All tagged heart
This morning we are contemplating God's desire for us to commit our lives to Him. We will revisit His desire for us to live and worship Him with zest. Pastor E. M. Bounds described the way we should pray in these words: "True prayer must be aflame." And he wrote that "The Christian life and character need to be on fire." Today we are returning once more to Revelation 3 for the principal scripture of our study.
In my devotional reading today, Pastor E. M. Bounds wrote of two prayers; the petition of faith and the prayer of submission. Praying in the Word and praying in the Spirit; both are incredibly important... praying in the Word is conveying our thoughts and needs using biblical constructs, while praying in the Spirit conveys the longings of our very souls. Pastor Bounds used Abraham's prayers for Sodom as an example of both petition, and submission, when he wrote these words:
This morning I revisited a devotional reading that I had enjoyed on this day several years ago. On that day I had already been operated on and had a cancerous tumor removed from my body, but later that afternoon, I was going to find out how my treatment would proceed... My devotional reading that particular day included these words:
This morning we study "Compassionate Prayer" as it was taught in Matthew 9:36. I thought to myself that this was a very appropriate topic, since this is Missions Month at many churches. Beyond delivering the gospel, there are situations at home, and around the world, where we can physically provide aid to others, or pray for them through a situation; but there are quite a few others that are beyond our ability to resolve, and we must depend on a miracle, and entering into "Compassionate Prayer", is our only course of action.
Today let’s discuss the twins of prayer and faith. Pastor E.M. Bounds describes them this way: "one heart brings them both to life. Faith is always praying; prayer is always believing." He ends his devotional by writing by saying "Prayer asks; faith lays its hand on the thing asked for." Faith and prayer are the engines which power the Dynamo of our belief; our relationship with God. They create the spark that jumps the gap between man and God. For our part in this endeavor we must hold fast to our faith and exercise our prayer fervently.
The scripture passage from my devotional reading this morning could either reassure us or cause us to tremble. E.M. Bounds had titled his devotional message "All My Longings" and spoken of God answering our fervent prayers. However, his scripture selection was a double edged sword. He had chosen a verse that would thrill the righteous believer while at the same time bringing fear to the wayward sinner. It deals with a common theme in the Bible… God knows our heart.
Where do we seek shelter when the storms of life come? This morning the devotional message I read was titled "When Trouble Comes" and E.M. Bounds wrote that "the most natural thing to do is carry your troubles to the Lord and seek grace, patience, and submission there." We are indeed blessed to have such a place of shelter and safety in our times of distress. God is our strong tower and Jesus Christ our Lord is dependable and true as He tells us to pray in His Name, and intercedes for us.
This morning let’s delve into praising God and the presence of our praise in prayer. Pastor E.M. Bounds called this "Spiritual Singing". He even recognized people with little ability to sing when he said "Spiritual singing is not done by musical taste or talent, but by the grace of God in your heart." We are encouraged in scripture to address one another, and God, in song, but are we doing this? If not is it because we are judging one another’s ability to sing and thus discouraging another’s prayer life? Singing on a stage is one thing, but singing on our knees to the Lord is totally different and criticism there can be considered shaming someone who is seeking God’s presence.
Sometimes when we are in a battle against the hardships of life we can become so involved in the struggle, and desperately calling upon the Lord in prayer, that even though we are saying the words, our depth of devotion and loving heart is absent from them. My devotional reading this morning warned against this, and today we will turn to a verse in Isaiah 29 to understand this further.
Where should our prayer originate when we enter our chosen place of prayer and seek God’s presence? Is it our intellect, our spirit, our soul? Is it our posture, our language, or a certain phrase that bring us close to Him? God tells us the answer to this Himself in the book of Jerimiah when he says that we should reach out to Him with all of our heart. So if our prayers should emanate from or hearts then we must also ask ourselves a simple question… “What is the condition of my heart and relationship towards God?” To describe this we use words like lovingly, sincerely, persistently, and in purity.
Are we studying and memorizing scripture, and reading Biblically based literature, with the thought that this will make us wise and righteous or give us some increased standing with God? Well my friends, only one thing will work to perfect us in the eyes of God, and that is having the faith and obedience of a child. I would rather do this one small thing perfectly than to pursue a thousand wise and scholarly things while missing the mark of holiness entirely.
I really love the story of Jesus appearing to the two disciples on the road to Emmaus. This morning I am concentrating on what those disciples said after they finally realized that the man they had been traveling with was actually Jesus; "did not our heart burn within us."
It’s not simply our actions that we need to repent of, but more than that it is what we carry in our hearts that will prompt, or have prompted, us to sin outwardly. These thoughts and longings desperately beg for our penitence and prayerful attention. Holding worldly thoughts in our hearts such as malice, lasciviousness, hatred, jealousy, and the like, leads us to commit our outward sins; they are like the voice of Satan that whispers nonstop day and night to us until at last we act upon them. Our repentance should begin with these dark thoughts that we feel confident no one can see, and are well hidden from God Himself, these are the deeply rooted sins we should dwell on in our prayer closets. Our transformation through Christ must begin with repentance for our innermost thoughts in order that they not manifest themselves boldly, and become the tangible fruit of what we give safe harbor to within us.
In this time of COVID in which people are afflicted, sickened horrifically, and many die, it is easy to become hardened to the agony that is going on around us. It seems that our hearts can become overloaded as we empathize with the suffering we see, and the pain we shoulder with them. In sharing the grief, and commiserating with the pain of others, we can become overwhelmed, and to protect ourselves we tend to withdraw from what is happening, and to isolate ourselves from the trauma, but scripture tells us time and time again to comfort others, care for them, and provide for their needs. How are we doing in these stressful times? Do we pray for strength so that we can become a wellspring of strength and comfort to others, or has the pain we have internalized changed us into hardened souls? Are we looking for reasons not to comfort others?
We might say “Get thee behind me Satan” when in fretful desperation we stand on the verge of yielding to temptation, but how long have we entertained the allure of that sin before we have reached this moment, and have we truly won the struggle, or does the dark one walk away having already blinded our minds, and having claimed his victory?