Prayer is not only speaking to God but listening to Him as well. And listening is more important than speaking to Him. Consider: If you were speaking with an important person whom you know is much elder and wiser than you on the phone, you would listen much more than you speak, isn’t it. So, must it be in true prayer – you must listen to God much more than you speak to Him.
If you are very keen on doing something, you can easily deceive yourself that it is the will of God, by praying about it briefly just to ease your conscience, and then saying to yourself that you feel “at peace in your heart” about doing it – and go ahead and do it! That way you can miss the will of God completely.
The more important the decision you have to make, the more you must wait on God before you act.
There is as much difference between your way of thinking and God’s thoughts as there is between earth and heaven (Isa.55:8, 9). God’s way of doing things is far higher than yours. That is why God wants that we must submit to Him – to get His best.
You may not have much time to spend in prayer. But you must have the attitude of waiting on the Lord in making your decisions. And so, discipline yourself to spend a few minutes with God every day. God wants to communicate with you every day. This is the message that comes across from the first page of the Bible, where it says: “ On the first day, God spoke…. On the second day, God spoke…….On the third, ……..fourth, ……..fifth and sixth days, God spoke ”. Something happened each day when God spoke, and the final result was “ Very Good”. So, it can be with your life too, if you listen to God every day. Jesus said, “ Man shall live by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God” (Matt.4:4).
God always wants to answer our prayers. But we must earnestly wait on Him for an answer. Sometimes His answer may be ”No.” Sometimes it may be “Wait”. Like the red, yellow, and green traffic lights.
Prayer :
Loving Heavenly Father,
Help me to wait for you before making any important decisions in my life. Help me to not get carried away by my own fleshly desires and worldly pressures. Help me to always depend on your wisdom, pray and seek counsel from you. Guide me through your Holy Spirit who is within me to face the challenges outside and surrounding me. Thank you Lord, for you are a loving God and Father who always listens to your children and gives them your best. May your best happen in my life always.
Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, this person is a new creation; the old things passed away; behold, new things have come
2 Corinthians 5:17, NASB
Happy New Year beloved reader. I wish good health and prosperity to you and family!!
Wow its already 2023 and another year has passed. And in the midst of so much chaos around the world. We are finding ways to live and move on with our lives. But for all of us a new year brings new hope and desire for something bigger and better than last year.
Some of us try to retrospect what we do right and wrong in the previous year. Areas we improved or need to improve. Successes and failures. And after all that we do try to come up with new year resolutions which sometimes or always gets resolves to an end by themselves. If you understand what I mean 🙂
So, in light of that, I want to put forth that this devotional is not going to be encouraging to start coming up with new year resolutions neither it’s going to be asking us to retrospect the last year. But I do want you to ask this question?
Would believing in Jesus still make a difference in 2023?
With so much uncertainty around every area of our lives, be it family, job, finances, relationships etc. Where does Jesus stand or makes sense? What can he do? Is it even logical to believe in Jesus today? We do trust our leaders of our respective countries to make a difference. Democratic or Republic or Kingdom. Yet some problems are bigger than the human race. Think about all the natural disasters, pandemic, moral wrong doings, terrorism, deaths, forgery and wars we had or are going through. Yet some of them are getting hard to be resolved by all of our strengths combined. Don’t you think we all are working to resolve these issues for so many years now? Inventions, regulations, unions, governments, rules, militaries, weapons and still the issues are not getting resolved.
Therefore, that brings us to the question What is the real problem? The bible says the below,
If you can just ponder for some time on the origin of all the issues, we face today. It comes from the evil of our hearts. We talk so much about failures of governments, humanity, morals, military and leaders. But we fail to realize that the issues we face today are not born out of these institutions we humans created for service of mankind. But mankind itself created the issues.
Let’s see an example, why do people steal? Is it because they want to, or the lack of something. It’s hard to distinguish, isn’t it? Because it’s not always the lack. It may be other moral motives, like lust, power, greed, selfishness, laziness etc. or it could be just sheer want for something to live. But the origin of all this is the thought that originated from an idea that came to the mind of someone. And when they gave into the idea, the body performed it. We could apply this to almost every issue we face.
We human race have evolved over the years and have resolved many issues. But let’s admit we cannot change a human heart. We don’t have a cure. Thats where Jesus comes in.
Now you may ask, how can a person or spiritual entity bring a change in a human heart? How can that be possible? I love the below bible verse which says
.... Humans look at outward appearances, but the Lord looks into the heart. - 1 Samuel 16:7 GWT
How can God look into our heart? It’s pretty simple. He is the one who created us. Just like we can look deep within something we created. We know ins and out of our own inventions. God can see through what he invented. We are his priceless creations, whom he loves no, matter who we are. “For God shows no partiality” – Romans 2:11.
You know what, I can give a thousand reasons to believe Jesus. But it just takes just 1 step to know for yourself. It’s like you can hear a thousand reasons from others on how good a dish is but you can’t tell for yourself if its good until you taste it yourself. Can you take that 1 step? Like we try and see so many things in our lives before taking a decision. Can you try Jesus? Give him just 1 chance look into your heart. He can cure as he himself said … I am the LORD, who heals you. – Exodus 15:26. He is the best doctor we have for all of our issues. And he is the best bet for humanity. The only obstacle to us having to know Jesus is first to admit we need a cure and second how to know him. Thankfully for us there is open an invitation for everyone. Jesus said,
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. - Revelation 3:20
This new year, you may want to try out many things. But try out Jesus too. You will never regret. I am a testimony. Life has never been the same after I accepted Jesus. Many can testify with me. We may miss many things in our lives. Let’s try our best to not miss and chance to experience Jesus.
Once you make a decision just say this prayer
Dear Lord, I admit that I am a sinner. I have done many things that don’t please you. I have lived my life for myself only. I am sorry, and I repent. I ask you to forgive me. I believe that you died on the cross for me, to save me. Come into my life and change me.
If you have said the above prayer. Congratulations. The next step for you is to know God and his word. Grab a bible and read any Gospels to start with. You will get to know about Jesus more. If you need a bible. You can contact us and we will send it to you for free. Try to join a local church and enjoy a fellowship of co-believers just like you. If you wish, reach out to us for help, we will be happy to help and guide you to the next steps.
If you are a believer of Christ, please do share this devotional to someone who may need it, prayerfully. And if you feel there have some areas in your life which needs Jesus to help you rectify. It’s not wrong to just ask Jesus to come into your life again. It’s never too late.
Affirm Truth 