Prayer To Love God More And More

God Cards – Prayers and Love

Each love card is made to help you improve your relationship with God or to deepen your prayer. God cards and prayer cards to help you in your daily life to refocus again and again all your love toward the one goal in life, to return home to God by the end of your life on earth.

God cards are loving reminders, for your best friends as much as for your enemies, that it is time to love. God made you to his image. God is love, thus you too are made to love. God's healing power can free you and heal your heart, body and soul.

When you focus on God's power of healing love, then you always can find inspiration to create solutions of love inspired by God in your own life. Do love prayer and open for God. God is Love!

If you enjoy God and love, then you may also love the large collection of beautiful God wallpaper with flowers, roses and positive affirmations for your daily life with God.
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The Prayer God Loves to Answer Most

God loves to answer the prayer “Show me your glory.” When your soul hungers, when your tank feels empty, when you’re running on fumes, when you open your Bible in the morning and ask for God’s help, a great go-to request is this simple, honest, humble plea: “Father, show me your glory.”

God made the world to show and share his glory. He made us in his image to reflect him in the world. But we will not fully reflect him if we haven’t yet stood in awe of him and enjoyed his beauty in our hearts.

And our hearts cannot look on him in awe if we haven’t yet seen him with the eyes of our souls. Changed lives (and a changed world) begin with seeing glory.

“Beholding the glory of the Lord, [we] are being transformed into the same image from one degree of glory to another” (2 Corinthians 3:18).

“God, show me your glory.” History hangs on him answering that request. And one great evidence of his work in a human soul is feeling, and then expressing, that longing.

Two Memorable Models

It’s not only a wise request to make for ourselves, but also for others. The apostle Paul prayed for Christians that “the eyes of your hearts [would be] enlightened” so they might know “the riches of his glorious inheritance in the saints, and . . .

the immeasurable greatness of his power toward us who believe” (Ephesians 1:18–19). Instead of starting with your wife’s convenience, what if you prayed, “Show her your glory”? Along with your neighbor’s health, “God, show him your glory.

” Even before your children’s safety, “Father, show them your glory.”

But don’t miss the opportunity to begin with yourself and pray often for God to show you his majesty. When we make this sacred and powerful request today, we do well to consider the two biblical figures who asked the question most memorably.

Moses’s Audacity

First is Moses. Before leading God’s people up to the Promised Land, Moses wants to know more about God. Will he handle his stiff-necked, unworthy people with grace, or is it just a matter of time before he breaks forth in righteous anger against his people’s sin? Who is God most deeply? So, Moses asks, “Please show me your glory” (Exodus 33:18). God responds,

“I will make all my goodness pass before you and will proclaim before you my name ‘The Lord.’ And I will be gracious to whom I will be gracious, and will show mercy on whom I will show mercy.” (Exodus 33:19)

God will show his glory to Moses by putting his goodness on display. Something stronger than wrath, and higher than mere power, drives the heart of God with his chosen people. Most deeply, he is a God of grace and mercy.

The next morning God hides Moses in a cleft of the rock on the top of the mountain and draws near.

The Lord passed before him and proclaimed, “The Lord, the Lord, a God merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and abounding in steadfast love and faithfulness, keeping steadfast love for thousands, forgiving iniquity and transgression and sin, but who will by no means clear the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers on the children and the children’s children, to the third and the fourth generation.” (Exodus 34:5–7)

Moses has his glimpse into the heart of God. He bows in worship. He asks God to draw near to his people, pardon their iniquity, and make them his own (Exodus 34:8–9).

Philip’s Folly

God meets Moses’s audacious request with favor, but some fifteen centuries later, one of the Twelve receives a different answer to a very similar plea.

Philip said to [Jesus], “Lord, show us the Father, and it is enough for us.” Jesus said to him, “Have I been with you so long, and you still do not know me, Philip? Whoever has seen me has seen the Father. How can you say, ‘Show us the Father’? Do you not believe that I am in the Father and the Father is in me?” (John 14:8–10)

Why does God honor Moses’s plea, while Jesus meets Philip’s with mild rebuke? Because now the glory of God is standing fully embodied in Philip’s presence, looking him in the eyes as he makes his misguided request. Does he not yet realize he already has seen more than Moses as he looks on the face of God himself and asks to see the Father?

Jesus’s gracious rebuke comes not because Philip had a sinful longing. It was good that he wanted to see the Father. It was admirable that, Moses, he asked to see the glory. But the kind correction he needed, standing in the very presence of God himself in the person of his Son, was that his search to see the very glory of God had come to an end when he came to Jesus.

We Have Seen His Glory

God had said to Moses, “You cannot see my face” (Exodus 33:20). But now Philip was seeing God. He was looking on the glory. As John 1:14–18 reveals, what glory God hid from Moses, he now shows us in the person of his Son.

The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, and we have seen his glory, glory as of the only Son from the Father, full of grace and truth. . . .

 For from his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace. For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

Jesus has made the Father known. Period. The person of Christ so truly and fully reveals God that the Gospel writer can say — with no need to nuance, condition, or qualify — “he has made him known.”

God’s Glory in Jesus’s Face

Jesus is “the [visible] image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). Do you want to see God? Do you long to look upon his face? Where will we see “the light of the knowledge of the glory of God”? Answer: “in the face of Jesus Christ” (2 Corinthians 4:6). Which means, the lowliest Christian already has seen more of God’s glory than Moses saw on the mountaintop.

Soon we will see Jesus with our physical eyes. “When he appears we shall be him, because we shall see him as he is” (1 John 3:2). But for now, we look on his beauty with the eyes of our hearts.

One day God will remake this world, and in that new heavens and new earth, there will be “no temple in the city, for its temple is the Lord God the Almighty and the Lamb” (Revelation 21:22).

And get this: “the city has no need of sun or moon to shine on it, for the glory of God gives it light, and its lamp is the Lamb” (Revelation 21:23). Lamp, singular. Jesus, the Lamb, is the singular lamp from which streams the glory of God that gives light to the world to come.

Jesus is not one lamp among many. He is the singular source of the light of the glory that illumines the world to come.

Where We Turn Next

God loves to answer the prayer “Show me your glory,” and he doesn’t leave us in the dark as to where we should turn our soul’s gaze to have our prayer answered. Once we pray this audacious, wise, and necessary plea, we’re not left clueless as to where to focus next.

When we ask God today to see his glory, he may answer our requests in countless ways. He may show us some attribute of his character we’ve missed or minimized.

He may open our eyes to his smile behind a frowning providence. He may meet some temporal need in a way that warms our soul and fills us with gratitude.

But the fullest response to our plea “Show me your glory” is to turn the eyes of our soul to Jesus. “In him the whole fullness of deity dwells bodily” (Colossians 2:9). And our knowing the fullness of his answer doesn’t mean we shouldn’t ask. On the contrary, it inspires us to ask all the more.

Источник: //www.desiringgod.org/articles/the-prayer-god-loves-to-answer-most

5 Ways to Love God More

Jennell Houts

If you’re me, you want to love God more, but you’re not quite sure how to go about making that happen. What does that look , anyway? In John 14:15, Jesus said, “If you love Me, keep My commandments.” Therefore, obeying God is connected to loving Him.

When Jesus was asked what the greatest commandment is, He replied, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your mind” (Matthew 22:370. So, according to the Son of God, loving God is at the top of the list. And we must love Him wholeheartedly, with ALL that is within us.

What Are You Feeding?

Understand that whatever you feed will grow. If you feed a plant, it will grow—but if you don’t feed it, it dies. What does this have to do with loving God?

If we feed our flesh (body) with whatever it craves, it will get stronger. Of course, physical starvation isn’t what we’re talking about here, but when our body wants something and we say “yes,” it will want more. If we constantly entertain ourselves, we will want more entertainment. If we continually give ourselves whatever food we desire, our body will crave even more food.

But if we feed our spirit, our spirit will get stronger, and that’s what we want.

If we want to love God more deeply, we must change our appetite, and we do that by feeding our spirit the Word of God, praying more, giving more time and money to God, and attending church more, just to name a few.

When we choose to read our Bible and pray rather than watch a television show, we are feeding our spirit and starving our flesh, and over time, our love for God will increase.

1. Increase Your Obedience to God’s Word

Continuing on with the theme of feeding, we must feed on and devour the Word of God to increase our love for God. Daily, we must read its stories and learn from the mistakes that others made. We must read about our Savior Jesus and study how He lived and what He taught His followers. We must read the Bible to see how to live, think and treat others, applying it to our lives every day.

However, if we read the Bible and ignore what it says, James says we only deceive ourselves: “But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.

… But he who looks into the perfect law of liberty and continues in it, and is not a forgetful hearer but a doer of the work, this one will be blessed in what he does” (James 1:22,25).

Obeying God and His Word is always linked to His blessings!

We must decide that what the Bible says is what we will do. What the Bible teaches, we will believe. What the Bible says, we will put into practice. As we make these changes, we will get closer to God, drawing Him nearer with our obedience.

2. Stop Neglecting Prayer

Throughout the gospels (Matthew, Mark, Luke and John), we see that Jesus often broke away from the people and His disciples to pray. If the very Son of God needed time alone with His Father, how much more do we need to do the same?

The truth is, lack of prayer is a sign of unbelief and pride. If we sincerely believed that prayer would make a difference, we would be praying a lot more. If we’ll be honest with ourselves, not praying indicates that we don’t really believe that it will change things. When we don’t pray, we proudly believe that we can handle things ourselves and don’t need to involve God.

Philippians 4:6-7 reminds us, “Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; and the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and minds through Christ Jesus.”

3. Forgive Everyone—No Exceptions

This may not be something we want to hear, but it’s the truth. Jesus said, “But if you do not forgive men their trespasses, neither will your Father forgive your trespasses” (Matthew 6:15). We cannot receive what we are unwilling to give. We must forgive others if we want God to forgive us.

Paul knew that unforgiveness and offense are rooted in pride. When we are offended, we believe that our rights have been violated and that we’ve been wronged. But Paul said in Acts 24:16, “I myself always strive to have a conscience withfense toward God and men.” He prayed for fellow Christians “that you may be sincere and withfense till the day of Christ” (Philippians 1:10).

Unforgiveness and offense are all about self. Even when people don’t seem sorry or refuse to apologize, even when we truly feel taken advantage of and hurt, even when they don’t “deserve” it, God expects us to forgive. As Christians who want to love God more, we must release everything that we hold against anyone. The freedom that follows is truly miraculous.

4. Deny Self

This is another not-so-popular subject, but again, it is the truth. In Luke 9:23-24, Jesus said, “If anyone desires to come after Me, let him deny himself, and take up his cross daily, and follow Me. For whoever desires to save his life will lose it, but whoever loses his life for My sake will save it.”

It’s not exactly “human nature” to die to self. In fact, we want to preserve and save ourselves, not die to ourselves! Jesus knew how powerful self really is. When self rules, we decide how to live, act, and think. The cross symbolized death—Jesus was saying that we needed to put pride and self to death so that God could help us live, act and think His way.

In the same way, we must surrender our wills to His will.

Jesus was our example in this: just before His crucifixion, He prayed, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done” (Luke 22:42).

Jesus demonstrated His incredible love for His Father when He yielded even to death. wise, when we surrender our self and will to God, when we choose what He wants instead of what we want, we demonstrate our love of God.

5. Reject Worldly Mindsets

The ways of the world are contrary to the ways of God. Paul said in Romans 12:2, “And do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind, that you may prove what is that good and acceptable and perfect will of God.”

We must constantly evaluate our thoughts and mindsets, comparing them to the Word of God. If we find ideas or beliefs that contradict the Bible, we must reject them. We must be careful not to participate in anything that encourages worldly thoughts, opinions or mindsets. Colossians 3:2 instructs us, “Set your mind on things above, not on things on the earth.”

Loving God more doesn’t just happen all by itself. If we want to love God with all our heart, mind, soul and strength, then we have to do our part – we have to feed and strengthen our spirit by studying the Bible, talking to God regularly, freely forgiving others, denying our self and our way, and rejecting worldliness.

~ by Jennell Houts

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Источник: //faithisland.org/faith/5-ways-to-love-god-more/