Posted on 07/04/2011 6:59:16 AM PDT by WriteStuff
How do you walk with God when you can’t see Him?
I guess that’s why they call it “faith.”
(Excerpt) Read more at toddfitchette.wordpress.com ...
“What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.”— Bertrand Russell, Skeptical Essays (1928)
Heb 11: 1 Now faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen.
Heb 11:6 But without faith it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is, and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.
The best way to walk with God is to first spend time with Him in prayer. Without prayer it is very hard to perceive God's presence and throughout the day. Prayer opens our spiritual eyes and ears to his presence as we are all to prone to just try to perceive things on our own. At our church we follow the ACTS principles in Prayer and not just try to rush in and flood our requests in. Take time with Him in the morning:
A- Adoration, spend time proclaiming His Holiness and His mighty deeds. Worship him for His Character - His Love, His Patience, His Longsuffering, His Faithfulness and His never changing. Come into His presence with the Worship of The Blessed Trinity on your lips.
C- Confession, This is most important - Die to Self - Confess your sins, mistakes, indisgressions against Him and others. Like the publican "Father, Have mercy on me, A Sinner". Ask Him not to hold your sin against others as you pray for them as you are preparing for Intercessory prayer.
T- Thank Him for this access, thank Him for the privelege of coming before Him and for your daily bread (His Word). Thank Him for doing Good works through you.
S-Supplication, Intercede for your Loved ones, your Minister(s) and their staff, for your friends in need and those who revile you. They do not know their desperate needs - so lift their real needs before the father. If you do this selflessly, I guarantee you will have answers.
Ask for enablement to do His will today. Ask Him for the power to do the things He has laid out for you this day. Humbly tell Him where you feel blocked and powerless. For in doing so you may have power in your walk this day.
- Then walk the day in His presence and waiting on the Lord. For He is not silent and speaks through the scriptures with a still small voice.
Great Question!!
If you truly want to see Him, give Him your heart and then begin reading His Word.
You will see Him, not with physical eyes, but with your spirit.
Imagination is a great thing, it requires the slightest nudge
to get it in motion. What people believe is a very private and personal thing and we all believe what we want to believe for whatever reason, usually because of what we were born into. Most Catholics are Catholics because they were born into the Catholic faith, Muslims are Muslims for the same reason, Jew are Jews for the same reason. There are some who have gone from one faith to another for their own reasons but
by and large we stay in the faith we were born into. If you believe you can talk to God through prayer or any other way that’s great and good for you. I would not for a moment try to convince you to believe what I believe, it is different
from your belief. Your belief probably provides some comfort
and peace and so does mine, and it’s different from yours.
Are you right or am I right? it really matters not a whit. We will wind up in the same place and then you can tell me how right you were or we shall never meet again. Blasphemy?
not at all, it’s just what I believe.
"Faith" is misunderstood largely because we don't really have a proper English equivalent to the original word(s), at least in the "street Greek" of the First Century. "Faith" is not complicated, really. It's an action, not something you strain to picture in your head. It's the "act" of sitting down on a chair in your own living room when the lights are out. You don't have to wonder whether the chair is there. Practice has taught you already where it is and that it will hold you.
"Commit your way unto the Lord and He will establish your paths."
If you want to pray, return to basic common sense and start. The more your rely, the more the supply.
You talk with your mom on the phone, right? Same thing.
*guffaw!*
But he be pimpin’ for Jayzus!
/facepalm
When you’re making your plans, don’t say, “I’m gonna go here, and do this or that”. Ask the Lord if He’s willing that you do this or that; ask for His guidance about doing stuff before you do it. Ask for His help and opinion. - If He impresses on you to do something, do it.
Your plans are important to Him; his opinion is important to you if you want to walk with him. In Him we live, and move and have our very being; He’s not far from any one of us.
Ah, no. If someone tells you that there is no gravity on earth, will you believe them and walk off a cliff? If they say 'Stealing is OK because the rich and store owners don't need their possessions' will you believe them and go steal?
If someone says "Money is just paper and Electronic gobblety gook" and you believe it, will you open your wallet to me and say "Help Yourself"??
You say "it really matters not a whit" but Jesus asks "What will a man give for his soul?"
(to ransom it from hell). Jesus says it matters for your life.
So the question is not what I say, but whether Jesus is right.
Was He right to say, to the woman caught in adultery, "Go and Sin no more"? Can you find fault with that?
Was He right to say to the Pharisees, "Unless you believe that I AM HE, you will die in your sins"? Was He right or was He deluded?
What you are trying to tell me is that there is no reality - that it is all relative to the person. But when it becomes personal, if I steal from you, or assault you - you will not consider it relative.
Truth is truth whether you believe it or not. If you say it is not, you will walk off a cliff with no support and prove that Gravity is not the truth.
Go ahead, I am waiting.
Belief in Disbelief, or Inside the Postmodern Skeptic Tank
“[T]he new rebel is a skeptic, and will not entirely trust anything.... And the fact that he doubts everything really gets in the way when he wants to denounce anything. For denunciation implies a moral doctrine of some kind; and the modern revolutionist doubts not only the institution he denounces, but the doctrine by which he denounces it.... In his book on politics he attacks men for trampling on morality; in his book on ethics he attacks morality for trampling on men. ~ G.K. Chesterton
<>
Life Amidst the Postmodern Ruins
"... I was very impressed with how Chesterton, although writing in 1907, had already diagnosed the pathologies of the left. In fact, his ideas mirror exactly what Polanyi wrote some 50 years later about the “moral inversion” of the left, i.e., the dangerous combination of radical skepticism and an unhinged, ruthless moral perfectionism unbound from tradition.
You can see Him every day.
Matthew 25:31-46
The very yearning to know the answer to this question IS "walking with God."
God will teach you, and lead you, through that yearning.
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