God Listens to You

Last time we talked about Jeremiah 29:11 which is about the Lord having plans and hopes for your future. Also, that the only thing he wishes for us as Christians is prosperity. We shouldn't be like the rest of the world, we have a God who provides for us so when the chips are down we need to be putting our faith in him. Today we are going to be looking at the verse immediately following Jeremiah 29:11 and it has to deal with God hearing us when we call.

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

I will listen to you when you call. When you are cold and alone in your misery, I will listen to you. When you are left without a place to go, I will listen to you. Cry out to the Lord for he listens to a humble heart. Call upon him with every fiber in your being wanting to be enveloped in the majesty and grace of his presence. Call upon me he says and pray to me with all your heart, and I will listen to you. The creator of heaven and earth whose very fingerprint is etched deep in your soul, will listen to your cry. The one who formed the stars and planets and aligned them properly in the heavens will hear you when you call. Do you realize the total impact of what this says? God the father, the one who puts life into your very being, the one who created every single animal, plant and human being, the one that could destroy us all with his very breath will listen to you. How do you come before someone with such power? How do you bring yourself before the one who you owe your life?

Do you come half-heartedly giving half praises, with no enthusiasm or do you come with a humble attitude, stripped clean and bare, ready as a living sacrifice before your maker. When you come before him and call out to him praying to him with a surrendering of yourself, crying out with a fervent hunger and desperation, God will see your desperation and in return he will grant you the desires of your heart. Now this might be a continual process sometimes taking quit a while. Every time we come to him with a humble heart, more and more of our humanity drops away each we come before him. Dear God today I am bringing you my pride, please help me get over myself and live for others. Help me to not be selfish but to do work that furthers others and your kingdom, your will be done.

Dear God, I just bring you my lust today, protect my eyes, shield them from impurity, guard my mind God. Every time you offer yourself on the altar a different piece of your mindset and attitude falls away, making it easier and for God to come in, because where there is less of you, God loves to be. God listens to me even though I don't deserve it. I could be in the lowest pit on earth, wallowing in my own filth and then call upon the Lord with sincerity in my heart and he will hear my cry and rescue me from myself. We are the makers of our own destruction, we are the ones who do the things that we love but he hates, but yet if we ask him to and call on him to forgive us of our own foolishness he does it with no hesitation he asks for one thing. Our life. Thats it! Nothing big, he just wants to be the number one thing in our life. None of this half-hearted, white washed, watered down Christianity. He wants our 100% allegiance and the desire to bring others to him.

You can't expect to call on God and not have to deal with the consequences of your actions either. It might be an eraser spiritually on God's end you are forgiven but here on man's end you may have somethings to answer to. God I am sorry for punching that guy in the face, but could you please erase the charges of assault and battery. Thanks. Ha Ha no you're forgiven but you still have to pay for what you did. God has grace for you but it is not a crutch. It's not meant t be used over and over again to pick yourself out of the same hole over and over. Grace is an enablement that comes to you from complete surrender to God. That way when temptation comes into your path or a situation comes up that has caused you to fall before you can recall that moment to the grace that saved you and call it back into that moment to help you overcome the attacks of the enemy.

"God by your grace that set me free I pray that you will lift me up over this obstacle in my path. Dear Lord give me the power by your grace to turn the other way and flee just as Joseph did."

We can call on the Lord and pray to him and he will listen. He always listens, make sure that you are sincere in your prayers and callings so that he won't only listen to you, but take action as well. It only says he will listen to you, it doesn't say he will take action. Do you think that after awhile if you keep praying about that same fault and sin as you did last week that God will take action? He will always listen and take mind of you, he is infallible, he is everywhere all at once it is impossible for him not to hear. Make sure when he hears you that he will want to react to your call.

You see, their is a reaction in the atmosphere when God answers prayer. When God answers prayer the same power that was used to create the universe is used in response to your call. The same power that formed Adam out of dirt, that life giving breath and words are used when he answers prayer. The molecules and the crazy scientific stuff I don't understand in the environment around us, all of it forms around his will. Their is a living breathing reaction when God answers prayer, so make sure that when he hears you, you are in a state of humility and repentance. True repentance is turning the other way not wanting to go back, make sure you are not abusing his grace. And will he always answer yes? Not always, he knows what is best for us and he always answers depending on what he knows is best for us and our growth in the kingdom.

God's Plans

Sorry its been awhile guys but it has been a busy couple of weeks. The weekend before last the wife and I went to a Jesus Culture Encounter and it was an amazing spirit-filled experience. I really felt like I was hearing from God through the sessions and that his purpose for me was starting to take fruition. Ever since my wife and I got married in October we have really felt like we were entering a time of rest from ministry related activities. We felt like we just needed to go to church and enjoy our time with God and with each other without getting involved with any extra side activities and wait for God to let us know when we were ready. Well God has really put on my heart that my time of rest is over and that I am now entering a time of seeking. I am still going to sit back and not get involved one hundred percent but instead I am going to concentrate on getting closer to him and really digging in and seeking him on a day to day basis. I have already started to cut several things out of my life that I really feel were holding me back as far as feeling that connection with him and man has it been an awesome couple of weeks since I have let go of my selfish needs and just tried to find him with all my heart. So I have been really meditating on several verses every day picking a new one. What I do is write the verse down on a piece of paper, close my bible and just focus on the verse in front of me. Reading it over and over and letting it sink in until I feel like I need to start writing. So I start writing and I write everything that comes to me until I have nothing left and yet things still start coming to me and I write them down on the paper. After I have written everything I go back over what I have written and most of the time I am amazed at just how I can see God speaking through the writing. Sometimes I can't believe that I wrote some of this stuff and then I know that there is no way that I could have come up with it on my own and that God was speaking to me through the pen. Now I would like to share some stuff with you I am going to start with three verses in Jeremiah. I am only going to do the first one now and then I will post the other two at a later time, I hope that you can find comfort and knowledge in the words that our Father has given me.

Jeremiah 29:11

"For I know the plans I have or you, declares the Lord, plans to prosper you and not to harm you, plans to give you hope and a future."

Even when we think all is lost and hopeless, and times are at it's worst, the Lord knows everything that is in store for us and our families. He see's ahead into the future because he knows all and sees all outcomes. We need to learn to put our trust in the one that put his breath into the earth, the one who gave life to everything that we can see and everything that still remains undiscovered. He wants no harm to come to us, all hard and bad occurrence's are attacks of the enemy and should be seen as such. We need to quit blaming God for our bad occurrence's and events and start blaming the creature responsible. Once we recognize the culprit behind the curtain we can then reveal him for what he is and rebuke him openly in Jesus name and then he has no power over us once he is in the light.

You have a hope and a future already planned out for me, who am I then to question the practices of God? He has promised hope and future for me so what do I give him in return? Do I give him adoration and praise like he deserves or do I give him five quick minutes everyday and then sit in front of the TV for the rest of it? His wish is for us to proser but we can only do so when we put our trust in him and him alone. He wishes no harm should come to us, but that we put our hope and cares in him so that when harm tries to come our way we know that we can rest in the one that knows all things. He can see the light at the end of the tunnel so we must learn to always see the positive in every situation because battle has already been won so we shouldn't worry or have doubt. (See Matt 6:25)

Prosper, Prosper, Prosper.

Prosperity for a Christian is essential. We of all people should be prosperous. If we aren't then there is something wrong with the way that we are living our lives. Are we giving enough? Is there secret sin that is keeping us back from prospering and living fully in the promises that we have been given. God knows all the plans in our own lives regardless if you want him to or not. You might have goals and plans for your life but God might have other things in mind for you. "Oh you want to go to school? Oh that's great but first I want you to go to Africa and reach the sick and dying." "Oh but Lord that is so far away and I can't afford it." SO WHAT!!!! He knows all plans! He will make you prosper. Don't have money for your bills this month? Thats a cinch for God, why is it so hard for our fragile human minds to grasp what He can do? Because we are a simple minded people we look at the numbers and the stacks of bills piling up and our human emotions and instincts kick in causing us to freak out. We have to learn to give everything to him and then he will give everything to us.

I hope this has been insightful to you guys. Next time I will go over Jeremiah 29:12 so read up and get ready. Better yet, read it and write your own thoughts down and share them if you want. We are all meant to have a word from God, we need to stop depending on other people to give us one and start learning to get it ourselves.