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Getting Ready to Meet With God
Amos 4:12
"Therefore thus will I do unto thee, O Israel: and because I will do this unto thee, prepare to meet thy God, O Israel."
When you have a special guest coming to your house, I would imagine that you make special preparations for their visit. The house gets an extra touch of cleaning, for you want your house to be in great shape for the guest. You make sure the atmosphere is set so the guest will enjoy their time with you. You put on the best menu so they will not leave regretting coming over to your place. You may even plan conversations and activities so they won't be bored while they visit with you. All of this is done because you want your special guest to feel welcome while they are with you.
There is a special guest that you ought to meet with on a daily basis. This special guest is God. The verse above says, "...prepare to meet thy God,..." Though this verse is talking about God's judgment that was to come to Israel, I believe this statement can be applied to our daily personal time with God. Everyday when you meet with God in the Scriptures and prayer, you should want that time to be special, not just for you, but also for God. However, if you don't prepare yourself to meet with God, then you will find yourself quickly going through your time with Him as if you are paying penance. Let me give you some ways that you can prepare yourself to meet with God on a daily basis.
First, put all distractions away. You need to be sure that there is nothing that will distract you when you meet with Him. Our attention span is so short that the Devil will do everything he can to get our attention away from God. Many times this is not intentional on our behalf, but it happens. God also will not force Himself upon us. So be sure that you remove anything that could be a distraction during your time with Him.
Second, you must get rid of all sin. Your time with God will not be a special time if you have sin in your life. In fact, Psalm 66:18 teaches that if we have known sin in our life that God will not hear us. You can invite God over all you want, but He won't show up if you leave your heart filthy with sin. The first thing you should do before meeting with God is confess your sin to Him. Clean up your heart so that God will enjoy meeting with you.
Third, prepare your spirit to meet with God. There will be some days when it will be harder meeting with God because your spirit is not ready. Over the years I have learned some things that help me to prepare my spirit. One of the best ways to prepare your spirit is with music. Before meeting with God, you should play some good instrumental Christian music that helps put you in the proper mindset. Music plays a big role in preparing our spirit to meet with God. We play music at church to prepare the hearts of people to hear the preaching, so why not do the same to help prepare your spirit in your personal time with God.
Finally, while listening to the music, spend some time thinking about God's goodness to you. Write down the things that God did for you on the previous day. Once you have a small list compiled, then take that list and thank God for what He did. You can also use that list to spend some time praising God for His goodness. Thanking and praising God will not only prepare God to come to you, but more importantly it will prepare your heart to meet with Him.
When you have done these things, I believe you will find that your heart, mind and spirit will be prepared to meet with God. Yes, you will have some days when your heart is excited and ready to meet with God, but on the days when your heart is just not ready, do these things to prepare yourself for your meeting with God.