Does God Listen To Our Inquiries?

I've heard many argue for and against whether God hears the prayers of sinners. I don't think the question can be answered with such a simple yes or no! The example of Cornelius (Acts 10) shows that God is aware of the prayers of those who are devout, yet lost. So to say that a sinner's prayer isn't acknowledged by God isn't really accurate. Yet, James 5:16 teaches that it is the prayer "of a righteous" person which accomplishes much. Today in my Bible reading I came across a verse that helps me understand more about this question:

Ezekiel 20:31 - For when ye offer your gifts, when ye make your sons to pass through the fire, ye pollute yourselves with all your idols, even unto this day: and shall I be enquired of by you, O house of Israel? As I live, saith the Lord God, I will not be enquired of by you.

Israel is rebuked by God in this passage for their idolatry and desire to be like all the nations around them (Ezek 20:32).  God's message to them is that while they live in such wickedness and rebellion against Him, how can they expect Him to consider their requests?  The same could be said of each of us at some point in our life.  Before yielding our life to God in baptism, we are His enemy (Rom 5:10).  Even after becoming a Christian, if we forsake Him, ignore the truth, and go back into sin (Heb 6:4-6) we have again become His enemy.  When we rebel against God, live as His enemy, and then ask Him to fulfill our desires.....what expectation can we really have that He will grant those requests?

So the Biblical answer, I believe, is, God is always aware of what people pray, but will only receive the inquiries of the righteous.  The passage in Ezekiel helps us to see God's perspective in this great question.

Daily Bible Reading Plans

There are so many different daily Bible reading plans!  I've tried several different ones in years past, but want to share my current reading plan.  I'm ashamed to say that I've started this one within the past couple weeks.  Mistake #1 was not reading consistently every day from God's word in the past year.  Mistake #2 would be waiting until January 1 to start!  For the rest of the year (at least) I intend to utilize M'Cheyne's plan.  M'Cheyne was a preacher for the church of Scottland in the 19th century.  He developed a 1 year daily Bible reading plan in which a person reads the New Testament and Psalms twice each in the year and the Old Testament once.  Additionally, each day a person reads 2 different passages from the Old Testament, 1 from the New Testament, and 1 from a Gospel or Psalm.  I like the variety of this plan as variety helps me keep reading when I get to some of the more difficult passages of the Bible.  One of the reasons I've picked this plan is also because of the many tools that are available to help me keep up with my reading.  Check these out:

• The M'Cheyne plan can be accessed through TouchBible's iPhone app by following this link from your phone. This makes it possible to read the daily reading from any translation you like (except the Cotton Patch Version).
• You can add the daily reading to your Google calendar, iPhone, or other iCal device/application by adding the following URL: http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/share/ical/one.year.tract.ics?start-time-utc=-0100&duration=30.  From Google Calendar at the bottom left under Other Calendars click "Add by URL" and paste this link in!  It's nice to have the calendar reminder everyday to read.
• You can add the daily reading in ESV translation to your Google Reader or other RSS Feed Reader by adding the following link: http://www.gnpcb.org/esv/share/rss2.0/one.year.tract/ as a feed.
• You can listen to the daily reading in ESV translation as a Podcast in iTunes.  Stacey and I have really liked this option, and usually let the iPhone read aloud as we read along with the text in front of us.  When traveling, this is a nice tool to have as we were able to listen to today's reading in the car through the AUX in as we drove along.  Add the RSS feed address into iTunes as a Podcast URL, OR search in iTunes for "ESV: One-Year Tract Bible."  Once you've downloaded one 'episode' you will have the option from within iTunes on your iPhone to "Get more episodes" and download another day's reading.

 There are a lot of other good daily Bible reading plans, of course!  This one works for me, and I really like these tools, but of course most of them are from the ESV website and therefore only available in the English Standard translation.  I find this to be a combination of a quality reading plan with a quality translation!  I'm interested in knowing about Bible reading tools others know of too, so if you have some to share, post some comments.

Photo credit: Photo taken and allowed for use by Jim Larranaga

Introduction

Why "Monthly" musing? Monthly suggests that my posts will come once a month. I had a friend in college, I won't call him by name, who once told me that he didn't want people to have too high of expectations of him. He said that if people have low expectations of you, it is easy to exceed those expectations and to surprise people. If they have high expectations, on the other hand, you work extremely hard just to meet their expectations. Along that thought, if I call my blog daily drivelings (another idea I had) I would be expected to find something to drivel on about each day, or else be short on what I had claimed I would post. With monthly musings, I only have to come up with something to post about each month.

On the other hand, I expect most of my posts to be closer to driveling then musing. A driveling can refer to spittle coming out of the mouth, ie. a dog's drool. Thus, when applied to discussion, it implies the conversation is pretty worthless. A musing, on the other hand, is something of meditation. So, while I have set the bar low as far as amount, perhaps I have set the bar much to high on the quality of content! I would have named the blog monthly drivelings, but that just doesn't roll of the tongue well!

What I really hope this blog will contain is several posts a month, and perhaps 1 of them will be considered by you as a musing, while others may just be plain drivel. I intend to be posting reflections upon and happenings in life, but also reflections upon God's word. I look forward to your comments (re-musings), or to you reading without comment if that is your wish, as this blog is more for myself than anyone else!