All tagged self

Our study of prayer continues this morning with the theme of praying with our entire being. Are we totally engaged when we kneel to pray in the battle against evil, dark forces, and to win lost souls? When our prayers are asking that God’s will be advanced is our whole heart in them? E.M. Bounds wrote that "Just as it involves every part of a person's being to pray successfully, so in turn the person receives the benefit of such praying." In making this case Bounds uses Romans 15:30; which I have expanded to include verse 31 as well. Are we benefiting the Kingdom of God when we pray, and thus increasing in faith as we do?

We want to experience the glory of God, Jesus abiding in us, the Holy Spirit filling us, and eternity in a loving relationship with God. In other words we want to be in possession of the pearl that is mentioned by Jesus in the ‘Parable of the Pearl’, but are we bargaining with God over its price? Are we willing to sell all we have to own this treasure, and are we prepared to do so without a second thought, or are we trying to obtain the pearl from Him at a bargain price? How much of ourselves do we give, and what do we hold back in seeking our salvation?

How perfectly contrived is Satan’s trap that is set using our own self as bait. Nothing lures us away from God, and our faith in Jesus, like the smell of our own morality or self-righteousness. Do we view ourselves in a mirror, and smile at what we see? Do we look at our good deeds, and think that we have certainly pleased God with them, or moreover... that we are saving ourselves by them? Do we say to ourselves “ How perfect is my faith, and how righteous am I!”? This is a death trap that springs shut on our soul.