Pray, Know, Love and Do

I am beginning to believe that living life as a Christian can be boiled down to four very simple principles. Pray, Know, Love and Do. Let me explain this further...

PRAY:

Once we have made a profession of faith and have accepted Jesus Christ as our Savior. Each of us must at all times be in constant communication with God. We are to be emptying ourselves of ourselves and refilling with the spirit. The way we empty ourselves is through confession and repentance. We confess, repent and refill with the spirit.

Through this constant dialog with God we are taught, molded, changed, rebuked, transformed, blessed, uplifted and shown who we are. We also are shown that we are deeply loved by the many things that we hear from God. Prayer; which is communication, is a two way dialog, we talk and we listen. It is not a time to give God our big list of wants like He was Santa Claus. He does want us to come to him with our requests but we are to ask in the context of "if it is his will, let it be so". He wants us to be in relationship with Him and in a relationship you talk to one another. Same with God, prayer is talking with God.

KNOW:

We must know deep in our hearts just who God is. How can we know how to live the way God would want us to live if we do not know Him? God has given us the Bible; it is His written word to us. It is His love letter to mankind. It was written to show us how to live in communion with Him. We are to study it, know it, and love it. He tells us to hide it in our hearts. He tells us this because as we begin to know His word, we will begin to know Him. The more we get to know the character of God, the more we will love Him. The things we love we hide in our hearts. When we hide His word in our hearts, we are also hiding Him in there as well.

As we begin to understand the character of God, we begin to trust Him. We understand that in all things He has our best interest at heart. He is concerned in the quality of our character and will do what is needed to complete His transforming work in us. Each time that we put our trust in Him, He shows us He is there, which builds our faith.

LOVE:

We are called to love God with all our heart, soul and mind, then love others as ourselves. As we begin to know the character of God, we then love Him more. He builds a stronger love in us that we can then turn around and give to others. It is only through His power, living in the spirit of God, that we can truly love like we are called. We are to love sacrificially, which we can not do in our own power. As He grows in us the love for Him, we are also given the kind of love that is unselfish and other centered. We become less concerned with our own needs and more concerned about others.

We must first ask for help to have the kind of heart that loves God. Then ask for the heart to love ourselves. After that the heart to love others. It comes in this order. We must love God to love ourselves and love ourselves to pass it on to others. It is through this kind of supernatural love that lives begin to change.

DO:

Once God begins to change our hearts and build a love in us. We are called out into the world to do. We are usually called just to do the next thing. God does not usually give us the "ten year plan" with all details included. Normally you only get the next detail when you need it. He wants us to learn to know His will and His voice so we can obey when we are given instructions. Sometimes it is just obeying the instructions He gives for that day and sometimes they are bigger things.

I believe the key is availability. We are to keep our eyes looking up, our ears open for the voice of the spirit and our hearts available to go when instructed. When we keep ourselves open and available we hear the next thing He needs from us. It is not our agenda but His and He can give it to us anyway He likes. We just need to stay available to go when we are called.

Pray, Know, Love and Do, these are what we are called too. They seem simple in concept but sometimes they are not always easy in practice. So we Pray, Know, Love, Do and then Repeat.