Time with God

Our Great Need of God

Jeremiah 29:13 KJV 1900

And ye shall seek me, and find me, when ye shall search for me with all your heart.

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Proverbs 8:17 KJV 1900

I love them that love me; And those that seek me early shall find me.

The word for “seek me early” means to long for, or strongly desire something.

The blessing of God can only come when we feel our great need of Him.

1 Kings 8:38–40 KJV 1900

What prayer and supplication soever be made by any man, or by all thy people Israel, which shall know every man the plague of his own heart, and spread forth his hands toward this house: Then hear thou in heaven thy dwelling place, and forgive, and do, and give to every man according to his ways, whose heart thou knowest; (for thou, even thou only, knowest the hearts of all the children of men;) That they may fear thee all the days that they live in the land which thou gavest unto our fathers.

1 Kings 8:

The Beatitudes are, “Blessed are the… the poor in spirit, they that mourn, the meek, they who hunger and thirst after righteousness, and so on.

Isaiah 44:3–5 KJV 1900

For I will pour water upon him that is thirsty, And floods upon the dry ground: I will pour my spirit upon thy seed, And my blessing upon thine offspring: And they shall spring up as among the grass, As willows by the water courses. One shall say, I am the Lord’s; And another shall call himself by the name of Jacob; And another shall subscribe with his hand unto the Lord, And surname himself by the name of Israel.

God here gives an illustration of nature teaching a spiritual truth. What water is to someone who is quenched, and floods to a land stricken with drought, so will be the blessing of God’s spirit upon those that ask for it, yea, that vehemently desire it.

Isaiah 44:3-

How does one come to the point of intensely desiring the blessing of God’s Spirit?

John 4:6–11 KJV 1900

Now Jacob’s well was there. Jesus therefore, being wearied with his journey, sat thus on the well: and it was about the sixth hour. There cometh a woman of Samaria to draw water: Jesus saith unto her, Give me to drink. (For his disciples were gone away unto the city to buy meat.) Then saith the woman of Samaria unto him, How is it that thou, being a Jew, askest drink of me, which am a woman of Samaria? for the Jews have no dealings with the Samaritans. Jesus answered and said unto her, If thou knewest the gift of God, and who it is that saith to thee, Give me to drink; thou wouldest have asked of him, and he would have given thee living water. The woman saith unto him, Sir, thou hast nothing to draw with, and the well is deep: from whence then hast thou that living water?

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One of the great sins of God’s people is that after knowing for themselves the fountain of Living Waters, they forsook it for the broken cisterns of the world.

Jeremiah 2:13 KJV 1900

For my people have committed two evils; they have forsaken me the fountain of living waters, and hewed them out cisterns, broken cisterns, that can hold no water.

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But through the Spirit God is calling us to a deeper experience. God desperately wants to hold communion with us.

Isaiah 1:18 KJV 1900

Come now, and let us reason together, saith the Lord: Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow; Though they be red like crimson, they shall be as wool.

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It’s to note when God speaks these words. When reading the context of the verse, God speaks to Israel that their rounds of sacrifice have become distasteful to Him and that He is weary of them.

Have our lives become a round of ritual routines become dry and meaningless to the point where they become distasteful and weary to God.

The question to be asked is:

Isaiah 1:11 KJV 1900

To what purpose is the multitude of your sacrifices unto me? saith the Lord: I am full of the burnt offerings of rams, and the fat of fed beasts; And I delight not in the blood of bullocks, or of lambs, or of he goats.

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Why do I do what I do? Why do I have worship? Why do I pray? For what do I pray?

Isaiah 1:12–13 KJV 1900

When ye come to appear before me, Who hath required this at your hand, to tread my courts? Bring no more vain oblations; incense is an abomination unto me; The new moons and sabbaths, the calling of assemblies, I cannot away with; It is iniquity, even the solemn meeting.

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Who has required us to go to the house of God, for what purpose do we go?

If our sacrifices are meaningless what do we do when we tread the courts of God?

Ecclesiastes 5:1 ESV

Guard your steps when you go to the house of God. To draw near to listen is better than to offer the sacrifice of fools, for they do not know that they are doing evil.

What is the sacrifice of fools?

Proverbs 15:8–9 KJV 1900

The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord: But the prayer of the upright is his delight. The way of the wicked is an abomination unto the Lord: But he loveth him that followeth after righteousness.

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Why are the “sacrifices” or the prayers of the wicked an abomination?

Isaiah 28:9 KJV 1900

Whom shall he teach knowledge? And whom shall he make to understand doctrine? Them that are weaned from the milk, And drawn from the breasts.

Proverbs 28:9 KJV 1900

He that turneth away his ear from hearing the law, Even his prayer shall be abomination.

It reasons then to understand that the opposite is true.

John 9:31 KJV 1900

Now we know that God heareth not sinners: but if any man be a worshipper of God, and doeth his will, him he heareth.

God wants to have true worshipers of Him. But how?

John 4:23–24 KJV 1900

But the hour cometh, and now is, when the true worshippers shall worship the Father in spirit and in truth: for the Father seeketh such to worship him. God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

John 4:24 KJV 1900

God is a Spirit: and they that worship him must worship him in spirit and in truth.

To worship Him in Spirit and in truth.

What does it mean to worship in spirit?

Jude 20 KJV 1900

But ye, beloved, building up yourselves on your most holy faith, praying in the Holy Ghost,

What does it mean to worship in truth?

Psalm 145:18 KJV 1900

The Lord is nigh unto all them that call upon him, To all that call upon him in truth.

truth (quality) n. — conformity to reality or actuality; often with the implication of dependability.

Time with God

We know that Daniel prayed three times a day.

But even in the New Testament Peter set aside times during the day to pray and commune with God.

Acts 3:1 KJV 1900

Now Peter and John went up together into the temple at the hour of prayer, being the ninth hour.

Acts 10:9 KJV 1900

On the morrow, as they went on their journey, and drew nigh unto the city, Peter went up upon the housetop to pray about the sixth hour:

Christ, our Example gave special attention to time with God.

Mark 1:35 KJV 1900

And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed.

Desire of Ages Chapter 9—Days of Conflict

From the time when the parents of Jesus found Him in the temple, His course of action was a mystery to them. He would not enter into controversy, yet His example was a constant lesson. He seemed as one p 90 who was set apart. His hours of happiness were found when alone with nature and with God. Whenever it was His privilege, He turned aside from the scene of His labor, to go into the fields, to meditate in the green valleys, to hold communion with God on the mountainside or amid the trees of the forest. The early morning often found Him in some secluded place, meditating, searching the Scriptures, or in prayer. From these quiet hours He would return to His home to take up His duties again, and to give an example of patient toil.

Desire of Ages Chapter 7—As a Child

Since He gained knowledge as we may do, His intimate acquaintance with the Scriptures shows how diligently His early years were given to the study of God’s word. And spread out before Him was the great library of God’s created works. He who had made all things studied the lessons which His own hand had written in earth and sea and sky. Apart from the unholy ways of the world, He gathered stores of scientific knowledge from nature. He studied the life of plants and animals, and the life of man. From His earliest years He was possessed of one purpose; He lived to bless others. For this He found resources in nature; new ideas of ways and means flashed into His mind as He studied plant life and animal life. Continually He was seeking to draw from things seen illustrations by which to present the living oracles of God. The parables by which, during His ministry, He loved to teach His lessons of truth show how open His spirit was to the influences of nature, and how He had gathered the spiritual teaching from the surroundings of His daily life.

Thus to Jesus the significance of the word and the works of God was unfolded, as He was trying to understand the reason of things. Heavenly beings were His attendants, and the culture of holy thoughts and communings was His. From the first dawning of intelligence He was constantly growing in spiritual grace and knowledge of truth.

Luke 2:20 KJV 1900

And the shepherds returned, glorifying and praising God for all the things that they had heard and seen, as it was told unto them.

What was the result of Jesus spending that time with God?

Luke 2:40 KJV 1900

And the child grew, and waxed strong in spirit, filled with wisdom: and the grace of God was upon him.

Psalm 46:10 KJV 1900

Be still, and know that I am God: I will be exalted among the heathen, I will be exalted in the earth.

To “be still” means to be in a state of lacking power or being feeble.

To “know” means to know God reflectively, experientially, personally, to understand that He is God, that He is Almighty, Creator, and Saviour.