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Imagine that you have been invited to the White House to talk to the president of the United States. A friend of mine wasn't invited to the White House, but she did receive a personal letter from the president. She had the letter framed and hung it in a prominent place so everyone who came to her home could see it. There was one man in history who received an invitation to come into heaven because the Lord God wanted to talk to him. The Lord showed him "what must take place after this." The invitation came to the Apostle John by the Lord Himself. He said, "Come up here..." John was shown what was going to happen in the world and in heaven itself. He wrote everything down. Its in the Bible and called Revelation. We don't need special revelation today because everything we need to know is already written in the Bible. But as I thought of Jesus' invitation to "come up here," I was reminded that "God raised us up with Christ and seated us with Him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus" (Ephesians 2:6). Yet most of the time our thoughts are so earth bound we don't pray from our position of being at the right hand of our Father. Our spirit is not bound to the earth like our body. We can go right into our Father's presence and tell Him all that is in our heart. He is not way off up there somewhere. He is right here in this time/space world, and in our very life if we have received Jesus into our heart. We can ask the Lord anything and know that He hears us. There are two parts to asking God to do things for us. First, "that if we ask anything according to His will, He hears us" (John 5:14a). The Bible is our guide for knowing His will. And the second part of prayer is: "We know that we have what we asked of Him." That is good news! In spirit we go to Christ who sits next to the throne of the Father. We may talk to Him, and that is prayer. He may answer by putting a verse of Scripture into our mind that answers our question. Or, He may give quiet assurance that He hears us. He may want us to wait or examine our motives and heart. Our walk is never perfect, but we should make progress in putting away sins. When we do sin we must confess it to Him. He promises to forgive and cleanse us from all unrighteousness. (I John 1:9) Then with clean hearts we ask for what we need. Memory Verse: "No good thing will He withhold from those whose walk is blameless" (Psalms 84:11) Prayer: Father, I need you right now and all through the day to guide and direct my path. Thank you for living in my heart by faith in your Son, my Savior. Thank you for forgiving all my sins and setting me free from their control. I yield myself to you and trust your goodness and guidance. Amen. |
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