Day 268
Ezra 7:10
"For Ezra had prepared his heart to seek the law of the Lord, and to do it, and to teach in Israel statues and judgments."
How do we prepare our hearts to seek the Word of God and to desire it with the intentions of doing it? We may go to church services, assuming we want to hear the Word of God and do it. However, there may also be times when we hear a message we do not want to receive or do, and after it is all over, we do not act on what we have heard. Later on, we might respond more positively to the same message, because we are better prepared to receive it. (Unfortunately, we sometimes realize we should have been obedient after we have learned the hard way.)
Before we come to church, or after we have arrived and are taking part in the preliminaries, we have an opportunity to prepare our hearts to receive the Word of God with the intentions of practicing it. (At some point in time, we should reach a point in our growth where we live ready to hear and do the Word at all times and do not need to make preparations for each individual message.) To get ready to receive and respond properly, we must worship God humbly and sincerely. When we worship sincerely, we properly recognize who He is. We acknowledge who we are and who we are not. We remind ourselves that we owe our all to Him ·. and he is worthy of our worship, which entails strict obedience, not just singing beautiful lyrics to a song. It is more than singing in the spirit - it is yielding our spirits, our souls and our bodies to His command. It is surrendering all.
We will know how well we are doing in getting our hearts ready to receive and being obedient to what we hear, when we measure our responses afterwards. Just having an emotional reaction that makes us feel as though we will do all we have heard is not good enough. Days later, after the emotions have worn off and the thrill is gone, we will see how prepared we were. If we find ourselves not applying the Word we heard, then we need to do a better job of preparing our hearts.
I humbly acknowledge that God, my Father, is the Almighty. He gave His best for me, and I owe Him everything. I will listen to his Word with the intentions of receiving and doing what I hear. With His help, I will consistently be a doer of the Word.