Swallowed Up by the Glory of God -Pastor Al

“honesty in prayer before an omniscient God would seem to be obvious, but instead we often mouth prayerful platitudes without taking the time or making the effort to expose to God and ourselves our deepest fears, hurts, flaws, an sins “prayer, true prayer, does not allow us to deceive ourselves.

It relaxes the tension of our self- inflation. It produces a clearness of spiritual vision….It saps our self- deception and its Pharisaism….so by prayer we acquire our true selves” - PT Forsyth

What does meditation offer us: Stability

What does meditation offer us: Stability Character

What does meditation offer us: Stability Character Peace and Joy

So how do we meditate: we engage our mind we incline the heart we declare this reality

“in this gust and relish lies the sweetness and satisfaction of spiritual life. Speculative notions about spiritual things, when they are alone, are dry, sapless, and barren. In this gust we taste by experience that God is gracious, and that the love of Christ is better than wine,

or whatever else hath the most grateful relish unto a sensual appetite. This is the proper foundation of that ‘joy which is unspeakable and full of glory’”. -John Owen

-Ephesians 3: I pray that out of his glorious riches he may strengthen you with power through his Spirit in your inner being, 17 so that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith. And I pray that you, being rooted and established in love,

18 may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, 19 and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that you may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. -Ephesians 3:16-19