How to Spend the Day with God

I came across this while I was reading tonight. I thought it was great advice. I plan to split the points between two days so it won't be a very long post.

How to Spend the Day with God

adapted and updated from
RICHARD BAXTER (1615-1691)

by Matthew Vogan

A holy life is inclined to be made easier when we know the usual sequence and method of our duties - with everything falling into its proper place. Therefore, I shall give some brief directions for spending the day in a holy manner.

Sleep

Measure the time of your sleep appropriately so that you do not waste your precious morning hours sluggishly in your bed. Let the time of your sleep be matched to your health and labour, and not to slothful pleasure.

First Thoughts

Let God have your first awaking thoughts; lift up your hearts to Him reverently and thankfully for the rest enjoyed the night before and cast yourself upon Him for the day which follows.

Familiarise yourself so consistently to this that your conscience may check you when common thoughts shall first intrude. Think of the mercy of a night's rest and of how many that have spent that night in Hell; how many in prison; how many in cold, hard lodgings; how many suffering from agonising pains and sickness, weary of their beds and of their lives.

Think of how many souls were that night called from their bodies terrifyingly to appear before God and think how quickly days and nights are rolling on! How speedily your last night and day will come! Observe that which is lacking in the preparedness of your soul for such a time and seek it without delay.

Prayer

Let prayer by yourself alone (or with your partner) take place before the collective prayer of the family. If possible let it be first, before any work of the day.

Family Worship

Let family worship be performed consistently and at a time when it is most likely for the family to be free of interruptions.

Ultimate Purpose

Remember your ultimate purpose, and when you set yourself to your day's work or approach any activity in the world, let HOLINESS TO THE LORD be written upon your hearts in all that you do.

Do no activity which you cannot entitle God to, and truly say that he set you about it, and do nothing in the world for any other ultimate purpose than to please, glorify and enjoy Him. "Whatever you do, do all to the glory of God." - 1 Corinthians 10:31.

Diligence in Your Calling

Follow the tasks of your calling carefully and diligently. Thus:

(a) You will show that you are not sluggish and servants to your flesh (as those that cannot deny it ease), and you will further the putting to death of all the fleshly lusts and desires that are fed by ease and idleness.
(b) You will keep out idle thoughts from your mind, that swarm in the minds of idle persons.
(c) You will not lose precious time, something that idle persons are daily guilty of.
(d) You will be in a way of obedience to God when the slothful are in constant sins of omission.
(e) You may have more time to spend in holy duties if you follow your occupation diligently. Idle persons have no time for praying and reading because they lose time by loitering at their work.
(f) You may expect God's blessing and comfortable provision for both yourself and your families.
(g) it may also encourage the health of your body which will increase its competence for the service of your soul.

Let it snow

I woke up this morning and looked out the window to see big snowflakes falling from the sky, it was pretty peaceful. The backyard was very tranquil and the only sounds was the squirrel sitting in the tree gnawing on a walnut and the birds chirping and rustling in the bushes.

Fly away home

I made it back to Wisconsin for Christmas and time with my family and church family after a extremely long day in airports waiting and hoping I'd be able to get on a plane headed north.

I was late for my flight from New Orleans due to an accident and then fog on the causeway, which caused me to arrive at the airport at 11:03, my plane leaving at 11:30. The only option without paying for a ticket for the following day was to be on standby for a flight at 5:00pm for New Orleans to Chicago, and then be on standby from Chicago to Madison.

I knew the Lord knew the situation and that he was in control of it as well. If I wasn't able to make it to Chicago or Madison, it wouldn't have been the end of the world, knowing that it was the Lord's providence...though I was really looking forward to getting home and seeing my family. I got the last spot on the plane from New Orleans. When we arrived in Chicago I went to the gate where the plane to Madison was to take off from to put my name on the standby list. The lady seemed very hopeful that I'd get on that plane, which indeed I did. Though I arrived in Madison at 10:30 then drove to Platteville arriving there after 12:15am. It was a long day, but I am grateful to be home for a couple of weeks and see my family who I haven't seen since May.

There is a big difference between Mississippi and Wisconsin...and a lot of snow here. I'll post some pictures for my friends in MS who are rubbing it in that it is warm there, when I'm able.

That Christ May Dwell in You Richly

This past Sunday Pastor Don preached to us from Eph 3:17. It was a convicting sermon dealing with Christ dwelling in the hearts of believers and asking ourselves if Jesus is at home in our hearts... “So that Christ may dwell in your hearts through faith-that you, being rooted and grounded in love”

Pastor Don said there were different ways cultivate Christ being at home in us and allowing him to have access to every portion of our life; we aren't to sit around wait. But we cannot just decide to make Christ the center of our being..Like a food you do not like - you can choose to eat it, but you can't just choose to like it. It is part of our affections, the more we eat it the more we grow to like it....the more time we spend with Christ and in his word, the more or affections change and he is able to take control of our being and be the center and our desire.

Two of the main ways to spend time with Christ and let our affections be controlled by him are through prayer and Bible Study.

1. Prayer – through prayer we can ask Christ to dwell in – to be at home in our hearts. As Christ dwells in us he is going to change us. He's going to help us throw away those things that are not glorifying to him and that we desire above him.

There are a couple ways praying can facilitate this

• A. We can ask Christ to dwell in us. We can pray: Christ – may passions are all wrong, I desire this rather than that, I desire money rather than you, I desire respect more than the word of God, I desire this more than you – change that in me God, I can't change it myself!

• B. Prayer time itself will facilitate Christ living in our heart. You get know know others by spending time with them. The more intimately we know Christ the more at home he is going to be in our heart.

2. Bible Study – This is how we get Christ in our minds. As we look at the Word we begin to store it in us. The memorization of scripture is huge in storing God's Word in our heart “I have hidden your word in my heart that I might sin against you.”

Memorization is one area that Pastor Don emphasized that is so important, but not focused on enough by most believers (including myself). I've recently begun getting up earlier so that I have time to spend with the Lord and focus on prayer and scripture study. I used to memorize a lot, but have not done that as much as I ought to recently, so I will be adding that to my daily Bible study time.

Take a couple minutes to listen to Pastor Don urge the people of Lakeshore Baptist Church to make memorization a priority in their life, it's a great admonition to treasure God's Word.

Luther's conversion

As I ponder the saving grace of God, I am made grateful that God has revealed himself to us through nature and our surroundings and even more grateful he has given us His Word. It is only through the preaching, reading, and/or hearing his word that man is saved.

As I was reading online I came across Martin Luther's account of his own conversion, an awesome example of God revealing the meaning of scripture and regenerating and justifying a man - as Martin Luther, who said he hated the righteous God, as he struggled with the scriptures.

Here's the excerpt from the Preface to the Complete Edition of Luther's Latin Writings found online at ReformationInk

Meanwhile, I had already during that year returned to interpret the Psalter anew. I had confidence in the fact that I was more skillful, after I had lectured in the university on St. Paul's epistles to the Romans, to the Galatians, and the one to the Hebrews. I had indeed been captivated with an extraordinary ardor for understanding Paul in the Epistle to the Romans. But up till then it was not the cold blood ab out the heart, but a single word in Chapter 1, "In it the righteousness of God is revealed," that had stood in my way. For I hated that word "righteousness of God," which, according to the use and custom of all the teachers, I had been taught to understand philosophically regarding the formal or active righteousness, as they call it, with which God is righteous and punishes the unrighteous sinner.

Though I lived as a monk without reproach, I felt that I was a sinner before God with an extremely disturbed conscience. I could not believe that he was placated by my satisfaction. I did not love, yes, I hated the righteous God who punishes sinners, and secretly, if not blasphemously, certainly murmuring greatly, I was angry with God, and said, "As if, indeed, it is not enough, that miserable sinners, eternally lost through original sin, are crushed by every kind of calamity by the law of the Decalogue, without having God add pain to pain by the gospel and also by the gospel threatening us with his righteousness and wrath!" Thus I raged with a fierce and troubled conscience. Nevertheless, I beat importunately upon Paul at that place, most ardently desiring to know what St. Paul wanted.

At last, by the mercy of God, meditating day and night, I gave heed to the context of the words, namely, "In it the righteousness of God is revealed, as it is written, 'He who through faith is righteous shall live.'" There I began to understand that the righteousness of God is that by which the righteous lives by a gift of God, namely by faith. And this is the meaning: the righteousness of God is revealed by the gospel, namely, the passive righteousness with which merciful God justifies us by faith, as it is written, "He who through faith is righteous shall live." Here I felt that I was altogether born again and had entered paradise itself through open gates. There a totally other face of the entire Scripture showed itself to me. Thereupon I ran through the Scripture from memory. I also fount in other terms an analogy, as, the work of God, that is what God does in us, the power of God, with which he makes us wise, the strength of God, the salvation of God, the glory of God.

And I extolled my sweetest word with a love as great as the hatred with which I had before hated the word "righteousness of God." Thus that place in Paul was for me truly the gate to paradise. Later I read Augustine's The Spirit and the Letter, where contrary to hope I found that he, too, interpreted God's righteousness in a similar way, as the righteousness with which God clothes us when he justifies us (Augustine passage included below). Although this was heretofore said imperfectly and he did not explain all things concerning imputation clearly, it nevertheless was pleasing that God's righteousness with which we are justified was taught.

Specific, Selfless, and Spiritual

I was sitting here reflecting on the sermon preached today here at Lakeshore Baptist. Pastor Don preached on Ephesians 3:14-21 focusing on prayer. Prayer is something that I say I do, and I do, but often times do not pray as I ought. Pastor Don brought up many great points from this texts that I hope I can incorporate into my own personal prayer time.

3 Types of Prayer
I. Specific Prayer

• Paul is praying for strength and knowledge of God for the believers in Ephesus.
• Our prayers are often very vague
• We can go in with a plan as we pray. We can make a list of the things that we are going to pray for and specifics so we don't get distracted as we pray.

II. Selfless Prayer

• Paul was in prison but he was praying for others. Here he is not praying or asking for prayers of himself for comfort, relief, or release from prison he is focused on others.

III. Spiritual Prayer

• Paul is praying for spiritual issues in the life of others.
• We don't see here him praying for the sickness of so and so. If sickness and health are all that we pray for we are showing God where I priorities are. And if the physical is our only priority we are flirting with idolatry - we are worried about the tangible things more than the everlasting things of someone's spiritual well being. This is not to say, though, not to pray for those things. Praying for health and healing are good things and we have a miracle working God who can heal those things. But we just must make sure we know I priorities.

Other notes on Prayer
A. Paul is praying from Prison - Paul is not waiting until his circumstances are better, he sees the need to pray for the church and he's doing it while he is locked in chains in a Roman prison. We shouldn't wait until our circumstances are good to pray for others, we ought to pray for others if we are sick, homeless, or otherwise in distress.

B. Paul's prayer is a prayer of Passion - he bowed on his knees. It was as if we was begging God on his knees for the spiritual issues of the church in Ephesus.

C. Paul Prays to the Father - God is the Father of all families (of believers).

D. Paul is praying for power - Vs 16 - Paul is asking for strength for the inner being of the church. The stronger you are => the healthier you are => The more ready you are to fight of sin, temptation, depression, etc.
This strength comes from 2 places - through the Spirit and according to the riches of his glory.