Do We Prepare?

I John 3:22-24 And whatever we ask we receive from Him, because we keep His commandments and do those things that are pleasing in His sight. And this is His commandment: that we should believe on the name of His Son Jesus Christ and love one another, as He gave us commandment. Now he who keeps His commandments abides in Him, and He in him. And by this we know that He abides in us, by the Spirit whom He has given us.

The Word of God tells us to pray without ceasing. We are to be mindful of the Lord's presence in our lives every moment of the day. However, there are those times, or at least should be, when we have a set time to get alone with our God, in Christ Jesus. A time of being still before Him, taking time to talk to Him and be in His Word; so that we can hear from Him, draw near to Him, and seek His direction for our lives. Sadly, far too many of us approach our time of prayer as if God is our personal genie in a bottle or our good luck charm who is here to grant our every wish; and get onboard with our plan, for our lives. We don't stop to ask ourselves if we are truly seeking Him and His will, or if we are even living right before Him. This is not going to be an exhaustive devotional on prayer. Today, I would like us to see what John is saying about a particular aspect of having our prayers answered. Are we living for God, obeying His commands, and loving our brothers and sisters in Christ? If we are not, then there is going to be a bit of an obstacle between our requests and God's response. We may continue to hear, "no", or feel like our prayers are bouncing off the ceiling and going nowhere, until we realize that we are carelessly coming before our holy and righteous God with hearts that are not right with Him; and relationships with the brethren that are broken and do not honor the Lord. I encourage each of us to stop and truly consider whose throne it is we are going before. Then, seriously ponder whether we are loving God, seeking Him and His will (not our own), and loving our brethren as we should; before we start presenting our laundry list of requests. In other words, do we prepare to meet with God, before we meet with God?

Today, God extends an invitation to you to accept His free gift of salvation (Romans 6:23). Will you accept it? Anyone who calls on Jesus, by faith, in repentance, confessing your sins, will receive eternal life. Do not put off calling on Him, and receive His free gift of salvation today (Romans 10:13).