By Keiko Shinn | Rediscovering Prayer
“Wake up, sleeper,
rise from the dead,
and Christ will shine on you.”
Eph. 5:14
God has called us to a life of faithfulness. This is not a demand but rather a daily invitation to embrace love, healing, and wisdom through intimacy with the One who loves you like no other. God has fashioned you to receive a faith that reveals what true love looks like. The key component to an authentic and ever growing relationship with God is made possible by His Spirit. His Spirit has been deposited in your heart to energize, renew, and empower you to hope for better things. His love is our refuge and our strength. It’s our Father’s great pleasure to demonstrate His loving faithfulness to you so that you may rest your hopes, worries, your present, and your future in Him.
Now faith is confidence in what we hope for and assurance about what we do not see. It’s not easy to trust in a God that cannot be physically seen, but when we call upon Jesus, although we cannot see Him, we experience His presence. It’s inevitable and unavoidable as His presence changes the atmosphere, the spiritual temperature of our hearts and transforms our perspective. It’s an intimate thing, an experience uniquely fashioned for you that makes you run back for more.
Faith infused through Jesus’ Spirit is alive and it’s working. We can either choose to engage in a life of faithful attention toward Him or just observe God from a distance, never really participating in the delight of intimately discovering the life Jesus unfolds alongside Him.
Disappointments left untreated, dreams collected on dusty shelves, and hurts experienced along the way can add up. We may not be consciously aware, like a pipe, leaking ever so slowly overtime, we settle for less. Let us outwit the schemes of the evil one who seeks to keep our relationship with God dormant, cold, hidden in traditional head knowledge, and outdated. Your faith may be bruised and neglected but may a resurgence of faith arise in you by the power of His Spirit. Call out to Jesus for it’s time to reawaken your faith.
His wisdom is our inheritance so that we may know how to govern our lives in the here and now while maintaining a God perspective in all we do. Proverbs 16:3 affirms: Commit to the Lord whatever you do, and He will establish your plans. In the midst of trials and uncertainties, give the Holy Spirit space and opportunity to refresh your thinking, reorient your perspective into a life of faith to wait on God to move. Let us remember the firm foundation on which we stand. Jesus remains faithful to lift you up, restore your heart, and He creates new opportunities for a new beginning.
Declare Jesus to be faithful to His Word.Protect your heart through His faithfulness as He completes a good work in you. Allow God to reawaken your faith. Expect Him to show up and He will do it!
Prayer: Lord, arise once again. Illuminate and instruct this heart of mine. Stir your love in me that I may experience you afresh and anew. I want to see you move like never before. You have called me to faithfulness, a life engaged in a dynamic relationship with you. Let your faithfulness speak of your great love. Awaken my soul, for in you I place my trust. Amen!
Additional verses: Ps. 51: 6; He. 11:1; Ro. 5:5; Ps. 28:7; Eph. 1:17; 2 Ti. 2:19; 1 Co. 1:9, Phi. 1:6