How do we actually connect to God in prayer?
If I had it to do over again, I would have begun through fasting. The reason we do not connect to God is because we do not seek Him with ALL. We are commanded to seek God with ALL our heart, soul, mind, and strength:
And He answered, “You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind, and your neighbor as yourself.” -Luke 10:27 ESV
When our stomachs are full and we seek Him with all, we are half-hearted. That’s why I believe fasting is a shortcut to entering the heart of God. Years ago when I decided to become a prayer warrior, I was scared of the idea of fasting. I believed it wasn’t for today; it was just a weird thing. Why would you want to suffer by starving yourself for a day? What good would that do? It actually gives you a hunger for God. When you pray, the pain in your stomach causes your prayers to be extremely intense.
With a full stomach, even if you mean what you are saying to God, you are not seeking Him with all because you are not emptied.
Why Hardships Draw Us Closer to God
If you have to endure a brutality, if someone that you dearly love dies, whatever horrendous thing occurs in your life that causes you to seek God with all, that’s when you can experience the tangible presence of God. Why is that? It’s because you are seeking Him with all. A crisis causes you to seek Him with all.
Guess what? You do not have to go through a crisis in order to seek Him with all. You can set aside a day to seek the Lord and give up food. You are saying, “Lord, I want You more than food! I’m more hungry for You than I am for food. I want You and only You! Nothing more!”
Draw near to God, and He will draw near to you. Cleanse your hands, you sinners, and purify your hearts, you double-minded. – James 4:8 ESV
We commit so many sins all the time. Even if we commit no sins with outer actions, we all have thought sins. We commit sin without thinking because we are selfish. That is our default position: we do things for ourselves all the time.
We are so stubborn that we cannot experience the presence of God unless we are going through suffering because we won’t seek Him. We self-pamper and seek our own pleasure. We indulge ourselves in the things of this world. We pursue those things automatically. We do not pursue God to the same degree that we pursue our own comfort.
So when you take away food, then suddenly all that is stripped and you are emptied. Jesus expects His people to fast, especially in these end times. Watch this third prayer video to find out how to connect to God for real.
How do we actually connect to God in prayer? (Video #3)
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Tags: Christian Living, prayer
Sometimes God has me turning off the TV cos’ He wants me to be spending time with Him
That’s great that you are listening to His voice. If we don’t intentionally spend time with the Lord, it is hard to connect with Him.
Fasting is a powerful way to connect with God. It takes all the convenience and the comfort away and requires us to really push through and draw close to God. Sometimes we get too comfortable with the convenient Christian type stuff that helps us “feel” God. Fasting makes God our focal point in a way that nothing else can.
Yes, fasting makes God our focal point!
It is true that we turn close to God in hardships or we turn away. We must be those that draw close to Him!
We must draw close to Him in any situation!