Scott's Ponderings

How does prayer fit in to loving God?

2006-07-07T08:28:04-05:00

Random thought here, “What happens when you have an argument with yourself about prayer?” In my case God steps in and says, “Hey, (ok so this is my paraphrased interpretation) what is it you have been studying? Hasn’t it been to love me with ALL your heart, mind, and soul? Prayer is a key point in this relationship.” Talk about conviction. You see I have never been a prayer warrior. For that matter, prayer has always taken second place to studying God’s word in my life. Don’t get me wrong, prayer plays a role in the study of the Word, but the prayer I am talking about is sitting down and simply praying.

If I am a Christ follower then I need to spend time now only learning about God, but I need to spend time with God. You see loving God fully is about our relationship with Him. Psalm one tells us that the key to being a righteous person is in meditating on God’s word, but we also must spend time with God. It is not an either/or rather it is a both/and.

Prayer has at least two components, attitude and action. Our attitude can be modeled after Paul’s statement in 1 Thessalonians where we are told to “pray continually.” It is about our attitude. In the same section we are told to “be joyful always” and to “give thanks in all circumstances.” You see it is about our attitude, giving all to God, loving God fully, loving God with all our heart, mind, and soul. In a similar way, the action of praying is physically removing our self from the world around us to develop our relationship with God. This is what Jesus did. Numerous times in the gospel stories we see Jesus withdrawing to pray, to spend time with his father.

So how is your prayer life? We are not all called to be prayer warriors, but we are all called to love God fully. Another measure of this is taking a look at our prayer life. Do you have an attitude of praying continually? Do you take time regularly to withdraw and spend time in prayer? To love God with all our heart, mind, and soul we need to spend time with Him in prayer.

Measuring Love

2006-06-24T22:29:28-05:00

“Love the Lord your God with all your heart…” (Matt 22:34a). There are two Old Testament verse jump to mind as I think of ways to measure or gauge how I am doing in the area of loving with “all my heart.” The first is Proverbs 3: 5-6 which says “Trust in the Lord with all your heart, lean not on your own understand, acknowledge him in all you do and He will make your path straight.” Like loving God, we are to trust wholly in the Lord also. So how is your trust level? As our prosperity increase there seems to be a corresponding decrease in our trust in God and acknowledgement of God in our daily lives. It seems that trust in God fully and loving God wholly should be pushing us into an ever deepening relationship with God. The second verse is in the next chapter of Proverbs. Proverbs 4:23 tells us to guard our heart, for out of it comes the wellspring of life. We need to protect our heart from those things that would interfere with trusting and loving God. How often are we robbed by the little things? For me, it is spending time in the morning reading the comics rather than reading my Bible. Or worse justifying starting work a little early instead of taking by quiet time. You see I am doing it for God, right?

So how is your trust issue with God? Do you acknowledge him in all you do? Does this then help you love God a little more? Are you being drawn into a deeper more intimate relationship with our Heavenly Father? Are you guarding that relationship? How about the guarding of the heart so the relationship can continue to grow?

The Measure of Love

2006-06-23T08:33:15-05:00

It is interesting, when I preached on this subject a few weeks ago I gave a challenge at the end of the message for the people to assess the percentage of their loving God with all their heart, soul, and mind. From the text we are to love God with “all” our heart, soul, and mind. If my math is correct that comes out to be 100%. But how is it we measure these things? What does loving God with all our heart look like? What does loving God with all our mind look like? What does it look like to love God with all our soul? What does it look like to love our neighbor as our self? In a men’s group that I am a part of (see the Focus of a Warrior section of the blog) we have been challenged to describe what our values look like, how they are played out in our life. By doing this we have the ability to test, measure, or assess how we are doing with regards to living out the given value. This is the direction I am headed with this topic. Over the next few weeks I will be putting forward ideas on what each of these “lovings” look like in my life so that I will have a gauge with which to measure my progress in the area of “loving God” and “loving my neighbor.”

A Little More Context

2006-01-31T19:43:54-06:00

We are at a point where Jesus' earthly ministry is winding down. Jesus has entered Jerusalem on the back of a donkey, to the shouts of the masses. He has gone into the Temple and driven out the money changes and the merchants. Now Jesus is in a series of confrontations with the religious leaders of the day, the chief priests, the Pharisees and the Sadducees. Each group is working to trap Jesus, to disgrace Him in front of the crowds, but Jesus is aware of their plans and turns their words against them. First it is the chief priests and elders questioning Jesus' authority. They failed. The Pharisees then gave it a shot. Just like the Sadducees, they failed. The Sadducees then gave it one more try with the same results. This leads us to the passage we will be looking at. The Pharisees seeing that the Sadducees had again failed, take one more stab at trying to trip Jesus up. As we work through Matthew 22:34-40 we will see how they did.

A little Context

2006-01-23T22:31:19-06:00

The Greatest Commandment

2006-01-23T22:30:48-06:00

Jesus, while he as ministering to the crowds was ask a question by the Jewish leader (they were trying to trick him). They asked, "What is the greatest commandment?" Jesus, without missing a beat answered, "Love God with all your heart, sooul, and mind," and then He added "Love your neighbor as yourself." Matt 22:37-40 (NIV) What does it mean to love God with all our heart, soul, and mind? What about the neighbor part? Another question posed to Jesus was "Who is my neighbor?" It is these and other questions that will be explored in this blog.