My Earnest Prayer

Dear Heavenly Father,
Thank You for being who You are-Almighty, Sovereign, Holy, Loving, Faithful, Merciful, Gracious, Forgiving, and Awesome, just for starters. Thank You for sending Your Son Jesus to suffer and die for all of my sins. Thank You for waking me up and allowing me to see yet another day. Thank You for Your providence and Your protection. Thank You for my husband, my children, my mom, my dads, my brothers, aunts, uncles, cousins, in-laws, friends, and church family. I realize that I was created for You. I am nothing without You. Please fill me with Your Holy Spirit this day. As I read and study Your Word today, please give me understanding, wisdom, and discernment. Please give me all that I need to apply and obey Your Word. I pray that You forgive me of my sin and bring to light any sin I have so that I may lay it at the foot of Your cross, immediately. I pray that as I spend more time with You in Your Word that my heart will become more aligned with Yours-that my heart would break for the things that break Your heart; that Your desires would be my desires; that Your plans would be my plans, and the things that bring You joy would also bring me joy. Finally, I pray that the love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control that You show toward me would flow through me to others with whom I come in contact so that they all may know You. May You be glorified in all that I think, say, and do. . . in Jesus' name, Amen.

The Call to Obedience (part II). . .

Recently, I watched a DVD of a church service during which the Pastor and the congregation prayed for/commissioned a small group of men that they are sending off to begin a new ministry. Also, during the service, this group of men shared their very moving testimonies of how the Almighty God changed their lives. While they all had different stories, there was a common thread that ran through all of them. They all had come face-to-face with their sin. They could no longer run or hide from it. Once they did that, they repented of their sin and surrendered all to Jesus, allowing the Holy Spirit to now rule their lives. Ironically, I have rencetly gone through a similar situation. I trusted Jesus Christ for my salvation years ago and I even considered myself to be living for Him. It was not until my entire life (recently) seemed to be falling apart that I cried out to the Lord and He showed me the problem or problems. It was as if He opened my eyes and exposed my sin for what it really was. Again, I have been a Christian for years, but there has always been this battle within me: self-sufficiency and doing my will versus allowing Christ to be Lord over my life and surrendering completely to His will. While I desired deep in my heart the latter, it was the former that often won out. After asking God to search my heart and bring to light the stuff that was not pleasin gto Him, He did exactly that! He brought to light my pride, selfishness, disobedience, and just out and out rebellion. It was like I was blind but then I could see. The Holy Spirit brought me face-to-face with my sin and I could not deny it.

In the early chapters of the book of Ezekiel, the prophet Ezekiel was sent to the children of Israel to warn them of God's wrath and judgement upon them because of their wickedness. Ezekiel did exactly what God told Him to do. He knew the ways of the children of Israel. He had witnessed first hand their worship of other gods, for example. However, in chapter 8, it was as if Ezekiel got a more in-depth look at their sin as God put His Spirit upon Ezekiel and lifted him between earth and heaven to show him the depths of their wickeness. Everytime God would show Ezekiel the abominations of the house of Israel, God would tell him to turn again so that he could see "greater abominations". The impression I got from the Scripture is that to describe these abominations as vile would be putting it mildly, yet the house of Israel was blind to their sin. For the life of them, they could not figure out why God had left them. After showing all of this to Ezekiel, chapter 8 verses 17 and 18 read:

And He said to me, "Have you seen this, O son of man? Is it a trivial think to the house of Judah to commit abominations which they commit here? For they have filled the land with violence; then they have returned to provoke Me to anger. Indeed they put the branch to their nose. Therefore, I also will act in fury. My eye will not spare nor will I have pity; and though they cry in My ears will a loud voice, I will not hear them.

Perhaps you are thinking, "That's good information, Malaika, but what is your point?" My point is this: God loves us and He has generously extended His grace and mercy to us. As I stated in my previous post, He is Holy and therefore, He cannot be in the presence of sin. Many of us, Christians and non-Christians alike, may be blind to the sinful lives we may be living. The sin may run so deep or we may have become so comfortable in our sin, that we do not see it and need God's Holy Spirit to reveal it to us. As a nation, like the house of Israel, we continue in our idolatrous, prideful, rebellious ways and we do not realize how offensive it is to God. We need "His eyes" in order to see and once we do, we must turn from our ways. If we continue in our "abominations",however, I believe God's fury will come upon us-individually and/or collectively.

For those who have ears, hear the call. . .