Interacting with God

Interacting with God includes basic things like reading the Bible, worshiping the Lord, connecting with other believers, and praying to God. However, interacting with God is not about us doing or trying to do all the "right" things so that we gain favor with the Lord. In order for our relationship with God to be a two-way relationship, we must let Him grow us in responding to Him... out of love for Him. This involves letting Him grow us and open our hearts more to see and hear Him and His loving hand with our spiritual eyes and ears. This is not so basic.

When Keys talks about interacting with God, we sometimes use phrases like hearing God's voice, following the Spirit's lead, living for God, living in the Spirit, responding to the Lord, etc. We find these different kinds of phrases in the Bible. All of these are different ways of talking about interacting in a personal relationship with Jesus!

It is important to emphasize that all of us have successfully "heard" God's voice and interacted with Him during some of our trials. But, sometimes it is easier in some trials than in others - agree? Keys training, tools, and resources focus on how to experience this with the Lord more consistently.

Discipleship is about interacting with God, hearing God,listening to God, and connecting with God.

When Keys talks about interacting with God, we are talking about...

...being able to seek out, discern and understand God's guidance to one's self in a trial,
...being able to let God transform our hearts to peace in Christ during a trial,
...being able to "hear" and respond to the Lord's disciplines during a trial,
...being able to discern the Holy Spirit's counsel and instruction in a trial, and to take steps of faith according His counsel (instruction, guidance, etc.) while trusting the outcome to the Lord (John 16:12-14)!

Because of who we are in Christ, we can experience each of those things more regularly! What a blessing that can be! Like prayer, interacting with God can be done anywhere, anytime, and in any trial we face. But, there are spiritual forces fighting against us. So, Satan and the flesh work to make interacting with God difficult.

Generally speaking, interacting with God during trials involves the dynamics of two of God's "Keys" to understanding life: Your Heart and Your Mind.

The heart Key represents the tool God created within us in order that we might both discern (hear) His voice, and discern (see) how the flesh works to tempt us in trials!

Our minds are among God's Keys too! They have two parts: conscious and unconscious. Both must be centered in Christ during trials, but interestingly enough, our hearts must open to the Lord for the mind to get centered in the peace of Christ during a trial!

Hearing the counsel and guidance of The Counselor, God's Spirit, during any trial involves discerning between fleshly lies, illusions and deceptions versus the ways the Lord tries to grow us. So, part of growing in Christ during life difficulties involves developing discernment. Doing so requires focus and effort. It requires self-honesty, personal awareness, new-self discipline, and consistency. So essentially, a big part of interacting with God is about exercising your commitment to yield yourself to Jesus when His Spirit is seeking to reveal areas of your own life in which He wants to change and grow you to let Him live through you.

By improving your part in listening to God with your heart, you will find that each of God's "Keys" can take on a very rich, rejuvenating, and renewed meaning. But it involves effort and wanting more...

Wanting More