Alone with God

This past Sunday at church, I threw out a challenge to our church. The challenge was to begin spending alone time with God each morning. I wonder if they have been doing this. I hope and pray that everyone has accepted the challenge and is being richly blessed by it.

In this past Sunday’s message we looked at a message titled, “In the Secret Place with Jesus”, and we discovered that Jesus spent an entire day pouring himself out by ministering to many people. Jesus taught for hours in the synagogue, fought against demons and won, healed Peter's mother-in-law of a fever, and spent the entire evening healing the sick, casting out demons, and ministering to the entire town (Mark 1:21-34).

I don't know about you, but that sounds like a very mentally and emotionally exhausting day! I know when I have extra busy days of ministry like that, when I wake up the next day I am completely drained, and the last thing I feel like doing is waking up extra early to spend time in prayer and in God's Word. And yet, what is the first thing the Bible says that Jesus did when He woke up the next morning? The first thing Jesus did when He awoke was He got alone with His Father in order to get spiritually recharged for the day ahead.

The Bible tells us, "Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed" (Mark 1:35).

When we follow the life of Jesus through the gospels we quickly come to understand that Jesus had the busiest schedule a person has ever had to manage. He was constantly teaching, healing, delivering, and ministering to people. And in this verse here, I believe we see a key principle found in the life of Jesus, and that principle is the importance of maintaining spiritual disciplines. Spiritual disciplines are those things we do on a daily basis that enables us to grow closer to God, and strengthen ourselves spiritually.

By Jesus rising up early in order to find a place where He could be alone with His Father, we see that He sets an important example for each one of us to follow in our lives as well. If Jesus was going to continue giving Himself out like He had done the day before (vv.21-34), He had to first be able to get fueled up each morning so that He would have something to give. This is a simple life-principle in all areas of life. You cannot give what you do not have. You cannot spend if you are completely spent.

Just as Jesus needed to be able to be alone with His Father in order to get spiritually refueled, so too, do each and every one of us need to take time each day to rise up early and spend time with God, before facing the world. 

LIFE APPLICATION:
So how do we do this?

Jesus tells us in Matthew 6:6, "But when you pray (He is assuming we will pray) go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is IN THE SECRET PLACE; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly."

Jesus tells us that as we pray in the secret place, or in other words spend alone time with God, He will openly reward us and bless us for it! What a great promise to hold onto and to inspire us to spend alone time with God!

PUTTING IT INTO PRACTICE:
How can we begin to follow in Jesus' footsteps each morning by spending alone time with God in order to refuel ourselves for the day? Below is just one example of how you can begin spending quality time with God each morning.

1. Wake up 30 minutes earlier if you have busy schedules:
There is no time limit. Martin Luther use to spend 4 hours every day in prayer because he said he was too busy not to. But any amount of time we spend with God, no matter how little or how long, is better than no time at all. Just as you normally wouldn't go a day without eating and drinking in order to refuel your physical body, neither should we ever go a single day without feeding our spiritual body. In fact, Jesus tells us we cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds forth from God's mouth (Matthew 4:4). Jesus is telling us that it is impossible to live a spiritually healthy life for God without getting spiritual nourishment each day from God’s Word.

2. Prayer List:
Create a prayer list that you can use each morning and pray over it

1. Praise God for how good He is (Hebrews 13:15)
2. Thank God for the many blessings in your life (family, friends, life, salvation, etc) (1 Thessalonians 5:18)
3. Confess your sins and ask for forgiveness (1 John 1:9)
4. Pray for your spouse and children (if you are married and have kids)
5. Pray for your work day or school day (not only for your performance but also for the people)
6. Pray for God to use you to be a blessing to others today.
7. Pray for God to speak to you when you read His word.
8. Pray for your church leaders (I really like this idea!)
9. Pray for those you know are sick or hurting
10. Maybe print out the prayer request list that The Church at Promenade mails out each week, and pray for the needs of our church family.

As you can see, just praying over these areas of life can quickly turn you into a powerful prayer warrior for God.

Another idea about this list. If that is too much to pray for in a single setting, consider breaking it up throughout the day.

Before getting into the ministry I use to work at the Phone Company. I would wake up in the morning and pray, read my bible, and journal what God said to me. Then I would also read more and pray more at lunch time, and then again at some point during the night. I never regretted a single moment of the quality time I dedicated to Jesus back then.

3. Read your Bible:

Read with a heart that says, "Speak to me God, and change me!" Maybe you could consider reading one chapter in the morning and one chapter at lunch time and one chapter at night. The Bible tells us the more we are in God's word the more we are going to experience life-transformation. Another tremendous blessing about being men and women of God's Word is that God will oftentimes use you to encourage other people throughout the day and week with what He encouraged you with from His word. (You can listen to this past Sunday's message "In the Secret Place with Jesus", and my example from Joshua 1 in how this works).

4. Journal:

Take a journal into your secret place with God, and write down whatever God reveals to you through prayer and through reading His Word. I used an example from Exodus 11:7 in this past Sunday's message at the end of the message of one of my journal entries this week. This could be helpful for you to see how easy it is to journal.

THE BENEFITS OF PRACTICING SPIRITUAL DISCIPLINES:

As you begin faithfully waking up each morning and committing the first part of your day to God, you will start to notice what a positive difference it makes in your day and life. 

This is why Jesus says when we "Seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, all shall be added" (Matthew 6:33). Not only will you feel spiritually refueled, but you will also notice that you will begin enjoying your time with God. In fact, you will begin longing for it and guarding it each day. Not only that but you will discover that God actually delights in spending time with you also, and that He also desires to speak to you in prayer and through His words.

Furthermore, you will also begin to notice that God will begin using you to encourage others with what He encourages you with in His word. And this is when you will begin to realize like never before that your faith is truly alive, and that the Living God is working in and through your life.

AN ALTERNATE ROUTE:

If spending 30 minutes with God each morning seems like too much to bite off at first, try 15 minutes. Spend 5 minutes in prayer, 5 minutes in the Word, and 5 minutes journaling what God revealed to you in His word (or what seemed to encourage you in His word).

I pray that you will begin taking steps of faith to develop your spiritual disciplines, by walking in Jesus' footsteps and spending time with Him each morning.

Jesus said, "Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and dine with him, and he with Me" (Revelation 3:20). 

Let today be the day you invite Jesus in, so that you can begin experiencing the life-transformation that He has planned for your life.


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