testimonies from Pray.com listeners

I hope you enjoyed today's update and I pray you are refreshed and strengthened in the transitions in your own life! If you are a Basics Ninja Warrior, I hope you are encouraged in the eternal fruit your prayers and financial donation are making.

Together, let's keep preaching the gospel basics to the whole world ... we keep going because, "how shall they hear without a preacher?"

Love and blessings,

FALL SPEAKING ENGAGEMENTS & EVENTS

If you are in the area, come join us!

September 11 & 18: Valley Family Church, Kalamazoo, MI

September 26-27: Meadowbrook Church, Ocala, FL -- Pastoral Staff Retreat

October 13-16: Faith Family Church, Sioux Falls, SD-- Women's Conference & Sunday Service

October 17-21: Pastors Wives Recharge, Phoenix, AZ

November 7-9: Communicators Collective Retreat, Mytrle Beach, NC

November 20 & 27: Valley Family Church, Kalamazoo, MI

Quarterly Basics Devo | Transitions

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