Greetings Warriors and Scholars.
Today I want to share with you something about my prayers of late. One thing I have been praying about Nerd Chapel for a while now is that God would align my heart with His heart. My reason was that it is so easy when you step out in ministry to focus on what you want or what you feel comfortable doing and I felt that doing so would help keep me straight and focused on God's direction instead of on my desires.
As of late I have been praying this over myself more generally. I think this is going to be something for my 2016. I am not sure this is a "safe" prayer, but why do we pray safe prayers? What benefit is there in that? Do we grow from safe prayers? Do we benefit from them?
King David did a lot of amazing things. He fought bravely for God against the warrior Goliath and in many other battles. He wrote many songs of praise that we still use today for the worship and adoration of God. He built up the nation of Israel and expanded its boarders significantly.
Yet he also failed. Israel had been warned that a king should not have many wives and he had several. One of these relationships began as an illicit affair with a married woman. He then tried to cover it up with murder by sending her husband to the front lines of a battle.
In all of this David was called "a man after God's own heart" in 1 Samuel 13:14. Why? Well, one example of this came after the great sin he committed. A prophet named Nathan came to confront him about it. He told a story about a man with many sheep taking the only sheep of another man for a feast. David was outraged at the man doing this and Nathan said "YOU are that king". David immediately saw his own sin and repented.
Essentially, David course corrected to align his heart with God's heart. There were still some consequences for David's sin and actions. But God did forgive him. I have to wonder...what if David had stopped earlier to align his heart with God's heart? How would things have been different? Would David and Bathsheba been spared many problems if he had kept his heart aligned with God and chosen not to pursue her? We will never know the answer, but I think things would have been very different.
Today I want to share with you something about my prayers of late. One thing I have been praying about Nerd Chapel for a while now is that God would align my heart with His heart. My reason was that it is so easy when you step out in ministry to focus on what you want or what you feel comfortable doing and I felt that doing so would help keep me straight and focused on God's direction instead of on my desires.
As of late I have been praying this over myself more generally. I think this is going to be something for my 2016. I am not sure this is a "safe" prayer, but why do we pray safe prayers? What benefit is there in that? Do we grow from safe prayers? Do we benefit from them?
King David did a lot of amazing things. He fought bravely for God against the warrior Goliath and in many other battles. He wrote many songs of praise that we still use today for the worship and adoration of God. He built up the nation of Israel and expanded its boarders significantly.
Yet he also failed. Israel had been warned that a king should not have many wives and he had several. One of these relationships began as an illicit affair with a married woman. He then tried to cover it up with murder by sending her husband to the front lines of a battle.
In all of this David was called "a man after God's own heart" in 1 Samuel 13:14. Why? Well, one example of this came after the great sin he committed. A prophet named Nathan came to confront him about it. He told a story about a man with many sheep taking the only sheep of another man for a feast. David was outraged at the man doing this and Nathan said "YOU are that king". David immediately saw his own sin and repented.
Essentially, David course corrected to align his heart with God's heart. There were still some consequences for David's sin and actions. But God did forgive him. I have to wonder...what if David had stopped earlier to align his heart with God's heart? How would things have been different? Would David and Bathsheba been spared many problems if he had kept his heart aligned with God and chosen not to pursue her? We will never know the answer, but I think things would have been very different.
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