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Grace

Is Prayer Your Steering Wheel or Spare Tire?

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“Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you.”
Jeremiah 29:12

Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. Jeremiah 29:12

Have you ever felt that God wasn’t hearing your prayers? Have you ever just felt far from God for no apparent reason?

The verse in Jeremiah tells us that God does hear us, and he is near (even when it doesn’t feel like it) But to get a better understanding of what he means when he says “then” we need look at little deeper to get the full picture.

This is what the Lord says: “When seventy years are completed for Babylon, I will come to you and fulfill my good promise to bring you back to this place. For I know the plans I have for you,” declares the Lord, “plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future. Then you will call on me and come and pray to me, and I will listen to you. You will seek me and find me when you seek me with all your heart.  Jeremiah 29:10-13

We notice that God tells us specifically of his promises (to prosper us and not to harm us) and the very next verse we are promised that when we call on him and pray to him we will listen to us.

Whenever someone listens (and not just hears) what I have to say it means alot to me. How does it make you feel when someone listens to you? When is the last time someone just listened to you?

Yeah that’s what I thought, usually when we go to people in hopes that they will just listen, we are met with unsolicited advice and several possible solutions thrown at us instead of just a listening ear.

Why do we keep going to other people to listen when it goes against their human nature, when we can go to God who infallibly listens to us?

We set ourselves up for failure when we look to man to fill a void that only God can.

Now think of who you know that is more likely to listen to you (and you are more likely to listen to them) Usually they have two traits in common:

  • We care we have a higher level of compassion and empathy.
  • We have a intimate relationship with the person.

Relate this to our heavenly father, He listens because he cares and because we have an intimate relationship with him. Here’s the deal though because He listens to us, He wants us to listen to Him. He longs to be our first thought instead of our last resort.

Blessings and Love,

Stephanie

 

 

 

Photo Credit: image created via wordswag

Playing Hide and Seek

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 I have strayed like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your commands.

Psalm 119:176 NIV

Do you remembers playing hide and seek as kids? The feeling of retreating to your hiding spot in hopes that you won’t get caught before you made it back to “base” or “safety”. The object of the entire game is for others to HIDE while one person is to SEEK those people out.

GOD IS OUR SEEKER

We may attempt to hide from Him, either as a lost person or a believer plagued with shame and guilt, but either way He seeks us out and He will find us.

While we may try to hide from God, to hide those ugly and messy parts, God sees and He knows. He sees us in the good, bad and the ugly (even when you lose your temper with your spouse/kids or when you backslide in a unhealthy habit)

He sees. He knows. He loves us still.

Psalm 119:176 – I have strayed like a lost sheep. Seek your servant, for I have not forgotten your commands.

When we hide and we don’t feel worthy of going before him, we give the enemy an advantage. He will do anything and everything he can to steal, kill and destroy what God is doing. That tug that you feel to apologize or ask for forgiveness is Godly sorrow.

When “the seeker” finds us, we are far from put together, but when we use that tug to pull us towards God and not away from Him, we are made new in His grace.

To experience the fullness of God you must embrace the fullness of forgiveness.

Just like the actual game of hide and seek, we can be relieved when we are found, because that means that we don’t have to take matters into our own hands and try to find our way back to “base” or “safety”. When we follow the one that “seeks” us we will be found, and never have to “hide” again. Praise God!

Many blessings sweet friends,

Stephanie

 

Photo credit: image created via wordswag

Heart Matters: Rules vs. Relationship

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But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at the height of his stature, because I have rejected him; for God sees not as man sees, for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”

1 Samuel 16:7, NASB

 

Rules vs. Relationship

And so the Lord says, “These people say they are mine. They honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. And their worship of me is nothing but man-made rules learned by rote.

Isaiah 29:13, NLT

countrychurchIt was Easter Sunday, 1994, when I went forward for salvation at my small country church as my Dad played Softly and Tenderly on the old, upright piano. I also remember the floral print, puffy-sleeved Easter dress I was wearing. Did I mention it was 1994?

I absolutely believed that Jesus died on the cross for my sins, but on that day I lacked an accurate understanding of the gospel. I had missed the part about grace and falsely believed I needed to earn or prove myself worthy of salvation.

Not knowing what to do next, I took matters into my own hands with the expected gusto of a typical, albeit misguided, Type A Personality, and jumped into Christianity with both feet. I was NOT going to mess this up! Jesus died for me, and I planned to prove myself worthy!

I promptly threw away my favorite Salt-n-Pepa CD, vowed I would never utter another curse word, and I read the book of Revelation in my rose-colored King James Version Bible. All that same afternoon.

You want to know what happened? I ran out of steam. I backslid. In record time, actually. The Book of Revelation overwhelmed me, and honestly, at that time it scared me. I couldn’t just snap my fingers and stop cursing and I really missed my CD. I was buried under the enemy’s condemnation at how quickly I could mess this thing up, thus leading to a decade long journey as a prodigal.

Hindsight is 20/20 and while many factors led to this particular series of events, my heart was at the root. My heart was seeking to be worthy of the gospel, but I had missed the point that I was worthy because of the gospel. Focusing on outward obedience to prove myself worthy, my actions proved useless because my heart was empty.

I had rules but no relationship.

Maybe you have been there yourself, or maybe that is where you find yourself today. Maybe you’re striving in order to earn His love, favor, or salvation? Friend, there is no checklist that we can keep, no sacrifice we can give, no deeds we can do, and no rituals we can perform that will make us worthy of Jesus’ sacrifice on the cross. Not a single one of us are worthy of His love, yet He loves us anyway!

I pray today that if that’s where you find yourself, you wouldn’t stay there a minute longer. Seek Him, pour your heart out, and pray for a relationship with the One who made you.

Resting in relationship,

Traci