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Communicating with and listening to God are essential for walking with him and understanding his will, plan, and purpose for us. I've also found that when we fight our battles on our knees – in faith in obedience to the Lord – we win every time. Of course we don't only pray for ourselves. We pray for others and for God's work in the world. Many times people ask, “How do we pray?” or “What should I pray for?”
Perhaps you wonder how to pray for yourself and others.
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Romans 12:1-2
1 I beseech you therefore, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your bodies a living sacrifice, holy, acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. 2 And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.
When sacrificing an animal according to God's law, a priest would kill the animal, cut it into pieces, and place it on the altar. Sacrifice was important, but even in the Old Testament God made it clear that obedience from the heart was much more important. God wants us to offer ourselves, not animals, as living sacrifices – daily lay aside our own desires to follow him, putting all our energy and resources at his disposal and trusting him to guide us.
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We all want to hear the Master say, "well done, good and faithful servant!" But to hear that, we must invest the 'talent' we have been given, and reach the lost in our 'spheres of influence.' And when we add our 'talent' to others', we can reach even further.
Come on, Living Hope, let's reach out!
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| What's the difference between spiritual babes and children? "Babies are totally dependent on others for their wellbeing, protection and nourishment." Have you begun feeding yourself in the Word? Dressing yourself each day in your spiritual armor? Learning to pray to God for protection and guidance?
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God does His best work, in impossible circumstances!
Nehemiah was just an ordinary guy with a regular testimony for the Lord...and it was just your average day when he heard about the rebuilding of the temple, and of the need to do the same with the walls which once surrounded the city, which now stood in heaps. The gates were burned with fire. The people there were discouraged and devastated in poverty. It broke Nehemiah's heart. He began to weep and pray and fast over it.
Nehemiah realized there are many things you can do AFTER you pray, but there is nothing you can do UNTIL you pray!
All of heaven's power becomes focused on the work of God when the people of God are willing to weep, pray, and fast for that which is truly important in this life.
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WHAT ARE YOU LOOKING AT?
James 122 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. 23 For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man observing his natural face in a mirror; 24 for he observes himself, goes away, and immediately forgets what kind of man he was. 25 But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does.
James has set forth the necessity of a proper response to the Word of God on the part of believers. This requires a putting off of all sinful habits and conduct and a willing submission to the Scriptures.
The emphasis in James would fit unbelievers as well as believers. To hear the Word does not mean salvation. There must be faith which changes the life. So believers must be careful to do the Word also.
When we look in a mirror we have 3 possible responses:
Smash the mirror - likewise men try to get rid of the Bible, to destroy the Bible, or deny it existence as the infallible word of God.
Ignore the image - like knowing what the Bible says we should do, but not doing it. Maybe justifying that the image does not need to change.
Change the image (make corrections).
It seems paradoxical that a law could give us freedom, but God’s law points out sin in us and gives us the opportunity to ask for God’s forgiveness. As Christians, we are saved by God’s grace, and salvation frees us from sin’s control. As believers we are free to live as God created us to live. Of course, this does not mean that we are free to do as we please. We are now free to obey God.
"Men are free when they want to do what they ought to do."
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While God has been described as everything from the Almighty, benevolent, personal creator to a crutch or contingency plan when life becomes too difficult, the Bible has some definite things to say about who God is. He is the all-knowing, all-powerful, creator of this universe. His knowledge and power are so far in excess of anything we can grasp. Yet He has taken a special interest in us as humans, who were created to glorify Him, to boast about His deeds, to testify about what He has done in our lives. In all of His awesomeness, He still looks out for us and desires to be our friend.
Psalm 36:5-7 in the Message reads:
God's love is meteoric,
his loyalty astronomic,
His purpose titanic,
his verdicts oceanic.
Yet in his largeness
nothing gets lost;
Not a man, not a mouse,
slips through the cracks.
How exquisite your love, O God!
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God calls everyone and gives them the power to respond—but to be chosen, we must respond to the call, using the power God gave us for that purpose.
1 CHOOSE THE INVITATION
Everyone is called, but some people refuse the invitation and are not chosen. This invitation is to accept Jesus Christ as your Lord and Savior.
2 CHOOSE TO BE READY TO ATTEND
The Lord Jesus has invited us to be with Him. We must be ready. We must be looking for his return. We must be walking in the truth of his Word. We must be prayed up. We must be Kingdom focus and not worldly focus. We must desire to be a Christian, a disciple of Christ, in word and in action. Not just lip service. We can’t be so busy that we forget the importance of ministering to those in need and sharing the love of Christ. We must understand that time is short, and that we have been called to reach the lost. We must be ready at all times. There is an open invitation, but we must be ready.
3 CHOSE TO PUT ON THE CLOTHES OF RIGHTEOUSNESS
Christ has provided the standard of righteousness to everyone, but each person must choose to put it on in order to enter the King banquet (eternal life). No one will get into heaven unless they are clothed in the righteousness of Christ. This has been going on since the fall of Adam and Eve….fig-leaf “Christianity”. We want to believe that we can cover our sin with something we manufactured or that we don’t need covering for our sin at all. This is a false belief. Only the “clothing” of Christ’s perfect righteousness can dress us for heaven.
To be CHOSEN we must first choose to take Christ’s invitation, to be ready at all times, and to choose to put on the clothes of righteousness.
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If we look at the Bible, God’s inerrant Word, as an information and wisdom filter, the results of that wisdom that we will receive will be pure, clean and healthy.
It will sustain us. It will be refreshing.
However, if man, who is created from the dust, decides that he will filter knowledge or the Word of God, the end result will be murky muddy water.
Everything he tries to interpret will be unclear. When he decides to drink from his filtered interpretation of God’s Word, of his taking and choosing of what he wants to believe, the end result will be sickness, despair, struggle, anger, bitterness, and death.
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Deuteronomy 8:10 "When you have eaten and are full, then you shall bless the LORD your God for the good land which He has given you.
This verse is traditionally cited as the reason we say grace before or after meals. Its purpose, however, was to warn the Israelites not to forget God when their needs and wants were satisfied. We all need occasional reminders that it is God who gives us any blessing that we come to enjoy. God commanded us to remember his blessings in both bad times Deuteronomy 8:1-10 and in good times 8:11-20.
The apostle Paul tells us that we should be “always giving thanks to God the Father for everything”. Ephesians 5:20 … giving thanks always for all things to God the Father in the name of our Lord Jesus Christ.
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Exodus 3:4 ...when the Lord saw that he (Moses) turned aside to look, Gad called to him from the midst of the bush. When Moses showed that he was willing to put aside his own agenda, God met him, and set him on his course for his destiny.
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Paul states in Romans 13:1 that "the (governmental) authorities that exist have been established by God." Question: Since God established the institution of government, would He then tell His people to stay out of it? No. God expects us to get involved, make a positive impact, and lead the way to real and lasting change - just as Christians have done since the settlement and founding of this nation.
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Most would agree that Paul was a great apostle and evangelist, but dedicated friends helped Paul achieve many of his accomplishments.
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The focus of the Gospel is outward towards a lost world. We come to church to fellowship and worship God. However, we can not become inwardly focused by placing all of our attention on the inside of the church. We come to church to WORSHIP but we leave the church to WITNESS.
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