A Fresh Encounter

Few musicians have impacted my life spiritually like Keith Green.  Keith was Brooklyn born and raised and came to Christ at the zenith of the Jesus movement.  His death in the early 80’s hit me viscerally as though I knew him personally.  The songs he sang challenged me and changed me and spurred me to live for Jesus like few sermons I’ve ever heard.  Recently, I was playing back through some of his earliest songs, and one simple chorus captured me again.  It is a song of honest confession.  It says,
My eyes are dry
My faith is old
My heart is hard
My prayers are cold
But I know how I ought to be
Alive to You, but dead to me.
How often do our prayers get voiced around our hearts but not through them?  How often do we echo words…even good words….but they come from a heart that has grown hard and cold?  Perhaps Green’s words were inspired by the Psalmist David, who first gave human voice to these words-
Let me hear joy and gladness; let the bones
You have broken rejoice.
Hide Your face from my sins, and blot out all
My iniquities.
Create in me a clean heart
And renew a right spirit within me.
Cast me not away from your Presence
And take not Your Holy Spirit from me
Restore to me the joy of your salvation
And uphold me with a willing spirit.
(Psalm 51:8-12)
What is the cure for a heart that is hard and eyes that are dry?  A fresh encounter with the living Lord who wants desperately to help you find the joy of your salvation once again!
But I know how I ought to be,
Alive to You, but dead to me.
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The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.  (Psalm 51:17)
FOR REFLECTION:  As 2016 begins,  what steps can you take toward praying more authentically and less automatically?
 

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