Even Jesus needed time with God; but for some reason, we think we can manage without spending time in the presence of God. Saturdays are my special days with the Lord. I look forward to this quality time with God and protect it like it’s the most important meeting of my week—because it is!
I try to spend a few minutes in prayer each morning before starting work. But often I only have one minute. I also try to spend time reading my Bible at night as I get into bed. Unfortunately, often my eyes start closing and the Bible almost falls on me as I begin to fall asleep. Regardless of my continued attempts I fall short of spending quality time with Jesus.
When Jesus was on earth, He was intentional about spending time with His Father. And so should we. If we don’t schedule time in our calendars, it simply won’t happen. If we don’t keep trying despite our failure to do it consistently, then we never create the habit. We read in the Scriptures that “Jesus went off by himself to pray” which tells us He did it often and that prayer was part of His daily life. Matthew 26:36 says, Then Jesus went with them to the olive grove called Gethsemane, and he said, “Sit here while I go over there to pray.”
Mark 1:35 tells us, Before daybreak the next morning, Jesus got up and went out to an isolated place to pray. Jesus knew that if he didn’t go pray right away early in the morning, the day would get busy and there would be no time to be with God the rest of the day. And Luke 6:12 says that One day soon afterward Jesus went up on a mountain to pray, and he prayed to God all night. As a human, it is so hard to stay up all night praying. Maybe for some of you it is easy, but for me personally, I can’t do it. But despite his humanity, Jesus prayed… He prayed continually and on every occasion. He knew the importance of prayer and how vital it was for Him to be filled with the Spirit to complete His Mission.
We each have a mission to accomplish too. So today I want to encourage you to pursue prayer in your life. Make the time, delete other commitments from your calendar to allow time to be with God. In addition to filling up your spiritual tank, you will receive an immediate reward—God multiplies your time. He ensures that you accomplish everything you need to get done. It’s a miraculous thing! Below are a few tips that have helped me through the years to keep my commitment to pray and spend time with God consistently:
· Be intentional about making time to pray.
· Do cancel other meetings to spend time with God.
· Be consistent and pick the same day of the week and/or same time of the day.
· Be persistent. Don’t give up just because you couldn’t do it for a few days.
· During your time with the Lord, pray for others and give thanks.
· Expect a reward. Expect the reward of being filled with the Holy Spirit and expect the peace of God that comes from being in His presence.
I hope these ideas will inspire you to set aside quality time with God. I promise you that you will experience an amazing transformation in your life and you will see your prayers being answered. Remember, even Jesus needed time with God. And so do we!