Over the next few weeks I will be sharing with you some material that I have used in the past to teach from on “A Meaningful Quiet Time.” This information will appear in this blog each Monday and it will appear one point each week. You can print it ( I think, I’ll have to ask Eddie about that) and study it or you can email me or see me at church and I will give you a copy of it. I am in hopes that this will strengthen your daily walk with the Lord.
Pastor Steve
A Meaningful Quiet Time.
The Quiet Time is simply a daily time of personal fellowship with God through the Word and prayer. It is a time that we deliberately set aside in which to meet with Him. Its objective is that we might grow in our personal relationship and walk with Him. So that we might know Him better, love Him more deeply, and to become more like Him.
Why Should We Have A Quiet Time?
The Bible gives us 3 major reasons why.
I. We Need Fellowship With God
As Christians and rightly related to the eternal God of heaven and earth, we must have regular fellowship with Him.
Why is it so important?
- We were created to have fellowship with God.
We were created in His image. We are also the only beings in creation that have the capacity to have fellowship with the Creator. God made us to have fellowship and Adam had it until the fall. (Gen 2&3)
- Jesus died so that fellowship could be restored for us.
When Adam sinned his fellowship with God was broken. All of us sinners who have followed Adam cannot naturally have fellowship with a pure and holy God. But God considered that relationship so important that He sent His Son to die for our sins that we might have the privilege of a personal relationship with Him. God has called us Christians to have fellowship with Him.
1 Cor 1:9 God is faithful, by whom you were called into the fellowship of His Son, Jesus Christ our Lord.
1 John 1:3-4 that which we have seen and heard we declare to you, that you also may have fellowship with us; and truly our fellowship is with the Father and with His Son Jesus Christ. 4 And these things we write to you that your joy may be full.
- A regular quiet time during Jesus’ ministry was a source of His strength.
Personal fellowship with the Father in Heaven was the top priority for Jesus.
Mark 1:35 Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed to a solitary place; and there He prayed.
Luke 5:16 So He Himself often withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.
Luke 22:39-44 Coming out, He went to the Mount of Olives, as He was accustomed, and His disciples also followed Him. 40 When He came to the place, He said to them, “Pray that you may not enter into temptation.” 41 And He was withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw, and He knelt down and prayed, 42 saying, “Father, if it is Your will, take this cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” 43 Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven, strengthening Him. 44 And being in agony, He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.
He was never to busy for it; in fact when His ministry was the busiest it was then that He made certain to keep in fellowship with the Father.
John 5:30 I can of Myself do nothing. As I hear, I judge; and My judgment is righteous, because I do not seek My own will but the will of the Father who sent Me.
If Jesus needed this time, how much more do we need it.
- Every great man or woman of God throughout history has spent much time alone with God.
Anyone who has ever been used mightily by the Lord was a man or a woman of both the Word and prayer. A daily quiet time was one thing they all had in common. The common denominator between Moses, David, Daniel, Paul, Charles Calvin, John Wesley, Charles Finney, D L Moody, Charles Spurgeon and Billy Graham and all the other great saints of history is that they all had a daily quiet time. Their writings speak of it and their ministries testify of it.
Someone said, “If you want to find out what a man is really like, find out what he is like when he is alone with God.”
Martin Luther (Father of Reformation) said, “I have so much to do today that I must spend at least three hours in prayer.”
If you are to busy for a quiet time you are to busy.
- We cannot be healthy growing Christians without daily fellowship with the Lord.
Quiet time is not just a gentle suggestion;
It is a vital necessity for the Child of God.
It is absolutely essential for the further growth and maturity for the Christian.
Have you gone without food for a day? If you kept that up day after day soon you would be weak and sickly. The same is true in our spiritual lives. Most Christians get by on one meal a week. Some on one meal a month or two.
Job considered the Word more important than daily food.
Job 23:12 I have not departed from the commandment of His lips; have treasured the words of His mouth More than my necessary food.
Jesus quoted from Deut. 8:3 when He said that man needs to live by every word coming from God.
Deut 8:3 So He humbled you, allowed you to hunger, and fed you with manna which you did not know nor did your fathers know, that He might make you know that man shall not live by bread alone; but man lives by every word that proceeds from the mouth of the LORD.
Matt 4:4 But He answered and said, “It is written, ‘Man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God.'”
Peter called the Word “pure milk.”
1 Peter 2:2 as newborn babes, desire the pure milk of the word, that you may grow thereby,
The writer of Hebrews (5:12-14) calls it “Solid Food.”
Heb 5:12-14 For though by this time you ought to be teachers, you need someone to teach you again the first principles of the oracles of God; and you have come to need milk and not solid food. 13 For everyone who partakes only of milk is unskilled in the word of righteousness, for he is a babe. 14 But solid food belongs to those who are of full age, that is, those who by reason of use have their senses exercised to discern both good and evil.
Have you ever gone a few days without a bath? If so then you know how sticky and grimy you feel after a little while. The Bible says that when we read the Word of God that we are cleansed. A daily quiet time is a spiritual bath.
From the observations above we can conclude that if we are not having a regular quiet time ….
- You are missing out on the privilege for which you were created.
- You are rejecting that which Jesus died to make possible.
- You will never experience the power and refreshment that Jesus did.
- You will never be used to your greatest potential by the Lord.
- You will remain a weak sickly Christian all of your life.I know that you are like me and it seems that we just don’t have time. We always make time for the things that are important to us and the things that really count. It is not a matter of time but of priorities. The key to making time for a quiet time is our commitment to Christ and the Kingdom of God.
Matt 6:33 But seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness, and all these things shall be added to you. 34 Therefore do not worry about tomorrow, for tomorrow will worry about its own things. Sufficient for the day is its own trouble.
Put God first and you will have more time for Him. Don’t let anything rob you of this time. Preserve it at all costs.