First Voice Entry

[This entry is a transcript of a voice-recorded journal entry]

I was thinking today on my way home from work about prayer – the journal entry that I wrote this afternoon – and how it all fits in to the information that’s contained in the Bible, and whether the journal entry is complete, and whether there’s anything else that would need to be added. I was thinking through that and it came to me that there are ideas that other Christians share that, of certain things – of certain ‘prescriptions’ – for how to address God. I was listening to a sermon from Miles (McPherson) and he was saying how the Psalms are written so that we have an understanding of how to address God. I feel like it came to me that perhaps those ‘prescriptions’ are valid, but they are part of a more fundamental approach, or more fundamental requirement (or truth) for hearing from God.

For example, praise in church – singing praise for God, and shouting His greatness – in and of itself is a wonderful thing and can stand on its own just fine, and I feel that God is glorified for that. At the same time, I get the feeling that that is one way to condition the heart; and back to my journal entry, it’s one way of a person getting their mind out of the way, and submitting a surrendering to God and releasing pride, which I think is the bottom line. A person’s pride is the chief obstacle to a communion with God, and when you sing praise, you are surrendering yourself, and you are acknowledging God’s greatness, and you are indirectly then acknowledging your own smallness and insignificance in terms of your ability to stand on your own – and in effect, that is releasing your pride.

Another ‘prescription’ could be church (attendance). There’s definitely a fellowship component, and I’d have to look at the Bible to see what Jesus says about fellowship and whether fellowship is good in and of itself. But, there’s definitely a command to act, and that goes back to what I felt God was saying to me in my prayer today – the last step of the process being action. And maybe some people’s action is to ‘rally the troops’, so to speak, for a specific cause. Obviously in fellowship there is shared learning in the Bible and the Gospel and you can grow through reading how God has expressed Himself through His word. But that’s one way of doing so, but at the same time, the fellowship component could be potentially misleading as well. Many people, I think, have been actually led astray by ‘church’ and people’s agendas that didn’t have much, if anything, to do with obeying God’s will. So the fellowship aspect is something not to obviously jump into blindly, and I’m wondering whether … one thing to address in prayer is whether fellowship is something that God commands or expects. It doesn’t seem like the disciples were necessarily a fellowship – they were learning from a teacher, and then became teachers themselves, but whether they would consider themselves to be ‘in fellowship’ with those around them, I don’t know, because they moved around from town to town, city to city and… I would say that they consider themselves to be part of the body of Christ and could have fellowship with whoever else was part of the body of Christ, but whether that meant that they, on a regular basis, met or were with the same people, I don’t know.

That’s my first entry, voice entry, and I’ll see where this takes me…

I welcome reader feedback – please post a comment if you have Biblical guidance on the topic!