In my quiet time today, God revealed something MAJOR to me and it is found in this piece of scripture. I will try and break it down for you guys to understand, but you may not -- it took me a long time to really piece this together, but if you compare it to other scriptute, it's right on the money.
If you read Ecclesiastes 5:1-7, it says:
Now, in the first verse it says, "Walk prudently when you go to the house of God; and draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they do evil. Now the word 'prudently' means in the greek "to walk cautiously" -- when we pray to God, we walk into the prescence of God, into the very throne room. When we pray, we need to approach God very cautiously and I will tell you why.
Verse 2 says, "draw near to hear rather than to give the sacrifice of fools" When we pray we should never start off with our demands and things that we want, we should quiet our soul and listen for God to reveal to us the things he wants us to know. In (Mat 6:5,7) Jesus is talking about prayer and how to not do it. In there He says, "And when thou prayest, thou shalt not be as the hypocrites are: for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and in the corners of the streets, that they may be seen of men. Verily I say unto you, They have their reward; But when ye pray, use not vain repetitions, as the heathen do: for they think that they shall be heard for their much speaking" The sacrifice of fools, is the meaningless repitition of their mouths, you see, they prayed with intellect, not with the heart. If you talk alot during prayer time with God, you may, in your haste, say the wrong thing and end up sinning (Eccl 5:6)
Another passage in verse 2 is "let not your heart utter anything hastily before God" The Greek word for heart is "inner person that thinks & feels" basically your EMOTIONS. Do not let your emotions affect your prayer lives, do not let your emotion be quick to assume "for God is in Heaven and you are on earth" Isaiah 55:8 says Gods ways are not ours, and His thoughts are not ours, they are higher, therefore don't let your emotions make your decisions in prayer.
Verse 3 says, "For a dream comes through much activity, and a fool's voice is known by his many words" The word activity in the Hebrew means 'working', when we pray and have faith that God is going to answer our prayer, we have to back up what we hope with actions. The Bible says, 'Faith without works; is dead' but the fool in this verse, prays for alot of things, but never acts on them. We must act on what we believe. We do everything that is possible, and leave God to do the impossible. Like Noah, God told him to build and ark, that God would flood the world. Did Noah see any sign of rain until the ark was finished? NO! but his faith led him to act on it!
Verse 4-5 says, "When you make a vow to God, do not delay to pay it; For He has no pleasure in fools. Pay what you have vowed -- Better not to vow than to vow and not pay" this is the passage that really drives it all home. Our emotions sometimes led us to make vows to God that we couldn't possibly keep. We are hasty to prove to God that we love Him so much, that we make a vow that we end up breaking. Verse 5 makes it very clear "better not to make a promise, than to make a promise and not keep it (paraphrased)"
Verse 6 says, "Do not let your mouth cause your flesh to sin, nor say before the messenger of God that it was an error. Why should God be angry at your excuse[1] and destroy the work of your hands?"
And finally, verse 7 says, "For in the multitude of dreams and many words there is also vanity. But fear God" Webster defines the word "vanity" as: something that is vain, futile, or worthless. Our many words are worthless! it's our actions that show God who we really are. Jesus said "If you love me, obey me".
God bless,
Matt
