encounter GOD

You know the silent prayer we spoke about in  this post ? Maintaining the silent prayer (which, if you stop to think about it, is nothing more than maintaining an awareness of GOD's presence) is vital to showing GOD to the world. Here's an example. Let's say you were babysitting a young child; maybe 2 or 3 years old. And let's go ahead and say this child begins to run around in circles. If you know anything about children, you know a child sprinting in circles is going to end up in some sort of accident; they may fall down or bump their head -- you know something  is going to happen. So what do you do? One response is to speak sharply, telling the child to stop running around. If they don't listen, speak sharper still. You may have to yell to finally get their attention and have them actually stop, but in the end, your goal is accomplished: the child stops a potentially harmful activity (running around, in case you've forgotten). Another response is to tak...

The short answer is prayer. The long answer is prayer. Prayer is more than just blabbering all your issues to GOD. Prayer means spending time with GOD. If somebody told you that the only way they'd consider time spent together was if you two were talking, wouldn't that sound absurd? Since when does spending time with someone only mean talking with them? Wouldn't watching a good movie together count as spending time together? What about reading books together? What about sitting down and enjoying a meal together? Do these activities require speaking? Of course not. But it's still considered time spent together. In the same way, spending time with GOD does not necessarily mean talking with Him. Sitting still in His presence counts. As does singing songs -- and not just worship songs. Praising Him is a natural and proper response to His glory, but not all songs are joyful ones. Singing songs of lamentation is included under the 'spend time with GOD' umbrella. ...

GOD. Elohim. Yahweh. Jehovah Jireh. Whatever you choose to call Him, His identity remains the same. He is, first and foremost, holy. He is perfect, pure, merciful. He is love. He is gracious beyond measure and He loves to poor out His blessings on those who love Him, trust Him, and obey Him. But why? Why is it so important to love, trust, and obey? If you stop and think about it, it's rather difficult (read: impossible) to have one without the other. Complete obedience arises out of a complete trust. If a stranger walked up and gave you a list of random commandments, a list that told you to go to a certain place and do a certain thing, would you follow them? No, of course not. Why? Because you don't know them. You can't trust them. How do you know that they aren't waiting to ambush and rob you once you reached your destination? Now if a loved one called and asked you to meet them in a certain location, would you not go? Of course you would. You trust them enough t...