Clear Your Head!

Today's passage talked about the Pharisees' interactions with Jesus. We see the ways that the Pharisees show their hardened hearts when Jesus is "invited" to someone's house not for a pleasant time but rather to be questioned and put into a difficult situation. The fact that the Pharisees invited him over just for this purpose alone shows the preconceived notions they held of him, like the QT book says.

What kind of preconceived notions do I hold of Jesus? Of non-believers? Those are some questions at the end of today's QT that I want to focus on. I think a lot of times, because I see Jesus doing such awesome things in other people's lives, I assume that if He's going to work in my life, He'll do it in pretty much the same way. So I when I seek Him out (which isn't often these days..) I expect to receive things other people have received, or to feel Jesus the ways others do. I focus on what I expect to experience and what I want to experience and forget to let the Holy Spirit lead and do some holy magic in my life. In a way, I try to dictate how I want God to work in me.. and that's really not how it works. When I do that, I miss the ways He really is working because my attention is elsewhere. 

What about non-believers? I don't have as easy a time answering this question.  I've actually had a lot of interaction with non-believers recently, and it's just been awesome the way God is answering my prayers as well as answering things I hadn't even thought of praying for. Many times I assume that just because they don't believe, they're all cynical, and this makes me hesitant at approaching them to talk about faith and God. This isn't true of many non-believers, as I've been learning lately. I think my heart for non-believers is growing very quickly. I honestly never thought that would happen, but I'm so glad it has.