The Process of Positioning

3/11/2006

Good morning, i was listening to the recording of Fri morning, and i thought this part would be good to read, and re-read, for all of us, and the children who are not Christians yet. love, cm

The Process of Preparing/Positioning Ourselves

…Like Cornelius in Acts 10, he chose to give money to the poor, he chose to pray, and he chose to acknowledge God. He was not a fool—he acknowledged God in all his ways. He made all of those choices, but he wasn’t saved; he didn’t have Jesus living inside of him. But God heard his prayer, saw his gifts to the poor, saw his self-sacrifice, saw his self-control, and saw his moral excellence. These were gifts that Cornelius was offering to God by choice, and then God gave him Himself to live inside of him.

So yeah, there is a positioning process. A person is not going to go from being just an absolute wretch, filled with lust and self-consciousness and evil desires—having made no conscious effort to move towards God or to hate sin—and then just “POOF” everything will be OK. There is a process of preparing ourselves and “making ready the way for the Lord.” “Take your shoes off this is holy ground.” Now if you don’t want to take your shoes off…take them off anyway! If you refuse, there will be a very high price. If you obey and take your shoes off, then you can come near. “If you draw near to Me, I will draw near to you.” THAT’S the order—the sequence—that James, by the Holy Spirit, put it. You move and He will move. He made provision already, in His Grace, that you CAN move towards Him. So you make the choices based on Truth to position yourself to move forward towards God’s ground. You take your shoes off and then you will meet Him there—which is nothing that we can take credit for. But there is a process involved that requires us to acknowledge Truth and to step that direction even if we don’t feel like it.

“I’ll be found by those who search for Me with all their heart.”