Classroom: Knowing God 01-30-07
Knowing God 01-30-07
Larry
Things I want to trust God with in these coming days: My entire life – everything about it. The hard times. The things I hate to love, or love to hate. My passions and desires belong to Him.
Habakkuk 3:17-19
Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places. To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.
We don’t know what kind of things the Lord will bring before us – but He is our strength. Will we let Him take us higher and higher?
Write a letter to god why I can trust in him also in bad times.
[My Letter – Why I trust in the Lord
Lord I trust in you because I know that you are God. I know you now, but you first knew me, and loved me although I wronged you in seemingly unforgivable ways – definitely unrepayable ways. But you, in your mercy and Grace, loved me and sent Jesus to bear my punishment. You’ve blessed me and treated me like a friend and a Son while I would gladly be your slave; being your slave would be a privilege and great honor. Lord, I trust in you… because how could I not?]
A relationship is getting to know each other. There is a difference between knowledge and knowing each other. It is very important that we as Christians know things about each other. The intellectual gathering of data. We gather Data. For example, we probably will recognize George W. bush because he is famous. We know about him. We heard about him we heard what people say about him. You probably have formed an opinion about him and you might dislike him, but you don’t know him. This is the problem of our modern world as we get more information.
Another example: Everyday we hear what is happening in Iraq. We hear how many people are dying in Iraq, how hopeless it is in Iraq and so on; we have all this information but we have no power to do anything about it. We will not be able to do anything unless we get the power to act.
Not knowing God is equal to your being robbed of something that you’re designed to have. You are designed to have hope in Jesus.
We might have information about a person, but if you cannot interact with this person all, the information will not help you; so you will despair. Because we have so much information but no power to act, so we will despair. This is not what God wants us to be like. We are designed by God to be full of hope and joy and full of excitement and yet we find ourselves in disappointment. Because we know about God but we do not know God.
Maybe you have a lot of information about God and you’ll be almost over flowing with information and knowledge about God and you’re desperately trying to come closer to God. We are desperate for a relationship. People will kill themselves with drugs in order to like themselves, and will go to the end of the world to get into a relationship. Because God designed us to need a relationship. We look for love in all the wrong places and ways. We look for love in every corner except the corner of God. We all experience this road of looking for love and relationships.
What we need to do is not hard - to know God. This relationship is called "intimacy with God." In the Bible, God chose the sexuality relationship to be a similar relationship which God wants to have with us There is a correlation between man and wife, mankind and God. Adam knew Eve and they bore a son. God says this. He put this mark on man and woman. That mark becomes holy and sacred. A man and a woman having sex together is not just reproducing. It’s sacred. It’s an act of worship. It’s a representation of our relationship with Him in the spirit. And in that, there is a correlation between us and God. A man and a woman having sex together is a relationship like God and mankind – only in the spirit. That’s the type of intimacy God wants with us. That is the example God gives us. God talks about the nation of Israel as a wife. We are the bride and Jesus is our Bridegroom.
God is a spirit and we have a spirit and a soul. We have intimacy soul to soul – spirit to spirit.
Imagine there’s a beautiful girl and you’re admiring her from a distance. You study all sorts of things about her. She’s beautiful, absolutely beautiful – and you can’t take your eyes off of her. You dream about her, you imagine things about her, you watch her and what she does, how she acts, but how can you know her unless you go to her? You’ve heard all these things about her, and you think about everything you know about her all the time – but do you know her? No.
You also cannot know God without going to Him; I’m talking about knowing God with a knowing that surpasses "knowledge" about Him. It is good to know things about God, but is that knowing Him?
"Taste and see that the Lord is good." Tasting is an example of what it’s like to know God; and tasting is not blind, it is an experience. You can experience a relationship with God. Knowing God is a lifelong thing. It is life.
Knowing God in life is something that is alive – living – and your relationship with Him grows because it’s alive. If your knowing God does not grow, then it is not alive – not God – not real.
[At this point during Larry’s talk, even as he speaks about knowing God and our relationship with Him being a living thing because God is the Living God, I noticed that most people were taking a lot of notes as he was speaking. That, to me, is a reflection of what he’s talking about. Our spirits are being moved as we learn about God more and we are feeding from these words of truth because of our Living God – Jesus. Those that don’t know Him won’t feed, but hopefully they will meet Him.]
Having a relationship means spending time together. It means doing things together. Ask the Holy Spirit for help and overcome the things that get in our way - get to know God and reach him; the Holy Spirit opens your eyes and mind and heart to know God.
You might be SO excited, and all your life you heard about God, imagining things about Him and having pictures of Him; but now we are tasting God and finding out that the Lord is Good; we are tasting God personally, in our hearts and lives. And that Is a relationship which no one in the whole world can take away from you. A relationship with a man is a really nice relationship. When you grow in your relationship with God, you get more beautiful. God is inexhaustible, you cant get to the end of his goodness. Until eternity, we will be getting to know more and more about the Holiness and Goodness of God - because you experience everyday that God is God. Today you know that God is good; but the experience is to feel the goodness of god tomorrow, too, and everyday.
Hosea 2:19-20 [this is a verse we had to memorize for the week]
And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD.
The commitment we make with God is from now until forever, to live with God in love and Richness. This is also why a man and a woman should not get a divorce – because it is a representation and example of our relationship with God. If we cannot even stay faithful to our wives or husbands with every thought and every action, how can we stay faithful to God? The god who knows everything about you. God will be Faithful with us and he wants us to be also faithful with him. He saved us from ourselves so we can have an intimate relationship with Him.
You work hard at anything. Why not work hard at a relationship with God? A relationship that will be most rewarding in unfathomable ways? A relationship that will give us satisfaction in our lives?
God gives us freedom because He wants us to choose Him. You do things for people that you love because you love them. You get to do it. A father does things for his son to see the happiness or gleam in the son’s eyes.
You might think that a relationship with God means that God is walking alone and we are having the burdens on our back - and that would be of a marriage with God. A relationship with God, just like with a spouse, takes constant cultivation. It’s like breathing. When you say you need a break from God, it’s like telling your lungs you need a break from breathing.
2 Timothy 2:6
It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.
Maybe our relationship with God has no fruit. Maybe we aren’t cultivating it and we still have grass in our field - not ready to work hard, to work on the field and raise up a tree full of fruit. Our relationship with God is the same way. We need to work hard so we get the fruits and taste them. You work hard for anything you want to get. Try to work hard for an intimate relationship with God. Relationship is two way. The relationship is to be chosen by a measure of freedom. God chose us first now, it’s our turn. The farmer is trying get the fruit of the relationship with God, he wants to taste it, not just look at it. If we are working only to get the gifts from God then we will be like a woman carrying the heavy things and walking behind the man. If you feel that you’re only working and working, and the burden is on you, your relationship is not right. God is not looking for slaves, he is looking for sons. You can work like a slave, but when you’re in an intimate relationship with God, you’ll be a son, not a slave.
Why do we get tired and sick of having a nice relationship with God? In our relationships with the ones we love, we try to make them as happy as we can. If you love God it’s not a matter of Him making you work, it’s a matter us wanting to work. That’s what the relationship is like. There is life in that. It doesn’t matter who works more for making a good relationship. For sure, God worked much harder for making this relationship good and successful. God is love, so it’s easier to give us love, but we also learn to love because we were created on His image. The relationship is not measured by quantities, it’s just about loving with all you have. God gives me that choice of loving. God gives us His love, and His loves helps us to love him back.
[at this point in the teaching, a student asked a question]
"So do we do things for God to see His gleam? Or does He do things for us to see our gleam?"
The answer is both. A loving relationship is always two ways. God does things for His children, sons and daughters, to see the gleam in our eyes. We do things for Him because it is a privilege. We get to participate in His work and learn His ways.
Perfect love casts out all fear. When I do things out of love for friends and family – I’m not afraid. But when I do things for God, it can be scare or intimidating.
(Mathew 25:31-36, 40)
Don’t return God’s love directly to Him. Pass it to others and love them. Loving God looks like loving others, only it’s for God. And others see that and imitate that. But the most important part is not there – the "for God" part. I should not be doing things FOR other people. I should not be. I should be doing things FOR God, and God may show His loving response to me, and He may show it through the one you love.
Don’t fall into the mind set that we can’t make it, that we are too small or not strong enough to love God. We can love because He loved first. You can know so much about God, you can attend so many lectures, and still not know Him. After all the work you might have done for God, like ministry and all these things - in the end God might tell you to go away: "I don’t know you." The good relationship with God needs to contain a lot of work. What is a garden without human attention (it will be looking terrible)! Imagine your relationship with God without working hard; God has done His work - now it’s our time. He will help us when we need help.
Remember the soldier; remember the athlete; remember the farmer; all three have something in common, which is that they all have to put forth a lot of effort. A field needs to be cleared, planted, watered, and kept from the things that might destroy it. It needs a lot of work, and so does our relationship with God.
If your relationship with God is still in the beginning stages, it still needs a lot of work. That means you may have to have some time of fasting or praying, or seeking for the face of God. Small weeds in a garden are like small offenses (or sins) in our life. You have to pay attention and pull those out while they’re small because they’re a LOT easier to pull up at that stage. If you wait, they’ll grow into something big and nasty; it could take a long time and hard work.
Jesus made it his habit to listen to his Heavenly Father. If Jesus listened to our Heavenly Father – and he’s God – why would we not do the same?
John 5:19-28
Jesus heard the Heavenly Father say everything. I do nothing except what I hear from my Heavenly Father. If Jesus needed to hear God’s voice – to listen – how much MORE do WE need to listen?!
Jesus practiced being alone with his Father. You can’t take people with you – not your wife or your family, you must go alone. You must cultivate your own relationship with God. If your relationship with God is suffering – spend more time with Him. Make time, make space in your schedule each day. Don’t do it because you have to – do it out of love. You have many things in your life, things to do and things you love – and you have God in your life. Prove WHO is your God. Put God in FIRST. Give Him the BEST time.
How do we practically get there? Constant conservations, spending time with God, and listening to him (not just talking to Him). How can you spend time with God? Why do I spend some time with God when I’m hungry, sleepy, tired or sick? It’s the motivation that we are trying to work on. Say to yourself, "I have to get back to the GARDEN" - the way Jesus got back to the garden to pray to God. This garden is different for each person. A garden isn’t necessarily a chair to sit on to have some private time with God. I have to go to my private, silent place, alone. Jesus practiced being alone with God. It’s harder for a people-person, but even though it’s hard, you can do it. Jesus loved the people, and loved to be with them - but still he found some time to be alone with his Father. Time equals relationship. How do you know if you are having an intimate relationship with God? Time. When you spend time with God. When we say "time" we mean: plan a time in your schedule. Always have time in your schedule for God. You’re not doing that because you have to, but because you want to.
How did we spend our life? Did we remember God in our life? To spend some time with Him? Most of us, we are trying to squeeze the Lord in the times we have left over, and we expect from Him and He’ll be happy about the scraps we give Him in our day. If we don’t have time for God in our life and in our day, we have to preplan our day and life to put God in the beginning of our day - and make Him number one on our plan. Plan on God. Make your schedule around Him. Religion is the practice of the having a relationship with God.
[The most important relationship at this YWAM DTS in Nicosia, Cyprus, is my relationship with God.]
Quiet/alone Time: Zephaniah 3:17
The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.
Isaiah 62:1
For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch.
Isaiah 32:18
My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.
Psalm 95
Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, "They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways." Therefore I swore in my wrath, "They shall not enter my rest."
[Something I’ve been thinking about and learning about more and more… what IS sin? Sin is our rejection of God and that’s it. That’s what it is. Every sin of ours is a rejection of God – His way – and who He is - in some way. Things that look "good" to us can still be bad. They can be imitations of things from God, imitations of things that are good. They can be fakes. The appearances are deceiving, the motives are disguised. You may not see what’s really there or what’s really missing.]
Late have I loved you, O beauty so ancient and so new. Late have I loved you! You were within me while I have gone outside to seek you, Unlovely myself, I rushed towards all those lovely things you had made. And always you were with me, and I as not with you. All these beauties kept me far from you although they would not have existed at all unless they had their being in you. You called, you cried, you shattered my deafness. You sparkled, you blazed, you drove away my blindness. You shed your fragrance and I drew in my breath, and I ant fro you. I tasted and now I hunger and thirst. You touched me, and now I burn with longing for your peace.
Saint Augustine
He has chosen us; We have not first chosen him. But we must respond by making our society something very beautiful. For this we must give all-our utmost. We must cling to Jesus, grasp him, have a grip on him, and never let go for anything. We must fall in love with Jesus.
Mother Teresa
To have a healthy relationship with God, the most important thing is Quite/alone time. You call it a quiet time because you shut down everything what might disturb you from hearing His voice, His whispers, and to be free to tell him everything. Pray that He’ll help keep out your own thoughts and voices as well as outside noises. Make the quiet time fit to you, so it will work for you.
[In closing, Larry had us make a commitment to each other:]
I will help my fellow students by giving them time and space to draw near to him.
Larry
Things I want to trust God with in these coming days: My entire life – everything about it. The hard times. The things I hate to love, or love to hate. My passions and desires belong to Him.
Habakkuk 3:17-19
Though the fig tree should not blossom, nor fruit be on the vines, the produce of the olive fail and the fields yield no food, the flock be cut off from the fold and there be no herd in the stalls, yet I will rejoice in the LORD; I will take joy in the God of my salvation. GOD, the Lord, is my strength; he makes my feet like the deer's; he makes me tread on my high places. To the choirmaster: with stringed instruments.
We don’t know what kind of things the Lord will bring before us – but He is our strength. Will we let Him take us higher and higher?
Write a letter to god why I can trust in him also in bad times.
[My Letter – Why I trust in the Lord
Lord I trust in you because I know that you are God. I know you now, but you first knew me, and loved me although I wronged you in seemingly unforgivable ways – definitely unrepayable ways. But you, in your mercy and Grace, loved me and sent Jesus to bear my punishment. You’ve blessed me and treated me like a friend and a Son while I would gladly be your slave; being your slave would be a privilege and great honor. Lord, I trust in you… because how could I not?]
A relationship is getting to know each other. There is a difference between knowledge and knowing each other. It is very important that we as Christians know things about each other. The intellectual gathering of data. We gather Data. For example, we probably will recognize George W. bush because he is famous. We know about him. We heard about him we heard what people say about him. You probably have formed an opinion about him and you might dislike him, but you don’t know him. This is the problem of our modern world as we get more information.
Another example: Everyday we hear what is happening in Iraq. We hear how many people are dying in Iraq, how hopeless it is in Iraq and so on; we have all this information but we have no power to do anything about it. We will not be able to do anything unless we get the power to act.
Not knowing God is equal to your being robbed of something that you’re designed to have. You are designed to have hope in Jesus.
We might have information about a person, but if you cannot interact with this person all, the information will not help you; so you will despair. Because we have so much information but no power to act, so we will despair. This is not what God wants us to be like. We are designed by God to be full of hope and joy and full of excitement and yet we find ourselves in disappointment. Because we know about God but we do not know God.
Maybe you have a lot of information about God and you’ll be almost over flowing with information and knowledge about God and you’re desperately trying to come closer to God. We are desperate for a relationship. People will kill themselves with drugs in order to like themselves, and will go to the end of the world to get into a relationship. Because God designed us to need a relationship. We look for love in all the wrong places and ways. We look for love in every corner except the corner of God. We all experience this road of looking for love and relationships.
What we need to do is not hard - to know God. This relationship is called "intimacy with God." In the Bible, God chose the sexuality relationship to be a similar relationship which God wants to have with us There is a correlation between man and wife, mankind and God. Adam knew Eve and they bore a son. God says this. He put this mark on man and woman. That mark becomes holy and sacred. A man and a woman having sex together is not just reproducing. It’s sacred. It’s an act of worship. It’s a representation of our relationship with Him in the spirit. And in that, there is a correlation between us and God. A man and a woman having sex together is a relationship like God and mankind – only in the spirit. That’s the type of intimacy God wants with us. That is the example God gives us. God talks about the nation of Israel as a wife. We are the bride and Jesus is our Bridegroom.
God is a spirit and we have a spirit and a soul. We have intimacy soul to soul – spirit to spirit.
Imagine there’s a beautiful girl and you’re admiring her from a distance. You study all sorts of things about her. She’s beautiful, absolutely beautiful – and you can’t take your eyes off of her. You dream about her, you imagine things about her, you watch her and what she does, how she acts, but how can you know her unless you go to her? You’ve heard all these things about her, and you think about everything you know about her all the time – but do you know her? No.
You also cannot know God without going to Him; I’m talking about knowing God with a knowing that surpasses "knowledge" about Him. It is good to know things about God, but is that knowing Him?
"Taste and see that the Lord is good." Tasting is an example of what it’s like to know God; and tasting is not blind, it is an experience. You can experience a relationship with God. Knowing God is a lifelong thing. It is life.
Knowing God in life is something that is alive – living – and your relationship with Him grows because it’s alive. If your knowing God does not grow, then it is not alive – not God – not real.
[At this point during Larry’s talk, even as he speaks about knowing God and our relationship with Him being a living thing because God is the Living God, I noticed that most people were taking a lot of notes as he was speaking. That, to me, is a reflection of what he’s talking about. Our spirits are being moved as we learn about God more and we are feeding from these words of truth because of our Living God – Jesus. Those that don’t know Him won’t feed, but hopefully they will meet Him.]
Having a relationship means spending time together. It means doing things together. Ask the Holy Spirit for help and overcome the things that get in our way - get to know God and reach him; the Holy Spirit opens your eyes and mind and heart to know God.
You might be SO excited, and all your life you heard about God, imagining things about Him and having pictures of Him; but now we are tasting God and finding out that the Lord is Good; we are tasting God personally, in our hearts and lives. And that Is a relationship which no one in the whole world can take away from you. A relationship with a man is a really nice relationship. When you grow in your relationship with God, you get more beautiful. God is inexhaustible, you cant get to the end of his goodness. Until eternity, we will be getting to know more and more about the Holiness and Goodness of God - because you experience everyday that God is God. Today you know that God is good; but the experience is to feel the goodness of god tomorrow, too, and everyday.
Hosea 2:19-20 [this is a verse we had to memorize for the week]
And I will betroth you to me forever. I will betroth you to me in righteousness and in justice, in steadfast love and in mercy. I will betroth you to me in faithfulness. And you shall know the LORD.
The commitment we make with God is from now until forever, to live with God in love and Richness. This is also why a man and a woman should not get a divorce – because it is a representation and example of our relationship with God. If we cannot even stay faithful to our wives or husbands with every thought and every action, how can we stay faithful to God? The god who knows everything about you. God will be Faithful with us and he wants us to be also faithful with him. He saved us from ourselves so we can have an intimate relationship with Him.
You work hard at anything. Why not work hard at a relationship with God? A relationship that will be most rewarding in unfathomable ways? A relationship that will give us satisfaction in our lives?
God gives us freedom because He wants us to choose Him. You do things for people that you love because you love them. You get to do it. A father does things for his son to see the happiness or gleam in the son’s eyes.
You might think that a relationship with God means that God is walking alone and we are having the burdens on our back - and that would be of a marriage with God. A relationship with God, just like with a spouse, takes constant cultivation. It’s like breathing. When you say you need a break from God, it’s like telling your lungs you need a break from breathing.
2 Timothy 2:6
It is the hard-working farmer who ought to have the first share of the crops.
Maybe our relationship with God has no fruit. Maybe we aren’t cultivating it and we still have grass in our field - not ready to work hard, to work on the field and raise up a tree full of fruit. Our relationship with God is the same way. We need to work hard so we get the fruits and taste them. You work hard for anything you want to get. Try to work hard for an intimate relationship with God. Relationship is two way. The relationship is to be chosen by a measure of freedom. God chose us first now, it’s our turn. The farmer is trying get the fruit of the relationship with God, he wants to taste it, not just look at it. If we are working only to get the gifts from God then we will be like a woman carrying the heavy things and walking behind the man. If you feel that you’re only working and working, and the burden is on you, your relationship is not right. God is not looking for slaves, he is looking for sons. You can work like a slave, but when you’re in an intimate relationship with God, you’ll be a son, not a slave.
Why do we get tired and sick of having a nice relationship with God? In our relationships with the ones we love, we try to make them as happy as we can. If you love God it’s not a matter of Him making you work, it’s a matter us wanting to work. That’s what the relationship is like. There is life in that. It doesn’t matter who works more for making a good relationship. For sure, God worked much harder for making this relationship good and successful. God is love, so it’s easier to give us love, but we also learn to love because we were created on His image. The relationship is not measured by quantities, it’s just about loving with all you have. God gives me that choice of loving. God gives us His love, and His loves helps us to love him back.
[at this point in the teaching, a student asked a question]
"So do we do things for God to see His gleam? Or does He do things for us to see our gleam?"
The answer is both. A loving relationship is always two ways. God does things for His children, sons and daughters, to see the gleam in our eyes. We do things for Him because it is a privilege. We get to participate in His work and learn His ways.
Perfect love casts out all fear. When I do things out of love for friends and family – I’m not afraid. But when I do things for God, it can be scare or intimidating.
(Mathew 25:31-36, 40)
Don’t return God’s love directly to Him. Pass it to others and love them. Loving God looks like loving others, only it’s for God. And others see that and imitate that. But the most important part is not there – the "for God" part. I should not be doing things FOR other people. I should not be. I should be doing things FOR God, and God may show His loving response to me, and He may show it through the one you love.
Don’t fall into the mind set that we can’t make it, that we are too small or not strong enough to love God. We can love because He loved first. You can know so much about God, you can attend so many lectures, and still not know Him. After all the work you might have done for God, like ministry and all these things - in the end God might tell you to go away: "I don’t know you." The good relationship with God needs to contain a lot of work. What is a garden without human attention (it will be looking terrible)! Imagine your relationship with God without working hard; God has done His work - now it’s our time. He will help us when we need help.
Remember the soldier; remember the athlete; remember the farmer; all three have something in common, which is that they all have to put forth a lot of effort. A field needs to be cleared, planted, watered, and kept from the things that might destroy it. It needs a lot of work, and so does our relationship with God.
If your relationship with God is still in the beginning stages, it still needs a lot of work. That means you may have to have some time of fasting or praying, or seeking for the face of God. Small weeds in a garden are like small offenses (or sins) in our life. You have to pay attention and pull those out while they’re small because they’re a LOT easier to pull up at that stage. If you wait, they’ll grow into something big and nasty; it could take a long time and hard work.
Jesus made it his habit to listen to his Heavenly Father. If Jesus listened to our Heavenly Father – and he’s God – why would we not do the same?
John 5:19-28
Jesus heard the Heavenly Father say everything. I do nothing except what I hear from my Heavenly Father. If Jesus needed to hear God’s voice – to listen – how much MORE do WE need to listen?!
Jesus practiced being alone with his Father. You can’t take people with you – not your wife or your family, you must go alone. You must cultivate your own relationship with God. If your relationship with God is suffering – spend more time with Him. Make time, make space in your schedule each day. Don’t do it because you have to – do it out of love. You have many things in your life, things to do and things you love – and you have God in your life. Prove WHO is your God. Put God in FIRST. Give Him the BEST time.
How do we practically get there? Constant conservations, spending time with God, and listening to him (not just talking to Him). How can you spend time with God? Why do I spend some time with God when I’m hungry, sleepy, tired or sick? It’s the motivation that we are trying to work on. Say to yourself, "I have to get back to the GARDEN" - the way Jesus got back to the garden to pray to God. This garden is different for each person. A garden isn’t necessarily a chair to sit on to have some private time with God. I have to go to my private, silent place, alone. Jesus practiced being alone with God. It’s harder for a people-person, but even though it’s hard, you can do it. Jesus loved the people, and loved to be with them - but still he found some time to be alone with his Father. Time equals relationship. How do you know if you are having an intimate relationship with God? Time. When you spend time with God. When we say "time" we mean: plan a time in your schedule. Always have time in your schedule for God. You’re not doing that because you have to, but because you want to.
How did we spend our life? Did we remember God in our life? To spend some time with Him? Most of us, we are trying to squeeze the Lord in the times we have left over, and we expect from Him and He’ll be happy about the scraps we give Him in our day. If we don’t have time for God in our life and in our day, we have to preplan our day and life to put God in the beginning of our day - and make Him number one on our plan. Plan on God. Make your schedule around Him. Religion is the practice of the having a relationship with God.
[The most important relationship at this YWAM DTS in Nicosia, Cyprus, is my relationship with God.]
Quiet/alone Time: Zephaniah 3:17
The LORD your God is in your midst, a mighty one who will save; he will rejoice over you with gladness; he will quiet you by his love; he will exult over you with loud singing.
Isaiah 62:1
For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not be quiet, until her righteousness goes forth as brightness, and her salvation as a burning torch.
Isaiah 32:18
My people will abide in a peaceful habitation, in secure dwellings, and in quiet resting places.
Psalm 95
Oh come, let us sing to the LORD; let us make a joyful noise to the rock of our salvation! Let us come into his presence with thanksgiving; let us make a joyful noise to him with songs of praise! For the LORD is a great God, and a great King above all gods. In his hand are the depths of the earth; the heights of the mountains are his also. The sea is his, for he made it, and his hands formed the dry land. Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker! For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand. Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah, as on the day at Massah in the wilderness, when your fathers put me to the test and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work. For forty years I loathed that generation and said, "They are a people who go astray in their heart, and they have not known my ways." Therefore I swore in my wrath, "They shall not enter my rest."
[Something I’ve been thinking about and learning about more and more… what IS sin? Sin is our rejection of God and that’s it. That’s what it is. Every sin of ours is a rejection of God – His way – and who He is - in some way. Things that look "good" to us can still be bad. They can be imitations of things from God, imitations of things that are good. They can be fakes. The appearances are deceiving, the motives are disguised. You may not see what’s really there or what’s really missing.]
Late have I loved you, O beauty so ancient and so new. Late have I loved you! You were within me while I have gone outside to seek you, Unlovely myself, I rushed towards all those lovely things you had made. And always you were with me, and I as not with you. All these beauties kept me far from you although they would not have existed at all unless they had their being in you. You called, you cried, you shattered my deafness. You sparkled, you blazed, you drove away my blindness. You shed your fragrance and I drew in my breath, and I ant fro you. I tasted and now I hunger and thirst. You touched me, and now I burn with longing for your peace.
Saint Augustine
He has chosen us; We have not first chosen him. But we must respond by making our society something very beautiful. For this we must give all-our utmost. We must cling to Jesus, grasp him, have a grip on him, and never let go for anything. We must fall in love with Jesus.
Mother Teresa
To have a healthy relationship with God, the most important thing is Quite/alone time. You call it a quiet time because you shut down everything what might disturb you from hearing His voice, His whispers, and to be free to tell him everything. Pray that He’ll help keep out your own thoughts and voices as well as outside noises. Make the quiet time fit to you, so it will work for you.
[In closing, Larry had us make a commitment to each other:]
I will help my fellow students by giving them time and space to draw near to him.
posted by CarbonChris at 4:40 AM
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