Benefits from Silent Time with God
Find a quiet place, away from distractions. Focus on God. Talk to Him. Ask Him to show you things about yourself. Enjoy the quietness. Listen to the peacefulness. Listen for the voice of God. Notice your thoughts. Are they in the form of a pattern? What is inside your heart? Is there a peacefulness, or not? Pray verses and songs. Read Psalms and scripture passages. Embrace the thoughts that have a sense of God in them. Give the painful thoughts to God. Let go of the injuries by sending them God-ward. Praise and give thanks to God for His mercy, love, and grace. Ask for greater faith. Trust God for it all.
Take time to get alone with God.
“Pardon my French,” people say when they let one fly that added a bit of color to the conversation. Yep, those words have a way of creeping into some back and forth exchanges. But for the Christan, what comes out of their mouth should have more of a sanctified (purer) flavor. The cool thing is, you can change that up in a fairly painless way. Keeping the heart clean is the trick (like keeping your oil changed in a car, it matters).
Spend time accessing relationship with God.
I’m not kidding, alone time with God will change your mouth. What is in your heart comes out your mouth. Harbor hate; hate spews forth. Nurture love; loving words and actions come forth. Interactive prayer and meditation affects the person you are and the way you act. Hands down. Believe it. You will concretely experience the love of God when you allow yourself to be close to Him. This love is absorbed deep within you, and then it is given to others in a myriad of ways.
Repeat this Pattern often . . .
and before you know it, change will enter your being. That’s how it worked for me. I opened up to God and asked Him to change me, to heal me, to make me anew. I didn’t know what was going to happen. I thought He might ask me to do things I didn’t want to do and give up things I didn’t want to give up. Instead, He loved me. I could feel His love. Then He began working with me.
Love originates with God.
That is where we got love. God is the personification of love. The more time you spend with God, the more it will affect who you are. There is a secret to this, though. It won’t make a difference at all if you keep your soul walled off and yourself rigid and self-protected. Trust means you begin trusting God with, well, everything. Don’t let that scare you or think that it’s not for you. Plain and simple, you have to give God something to work with or nada, nothing can change.
God is love.
God’s love is sacrificial. He gave His one and only, His best and most beautiful gift, His Son, to us because of the magnitude of His love. This love enters the person who receives it and then begins to replicate in them. The inner change sparks a new you and this love (sweetness) is unable to be contained or isolated.
Love must be expressed.
Once you have God’s love at work in you, first and foremost, you will be in for a few surprises. You will find yourself expressing affirmation and love sometimes when you least expect to. You may say “I love you” to someone when you were not expecting to (I have done this). You may say “God bless you” to someone who doesn’t believe in God (I have done this). You may lovingly engage someone in a non-condemning conversation who lives in complete and utter rebellion against God (I have done this).
I was as surprised as they were.
The thought of doing those things in my shyness, makes me freeze up. But when God is in it, God sets it up and you respond naturally in the situation. God has your heart and soul. You do and say what comes forth out of your heart. You see people’s pain and you know God is the answer to that pain, yet they are not ready to hear that Christ is the answer. You probably don’t say it, but you care and show your concern and enjoyment of them. You are spending time with the person to find a way to reach their heart with God’s love.
You speak what God gives you to speak, and then you stop.
God will bring healing to them when they are ready to receive Him but not before the time is right and their heart is prepared to respond. Prayer is much needed in all of this that we might truly keep our words and thoughts fully centered in Christ, that what we say may be genuine, loving, and kind.
Your mouth is not your own when it is tied closely, in unity, to the Source, your Father God.
His divine power has given us everything we need for a godly life through our knowledge of him who called us by his own glory and goodness. Through these he has given us his very great and precious promises, so that through them you may participate in the divine nature, having escaped the corruption in the world caused by evil desires.
For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, mutual affection; and to mutual affection, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ. 2 Peter 1:3-8 NIV
Let the Lord come in. He is at the door of your heart, knocking. Jesus Christ offers you life eternal. I pray you will begin a relationship with Him today.
