SATURDAY AUGUST 1, 2009
Have you ever said words like these? Too often we communicate to God without understanding our real heart issues.
- “God knows my heart, and He'll forgive me for what I'm about to do.”
- “God wants me to be happy and I’m not happy, so I need.....to be happy!”
- “The Bible says when I sin that God’s grace increases, so by sinning I’m helping out God.”
Prayer is communicating with God. It is not a way to get from God what we want. When we appeal to God with sin in our heart He doesn't hear (Isa 59:2,3) and sin interrupts God’s blessings (Jer 5:25). Prayer is God's intended way to change us so that we want what HE wants for us. The truest desire of our heart in prayer ought to be to know Him, not the desire to get something from Him, or to look for an excuse to sin.
God certainly knows our heart and when it intends to sin there are consequences (Heb 12:5-11). God is primarily concerned about our holiness, and our happiness follows as a by-product of obedience (Jn 13:17). While it is true that the increase of God’s grace is greater that the increase of sin, Paul reminds us, Are we to continue in sin that grace may increase? By no means. How can we who have died to sin still live in it? (Rom 6:1,2). God always hears a heart in tune with His own heart!
Now this is the confidence that we have in Him, that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us. (1Jn 5:14)
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