When you are feeling the sad....how do you fight for the joy?
A Christian book store.........the kind that's family owned........the closing down.............the urge to go........me the thinking the last thing I need is another book!
The spirit leads...........and I follow.............I sit a spell and I think......
I want it! I want to be that person the bible is calling me to be! My heart is the aching.... aching for the desire...........the desire of the one true God!
If it is true that we become the very thing we desire or love.................What am I? Who am I? What is in my heart?
Do I desire the comfort and the security more than I desire God?
Have I truly really tasted the living waters?
I read a line out loud of (John Piper's book; "When I don't desire God,"; How to Fight for Joy)
"How we pray reveals the desires of our hearts. And the desires of our hearts reveal what our treasure is. And if our treasure is not Christ, we will perish.
How do we pray?
When all alone in the stillness of the dark....how do we pray? What is the treasure of our heart?
Then I read aloud the words............the words of Jesus:
Psalm 90:14;
Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
Psalm 51:8;
Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice
Psalm 51:12;
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Psalm 90:15;
Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.
Psalm 85:6;
Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?
I stand there in awe; we cannot miss this........God knows that we cannot make ourselves satisfied in God......Only God can!
The scripture is speaking......... we are UNABLE.........but God is ABLE.......
God has the right to do it and God is ABLE to do it, and does do it through prayer....
What are we praying for?
And when the author "John Piper," says: Now there is only one hope, the sovereign grace of God...........God will have to transform our hearts..................to do what a heart cannot make itself do, namely want......, what it ought to want!!!
Only God can make the depraved heart desire God.
We can pray for the desires of our hearts....we can lay across the floor weeping wanting what we want....but God is looking..........to and fro for a different spirit!
"You ask and do not receive," James said, "because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions." (Jas. 4:3)
Anything that we desire should ultimately bring us closer to Him.....Christ is exalted when He is desired above all gifts!
Daniel was able to resolve (living in Babylon) ONLY because he was disciplined in his prayer life! Even when the King issued the decree that no one could pray to any other god but to the king himself or else "death." What did Daniel do?
His disciplined power continued to flow. Even after the decree was signed and in place Daniel went home and got on his knees and gave thanks before the Lord, just as he had before. He didn't pray for things for himself, he gave thanks! He had a different spirit! I want that spirit! Don't you?
Mark 10:27;
Jesus looked at them and said, "With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God."
all of grace,
Robbie
A Christian book store.........the kind that's family owned........the closing down.............the urge to go........me the thinking the last thing I need is another book!
The spirit leads...........and I follow.............I sit a spell and I think......
I want it! I want to be that person the bible is calling me to be! My heart is the aching.... aching for the desire...........the desire of the one true God!
If it is true that we become the very thing we desire or love.................What am I? Who am I? What is in my heart?
Do I desire the comfort and the security more than I desire God?
Have I truly really tasted the living waters?
I read a line out loud of (John Piper's book; "When I don't desire God,"; How to Fight for Joy)
"How we pray reveals the desires of our hearts. And the desires of our hearts reveal what our treasure is. And if our treasure is not Christ, we will perish.
How do we pray?
When all alone in the stillness of the dark....how do we pray? What is the treasure of our heart?
Then I read aloud the words............the words of Jesus:
Psalm 90:14;
Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love, that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.
Psalm 51:8;
Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones that you have broken rejoice
Psalm 51:12;
Restore to me the joy of your salvation, and uphold me with a willing spirit.
Psalm 90:15;
Make us glad for as many days as you have afflicted us, and for as many years as we have seen evil.
Psalm 85:6;
Will you not revive us again, that your people may rejoice in you?
I stand there in awe; we cannot miss this........God knows that we cannot make ourselves satisfied in God......Only God can!
The scripture is speaking......... we are UNABLE.........but God is ABLE.......
God has the right to do it and God is ABLE to do it, and does do it through prayer....
What are we praying for?
And when the author "John Piper," says: Now there is only one hope, the sovereign grace of God...........God will have to transform our hearts..................to do what a heart cannot make itself do, namely want......, what it ought to want!!!
Only God can make the depraved heart desire God.
We can pray for the desires of our hearts....we can lay across the floor weeping wanting what we want....but God is looking..........to and fro for a different spirit!
"You ask and do not receive," James said, "because you ask wrongly, to spend it on your passions." (Jas. 4:3)
Anything that we desire should ultimately bring us closer to Him.....Christ is exalted when He is desired above all gifts!
Daniel was able to resolve (living in Babylon) ONLY because he was disciplined in his prayer life! Even when the King issued the decree that no one could pray to any other god but to the king himself or else "death." What did Daniel do?
His disciplined power continued to flow. Even after the decree was signed and in place Daniel went home and got on his knees and gave thanks before the Lord, just as he had before. He didn't pray for things for himself, he gave thanks! He had a different spirit! I want that spirit! Don't you?
Mark 10:27;
Jesus looked at them and said, "With man it is impossible, but not with God. For all things are possible with God."
all of grace,
Robbie
