Tag: Christianity

What is your life founded upon?

Matthew 7:24

24“Therefore everyone who hears these words of mine and puts them into practice is like a wise man who built his house on the rock.

Here Jesus has just finished telling us a few parables which illustrates commandments and principles he wants us to follow. There are two components here: listening and putting to practice. It is not good enough that we listen to God’s word and then live our lives according to our wants and desires. It is not good enough to follow rules, laws, and commandments without listening to the words that come from the mouth of the living God. Both separate from each other are insufficient.

Him who listens and does not do what is asked of him has faith that is dead (James 2:14-17).

He who attempts to follow all the rules and commandments of the Bible but does not listen to God’s word is like the Pharisees.

They believed that they were the holiest of the Israelites, yet, Jesus exposed them and went as far as to call them snakes. For it is by God’s grace and through faith in Jesus Christ that we are saved, not solely by our works (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Our spiritual lives must be founded on two things: faith and obedience. Together, they form the rock upon which are are to construct our lives. one without the other causes your life to be constructed upon sand and your house will quickly sink and break. Think of the two like cement mix. In order for the mix to harden to become cement, water must be added. Without it, it will remain sandy cement mix. First you have faith (cement mix) in Jesus Christ, and then you obey what he asks of you through the word and prayer (water). Together, they will harden the foundation of your life and when turbulent times come, you will be able to stay firm. Your house will not fall apart, but it will stay strong because Jesus Christ will be your foundation.

Challenge:

Listen to God’s word so that your faith may grow and obey God’s word so that your faith may harden and make you strong in the Lord.

Prayer – its not just communication with God

Today at my Church, the Pastor talked about what is really means to be in “prayer”. Often we think of prayer as only communication with God as if we were talking through the phone. An even worse interpretation, in my opinion, is that sometime prayer is thought about as a routine or a religious duty to make sure that we can still call ourselves a Christian.

Today, the Pastor talked about how prayer is not just communication with God, but being in his presence.

Our God is yearning to have a relationship with his creation. Since we cannot see God, we have a relationship through his presence. One of the definitions of presence is “a person or thing that exists or is present in a place but is not seen.” (Dictionary.com). That is how we have a relationship with God. We often talk about in Christianity that one can pray at any time, place, or manner, all of which is true; however, we often do not talk time out of our day to pray in a private and secluded place like Jesus Christ himself told us to do in Matthew 6.

I think that the reason why Jesus wanted us to do this is so that we could be concentrated on just being in God’s presence without interruptions or distractions. In a way, it similar to how couples want to spend time alone together. They just want to be enjoy each other’s presence. As the Bride of Christ, I think we should be doing the same and have those intimate prayer sessions where it its not just about petitioning God about what we need but just sitting there in his presence. So prayer is not about the petitions or the communication, but about being in his presence and you being in God’s.

Challenge:

Next time you go to pray after you communicate all that you have to tell or ask God for the day, sit in his presence. Enjoy his presence just how you would enjoy the presence of a friend. Prayer is not all about talking. Its also about listening and enjoying God’s presence.