God answered a prayer this month that I have earnestly prayed and waited for Him to answer for 35 years. My heart is overflowing because someone that I have known ALL my life, someone that I love very much innocently has made the decision to accept Jesus into their heart as Lord and Savior. I write this to encourage those who are praying, those who are waiting, those who continue to trust God and walk by faith when they are unable to SEE answers.
KEEP PRAYING. DON’T GIVE UP, TRUST GOD CONTINUOUSLY.
YOUR PRAYERS MAY BE THE ONLY LIFELINE IN THAT PERSON’S LIFE.
Listen, we are NOT God… We CANNOT change hearts! BUT we can pray that Holy Spirit will soften hearts! We don’t know what it will take for someone’s heart to soften to the point that they realize that they NEED God. We don’t know what it will take to bring someone to that point…
BUT GOD DOES!
When I look at my own salvation experience, what it took for me to question God, to ask Him:
“God, IF You are REALLY real, I need You to make Yourself real to ME.”
And He did! God WANTS us to recognize that we need Him! He often allows circumstances in our lives to bring us to a point where we recognize that we need Him! To bring us to a point that we are flat on our faces, crying out to Him. It is NOT that God wants bad things to happen to us, He is NOT a “mean” Father! Let me use a visual example:
This past week, I was visiting a loved one who has an electric tea kettle. As I was making cups of tea, I didn’t realize that the spout of the kettle was facing towards me, as the water boiled the steam rose from the spout and burned my hand that was placing a tea bag into the cup. I received a bad burn on my hand and had to bandage it up, all because I hadn’t checked to make sure the spout was facing in the opposite direction. When I went to bed later on that night, Holy Spirit whispered an analogy into my head, I’m going to try to find the words to share it…
Steam is a wonderful thing when it comes to a hot cup of coffee or tea, or even as a steamy hot shower, bath or sauna – these are just a few examples towards the enjoyment of steam in supervised manner. But in an unsupervised manner, steam burn hurts, causes injury and is detrimental – as was the case with the kettle being turned in a direction where I sustained injury. The Bible is God’s love letter to us, a book of instruction that benefits us if we read it and apply it to our lives. If we choose not to do so, we are choosing to disobey God’s instructions to the detriment of our life, both in the here and now and also for eternity. Our choices have consequences, and ultimately WE are responsible for the choices we make – the blame does not fall on God, it falls on us. In this life that God has given us, we can either choose to accept God’s love, or we can choose to reject it. The choice is one we make of our own free will.
GOD WANTS US TO CHOOSE TO LOVE HIM, AND ALLOW OURSELVES TO RECEIVE HIS LOVE
That TRULY is the greatest decision we can EVER make. Our choice is an eternal one, and it is one that we freely have to make on our own FREE WILL. To accept the gift of eternal life that God offers us through redemption by accepting Jesus Christ as our Savior, make Him Lord OVER our lives OR to choose to reject Him in life (live a life without Him) therefore choosing to live an eternal life separate from Him. The choice has always been ours to make. The same “steam” that delightfully envelopes me when I take a shower is the same kind that in my error of not using it correctly caused me to burn myself out of my own stupidity.
God has shown His love for us in every way possible. We only have to open our hearts to receive Him and accept His love, in doing so we experience the greatest kind of joy, fulfillment, love, grace and peace that a person can possibly EVER know. God’s love is the GREATEST love of all. And receiving His love is the BEST choice you can EVER make.
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