Enlightened Hope

The Wisest Person in the World

Humanly speaking, if you were able to meet with the wisest person in the world, there are two questions that come to mind:

1) Would you do more talking or more listening?

2) How much time would you put aside for the meeting?

I think the answers are pretty obvious. You would listen more than you would speak and you would put aside as much time as you could. Perhaps you would even make time in your day that you never thought you had!

OK, now heavenly speaking. In prayer, we are able to meet with our Heavenly Father who is infinitely wise, who infinitely loves us, who is infinitely creative and made you and me and who has a Heavenly plan for each one of our lives. So, considering the above, when we pray, should we do more talking or more listening? Again, considering the above, how much time should we put aside for the meeting?

Are you getting my point? How much time do we pull away from this world to spend time communing and listening to our Heavenly Father? Now, don’t give me the answer, “I am in constant communication with my Heavenly Father 24-7”. Jesus was in constant communication with His Heavenly Father 24-7 and He still very, very often pulled away, to a quite place, and prayed with His Heavenly Father. It was His source of strength!

To Know Him

I have another question. What would be the point of spending eternity with someone we don’t know? This verse has come up before, Jesus prayed for us…
John 17:3
3 Now this is eternal life : that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. NIV
This is a really important verse. It defines what ‘eternal life’ is. It is pretty clear. It’s not ambiguous or complicated. Eternal life is knowing the Father and Jesus Christ His Son (and they are revealed through His Holy Spirit).

So what is our aim in our Christian life? To live a ‘good’ life. Trying our best to be a nice Christian or is our aim to know Him intimately (and to do what He is telling us to do)?

For Him to Know Us

Here are a couple of scary verses (notice the word MANY):

Matthew 7:21-23
21 “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven, but only he who does the will of my Father who is in heaven. 22 Many will say to me on that day, ‘Lord , Lord , did we not prophesy in your name, and in your name drive out demons and perform many miracles?’ 23 Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’ NIV

Looking at these verses, we can even be ‘doing the stuff’ that we think Jesus wants us to do but still have no relationship with Him. Hear what these verses are saying, “Lord, didn’t we do ‘this stuff’ (in your name)”. And Jesus still has honoured His Name through them in spite of their lack of relationship with Him!

You know, we even have arm bands that remind us “What would Jesus do?” But is that really what it is all about? Isn’t it rather “What is Jesus telling me to do?” and then our response is we go and do it. The former is a (knowledgeable) guess and the latter is …… FAITH! (Ah! faith, that’s another blog)

Spend time with Him today! I mean more than 5 minutes of babbling on. Wait on Him and enjoy Him, in Jesus Name, AMEN

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White Noise

In electronics, there is an instrument called a ‘White Noise Generator‘. It’s function is to put out a whole lot of different frequencies at once for the testing of audio equipment. It puts out sound just like you get on a TV when you are not tuned in to any station correctly – kind of a SSSHHHH sound.

When we pray, we can have a kind of ‘White Noise‘ going on in our heads. I don’t mean a whole lot of different frequencies but I mean a whole lot of different voices going on at once. Voices from our past, voices of our mother and father, voices from our work, voices from our friends, voices from people who have hurt us, voices from last week, voices from yesterday, voices from TV, radio and advertisements, voices of the evil one. I guess you would call these voices, ‘voices of influence‘. They have shaped who we are. Not all of them are helpful. Some shape us positively, some negatively.

In prayer, there is only one voice that we need to hear, and that is the voice of the Lord. I guess, what I am trying to say is, are these voices or is this ‘white noise’ drowning out the voice of the Lord?

The Word of the Lord brings life!

John 6:63
63 The Spirit gives life; the flesh counts for nothing. The words I have spoken to you are spirit and they are life. NIV

John 6:68-69
68 Simon Peter answered him, “Lord, to whom shall we go? You have the words of eternal life. 69 We believe and know that you are the Holy One of God.” NIV

Indeed, who else has the Words of Eternal Life!

In prayer, we need to come to a place of stillness in Him. A time when all the other voices are silent and we begin to commune with Him and we begin to hear the Word of the Lord and He begins to ‘restore our souls‘ (Psalm 23).

Psalms 46:10
10 “Be still , and know that I am God;
I will be exalted among the nations,
I will be exalted in the earth.” NIV

Psalms 37:1-7
1 Do not fret because of evil men or be envious of those who do wrong;
2 for like the grass they will soon wither,like green plants they will soon die away.
3 Trust in the LORD and do good; dwell in the land and enjoy safe pasture.
4 Delight yourself in the LORD and he will give you the desires of your heart.
5 Commit your way to the LORD; trust in him and he will do this:
6 He will make your righteousness shine like the dawn,the justice of your cause like the noonday sun.
7 Be still before the LORD and wait patiently for him;
do not fret when men succeed in their ways, when they carry out their wicked schemes. NIV

Psalms 23:1-4
23:1 The LORD is my shepherd, I shall not be in want,
2 He makes me lie down in green pastures,
he leads me beside quiet waters,
3 he restores my soul.
He guides me in paths of righteousness
for his name’s sake.
4 Even though I walk
through the valley of the shadow of death,
I will fear no evil,
for you are with me;
your rod and your staff,
they comfort me. NIV

Father, still those voices inside me. I want to hear your voice and your voice only. You are the only one that can give me Words of Life. You are the only one who can restore my soul. Help me to be still and know you are God, in Jesus Name, AMEN

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Intimacy with Our Heavenly Father!

One of the most amazing gifts that a true, born again Christian has is prayer! Prayer is the lifeblood of the Christian life! Prayer is the air that we breathe to sustain and grow our Christian walk. Without prayer, without developing our relationship with our Heavenly Father (or rather, God developing us) through prayer we literally ‘die‘, we literally ‘crash and burn‘.

Now why did I call it a gift? It is a gift from God because He desires it. He initiated it, He instigated it, He designed it for His intimacy with us and for His purposes and plans for His Kingdom through us. And in our arrogance we believe we are initiating things, that we are reaching out to Him, that we are finding God (such is the proud way that we think!). No, God first reaches out to us! God has His ear pressed so hard against the Heavenlies waiting for you and me to pray to Him! He even tells us what to pray, by His Spirit. Have you thought about that? Even prayer is all about Him! He transforms our lives and our hearts so that we are praying ‘God prayers‘.

Adam and Eve and the Fall of man(and woman) – this is important

Read Genesis 2:16 to the end of chapter 3. Basically, sin(disobedience to God) enters the world through Adam and Eve. In summary, they ‘bought’ a lie that God was ‘holding out’ on them. That He didn’t have their best interests in mind. Satan slandered God’s character and they believed it! (By the way, this is the same lie and deception that Satan tries to feed us today) Anyways, sin enters the world and we inherit ‘this sinful nature’ from Adam and there is a barrier of sin between us and God for true relationship with Him.

Romans 5:12-19 says:
12 Therefore, just as sin entered the world through one man , and death through sin, and in this way death came to all men, because all sinned— 13 for before the law was given, sin was in the world. But sin is not taken into account when there is no law. 14 Nevertheless, death reigned from the time of Adam to the time of Moses, even over those who did not sin by breaking a command, as did Adam, who was a pattern of the one to come. 15 But the gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of the one man , how much more did God’s grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man , Jesus Christ, overflow to the many! 16 Again, the gift of God is not like the result of the one man’s sin: The judgment followed one sin and brought condemnation, but the gift followed many trespasses and brought justification. 17 For if, by the trespass of the one man , death reigned through that one man , how much more will those who receive God’s abundant provision of grace and of the gift of righteousness reign in life through the one man , Jesus Christ. 18 Consequently, just as the result of one trespass was condemnation for all men, so also the result of one act of righteousness was justification that brings life for all men. 19 For just as through the disobedience of the one man the many were made sinners, so also through the obedience of the one man the many will be made righteous. NIV

OK, that was a little meaty and there was a bit of religious jargon but the truth of these verses needs to be understood. Sin came through one man – Adam. Salvation came through one man – Jesus Christ. Therefore through Jesus Christ we are righteous again before God. In other words, God restores our relationship with Him through Jesus Christ and our relationship is just like Adam and Eves before the fall! There is no longer any barrier between us and God! If you are not a Christian and you are reading this, do you realise what you are missing out on?

Anyways, why I brought this up, is for all of us to see, that relationship and communication through prayer has been restored through Jesus and we can have true intimacy with Him through prayer.

Jesus prayed for us…
John 17:3
3 Now this is eternal life : that they may know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent. NIV

Know Jesus today! Invite Him into your heart! Know the Father through the Son revealed by the Holy Spirit.

Blessings

Steve

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The Transforming Power of Prayer!

I believe there is GREAT MISUNDERSTANDING about prayer. I believe this GREAT MISUNDERSTANDING stems from the influences of this evil, self centred world that we live in and also from our sinful, self centred natures. I believe the GREAT MISUNDERSTANDING is this, that ‘God is there to meet our needs’. That is, God’s soul purpose is to meet our needs. This is absolute bunkum! Hear me out on this one. If there was only one area we need to get right in our Christian walk it is in the area of our prayer life! Let’s look at the scriptures…

Jesus said…
Mattthew 6:9-13
9 “This, then, is how you should pray:
“‘Our Father in heaven,
hallowed be your name,
10 your kingdom come,
your will be done
on earth as it is in heaven.
11 Give us today our daily bread.
12 Forgive us our debts,
as we also have forgiven our debtors.
13 And lead us not into temptation,
but deliver us from the evil one.’ NIV

Do we realise that we have a Heavenly Father whose will and desire is to establish His Kingdom on earth as it is in Heaven?

Genuine prayer transforms our will into His will. Genuine prayer takes God’s heart and plants it into our heart. Genuine prayer is not all about us, it’s all about Him. Genuine prayer doesn’t build our kingdom, it builds(or establishing) God’s Kingdom(on earth as it is in Heaven).

This is the transforming power of prayer. This struggle with our humanity we need to face daily through prayer with our Heavenly Father…

Even Jesus, faced with the sure knowledge of His crucifixion, in prayer ‘wrestled’ with His humanity to the point where He was completely submitted and surrendered to the Father’s will. Matthew 26:39b “My Father, if it is possible, may this cup be taken from me. Yet not as I will, but as you will.” NIV

Through prayer, completely surrender to the Father’s will for your life, and through that, you will find that all of your needs will be met!

To Be Continued… Intimacy with the Father

Blessings

Steve

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