Each day you will be asked to start by "Seeking His Face." This simply means that your first privilege is to meet with Him through prayer and worship. The Lord's prayer, which Jesus taught all believers to pray, begins "Our Father in heaven, hallowed/honored/awe-inspiring is your name." Begin today by listening to this song and then expressing its inspiration to God through words (praise). It could be in the form of thanks, or in telling Him what you think about Him.
Listen with your heart to this song:
Next pray this prayer before you begin: "As your child, please teach me who you are and how I can become more like you. In Jesus name, AMEN."
Holding His Hand
Holding His Hand means that as our loving heavenly Father, He wants to walk with us on a daily basis. He desires to teach us about who He is and who we are in our relationship with him. Take His hand by trusting Him today. Let Him take you on a new journey each day in discovering new aspects of His glory (the greatness of who He is).
Are you ready?
“Love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and strength.” We are reminded by Jesus and contemporary writers that our highest responsibility as a believer is to love God and love our neighbor as ourselves. We have often missed a higher need that is required to enable us to love like this: the knowledge of God. How can we give the entirety of our being to a God we know so little? Who is this God we are called to love? How do we love someone we have barely met?
Paul prayed for the Ephesians (3:17) to be “rooted and grounded in love.” This first week is designed to lead you into encounters and revelation of who God is and who you are in his sight, so that you will be established firmly in the reality of His love. The Apostle John wrote that we love God because he first loved us. Our love for him is in direct proportion to the revelation we have of his love for us.
As new believers we bring into our relationship with God a host of ideas gathered from cultural perceptions of God, Hollywood’s projection of who God is, thoughts from other religions, or the idol of the god we have shaped in our own mind to fit our sins. Even the religious leaders like the Pharisees misunderstood the self revelation of God.
The coming of Jesus Christ changed all that. No longer would the understanding of God be left to our own imaginations or our misunderstandings of even the Scriptures. Jesus said very clearly, “If you have seen me, you have seen the Father.” (Jn.14:9). The author of Hebrews says essentially the same thing when he affirms Jesus as “the express image of God.” (1:3)
Why is that important? If you believe God is an ogre with violent unpredictable outbursts, it will affect how you relate to Him. If you believe He is a permissive grandfather that is largely uninvolved, your experience with Him will be based on that perspective. How you perceive God will largely determine your experience of peace and joy as a believer. It affects your enjoyment of worship as an encounter with the living God or as an occurrence of boring repetitive songs. Prayer will either be a laborious duty of quoting the Lord’s Prayer, or it will be a delight of intimacy and co-laboring.
At the beginning, you do not need to learn 12 steps to getting answers to prayer, or 3 ways to change your marriage. That sets you up for a Christian experience based on works. What we all need is to understand with greater depth who this wonderful, mighty awe-inspiring God is. How do we understand Him? It is by looking at the life and ministry of Jesus. Whatever you see in Jesus is an exact idea of who the Father is. Therefore, whatever personal ideas, denominational teachings, or cultural themes that do not align with the heart and ministry of Jesus Christ, need to be rejected and replaced by the truth. Never allow your heart to embrace a theology about God that is contrary to the nature and ministry of Jesus.
The way that Jesus looked at the woman who was caught in adultery, is the way God looks at you in the same situation. The compassion you see in Jesus that moved him to heal the multitudes, is the same compassion he has on you. The mercy he showed the prostitutes…is the mercy he shows to you. The willingness to sit and eat with the outcasts, is the same willingness he shows today. Find yourself in the Gospels as one of the characters and you will find the heart of Father God toward you.
Sharing His Heart
What impacted you the most about today's lesson?
Each day you will be asked to tell someone in your life something about today's lesson that ministered to you. Sharing your experience with others solidifies that truth in your life and encourages others at the work of God that is taking place in you. When you share with others what you have been given, it makes more room in your heart for God to give you more. ("Freely you have received, freely give." Matthew 10:8)
Email us today (pastortricia@hishouseag.org) so we can assign someone who will walk with you through this course. At the end of the week, email your leader and share the same stories, even if it is only briefly. This helps your leader to know what the Holy Spirit is doing in you and gives him/her the information to pray for you more effectively.
Thank you for your donation toward tithes, offerings or the building fund. "And all these blessings shall come on you, and overtake you, if you will listen to the voice of the LORD your God." Deuteronomy 28:2
