The thoughts that need to be sown in us are the thoughts of God. There are many times when we don’t hear God because of wrong ideas and thoughts running rampant in our minds. We think we understand something when we do not. We need a change in the way we perceive things.
We need to know the truth so that it can liberate us. This is where the Lord will upset our thinking patterns to get us unstuck. God is taking us somewhere. We have to learn to let the same mind be in us that Jesus had.
Let me give you an example from my own life. “James, why won’t you let me comfort you?” The words pierced my heart and touched a deep place within me. I began to tremble and cry and I responded to this impassioned plea with one of my own, “comfort me Holy Spirit, please comfort me”.
I had just had an encounter with the Spirit of God and the depth of emotion in His words had taken me by surprise. I had been trying to serve God and take care of my children and then I found myself sick and under a doctor’s care.
God wanted to help me and He was letting me know that somehow I was blocking Him. The phrase that is frequently used today for what I was experiencing is a paradigm shift.
When I said, “comfort me Holy Spirit” I was praying with the mind of Christ and He did.
Later I looked up all of the scripture verses I could find on comfort. I found a passage in 2 Corinthians that was very revealing.
(2 Corinthians 1:3-7 NIV) Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, the Father of compassion and the God of all comfort, who comforts us in all our troubles, so that we can comfort those in any trouble with the comfort we ourselves have received from God. For just as the sufferings of Christ flow over into our lives, so also through Christ our comfort overflows. If we are distressed, it is for your comfort and salvation; if we are comforted, it is for your comfort, which produces in you patient endurance of the same sufferings we suffer. And our hope for you is firm, because we know that just as you share in our sufferings, so also you share in our comfort.
The truth that God revealed to me once again is, “An unwilling God is not the problem”. I needed to receive His comfort so that His comfort could flow from me to others. The eyes of my understanding needed to be enlightened to this truth of God. He wanted to comfort me – God wanted to bless my life – He was just waiting for me to let Him do it. I had read the above portion of Scripture before but this time it was different. I knew God really wanted to comfort me. Why didn’t I just believe this truth the first time I read it years before?
From “The 3P’s of Effective Prayer”
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This is an excerpt from a book I wrote called, “Purpose, Passion & Pursuit – the Three P’s of Effective Prayer”. If you want a copy just send me an email.
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