The Next Step in Your New Life
We human beings have been at this "sin" thing for a long time. We have problems and weaknesses toward doing wrong. We've gotten a little scarred and numb to the whole thing -- maybe outright cynical. We are helpless, hopeless. "Even Jesus couldn't set me free," we think. After all, we've tried as hard as we can and nothing has changed. "He wouldn't see anything worth saving anyway?"
Maybe it's a secret sin: an affair eight years ago that not even your spouse knows about. Maybe it's something that controls your life, like alcoholism or some other addiction. And some people have told you you'll never change, and your starting to believe them.
STOP! Jesus is not your accuser. He is not your prosecutor. He's not your judge. He's your best friend and your rescuer. Just spend some time with Jesus. Don't hide from him in shame or reject him in self-righteousness. Don't allow the opinions of other people to shape your concept of him. Get to know him for yourself and let the goodness of God change you from the inside out!
**The following information is to provide you with a better understanding, as to how you can continue to connect with the Holy Spirit and bring more abundance of daily blessings in your life**
"How to Get In Touch With God And Live A Life Of Greater Tranquility, Faith, Peace And Prosperity"
Section Contents
- Section 1: "Seeking Him"
- Section 2: "Possess The Kingdom First And Things Later"
- Section 3: "Faith"
- Section 4: "Relationship With God"
- Section 5: "Basic Steps"
In today's fast past life, many do not have the availability to take the time necessary to learn about religion. There are increasing numbers of individuals whose lives bear a thriving hunger after God Himself. They're eager for spiritual truths and won't accept just words, nor will they be happy with right "versions" of truth as spouted by religious community leaders. They're thirsty for God, and they won't be satisfied till they've been able to drink of his spirit.
They're thirsty to taste for themselves the "acute sweetness" of the love of Christ about Whom all the holy prophets wrote and the psalmists sang. There's no lack of Bible instructors to expound on the principles of the doctrines of Christ, but too many of these appear satisfied to teach the basics of the faith year after year, oddly incognizant that in their ministry there’s no apparent Presence, nor anything uncommon in their personal lives. They pastor constantly to believers who experience a longing which their teaching merely doesn't fulfill. For it isn't simple words that sustain the soul, but God Himself, and unless the listeners discover God in personal experience, they're not the greater for having heard the truth.
The Bible isn't an end in itself, but a way to bring men to an intimate and substantial knowledge of God, that they might enter into Him, that they might delight in His Presence, might taste and understand the inner pleasantness of the very God Himself in the core and essence of their hearts.
Section 1: "Seeking Him"
The modern man of science has lost God among the wonders of His world; we're in real danger of misplacing God among the wonders of His Word. We have nearly blanked out that God is a Person and, intrinsically, may be cultivated as any individual may. It's innate in personality to be able to understand other personalities, but total knowledge of one personality by another can't be accomplished in one meeting. It's only after long and loving mental encounters that the full possibilities of both may be explored. All social encounters between humans is a response of personality to personality, scaling upward from the most common brush between man and man to the fullest, most familiar communion of which the human soul is able.
God is a Person, and in the depth of His powerful nature He thinks, wills, delights, feels, loves, wants and suffers as any other individual might. In making Himself known to us He communicates with us by the avenues of our brains, our wills and our emotions. This encounters between God and the soul is experienced by us in conscious personal awareness. Being created in His image we have inside us the mental ability to know Him. I wish deliberately to promote this powerful longing after God. The lack of it has brought us to our current depressed state. The stiff character about our spiritual lives is a result of our deficiency of holy desire. Complacency is a lethal foe of all spiritual maturation. Intense desire has to be present or there will be no manifestation of Christ to His masses. He waits to be needed. Regrettable that with a lot of us He waits in vain.
Each age has its own features. Right now we're in an age of spiritual complexness. The simplicity which is in Christ is seldom discovered among us. In its place are programs, techniques, organizations and a world of nervous actions which absorb time and attention but may never fulfill the longing of the heart. The superficiality of our inner experience, the hollowness of our worship, and that fakeness of the world which marks our promotional techniques all testify that we, today, know God merely imperfectly, and the serenity of God scarcely at all. If we'd discover God among all the religious externals we must first decide to find Him, and then go forward in the way of simplicity. We have to simplify our approach to Him.
We have to peel down to essentials. We have to put away all effort to impress, and attach to the honest frankness of childhood. If we accomplish this, beyond any doubt God will quickly respond. In prayer we exercise a further peeling down of everything, even of our theological system. When the Lord separated Canaan among the tribes of Israel Levi got no share of the land. God stated to him simply, "I am thy part and thine inheritance," and by those words made him richer than all his brethren, more plentiful than all the kings and rajas that have ever lived in the world. And there's a spiritual principle here, a precept still valid for every one.
The man who has God for his treasure bears all things in One. A lot of average treasures might be denied him, or if he's allowed to get them, the enjoyment of them will be so normalized that they'll never be essential to his happiness. Or if he has to see them go, one after one, he will barely feel a sense of loss, for owning the Source of all things he has in One all gratification, all pleasure, and all joy. Whatever he might lose he's really lost nothing, for he now owns it all in One, and he has it purely, licitly and forever.
A Prayer to be closer.
O God, I've sampled Thy goodness, and it's both gratified me and made me hungry for more. I'm painfully witting of my need of additional grace. I'm ashamed of my deficiency of desire. O God, I wish to want Thee; I yearn to be filled with longing; I crave to be made thirstier still. Show me Thy glory; I pray Thee, that so I might know Thee indeed. Start in mercy a fresh work of love inside me. State to my soul, "rise, my love, my fair one, and come away." Then provide me grace to rise and follow Thee up from this foggy lowland where I've wandered so long. In Jesus' Name, ---AMEN.
Section 2: "Possess The Kingdom First And Things Later "
Our sufferings started when God was routed out of His central shrine and "things" were allowed to come in. Inside the human heart "things" have claimed a place. Men have now naturally no peace inside their hearts, for God is king there no more. This isn't a mere metaphor, but a precise analysis of our true spiritual trouble. There's inside the human heart a hard fibrous root of diminished life whose nature is to own, always to possess. It covets "things" with a rich and fierce passion. The pronouns "my" and "mine" look guiltless enough in print, but their ceaseless and universal utilization is significant. They convey the true nature of man better than 1000 volumes of theology could do. They're verbal symptoms of our mysterious disease. The roots of our hearts have gone to things, and we dare not lose one root or we will die.
Things have become essential to us, a matter never originally intended. God's gifts today take the place of God, and the entire course of nature is disquieted by the heinous substitution. It would appear that there's inside each of us a foe which we tolerate at our risk. Its main feature is its possessiveness: the words "acquire" and "profit" indicates this. To let this enemy live is ultimately to lose everything. To renounce it and relinquish all for Christ's sake is to lose nothing in the end, but to save everything unto eternal life. And potentially also a hint is given here as to the sole effective way to destroy this enemy: it's by the Cross. "Let him take up his cross and follow me."
The way to richer knowledge of God is by soul poverty and denial of all things. The blessed ones who possess the Kingdom are they who have renounced every external thing and have rooted from their hearts all sensation of possessing. These are the "poor in spirit." Let me urge you to take this seriously. It isn't to be translated as mere Bible teaching to be hived away in the brain along with a heap of additional doctrines. It's a marker on the route to greener pastures. We dare not try to go around it. We have to rise a step at a time. If we pass up one step we bring our advancement to an end. Abraham possessed nothing. Yet wasn't this poor man rich? Everything he had owned was his still to love: sheep, camels, herds, and goods of every type. He had likewise his wife and his acquaintances, and best of all he had his son Isaac by his side. He had everything, but he possessed nothing. There's the spiritual secret. There's the fresh theology of the heart which may be learned only by renunciation. There's no doubt that this possessive clinging to things is among the most injurious habits in the life.
Because it's so natural it's seldom recognized for the evil that it is; but it’s tragic. Our gifts and talents ought to be turned over to Him. They ought to be recognized for what they are, God's loan to us, and ought to never be thought about in any sense our own. We have no more right to take credit for particular abilities than for blue eyes or solid muscles. If we'd indeed know God in growing familiarity we have to go this way of renouncement. And if we're set upon the quest of God He will sooner or later bring us to this test. There are times when we get discouraged and depleted of strength and don't think that we can go on.
There are times when our nerves are damaged and we're ready to quit. But God can take the little we have, and once we give it to Him, we'll be astonished to see what God will do and can do in our lives. We have to take what we have no matter how small or large it is, and give it to Him. We have to give Him our talents, our gifts, our finances, and our physical assets. Obedience leads to blessings. God's power to provide will forever exceed our capability of receiving. God spills out His blessings when we're willing to spill out what we have. God can fill each need, and move each mountain, and solve each issue. His supply is fixed only by our faith. God is ready to take your little bit and make it more than you may ever envision.
Prayer to renounce:
Father-God, I wish to know Thee, but my coward heart fears to abandon its toys. I can't part with them without inward pain, and I don't try to hide from Thee the panic of the parting. I come shaking, but I do come. Please take from my heart all those things which I've treasured so long and which have become a real part of my living self, so that Thou may come in and dwell there without competition. Then shall Thou make this place glorious. Then shall my heart have no demand of the sun to shine in it, for you will be the light of it, and there shall be no dark there. In Jesus' Name, ---AMEN.
Section 3: "Faith"
A spiritual realm lies all about us, enfolding us, embracing us, altogether within reach of our internal selves, waiting for us to acknowledge it. God Himself is here awaiting our reaction to His Presence. This eternal world will awaken to us the moment we start to realize its reality. God and the spiritual world are real. We may believe that with as much confidence as we believe the familiar world around us. Spiritual things are there (or rather we ought to say here) asking for our attention and challenging our trust. Our trouble is that we have built bad thought habits. We routinely think of the seeable world as real and doubt the truth of any other.
We don't deny the existence of the unseen but we doubt that it's real in the recognized meaning of the word. Our undisciplined thinking, affected by the blindness of our instinctive hearts and the visibility of things, tends to draw a contrast between the spiritual and the real; but really no such dividing line exists. The spiritual is real. We have to switch our interest from the seen to the spiritual world. For the great unseen truth is God. "He that cometh to God must believe that he is, and that he's a rewarder of them that diligently seek him." This is common in the life of faith. From there we may rise to limitless heights.
If we really wish to follow God we have to seek to be other-worldly. Each man has to pick his world. If we who follow Christ, with all the facts before us and recognizing what we're about, by choice pick the Kingdom of God as our area of interest . If we lose by it, the loss is our own; if we get ahead, we rob no one by so doing. human brain plans the way, but the LORD directs the steps. What do you anticipate as you go through your day? When you solely plan for what is good, you'll find God in the middle of your plans. Remember that God's plan for you is the finest plan for your life. If you'll do your part to seek Him and start to make plans to succeed, God will lead you. He will guide your steps.
You don't have to vaguely experience life any longer. God sincerely wishes to show you His plan. Occasionally we let our past triumphs keep us from rising higher as much as past failures. If we never relinquish the old, we'll never be able to sweep up the new. It really doesn't matter what has happened in your history, now time to blank out what is behind you. Don't ever let yourself bog down in negative thinking, "I'll never change that's just the way I am." The Bible tells us that when we align with the Spirit of God, He helps us in our failing and gives us strength by telling us "Doubt not" and "Fear not." Recognizing this, you have to make the solid choice to really believe and not fear, then press onwards. Trust that God has a more beneficial future in store for you. Trust that He is sincerely working behind the scenes on your behalf. God wishes to sincerely pour out His blessings on you and let you live a life of triumph!
This is our gift of prosperity that He provides you. Decide now to make your plans and really believe in Him and that they'll come to pass. Take time to assess where you are in life. Assess your finances, your vocation, and your relationships, and likewise assess how you're spending your time. Don't go another week without having a plan for your future and truly believing in the plan and Him. Put down all your goals and submit them to God for His grace. If you'll go beyond simply dreaming, and begin making these plans to really succeed, God promises He is going to guide your steps.
He will guide you down the path of His favor. He will guide you into better; He will lead you into advancement. You will not only see your aspirations come true, but you likewise will walk in success in every region of your life! As we start to focus upon God the things of the spirit will form before our inner eyes. Obedience to the word of Christ will bestow an inward revelation. It will provide keen perception enabling us to see God even as is assured to the pure in heart. A fresh God awareness will seize us and we shall start to taste and hear and inwardly feel the God who's our life and our all. Increasingly, as our faculties become sharper and surer, God will become to us the great All, and His Presence the glory and wonder of our lives and he will lead us.
A prayer for faith:
O God, speed every power inside me, that I might lay hold on eternal things. Open up my eyes that I might see; provide me acute spiritual perception; enable me to taste Thee and understand that Thou art good. Make heaven more tangible to me than any earthly thing has ever been. ---AMEN.
Section 4: Relationship With God
An acceptable spiritual life will start with a complete shift in relation between God and the person; not a judicial change simply, but a conscious and knowledgeable change affecting the person's entire nature. The atonement in Jesus' blood makes such a shift judicially possible and the working of the Holy Spirit makes it emotionally gratifying. In ascertaining relationships we have to start someplace. There must be someplace a fixed core against which everything else is assessed, where the law of relativity doesn't enter and we may state "IS" and make no adjustments. Such a core is God. Everybody and everything else measures from that fixed point. "I am that I am," says God," I change not." So let us start with God. Above all, before all is God; first in sequential order, above in rank and post, exalted in dignity and honor.
Each soul belongs to God and lives by His pleasure. God being Who and What He is, and we being who and what we are, the sole thinkable relationship between us is one of full lordship on His part and utter submission on ours. We owe Him every honor that it's in our power to give Him. The minute we make up our minds that we're going to exalt God over all we step out of the Earths parade. We will find ourselves out of adjustment to the ways of the world, and more and more so as we make progress in the holy way. We shall gain a fresh viewpoint; a fresh and different psychology will be formed inside us; a fresh power will start to surprise us.
"Be thou exalted" is the language of triumphant spiritual experience. It's a little key to unlock the doorway to great treasures of grace. It's central in the life of God in the soul. Life ceases to be the perplexed thing it had been before and becomes the real essence of simplicity. He's set his course, and on that course he will stay as though guided by an autopilot. If blown off course for a minute by some harmful wind he will certainly return again. The shrouded motions of the Spirit are working in his favor. He's met his life issue at its core, and everything else has to follow along. Don't imagine that you'll lose anything of human dignity by this. You don't by this degrade yourself as a man; instead you find your correct place of high honor as one made in the image of your Creator. Anybody who may feel reluctant to surrender his will to the will of another ought to recall Jesus' words, "Whosoever committeth sin is the servant of sin."
We must inevitably be servant to somebody, either to God or to sin. "Them that honor me I will honor," said God. The whole Bible and each page of history proclaim the perpetuation of that. "If any man serve me, him will my Father honor," said our Lord Jesus, tying in the old with the new and showing the crucial unity of His ways with men. In our desire after God let us maintain forever in our mind that God also has desire, and His desire is towards the sons of men, and more especially towards those sons of men who will make the once-for-all decision to exalt Him above all. I've one fear; it's that I might convince the mind before God may win the heart. For this God-above-all position is one not simple to take. The brain might approve it while not having the consent of the will to put it into action. While the imagination races onwards to honor God, the will might lag behind and the man never guesses how separated his heart is. The whole man has to make the decision before the heart may know any true satisfaction. God wants us all, and He won't rest till He gets us all. God wishes much more for us. He wishes us to live abundantly and victoriously.
He wishes to empower us to do great things for His kingdom. But in order to live that victorious life, we have to first surrender everything to Him and put him above all else. Likewise, God doesn't want us to hold back from Him. He wishes us to surrender whatever we have left. He wishes us to come clean with Him and confess whatever we're trying to hide from Him.
Prayer for exaltation:
O God, be Thou exalted over my possessions. Nothing of earth's gems shall seem dear unto me if only Thou art exalted in my life. Be Thou exalted over my friendships. I'm determined that Thou shalt be above all, though I must stand abandoned and alone in the middle of the earth. Be Thou exalted above my amenities. Though it means the loss of bodily comforts and the bearing of heavy crosses I shall maintain my vow made this day before Thee. Be Thou exalted over my reputation. Make me propelled to please Thee even if as an outcome I must sink into obscurity a. Rise, O Lord, into Thy suitable place of honor, above my aspirations, above my wishes and dislikes, above my loved ones, my health and even my life itself. Let me lessen that Thou mayest grow; let me slide down that Thou may rise above. "Hosanna in the highest." ---AMEN
Section 5: "Basic Steps"
Realize that God isn't grading you or attempting to make you "good." God is attempting to construct a relationship with you. By growing closer to God and being of the same mentality will change you from inside instead of squandering time attempting to repair the external issues. Accept that you have been incorrect. All individuals’ sin. Knowing God isn't about maintaining a pristine list of rules and never doing anything wrong. By accepting that you've made errors, huge and little, you are agreeing to allow God to contend with your preceding sins. Agree that you'll turn away from the unsuitable things you are presently doing. An individual who has a solid relationship with God can't remain motionless and unaltered.
They are forever reaching for being better, more loving, compassionate or involved. God substitutes the sin behaviors in our lives with purpose driven wants for a better existence. Inquire more about God. You are able to never learn everything about God. Begin by studying the Bible. Begin in the New Testament religious doctrine or in Proverbs. Allow God to speak to your heart through prayer. Link up with a Bible study or place of worship for support. Allow God's payment for the world's trespasses and yours-the demise of his son, Jesus-to cover your evildoings. Trust that His sacrifice was adequate to insure your security in the Promised Land and a place inside the holy family. Take on the unconditional love, forgiveness and acceptance God provides.
Dismiss the negative notions you have of spiritual individuals. Faith has acquired a bad reputation due to flawed individuals, not a flawed God. No one is perfect. Try to remember that God loves these individuals even as much as God loves you. Worry about yourself and your spiritual maturation and leave the rest to God. Go forward to mature in your relationship with God by going to a Bible based church, linking up with a Bible study, reading your Bible on a regular basis and praying.
God is an awe-inspiring being that may help guide you through life to a lot of joyous things. All the same, you must have faith in God and trust that he loves you and is forever watching over you. This may be tough to do when there's no touchable sight of God to hold onto. It's here that faith in God comes in and we have to trust with all our might that he really exists and is helping us through all the great and foul times in our life. This book has provided you some tips for discovering faith in God, even if you never trusted before, and living a happier more fulfilled life.
