Faith

(Adapted from teachings in Experiencing God, Unit 2)

*This is not a formula nor is it a method. This is a “checklist” for you use as you make sure your heart, attitude, and actions are conducive to hearing and understanding God’s voice.
REMEMBER: YOUR RELATIONSHIP TO JESUS IS THE KEY TO KNOWING GOD’S VOICE AND HEARING WHEN HE SPEAKS! He wants an INTIMATE love relationship with you. He wants you to depend on Him alone.

1. First, before any thing else, seek to get your heart into such a state that it has no will of its own in regard to the given matter.

2. DO NOT leave the result to feeling or simple impression.

3. Seek the Will of God through the Word of God. The Holy Spirit will ALWAYS guide us according to His Word. NEVER will he contradict Himself!

4. Then, look to see where God is working around you. (George Mueller called these “providential circumstances.”)

5. Pray, and ask God to reveal His Will to you. The Holy Spirit will teach you all things, will call to your memory the things Jesus said, will guide you into all truth, will speak what He hears from the Father, will tell you what is yet to come, and will glorify Christ as He reveals Christ to you.

6. Continue to PRAY, STUDY GOD’S WORD, and WATCH, WAIT AND LISTEN. Soon you will come to a deliberate judgement according to the best of your knowledge.

7. Continue to PRAY, STUDY GOD’S WORD, and WATCH TO SEE HOW HE USES THE WORD OF GOD TO CONFIRM IN YOUR HEART A WORD FROM GOD, WAIT AND LISTEN. If your mind is at peace, and continues to be so after two or three more times of PRAYING, STUDYING GOD’S WORD, WATCHING, WAITING, AND LISTENING, proceed accordingly.

To make right decisions:
• Sincerely seek God’s direction.
• Wait patiently on God until you have a Word from God.

• Depend on the Holy Spirit to teach you through God’s Word.

If you’re like me, verses like Proverbs 3:5-6, and Romans 8:28 are such a familiar passages, that I find myself glossing over the deep Truths these verses convey.  However, familiarity doesn’t negate truth, and today, the Lord has brought them afresh to me.  What an encouragement they are!

If you need some encouragement today, read these verses, asking the Lord for fresh eyes to see them… to really soak in what the Lord is saying… and let Him bless your heart and mind.

Every so often this story comes across my in-box in the most timely of ways.  It’s a beautiful reminder of what God is doing in all of our lives when we place ourselves and our loved ones into His hands.

May you be blessed and encouraged through this – and may the Lord make each of us to shine in such a way that we reflect His character to everyone we encounter.

Malachi 3:3 says: ‘He will sit as a refiner and purifier of silver.’ 

That week, the woman called a silversmith and made an appointment to watch him at work. She didn’t mention anything about the reason for her interest beyond her curiosity about the process of refining Silver.

He smiled at her and answered, ‘Oh, that’s easy — when I see my image in it.’

If today you are feeling the heat of the fire , remember that God has his eye on you and will keep watching you until He sees His image in you.

Because He IS working all things together, fitting them into His plan for you, for your good, and for His glory!  His Word says so.  And we can trust Him.

Peace in the Lord Jesus Christ be unto you~
Jennifer

A repost from last year… How wonderful that God’s Word remains always fresh and active! 🙂
Picture: Google Images

If we are honest, we’d admit that we all deal with bad breath from time to time, don’t we? But the Fresh Breath I’m talking about isn’t entirely in our mouths… although it will greatly affect our mouths and the aromas we carry with us and spill onto others. The kind I’m talking about won’t come as a surprise to the regular readers of Smelling Coffee, but it sure will be a shock to those who have googled or binged “fresh breath” or “bad breath” and were offered a link to a prayer to cure it! 🙂 (If that is you, dear Google or Bing reader, please read on… this might be the answer to a question you didn’t even know you were asking.)

During the Advent season, I read a prayer by the 6th century monk, Columbanus. This request made such an impact on me that I ask the same thing of The Lord every day for myself and my family.

“Therefore, we ask that we may know what we love, since we ask nothing other than that You give us Yourself. For You are our all; our life, our light, our salvation, our food and our drink, our God. Inspire our hearts, I ask you, Jesus, with that breath of Your Spirit.” Columbanus

I shortened this request to “O Lord, give us Yourself! Inspire our hearts with the breath of Your Spirit.”

And I have watched The Lord do just that! When I ask Him for Himself, and for the breath of His Spirit to inspire and motivate me, He pours over and into me a new love for Jesus and an energy to serve Him in even the “little” things in life. Holy Breath!

But recently, I realized that I not only want Holy Breath, I want Fresh Holy Breath.

Did you know that often bad breath is caused by something internal? Much of it is caused by what’s stuck on our tongues. We remedy unpleasant breath by changing what we consume, and by making use of the tools we have to scrape our tongues, brush our teeth, and wash out our mouths. If we will do these things, the aroma flowing from us will be much more pleasant and fresh.

Often those of us who are Christians {Believers in Jesus Christ, Christ Followers} can have great smelling breath in the physical sense, while being unaware of a lurking, debilitating case of Spiritual Halitosis. How do I know this? Because I’ve had it. I wake up with it every day (not the great smelling physical breath – I wish, but the stinky, stale, gross Spiritual Halitosis).

Just like the remedy for unpleasant physical breath, Fresh Breath can be ours by changing what we consume, and by making use of the tools we have to cleanse our hearts and mouths. In other words, by putting God’s Word in and by serious devotion to confession, repentance, and cleansing.

Remaining perpetually cleansed through immediate confession is like brushing our tongues and teeth right after eating garlic bread. If we will repent (agree with God about the horrible seriousness of the sin and what it cost Jesus, ask for forgiveness and help to never do it again, and turn ourselves 180 degrees from it) we can stay Fresh in The Lord. And what will spill from us onto others {many who are not Christ Followers} will be a pleasing aroma – not offputting bad breath!

Oswald Chambers talked about Freshness in his Jan 20, My Utmost For His Highest devotion.

“Being born again from above is a perennial, perpetual and eternal beginning; a freshness all the time in thinking and in talking and in living, the continual surprise of the life of God… Freshness does not come from obedience but from the Holy Spirit; obedience keeps us in the light as God is in the light…”

So, my Smelling Coffee friends, and my new friends who googled about bad breath (wink), this is what I now pray – my prayer for Fresh Breath – so that I can live a life with an aroma pleasing to The Lord that rises from within and without:

“O Lord, please give me Yourself! For You are my All; my Life, my Light, my Salvation, my Food and my Drink, my God. Inspire my heart today with the Fresh Breath of Your Spirit in thinking, talking, and living (actions and reactions). For Your glory, O Lord.” A men… So be it!

This is the kind of Fresh Breath whose impact will be everlasting.