Silas
Beloved of All
Your honesty before God is itself a sign that He is already at work in you, and it is beautiful that you want to return to Him with your whole heart. The Lord is a shepherd who restores the soul, as Psalm 23:3 says, and He does that restoration not by you trying harder in your own strength, but by drawing you back into fellowship with Jesus Christ.
During days when prayer has grown cold, it is easy to think of prayer as trying to wear God down until He finally gives in to what we want. True prayer is the opposite. It is not to get your will done on earth, but to get His will done in your life. The wisest and most freeing prayer you can pray is simply, Lord, work out Your perfect will in my life, have Your way in me. When you pray that way you open the door for God to act freely without violating the will He has given you, and you place Him back at the center where He belongs. When something else sits at the center, whether it is comfort, busyness, or any other concern, life begins to revolve around the wrong thing and peace is lost. When Christ is at the center, other good things can be added in their proper place, but He remains Lord and you follow Him.
Restoration also touches faith. You are justified by faith in Jesus Christ alone, not by works, and that faith at once gives you peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet the faith that truly saves is never alone. It is a living faith that brings a changed life and bears fruit. You cannot be saved by works, but genuine faith will produce works of righteousness as evidence of the new life within. If you say you believe, your life will begin to conform to what you say you believe. There has to be that harmony, not to earn salvation, but to show that salvation is real. You receive the Holy Spirit and His empowering not by trying to deserve it, but by simple believing faith in Jesus and His grace.
That new life is why you can have hope for discipline and purpose again. If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the old has passed away and all has become new. Your old life governed by the flesh was buried with Christ, and you have been raised with Him to walk in newness of life. Your life is now hidden with Christ in God, and Christ Himself is your life. Because of that, you are called to seek the things that are above, where Christ is, and to set your affection there rather than on the things of this world that cannot satisfy.
A steady prayer life grows out of that relationship. The apostle Paul is an example of one who prayed constantly, remembering others night and day without ceasing, not as a ritual but as a life of communion that was not limited by distance or circumstance. You can begin again in the same simple way, in faith, day by day, asking God to renew your hunger for His presence. And when you pray in faith, let your prayer end in praise, thanking Him in advance because you trust that He has heard you and will do what is best according to His will.
God is not disappointed that you are returning. He delights to rebuild what has been weakened. Keep coming to Him through Jesus, surrendering to His will, trusting Him to produce in you the fruit and faithfulness that you cannot produce on your own. He who has entrusted your life to Him is able to keep you and to restore discipline, peace, and purpose as you walk closely with Him again.
May the Lord renew your hunger for His presence, rebuild your prayer life, strengthen your faith, and keep you faithful to the calling He has given you, as you rest in the life you now have in Christ.
During days when prayer has grown cold, it is easy to think of prayer as trying to wear God down until He finally gives in to what we want. True prayer is the opposite. It is not to get your will done on earth, but to get His will done in your life. The wisest and most freeing prayer you can pray is simply, Lord, work out Your perfect will in my life, have Your way in me. When you pray that way you open the door for God to act freely without violating the will He has given you, and you place Him back at the center where He belongs. When something else sits at the center, whether it is comfort, busyness, or any other concern, life begins to revolve around the wrong thing and peace is lost. When Christ is at the center, other good things can be added in their proper place, but He remains Lord and you follow Him.
Restoration also touches faith. You are justified by faith in Jesus Christ alone, not by works, and that faith at once gives you peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ. Yet the faith that truly saves is never alone. It is a living faith that brings a changed life and bears fruit. You cannot be saved by works, but genuine faith will produce works of righteousness as evidence of the new life within. If you say you believe, your life will begin to conform to what you say you believe. There has to be that harmony, not to earn salvation, but to show that salvation is real. You receive the Holy Spirit and His empowering not by trying to deserve it, but by simple believing faith in Jesus and His grace.
That new life is why you can have hope for discipline and purpose again. If anyone is in Christ he is a new creation, the old has passed away and all has become new. Your old life governed by the flesh was buried with Christ, and you have been raised with Him to walk in newness of life. Your life is now hidden with Christ in God, and Christ Himself is your life. Because of that, you are called to seek the things that are above, where Christ is, and to set your affection there rather than on the things of this world that cannot satisfy.
A steady prayer life grows out of that relationship. The apostle Paul is an example of one who prayed constantly, remembering others night and day without ceasing, not as a ritual but as a life of communion that was not limited by distance or circumstance. You can begin again in the same simple way, in faith, day by day, asking God to renew your hunger for His presence. And when you pray in faith, let your prayer end in praise, thanking Him in advance because you trust that He has heard you and will do what is best according to His will.
God is not disappointed that you are returning. He delights to rebuild what has been weakened. Keep coming to Him through Jesus, surrendering to His will, trusting Him to produce in you the fruit and faithfulness that you cannot produce on your own. He who has entrusted your life to Him is able to keep you and to restore discipline, peace, and purpose as you walk closely with Him again.
May the Lord renew your hunger for His presence, rebuild your prayer life, strengthen your faith, and keep you faithful to the calling He has given you, as you rest in the life you now have in Christ.
