We finished our study on the fear of the Lord today. I was very much convicted today. We talked about how the fear of the Lord is big Biblical thinking about God. To practically live that out, we need to be constantly maintaining and growing in our fear of the Lord. He encouraged us to pray for it.... "unite my heart to fear Your name" (Psalm 86:11); to meditate on scripture... he described this as filling our treasure chest of big thoughts about God; to write down these thoughts about God; to go back later and read what you wrote; to practice private worship; to practice private thankfulness; to use a hymn book which is full of people who have feared the Lord and written it down; to think on a deeper level before we ask God for things... to remind us of why we are praying, and what He is doing, and how great He is; to mediate on scripture throughout the day (Psalm 1:2); to examine your default settings (this was the really convicting part which I will talk about more in a minute); to begin each day with big thoughts about God; to keep Bible and devotional books easily accessible; to get kids involved (for those that have kids); to get all alone for two or three hours with nothing bu your Bible, a pen, and a notebook; to give yourself to the preaching and teaching of the Word (come to listen and be ready to obey); to think about God through what He created, and then think of how much greater He is than those things; to read Christian biographies of others that have feared the Lord; to use this thinking by getting involved in the lives of others; to spend time with people who fear God (Malachi 3:16, Psalm 119:63); and to pay attention to your own heart, and fight for faith (1 Timothy 4:16). I was also reminded to press on to know the Lord in Hosea 6:3.
As mentioned above, the most convicting thing for myself was regarding default settings. What he means is... when you get home from school or work or just have some down time, what do you do? For myself, I go to my computer most of the time. While I do have biblegateway. com open in two tabs by default, they are not the main tabs and my first thing is generally to check email or facebook. This needs to change. Reading the Word needs to be my first thing, and my last thing each day. I set biblegateway to be the first two tabs rather than the 6th and 7th tab that is opened by default. Please keep me in prayer as I make this much needed change. I know that it won't always be easy... so many distractions. I may end up studying the Word without the computer if I am unable to focus, but I think I'll be able to focus. I want to be re-excited about reading the Word. In reading harder passages, I tend to get kind of not excited about reading it, but I need to be eager to hear what He has to say to me each and every day.
1 comment:
Wow. That was a convicting post. Thanks for sharing those thoughts.
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