Quiet Devotion

"...rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place and there prayed."

(Mark 1:35)

We live in an age of religious activity in the church and yet the call for all of us as children of God is to "Come ye yourselves apart into a desert place...Be still and know that I am God." It is the empty heart devoid of an abiding sense of the all-present Jehovah which craves activity and fellowship like a drug. Still the loneliness that grips our souls can never be completely thwarted by our hectic pace and the myriads of people we surround ourselves with. Only a lasting encounter with God will fill our hearts with the sense that we are not alone. Our great King and Creator has designed us that way and nothing can replace our need for fellowship with Him.

 

Such truth is seen in those hungry souls that sought God above all else. They that understood this reality manifested the truth that in one sense all God-hungry souls walk alone in this world. It is in this solitary place that God does His greatest works. Here God walked with Enoch, here God met with Jacob, spoke with Moses, fellowshiped with the prophets and communed with Christ in prayer.

Tozer speaks of such a truth when he says that "There are some things that you and I will never learn when others are present. I believe in church and I love the fellowship of the assembly. There is much we can learn when we come together on Sundays and sit among the saints. But there are certain things that you and I will never learn in the presence of other people. Unquestionably, part of our failure today is religious activity that is not preceded by aloneness, by inactivity. I mean getting alone with God and waiting in silence and quietness until we are charged with God's Spirit. Then, when we act, our activity really amounts to something because we have been prepared by God for it.... "

While it is true that we are called into the fellowship of Gods true called out assembly, it is also equally true that even the fellowship of believers can never replace that solitary walk with the King of glory. Feverious activity that hides that still small voice and fellowship with others that crowds out our fellowship with God has led to a shallowness in our inner experience with God. This in turn has led to the shallowness in our corporate worship that in turn has led to the great weakening of our churches today.

We need to get back to the stillness of God and the contemplation that begats true fire. Only when we are filled to overflowing with that great glory that comes from those solitary times with God will we have anything worthwhile to bring to the fellowships that we are also called to by God.

The greatest need of the human soul is God Himself and only in that consistent quiet time spent alone with Him can a soul be washed with the sweet savor of His presence. It is this savor and this savor alone that will be of any use to those around us and will once again make our fellowships God-centered instead of man-centered.

To Make All Men See!

“And to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery…To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.”

(Ephesians 3:9-10)

The Church of Jesus Christ is the most important and most powerful institution in the world. In times past she has turned the course of hundreds of thousands if not millions of human hearts. Through prayer and suffering and savoring the glory of God evidenced in the lives of saints, the church has manifested the majesty and holiness and will of God to a world racked with the rebellion and dysfunction of sin.

In America past this manifestation of salt and light has been a spiritual preservative and moral compass even among those who have not bowed the knee to Jehovah. Governmental leaders were once raised in a culture that was saturated by a remnant that vividly displayed the truth of a holy God and His will for man through their daily living. Sadly this is not the case today and the church in America has become a mere shadow of the substance she was created to be.

Instead of being salt and light the church has become like those it was intended to reach and the culture that was once restrained by the manifestation of a God saturated church has been swallowed up in the pride of humanism and an unrelenting passion for sin. If indeed there is to be any hope for the millions in America who are plummeting off into hell there must first be a revival within the church in America. We who call ourselves by His name must examine ourselves and call upon God in humility and sincerity to rescue us from the clutches of this culture. Only then will we be able to get back to that pure reason for our existence...seeing and savoring and showing the glory of God to a lost and dark world.

Paul knew this call and lived his whole life under its weight. It drove his every decision, prayer, letter, fellowship and suffering. Paul's great passion was to make all men see what is the fellowship of the mystery…To the intent that now unto the principalities and powers in heavenly places might be known by the church the manifold wisdom of God.” (Ephesians 3:9-10). To know God and to make Him known was the great end for which Paul lived his life.

Most of us live our lives with far too little awareness of the stupendous realities around us. Most of us go through day after day and seldom feel the impact of the magnitude of what we are caught up in by belonging to Jesus Christ, the ruler of the universe. We no longer take enough time to meditate on how our jobs, our home life, our leisure, our church involvement, or our daily lives fit into the cosmic significance of the church. Consequently our lives often lack the flavor of eternity and the aroma of something ultimate.

Yet this is why we exist...why we, as children of the Most High King, draw breath every moment...to see (putting ourselves in the way of such spiritual sight and meditating on), savor (enjoying and being satisfied in above all things) and show (manifesting before the world with excitement and grace) the glory of God in all things.

In order to get back to this we must return to the simplicity which is in Christ. We must cast aside our favorite toys, pride and worldy pleasure for the all satisfying wonder and weight of the glory of God. It is time for the church in America to wake up from its long slumber and selfish pursuits to realize its call as a bond slave of Jesus Christ and to manifest Him before a world racked with sin and self.

Only then can we make known in sincerity and truth the mystery that God wrought in redemptive history. The mystery that by the spilt blood of Jesus Christ on the cross at Calvary a people was purchased who can know the glory of their Creator, the wonder of His will and the beauty of His manifest presence and power.

So why do we exist? To make all men see! To be a preservative, to restrain evil, to show the solution for the myriads of evils confronting the world...we exist to manifest and magnify God!

Compartmentalization and the Christian Home.

One man well said that “as the home goes, so goes the church.” The reality is seen all around us today. Our churches are filled with a myriad of dysfunctions that can be traced back to the failure of Christian homes to embrace the Biblical mandates of Christ centered, God glorifying leadership, love, simplicity and sacrifice.

Too often we have learned to comfortably compartmentalize our home life, church life and work life successfully while fooling no one but ourselves. During the week in our vocations, we find little difference in our attitudes and actions. At home we live for possessions, entertainment and the idol of retirement. Day after day we teach our children the values of an American culture that has drifted so far from its heritage as to be more recognizable with a hedonistic humanism then with a God centered Christianity. We see little family devotions,  little prayer and little sincere spiritual outreach.

Yet in Church we speak of salvation, sacrifice and service to a God we hardly know and love even less. We convince ourselves that we have pleased the God who created us because we have given Him a couple hours of quasi-attention in church attendance and ministry service. We convince ourselves we have done our part to raise our children spiritually because we have dropped them off at Sunday school or youth group. And so it goes week in and week out as we move from God-mode to home mode to work mode molding ourselves into the environmental requirements of the moment. 

For the truly saved this is a recipe for constant frustration. At the bottom of this compartmentalization there is a terrible lack that haunts us...an emptiness that can never be filled by doubling down on our vocational success, private possessions or ministry involvement. Make no mistake prayer was kicked out of our schools because it was no longer welcome in our homes. God was shunned in our society because He was shunned in our living rooms and bedrooms. Cold churches are the product of cold homes that produce leaders that know little of the God of whom they preach and teach.

Only a radical commitment to Christ which brings every sphere of our lives into a God centered, God manifesting act of worship will relieve our soul agony. Our homes must be dedicated to this principle of living out Christ in the way we communicate, make plans and use our time. Songs of God instead of the world should fill our hearts and homes. Devotions should replace our endless pursuit of mindless pleasure. Prayer should be as natural as eating our necessary food.

From these God saturated home will come God saturated husbands and wives and children that spread this passion to our churches and that influence our secular institutions.

If we are to see any revival poured out upon Gods people in America I am convinced we are going to have to first bring our homes back under the simply worshipful obedience of the Word of God in sincerity and truth.

Knowing the Unknowable.

 

”Canst thou by searching find out God?”

(Job 11:7) 

 

"Then shall we know, if we follow on to know the LORD: his going forth is prepared as the morning; and he shall come unto us as the rain, as the latter and former rain unto the earth"

(Hosea 6:3)

 

We live in a reality of dichotomies. Truths that beg us to recognize that God cannot be placed within a box or neatly packaged to serve our own selfish ends and prideful abilities. Ultimately God is and will always remain a mystery to us for we are the work of His hands and by the very nature of our created state we cannot fully grasp the majesty, magnitude and glory of God.

Richard Rolle (1290–1349) in his contemplation of the One true God wrote, ”Verily God is of infinite greatness, more than we can think; ... unknowable by created things; and can never be comprehended by us as He is in Himself. But even here and now, whenever the heart begins to burn with a desire for God, she is made able to receive the uncreated light and, inspired and fulfilled by the gifts of the Holy Ghost, she tastes the joys of heaven. She transcends all visible things and is raised to the sweetness of eternal life...."

God does indeed lay outside our ability to fully comprehend and yet the dichotomy remains that though we cannot know God fully we are commanded to try “Seek the Lord while He may be found, call upon Him while He is near” (Isaiah 55:6).

In fact this is the very reason we were created (Acts 17:26-28) …to seek and stretch and strain to peer into the unknown vastness which is God and try to comprehend the nature of who He is. God made man for this…to see and to savor His glory and so like the psalmist we (who are true children of God) long and pant after that which alone can satisfy the want of our souls…to know the unknowable and to live all life consumed by the fellowship of a burning heart.

 

 "O God, thou art my God; early will I seek thee: my soul thirsteth for thee, my flesh longeth for thee in a dry and thirsty land, where no water is. To see thy power and thy glory, so as I have seen thee in the sanctuary... My soul followeth hard after thee: thy right hand upholdeth me."

 (Psalm 63:1,2,8)

A Heart Ablaze with Gods Glory!

"The fire shall ever be burning upon the altar; it shall never go out."

(Leviticus 6:13)

In the Old Testament religious economy the priest was never to allow the fire on the altar to go out. It is a picture of that never ceasing worship which Jehovah requires of His people.

In the tabernacle and later in the temple, we find that the fire upon the altar was continuously to burn and its smoke rise as a sweet smelling savor in the nostrils of God. The priest had to attend the altar regularly or the fire would dim and eventually surrender to a cold ash that would give no light, no heat and cease its God pleasing smoke and savor of worship.

So it is with Gods people today. We are called to attend to the altar of our hearts continually and to never let the worship fire go out. Still most Christians today have grown content to surrender this passion for a lintany of lesser things (Luke 14:16-20) and so we find God people very cold despite the fact they they may be involved in a host of ministries both within and without the church.

The fuel so desperately needed today is that which comes from heart consumned with and constrained by a vision of God high and lifted up (Psalm 63:1-8). When we set our minds eye upon His supremacy, centrality and all sufficency and we linger in that glory we will begin to see the dross of other things melt away. As this coldness retreats will will find ourselves longing for even greater fire and greater love for Christ and before we know it we will enter that fellowship of a burning heart.

The key is time meditating on the wonder and the glory and the Person of God (Isaiah 26:9). We must give ourselves to it if we are to experience this fire burning intensly on the altars of our hearts. Give yourselves to that which you were called to and end your love affair with the world and soon you will feel deep within your soul that fire that brightens and burns for the glory of God.

"Did not our heart burn within us, while he talked with us by the way, and while he opened to us the scriptures."

(Luke 24:32)