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“Instead of hiding from the world or being overwhelmed by the evil of it, we need to strengthen our spiritual cores and trust in the power of the spirit at work in us.”
~ Christine Caine
"in the future you will walk out in the fruit of your faithfulness" kim walker smith
finding your devo time hard, stuck in Leviticus?
KEEP GOING and KEEP COMING BEFORE GOD – keep being faithful and storing His Word in your spirit – because one day you’ll walk out in the fruit of your faithfulness…..
as we draw near to God, he draws near to us, this is his promise – James 4:8
sometimes we can feel our quiet times, our personal devotional time, that it doesn’t have any significance. we come and read the Word, we come and pray and worship and talk to God but sometimes it doesn’t feel like we’re connecting much. sometimes we really feel His presence and encounter Him and He speaks, but other times it can seem like He is silent and that we’re just reading and not being transformed spiritually.
We live by faith though, not feelings, not by sight.
each time we come and spend time with God matters, for us and to Him.
as we are faithful our relationship with Him grows.
one day we will walk and live out the fruit of our faithfulness. we will live in the fruit that comes from spending time in the Word, in spending time in prayer, in spending time in worship.
our quiet times are not waste times, they’re not dead space.
when He speaks something comes alive in us – His Words bring life to our spirit. They water our soul. They satisfy our heart. They bring strength and hope to our lives. They guide us and help us to navigate temptation and the war waging in our flesh.
God is speaking always in our quiet times, and in a way – its like our spirit IS receiving His word in even the “dull times” and the times when He seems quiet and there is no great revelation and no great power.
don’t give up.
don’t give up.
don’t give up.
the time you spend with God matters.
and it matters because HE loves to have that time with YOU.
you are His beloved child.
He delights in YOUR presence, as a Father delights in their child.
Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4:16
In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence. Ephesians 3:12
The Lord will guide you continually,
And satisfy your soul in drought,
And strengthen your bones;
You shall be like a watered garden,
And like a spring of water, whose waters do not fail. Isaiah 58:11
"And when you pray, do not be like the hypocrites, for they love to pray standing in the synagogues and on the street corners to be seen by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward in full. But when you pray, go into your room, close the door and pray to your Father, who is unseen. Then your Father, who sees what is done in secret, will reward you. And when you pray, do not keep on babbling like pagans, for they think they will be heard because of their many words. Do not be like them, for your Father knows what you need before you ask him. Matthew 6:5-8
Jesus did not say, “Dream about your Father who is in the secret place,” but He said, “. . . pray to your Father who is in the secret place. . . .” Prayer is an effort of the will. After we have entered our secret place and shut the door, the most difficult thing to do is to pray. We cannot seem to get our minds into good working order, and the first thing we have to fight is wandering thoughts. The great battle in private prayer is overcoming this problem of our idle and wandering thinking. We have to learn to discipline our minds and concentrate on willful, deliberate prayer.
We must have a specially selected place for prayer, but once we get there this plague of wandering thoughts begins, as we begin to think to ourselves, “This needs to be done, and I have to do that today.” Jesus says to “shut your door.” Having a secret stillness before God means deliberately shutting the door on our emotions and remembering Him. God is in secret, and He sees us from “the secret place”— He does not see us as other people do, or as we see ourselves. When we truly live in “the secret place,” it becomes impossible for us to doubt God. We become more sure of Him than of anyone or anything else. Enter into “the secret place,” and you will find that God was right in the middle of your everyday circumstances all the time. Get into the habit of dealing with God about everything. Unless you learn to open the door of your life completely and let God in from your first waking moment of each new day, you will be working on the wrong level throughout the day. But if you will swing the door of your life fully open and “pray to your Father who is in the secret place,” every public thing in your life will be marked with the lasting imprint of the presence of God. ~ Oswald Chambers
Your kingdom come, Your will be done, Matthew 6:10
But seek first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well. Matthew 6:33
how do we seek first the Kingdom of God? how do we see His Kingdom come, His will done?
how do we make this real in our lives?
how do we walk with God?
1/ practice the presence of God
2/ pursue His priorities
3/ pour out for His people
1. practice the presence of God
be God conscious, throughout the day turn your heart and mind towards God. think about Him as often as possible.
2. pursue His priorities
the interesting thing is that often His priorities are different to ours. eg we would choose bitterness and slander over His ways – forgiveness and love
the plans for our lives look like they bring life but they bring death, but the plans God has may look like death but bring life.
HIS ways, HIS will, not our ways and our will. if we want His Kingdom, we need to be prepared, and surrendered to do HIS will.
Matthew 6:33 But seek first HIS kingdom and HIS righteousness, and all these things will be given to you as well.
3. pour out for His people
we dont hide away to walk with God but we live our lives in our real world. we are called to be the light of the world, demonstrating the love and grace and reality of God as the light of a city on a hill can seen from afar.
how do you walk with God in the places you walk the most aka work, home, school???
Guts to live out your destiny
Highest priority and ultimate destiny
We all.must grasp this
Foundation for individual calling
Self awareness and priorities and how that affects our destiny
Not just now living
How we spend our time money resources etc
Make sure private life is bigger than public life
Character and consistency
24 hours in a day, one life to live, prioritizing time, choices,
Lots of things compete for time
Matt 22.27-28 love the lord your God with all
Luke 14.26 does not hate own family and life
And the things of this earth will grow strangely dim in the light of your glory and grace
Matt 7.21-23 not everyone, did lots of works but I never knew you
What does it mean to have a living relationship with jesus?
What does it look like to put jesus first in our life?
God is calling his people to intimacy
Friendship john 15.15
Father of lights dvd – ravi calls God daddy
How do we get to this place?
Intentional time with God
Looks different for everyone
Aware of His presence
You cant live sunday to sunday
Bride of christ – don’t marry a stranger
Don’t just know ABOUT him
Don’t chose other lovers
entertainment/sport/success/relationships/money etc
Even His work can be another lover
Set God as our highest priority and first love
It wont be about how successful you were but do you know him
Revelation of him not only as king but as groom
"in the future you will walk out in the fruit of your faithfulness" kim walker smith at Intimacy Worship Conference 2010
finding your devo time hard, stuck in leviticus?
KEEP GOING and KEEP COMING BEFORE GOD – keep being faithful and storing His Word in your spirit – because one day you’ll walk out in the fruit of your faithfulness…..
as we draw near to God, he draws near to us, this is his promise – James 4:8
sometimes we can feel our quiet times, our personal devotional time, that it doesn’t have any significance. we come and read the Word, we come and pray and worship and talk to God but sometimes it doesn’t feel like we’re connecting much. sometimes we really feel His presence and encounter Him and He speaks, but other times it can seem like He is silent and that we’re just reading and not being transformed spiritually.
We live by faith though, not feelings, not by sight.
each time we come and spend time with God matters, for us and to Him.
as we are faithful our relationship with Him grows.
one day we will walk and live out the fruit of our faithfulness. we will live in the fruit that comes from spending time in the Word, in spending time in prayer, in spending time in worship.
our quiet times are not waste times, they’re not dead space.
when He speaks something comes alive in us – His Words bring life to our spirit. They water our soul. They satisfy our heart. They bring strength and hope to our lives. They guide us and help us to navigate temptation and the war waging in our flesh.
God is speaking always in our quiet times, and in a way – its like our spirit IS receiving His word in even the “dull times” and the times when He seems quiet and there is no great revelation and no great power.
don’t give up.
don’t give up.
don’t give up.
the time you spend with God matters.
and it matters because HE loves to have that time with YOU.
you are His beloved child.
He delights in YOUR presence, as a Father delights in their child.
Let us then approach the throne of grace with confidence, so that we may receive mercy and find grace to help us in our time of need. Hebrews 4:16
In him and through faith in him we may approach God with freedom and confidence. Ephesians 3:12
why does having a “quiet time” seem so hard? have we forgotten the art of meeting with God and praying?
at housegroup the other night we talked about RELATING to God (continuing in our series RELATE – we’ve done relationships and difficult people as well) and one of our awesome chicks said something challenging – as christians “we underestimate the bible.” we know its God’s Word but we don’t treat it like that, we don’t follow its guidelines or invest time into reading it. we don’t value it because we underestimate it. what she then continued to say reinspired us all to reconstruct our times with God and to reprioritize reading our Bibles.
it reminded me of notes i had from a preach preach/teach our pastor did a while ago on Success In The Secret Place – How To Do Personal Devotions. here are a couple of keys that might help refresh this vital time we have – the opportunity to read God’s Words, His letter to us, His revelation of WHO He is and how He loves us…
first. get yourself a bible plan. like one year bible or something. YOUVERSION is amazing. you can get different plans and devotionals at the click of a button. find one that works for you and inspires you. now with your bible plan make sure it is one that you can “have off days” in – we all have days when we don’t get time or make time to read the bible because of life and things. so make sure it is one that the whole plan doesn’t collapse if you miss a day or a month or something. the one year bible plan is good because you just pick up on the date you are. eventually throughout your 80 year or so life you’ll get to read those other bits… don’t sweat it right now. it takes 21 days to make a habit – so begin and continue. once the habit is formed it will flow a bit more naturally. when we have a regular time reading our Bible we are creating opportunities for God to speak.
second: when you are reading the bible you are not reading to absorb and learn the whole thing. you are looking for THE ONE THING. the one thing is the thing that jumps out at you. it is the thing that God is ILLUMINATING to you. you might not think – oh that is just my mind i am just drawn to that – well that is fine, that is how the Holy Spirit speaks! that is good. God speaks through His Word. so when you are reading you are looking for the one thing. and that one thing is the thing to focus on, think about, meditate upon etc. write it down. record it. mull it over. write notes about it. listen for the life God breathes into it. listen to what God is saying.
“True greatness is not the act of one decision but is the result of the secert life of someone who has yielded their soul to the Almighty in the hidden years of obscurity only to find themselves as the main act on world stage of crisis ready to make history!” – Kris Vallotton (Bethel Church, Redding)
"in the future you will walk out in the fruit of your faithfulness" kim walker smith at Intimacy Worship Conference 2010
finding your devo time hard, stuck in leviticus?
KEEP GOING and KEEP COMING BEFORE GOD – keep being faithful and storing His Word in your spirit – because one day you’ll walk out in the fruit of your faithfulness…..
as we draw near to God, he draws near to us, this is his promise – James 4:8
sometimes we can feel our quiet times, our personal devotional time, that it doesn’t have any significance. we come and read the Word, we come and pray and worship and talk to God but sometimes it doesn’t feel like we’re connecting much. sometimes we really feel His presence and encounter Him and He speaks, but other times it can seem like He is silent and that we’re just reading and not being transformed spiritually.
We live by faith though, not feelings, not by sight.
each time we come and spend time with God matters, for us and to Him.
as we are faithful our relationship with Him grows.
one day we will walk and live out the fruit of our faithfulness. we will live in the fruit that comes from spending time in the Word, in spending time in prayer, in spending time in worship.
our quiet times are not waste times, they’re not dead space.
when He speaks something comes alive in us – His Words bring life to our spirit. They water our soul. They satisfy our heart. They bring strength and hope to our lives. They guide us and help us to navigate temptation and the war waging in our flesh.
God is speaking always in our quiet times, and in a way – its like our spirit IS receiving His word in even the “dull times” and the times when He seems quiet and there is no great revelation and no great power.
don’t give up.
don’t give up.
don’t give up.
the time you spend with God matters.
The Ishmaelites took Joseph to Egypt and sold him to Potiphar, the king’s official in charge of the palace guard. Genesis 39:1
of all the places joseph could have ended up – he ended up HERE – in a rich mans home, in an officals home, in a man of influences home. joseph could have been sold to anyone anywhere but God was even in this, directing his path and putting him in relationships with specific people, training him with specific skills.
who is in your life? who is your boss? who are your workmates?
who are the people around you?
what are they teaching you?
why has God placed you in their life and they in your life?
what is he teaching you through them?
how is he using them to transform and refine you?
life is not a series of accidents and coincidences – God is Lord of All and in control. in all things.
be thankful always that the Lord is caring for you!
Do not be anxious about anything, but in everything, by prayer and petition, with thanksgiving, present your requests to God. And the peace of God, which transcends all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus. Philippians 4:6-7
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