My Prayers before God

This morning as I was reading the Bible I finally saw some verses through the right pair of glasses as Pastor Gardner would say. I have always thought that I had to do some special things to be righteous enough for Christ to hear my prayers. That He definitely could not delight in my prayers but they must be a burden to Him cause I fail Him. I do not always seek and follow Him like I should.

But this morning I read my Bible in light of who Christ has made me to be by His grace. Not because I am anything but because of How great my Father's love is for me. He has saved me and given me a gift of righteousness that I might stand before His throne with boldness and pray. - Romans 5:17

Anyway here are the two verses that I read this morning that are absolutely awesome.

Proverbs 15:8 "The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination unto the Lord: but the prayer of the upright is his delight."

I have always looked at this verse with the glasses that see all my failures and saw myself as the wicked man that must be an abomination to the Lord. I knew that He could not delight to here my prayer. But I put a different pair of glasses this morning. I know that I have been made upright by the blood of Jesus Christ. So it is not that I am anything of myself. It is just that Christ has made me upright so then my prayers are a delight to my Heavenly Father. I am no longer an abomination to God. He delights in my prayers!

Proverbs 15:29 "The Lord is far from the wicked: but he heareth the prayer of the righteous."

The same is true for this verse as is for the other one. I used to see myself every time as the wicked man that God is far from. But that just isn't true. God Hears my prayer cause I am His son and I have been made righteous.

I serve an awesome Savior! Thank you Lord for hearing and delighting in my prayers!

The Goodness of my God

God has been working on this in my life for a real long time now. I have struggled believing who God really is and how great a God he really is. Today Pastor Gardner talked about it the entire class time and then afterward he talked to me and Kyle about it for about 2 hours.

I thank God for using Pastor Gardner to teach me this truth. I know that it is true and he preaches it all the time but I am slow sometimes and things take a while to sink in to my thick skull.

I am so thankful that God is pleased with me and loves me for who I am. The fact that God's love and care for me is not dependent upon what I do but upon who He is. God really has been good to me I can't even understand it all it is way to great and magnificent.

God looked at me when I was in the deepest sin and He loved me enough that He sent His own Son to die for me that I might be reconciled to Him. He then came to me and drew me to Him when i was in the pit of my own sin and picked me up and seated me in heaven with Himself. He has made me to be a prince, a saint, a son, a coheir with Jesus Christ and the list could go on.

I am so thankful that God has seen fit to change me and to make me His own. That He loves me and I am His workmanship. That His goodness and grace and forgiveness and salvation and justification and provision and care and everything else is not dependent on how good of a life I live or how much I obey him or how much I do for him. It is based on who He is. The fact that he is God and that He has made me to be His son that I might call Him Dad.

I am thankful that I do not have a God that is just standing there waiting to hit me or punish me. I have a God that is proud of what He has done in my life and what He has made me through Jesus Christ. All His thoughts towards me are peace continually.

God has started a good work in me and I am so thankful that it is God and God alone that will complete the work in me.

I want my life to bring the utmost glory to the Great God of Heaven. He has given everything to me. He has all of me to do with as He will. I know He will only do what is right and good.

Peace of God

The peace of God has been on my mind quite a bit. I know that it is impossible to explain cause it is beyond understanding. But I am so thankful that God has seen fit to dwell with men and to give them His peace even in the midst of a storm.

In my own life for the past week I tried to work Philippians 4:4-8 into my life. It is really hard to live these verses cause they call for me to break old and bad habits and live in a new reality. Trying to do this all last week was difficult cause God allowed some none me pleasing things to happen in my life.

I allowed this to bother me for some time. But on Sunday afternoon I realized that the problem was that I wanted God to take away the problems He has faced me with instead of asking Him to give me the strength and His peace to go through it.

I think it is awesome how that when we do what the Bible says it really works. I got so focused on what was going on in my life and not on God who is a lot bigger than all that is going on in my life. I was focused on God changing the outward man instead of His changing the inward man and who I am on the BE level.

I am so thankful that when I make the choice to do exactly what God says. That He will do what He says he will do. All God wanted from me is to truly cast all my problems (cares) on Him thank Him for what He is doing in my life and for taking care of my problems. Then proceeding to think on the right things and His peace followed.

I serve an awesome God and I am so thankful that He is true to His word and He never fails. I am so thankful that peace and joy does not have to be based on what is going on in my life. That I can place them in my God and have peace and joy no matter what is going on in my life!

As usual I start out with a topic and then drift but anyway here it is.

Seeing God and others

I have been struggling with this every day this week. I decided in the beginning of this week that I was going to do my best to live Philippians 4:4-8. I guess maybe I chose the wrong week cause it seemed like everything that could go wrong went wrong. (Seemed cause I know that overall it wasn't all that bad of a week.) Every time I did my best to live out those verses and it became harder and harder as the week progressed.

Then yesterday things got a lot more overwhelming. I allowed them to affect me. Then last night as I was spending time with God He caused me to think on some things.

The whole problem this week has been that I have been focused on myself. About what is going on in my life. How things are not going how I want them to. The different issues that I am facing. God wants me to realize my problems but not dwell on them to think about Him and what He is doing in my life. How that He is bigger and far greater than anything He allows to happen in my life.

Then also that life is not about me. It isn't about everything going my way. Or things really working out like I want them to. My life ought to be about others. Especially other believers. I ought to love my fellow believers more than myself and care for their needs and serve them and do all that I can to help them and show that I love them.

God wants for my life to be completely about Him and His glory and me working to see all the people around me succeed and see God use them in the greatest of their capacity. That has been my biggest issue all week and probably for longer than I think. I am way to Micah centered and concerned. I am going to work on putting others first in my life and God above everything and giving Him full reign in my life. I want God to completely rule in my life and get the utmost glory!

May God's people fully surrender their wills to God that He might have His will done on earth as it is in heaven! I want this to be true in my life.

Good Friends

I would just like to write a short blog post right now about how thankful I am that God has placed such good friends in my life.

- Scott Newton who is a great friend and help. He has been there when I have gone through through the hardest times in my life. Faced the hardest trials.

- Kathryn who God has allowed me to get to know a little over the past few months. She is a great girl and and encouragement to me.

- Pastor Gardner who has allowed God to use him greatly as a preacher. It is awesome how often the messages that he has preached have been just what I needed.

- Kyle who recently became my roommate. He is a great encouragement to me and I am thankful God has allowed us to be friends.

- John Pearson who is a great friends and has helped me many times with different things. How he has given me good godly advice.

- all the other people at Vision Baptist Church who have become like family to me. I am so thankful to God for bringing me here and allowing me to be part of this great church.

Thank you Lord for all that you have given me and for the great people that you have brought into my life.

Current Tribulation - future glory

(Romans 8:18) "For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared with the glory which shall be revealed in us."

I am studying this chapter of Romans this week and this verse struck me today. It is very timely in my life. I so much of the time am focused on my suffering or what is going on in my life. The battle between the flesh and the Spirit. Financial difficulties and successes. The just simple struggles and sufferings of this life. I know I am probably not seeing all that is in this verse and all that it is meaning. But I am so thankful that God has prepared glory that is so much better than anything I might face in this life.

My biggest problem is that I focus to much on the present problems and not on the one that can take care of them. I know that I serve the great God of heaven and that he cares for me and calls me son. It is so much easier to say this than to live in its reality.

I am going to strive to look to the author and finisher of my faith and trust him with all that is going on in my life that I might not like. I will live who God has made me in Christ and look to Him to take care of my problems as I did to my dad when I was a child. I will look to God who is my father and cares for me more than my earthly father ever could and trust Him to do what is right and best. What will bring Him the most glory.

May God get the utmost glory from my life. I don't want an easy life but a full life to the glory of God my heavenly Father. I am so thankful I can call Him my dad and rest in His mercy, grace, truth, love, care, and the list could go on for ever.

Thank you God for loving me and taking care of me and guiding every step of my life.

Explore the book - J. Sidlow Baxter

"We may well say, especially to young converts: Read Romans to be grounded in Christian doctrine; read Corinthians to be guided in Christian practice; read Galatians to be guarded against deceptive error."

Life on paper compared to reality

I have just been thinking about the difference between life on paper and life in reality. It is so easy to make plans on paper and never live them out. So many times I will plan my day and then it will just bomb because something will come up. I will not have figured my time right or anything like that.

But more so I have been thinking about this in the spiritual sense. It is so easy to read in the Bible we are to live by faith but it is a lot more difficult to live. I find myself worrying about things so much and not really having faith and trusting God. It is easy to say I trust God and have faith in Him. But it is a lot different to walk that way all the day long.

Another one is that the Bible says that God will never leave us nor forsake us in Hebrews. But I find that it is a lot more difficult to really believe this in reality and for my walk to show that I believe this. I live so much of my life like God is not there. Like He saved me and He is really distant. I know that God is there and that He will take care of me.

I was just thinking about I need to start living what I say I believe. It is really easy to say that I believe something. It is quite another to live it. I am going to work on living what I believe. It is a lot better to live in reality of what I believe about God an all He has done and is doing for me. I just need to live every moment in this reality. I guess it just comes down to breaking old bad habits of thinking wrong and living thinking on the wrong things. And starting some new habits trusting God and really living like He is with me.

I am done rambling now....

Thoughts

I have been thinking ever since the Question and Answer time last night with Pastor Gardner about all that I think about. It is for me to just let my thoughts and feeling rule me instead of ruling over them. I know that God has given me power over them and I have the ability to control my mind and subject it completely to the Spirit but I do this a lot less than I should.

Last night Pastor was answering a question on how to deal with depression. He took us to Philippians 4:4-8 and went on to explain the verses to us. Basically the process is to rejoice in the Lord, then talk to God about it, then thank God for it, and then finally to think on what is good, true, just, godly, of good report and so forth. I know how little I do this in my own life.

I have decided that I am going to slowly teach myself to rule over what I think about and allow to affect me. Whether it be finances or any other dart Satan might through at me. I am going to raise my shield of faith and live.

I am so thankful that God has given to us the solution to those things that can tear us down. I know that I allow Satan to fool me way to much in what to think about which leads to me not trusting God like I should and just moving forward in my life and closer to God.