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Conversation with God Hearing God Key Article

Voices of God?

How God answers prayer or how he speaks to you is a part of his answer or instruction to you that prepares and equips you to respond. Transforming you to be better able to pray and to act and to get God’s will done. So you can better do your part. And so you grow more and more into his likeness as you gaze upon him.

Some examples of the distinct ways God speaks to us, his “Voices”:

Fear of God – holy awe establishes your relationship with God correctly. Enables you to hear more and to hear better. To pay deep attention. Aligns your values. Opens your ability to receive wisdom and all gifts from our Lord. Begin, always, with holy awe. (Here is an interesting and fascinating paradox. God is utterly transcendent & awesome. And yet Jesus is also our friend. He is awesome and he is personal and also trustworthy.)

Scriptures – Not only teaches us, but gives us the standards by which we can understand and recognize God and his messages. What we receive will not contradict scriptures.

Still Small Voice – God asks you to be to be attentive and responsive. You are extra clear who this is from – from I Am (The Lord) – directly to you. (I Am is Yahweh, a personal name for God. Relating directly to you.) God increases, automatically, your experience of your accountability. You are extra certain that the correct answer is, “Yes!”

Inner knowing – Knowing that you know that you know – providing you with deep inner certainty and even greater confidence. Increasing your ability to act and have great faith that empowers you to step out and risks.

Fruit of the Spirit – Especially love. God’s love spills through you to others. For ministry, and to just love, love and love! Equips you to obey the Great Commandment, to love God with all your heart, mind and soul – which is a lot of love! To love others with the same love.

Dreams, visions, parables – God calls you to dig deeper, and to seek actively. Increases your motivation and ability to apply what he says (to the right person, situation or context).

Words of Knowledge – Insight into how someone or a situation is. Often analogue (mediated through the right brain), that calls for you to identify correctly a particular ministry target (person, place, etc.) Or pray for the person or situation to Holy Spirit helps you to identify. You get to experience aspects of God’s chosen target. Giving you additional insight.

Gift of Wisdom – Enables you to know better how to act and apply with greater wisdom. Tells you what to do with what you know.

Trance – A trance focuses our attention completely onto what God is showing or telling us. Especially useful when an idea is hard to accept – you know you have received this message.

Angels – Angels are messengers. An angel is a messenger. And they can carry the atmosphere of the throne room of God. They are mighty, sometimes huge. Sometimes so much that people receiving a message from an angel will become so weak they cannot stand. Angels communicate great authority. All of this makes our standing on our own authority much less likely. Your attention has been strongly grabbed. So a message of great importance, that carries a lot of weight, that has huge consequences can be communicated without any doubt. We are sure of what we have received.

Thoughts in our own minds – Especially useful to help us identify with those thoughts and impressions as being owned by us. Especially useful when what is important is the message but not the Authority or Author of the message. Seems ordinary and we have little resistance to thoughts that seem to be ours and that indeed may be ours. But which could also be from God.

Nature – God’s creation and beauty are for me a reliable context for me to hear God in. And for many other people. God speaks to us through his creation. I can go look at and be in the midst of God’s creation, on purpose, and I will easily hear God and I know it. I am grateful for such grace when I sometimes have too much difficulty hearing God.

Beauty and art – When we are inspired by great music, beauty of any kind, great art – opens us to appreciate and receive inspiration.

Worship – Opens us to God and what God says much like beauty and art can. Only we are establishing our experience of relationship on purpose. Gratitude and praise make it easier to hear God. Being reminded of previous experiences with God makes it much easier for us to be ready to experience and hear again.

Unanswered Prayer – This is surprising, yet unanswered prayer can cause us to investigate our previous prayers and ourselves as we seek additional insight about why.

Answered Prayer – Causes us to give thanks, be grateful, rejoice. All of which helps us be more ready to hear what God has to say to us. We are prepared and ready to listen and to do as God says.

Conscience – Causes us to correct our ways.

Correction – When God corrects me, he has my attention and my immediately stronger than normal readiness for me to agree to whatever I am being told to correct. Other people have told me they experience much of the same.

Signs & Wonders – Literally point to messages from God, such as how much he loves us and wants to do for us. Help us to be exceedingly grateful! At which time a leap in our devotion and determination to relate and respond well to God is more likely to occur.

Animals – Animals talk to us, and sometimes we hear. Nearly always, we learn. Sometimes God speaks to us through animals – so pay attention and be ready!

Peace – Peace can be a clear signal of God’s agreement with something, a message or a thought. (Lack of peace may show that there is no agreement from God.) I have a friend who found another place to live that looks wonderful – and who has no peace about it. Which he realized means that at least for now, God is not pointing him in that direction.

Coincidences – helps you learn to pay attention to, identify and respond with awe and great attention to Divine Appointments. Increasing your appreciation for and awe of God.

Other people – who affirm or inform can be comforting. Confidence building. And especially helps you experience community. Experiencing community with other members of the Body of Christ, especially as you are gathered in His name – gives you an experience of Jesus among you. And more! What few people notice consciously, but experience at least a taste of, is that you are having an experience of communing with and in Trinity. The community of God! You get to share in the communion of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit — the family that birthed you anew! Your most genuine family. And this is just a beginning of what will happen….

Silence – From: Oswald Chambers, “My Utmost for His Highest, Updated Edition”, (p. 285). Discovery House. Kindle Edition:

October 11 GOD’S SILENCE—THEN WHAT? “When He heard that he was sick, He stayed two more days in the place where He was.” John 11:6 Has God trusted you with His silence—a silence that has great meaning? God’s silences are actually His answers. Just think of those days of absolute silence in the home at Bethany! Is there anything comparable to those days in your life? Can God trust you like that, or are you still asking Him for a visible answer? God will give you the very blessings you ask if you refuse to go any further without them, but His silence is the sign that He is bringing you into an even more wonderful understanding of Himself. Are you mourning before God because you have not had an audible response? When you cannot hear God, you will find that He has trusted you in the most intimate way possible—with absolute silence, not a silence of despair, but one of pleasure, because He saw that you could withstand an even bigger revelation. If God has given you a silence, then praise Him—He is bringing you into the mainstream of His purposes. The actual evidence of the answer in time is simply a matter of God’s sovereignty. Time is nothing to God. For a while you may have said, “I asked God to give me bread, but He gave me a stone instead” (see Matthew 7:9). He did not give you a stone, and today you find that He gave you the “bread of life” (John 6:35). A wonderful thing about God’s silence is that His stillness is contagious—it gets into you, causing you to become perfectly confident so that you can honestly say, “I know that God has heard me.” His silence is the very proof that He has. As long as you have the idea that God will always bless you in answer to prayer, He will do it, but He will never give you the grace of His silence. If Jesus Christ is bringing you into the understanding that prayer is for the glorifying of His Father, then He will give you the first sign of His intimacy—silence.

Chambers, Oswald. My Utmost for His Highest, Updated Edition (p. 285). Discovery House. Kindle Edition.

P.S. I just found this. What a wonderful addition to this article, or even an improved substitute: Guest Post: Hearing God’s Voice

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Healing Holy Spirit Jesus Preaching Journal Key Article Kingdom of God Ministry

The Gospel Process

There is a process to the Gospel of the Kingdom of God that Jesus teaches.

This process makes ministering with power, faith and love – easier. Knowing this process, you are more than clear about what to do next. Also, how to help someone take that next step.

I call this The Gospel Process.

The Gospel Process underlies the structure of how Jesus Ministered. He taught the Good News of the Kingdom of God. But preaching or teaching that Gospel is not the underlying process, although it uses that process. He often taught us to heal in that context. A context which changed the atmosphere, told an essential truth confirmed in listeners by Holy Spirit. Creating the atmosphere of the Anointed, his Anointing, and the Kingdom of Heaven.

If you want to minister more like Jesus, learn The Gospel Process and put it to work when you minister. When your ministry has been successful, you are probably already applying this process.

Like so much of what Jesus teaches & shows, this can work explicitly or implicitly. (You can look for and notice how he did this in Scriptures. You can learn a lot, especially if this is new to you and when you are ready to learn.)

Ministering healing and freeing people from unclean spirits is much more simple and easy when you understand The Gospel Process and allow it to work in and through your ministry.

The Gospel of the Kingdom of God taught in the shortest form in your bible is in Mark 1:15:

Now is the time, the Kingdom of God is at hand (within reach); repent (make a new and better God-oriented, Kingdom oriented decision) and believe (rely, trust, and depend upon the Kingdom of God – and our King).

This scripture reveals the process when you read and meditate on this description. The process looks something like this:

  • (Hear the Word of God, because faith comes by such hearing, with the help of Holy Spirit confirming that truth to our spirit: have faith!)
  • Now. The time has finally come, and the time is now. (No other time is available; only now.)
  • The time – a Kairos moment, a Divine Appointment, if you will accept it being said this way.
  • Make a new decision, turning from your old life and orienting totally around the King and the Kingdom (rule) of God.
  • Believe and trust in the King and his Kingdom.

Now…notice especially the actions, the inner actions of the person hearing and acting on this:

  • Hear God’s Word and choose faith.
  • Make a new decision that totally turns around your life. Turning away from how you’ve been to orienting completely towards your new and alternative way of living – towards the King and his Kingdom.
  • Trusts and believe in God and his Kingdom.

Put those inner actions together and you have a process.

The same process that underlies and is The Gospel Process:

  • Hear God’s word and choose to trust it, having faith. (Sometimes this is done implicitly, and that’s another article)
  • In healing, a person at some deep level decides to be healed, to accept healing. Like the hemorrhaging woman who was so determined to touch the hem of the garments of Jesus (his fringes, or tallis) and receive healing: bringing her faith into contact with his Anointing. Her determination was so single minded and great that it reminds me of the being single and not double minded as in James 1. She already had great faith and determination. (From an experiential point of view, it’s hard to tell any difference between great determination and faith.)
  • In exorcism, like the man who ran to the feet of Jesus before a legion of demons could overcome and prevent him, he ran to Jesus and fell at his feet. He already wanted to be freed! Jesus then used his authority and power (which he gave to his disciples and to us) to tell Legion to leave, and even how to leave.

In healing – with the help of Holy Spirit, faith, love, power and authority – already given by Jesus, we encourage and help someone decide to be healed (or decide to receive healing).

In exorcism, or freeing someone from one or more unclean spirits – with the help of Holy Spirit, faith, love, power and authority – already given by Jesus, we encourage and help someone decide to be freed healed (or decide to receive freedom).

So….

+In each case (healing or exorcism) we create an atmosphere of faith and the experience of the Presence of God (with Holy Spirit and by saying what God says so Holy Spirit can confirm this to the spirit of the person being helped) for God’s work to happen.

+We help or encourage them to make a new decision, orienting around God’s truth instead of orienting around their previous problems.

+To trust, rely on and believe in this new Kingdom of God reality. That is, to believe.

=This, put together, is The Gospel Process. It’s the same process that undergirds the Preaching or Teaching of the Good News of the Kingdom of God, and that works in creating a context for ministering healing or freedom.

I believe this is also true for cleansing lepers (a kind of healing, in my view) and for raising the dead – though I have not yet done these two things. I’m convinced that it’s the same Gospel Process at work.

Oh – and I did not yet mention that this same process undergirds the making of disciples. Again and again – from the first decision to follow Jesus and do what he said, to deciding to receive and act on every other moment of teaching.

The Gospel Process undergirds the entire (every step of) the Great Commission as in Matthew 28!

Now…review this. Follow the links and review what’s written on this page. And pray – talk with and listen to God. And meditate.

Get personal revelation about this through Holy Spirit. Write that revelation in your Journal. Whether it’s a Prayer Journal like mine, or any other journal for this. And if you do not have one, please start one.

And get your own personal revelation and insight on this. Then be a real disciple – apply what you are learning. And as you make other disciples or help disciple other disciples (or as you disciple each other) – share this and help them have their own revelation of this, too. And encourage them to apply what they are learning in their ministry.

Disciples perhaps for generations – and those healed or set free – will be glad for such powerful and effective ministry. Even if they do not know all the details of what happened and how you ministered with power, faith and with love.

Categories
Conversation with God Discipleship Getting Help Hearing God Holy Spirit Journal Key Article Ministry Prayer

Get Guidance & Persist

Ask for Guidance. Best is to be full of Holy Spirit, first. Easier to notice and receive.

When you receive Guidance, make note of it. Best is to write it in your Prayer Journal or Conversation with God Journal, or Guidance Journal – best is with your own handwriting, but a computer will do.

Pray for your Guidance to succeed. That you will be faithful and follow through to see whatever is about is finished and complete.

Getting Guidance isn’t enough. We need to follow through. To complete what the Guidance is about. So praying for that is also a “best practice”.

Journal about your guidance. It’s an excellent way of supporting yourself, so you remember better and follow through.

An outstanding idea is to get support from people who want to encourage and support you and help you do what is valuable and important to you. Just because it is important and valuable to you.

If you do not have such support, go get some! You can even ask for Guidance how to best do this.

And – follow through. <warm grin>

Persist in following the Guidance gives you. The Guidance you receive is God telling you not only how to do something, but if you think about it or ask God – it’s also God telling you what to do. You have heard God’s “Voice” for this. It empowers you to do what God said to do. To do otherwise is to fail to do what God has asked you to do. Oops!

Persist. Until the doing of what you have asked for Guidance about – is complete and done. Finished!

Categories
Discipleship Healing Jesus Preaching Key Article Kingdom of God Ministry Miracles Prayer Success

Jesus Taught a Progression – Going Beyond Disciplemaking

Jesus taught lots of things; in particular, there is an important series of things to do in order to minister more like Jesus. From one point of view, here’s an overview:

First, it’s valuable to know what an Ecclesia is. That’s a Greek word frequently translated as “church” in many bibles, today. And that can be confusing because the meaning has changed over the years.

When the Roman’s conquered a new territory, one of the things they would do was to appoint people to transform the local culture to Roman culture. To teach them how to talk, dress and in many other ways act like Romans. So that when the Emperor would come, he would feel at comfortable and at home. These people were backed up by the power of the Roman Empire.

Jesus apparently borrowed the term and used it to mean local Christians, disciples, who would meet in small groups – such as peoples homes (in addition to public places). Encourage and build each other up. Teach and help one another And, to change and transform the surrounding culture – into becoming a Christian culture with lots of disciples. An Ecclesia is backed up by the Kingdom of God, led by Jesus – our King.

This was a period of extremely rapid growth of the Body of Christ, and this was a huge method of helping that to happen. Ecclesia’s made of disciples were very important to the rapid spread of Christianity.

They practiced what is now called “Marketplace Ministry”. Not in local churches with separate buildings where they sat passively as one mostly person spoke. Everyone participated and many were business owners – fishing business, sheep business, a tax collector. Jesus was a worker of wood – making many different things. Later St. Paul was a tentmaker. At that same time there was also a dealer in expensive dyes. And others….

How were such disciples made? Through Ministry. It went something like this:

-Jesus and later his disciples always began with prayer. Prayer, prayer and more prayer. Always much prayer before growth in numbers ad in effective ministry happened.

–Then to go. Going for the Harvest of souls. Going took several forms, which we will explore later. The key point: people were sent.

-Then the Proclamation or Preaching of the Good News of the Kingdom of God.

-Then in that context, the healing of the sick, freeing those bound by unclean spirits; and also the cleansing of lepers and raising the dead. (I often speak of this as being healing the sick and freeing the bound for a shorter phrasing as well as focusing on what is more usual these days. The other two items are still valid.) This attracts a lot more people!

-Then was the making of disciples (of all ethnos, – all people groups). People who learned and who applied and practiced what they were learning. And reported back to a rabbi for more instruction as needed. Most people went on with their lives, happy for the ministry help. A few even said, thanks. A much smaller number were open to learning and to applying what they were learning. The custom among in Israel at that time (where Jesus was ministering) was that a rabbi would teach, disciples would go practice and report back to the rabbi. Who would give more teaching to help, as needed.

-The disciples would in turn become sent ones, who prayed for their areas, then were sent to represent the Kingdom and make more disciples by going through this progression of steps.

-The disciples who were going through this progression and making more disciples would also meet to encourage, help, minister to, and teach one another. All participated. Leadership had the purpose of helping them achieve unity in the faith, maturity in Christ, and to prepare these people for ministry – and more. Ministry was to be done by people helped by leadership to be prepared to do such ministry. This was the biblical pattern.

And this was the progression. Prayer, then going to help gather the harvest – sent in a few but somewhat various ways. Proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom of God. Healing sick, freeing the bound – prisoners and captives. Making disciples of all people groups. Planting Ecclesia’s who prayed massively for the local area, ministered generously – who shared the Gospel, healed the sick, freed the bound (attracting many people), making disciples who again applied this progression that Jesus taught – and who made yet more disciples. Then ecclesia’s were planted who continued these continuing cycles leading to rapid growth.

When this pattern is followed, evangelization and ministry spreads faster better and more powerfully than any other method I have ever heard of. This is what Jesus taught. It’s Scriptural. It works powerfully. It helps Missionaries avoid money trouble, when the other methods of sending are added. (Can’t wait? See Luke 10; and also Matthew 10.)

Categories
Discipleship Jesus Preaching Key Article Kingdom of God Ministry

What is The Good News of the Kingdom of God – that Jesus Preached?

Ye are the Light of the world

Mark 1:15 gives us the shortest – checklist or bulleted point version – of the Gospel, the Good News, that Jesus preached.

Good News is big news – news that changes everything. It was modeled after how the Romans announced a new Emperor. Messengers were sent out, proclaiming how there was a new ruler. Who would protect the empire, and the peace – the Pax Romana. All were to bow down to the new ruler and worship. So much was this modeled after what the Roman Empire did, I am surprised that Jesus wasn’t killed for announcing this way – and killed far earlier. But God had other plans.

Jesus uses the term Good News in Luke 4 where he gives the longest version of the gospel in the Synoptic, the first three Gospels. He is quoting from Isaiah 61. Israel was very familiar with Isaiah.

So the term “Good News” had multiple meanings to the people of the times in the Roman Empire, including in Jerusalem. It was a strong term.

Let’s take a look at the short version of the Gospel so we don’t overload ourselves at first look.

There are a couple of things about the context that are best understood. You may remember that scripture tells us that Jesus was called to preach to the Hebrews, to Israel, first. The Hebrews were well versed in Torah, the teachings of the first five books of our bible.

They knew well of, and understood much about the Fall of Man and the curses of this broken world that we have inherited. This was written about in Genesis 3:15, and the Hebrews knew this scripture well.

That’s what I like to call the Bad News: we live in a broken world full of curses and problems, such as sickness, death, taxes, relationship difficulties, financial problems, bad politics, imperfect and even evil rulers…the list goes on and on. All of us are affected by at least some of these: the Bad News is personal to us all.

So…the Good News that changes everything is greatly needed.

Jesus told us that Now is the time. The time of his coming and of his Kingship (he is the King of the Kingdom of God) – his Kingship had been coming for a long time. And when the human mind hears the word “Now” spoken, without realizing it, we tend to think of now. We momentarily experience ourselves in the present. A side effect of this is that we are more present, and we are more whole minded. Decisions have an even wider impact, helping them to be more solid and long lasting, unlike too many New Year’s resolutions.

Remember, this is being spoken by the King who is present. The Anointed One who has Holy Spirit on him since his baptism in water, Holy Spirit for a purpose – which is an important part of the human experience of the Anointing. (Luke 4 and Isaiah 61 tells us what the Anointing is for. The Hebrews knew this well and were looking forward to the coming of the Anointed: the Messiah (transliterated from the Hebrew) or the Christ (transliterated from the Greek).

When an important truth is spoken, human intuition perceives it, if nothing is getting in the way. Holy Spirit is whispering it to our spirit, and we know; and we know that we know….

So Now is the time. The Time has come. (Kairos moment – anyone?)

Now the big announcement. Here it is, folks. And this is huge. Why, because we live in a broken world full of curses where the adversary rules – that’s a whole other message – but see Genesis.

Now here’s the thing, folks.

When we experience the Presence of God as near us, with us or in us – we experience ourselves as more confident, whole, resourceful and even joyful. (Very much related to the Greek word, salvo – which can mean salvation, wholeness, healing, and more.)

Jesus invites you into his Kingdom. By Sitara.

When we experience the Presence of God as far away or absent, we tend to become depressed and hopeless. We may feel fragmented, we do not experience ourselves as feeling whole.

Want to see these differences dramatized? Read Psalms!

The difference is not subtle. It’s very important.

When we experience the truth and Presence of God as in us, near us or in us – we experience not only more wholeness, but more whole-mindedness. This means that what we decide while being this way, these decisions are more whole minded and thus more stable and long lasting.

So the message of Jesus continues. Now is the time (finally). (The King is speaking. Clearly implied but not said.) The Kingdom of God is at hand – literally within reach.

Which means – those areas where the hearer is experiencing the curses or brokenness of this world – such as sickness, financial or relationship difficulties, and so forth — which are under the rulership of the adversary — are all within reach of help. The rule of God as in Eden (Paradise, Garden of) – can be restored to that area of your life. Sickness can be healed. Freedom can be obtained – “the prisoners freed”.

This is good news. Wonderful news! Literally, Good News that changes everything.

We’ll explore how this applies to practical ministry to heal people’s sicknesses and problems. How to restore to people every good thing originally given to us by God.

So watch for future articles, all based on the foundational teaching about the Kingdom of God that Jesus preached. Including:

Categories
Discipleship Getting Help Hearing God Key Article Pain Prayer

How To Receive Quick & Reliable Guidance for Prayer

Jesus ministered by doing as Father showed him and told him. We really can do the same. Here’s how.

A first key that so many of us have been missing is this: ask Father how to pray. How to pray for whatever situation, need, concern, worry, fear, or ministry opportunity we have.

A second key many of us miss is this: notice what happens, what you see, hear or otherwise what you experience. Especially when this is not what you expected.

What you experience is either Still Small Voice – or more likely what is a Word of Knowledge and a Word of Wisdom, or what is very much like one.

What you will experience is not directions for what you were likely expecting in how to pray.

What you will experience is literally the answer to the need or issue that you are praying about. How to have the answer you were seeking; what to be, what to do, or both.

You are responsible to pray for, steward and enforce that answer about to how to pray.

Some examples:

  • If pain in a muscle has been an issue, you may experience subtle shifts or subtle movements in that muscle. That’s the target. That’s what to pray for. What to do. It’s also the answer to how to pray – pray for that. Do that. See your ministry recipient doing that. Enforce what you have been shown or told or otherwise experienced. Those subtle movements and how they are made: pray for them and see that they are done.
  • If you have a chronic issue or problem, you may be given a memory of when another person demonstrated how to be and what sort of thing to do – and be a person without that problem. You may have a flash of memory when you acted in such a way. That’s your answer to your prayer, that’s what to pray for, that’s what to do and to enforce in prayer on earth as it is in heaven.
  • If you have a relationship problem, you may be given a thought, memory, idea, feeling, way of being, things to do — that are literally an answer to such an issue. So you are to pray for that, do those things or see that they are done. Enforce that answer to prayer, and pray that such is done.

What we too often miss is this: an answer to how to pray is often us being shown the solution to what we are praying about.

The solution we are to pray for, act upon, see that it is done. To pray for and to enforce, on earth as it is in heaven and to see that it is done.

We are expecting something that looks to us like how to pray: maybe a picture or set of directions of us praying – and how.

What we are getting is an answer to what we are praying about.

An answer to the prayer-need that we are to pray for! To enforce, to do, to act upon, and to see that it is done on earth as it already is in heaven.

God is faster and more generous than we expect.

And we can too easily miss such answers, because it is not what we were expecting. Such answers can be quick and can be subtle, as well as not what we expect to see or hear – which can make the answers we receive all too easy to miss.

A Word of Knowledge may be you experiencing something in your body. Having a feeling, a knowing, a memory of you or someone else doing something. Not what we usually expect.

A Word of Wisdom is an answer and how to apply knowledge well.

A request about how to pray results in us being shown a solution which is an answer to the need or problem – including what to pray for – that solution.

Praise be to our Lord and Christ for Wisdom, Knowledge, love and faith. Rejoice in such love and kindness shown and told to us. Receive with joy, and rejoice!

P.S. – See below:

So K. asked for more examples, and the back and forth of the conversation went something like this:

K: I like that David. Asking how to pray sounds like a good question. I wonder, and maybe this just me being slow right now, but I wonder if you could tell me a couple of more concrete examples of what you might see in a particular situation so I can see it better? It could be made up, but it helps me understand if you say, supposed you prayed for help with having arguments with a person and you received this (example of what you might receive) as a response, then this is what you would do.

By the way, also posted the post on MeWe.

.

David: A memory such as a family friend who refused to take arguments seriously. Who refused to acknowledge anger. Who just laughed in a warm and loving way.

Which teaches me how to be and how to act.

Which gives me a model, exemplar, to learn from. To have a sense of the kind of energy to be applying.

Of someone just refusing to believe in or take seriously or real something less than another persons best self.

Which teaches me to apply these attitudes and behaviors to the situation and person I was praying about.

Or I might have a memory or image of someone who listens deeply and well, with love. To find, with good intent, what the other person is experiencing. How they understand things to be. To understand what they really need from me.

I might remember a story of a saint or someone interceding for someone with a determined and loving intention, while being shown being full of Holy Spirit.

Or just someone who is loving, paying attention, and who reacts without any defensiveness. Just listening deeply and knowing the person who is angry.

Does this help?

These show me how to be, and also how to pray. To pray that such attitudes and actions take place.

Questions? Comments or thoughts?

I might have an image of the sun shining on chilly people. And realize that this is how God shines on us all, and of what I am called to do.

Just shine, warmly.

And pray that I do that, or that it gets done.

Or a warm breeze doing the same.

Or an image of the Dalai Lama or Bishop Desmond Tutu, smiling in the way they do, with understanding, complete acceptance and love.

And realize I am to do that, to be that way, and to pray that I do, until it happens.

Or see or remember a mother cat, licking and loving her kittens.

Or see a leaf, growing happily among many other leaves on a tree, feeling what that’s like and what it means.

Does this make any sense?

You see, having the answer is not always enough.

So we asked how to pray. We’re shown the answer as what to pray for.

And praying for that may be needed until it is done because knowledge alone is not enough.

Knowing an answer can fall short of living out that answer – so prayer is still needed.

We asked how to pray, and are shown how to pray.

Even though it looks like an answer or that it looks like something we have not yet seen as an answer.

In either case, prayer is needed until the thing is done.

We asked to be shown how to pray, and we are being shown how to pray for that answer to happen.

Categories
Discipleship Getting Help Jesus Preaching Joy Key Article Kingdom of God Presence of God

The Good News that Jesus Preaches

I say preaches instead of preached because he still preaches through the Body of Christ and with the help of Holy Spirit.

But what is this Good News? It is different than a lot of us expect.

Mark 1:15 is the shortest version. We’ll explore other versions later – this is just a start. Mark gives key bullet points, a sort of minimal set of what this Gospel is. Depending on your translation, it goes something like this: “Now is the time. The Kingdom is at hand. Repent and believe the Good News”.

Let’s take a closer look at this –

  • Now is the time. It has been a long time in coming. It’s a special moment. And, for humans, when someone – especially with the Anointing, says, “Now” — we tend to focus very much on the present moment. Which is good. Now is the only time decisions can be made. Especially deep decisions.
  • The Kingdom is at hand – literally means is within reach. This is the Kingdom of God where God rules. Things are the way God wants and says. Not sickness, financial difficulties, relationship troubles – even in families. No trouble with bosses, financial cycles — none of the broken things of this world that affect us so much outside of the Kingdom of God.
  • Repenting is to make a new and deep decision to turn around our lives and orient them towards God and the Kingdom. In this case, with Jesus preaching – the King is actually physically present. (After he ascended the Apostles taught and preached a bit differently – they had to. They were not the King being physically present.)
  • And believe. Which can be to continue to believe, and to continue to orient our lives around God and his Kingdom.
  • What a relief to have God’s Kingdom come and rule where we have troubles in our lives in this broken world.

This is the context, the preaching of the Good News of the Kingdom, by the King (Jesus the Anointed One), where the sick were healed, demons and unclean spirits exorcized, lepers cleansed, the dead raised – and disciples made.

In such a context, the preaching of the Good News of the Kingdom of God changes the atmosphere, and the context – and we more easily receive our Lord’s grace.

Where disciples heal, free the bound, and so forth. Where disciples make more disciples who multiply and make yet more disciples.

More on these things and how they are related in another posting.

Questions or comments? Love to hear them! Email me at David@DavidBurnet.com