Prepare Your Heart To Talk To God

by Robert Pedersen

 

This second belief is far different from the last one we discussed but just as detrimental to communication with God.

It is this idea/belief:

“I know exactly what I must do to be accepted by God.”

You may be one of the believers who has all the answers about salvation and most everything pertaining to God.

Perhaps you can quote scriptures from The Bible that pretty much give the recipe for getting “in” with God.

While it is good to have confidence in your understanding of God, it can be dangerously limiting.

This belief puts you in a difficult spot because you find it impossible to do all you know you must do.

The result is that you don’t feel saved – in fact you often feel totally lost.

Consider this scripture:

Seek the LORD while he may be found; call on him while he is
near.
Let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let
him turn to the LORD, and he will have mercy on him, and to our
God, for he will freely pardon.
“For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my
ways,” declares the LORD.
“As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher
than your ways and my thoughts than your thoughts.
Isa 55:6-9 (NIV)

If we were to take the highest and best thinking of man and then consider that God’s thoughts and ways are even higher it doesn’t leave any room for feeling like we’ve got it all figured out.

It is a big job for the finite to comprehend the infinite and that’s where we find ourselves.

Jesus found the religious people of his day to be very dogmatic and consumed with their own ideas about God.

Their confidence that they knew so much about God prevented them from accepting the Christ when he stood right in front of them and spoke directly to them.

If you assume that everything you know about God is accurate you’re making a huge assumption.

If you allow that assumption to define God you limit your experience of God.

If you also say God is omniscient, omnipotent and omnipresent then you are describing a God without limits.

You must decide who God is to you.  Is He Almighty God – the infinite Creator?  Or the God of all your limitations?

Scripture reference:

Isaiah 57:15
For this is what the high and lofty One says– he who lives
forever, whose name is holy: “I live in a high and holy place,
but also with him who is contrite and lowly in spirit, to revive
the spirit of the lowly and to revive the heart of the contrite.
(NIV)

lowly, adj.
1. humble in position or status
2. simple and unpretentious
Some words of Jesus:

 Matthew 5:3
Blessed are the poor in spirit, for theirs is the kingdom
of heaven.

These and many more scriptures indicate that humility of spirit is a key to communication with God.

In the last lesson we mentioned the importance of boldness and confidence with God.

Boldness with humility is having confidence to approach God without preconceived notions.