What brings a lover to the door where his or her beloved dwells? Longing, desire, a desperatness to be with them and know them more. The great Triune God, almighty maker of the universe, He who created you and me, He is the lover of your soul! He desires you to know Him, fellowship with Him, and fall in love with Him as well. Christianity is not about a cause, it is about a person! A.W. Tozer once said to have found God and yet still pursue Him is the soul’s paradox of love. Why? Because the object of our worship is the great I AM! I challenge you to never become so casual in your relationship with Him that you forget who it is that you call Lord!
“Who has scooped up the ocean in his two hands, or measured the sky between his thumb and little finger? Who has put all the earth’s dirt in one of his baskets, weighed each mountain and hill? Who could ever have told GOD what to do or taught him his business? What expert would he have gone to for advice, what school would he attend to learn justice? What god do you suppose might have taught him what he knows, showed him how things work? So who even comes close to being like God? To whom or what can you compare him?” Isaiah 40:12-14, 18
An important step in your relationship with Christ is to spend time with Him daily so that you may become grounded and centered in Him, and that the seeds of faith planted within you can grow and be strengthened.
Make this willful choice, and consecrate a time to spend with Him. Find a place of solitude where you can approach the throne without distraction in a desire to fellowship with your Creator. You will know the place because your spirit will feel Him waiting there for you each day. Purpose to meet with Him there.
As you journey down this path, you will discover many helpful tools along the way. Here are three basic elements to use as guidelines in getting started:
- Worship. “Worship is telling God who He is, not because He needs to know, but because we need to remind ourselves of His true character” – Bev DeSalvo (Return to Joy). Listen, and purpose to quiet yourself and your thoughts before Him. The process of reflecting on who He is helps to pull our thoughts away from all the distractions of who we are and what’s happening around us. There are many ways to do this. Here are a few suggestions:
- Find a song that moves your heart and reflects who He is.
- Journal – write letters to God, create your own personal book of Psalms!
- Tell Him who He is out loud, proclaim it!
- Prayer. “The meaning of prayer is that we get hold of God, not of the answer” – Oswald Chambers.
Prayer is not a one-way street, it is conversation, communication! Six aspects of a balanced prayer life (INSTE Discipleship 1):- Praise – Adore Him for who He is!
- Thanksgiving – Worship Him for what He has done!
- Confession – removing obstacles between you and God
- Petition – Asking God to supply your personal needs
- Supplication – the idea of urgent, fervent, continuous prayer that the Kingdom of God be established in all the issues we bring before Him (seeking resolution according to the will of God)
- Intercession – invoking the blessings of God on behalf of others
- Scripture reading/study. When you read, consider the following (from Dallas Willard, Hearing God):
- Listen with the ear of your heart for a word or phrase that shimmers or stands out to you
- Where do you find yourself in that passage, who or what do you most identify with?
- Reflect. Read the passage again slowly. Why do you think that word or phrase stood out to you? How does it feel to be the person or thing you most identified with? What draws you? How does that make you feel about God?
- How does what you’ve heard from this passage connect with your life today?
- What do you need to know or do?
- Talk with God about the passage you read and what came to you. Do as you are led
A reminder of the key to withstanding the storms of life…
“So why do you keep calling me ‘Lord, Lord!’ when you don’t do what I say? I will show you what it’s like when someone comes to me, listens to my teaching, and then follows it. It is like a person building a house who digs deep and lays the foundation on solid rock. When the floodwaters rise and break against that house, it stands firm because it is well built. But anyone who hears and doesn’t obey is like a person who builds a house without a foundation. When the floods sweep down against that house, it will collapse into a heap of ruins.” Luke 6:46-49
If you want your heart to remain pliable, fertile, then take what He pours into you and act upon it. Be obedient to what He is saying.
Other favorites from Oswald Chambers:
• Our ordinary views of prayer are not found in the New Testament. We look upon prayer as a means for getting something for ourselves; the Bible idea of prayer is that we may get to know God Himself.
• “Have you been asking God what He is going to do? He will never tell you. God does not tell you what He is going to do; He reveals to you Who He is.”
• “An average view of the Christian life is that it means deliverance from trouble. It means deliverance in trouble, which is very different… God does not give us overcoming life; He gives us life as we overcome… The strain is the strength… Are you asking God to give you life and liberty and joy? He cannot, unless you will accept the strain.”
• We must never put our dreams of success as God’s purpose for us… His purpose is that I depend on Him and on His power now. If I can stay in the middle of the turmoil calm and unperplexed, that is the end of the purpose for God… It is the process, not the end, which is glorifying to God.
Alabastersky 