Of Golf and God
Active Ways to Praise God

Approaching God

How would you feel about approaching God if your sons were killed by God for approaching Him irreverantly?  I bet you would make sure that you came with the right attitude.  I sure would.  This was the situation back in Moses day.  They were really just learning about God and there were so many rules!!!!  Remember that Aaron and his family were charged from here on out (the tribe of Levi, the Levitical priesthood) to be the ones who interceded on the people's behalf by offering sacrifices at the temple.  I know I'm oversimplifying this, but there were many, many rules.   

Now the Lord spoke to Moses after the death of the two sons of Aaron, when they offered profane fire before the Lord, and died; and the Lord said to moses:  "Tell Aaron your brother not to come at just any time into the Holy Place inside the veil, before the mercy seat which is on the ark, lest he die; for I will appear in the cloud above the mercy seat." (Lev 16:1-2 NKJV)

Like the priests back in biblical times, we must take our time with God seriously.  Now, we won't die physically as Aaron's sons did (Lev 10:1) if we come to God carelessly or with sin in our lives.   Jesus in His death was the sacrifice that allows us to come to God.  However, we will never be able to be close to God without cleaning ourselves up a bit and taking our relationship with Him seriously.  (Psalm 66:18, Isaiah 59:1-2).  Just like a relationship with our earthly friends and loved ones, to make sure we have good conversation and fellowship we must make sure there is nothing between us to hinder that relationship.  It is the same with God. 

It is a sweet time with God when we can enter into His "inner courts".  Because of time constraints (no excuses, here - just the facts) I don't always feel that I approach God that intimately every time that I pray and spend time with Him.  Regarding prayer, I've heard one of my favorite preachers say before that we need to "pray until we've prayed".   Think about that one.  We need to take the time to put away all of life's distractions and come clean before God.  Then we will get to His "inner courts".    I'll leave you with an acronymn that has really helped me in my prayer life.  It is a way to pray that will get us in the right frame of mind so that we can really get to praying.  The next time you pray, pray in this order and see if you notice a difference in your prayer time.

P - Praise.   Start off your prayer time by thanking God for all that He is.  This gets our minds off of ourselves and our current circumstances and into a state of worship.

R - Repent.  Ask God to forgive you for the sins you have committed, both those you can and can't remember.  We don't have to be perfect to come to God, but we need to recognize where we have strayed, confess these things to God, and turn from our old ways.

A - Ask.  This is where we can ask our heart's desire.  Now that we've got ourselves into a worshipful, clean state of mind, we can come before God with our requests.

Y - Yield.  Thy will be done.  Commit your requests to God's sovereign will in this closing of your prayer.

Happy praying!!  If you tried this and noticed a difference, please comment and let us know how it worked for you!!

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