Tuesday, January 26, 2010
P-R-A-Y - Part 2
Repenting Cultivates the Heart
Yesterday we looked at the first part of a prayer; that is when we praise God. If you missed this, you can scroll down and read it in the post below this one. Today we are going to go to the next step in prayer. This is the step that opens our hearts up to the Holy Spirit. When the Holy Spirit cultivates our hearts we can see the things in our life that don't look like Jesus.
Being raised in the country part of my life, I remember the farmers talking about cultivating the fields. What they were doing was turning the dirt over so they could get the previous growth under the dirt. This not only did away with the plants on top but it also allowed their decomposition to help fertilize and feed the new plants that would be placed in this newly cultivated earth. I'm sure a farmer could add so much more insight into this whole process but that's about all we need to see for now to understand how the Holy Spirit works when we open our hearts to be cutivated and prepared for new growth.
When we repent of our sins we have humbled ourselves and allowed the Holy Spirit to convict us. It is our responsibility to repent. I haven't found anyone else who can do it for me yet; though I really have looked hard for a way to get out of doing this myself at times in my life. There were times when it was so hard to come before God in prayer and to even utter a word. It was in those moments when I felt that I could not come to God and the stress seemed to be unbearable, that God's loving mercy and grace enveloped me and carried me to His bosom in forgiveness.
I remember watching two boys who were being reprimanded by their teacher and the teacher was telling one of the boys to tell the other one he was sorry. Well, the boy just kept pointing at other boys in the room and I couldn't understand why he was doing this. Finally the teacher who had the experience and training to understand this unusual body language said to the boy who kept pointing at the other boys, "Tell me something, who hit Timmy? Did you hit him or did these other boys hit him?". Well, to that he just looked down. He became humble in conviction of his actions. Then she said, "If you hit Timmy then why should I make the other boys tell him that they are sorry?", so the little boy looked over at Timmy with tears in running down his cheeks and said he was sorry. Was it the act of apology that forgave him? Was it the saying, "I'm sorry" that brought tears to his eyes? I believe it was the Holy Spirit along with a persistent teacher bringing conviction that revealed to him that he had done something wrong and that is when this third grader knew he had to make it right.
Conviction is merely a revealing within of what we have become in comparison with the only perfect man, Jesus. It's ok to shed tears in prayer. That is a good sign that we have seen our need for repentance and we are truly sorry for what we have done.
The Lord gave me the following after I had written this message this morning and I felt He meant for me to share it with you today.
When I Could Not Speak
I learned ,when I could not speak a word in prayer, that it was not my words, but in my heart God found repentance there. The Holy Spirit, in my heart did glean and left me with a conscience clean. God forgave me as tears I cried; not one word spoken; but His Holy Spirit could see inside.
Luke 5:31,32
And Jesus answering them said to them, "They that are whole do not need a physician, but those who are sick. I didn't come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
Luke 15:7
Jesus said, "I tell you that also joy will be in heaven over one sinner that repents; more than over ninety-nine just people, which do not need repentance."
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