I was reading Leanne Payne late at night. I was feeling the Holy Spirit urging me, pleading with me, could I even say, begging me to put the book down, get on my knees immediately and “do” what I was reading about. Leanne’s book was compelling me to pray, to enter into a serious dialogue with God RIGHT NOW! Get on my knees right now and start the healing conversations with God that I needed!
I can still remember that night back in 1993. God was wanting to heal me and set me free from ME! But I didn’t get on my knees. I didn’t pray. I kept reading the book, saying to myself, “I will pray in a minute, but let me finish the chapter . . . I don’t want to miss some point that will help me do it right, you know, pray it right . . .” I kept reading until I was sleepier. I didn’t finish the chapter at all. I went on to bed.
I missed out on the transformational conversation that God wanted.
I resigned from the ministry within a year because of my sexual sin.
In my journey of transformation since 1994, I have learned a few things. The most important thing I saw in Scripture is still one of my first principles, a first principle for Pure Heart Weekends and for the counseling that we do.
What process does God want to use to change us?
In the FIRST epistle (Romans), in the FIRST chapter, God told us of the process he wants to use in our lives to transform us: DIALOGUE.
In preparation for this, the Apostle John told us that Jesus Christ is the “Word.” His incarnation was the initiation of dialogue, coming from heaven to open a conversation with us.
“In the beginning was the Logos (the Word),
and the Logos was with God,
and the Logos was God.”
(John 1:1)
The brilliant Renaissance scholar, Erasmus (1466-1536), a Dutch scholar who wrote almost exclusively in Greek and Latin, also wrote an English translation of The Gospel of John, and here is how Erasmus translated the “Logos” in John 1:1.
“In the beginning was the conversation,
and the conversation was within God,
and the conversation was God.”
Erasmus saw the purpose of the Logos: God was coming to earth to start a dialogue.
Everything in the universe arose out of a dialogue. The dialogue started within God. The dialogue was God. God was the original dialogical Creator.
Everything that exists has come from the Father, Son and Holy Spirit having a dialogue among Themselves in the Godhead. “Then God said, Let there be. . .”
Nothing happens without dialogue.
If Jesus is the Word from the Father, the original Conversation Starter to manifest God, then Dialogue is the dwelling place of God.
Does God inhabit the dialogue of His people?
Is God perfectly at home in our dialogue with Him?
Does “abiding in Him” (John 15:5-7) mean dwelling with Him in dialogue? Is dialogue the place of rest?
Your greatest spiritual breakthrough will come in your deepest journey, a journey rooted in quiet, dialogical prayer with the Logos. Our lives do not change without dialogue.
Are you listening? Are you listening first, and talking second?
Our greatest growth is not in praying TO God, reading ABOUT God, listening to sermons by others. No, our greatest growth is in conversations WITH GOD.
I don’t change from what I hear. I don’t change from what I read. I change from what I CHOOSE to believe, and I am influenced to choose and change from dialogue.
I change the most when I meet the living Logos in dialogical, listening prayer.
Carter