Start the Conversation
“For the LORD God is our sun and our shield. He gives us grace and glory. The LORD will withhold no good thing from those who do what is right.”
Psalms 84:11 NLT
People who love each other look forward to spending time together. Do you talk to God every day? Few Christians do. Many Christians only talk to God when they need something from Him, which is not the way to conduct a healthy relationship. Absolutely amazing things happen in your relationship with God when you talk to Him just because you want to be with Him.
Deciding to start a daily conversation with God is the turning point of personal spiritual growth. The most effective way to do this is to make and keep a daily appointment with God. You choose a specific time, at the beginning of your day, just to talk things over with Him.
This is what Jesus did. Each of the Gospels shows clearly that Jesus began His days in conversation with His Father. Remarkable things will happen in your spiritual life when you begin to follow His example. When you make an appointment with God, you are making a priority commitment to God for a specific time, that comes before any other demands on your time and attention. When you keep this commitment at the beginning of your day you are putting God first in your life every day.
Your daily appointment with God is the key to developing a soul-sustaining Daily Spiritual Routine. Before you start your day, you establish your spiritual center for the day by meeting with God to talk things over with Him. When you do this God will always meet you. He will extend His Word to you, and your life will change.
The most immediate spiritual benefit of establishing your spiritual center at the start of your day is that you will be able to quickly regain your spiritual center whenever the pressures of the day knock you out of it. This is a substantial spiritual benefit because it enables you to continue to step forward each day instead of being knocked backward by every adverse circumstance.
There are other very substantial spiritual benefits. You will begin to hear the word of God more clearly and more consistently than ever. You will discover how to center your life around the Word of God, and you will develop an awareness of the promptings of the Holy Spirit, as well as the ability to consistently respond to Him in positive ways.
In addition, all of these very beneficial results of choosing to become disciplined in the way you conduct your relationship with God will flow to every other area of your life as well. All of these extremely beneficial spiritual results will accrue to you simply because you have made a decision to give God the first and best part of your life each day.
When we choose to maintain a daily conversation with God, we place ourselves in the center of the flow of His Word, His grace, and His providential care every day. In so doing, we have taken the first steps in the process of personal spiritual development, by which the righteousness of the Kingdom of God overtakes our lives, and which will allow us to gain access to the incredible promise of Psalm 84:11.
Bill Geiger
www.sustainedspiritualgrowth.com
bill@sustainedspiritualgrowth.com