(I read this passage in prep for a discussion with my friend who is currently caught up in urgent and overwhelming circumstances.) BLUF: John 6:1-40 > beware of getting caught up/consumed by the temporal and miss the eternal, caught up in the physical and miss very real growth of the unending life in the Spirit…
Psalm 131:2 Surely I have composed and quieted my soul; like a weaned child rests against his mother, my soul is like a weaned child within me. It doesn’t seem to take much to get my soul disquieted. Sometimes it’s a combination of little things that causes more unrest (anxiety) than a ‘big’ thing. Why…
Isaiah 6:3 “…the whole earth is full of His glory!” I have always thought a full manifestation of His glory was yet to come. I often pray as a companion to “Your kingdom come. Your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven.” (Mt. 6:10) the promise in Habakkuk 2:14, “For the earth…
How many of you are like me? You pray for yourself and other people and things and when you don’t see anything happen you get discouraged and want to give up? Purpose for prayer is not so much to get things from God, but for us to know God. (A mentor I had long ago quoted…
I think one of the greatest hindrances to effective prayer happens when we begin to think that God is like us. When we try to bring God down to our level and understanding, we tend to reduce prayer to ‘figuring out the ask/receive system’ in order to persuade Him to do something… and then we…
Has prayer become a chore for you? Consider what Alvin Vandergriend says in Love to Pray. “For years I believed that my prayers started with me. I had to think them up. I had to get God’s attention. Not surprisingly, with this frame of mind, prayer was often a chore. I…
Prov. 16:2 All the ways of a man are clean in his own sight, but The Lord weighs the motives. “Spiritual maturity is not reached by the passing of years, but by obedience. It is easy to have the attitudes of religion, but it is the motive of the heart we have to watch.” …
In his book A Praying Life (I recommend it to you), Paul Miller states the opposite of a childlike spirit of trust is a cynical spirit. He points out that cynicism along with defeated weariness questions the goodness of God, or at least His willingness to act on our behalf. Do you struggle with believing…
I’m glad you asked. BLUF: Everything God requires of a true child of God will come about as we simply GET TO KNOW GOD. There are a handful of passages that actually address this question specifically. Some examples: Deuteronomy 10:12-13 “Now, Israel, what does the LORD your God require from you, but to fear the…
John 15:14,15 You are my friends if you do whatever I command you. No longer do I call you servants, for a servant does not know what his master is doing; but I have called you friends, for all things that I heard from My Father I have made known to you. While I grew…