Grace Reveals a Lesson From God

Nehemiah 1:4 When I heard these things, I sat down and wept. For some days I mourned and fasted and prayed before the God of heaven. Then I said:.......

Does this paint a picture of how I approach my time in prayer with God? Is this a model of what my prayer time looks like?  Do I have days of mourning over distressful news? Do I have days of fasting to clear my heart, mind, soul and strength to approach him in purity? Do I have days of praying before God before I come to him and lift up my request to him? No, I am presumptuous in my approach. I have no concerns about confession and repentance when I come to him. I lay my request out to God from the "get go". It is as though, I act like God should be happy I, Ken, have come to spend time with him. How vain! How full of myself I have become in life, and in relating to my creator.

Nehemiah shows a model of how to approach God and my approach looks vastly different. I struggle with lust and anger. No, that is not accurate, I have pretty much given up trying to overcome these sins, and have rationalized why I continue to deal with them. The truth is I am powerless over the same sins that have been with me since my birth? Yet, my approach to God has never occurred after a time of mourning over my enslavement to my lusts. My approach to God has never occurred after a time of fasting so that my mind, heart, soul and strength are cleansed so I can approach him in purity, and with a contrite heart. My approach to God has never been preceded by praying before him. praising him and acknowledging him and then coming before him to lift up my confession of powerlessness and then lift my request to him for strength to overcome. I have felt God's grace, because he knows my desire is real but buried too deep to be effective, so his grace reveals lessons in verses like this so that I can be transformed in power by him.

The difference right  now between Nehemiah and me is Nehemiah knew he was unworthy to approach God, so in order to approach him he prepared his heart, mind, soul, and strength for some days and then in humility he came before God and begged him to hear his plea.  This approach is the difference between Nehemiah's powerful time of prayer and my ineffective time of prayer. I now have a deeper appreciation of why my prayers for victory have been for the most part ineffective. Grace has shown me how to approach my creator, help me Father to heed the lesson and to come to you with a heart, mind, soul and strength that has been cleansed so I can lift up my request to you in a spirit of humbleness.

Responding to Grace

Ezra 1:5  .....-Everyone whose heart God had moved prepared to go up and build the house of the Lord in Jerusalem.  

This verse reminds us of something very critical when it comes to us and God. It is never a moment that I'm sitting down or out in the wonder of nature and then I spontaneously decide I am going to go and do this or do that for God. No, I must remember that my heart is moved by God and I respond to his moving of my heart as a result. And I must also remember that the moving of my heart usually only occurs after prayer, petition, and pleading to God and God reveals that he has heard me and moves my heart to do what he desires from me. There is also one more thing I must remember and that is what God moves my heart to do is not necessarily what he moves other hearts to do, and so I cannot decipher spirituality by whether others have been moved in the same way God moved me.  For instance, God has put in my heart that I need to pray with brothers regularly, and then he led me to them. However, I cannot look at those brothers who do not pray regularly with other brothers and conclude they are deficient in their faith. I cannot know if God has moved them or not, so I must be careful in not falling into judging of others.

Ezra 3:13 No one could distinguish the sound of the shouts of joy from the sound of weeping, because the people made so much noise. And the sound was heard far away.

When God's grace moves his people it has a real and moving impact on them and grace also has an impact on others as well. Notice that the impact of grace on his people does not result in the same expression. Here the people were responding to the same grace stimulus, yet some shouted with joy and  others were moved to weep. Grace is received in different ways by his people. For some the sheer joy that God loves them so much he showers them with grace is a moment to raise their heads and shout from the rooftops what God has done. While others may look at the deep darkness in their hearts and come to realize that grace reaches the lowest hell and their thankfulness is expressed through tears of deep appreciation. Yet, God used both responses to grace to impact those who were far away. There is no other conclusion possible except when God's grace moves his people it impacts others in some way.  They hear what God is doing with his people, and whether they like it or not the sound cannot be silenced nor the movement stilled.  There is another conclusion as well and that is God's grace is not something people can keep to themselves.  Yet it all starts with prayers, petitions, and pleadings from his people and when God reveals to them that he has heard them and touches them with grace their hearts are moved to do whatever he desires, some will be moved to shout with joy, and some will be moved to weeping, but both responses are due to God's revelation to his people that I have heard and now I am going to work powerfully through you in this way. Have I been so touched?