The fact that we can come into God’s Presence and ask for anything is beyond awesome and humbling, yet many people don’t take advantage of it until something in their life is going sideways. The fact that we, as Christians, have the entire Trinity of the Godhead willing to hear our prayers even about dumb things is astounding! God loves all of humanity enough that He hears whenever someone begins to confess and come to Him for repentance and salvation. I can’t even imagine the depth of love that is required for Him to even be tuned into the human race in that way!
We have the honor of being able to go into the presence of God, the Creator of the Universe and everything in it. Have you ever considered our privilege, that we can do this? God is much more than any personality or leader on Earth. He is Holy and perfect and the Creator of all, yet we can even come to Him and ask about our lost keys or our glasses. It sounds crazy but He wants to be involved in your life and mine, even in the little things. All that we do and have has come to us because of His grace and blessing toward us because of Jesus.
We have so much simply because of the grace of God and yet we act as if we are spoiled children. We want more and we want it now! God loves us and He will only grant to us those things that He deems worthy for us to have. Degrees and education are great but have you considered that the apostles were not “learned men” yet they started His Church and their teaching, inspired by the Holy Spirit, has changed the world and it is still being changed until that day when the Church is taken up.
Jesus, the Living Water, came to us to redeem and refresh and bring Life to everyone who will believe. The Son of God was separated from His Father while He hung on that cross for you and for me and for the whole world. He had never been separated from God the Father but for those few hours that He took our sins…He was. During that time He took the sins of the entirety of the human race and He bore those sins and their consequences on Himself. The pain, the heartache, and the guilt of ALL of humanity’s sins.
He also endured the rejection of His people and all of the punishment of the scourging and the nails and the agony of having to raise Himself up, on His nail-pierced feet in order to breathe and to say the words that needed to be spoken before He gave up His spirit. He gave His life so that we could have an abundant eternal life with Him. It isn’t a promise of wealth or privilege, it is much more than that. It is the promise of eternity in His Presence. Don’t turn away from Him when you feel His call on your heart and your life. Drink deeply of the river of living water from Him.
I am the vine, ye are the branches: He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit: for without me ye can do nothing.
John 15:5 KJV
https://bible.com/verse-of-the-day/jhn.15.5/1580
Everyone is so connected these days. When I was growing up, we had to come home to make a phone call or use a very antiquated device called a “payphone”. Life was very different during the seventies. We need to remember this in this connected world we have now: God is never out of reach.
Prayer, for a Christian, is a direct line to our Savior and therefore to God Himself. We can talk to Him at any time and from any place. No antenna is necessary. He is always available to hear our prayers and He can answer them as well if you believe. God is waiting for those who will come to know Jesus as their Savior and He knows who will believe and who will not.
Prayer is a lifeline that connects us to our Creator and our Father in Heaven and we should use it to thank Him for today and for all of the blessings that we have been given every day. It doesn’t matter if you are one year old or one hundred and one, God gave you all of this time to serve Him and we should thank Him for it. Many of us have aches and pains and we wake up with them and go to bed with them every day but don’t blame God for them. Thank Him that they remind you that you and I are human and with these trials, however hard or easy they may be, we are made stronger in our faith if we trust Him to get us through each day.
Prayer is useful in every circumstance, whether it is thanking Him for your meal or praising Him for the blessings that have come your way. Even when trials come in the form of cancer or COVID, seek Him as your Physician and your trial will be made more bearable because you know that He is there working toward your best outcome.
But the Comforter, which is the Holy Ghost, whom the Father will send in my name, he shall teach you all things, and bring all things to your remembrance, whatsoever I have said unto you.
John 14:26 KJV
https://bible.com/verse-of-the-day/jhn.14.26/34743
But be ye doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving your own selves. For if any be a hearer of the word, and not a doer, he is like unto a man beholding his natural face in a glass: for he beholdeth himself, and goeth his way, and straightway forgetteth what manner of man he was.
James 1:22-24 KJV
https://bible.com/verse-of-the-day/jas.1.22-24/46337
…if you want to see the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain. Dolly Parton
This bit of wisdom can be applied to many things. In life, in business, in your marriage, or in any other relationship if you want to see the beauty of it then you have to live through the tough times as well. This is something that seems to be missing in our culture and in the way that we, as a country, have learned to handle trouble. If you watch the news at all, you can see that we don’t handle trouble very well today. When there is an argument about anything, someone gets shot and sometimes killed because of the argument. Which was probably over nothing.
We have not learned, nor have most of us been taught, the power of faith and prayer and being submitted to God. In the last forty years or so church attendance has dropped quite a bit and with this “pandemic” many people have used it as the reason to just stop altogether. Why? I would think that during a time of trials we would need God even more. Some are choosing to stay home and “watch church”. Have you ever noticed how the entire family acts when this is done, especially today? Everyone has their phone out playing games or watching videos or texting. Nobody is actually paying any attention to the sermon on TV. They couldn’t answer one question about the sermon.
We, as a nation, have lost our most valuable resource and that is the time that we spend worshiping our Creator. Reading Bible verses is okay, but do you ask God to show you what they mean to your life? The beauty of a relationship with God is that He loves you more than anyone else and He wants to know you by what you talk to Him about and how you pattern your life after His Son. He already knows you in minute detail but He wants to hear you ask Him for the things that are dear to your heart. Not games or cars or a new phone every other year or so, but a real relationship with Him. Why? Because you are special to Him.
God created each of us to be like Jesus but He also gave each of us a mission that nobody else can do. Every father has a mission to raise their children to know Jesus by being an example of Him to them. They are to read the Bible and tell their children about what they find so interesting in God’s Word. We, as parents, have this responsibility given to us by God when we are called to be part of His family. We have a responsibility outside the home too. The people that we work with and the people that we meet should know that we are Christians without us telling them.
Jesus should shine out of our life in such a way that there is no mistaking that we belong to Him. Is this hard to do? For some it is, particularly at first. When you are a new Christian, you want to go around telling everyone about this wonderful Savior. But…your old friends just want you to come back and be like you were before. When you felt convicted of your sinful ways and you asked Jesus to come in and cleanse your life so you could follow Him, your heart was changed. You aren’t the same person that your friends knew. You are different. But you have to work as keeping this change fresh and alive. That is what Jesus meant when He said to “take up your cross and follow Me“.
We have to push the old thoughts and feelings away every day. Study God’s Word and wash your mind with the Living water of His Word so that your thoughts will become more like His. A chapter every day can do this, you don’t have to read a whole book in the Bible every day. But most new Christians are not even told that they should be doing this. They go down and accept Jesus, then get baptized and while they are standing there dripping wet and new in their faith…the church fails them. Most aren’t mentored into the Word, they are like a newborn child but everyone expects them to figure it out on their own. Would you do that to your baby? Think about what Dolly Parton said, “to see the rainbow, you gotta put up with the rain”. Teach them, show them, help them to be more like Jesus one step at a time.
The Living Message of Christ 