Following Jesus in spending time with the Father

“I saw more clearly than ever, that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was, to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not, how much I might serve the Lord, how I might glorify the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might be nourished.”– George Müller

Thinking about the life of Jesus, you'll see that He spent time with Father:
1. Before times of blessings.
2. After times of blessings.
3. During trouble.
4. Before, during, and after temptation.
5. Before making decisions:
"One day soon afterward Jesus went to a mountain to pray, and he prayed to God all night. At daybreak he called together all of his disciples and chose twelve of them to be apostles." Luke 6:12-13a
6. For power:
"But Jesus often withdrew to the wilderness for prayer. One day while Jesus was teaching. . . . the Lord's healing power was strongly with Jesus." Luke 5:16-17
Think about when you consult with Father in heaven. He wants to help you through.
May you sense the strong grace of Jesus throughout this day!

To be without a sense of need in our Christian life is a sure sign of spiritual decay. The Lord’s diagnosis of the church in Laodicea in Revelation 3:14-20 reveals that lukewarmness, pride, and self-sufficiency are all
directly related to a lack of spending time with the Lord.
The very nature of the Christian life requires that we spend time with the Lord, because the Christian life is a supplied life. It is a life that is supplied to us. It has nothing to do with our own resources or potential in
ourselves. It has everything to do with our opening up to The Need to Spend Time with the Lord another life and being supplied by that life from beginning to end. The Christian life is a life that has been prepared for us and then is furnished to us by God. He intends to continually supply Himself to us. It is for this reason that we need to spend time with the Lord—to receive the supply.

Every word that God has spoken in the Bible, whatever it is, whatever apparent demand it brings, God wants to supply that very thing into our being. It's not that we are expected to measure up, or come up with the ability to perform in ourselves. No, God intends to continually supply Himself to us. We must understand the Christian life in this way—it is a supplied life. From beginning to end, it is supplied to us. And this supply comes to us and is dispensed into us in a very special and enjoyable way—spending time with the Lord.

Spending time with the Lord not only supplies us to live our daily Christian life, but it is also the means for us to experience transformation. From the moment we receive Christ and are regenerated, we are ushered into
a life-long process of transformation. Second Corinthians 3:18, describing this process, shows that we are being transformed into the image of Christ Himself: “And we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.” By this process of transformation, our natural being undergoes a kind of metabolic change. This means that a new element is replacing the old. And just as our eating and drinking cause our physical body to undergo a process of metabolism in which new elements enter our body and replace the old, so also our beholding the Lord causes our natural being to undergo a process of spiritual metabolism. This means the faculties of our mind, emotion, and will receive the new element of Christ Himself and are
thereby transformed into His image. According to 2 Corinthians 3:18 this process takes place while we spend time beholding the glory of the Lord. By daily spending time with the Lord, we are putting ourselves in a position for transformation to take place. In eternity past, according to Romans 8:29, God’s purpose over our being was that we be “predestinated to be conformed to the image of His Son.” In creation, according to Genesis 1:26-27, God made man “in His own image.” In redemption, according to Colossians 1:13-15, we have been transferred into the kingdom in which Christ “is the image of the invisible God, Firstborn of all creation.” In our daily life, according to 2 Corinthians 3:18, we are existing to be transformed into the image of our glorified Lord. In resurrection, according to 1 Corinthians 15:49, we shall all one day “bear the image of the heavenly.” In eternity future, according to Revelation 22:4, we will be those who see His face and bear His image, even as it says, “His name shall be on their forehead.”  In light of God’s revealed purpose in eternity past, in creation, in redemption, in daily life, in resurrection, and in eternity future, should we not spend time with Him for the fulfillment of this all-encompassing purpose? If we truly see that we are presently under the process of God’s eternal purpose of transformation, we will be strongly motivated to spend time with the Lord for this to take place. We are transformed into His image not by selfeffort or by imitation, but by spending time genuinely beholding Him. This kind of beholding requires that we set aside specific blocks of time regularly in which we, like Mary (Luke 10:38-42), cease from all other activities and preoccupations to give our undivided attention to behold Him.

Without spending time with the Lord, there is no possibility for us to experience a solid transformation. And this time must be a private time with the Lord. The Lord makes this clear in Matthew 6. Beginning in verse
5 He says, “And when you pray, you shall not be as the hypocrites; for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners that they may appear to men.” The Lord points out here that the Pharisees were hypocrites because the motivation behind their kind of praying was to be seen of men. Then in verse 6 He says, “But you, when you pray, enter into your private room.” The Greek word for private room can also be translated “inner chamber.” The King James Version renders it “closet.” All these translations—the private room, the inner chamber, and the closet—signify a personal, private time in a private place. In verse 6 the Lord gives still further detailed instruction. After you enter your private room, “shut your door.” Shutting our door is a reinforcement of privacy, of aloneness with the Lord. And then He says, “pray to your Father who is in secret.”

“I never have seen a man or woman who spent fifteen or twenty minutes alone with God every day that didn’t have the dew all the while. I have never known one to backslide, either. You never get more than one day’s journey from Christ if you come to Him every morning. Shut the world out. Get closeted with God and you will learn His secrets. I like to get up at five o’clock in the morning and turn the key and be alone, and let God talk with me. – D.L. Moody

The secret of spending time with the Lord is to learn how to behold the glory of the Lord. The Apostle Paul
says in 2 Corinthians 3:18, “And we all with unveiled face, beholding and reflecting as a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image from glory to glory, even as from the Lord Spirit.” Our
greatest need is this—to spend time with the Lord beholding His glory. God’s purpose of reproducing the
very image of Christ in us is fulfilled by beholding the Lord. Our being transformed and changed from within
is realized by beholding the Lord. Everything we need will be supplied to us from the Lord Spirit by beholding Him.

How to Behold the Lord
If as a believer you are discouraged with yourself and frustrated in going on with the Lord, let me encourage
you to lay aside everything and simply open to the Lord and say, “Lord, open my eyes and show me how to
behold You. This is my greatest need.” Indeed, the God ordained way to proceed in the Christian life is to be a person restricted and reduced to beholding the glory of the Lord. Therefore, we need to consider some practical points on how to behold the glory of the Lord. These points are like handles to take hold of in order to experientially behold Him. If we take hold of these handles it can spiritually revolutionize our entire being. 1) Take the initiative to spend time with the Lord, 2) Make and take time to be in His presence, 3) Position your heart. Let your heart be on things above, rather than things below. There are always ballgames, there is always dinners, there is always the stuff that goes on around us that we enjoy. You will never be in His presence positioned to receive if you don't do something about it.

“Receiving Christ and through Him united to God, there comes to us the stupendous blessing expressed in these words ‘that the love wherewith Thou hast loved Him may be in them.’ We become the objects of the very same love which the Father has for His Son. We are recognized as part of Him even as the bride is taken into her husband's family and loved even as her husband. This is, indeed, the mystery of mysteries: that we are permitted to share the intimate and exclusive affection of the eternal Father toward His only begotten Son. He loves us now, not for ourselves, nor in proportion to our personal claims upon His affection, but precisely as He loves Jesus Christ, with infinite complacency and unlimited measure.” – A. B. Simpson

Warning! The flood is coming!

“Water, water, every where,: And all the boards did shrink; Water, water, every where, Nor any drop to drink,” yes I still remember at least one line of poetry from high school. "Water, water everywhere" is the reality for lots of folks, they are along the Mississippi River and it is not poetry but reality right now. It's their town...their neighborhood...their house, their businesses and livelihood. The rivers are overflowing and backing up into every creek and stream they're connected to. It's a mess.

When my wife hears the word "flood," she feels something inside. Because the defining events for our house we rented while in missions in India. We were getting ready to go to our flight back to India but stopped to say hello to the renters of our home. The basement had two inches of water when we arrived. They didn’t know what to do. The hot water heater had gone out and the water was everywhere and in everything. It effects baseboards, carpets, pad, wallboard, studs and everything.

The saddest part of the story of these floods is the people who died. Because they didn't and don’t have to die. As the flood has been coming toward their towns, knowledge of the flood with warnings and orders of evacuation have been given, and rescuers came by in a boat to warn them and take them to safety. But they chose to ignore the warning. "We've been OK here for years. We're not leaving now." Their bodies may be found days later, miles away.

God grieves over people like that. Actually, I do, too, People who've been warned that there's danger - even death - coming. People who have a rescuer at their door and who think they can make it on their own. And they die. When they could have lived. Forever.

God pleads with us - "I have set before you life and death...choose life" (Deuteronomy 30:19 ). That "life" is a Person. His Son. "God has given us eternal life, and this life is in His Son" (1 John 5:11 ). The judgment of God for us hijacking our life from Him is racing our way - "God will bring every deed into judgment, including every hidden thing" (Ecclesiastes 12:14 ). But there's a rescuer at the door. Jesus.

He says, "I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in" (Revelation 3:20 ). He can take us to safety because He did all the dying for all of our sinning when He hung on that cross.

Maybe you've never realized that what Jesus did was for you. Or maybe you've heard His knocking more times than you can count. Either way, it's important - like eternally important - that you answer the door. And let Him save you. The Bible cries out, "Today, if your hear His voice, do not harden your heart" (Hebrews 4:7 ). The more times you've heard His voice - and done nothing - the harder your heart becomes. And that's the edge of an abyss no one should risk.

If you've never gotten into the boat with Jesus, I beg you to do that today. The flood is coming. You won't make it without Him.

Living as if it Were Your Last Day

My friend Ron McGatlin challenged me with this thought that can be asked about any situation that tragedy strikes. "What were the thousands of Japanese people who perished in the recent tsunami doing and thinking the day before the ocean rose up and carried them away?" So we could ask, I wonder what Osama bin Laden was thinking about the day before a bullet found its target ending his life? And what was going on in the lives of the hundreds of people in southern USA the day before a rash of tornadoes took them away? I wonder how different the day might have been for all these and many others if they had known that tomorrow would be the last day of their lives. You do not know what will happen tomorrow. For what is your life? It is even a vapor that appears for a little time and then vanishes away. ~ James

It’s almost a certainty that there will be a last day and a day before it for every one of us, including those we love the most. Life and relationships with others are very precious gifts. If we knew that today was our last day or the last day for someone we love, we would probably count every moment as very precious. We would seek to make every minute count to the fullest in loving one another. It would seem so terribly wasteful to use even one minute in worry, strife, or anger.

A day without love is a wasted day. A day without expressing love through praise to God and to the ones next to us is a wasted day. I have the most beautiful and wonderful wife in the world. I need to express that to her, to my wonderful children. A lifetime of days spent without expressing real love and sincere praise to God and then to those around us is a wasted life.

Kingdom of God living is experienced and fulfilled in the expression of real love through our actions that praise God and those around us. This is the most fundamental principle of the kingdom of God on earth. All order of kingdom life is rooted in this principle. Every aspect of life on earth is to be ordered (ruled) by the foundational principle of expressed love. God is love. The expression of God’s love from heaven is released into the earth realm through Christ in His people by the Holy Spirit.

All life in the kingdom emanates from love. All governance of life in the kingdom emanates from love. Love is from God. It is not possible to separate God from love. Without God there is no love, and without love there would be no manifestation of God on earth. God is love. Without real love there is no kingdom of God on earth, and without the Holy Spirit there is no real love on earth. 

• Love produces righteousness.
• Righteousness leads to peace.
• Peace brings joy.

The kingdom of God on earth is righteousness, peace, and joy, in the Holy Spirit. God in the Holy Spirit now abides in His humble people.  Thus, the full potential of the kingdom of God to transform the world into God’s heavenly order rests solidly and firmly within the people of God now on earth.

 All of the saints of God that have gone before have faithfully done their part and brought us to this time. However, they no longer have the potential to bring forth the kingdom on earth. Their time for that has passed. I cannot change the past in any way. I cannot reach the lost of past generations. I cannot think of the missionary need of that age. I only have potential of reaching, changing, winning, and loving today's generation that can change the future. But I cannot effect the future without participation today, right now.

 After our last day on earth, none of us will have the potential to bring forth the kingdom of heaven on earth. Only in the days in which we are alive and in this world do we have the potential to bring forth the kingdom of God on earth. Our time is now. Is there anything of greater importance and significance than fully doing our part to bring forth the kingdom of God in this world?

Our part is to be fully available for God to work in and through us to bring forth His love ruling His kingdom on earth. Two major things involved in our being available are that we are WILLING and that we BELIEVE. It is God by His Holy Spirit who is forming the Spirit of Christ in us to do the supernatural works of love, wisdom, and power to transform the world into the kingdom of God on earth as it is in heaven.

A fresh outpouring of life is needed, a fresh surge of life is being poured out in the Spirit – exciting, powerful, and loving kingdom life rushing as a wind from heaven into the hearts and lives of His people.

We do not know how many days or years we have left to bring forth the exciting life of the kingdom of God on earth. Personally, I do not want to waste another one of them. My heart’s desire and passion is to be used of Him every day, including that last one whenever it comes, being fully alive in Him and with all that is within me imparting His love and His kingdom as much as possible to as many as possible.