Devotional Thought of the Day:
At that time people began to call on the name of the LORD. Gen. 4:26b

Once the Holy Spirit’s work in our heart begins, grace, forgiveness, cleansing take on a form of almost bodily clearness.
Prayer loses its unmeaning quality and becomes a sweet conversation with Someone actually there. Love for God and for the children of God takes possession of the soul. We feel ourselves near to heaven and it is now the earth and the world that begin to seem unreal.…

Doing some reading for a class I am taking, there was a comment that the number one of the thing pastors can do to sustain good ministry is to engage in regular spiritual discipline. (the Lilly Foundation was credited)

It should be common sense, if our goal is to connect people to God, to help them encounter and experience His love, we need to engaged in that dialogue with Him. That is the sweet conversation Tozer describes, what gives meaning to actual prayer. Without the confidence that God is listening, prayer is simply the recitation of words, a philosophical incantation done ot offer a placebo.

But because the Holy Spirit is there, teaching us to call on God… everything changes.

To deny this, or to neglect it, is tragic, for how can we neglect hat God has created, the ability to talk with Him, as was given in the earliest days, as God gave to men and women the ability to talk with HIm directly.

Luther would note this too, as he explains in the large catechism about prayer. It is part of our lives, not just and after thought. ( I highly suggest reading this!)

The other point Tozer made is based on the reality that is expressed in Colossians 3, “For you died to this life, and your real life is hidden with Christ in God.” Colossians 3:3 (NLT2) Prayer helps us realize that Gid is present, and our relationshp with Him is the basis of reality. Who we are, what we are, we are defined by that relationship with Him, and nothing else is as real as that. Nothing else transforms us that way.

So pray, just start, ask the Spirit to guide you… and rejoice.. for God is listening…

A. W. Tozer and Marilynne E. Foster, Tozer on the Holy Spirit: A 366-Day Devotional (Camp Hill, PA: WingSpread, 2007).