MAKE TIME FOR THE LORD
SCRIPTURE READING:
Genesis 19:27-28 ‘Abraham got up early that morning and hurried out to the place where he had stood in the LORD’s presence. He looked…’
1. MAKE A QUALITY DECISION TO PURSUE GOD.
– Genesis 19:27 ‘Abraham got up…’
– Making a quality decision and acting on it, is the first step in the process of change in our lives.
– I once heard the following quote: ‘The definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results.’
– If we want an ongoing, personal relationship with the Lord, it calls for decisive action on our part.
– If we think that we can continue doing life as we have always done life and yet hope that something wonderful will just spontaneously develop in our relationship with the Lord, we may well discover that it does not happen.
– But if we will step out and make the change and pursue God as if our lives depended on it, I believe that things will change and we will see the wonder of our connection with God growing and becoming more and more of a daily living reality.
– Abraham didn’t just sit back and wait for heaven to come down, He GOT UP, and he made time for the Lord and He pursued his relationship with God.
– The challenge for each one of us is to GET UP and GO FOR IT!
2. MAKE A TIME TO CONNECT WITH THE LORD.
– Genesis 19:27 ‘Abraham got up early that morning…’
– I have always found that the early mornings are times when I can spend a few moments with the Lord. For me, the nighttime is not my best time and I’m prone to falling asleep. I naturally wake up early, so getting up and focusing on God comes naturally to me at that time. It starts as I wake up and thoughts and cares begin to fill my mind. Right there, I begin to focus on the Lord. I will start by saying Good Morning my Heavenly Father, Good Morning to my wonderful Saviour, the Lord, Jesus Christ and Good Morning to the precious Holy Spirit, my Comforter and the One Who walks with me. I thank the Lord for His faithfulness and His mercies that are new every morning. I declare my trust and dependency on God, and I ask for His protection and provision for the day that lies ahead of me and my family.
– Here is a beautiful prayer that you could pray as you start your time with the Lord:
– I take God the Father to be my God;
I take God the Son to be my Saviour;
I take God the Holy Ghost to be my Sanctifier;
I take the Word of God to be my rule;
I take the people of God to be my people;
And I do hereby dedicate and yield my whole self to the Lord:
And I do this deliberately, freely, and forever. Amen.
– Make time to connect with the Lord – Abraham got up early, He will meet you there.
3. FIND A PLACE WHERE YOU CAN SPEND TIME WITH GOD.
– Genesis 19:27 ‘Abraham… hurried out to the place…’
– We need to find a place where we can spend time with the Lord.
– It may be that you have an awesome spot to spend time with God, but it can also be a regular spot you find yourself in. Often when I open my curtains in the morning and the light floods my room, then I can look out and see the beauty of God in nature and I can enjoy the moment of thankfulness in His presence.
– It could be a few moments in bed as you pick up your phone and read a scripture and say a short prayer.
– It could be that place in front of your computer before that rush of the day starts that you may read the Daily Thought that we send out via email and take a moment to pray the prayer. (If you don’t receive these and would like to, just send me an email to andrew@alivetogod.com and I will send it to you.)
– Then we must make that moment in that place a daily priority.
– This was a priority for Abraham – it says he hurried out to the place.
– You can almost feel the urgency and the importance of being there.
– He was not dragging his feet, in fact he was in all likelihood running to get there.
– Find that place and hurry to get there each day.
4. MAKE ROOM FOR THE LORD IN YOUR LIFE.
– Genesis 19:27 ‘…the place where he had stood in the LORD’s presence.’
– This was not the first time that Abraham had met with God in that same place.
– I am sure that it was part of his daily routine to meet with and interact with the Lord at this spot.
– It was a place that he was familiar with – he had been there before.
– It was his routine to make room for these moments with the Lord.
– It is interesting to note that it was a place where he could just stand in God’s presence.
– It was not only a place where he prayed, pleaded and negotiated with God, but it was also a time and a place where he would become aware of God’s presence.
– When I was a child we were part of a church that always put on a Christmas pageant. Every year we would celebrate this special time of the year with a dramatised presentation of the nativity story. I was always a shepherd, and it didn’t demand much. I could just stand there, with the other shepherds, in my outfit and with my staff (a long stick that is carried). The scene just before I would make my appearance around the manger, was always a stirring moment for me. The choir would sing the song ‘NO ROOM’. It was a Christmas song about how Joseph and a pregnant Mary arrived in Bethlehem to find that there was no room available for them in the Inn. They ended up in a stable with a manger (cattle feeding trough) as their home for this most wonderful night for all humanity. I was always amazed that no one could make room for the Saviour and the song focused on the fact that we need to make room for the Lord in our hearts and lives.
– I want to encourage you to ‘make room’ for the Lord in your daily life.
– Let it be a part of your routine and a priority to spend a few sacred moments with your Heavenly Father.
5. EXPECT TO EXPERIENCE HIS PRESENCE IN YOUR LIFE.
– Genesis 19:27 ‘…he had stood in the LORD’s presence.’
– We see how Abraham stood in the presence of the Lord.
– He hurried out to the place where he HAD stood in the Lord’s presence before.
– Enjoying the presence of God in his life was something that was a reality to him.
– He had been to this spot before and had experienced and stood in the presence of the Lord and in all likelihood he knew that he would experience it again.
– If we will take the time to make room for the Lord in our lives or to make more room for Him in our lives, then we can expect and believe that His presence will be an ever-increasing reality in our lives.
– Sometimes we just need to know that we are in His presence and then just stand there and soak it up.
– It does not say that he prayed there in the Lord’s presence, it does not say that he did a lot of speaking or asking, I have no doubt that He did those things, but there comes a time when we can just know that His presence is there and that is all we need.
– I have known the joy of being aware that I am in the presence of God and that He is with me. Often these moments of awareness of His presence have been at some of the challenging times in my life. I have had times when I have nothing left to say, nothing left to pray, and all I could do was stand in His presence until the storm passed by.
– So let us expect to experience more of His presence in our lives.
6. LOOK, BECOME AWARE OF WHAT THE LORD IS DOING.
– Genesis 19:27-28 ‘Abraham…looked…’
– Sometimes we are so busy, so consumed with the issues and concerns of life that we are hardly aware of what the Lord is doing.
– When Abraham got to that familiar place where he had enjoyed the presence of God, he paused and looked out and became aware of what God was doing.
– It’s so important that we begin to see things from the Lord’s perspective.
– Sometimes we don’t see things because we don’t look, or perhaps we don’t become aware that God is doing or saying something to us in our hearts or in our spirits.
– 1 Kings 19:11-12 Then the LORD said, ‘Go out and stand on the mountain before the LORD. Behold, the LORD is about to pass by.’ And a great and mighty wind tore into the mountains and shattered the rocks before the LORD, but the LORD was not in the wind. After the wind there was an earthquake, but the LORD was not in the earthquake. After the earthquake there was a fire, but the LORD was not in the fire. And after the fire came a still, small voice.
– We have to become still so that we can hear the still, small voice.
– All the other noise and clutter has to be removed so that we can hear that still small voice of the Lord speaking into our lives.
– It takes a few moments, during which the noise and distractions of life can die down, and in that moment we can begin to hear and perhaps grasp and see what the Lord is saying and/or doing.
– Let us make time for God in our lives. He will come and make His presence real to us and He will strengthen, comfort and lead us as we trust in His power and providence.
By Andrew W Roebert
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