Connecting With God

Preacher:
Date: December 15, 2017

So do not throw away your confidence; it will be richly rewarded. You need to persevere so that when you have done the will of God, you will receive what he has promised. Hebrews 10:35-36

 

You are not just tissue, bones and organs, but a living being, a person made in God’s image.  Some 50 trillion cells—a unique mixture of body, soul, and spirit—constitute the real you! No one sees what you see or feels what you feel.  The Bible says that you were of such great importance to God that He sent His Son to redeem you, forgive your sins and failures, and to reveal His purpose and will for you.

When Paul wrote to the Romans, he said that the key to discovering God’s purpose and plan is not only to use your brain–your mind, as he put it–but to yield your body to Him as a living sacrifice. This is significant—far more so than most people realize—because your thoughts control what you do, and your refusal to think of the consequences of what you do can result in tragedy. The day following the night when you threw caution to the wind, you awaken from your moral stupor and ask, “God, help me.  How could I have done the stupid thing I did?”

Paul stresses the fact that your mind and focus have to be renewed on a daily basis. You eat every day, right?  You bathe daily, right? You may even exercise every day to stay healthy—at least you should. So what do you do on a daily basis to ensure that your brain is in tune with God’s purpose and plan for you life?

For centuries men and women have faced that issue. How do you survive in a world that seeks to force you into conformity with their thinking? Simply put, “How do you connect with God on a regular basis?” David cried out, “O God, You are my God;

Early will I seek You…” (Psalm 63:1).  At the time David wrote that psalm, he was fleeing from Saul. I can visualize him rising even before the sun turned the moist air into burning heat, and he meditated upon the goodness of God. He said, “I had fainted unless I had believed to see the goodness of the Lord in the land of the living.”

First, he took time to meditate and wait upon the Lord. That means you take time to refresh your life spiritually. Then David reflected upon the promises of God. He often quoted Scripture back to God. No, he didn’t have a Bible such as you have, but he had some of the Old Testament. He knew much of the Law given by Moses, and he knew how God spoke through the prophets and revealed His will regarding the decisions of life and their consequences.

Take time on a daily basis to refresh your spirit by opening your heart to what God wants. I would encourage you to keep a notebook with your Bible and record what you pray about, then as God responds keep track of the way He answered.

Paul told Christians at Rome that God’s will is good. You can’t separate the will of the Father from His nature and character. He also said that as we understand it we recognize that it is acceptable—not a bitter pill to be swallowed, but the key to what we always wanted but didn’t know what it was. Finally he says it is complete or whole—perfect was the word he used.

He said the first step is to make a heart decision to do His will—“doing the will of God from your heart” is how he put it (Ephesians 6:6).  The book of Hebrews also promises that it will be rewarded (Hebrews 10:36).  That you can discover for yourself.

Scripture reading: Ephesians 4:25-32

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