Sometimes we are so attached to ourselves, we want the Lord to do all there is to be done for us and to us. We know about our attitude problem; we know about our laziness; we know about the unfruitful company we keep; we know about all of the above. Yet we neglect to do on a consistent bases the things which we know will eliminate our problems.
By Clifton Jones
To View the Entire Article, Click Here
To Download the Entire Article Directly to Your Computer, Click Here
To View the Outline, Click Here
To View the PowerPoint, Click Here
The Lord is glad to hear the cry of His people, but now there is another form of prayer that centers around talking with the Lord with a honest heart. It is called dialogue.
The specific of dialogue is conversing or a conversation between two or more persons. What is dialogue then? A talking together. You see in a crying prayer, there is no talking going on, we just want Him to hurry up and push the right button. The crying doesn’t really build a truly wholesome relationship. Many have cried and God delivered them and they seem to forget who delivered them. This type of behavior started back in Genesis. And do you know when it will end? When He takes His church out of the earth. It took me a while to see this; but today it is much clearer.
We get to the point in reading the gospels and seeing all the miracles. We would say, “My God, if we had more miracles more folks would get saved; they might.” My question is, would they stay saved? You know the only thing I believe that will keep a person saved, is a desire for God’s presence, and a relationship with him.
The best defense against sin is a good relationship with the savior. It is the best defense!
What does a relationship with Christ do that keeps us from wanting to get involved in sin? It makes us sensitive toward His presence. When we recognize that we are in His presence it makes it very difficult to do something that we know breaks His heart. There are some things that we do but we would rather that those whom we greatly respect, would look the other way if we do it.
Our relationship with Jesus guarantees that our heart will desire the same things that His heart desires. Our defense is within us. Let us not use the excuse, “Someone made me sin.” If we say that, we’re also saying that we have a poor relationship with Jesus and that we didn’t have anything inside of us that would make us detest the things that the world, the flesh, and the Devil tempt me to do. All of that points back to our prayer closet, our time in the prayer closet is time in dialogue with Jesus.
“If we will talk with Him and give Him a chance to talk with us, He will reveal to us the things that are secretly in our lives, that are going to cause us trouble.”
While we are in prayer, what does God do? He illuminates His Word in our spirit and allows our spirit to detect some of the most minute things about ourselves, our attitude and our personality that we would other wise ignore and go on about our business. Being in His presence in prayer, the Lord is a gentle like spirit (I’m talking about in my case; in your case He may have to be harsh and holler at you and say, “You won’t please me if you continue in that way.” Now, it is no need to look around and see who He is talking to. I could be wrong, but I really believe that this element of prayer has driven a lot of believers from our prayer closets.
