I've been thinking about the concept of God 'blocking' our prayers, and of us losing fellowship with God. It's crazy! We have boldness to enter the throne room of God at any time, based solely on the blood of Jesus! We are made the very righteousness of God! There is nothing within a saved person that should block prayers, as our sins no longer separate us from God. There is nothing that gets in the way... except for the unbelief of the person who is praying. God NEVER puts up a barrier. Prayer is not based on any works that we do. But sometimes we feel as though we are undeserving to come to God. Sometimes we may feel guilty, shameful, or unworthy, and at those times we feel that we must cleanse ourselves before we can come to God. Is there any work that man can do to make themselves more pleasing in God's sight? No! Of course not! He is only pleased with Jesus. If Jesus is in us, he is pleased. Period. God doesn't plug his ears and turn his eyes from his children. He has promised to never leave us nor forsake us. That was not a conditional promise.
So, what are these blocked prayers? In a previous blog, I talked about how that feeling of prayers bouncing off the wall is because we don't realize just how VERY VERY CLOSE AND INTIMATE our Saviour is to us. He is not millions of lightyears away in heaven, he is right here living within us! He can hear our every thought, our quietest whisper. But sometimes we just don't have the faith to believe. Sometimes it is due to sin, sometimes it is just because we are feeling very 'human,' but we just don't really believe he's right there waiting to hear us. We don't really believe he is going to answer, and we don't really believe that he cares. There is this part within us somewhere that feels so unworthy of the 'Christ in me and me in Christ' relationship, that we don't approach him with boldness, as is our right, but in timidity and fear. We don't come to him with passion and love, but with trembling and anxiety that he will judge us and find us lacking.
As I pondered this, my mind immediately went back to 2005 when I was pregnant with Evan. I was struggling with so many things, and I was fighting surrender to God. I didn't feel worthy of anything and my mind was in great turmoil. These feelings were tumbling over into my other relationships and I was feeling very disconnected from my husband. I stumbled upon a copy of Dr. Phil's book on marriage and began reading it. As I went through taking his quizzes, I came up categorized as being in 'emotional divorce.' I was shocked! I was hurt! I was angry! I couldn't believe it! I called Chris in and demanded we go to counseling. I wept, and told him our marriage was falling apart, and I'd known it for ages, and now I had the proof. He almost laughed! To him, everything was fine! He loved me passionately, and the only problem he could see was that I was very sick and needed healing. Our marriage was fine. At the time, I insisted he must be in denial - I was utterly flawed, we were a wreck, and there was no way we would make it through another year!
Of course, we made it through a year, I surrendered to God, found healing and realized that my mind was running away with me and believing lies. Our marriage had been fine all along. I was just so sick and depressed that I was seeing things that weren't true.
And so Christian's believe the lies of Satan. We have a low point - we stumble, we fall - and we forget who Christ has made us and focus on what we can see with our physical eyes. We take all those feelings of inadequacy, shame, and regret and we then transfer them to our Father. We point our fingers at him and say, "You aren't listening to me!" The whole time his love and passion for us never changes. The fellowship is not broken, we have just forgotten that it is there.
I've Moved
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