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Every morning when we wake up, we have a choice of how we begin our day. Let’s look at two possibilities:
Scenario 1: The alarm goes off. You roll out of bed and start to get ready, already anxious about the day ahead. During a hurried breakfast, you catch up on the news, texts, and emails. Eventually, you rush out the door, preoccupied with your to-do list for the day.
Scenario 2: You hear the alarm go off and immediately say, “Lord Jesus, I love You.” You get out of bed and spend time talking with the Lord in prayer and reading His Word. Refreshed and nourished by His Word, you feel strengthened and supplied for the day’s challenges.
We’d probably all prefer the second scenario. Our spiritual life would benefit greatly, and perhaps even change dramatically, if we started every day by spending time with the Lord Jesus. But building up a habit takes more than fleeting inspiration; it helps to see why it’s worthwhile. In this post, we’ll look at three reasons why it’s critical to spend time with the Lord, and the best time of day to do it.
We can expect to be physically healthy only if we eat enough food every day. While we can get some calories from a quick donut, it’s much better for our health if we take time to eat a nourishing meal. In the same way, we can expect to be spiritually healthy only if we take time daily to feed on God’s Word in prayer and fellowship with Him.
In 1 Peter 2:2, it says, “As newborn babes, long for the guileless milk of the word in order that by it you may grow.” Just as babies need to eat food daily to grow physically, we need to eat spiritual food daily to grow in the Lord. By spending time with Jesus to feed on His Word each day, we’re supplied to live our Christian life and grow in His divine life.
Having a meaningful relationship with someone requires spending quality time with that person. Emailing and texting are good ways to stay in touch, but they’re not the same as speaking directly with someone. By spending time face to face with others, we get to know them on a deeper level.
In our relationship with the Lord Jesus, spending time with Him in this way is even more critical. Jesus Christ is a wonderful person who lives in us and who wants us to know Him. But to go beyond an objective or superficial knowledge of Him, we have to prioritize our time with Him above other things. Then we can get to know Him in a deeper way by opening our hearts to Him, speaking to Him in prayer, and letting Him speak to us in His Word. This is how we develop a deep and personal relationship with Him.
[[Free Study Bible]]
The Lord Jesus wants an intimate and personal relationship with us, not one that’s formal or formulaic. We can, and should, contact Him anytime, anywhere. He’s living in our spirit, and we can call upon Him throughout the day or night.
However, the best time for us to spend with the Lord Jesus is in the morning. This is proven by the experience of believers throughout history, and by the testimonies of God’s people in the Bible.
Exodus 16 tells us how God fed His people as they journeyed in the wilderness, raining manna down from heaven every morning with the dew. If the children of Israel didn’t get up early enough to gather the manna, they would miss that day’s portion, since it would melt under the scorching sun.
This account is a good picture for us. Today, God wants to nourish us with spiritual “manna” in His Word every morning. When we spend the time to meet with Christ in His Word, we’re refreshed and equipped to face the “heat” and trials that come our way.
When we don’t have time with the Lord in the morning, we’re easily caught up in all kinds of things once the day gets going and often run out of time to be alone with Him. Before we know it, the day’s over, and we’re exhausted. We may pray a little as we’re falling asleep, but we’ve missed the special supply of Christ that was available to us in the morning.
It’s better to start our day off with the Lord, before our plans, worries, and situations rob us of our time. Spending those first minutes of the day alone with our loving Lord is particularly sweet. While things are still quiet, we can easily open our hearts and our spirits to the Lord to be filled with Him through prayer and enlivened by reading His Word (you can order a free New Testament study Bible here if you live in the US). His Word will become the gladness and joy of our hearts as we spend time in His presence.
For more on this subject, you can read chapter 1 of Basic Elements of the Christian Life, vol. 2, a book that has helped thousands of believers. You can download this book from anywhere in the world here.
People commonly view the New Year as a new fresh start, a time for turning over a new leaf. So we make all kinds of New Year’s resolutions and try to leave the baggage of the last year behind us.
Why do we feel this drive for newness?
Human beings inwardly long for a new beginning. Sensing we’re “old” and worn out, we try different things to make ourselves feel new. We look for a new hobby, embark on a new exercise program, try a new diet, get a new haircut, or buy new clothes. And sometimes we do feel new, for a time.
But sooner or later we discover that nothing actually makes us lastingly, genuinely new. Everything eventually becomes old, and we’re back where we began, feeling like both our situation and we ourselves are old.
The only way we can really be new is for us to be renewed. And the New Testament speaks much about being renewed.
Oldness isn’t simply a function of time or age. Even the youngest person can feel old. Oldness is a result not of age but of something we’re missing; we need a new element. And only one element in the entire universe is new—God.
God is eternal, but He never grows old. He is ever fresh, new, and living. For us to be renewed, we need God, the One who is newness, added into us.
Titus 3:5 says this:
“Not out of works in righteousness which we did but according to His mercy He saved us, through the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit.”
Before we were saved, we were part of the old creation, the creation created by God, but that doesn’t have God Himself in it. Then one day we received the Lord Jesus as our Savior. God, the One who is new, came to be life in our spirit! This was the first step of our being renewed. When we were born of the Spirit in our spirit, the eternal life of God was added to us. This made us a new person with a new life, even a new creation, as the apostle Paul tells us in 2 Corinthians 5:17.
On one hand, we are a new creation in Christ, but on the other, we are in the process being renewed. This is because God came as the Spirit to live in our spirit, making our spirit new. But what about the rest of our being?
This excerpt from note 4 on Titus 3:5 in the New Testament Recovery Version helps us see the relationship between being born again, or regenerated, and renewing:
“The washing of regeneration begins with our being born again and continues with the renewing of the Holy Spirit as the process of God’s new creation, a process that makes us a new man. It is a kind of reconditioning, remaking, or remodeling, with life. Baptism (Rom. 6:3-5), the putting off of the old man, the putting on of the new man (Eph. 4:22, 24; Col. 3:9-11), and transformation by the renewing of the mind (Rom. 12:2; Eph. 4:23) are all related to this wonderful process. The washing of regeneration purges away all the things of the old nature of our old man, and the renewing of the Holy Spirit imparts something new—the divine essence of the new man—into our being. In this is a passing from our old state into a wholly new one, from the old creation into the status of a new creation. Hence, both the washing of regeneration and the renewing of the Holy Spirit are working in us continually throughout our life until the completion of the new creation.”
Our regeneration was once for all; our spirit will never again be old! But the rest of our being must undergo the day by day process of being renewed, remade, remodeled with God’s life. The new life in our spirit needs to spread into our soul, and especially into our mind, our soul’s leading part.
[[Free Study Bible]]
Since everything gets old so quickly and our outward circumstances wear us out, how can we be renewed in a practical, daily way?
Our spirit is the key. In order to be renewed, we have to turn to our spirit, where the life-giving Spirit dwells in us. As we do, He imparts life into the rest of our being. When we set our mind on our spirit, pay attention to our spirit, and exercise our spirit, we give the Spirit opportunity to spread into our mind, emotion, and will.
To turn to our spirit certainly can be challenging, especially in the midst of trying circumstances. But we can exercise our spirit by means of two helpful practices.
One precious gift the Lord gave us is His name. First Corinthians 12:3 tells us, “No one can say, Jesus is Lord! except in the Holy Spirit.” When we call, “Lord Jesus,” or “Oh Lord Jesus,” or tell the Lord, “Lord Jesus, I love You,” we turn to and contact the renewing Holy Spirit in our spirit. As we do, we allow Him to spread a little more into our being. When we call on the Lord in all the situations of our daily life, we receive more of His life within. In this way, the Lord is remodeling us inwardly with His life.
We have not only the Lord’s name but also His Word. Ephesians 6:17-18 says, “And receive…the sword of the Spirit, which Spirit is the word of God, by means of all prayer and petition.” Every day, especially in the morning, we can exercise our spirit by prayer to receive the Spirit in the Word. As we pray with the Word of God, we are revived with a fresh supply of life. Not only so, we’re also renewed a little bit more as the divine life spreads in our soul. The more we receive the living Spirit in the Word, the more our inward parts are renewed. The oldness of our natural thoughts, our natural feelings, and our natural decisions is purged away, and the new element of God is added to us, renewing us in every part of our being until we become a new creation.
This year, let’s enjoy more of the rich supply of God’s new life to be reconditioned, remade, and remodeled within. As we stay in this process of renewing, our mind, emotion, and will eventually will become as new as our spirit, and we will fully express God as the new One!
If you live in the US, you can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here.
In the Bible, the Greek word kosmos, translated world in English, has different meanings depending on its context. The meaning of kosmos we’ll discuss today is “system” or “organization,” specifically, the organized system set up by Satan to keep people from living for God.
God gave us a strong and unequivocal command concerning the world in 1 John 2:15: “Do not love the world.”
As Christians, we need to know clearly what the world is so we can guard ourselves from loving it and being deceived and distracted by it.
God did not, of course, create the world as this anti-God system. God created the heavens and the earth and all the things on the earth so that mankind could live to fulfill His purpose.
For example, God took care of Adam and Eve in every way in the Garden of Eden. He provided their protection, their provision, and even their pleasure and enjoyment in His presence. What God created was ordained by Him for human beings to exist and live for Him.
But when mankind fell and was corrupted by Satan, Satan began to organize the very things created by God for mankind’s existence into his system. Mankind needed food, so he systemized food. Mankind needed enjoyment and pleasure, so he systemized entertainment. In this way Satan formed the world, a system to occupy human beings, to take them away from God and from living for His purpose.
We can see the beginning of this world system in Genesis 4. Cain, who had murdered his brother, left God’s presence and went out on his own. Being without God and God’s protection, Cain needed to secure his safety, so he built a city for himself and his family. In this city, Cain’s descendants continued to live without God or God’s care. So to care for themselves, they invented cattle raising for their provision, music making for their amusement, and metal forging for weaponry. Cain’s city was the beginning of a worldly culture that existed apart from God.
The needs of Cain’s family were not sinful. In fact, mankind’s need for protection, provision, and pleasure existed before sin ever came into the picture. However, God’s intention was to provide and even to be all these things for us. When Cain left God’s presence, He left the proper source of supply for all his needs. Thus, Satan had the opportunity to use the necessities of life to bring him into a world system that replaced God and existed apart from Him.
This world system has grown. Today Satan continues to use every day, legitimate necessities like food, clothing, housing, and transportation to capture our hearts and consume our time. We only have to look around to see all the advertisements, products, activities, and inventions vying to attract us. We may need these things, but the world makes us want more than we really need.
Any of these things can become something that takes our time and energy away from God. For example, everywhere there seems to be a new restaurant, a new diet, or a new food craze. We certainly need to eat to live, but Satan has systemized food, making it an end in and of itself. We eat for pleasure, we use our energy to find and enjoy the tastiest cuisine, and we spend so much time and money on restaurants and food products. In this way, Satan usurps our legitimate need for food, occupying our being with this part of his system.
Satan has also systemized clothing. The world makes us feel we must have certain kinds of clothes. As a result, we expend a lot of time considering different styles, and we spend our money on buying new clothes. The necessity of being clothed is utilized by Satan’s world system to take up more and more of our lives.
Additionally, as we spend more and more on the latest foods and fashions, we have to work harder and longer to pay for these things. In the end, we have less time and energy for God, and less money we can offer to Him for the advancement of His kingdom. We’re fully distracted by the attractive things of the world.
Perhaps food or clothing isn’t our problem. Perhaps video games, sports, art, or the theater are what draw us. We must remember that Satan is crafty. We may look down on a particular thing that draws someone else and even wonder how they could be captured by it, but the world system has something for everyone.
The world consists of sinful things, certainly, but not only of sinful things. The world also includes things such as religion, culture, education, industry, commerce, and entertainment. All of these can be used by Satan to fill our time, take our energy, and occupy our thoughts so that we have less and less for God.
First John 5:19 tells us, “The whole world lies in the evil one.”
Satan keeps human beings under his control by using the world. He uses anything and everything as part of his system to attract and occupy people. He controls some by their careers. Others he occupies by music. With others, he uses education.
When anything, even what we consider a good thing, takes over our lives and causes us to be for something other than the Lord, we have to realize it has become the world to us. So the question isn’t, “Is this thing good or bad?” The question is, “Does this thing hinder my relationship with the Lord?” Whatever it is, if it’s something that hinders us from living for God and His purpose, it’s the world.
How can we live a life that’s not distracted by the world? How can we live, in actuality, for God and for the fulfillment of His purpose? Is moving away from civilization or secluding ourselves the answer?
The Lord’s prayer in John 17:15-18 tells us what the Lord wants:
“I do not ask that You would take them out of the world, but that You would keep them out of the hands of the evil one. They are not of the world, even as I am not of the world. Sanctify them in the truth; Your word is truth. As You have sent Me into the world, I also have sent them into the world.”
These verses show us that God’s intention isn’t to remove us out of the world; it’s for us to be in the world, but not of the world. God wants us to live a normal human life on this earth, but without being under the control of the world as Satan’s system. He wants us to live for Him and to shine as testimonies to the world concerning Him.
[[Free Study Bible]]
Being controlled by Satan’s evil world system is a serious matter. We can only delve into a few helpful points in this post. All involve prayer and fellowship with the Lord.
We can’t save ourselves. We need to be saved. A drowning man can’t save himself, but he can be saved by simply letting someone save him. If he struggles, still trying to save himself, he will actually hinder the person saving him. We need to realize that the Lord Jesus wants to save us from the world’s usurpation, and we need to let Him do this in us.
None of us are immune to the world’s attraction. Perhaps our education distracts us, or a desire to have a picture-perfect family, or wanting a high position in a particular field. We’re all distracted by different things, and the world has something to captivate the heart of every person. And what is perfectly fine for us today may become the world to us later. We should seriously consider, Does anything hinder us from loving the Lord and living for Him?
We need to pray and let the Lord shine on us to point out anything of the world that distracts us from Him. He is faithful, and He will shine and speak to us about specific things. When He does, we can pray, “Lord Jesus, this thing has become the world to me. Save me from the world in this matter. I would be saved by You. Don’t let me be usurped by Your enemy in this. Work in me to save me from this distraction.”
Our own energy and good intentions can’t deliver us from the power of the world. We need the energy of the divine life that comes from our partaking of the divine nature of God. The more we enjoy what God is, the more we’re able to escape the world’s corruption.
It’s crucial for us to spend time with the Lord Jesus each day to fellowship with Him and be fed by Him in His Word. When we’re spiritually weak and malnourished, the current of the world carries us away so easily. But we can be filled with the divine life through contacting the Lord in His Word and in prayer. Then we’ll be living and healthy during the day, like “fish” that can swim against the current of the world.
Our hearts were created to love, so they have to love something. But our hearts were not meant to love the world. When we love the world, we have no room left to love God. But when we love God, our hearts have no room for the world, and we’re kept from loving it and being usurped by it.
Our daily need is to enjoy fellowship with the Lord in prayer and bathe in His love for us. As we enjoy His love for us, spontaneously our hearts will be filled with love for Him. The more we love Him, the more we’ll be delivered from the world and its allure. As we spend time with the Lord Jesus, contacting Him in our spirit and enjoying Him in His Word, we’ll be attracted to Christ as the most charming One in the universe. We’ll be filled with love for Him and not for the world. Right now we can pray,
“Lord Jesus, I love you, but I know I also love some worldly things. Have mercy on me. I would let you save me from the world. Teach me to live a life separated unto You so I can shine You forth to people. Lord, I desire to serve You and live for You. Purify my heart so I love the world less and less and love You more and more. Amen.”
May the Lord have mercy on all of us and save us from the world so we can live for Him and serve Him freely.
If you live in the US, you can order a free copy of the New Testament Recovery Version here.
