Free Gas for Your Think Tank — Short Reflections, Lasting Encouragement

The longing, lurking somewhere in your soul, is a call to connect with the living Jesus Christ. Connection with the risen Jesus is comforting, encouraging, healing, strengthening and joyful.

Converse with the risen Jesus Christ. He’s listening and speaking and waiting for you to engage. Panic passes and is replaced by inner peace, when you surrender to the forgiving and restoring presence of the risen Jesus.

When talking to Jesus becomes dialogue, rather than mere monologue, amazing insights will erupt in your heart. Dialogue with the risen Jesus is real. Millions of people, around the world, are strengthened by it everyday.

Connection with Christ releases inner light. It takes courage to look at yourself in His light, but it releases supernatural healing. People who have experienced loving dialogue with Jesus, don’t want to stop.

If communication with Jesus is a lifestyle (and not just an act of desperation or religion) the joy of the Lord overflows your soul. Conscious contact with Christ is awe-inspiring! Talking with Jesus does amazing things in my heart and life, that no other conversation can do. Jesus is alive and active in this world. He can’t be confined to Heaven!

A bucket, full of hardened concrete, has no room for anything else. A hard heart, full of diversions, has no room for the risen Jesus. Regularly conversing with Jesus will cause us to stop our wrongdoing, or else our wrongdoing will stop our conversation with Him.

Cage free Christianity is amazing–being led from within by Christ in you and not cooped up in religious corrals, crates, and customs. Church is not a conversation pit for a dialogue with God. But your heart is!

It’s better to question God than to ignore Him. It’s okay to ask Him why. Hearing someone else talk to God in church, isn’t the same thing as talking to Him yourself. When a small group of people have a joint conversation with God, incredible things happen. Try it and see!

Ask not what God can do for you. Ask how you can fully surrender to Him. Maybe it’s dishonest to say a memorized prayer that you don’t really mean deep in your heart. The Prayer of St. Francis is beautiful, but God wants to hear your prayer–the one that comes from your own heart. People who confess their every sin to God, stay in continually contact with Him.

Let your heart surge toward God. Stop holding it back because you are worried about what other people may think or say. If you’ve never been in awe of God, you’ve missed out on so much. If you’re making an effort to stay away from God, you’re not an atheist.

For a fresh, healing perspective on life, turn around and face God. When you talk to God, look at Him, not at your problems. God grant us the wisdom to know the difference between “saying a prayer” and heart-felt praying, and the courage to surrender to You.

Fancy words don’t facilitate connection with God. Sincere words do. Avoiding God indicates that you have some level of belief in His existence. Sane people don’t avoid imaginary beings.

When we ask God for help, we won’t hear His answers, unless we listen to His voice. When we ask God something, perhaps we shouldn’t ignore Him, but rather listen to His answer — His “still small voice.” People who won’t listen to God are like athletes who won’t listen to their coach.

Sometimes the answer to prayer is Spirit-prompted action (SPaction) but we ignore the Spirit and stay in our comfort zone. When you have a inner nudging that prompts you to do a godly, self-denying thing, that’s the voice of God.

Most people have prayed for another person. Not so many have prayed with someone. Heart-felt praying with someone is powerful.

When talking with God, there’s no hierarchy. We’re all equally human and He is our Creator. Of course God knows what you pray. He also overhears your every thought, but heart-felt prayer is much more personal.

Too often Christians try to straighten God out to fit our agenda. Perhaps life would be better if we let Him straighten us out. To humbly request and surrender to God’s help, is powerful and life changing. We won’t truly know God’s power, unless we surrender to and connect with Him.

To say, “I don’t pray because it doesn’t work,” is like saying, “I don’t talk to my friend because it doesn’t work.” If you’re not comfortable talking to God, write Him a letter or email. He doesn’t need an address to know what you wrote.

Some people deny God; some ignore Him; others blame Him; some use Him; a few surrender to and obey Him. Profanity and sincere prayer lead in opposite directions. One to pride and a hard heart; the other to humility and a tender heart.

If you ask God for justice, be prepared for some major accountability issues in your life. We can learn a lot from things that frustrate us–things we don’t want to happen–or we can rebel against them. God listens. Perhaps we should learn to, too.

Jesus told us to ask God to do good things for our enemies. He said pray “for” not against them. Dare we obey Him?

“God bless us, every one!” Bless us with humble hearts that are hungry for Your presence and eager to follow your will. To pray, “My will be done,” is to miss the whole point of prayer. We don’t need to talk God into something. We just need to discover and align with His willingness.

God loves us without conditions. His laws are not conditions, but guardrails to keep us safe. We ask God to open our eyes to see. Perhaps we should also ask Him to open our eyes to cry.