In the beginning of our walk with the Lord as new converts, when we pray, we got most of our prayers answered and very quickly at that. When we all came to Jesus initially, we had a lot of surface needs, needing to be answered. This allowed for the quick turn around on our prayers being answered so quickly. You know how it is when you meet someone for the first time, say a new neighbor type or new co-worker type; and you really don’t know each other well yet, but you’re starting a friendship or something of the type? You both offer each other courtesies, and begin to walk and talk a little, and then a little more as you begin to build a little something. This new start to this new relationship will initially have its foundation start out on surface things. The new neighbor to the neighborhood, the new co-worker at the job, the new relative to the family reunion, and yes, even becoming the new member to the Body of Christ, and many other new initial meetings to the new start: they all have the one thing in common, you don’t know “how do you trust your new friendship to be?” It is more than probable that the first few interactions will be surface things: my first few asks of you, and your first few asks of me, will be things that we can easily see ourselves answering, or doing on the spot. I am not going to ask a new to me you for anything deep since I don’t know you yet to go deep; and you are not going to ask a new to you me for anything deep since you don’t know me yet to go deep. No, everything will remain above the surface for now until we know, ” how do we trust our new friendship to be. These new beginnings seem to just start out so well at first, but here’s the thing; no one really asked of the other for anything that they couldn’t see themselves doing the same thing back: we both done what we both could see doing with no problem; and therefore, we all thought we had just hit the nail on the head until someone test the water below the surface into the deep. When I meet a relationship type for the first time, I may ask you for a ride home in our early beginnings, but I best not go deep yet and ask if I can borrow your car for the weekend. Now that prayer to borrow your car for the weekend may not get answered so quickly because you still may not know yet ” how do you trust your new friendship to be. Until we both come to grips with the same answer, we need to keep our request while still in the beginning stage, to surface things.

And this is how we act with Jesus when we first meet him because we don’t yet really know him. When we become new converts, and members of the Body of Christ, we are not coming to the table with all of our deep stuff up front to a stranger in which we just met by faith. No, you and the stranger who just saved your soul, you two must now spend sometime together in order for the two of you to know the answer to the question: How Do You Trust Your New Friendship To Be? One reason why so many of our prayers in our early new convert life are answered is because they are surfaced prayers in which we expect then to be answered. The things we ask for are not so deep to our new friend to where we have doubt and disbelief. In our beginning stages of receiving life from Jesus, we are not coming to him with the deep things that bring doubt and disbelief. We come to him in a happy state as we would a new neighbor, a new co-worker with request that we both can see doing for one another with no problem. We have had no time to begin the process of renewing our minds yet, so we by habit will be timid and cautious with what we bring to the table of the new stranger. And when we first come to Jesus, we didn’t even have a relationship with him yet, let alone have a friendship relationship like we have developed over the years. Yeah, I will now go to Jesus with anything and everything I have from my deep to my deepest of concerns for answers, but I wouldn’t have even known how to do that with him at first. So when we came at him in the beginning, it was with the surface stuff, for we knew not the answer to the question, How Do You Trust Your New Friendship To Be? Now after the beginning, as we continued in our walk with God, it seemed as if very few of our prayers were answered. This is all part of growing into the fulness of God process: once we begin to have a relationship with Jesus in which we now trust in him, then the process will send us toward the next relationship in the Godhead. The relationship with Jesus through the Word, will require that we bring the Word to full faith, or that we get all from the Word in which it has to give. And once we get all that the Word has to give us, we will not have our prayer answered at this point because the intent of the Godhead is to send us into more of the fulness of God. We will not be able to get the prayers answered as quickly as we did in the beginning, because the intent by the Godhead is for us to know more than just the power of the Word, but to know the power of the Holy Ghost. The kind of faith that we have in the beginning is enough to bring to pass the surface stuff, but once we go into the deep, we will need to develop a whole new relationship with the Holy Ghost. He will be needed in order to bring more of the fulness of God to us for us to bring more of our deeper stuff to pass. The same thing will happen with this new friend at the beginning of the relationship between us. We will be able to bring more of our deeper prayers or things hoped for to pass with the Holy Ghost, but not everything we hoped for. The process to the fulness of the Godhead is going to require that we build that last relationship with the Father in order to complete the fulness of the Godhead. And remember the one thing that we look to know as we build each relationship along the way to fulness: How Do You Trust Your New Friendship To Be?

The Father Still Does Love To Do The Body Good.

Adopted son,