Effective prayer arises from confidence in the goodness of God and confidence in the relationship that we have with God.
To pray effectively at any given time, we need to fill our minds with a fresh sense and knowledge of the abundant goodness of God that you find in His Word.
By faith we grasp the visions of Isaiah that Christ not only came as the compassionate Savior who brings the year of God’s favor; releasing or debts, setting us free, and restoring our inheritance, but also Christ in His second coming as the conquering Lord destroying all evil and establishing the home of the righteous forever.
We are crying out, “LORD, restore my soul!” We see here in Isaiah that revival begins as a fresh move of the Holy Spirit in your own heart. It begins with faith, and joy, and repentance, but it can’t end in the heart. It asks for a cry in our own hearts:
“LORD, restore justice – this passion for others!”
The natural inclination of your sinful heart will always be to run and hide from God, but when you are persuaded of God’s mercy, you will gather the courage to repent.
That is why faith comes logically before repentance. Repentance flows from faith. Faith tastes the mercy of God that makes repentance possible.
The cross the reason to believe that God is for your joy. Christ carried our sorrows and He did this for the joy set before Him – He did it so that there would be joy set before us.
Redeeming the world from suffering must include redeeming the heart from sin. Suffering will end when sin is defeated.
And that is why Jesus came into the world – to redeem us from our suffering and sin.
Would you say that you live in the conscious knowledge that the Son of God loves you and gave Himself for you? But knowing only will not change your life. You need faith in Him and therefor have to preach the gospel to yourself everyday.
The greatest storyline of the Bible is the story of love. God is love.And through Christ we are brought into the enjoyment of that love that He has from the Father.
“I am my beloved and my beloved is mine”
Song of Solomon 6:3
What happened at Pentecost was the Holy Spirit and the Church.
When the Holy Spirit comes into your life, He testifies and reveal God to you so that you will be able to reveal Christ to others.
We are looking at the love story of a king who loves his bride as a lens through which to look at the love of Christ for His own people and particularly the experiences that we have when God seems to be far away.
Do you feel the love of Christ for you arising out of His great sympathy, seen in the strength of His resolve, through every difficulty, despite of every deficiency, and even through the worst of disloyalty?
The Christian Campus 