pickledilly

To bless God is to offer expression of adoration from the inner being. It is to bow the knee and the heart before Him in praise of who He is, with grateful recognition that He alone is the source of power for success, prosperity, fruitfulness, longevity. The only thing humans have that God desires in a blessing is the loving, worshipping, yielded heart. It blesses my heart when my own children freely offer loving respect and sincere compliments just because of who I am to them. What joy it must be to the Lord when His children approach Him with such an attitude! Any prayers that don

To have a broken heart and spirit over sin means that I have realized that my wickedness has injured my relationship with God and that must be restored. When I have hurt someone I love with an offense, it does break my heart. I want to do whatever is required to make it right between us again. The most powerful thing in today

Is it possible to have a pure heart? In the spiritual sense, we already have one. In the natural sense, we try. Every believer has been given a new divinely pure spiritual heart, but the ongoing battle between the spirit and the flesh keeps us from completely following the character of that heart. So in practical terms of this earthly life, I don

David sought to be accurate and honest about his sins. He had sinned against other people, but he went straight to the heart of the matter. His greatest sin was against the Lord, whose holiness had been violated. No excuses, no rationalizations, no cover-ups, no attempts to shun full responsibility. I think he maximized his sins in a way, as he went all the way back to his conception in the womb as a sinner and then took his sinful state and practices all the way to the throne of God. We must fully and accurately identify the truth of what we

Praying for pardon requires faith that you can actually be truly forgiven and restored. It requires a confidence in the heart and word of the person you asking pardon from. That faith is based on knowing the character of the one you have sinned against. David knew without question that God is merciful and waiting to offer pardon. Gaining the faith to confidently pray such a prayer comes through having a real relationship with God in which you get to know Him and in seeing that He is reliable and true to His word. Every little experience you have with Him builds greater confidence and faith. Remember what you've already seen Him do!

After asking the Lord to spare the city of Sodom for the sake of 50 righteous people, Abraham realized how difficult it would be to find that many in such a wicked place. Five more times he asked God to reduce that number, until it was down to ten. Five times! To keep asking like that really was bold and very persistent! If Jesus taught us to stay with it and be persistent, then it surely must be important. Sometimes the delay in seeing an answer is a test of my faith. Sometimes it may be interference from the Enemy. Sometimes it may be a matter of timing. Sometimes the Spirit has to change my heart and fine-tune the prayer I am making. Only the Lord knows, but my part is to continually cast everything on Him. Human nature tends to forget after a while and get complacent. In our day, we are used to

Abraham

Abraham demonstrated his humility before God by acknowledging his own feeble mortal state. He knew his place before the Almighty Creator God and didn

Abraham approached God on the basis of God

God's character, will, and purposes will never change or be altered. Yet there are variances in the means by which He will accomplish them in His creation. Whether or not we step in line with Him makes a difference to Him in how He chooses to deal with us. It's just like salvation. God desires that all would be saved, but that is conditional. He can only save those who come the way He says you must come - in repentance of sin and acceptance of Christ as Savior. The Scriptures are filled with "If...Then" promises. I don't believe the Lord will ever conform His answers to any prayer that is outside of His will. He might say "No"! He may have another answer. Or perhaps the Spirit will set to work to specifically change our desires to align with His and conform our request to His will. But He will not answer in a way that contradicts His immutability.

I don't know how to fully reconcile predestination and foreknowledge and human free will. The Scriptures make it clear that in all things, God has a will and a plan to accomplish it. It is also clear that He already knows the outcome of all things. And yet, within those parameters, He has given us the free will to choose whether or not to cooperate with His will. Only God could design such a thing and make it work! I love Pastor Ralph's challenge that even though we don't understand all of this, we must act as if everything is NOT predetermined. Otherwise, it seems to me that prayer would truly just be a rather weak, empty, passionless exercise. If Moses' example of confident, bold, powerful prayer was "gutsy", then what is described in the question would perhaps be "gut-less" prayer. There would be no point to intercession, to which we're clearly called in Scripture.

What an inspiring prayer. I simply cannot help but be drawn to it in prayer for America. We have such an obvious rich heritage of faith in God with His divine guidance and protection, and yet the eyes of our culture have become so darkened to the light of truth that we are turning away from Him with increasing, alarming speed to worship idols of our own making. His Body of believers in this nation is being influenced by that darkness. We are soft and careless and too often uneducated in the truth ourselves. For my country, my family and friends, and my Body of Christ, this is a wonderful prayer of intercession. The Lord is looking for those who will approach His throne boldly with confident prayer and praise! It is wise to pray for God to satisfy His holy justice with great mercy. It is wise to pray for the reputation of His name to be guarded and gloriously lifted up to the ungodly lost by His faithfulness to what He has assured for His own people. It is wise to speak back to Him the truth of His own words of promise because that is what He has bound Himself to act upon. You cannot pray His promises without knowing what they are. That requires study of His Word. Believing comes by hearing, so it increases my faith to hear the Word spoken into my own ear, my own heart. When I pray His own Word back to Him, I am honoring Him with faith that what He has said is the truth. It also opens my eyes to a greater picture of what God is doing, and gives me a greater concern for those I pray for. When I pray His own Words of promise, I know I am stepping into His will. And He has said that His will shall be done!

The Israelites had created their own gods to displace the LORD as the one to be worshipped as their Deliverer. I thought it was interesting that the idols were made from golden earrings given to them by Egyptians before the exodus. They essentially brought symbols of the idolatry of Egypt with them on their journey to the promised land. And now they were worshipping the gods of Egypt. How relevant is that to modern Christianity?!! Because I know that every attribute of God's character is holy, I know that His anger is holy. Which means it is sinless. When it comes to sin, about the only word to convey the depth of His feeling is hatred. He hates sin and what it does to those He loves. He hates anything that draws our attentions and affections away from Him. And it would make Him angry when that happens. Yet any response He has or action He takes would be morally perfect and sinless. I believe any sentence He passes on sin would be justified because His justice is also holy. And He can choose to accomplish His will in any way He desires.

We should continually ask forgiveness because we continually miss the mark of God's holy righteousness! Even when we don't mean to. A spirit of unforgiveness in me blocks God's blessing because I am in violation and disobedience of the core of His very character of love that forgives. It puts an unacceptable focus on myself. It closes the door of opportunity to demonstrate Christ to someone in sin. It was a new way for me to state what the request in this prayer really means. The way I am willing to forgive is the way I'm asking the Lord to forgive me. He won't do for me what I'm unwilling to do for someone else. Unforgiveness can block God's forgiveness to me because disobedience always holds up blessings. It puts me out of fellowship with Him, out of His will. To receive forgiveness, He says one must confess and repent. I must be willing to do just that and release the offense and offender to Him. Then, He has promised to be faithful and just to forgive me, and the blessings can flow.

We want to be self-sufficient, self-provisional. I think it's rooted in pride. ("Nobody will look out for me like I will. No one can do better at this than me." etc.) And that attitude is heavily influenced by lack of trust. (How many times have we depended on someone else only to be disappointed at the outcome?) In America, we take great pride in being a "self-made man". That seeps right into the relationship with God. It requires an attitude of humility to ask for help. Because of pride, we don't really want to be humble - before others or before the Lord. We don't want to end up owing somebody back. It requires the openness of trust to ask for help. Because of pride, we don't want to feel or appear weak and dependant. It requires vulnerability to the love of God to ask Him for help. But because of the prideful skewed sense of self, we don't understand or believe in the purity and completeness of His love; we don't know how much He really cares.. Every good gift comes from heaven, from the hand of God. The ability and opportunity to earn a living at all is given by Him. Getting out of the bed every morning is a gift! So every provision that results from that is, in essence, given to us by Him. And how precious is the assurance in His Word that He cares about every detail!

When I ask, "Your kingdom come", it's two-fold. First, that His presence of the Holy Spirit would come in fullness in every part of the lives of His people to help us live out the righteousness, peace, and joy that is His kingdom (Rom. 14:17). The kingdom of God exists right here on earth within the Body of Christ, as we yield ourselves as subjects to the One who has all right and authority to reign. Secondly, I'm asking that the physical return of Jesus to reclaim and fully redeem earth as King of kings and Lord of lords would happen sooner rather than later! Especially as we observe the state of this world today and the events that are ravaging God's creation. The Word says that the will of God will be done. When I ask for the Father's will to be done here on earth, I am asking that it be done just as perfectly, just as joyfully, just as obediently as it is done in heaven. The request is not that the Lord needs any help getting it done, it's that we need help in doing it! This prayer keeps the spiritual realm in sharper focus. It reminds me of God's authority in my own life. It calls me to submit my mind, will, emotions, body, time, my all to His good and perfect will.

Becoming aware of the moral purity and holiness of God is the starting point to hallowing His name. When you respect someone, you are careful about what and how you speak of him, how you address him, how you represent him to others. I think it's true that even Christians do not appropriately understand or respect God's holy character' and we are far too careless. I got convicted in this lesson about using His name, not in a profane way, but sometimes in a common way. The way I think of Him will define how I speak of Him and how I respond to Him - and that shouldn't ever be common or careless! When we pray, perhaps we should begin with just a moment to remember just exactly to whom it is we're speaking. That should put us on our faces in humility before Him in reverence and awe and respect and gratitude before we ever express the first thought. Our whole prayer will be influenced by that right frame of mind! By the way, Pastor Ralph. Thank you for pointing us to the Father's Love Letter. I was deeply moved as I received this beautiful expression of love from my Father. It truly was a blessing!

When a person genuinely repents and receives Christ as Savior, the Holy Spirit of Christ comes in to dwell. The presence of the Spirit will produce His fruit in you. This fruit is the growth of Christ-like character. Over time, this will be an obvious outward evidence of the inner process. If there is no outward evidence in a person, no change in thought or behavior, then true salvation is questionable. The qualities of an effective, fruitful, and growing Christian life are clearly spelled out in this week

I

When I get out of the habit of consistent time with the Lord in His Word, I simply run dry inside. I grow cold and lose my grip on the very things we

Looking back, I realize how the Lord has grown me in all 4 of these areas. I

Any strong desire that originates in the flesh will erode my faith and corrupt my life. Even if it seems for good, IF IT ISN'T OF GOD, IT ISN'T FOR GOD. The strong desires that will build up my faith are those that are surrendered to the Lord and parallel His desires. Truly knowing God and His desires in a personal way will require my strong desire to seek after Him because that knowledge takes time and discipline on my part that don

The supremely holy and excellent I AM has called me to be made like Him by the full weight of His own presence and character in my life. The fullness of Him in me can leave no room for me. His glorious holiness exposes and convicts all my impurity. His excellent goodness reveals my every defect and vice. This puts me on my face before Him in broken humility. As I realize again my unworthiness, it makes the miracle of His call even more precious. It should be purifying, as I'm moved to surrender everything to that upward call. I want people to be able to see His glory shining all over me!

Everything I need to live in the physical realm and in the spiritual realm has been given. It was all given through the divine power of God Himself and it excludes nothing. Making it through this life doesn

Faith, being the substance of things hoped for but not yet seen, is truly a precious gift. It is given of and by the Spirit, which makes it a divine element. The same Spirit dwelling in Peter dwells in me. The same Spirit that gave him the gift of faith gave me that gift as well. We are all given one faith through the one Savior, Jesus Christ, and in that sense what we have is equal. That faith affords the same rights and benefits to me that it did to powerful Peter. Wowza! However, what we do with our faith determines its full measure. It must be exercised and developed. Peter