We
over-use, knowing words but fear silence. We do not respect another’s space. We
enjoy the intellect of words but miss their unsaid meanings.
Yet
words are life couched in imagination.
We
imagine God. He creates solid stuff.
The
word of God embraces our solid stuff.
He
speaks, it happens.
We
speak and hope.
Just
a reminder: God’s word is not so much a weapon as an energy of surprising love.
It remains an absorbing and penetrating Grace. And so, God’s Grace can join our
deepest emotion more than the pain of our physical condition. How you wonder?
When
we practice the presence of Christ and let the Holy Spirit help us rise above,
concentrate, and trust in God more than we float with the drama of our
pain-feeling, some respite can happen. Moving our mind away from the physical
helps our endurance. And endurance will help grow a kind of character that in
Christ will find joy even in suffering.
We
wait, we participate in God’s Grace, we endure.
Correct
and accurate worship is keeping an alert intellect embraced by the Holy Spirit.
“If
God does not build the house, we only build shacks.”[Ps.127]
Ok,
you pray, pray, and pray and nothing seems to happen. Is God mad at you? Are
you SO disgusting? Is He off away somewhere?
Countless
books have been written about prayer and why God does or doesn’t answer the way
you thought.
Scriptures
indicate God is for us, even a guardian [like Ps. 121:7- 8]. So, what is going
on??
Based
on the many readings, ideas and opinions. . . I still have no definite answer.
Pain is still there.
Maybe
that is what faith means, trusting in a true God who really is in control. That
means He is coordinating everything, including what appears with unanswered prayer.
Sometimes
we have to pray: Forgive us for that part of us that still wants to be in
control. Then TRUST.
Christians
wonder, “What am I supposed to do during the week? Who am I supposed to be? How
do I fit in this crazy, busy culture?”
No help seems to come with the wording in the King
James Bible[ “…present your bodies as a living sacrifice…”]. What IS the
scripture trying to tell us?
Apostle
Paul is saying in Romans 12: 1-2 that the best behavior we can do anytime involves
our actually, throughout the day, with all the mundane or exciting things we do,
eating, praying, working, playing, sleeping we should place them before God first as an
actual offering.
In
other words, every time we can think about anything that leads to behavior, maintain
the attitude and say, “Unto the Lord!”
Time
may be the only thing we really own. Make it worthwhile.
Every
mundane task you do, washing things, painting things, working things, just say “unto
the Lord” as you do them. [ Cor. 10:31] Then you can consider they are becoming some kind
of beauty for God. Creating or recreating beauty for God in something can be a
prayer given, a blessing displayed.
Why?
because God can make the connections for others that we do not see to grow his
kingdom. The connection, the beauty may even happen AFTER you are gone.
There
have been famous thoughts and writings come from a person who was cleaning a
toilet.
Sometimes
we have to remember that the God, Christ, and Holy Spirit of the New Testament are the same in the Old Testament.
We
need reminding, that this same Jehovah, who made everything from Genesis on, is
the same today. He still guards us from evil which means evil can never separate
us from him. [Ps. 121]
Never
think that God is TOO busy elsewhere and has decided you are not important
enough, so He goes off somewhere else to operate and forgets you. He still has
and will complete his purposes for you.
There is evidence that as believers, we share in the Trinity.
Jesus
said….”I do not ask for these only, but also for those who will believe in
me…. that they may all be one just as you, Father, are in me, and I in you,
that they also may be in us…. “ [ John 17: 20]
We
use the word “reluctant” to apply to God about our prayers, that God
seems reluctant to answer. Other scholars suggest God is just reluctant to intervene
in history.
The word
reluctant [ according to the Thesaurus Dictionary] means afraid,
cautious, hesitant, slow, tardy, uncertain and other such words.
I’m
not sure an All-knowing, ever-present Jehovah is ever reluctant. He may have US wait because He has connections being made beyond our thinking, but He is never
tardy/afraid/hesitant or slow.
We,
of course, are all those things.
Since
it appears that true Christians actually do pray in many different ways, there
is a simple secret to prayer-success.
As
your specific day progresses, for your individual food, work, or play…... PRAY
about everything, no exceptions, bad, mundane or good, everything. Often, we
don’t think God wants to be reminded about the bad stuff we do. But He does!
Talking to God all the time places our consciousness more in the spiritual realm,
and energy from there, lifts up our physical involvements.
There
seems to be confusion about the scripture John 15: 7, “If you abide in me, and
My words abide in you, you will ask what you desire, and it shall be done for
you.” [NKJV].
Christians
think, “Well I think I’m living the
Christ life, why am I not seeing all my prayers answered? The Gospel of John
says they will!”
First, “If
you abide” really means live continually, like Jesus mentions earlier in that
scripture, He is the Vine, and we are the branches.
Branches
STAY ATTACHED to the vine [ the trunk] in order to live and branches need time
and the right nourishment to thrive. The Vine gives the life, coming from the
root [heavenly Father].
Second, “My
words abide in you” also means the continual streaming and embracing of God’s
word in daily life.
So
being God’s word, living God’s word, nourished by God’s word…then Jesus can act
decisively.
Unfortunately,
too many Christians think that the ritual saying of a prayer either works some
kind of magic for only a few OR the people remain expedient and say something
like “ I don’t know if God will answer, but He’s big enough to take care of
it.” Then they stop praying.
All
the while, Philippians 2:5, “Let this mind be in you which was also in
Christ Jesus.”
Why
did the Son of God pray continually, sometimes days and days? Although a
physical being, He stayed in contact with His Father in a spiritual dimension,
held in place by the Holy Spirit. He remained in conversation with the Father.
He has given us that ability to enter a spiritual realm that has all the
healing power of heaven.
Move
your consciousness beyond the present and Ask {have an unrushed, quite conversation
with Christ} and you WILL receive.
Of
course there are many definitions of prayer, but what actually happens with the
human mind.
Raising
your conscious attention above and even beyond the limitation of some physical
situation, placing that attention upon Christ’s partnership, establishes a
prayer connection. When we truly connect to God, The Holy Spirit can unleash
and set in motion the divine will that is always best for us. We may not always
understand the outcome, yet, sometimes we do, but the connection helps mold our
Christian Walk for now.
I
pray with the Apostle Paul in Ephesians 1: 16…”that the eyes of your
understanding be enlightened….”
Scripture
shows examples and gives evidence of a person’s freedom being robbed, like a mysterious
demon possessed person.
And
yet, God’s Holy Spirit is somehow large enough and small enough to enter a human
being and respect that person’s decisions to make personal choices. This can
happen because Jesus embodied the full human and the full God in a surprising
harmony that we can now trust by faith.
The
perfect Son of God is now in full charge. [Mt.28:18]--- NOT any of the evil
forces.
Does
God somehow keep score, like at a football game? This would be when someone wins,
and someone loses.
When
you slow down and think about Psalm 130, especially verse 3, if God was in the
score-keeping business, NO ONE would win. Besides, God does not think of believers
as winning or losing.
Yes,
we fail, but in Christ, we all win.
