Saturate

 If you're a regular reader of these devotions or the quotes I post on Facebook, you'll know that Chris Tiegreen is a favorite author. I've gleaned many riches from his writings. Recently I came across one of his prayers which came in three parts. I thought I'd pass each part on to you and expand on what he asks for.

"Fill me with Your thoughts." Paul said that we are to have "the mind of Christ." That is, we begin to think, choose, discern, and walk in His wisdom and understanding and not our own. That means that we have a connection of such intimacy with Him that His mind becomes ours as well. We don't lose who we are as individuals, and we don't become mindless robots. It just means that in all our ways in relating to this physical world, we do so with His worldview. We see and understand what is happening before and around us as He does. We are not walking in the natural but the supernatural. We have a Kingdom worldview that is rooted in eternity and our thoughts are not under the influence of this passing world, but in His eternal Kingdom. If this sounds mystical to you, it's because it is. God said in His Word that, "My ways are not your ways." When we are filled with His thoughts and enter ever more deeply into His ways, our ways are not the world's ways. We're rooted in eternity and not this passing world. May we, in all things, have the mind of Christ, constantly being filled up with His thoughts.

"Acquaint me with Your ways." Spoiler alert: If you're going to seriously pray this, you're going to look odd in the eyes of this world. As I said above, He's already told us that His ways are most often on a collision course with the world's ways. He tells us to love our enemies. He tells us to not spend our lives in the pursuit of earthly treasure, i.e. "things" but to lay up spiritual treasure in heaven. Kingdom treasure. He tells us to esteem others as better than ourselves, which flies in the face of the "me first" mentality of every age. I could go on and on. The root truth is that when you truly enter His life by faith, you "know" in your heart that the life you've begun is completely at odds with the life you've been living. You begin a journey of discovery of Him and His ways. The way He loves, relates, sees this lost world and the human race held in the grip of sin. Jesus said, "I Am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. No one comes unto the Father except by Me." If you don't know this yet, trust me that believing it and speaking it will get you into much trouble with a world that is tolerant of everything except an absolute statement such as this. His proclaiming it earned Him the cross. If we believe and speak it, we will come to our own kind of cross as well. Jesus was not put to death because of good works and His miracles. It was for the message He brought to a lost human race that didn't want to hear about its true condition. They still don't, but if we wish to know His ways, we must know the Way in which He will lead us.

"Saturate me in Your Presence." I think this is my favorite part of the prayer. Jeff Deyo, former lead singer of the worship band Sonicflood, has a song titled "Saturate." In it he pleads to be saturated with the presence and Spirit of God. To be consumed by His presence. To be saturated is to have every area of an object filled with what it is soaking in. I want to be soaking in Him. Saturated in Him. As I walk through a day, I want to never wander away in my awareness of Him. In whatever way I may turn, I want to run right into Him. I want His presence to seep into every pore of my being. Saturate me O Lord. Saturate us....in Your presence.

May this three-part prayer be realized in our lives. Filled with His thoughts, acquainted with His ways, saturated in His Presence.

Blessings,

Pastor O