Isaac went out to meditate in the field in the evening.
Oh, Lord, let the words of my mouth and the meditation of my heart be acceptable in Your sight, my strength and my Redeemer. When I consider Your heavens, the work of Your fingers, the moon and the stars, which You have ordained, what am I that You are mindful of me, and that You visit me? Your works, Lord God, are great, studied by all who have pleasure in them. I am blessed when I walk not in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stand in the path of sinners, nor sit in the seat of the scornful; but delight in Your law, and in Your law I meditate day and night. This Book of the Law shall not depart from my mouth, but I shall meditate in it day and night. My soul shall be satisfied as with marrow and fatness, and my mouth shall praise You, Lord God, with joyful lips. I remember You on my bed, I meditate on You in the night watches.
Lord, teach me to crave the nourishment that comes from feasting and meditating on Your Word.
GENESIS 24:63; PSALM 19:14; PSALM 8:3–4; PSALM 111:2; PSALM 1:1–2; JOSHUA 1:8; PSALM 63:5–6. Dr. David Jeremiah Life-Changing Moments with God
The aim in your life and mine, by Satan, and our own sin nature, is to cause our minds and hearts to dwell on anything and everything that has nothing to do with Jesus. That has nothing to do with God.
Temptations and seduction are the weapons of his warfare upon the Believers and the unbelieving alike.
The warfare is real and the fight each day is real. Jesus Himself often went away to be alone with Him Father because of the battles. He taught us a pattern for praying not to impart some magical phrase or words, but to encourage that relationship with His Father who is now the Father of those who believe.
Distractions are everywhere in everything in every second of your life.
We were challenged to reflect on our 42. The average amount of time after sleep, work/school/responsibilities and social media are removed from a week of hours.
How much time is left is around 42 hours. I started charting my week on a spreadsheet. Was easier for me to visually see what and where my mind and time were going. On average my week is down to 32 hours. Sunday to Saturday I spend 1 and a half to 2 hours reading and writing concerning what God's imparting to me. But is it enough?
I read in the Scriptures of meditation day and night on the Word of God. Read of how it was the responsibility of the Kings of Israel to write their own copy of the book of the Law for themselves. I read of how important the relationship was that Jesus impressed upon the Disciples, and yet I wonder is what I do enough?
Now you're going to have to evaluate your own 42. You have to decide if you're fighting the good fight as Paul wrote. You have to decide if you are keeping the faith.
Romans 12 tells us that to each of us it has been given a measure of faith. Are you exercising it? Are you nurturing it?
Do you waste your 42 on frivolous things?
Do you look at it and just wonder where the time went because you weren't thinking?
You see right there is the problem, right there is the truth of the matter.
We live in a world where we've off-loaded thinking to others and to machines.
We live in a world where responsibilities that are ours have been given to wasteful ideas that have nothing to do with service to our God and Savior.
We organize our lives to some extent on our needed things such as work and sleep and don't realize the hour in which we live.
We don't consider the importance of the truth that this might be the day we see Jesus face-to-face. We might see the Rapture of the Church. We might, before this day is through, be needing to give a reason for the hope we have in Christ. Would you be ready to give it?
We don't consider the real future, not our wishful thinking future. We cloud our lives at times with selfish dreams and ambitions that have nothing to do with the time in human history that we live.
We, on a global scale, spend billions on reliving the past, on escaping the woes of this world, on sports, on movies, on games. Billions of dollars to avoid reality.
Yet what matters most we avoid. A right relationship with Jesus can and does fill that void we so desperately are really seeking to fill with anything but Him.
This is far worse than a square peg in a round hole. We can get a bigger hammer and eventually make a square peg fit a round hole. You cannot make any shape of anything fit that cross shaped hole in your heart, mind and soul.
Even with the 32 that my chart shows me as having left, 8 or so of that is what's left in my days Monday through Thursday after work, eating and catching up on as much of the day as possible are removed. I see time left and have to wonder if I will spend it wisely as this week of challenge continues.
Sure some things come up, but when they do, is my mind going to go to my source of strength in Christ or to places and things other than Him? Panic and worry are not of God. Worry is a prayer with no direction. It's the epitome of a circular argument.
Nehemiah knew that even a short prayer was a prayer as long as it went up to the Throne of God. He was a Jew who was trusted as the Cup Bearer to the King. Before the King would drink or eat anything it had to be tested. He was constantly looked upon with scrutiny to see if his health was in question before the King received anything. To look out of sorts before the King you had to have a really good reason. So we read "So I prayed to the God of Heaven".
We read of Daniel's habits of at least 3 times a day in prayer to the God of His Father's in Heaven. We see that his daily practice of prayer earned him favor with God in being called "highly esteemed".
We are encouraged in Paul's letters to set our minds on things above and not on the things of this world. We are told by Jesus that the greatest commandment is to love the Lord your God with all your heart, mind, soul and spirit. Then to love your neighbor as yourself. We read in the latter part of Romans 12 of how to treat even out enemies.
So in all this, are you spending your time and money and your THOUGHTS wisely?
What are YOU doing with your 42?
Are you self-deceived in your daily life that what is truly worthless before Jesus is worthy of you to give your devotion to?
Your devotion can only have one direction. Heaven or here. You're going to need to realize you are in a war for your mind.
You must choose where your mind goes.
You. I can only tell you that this is true of all mankind.
We either accept God’s will or we reject it. We either come to Christ or we don't.
We either believe what we read in the Bible or we don't.
We either put our relationship with Jesus as our highest priority or we aren't.
We either believe He’s coming again soon or we don't.
We either consider our ways in light of the Scriptures or we don't.
We either come up with excuses or we dive in and act.
Where did your thoughts go since you started reading this? On things you hadn't done yet? On things that are a passing interest to you? On other things and people? On the notifications on your phone? A little distracted aren't we?
You just proved the point.
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