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You Want to KNOW Him Better – HOW?

My greatest desire is to know God better.  How can I do this?  What steps I can follow to take me to this goal?  How can I know what He is like, what to expect from Him and from my times with Him?

People have many experiences and have opinions as to how to get closer to God, but it isn’t from listening to others that I get to know God intimately.  I have to get to know God for myself, and all true knowledge is based on the Word of God.  All things must be measured by His Word.  I must study the word for myself and approach God according to what I see there.

STUDY THE WORD

God has given us His Word to reveal Himself to us, and He sent His Son as the Word in the flesh to show us what He is like.

Christ is the revelation of God.  God made Himself a man in Christ so we can see Him and understand Him.

Hebrews 1:1-3 – God, after He spoke long ago to the fathers in the prophets in many portions and in many ways, in these last days has spoken to us in His Son, whom He appointed heir of all things, through whom also He made the world.  And He is the radiance of His glory and the exact representation of His nature, and upholds all things by the word of His power. \

God spoke in the past in many portions and many ways.  He has in these last days spoken to us completely and accurately in His Son.  Jesus is the exact representation of His nature.

The Old Testament presents a partial picture of God, but the New Testament presents Him exactly and completely in Christ.

Colossians 1:15 (Amplified) — [Now] He is the exact likeness of the unseen God [the visible representation of the invisible]; He is the Firstborn of all creation.

Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God.  He is the EXACT likeness of the unseen God.  We can’t see God, but we see Jesus, and seeing Jesus is seeing God.

If there is a conflict between the Old Testament God and Jesus, realize that the Old Testament is a partial picture, but Jesus is the visible image of the invisible God, the exact representation of His person.  Eliminate from your thinking any picture of God contrary to what you see in Jesus.

Look at what Jesus did, how He went about doing good and healing all (Acts 10:38), and know this is how He is to you.

Renew your mind from a wrong picture to a right picture of what God is like by studying Jesus.  He is the same today (Heb 13:8), the same toward you as you see Him in the Word.  Whatever you see Him doing, saying, healing, providing; you can expect Him also to do for you.  Be willing to change what you have thought and beloved to what you see and learn from the Word.  Put aside any beliefs and traditions and what people have told you that is contract to what you see in Jesus.

Accept and appropriate what you see.  The promises and truths of the Word of God are activated towards you only when mixed with faith  Purposely expect Him to act the same way towards you as you see Him in the Word – every day of your life, on every occasion.   This opens the way for Him to reveal Himself to you.

PRAYER AND FELLOWSHIP

Spend time developing a relationship with God.   Spend time in prayer and praise just being with Him.  Practice His presence every moment of every day.  Treat Him always as though He is with you – as He says He is.

Ephesians 3:17(Amplified) – May Christ through your faith [actually] dwell (settle down, abide, make His permanent home) in your hearts!

He is with me and will never leave or forsake me but it is through my faith that He actually dwells in me and makes His permanent home in my heart.

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Written on March 31st, 2012 , How To..., Knowing God, Prayer, Presence of God
Two Most Important Things About Prayer

John 15:7 – If you live in Me [abide vitally united to Me] and My words remain in you and continue to live in your hearts, ask whatever you will, and it shall be done for you.

Jesus gave us two important keys to answered prayer here.  If we want to ask what we will and have it done for us, we will have to do what He said.

  1. Abide in me.  He is talking about praying out of a place of fellowship with God, about being led by the Spirit while you pray.  The Holy Spirit is our best help in prayer.
  2. My Word abides in you.  To be effective in prayer and to pray the will of God, we must know the Word of God and pray according to His word where His thoughts and ideas and will are expressed clearly.

The more thoroughly scriptural our prayers are and the more we hear and follow His leading when praying them out, the more likely we are to get them answered.

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Written on February 22nd, 2012 , How To..., Prayer
Steps to Know God Better

How Can I Know God Better?

Most every Christian I have met wants to know God better.  They want to know Him closely and intimately.  But sometimes they don’t have any specific steps to take to get there.

An important step in getting to know God better is to learn from His Word what He is like.  Study Jesus in the Word to find out what God is like.  Whatever you see Jesus doing is what God wants to do right now – FOR YOU!

Acts 10:38 - You know of Jesus of Nazareth, how God anointed Him with the Holy Spirit and with power, and how He went about doing good and healing all who were oppressed by the devil, for God was with Him.

This is the nature of God now and forever – going about doing good and healing all.  When you know God from His Word, you learn what He is like, what He would say and do.

Another step in getting to know God is to personally and regularly spend time with Him in prayer. I am not speaking of coming to Him with your list of prayer  requests but coming to Him to spend time with Him for the sake of developing friendship and intimacy.  This is the way you would develop a better relationship with any person.

Attitudes to come to God in:

Come expecting Him to be a rewarder. The Bible says He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). You can know when you seek Him, He will reward you – just because it is written in His Word.

Come with righteousness consciousness (a sense or awareness of your right standing with God).

He has made you righteous, and all you need to is to humbly accept your acceptance and draw near. Don’t come apologizing for yourself or degrading yourself in false humility.  YOU ARE WELCOME IN HIS PRESENCE – Thank God, because of what He did not what you do.  You humble yourself in His presence by accepting His thoughts about you not by telling Him how bad you are. You draw near to Him and expect Him to draw near to you because He said He would. (James 4:6-8)

Don’t concentrate on your faith or lack of it; concentrate instead on Him, on His love, His mercy, His present help and listening ear, His wonderful promises. You have His Word on all of these things and can count upon His Word. HIS WORD IS MORE TRUE THAN HOW YOU FEEL. When you put it first, your feeling will in time change and line up with the truth.

Come with expectancy.

  • Matthew 6:6 – Pray to the Father who is unseen.
  • Matthew 6:8 – He knows what you need before you ask.
  • John 6:37 – He will not cast you out in any way.
  • 1 Peter 3:12 – He delights in your prayers. He likes to spend time with you.
  • Romans 10:12 – He is rich unto all who call upon Him, rich in mercy, rich in help, rich in caring and love.
  • Hebrews 4:16 – Come with boldness and confidence.
  • Hebrews 10:22 – Draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith.
  • Hebrews 12:28 – Draw near with reverence and awe.

What to do with your mind when you come:

Psalms 103:1 – Bless the Lord oh my soul… Make your soul bless the Lord.  Make your mind focus on His goodness, His mercy, His love – not on yourself or anything concerning you or your situation at all.

The key is FOCUS. If it helps to play some anointed music with Scriptural words, play it.

Psalm 103 2 – …forget not His benefits… Bring your memory with you when you come.  List His benefits out loud to yourself.

When you speak, you are forced to listen.

Bring your imagination when you come.

Study the Word for accuracy.  Visualize things as the Word describes them.   See God as He presents Himself, not after your experience or someone else’s.

Visualize  yourself before His throne worshiping.

Visualize Him as described in His glory yet hearing you and delighting in you.

Put God’s Words back into His mouth.  Speak God’s thoughts to yourself.

(Some passages describing the throne: Revelations 4:2-11; 1:13-17; 5:8-12; Isaiah 6:1-6; Ezekiel 1:22-28; Revelations 15:8; 21:2)

What to do with your body when you come:

Find a comfortable enough position so you are not distracted but not so comfortable that you fall asleep.

The Bible speaks of standing, kneeling, lying prostrate, lying on your bed, sitting, dancing, raising your hands, clapping, shouting, playing instruments.

Romans 12:1 – Present your body as a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God.  This is your reasonable worship. You have to give Him your mind by focusing on Him; you also have to give Him your body by presenting your body to Him and yielding to Him. If you present yourself first, it will be easier to focus.

What to say when you come to God:

While reading the Bible, keep a notebook of words and expressions that express what you would like to say to God and use them.  This increases your praise and worship vocabulary.

Just speak from your heart to God and tell Him what He means to you.  Just talk to Him as you would to a person. See Him there listening to you. Speaking out loud can be a cure for a wandering mind.

Take note of what worshipers in the Bible said as words of worship and use them.

You can also speak in tongues.  (1 Corinthians 14:17; Acts 10:46; 2:10; Romans 8:26,27 – You give thanks well, praise God, declare His wonders, express your deepest longings and pray His perfect will).

Spending time with God is not hard. As you come to Him day by day and He becomes more and more real to you, He will become the delight of your life, and you’ll do anything to have the time for Him. And when you do, it will change your life forever!

Written on October 14th, 2011 , Knowing God, Prayer
Prayer in the New Testament

Patterns in New Testament Prayers

The Bible teaches much on prayer. There are many specific instructions as to how to pray, and there are also many examples of prayer we can learn from.  Look at how the New Testament church prayed.  There are patterns there that we can follow. The more closely we know the Word of God and conform to it in our prayers, the more results we are going to have. There are patterns we can see in the prayers that the Apostle Paul prayed in the Epistles as well as actual examples of prayers he prayed.

For example, he mentions praying with thanksgiving in almost all of the prayers he prayed for the churches, much more than heavy or travailing prayer. I have been to prayer groups where everyone put on their sad face and whiny voice when it came time to pray. But this isn’t scriptural. From Paul’s example, we can see that that most of our prayer should be clothed in thanksgiving. Unceasing prayer is also mentioned many times. See the below scripture references where these things are mentioned.

The closer our prayers are to the Word, the more full of power they are.  The Word is God’s power unto our salvation.  When we have scripture on a specific subject, that is the will of God.  We shouldn’t pray out of our own understanding and knowledge, because there is a danger of trying to pray what we want to happen or what we think should happen rather than the will of God.  Many pray tradition and the ideas of men for others rather than the will of God.

It is of utmost importance, therefore, that we learn what the New Testament teaches on prayer. We should study it out for ourselves and not just learn to pray by listening to others.

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Written on February 19th, 2011 , How To..., Prayer
How to Draw Near

How can I spend time with God? What are some specific things I can do?

Last time we talked of the importance of getting to know God. Then we talked about getting to know God as He presents Himself in His Word. The first step is to study Jesus in the Word to find out what God is like.

The second step in getting to know God is to personally and regularly spend time with Him. I am not speaking of coming to Him with your list of prayer  requests but coming to Him to spend time with Him for the sake of developing friendship and intimacy. This is the way you would develop a better relationship with any person.

Attitudes to come to God in:

Come expecting Him to be a rewarder. The Bible says He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6). You can know when you seek Him, He will reward you – just because it is written in His Word.

Come with righteousness consciousness (a sense or awareness of your right standing with God).

He has made you righteous, and all you need to is to humbly accept your acceptance and draw near. Don’t come apologizing for yourself or degrading yourself in false humility.  YOU ARE WELCOME IN HIS PRESENCE – Thank God, because of what He did not what you do.  You humble yourself in His presence by accepting His thoughts about you not by telling Him how bad you are. You draw near to Him and expect Him to draw near to you because He said He would. (James 4:6-8)

Read the rest of this entry »

Written on November 16th, 2010 , How To..., Knowing God, Prayer

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The Teaching Ministry of Emily Bernardi