The Most Effective Prayer Approach - Handing-over Prayer

In your prayer and daily devotion, learn to accept all the thoughts and issues that you have subconsciously or consciously been gathering in your mind. 

Yes, you have not read wrong – learn to accept all these thoughts. Whether they be good, negative, lustful or holy, welcome them. However, you are not the reservoir for all these thoughts, but you are a clear channel. 

This means that nothing stays in you and everything flows out through you to the hands of God.

Take time to hand over gently all your comforting or troubling thoughts during this quiet moment with the Father. Whisper to Him every thought that runs through your mind. Do not fight the thoughts or treat them as unwelcomed issues. Just receive and let go.

There is no condemnation, stress, or demand on your part. Just come confidently before your Father in heaven, let go and let God handle all your thoughts and struggles. Despite your difficulties, God has given you the assurance that He is most willing to carry your burdens.

Tell God that “this thought I give to you” or “this thought I surrender to you”. If the thought comes back many times, simply hand it over again and again. Do not resist it – just hand it over to God.

Some of you may never experience this permanent love of God the Father. However, this is a good new adventure for you. Until and unless, you take time to have a solitary moment with the Father, you will never have a chance to know Him more and more.

God has said in Jeremiah 31:3 - “Yes, I have loved you with an everlasting love.” The reason why this assurance of an everlasting love is because we are created to be everlasting. We all experienced this eternity within our souls because of the sense of this everlasting life cries out from within us.

Moreover, it is God who first loves us (1 John 4:19). We are not an afterthought. We are the apples of His eyes. Therefore, we should learn to lean upon God for this “perfect love” instead of leaning upon the people around us. God is a permanent God and our relationship with God is permanent. We can safely place our lives in the hands of God and we will never need to be afraid.

Albert Kang

Please read the first part of this article, "How To Experience God's Perfect Love"

https://faith2ndhalf.blogspot.com/2020/08/learning-how-to-give-everything-to-god.html

How To Experience God’s Perfect Love

As Christians, many are calling God as their Father, but somehow, they do not experience Him like a real father. God, to them, is like a detached parent and an unfamiliar relative. This lack of intimacy with God has caused many to seek for his “perfect love” elsewhere. Thousands of songs and ballads have been written seeking for this “perfect love”. But sadly, none of these songwriters or singers has ever discovered it or lived it out in their life. The music industry continues to serve as an aimless prophetic voice of the generations, seeking an elusive dream.

The effort to find this “perfect love” in people around ends up in disappointment. This creates a sense of loneliness in the soul and many have discarded this pursuit as an impossible goal. Even those who are married, if you are not careful, you would be seeking for this “perfect love” in your spouse. You may end up putting a lot of burden upon the spouse because this is an unrealistic expectation. Your spouse has no capacity to respond as to how God can respond. If these unworkable demands persist in your family, then you will encounter relational problems, tensions, disagreements and conflicts.

Another reason why this internal struggle continues within you is because your soulish self is seeking soulish solutions for spiritual requirements. This will never do. It is like trying to plug a square peg into a round hole. Many people are already so exhausted searching for the answer.

Nothing can fill that spiritual emptiness within you except a personal encounter with God the Father. Even though you are a Christian, that deep spiritual vacuum will continue to be there because you have never taken this journey to encounter the heart of God. A cognitively generated image of God is usually just a god of your imagination.

That is the reason why some Christians left Christianity because they could not find the fulfilment deep within. No matter what slogans the churches may use, what clichés they may apply or what scripture verses they may share about God loving mankind, the person simply says, “I don’t experience God and I really don’t know God.”

Little did most people realise that this encounter and experience with God can only happen when they take a definite journey inward. This is a journey of carrying your own cross – a journey whereby you deny yourself (Luke 9:23).

You may think that it is very difficult to carry your cross or deny yourself. Now, exactly, what are you trying to deny in yourself and how are you going to deny yourself? To put it simply, it is your soulish self that you need to let go of and go for the spiritual self that God has prepared for you. Once you understand that within yourself there is a soulish self and a spiritual self, then it will become a lot easier for you to make your decisions and choices daily.

The soulish self has to do with your self-will, a constant desire to promote yourself, a sensitive attitude that can be hurt easily, and a spirit of comparison and competition that challenges anyone whom you see as a threat. This is the part of you that is taken from the Adamic nature of self-will and self-rule. This is the part of you where you sit on the throne and that you are king.

The spiritual self has to do with your spirit fully surrendered to Jesus. In this spiritual self, God is the King of your life and you function fully under His rule, power and authority. What do you need to do to surrender to the lordship of Jesus Christ? You need to let go of all the external trappings and status that you have depended on all your life. You need to have a clear understanding that your identity does not come from other people or in the things that you do or have. This is your first step of liberation – seek first His kingdom and His righteousness (Matthew 6:33).

Albert Kang

Please read the second part of this article in "The Most Effective Prayer Approach - Handing-over Prayer"

https://faith2ndhalf.blogspot.com/2020/08/the-most-effective-prayer-approach.html

 

Learning To Live Without The Soulish Self

Where do I even begin with this article? After having been a Christian since 1974, I begin to realise that most of the time, I have been operating from the "soulish" self. 

What is this "soulish" self that I am talking about? 

Paul the Apostle wrote in 1 Corinthians 2:14 - "But the natural (psuchikos, soulish) man does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are foolishness to him; nor can he know them, because they are spiritually discerned."

This is the carnal self that gets easily provoked into anger or jealously. This is the self-centred self that loves to compare and compete. When meeting a new pastor of another church, subconsciously, the spirit of comparison and competition would take over - "Is his church bigger than mine?" "Is he smarter than I am?" "Is he a better preacher?" etc. The ego and pride, though, subdued, is regretfully there.

You may have encountered this "soulish" self in you. This is the self that is very calculative and always concerned about what is it that I can gain from the situation. 

If there is any wisdom granted by the Lord, this soulish self would have converted it into scheming, manipulating and plotting how to get ahead for himself.

Even though, the teaching of the Bible, from time to time, drags this reluctant soulish self to face the spiritual truth so as to produce something godly, it rushes back to its throne once the job is done. Yes, this soulish self has a throne and it will not surrender this precious seat to anyone - not even to God. 

This soulish self is egoistic and self-centred. It loves to be served, accepted, respected, supported, cherished, honoured and appreciated.  It enjoyed being dressed up and pampered. It is unstable and insecure and so it perpetually guards against all attacks - real or imagined. Thus it is very sensitive and defensive so much so that it can easily be hurt and offended.

The Bible has an answer for this soulish self and it is found in Galatians 2:20 - "I have been crucified with Christ and I no longer live, but Christ lives in me. The life I now live in the body, I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me."

Cross-referencing to Luke 9:23 - "Then Jesus said to all of them, 'If anyone wants to come after Me, he must deny himself and take up his cross daily and follow Me.' 

This is the soulish self that needs to be crucified on the cross in order for me to truly follow Christ. Denying myself does not mean that I lose my personality. It simply means that now I know that I belong to a Master. From now on, I will consciously recognise Jesus as my Master and actively obey His every request. It is a paradigm shift to a different consciousness. 

When this transformation seriously happens, then I would be learning how not to operate from the carnal soulish self but rather function from the "spiritual" self under Christ. This spiritual self is my true self - the one that God wants me to be. It is free because it has nothing to judge and nothing to defend. In Christ alone, it placed its trust. 

This is my new journey - Learning to seriously take up my cross daily and follow Jesus. Kindly pray for me as I take this pilgrimage to the heart of Christ. Thank you.

Albert Kang