TOUCHING GOD’S HEART
(First part)
Memory verse: (Acts13: 22) “ And when He had removed him, He raised up for them David as king, to whom also He gave testimony and said, ‘I have found David the son of Jesse, a man after My own heart, who will do all My will ”
Touching God should be the consuming passion of our lives. We need to understand this and make it the pursuit of our lives, the purpose of our living, that is, pleasing God. Paul said if am still living to please men then am not a servant of Christ (Gal 1:10). Pleasing God is the only way we can touch His heart. The motive behind everything we do should be about how to please the Lord. The secret is this: until you please the Lord, you cannot be pleased. When our lives and ways are pleasing the Lord, then and then will our lives be filled with pleasures. There are fleshly and worldly pleasures but there are also divine pleasures. The scripture says at God’s right hand there are pleasures evermore (Ps 16: 11). So many believers think the kingdom of God is a very boring, miserable, cold lifestyle, but that’s wrong. It’s only because many of God’s children have not followed the Holy Spirit and God’s word to learn the kingdom life. The scripture says: the kingdom of God is righteousness, peace and Joy in the Holy Spirit (Rom14: 17). Until you surrender to the Holy Spirit and learn to follow him, live in Him, and He overflows you with heavenly God kind of life, then and then will you begin to drink in the joy of the Lord. It’s at His right hand, i.e. in his presence that you can swim in the river of God’s pleasures.
A life that is pleasing to God is the one that touches his heart. God has given us the Holy Spirit and His word so that we discover the ways and the things, and the lifestyle that pleases Him. God has not left us to guess how to live the kingdom life for him, he has given us everything we need to live a fruitful, joyful, productive, powerful, peaceful etc life that is pleasing to him (2Pet1: 3-6). Many believers live the opposite of the way God wants to us live, they sit waiting when God will do the next miracle so that they may be happy. When God has not yet done those things they expect Him to do, they find no reason to be happy. They sit miserable, cold, complaining and confused. Just get out of that position and begin to find out the ways of touching God’s heart and go ahead to spend your time pleasing him. God knows his side, we just need to find our side of this covenant life and fulfill it.
Tomorrow’s subject, “ Walking in the Spirit ”
(Second part)
Memory verse: (Gal5: 16,22,23,25) " I say then: Walk in the Spirit, and you shall not fulfill the lust of the flesh.But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control. Against such there is no law.If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit ".
The new creation is basically a spiritual living being. God is Spirit (Jn4: 24) and he has created us in his image as spirit beings. Living in the Spirit and walking in the Spirit is the life God created us to live. Walking in the spirit is the life that pleases God. God testified about Caleb and Joshua, that they had a different spirit and they followed God wholeheartedly (Numbers 14:26). God promised they would inherit the land of promise. What was unique about Caleb and Joshua, was not their color, tribe, education. It was not their appearance. It was their spirits. It was about their hearts. These men did not follow their natural senses but their spirits. They did not walk by sight but by faith. Being spiritual is when our spirits are in union with God’s Sprit. Waking in the Spirit is following the voice of the Spirit of God. Walking in the Spirit is having your spirit one with the Spirit of GOD (1Cor6: 17). God expects us to follow the leading of the Holy Spirit (Rom8: 14). Those who walk in the flesh can never please God (Rom8: 6-8). And also worldly believers cannot please the Lord (Jam4: 1-4). Only spiritual believers please God. That’s why one of the first promises God wants to fulfill in the life of every believer is filling us with the Holy Spirit (Acts2: 33). The lives of the disciples were radically changed after they had been filled with the Holy Spirit. When your life is full of the Holy Spirit, you can never be the same.
God is ready to fill you with his Spirit and desire you to be filled everyday and walk and live in that fullness of the Spirit. Paul admonished the Ephesians' believers, ever to be filled with the Spirit and the result would be: their communication with each other would change, psalms would fill their hearts, spiritual songs would flow out their mouth etc (Eph5: 18). It’s your turn to walk and live in the power from on high. It’s your turn to drink from GOD’S river of life and let that river flow out of you to touch other people. Your talk will change, your faith will rise and fear will fall, your life will shine and impact others. And God will be pleased and your life will touch God’s heart.
Tomorrow’s subject: “ Touching God’s heart through praise”
(Third part)
Memory verse: (Hebrews 13: 15) " Therefore by Him let us continually offer the sacrifice of praise to God, that is, the fruit of our lips, giving thanks to His name ".
True praise to God is a sacrifice not a hobby. Praise is not what you do because something good has happened to you. All of us we feel good when something good has happened and we can feel like praising even sing a new song to God. But God is looking for those who worship him in Spirit and in truth (Jn 4: 24). So, Praise is not a product of our feelings but a sacrifice that originates from our spirits, i.e. our hearts. Praise comes from the revelation we have of God.
A sacrifice is something we painfully give. God painfully gave His son Jesus to die for our sins. It was not fun God seeing his Son die, but he had no other way to redeem us. Abraham decided to obey God and sacrifice his son Isaac he had waited for 25 years. It wasn’t fun but painful. Job lost his children in one day and all his wealth, but he said it is God who gave and it is Him who has taken away, let the name of the Lord be praised. Praise does not depend on circumstances, it depends on who God is. Situations can change but God remains the same. God is God and is worthy of all our praise.
There’s another woman that touched the heart of God, She was a gentile Canaanite (Matt15: 21-28). She had a big problem of her demon-possessed daughter; She came to Jesus and asked him to heal her child. But Jesus kept silent, his disciples told Jesus to send her away. Jesus told her that He was not sent to the gentiles but to the house of Israel. She never got discouraged but instead came and fell at his feet and worshipped him. This woman touched God’s heart and she got her answer from God. If we knew the ways to God’s heart many of our problems would be solved. When you touch God’s heart, God’s hand will begin to move and deal with your issues. When we enter our place of prayer, our family altars and our churches should be filled with believers’ full of Praise to God. A praiseful church will be full of God’s power, life, presence, glory, joy, miracles and wonders. A life full of praise will be full of testimonies. It’s praise that opens the gates of heaven. In spite of situations of your life, never let the river of praise cease to flow out of your mouth to God.
Tomorrow’s subject: “ The prayer that touches God’s heart "
(Fourth part)
Memory verse: (James5:17-18) " Elijah was a man with a nature like ours, and he prayed earnestly that it would not rain; and it did not rain on the land for three years and six months. And he prayed again, and the heaven gave rain, and the earth produced its fruit ".
There are prayers that touch God’s heart and affect the events that take place on earth. Someone called it touching heaven and changing the earth. God expects a believer to pray prayers that touch His heart. The scripture teaches that He will answer all of us when we pray if we pray the right way. He teaches that Elijah was not a special human being. He was normal and ordinary like every one of us. God did not answer his prayers because he was extraordinary. God says, he was as ordinary as we all are. What was special about Elijah was the way he prayed, He prayed earnestly and fervently. In the department of prayer, what works is not the language, eloquence, not the many words etc. what works is: First: To pray according to God’s will (1Jn5: 14). Elijah prayed that prayer because God commanded him to. Second: We need to pray by faith (Jam 1:5-8). Third: We should pray with pure hearts (Mtt5:8). Forth: We should pray with right motives (Jam4: 1-3). Fifth: We should pray empowered by the Holy Spirit (Rom8: 26) etc.
When we pray for the right cause, with the right motives and the right way, we get the right results in God right time. This kind of prayers touches God’s heart. There are so many things we don’t have power to change in our lives, our children, our cities, our churches and marriages etc, and God does not expect us to change them, but is calling us to depend on Him who can do all things and with whom nothing is impossible in praying earnestly, fervently, unceasingly, etc and then God will move. When our prayers touch heaven, God begin to work in our situations. Jesus taught us to pray that God‘s kingdom should come and God’s would be done on earth as it is in heaven. God’s will is his presence to fill our homes, our children to know him, all men to be saved and come to the knowledge of God, his church be filled with his glory and power, miracles, growth etc. God’s will is the whole earth to be filled with his glory and his knowledge like the waters fill the seas. God’s will is the works of Satan to be destroyed out of your life, family church and nation. So, let us pray and touch heaven in our time.
Tomorrow’s subject: “ The giving that touches God’s heart ”
(Fifth part)
Memory verse: (Hebrews11: 4) " By faith Abel offered to God a more excellent sacrifice than Cain, through which he obtained witness that he was righteous, God testifying of his gifts; and through it he being dead still speaks "
Giving is the very nature of God. He is the perfect example of giving. God loved the world so much that HE gave his best, i.e. His only begotten Son so that we may obtain eternal life, peace with God and joy. (Jn3: 16). God created the earth and every wonderful things and gave the earth over to the sons of men. Paul said that all we have God has given to us. John the Baptist said that there is nothing we can receive except that which comes from above. The whole Bible and covenants are about what good, great and precious promises that God has given us. In fact, Peter put it this way that, God’s divine power has given us everything we need for life and godliness (2 Pet1:3-4).
The new creation, i.e. the believers, we have the new nature of our heavenly Father through Christ. We have the Spirit of our Father, i.e. we are givers. Paul said: it is more blessed to give than to receive (Acts20: 35). Jesus commanded us: freely we have received, and freely we should give. Again Jesus teaches us: give and it shall be given to us (Lk6: 38). Abel is recorded as the first man on earth to do an act that touched God’s heart. And that act was the act of giving; His giving touched and moved God’s heart. God himself testified of the gift of Abel. And Abel is still speaking today. His name has been mentioned through all the nations of the earth from his time to this day, mentioning about his giving. Men like Abraham, Isaac, Jacob, Solomon, David etc were great givers whose giving touched the heart of God. The bible teaches that, where your treasures are, your heart is. The location of your treasures determines the location of your heart. Whatever you don’t give to God becomes your god. When your treasures are in God, then your heart is in God. Wherever your heart is that where your treasures will go. When your heart is worldly or fleshly, then all your treasures will be spent on gratifying your worldly and fleshly lusts (Jam4: 1-4). When you are a worldly or fleshly believer, money and material things control you, but when you are a spiritual believer, God control your money.
Tomorrow’s subject: “ Touching God through Obedience”
(Sixth part)
Memory verse (Phil2: 8-11) " And being found in appearance as a man, He humbled Himself and became obedient to the point of death, even the death of the cross. Therefore God also has highly exalted Him and given Him the name which is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow, of those in heaven, and of those on earth, and of those under the earth, and that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father ".
Obedience is one of the attributes that touch God’s heart. The obedience of Jesus moved God’s heart so much. Imagine someone obeying God to the pointing of saying, God if my death will please you and bring glory to your name, ok I will die. Death is so painful. In fact the death God wanted Jesus to die was both painful, i.e. crucifixion and it was shameful i.e. death on the cross. His obedience touched God’s heart and exalted him and gave him a name that is above every name. Obedience moves heaven. And when heaven is moved, things in your life and in your situations begin to be changed. Obedience is key to promotion.
Another man who shook heaven by his obedience was Abraham, God commanded his to sacrifice his son, Isaac to Him. And Abraham obeyed God. His obedience moved God’s heart, that God spoke to him from heaven directly to Abraham and made covenant to bless him and his descendents. (Gen22:9-19)
We need to check our level of obedience to God, to his word and the leading of His Spirit. You obedience pleases God. Sometimes obedience is painful but it is always gainful. We obey God for our GOOD. God has a good plan for your life, but some process to that plan involves painful steps. They seem painful because our flesh is not used to that way of lifestyle. God to fulfill his plan for your life you would need to follow God’s steps, ways, seasons, and strategy. God has a destiny for you, but he has also a way to that destination. We have to cooperate with God reach that destiny. We need to be sensitive to Holy Spirit’s leading in our daily life, we need to keep listening and reading God’s word to look For God’s will and way. This day-to-day, moment-by-moment obedience begin to win God’s heart. Nice weekend
