The Saints: Awakening to Love
Stop praying silly prayers and walk in what you have!
Return
G’day Everyone,
Welcome back to another edition of “The Holy Go” where we are continuing our “The Saints” series looking at Spiritual Formation.
Last week’s challenge was to spend some time looking at the “Three A’s Discipleship Table” and reflect on your own spiritual formation. I have found this immensely helpful at pointing out gaps in my own discipleship. Go check it out here if you haven’t already.
Today we look at the first A, “Awakening to Love,” in more depth.
Equip
Hidden Valuables
I love hearing stories of people who possessed something of great value but didn’t realise it. I’ve read stories of those who had:
Paintings worth millions hanging in their kitchen
Bowls from ancient China used for lollies
Loose coins that turned out to be extremely rare
Some of these owners go through financial hardship, not knowing they have access to millions. If only they could see…
In a similar way, all humans possess a valuable gift but don’t realise it.
Praying for More?
It reminds me of a famous song I loved singing in The Salvation Army. It summed up so many of my prayers for more power.
Give us the promised Holy Ghost,
We want another Pentecost,
Send the fire! Send the fire today!
While I love what this song is getting at, it also demonstrates a problem with praying for “more”: We unintentionally pray for something we already have.
God, we need more of You!
God, we need more power!
God, we need more life!
Jesus said that eternal life was that we may “know God.” The Apostle Paul spoke of salvation as union with Christ, where He is in us and we are in Him. You can’t get any closer to God because you’re already in Him!
We’re told that in Christ we have all we need for life! All we need to be like God! In fact, we are told that we have been blessed with EVERY spiritual blessing! We’ve got it all already!1
However, somewhere along the line we’ve traded that life giving relationship for a ticket to heaven.
We’ve emphasised right doctrine rather than relationship.
We’ve emphasised speaking to God rather than listening to God.
We’ve emphasised asking for rather than participating in.
All those things are good, but when we miss the deeper, union based glory of relationship, then we’ve doomed ourselves to a life of lack.
Awakening to Love
The first step of discipleship is “Awakening to Love.” It’s that moment where our eyes are opened to the reality of the God who loves us.
The Apostle Paul had been persecuting Christians, then God literally blinded him as a prophetic picture of his condition. He was spiritually blind until he was awoken to love.
All the disciples who encountered the risen Christ didn’t recognise him at first. Their grief, fear, doubt and confusion blinded them from seeing Him. But Jesus opened their eyes to see and their hearts burned with love.
When we are discipling people who do not yet know Jesus, our task is to cooperate with God to open their eyes. (See this newsletter for great examples)
But this is not just for unbelievers, it’s for us too.
Jesus rebuked Pharisees for their spiritual blindness. They thought they could find life in the Scriptures, yet they missed “Jesus: The Life” standing right in front of them.
You and I are not immune from spiritual blindness. It causes us to pray silly prayers. Prayers asking for things we already have.
We don’t need more of God.
We don’t need more life.
We don’t need more power.
What we need is an awakening!
And once our eyes are opened, we can participate in this goodness! (But we’ll touch more on that next week…)
Activate
This weeks activation is to meditate on these prayers from Ephesians,
I pray that the great God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ may give you the wisdom of His Spirit. Then you will be able to understand the secrets about Him as you know Him better. 18 I pray that your hearts will be able to understand. I pray that you will know about the hope given by God’s call. I pray that you will see how great the things are that He has promised to those who belong to Him. I pray that you will know how great His power is for those who have put their trust in Him. (Ephesians 1:17-19 NLV)
I pray that you will be filled with love. I pray that you will be able to understand how wide and how long and how high and how deep His love is. I pray that you will know the love of Christ. His love goes beyond anything we can understand. I pray that you will be filled with God Himself. (Ephesians 3:17-19 NLV)
What is God showing you that you already have?
How does this change the way you disciple other people?
Let’s Go!
God loves us all, and loves us first… and there’s nothing we can do to change it! (John 3:16, Romans 8:38-39, 1 John 4:19)
Jesus has dealt with the sins of the whole world! He is the Saviour of all people! (Romans 3:23, 5:18, 1 Cor 15:22, 2 Cor 5:19, 1 John 2:2, 1 Tim 4:10)
We have been blessed with every spiritual blessing, and given everything we need for life and godliness. (Ephesians 1:3, 2 Peter 1:3)
James - perhaps your best yet!! Simply wonderful- thank you for taking the time to pen these eternal truths! No more silly prayers!!!