Tuesday, January 12, 2010

So Long '09, Hello 2010

So over the last couple of days I have been presented with some ideas: the importance of prayer, how I have spent my time over Christmas break, and recently how I stand with my relationship with God.

This last week and a half or so I have had the opportunity to get involved a bit in my friend's church. Being the first Sunday of the New Year there is always this sense of hope and excitement to see where God will lead this particular church in the coming year. How the church will grow, how God will work within the lives of the people. What kinds of great things will He do in the coming year? It is a time of reflection and honesty and frankly it was quite an encouragement to me to be with a church that I would only be attending for a couple of weeks and still see their hearts, to see that they too, like me, wanted to serve God to the best of their ability and like me we all had the same goal: to glorify God in every area of our lives. There is something about this unity, the fellowship, and commonality about being in one in Christ that is like it doesn't matter whether your in Fresno, LA or anywhere else in the world we share one thing: we are all saved sinners by the blood of Christ and His resurrection. Wow. And that commonality makes you come to a point where we are all one before God. Amazing! Those differences in behavior or personality don't matter so much anymore. Rather they amplify the creativity of our great God and how He has made each of them different but can work in each one in order that we all worship Him.

Getting off of the rabbit trail, the church began what they called a PrayerFocus where the first week of the year 6am-10pm or so, everyday the church was set up for people to come and prayer, using the ACTS model. Now if you haven't heard of it, please don't take it as the "formula" for prayer. It is merely a way to help one put things in perspective and not be as self-focused in our prayer before God. This model won't get us any more brownie points than repeating the Lord's Prayer or Psalm 23 and not knowing what it means.

A- Adoration (praising God for who He is and what He has done ex. Psalm 8)

C- Confession (telling God our sins and how they do not line up with His Word I John 1:9)

T- Thanksgiving (thanking Him for what He has done for us )

S- Supplication (coming to God with our requests)

I had the opportunity to go to one of the prayer meetings, specifically for the college students and those who were in it. It helped me think more about why we prayer and how desperate we are for God. Prayer is how we can communicate with God and is part of the relationship we can have with Him. When we don’t pray, I think many times it is because we are too proud or arrogant to spend time with our Creator and not only that our Savior. It is almost like we go “Lord, I think I’ve got today covered. I don’t really need Your help, thanks anyway.” To summarize: when we don’t pray we fool ourselves into thinking that we are alright and that we don’t need God. We have all had this attitude whether we will admit it or not, and we need a reminder of who God really is. What always humbles me is I ask myself: who woke you up this morning? Who gave you the ability to open your eyes and roll back over? Scrat that. Who gave you that breath, and that one? Who is the one who gave you recall to remember what you’ve studied (or not) for that final? If you need more convincing read Job 38-41.

We are so completely and utterly dependent upon God it isn’t even funny. We can’t pull ourselves up by our own bootstraps so let’s not lie to ourselves that we can. I could go on but you get the picture.

With this, it made me realized how little time I was spending at the feet of Jesus. What makes me think that I can know Jesus without ever spending time with?

And when I do pray, a lot of times it is about “Lord do this” or “Lord can you do that”. It has become so about me and not about Him, and it sickens me to think about. I disgust myself at times. And yet “it” is all about Him. The Bible, it isn’t about you, it’s about HIM and what HE did and what HE has done and will do! We look at the cross and go “thank you Jesus for saving me from sin” and it stops there. If that is all we see, we are jipping ourselves because there is so much more! We miss the big picture! It’s not about you. It’s not about me. It’s about God and His glory.

I could go on but I will stop there and wrap this up.

Thinking about all of this, made me ask myself how do I want to spend my time in the year 2010? What needs to change in my life that maybe isn’t necessarily wrong, but isn’t helping me grow in my relationship with God either? How can I be a better steward of the time that God has given me? If this be my last day, what is there to show that is of eternal value? Is it a day well spent for the Kingdom?

More thoughts to come later, but this will hopefully at least get you started.

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