Feast or Fast-food
1st April 2012 Eltham Baptist Church
No. 371
The difference between catching a few moments with the Lord and having quality time with Him is like the difference between driving through McDonalds and spending the evening at a great restaurant. At McDonalds you drive up, shout into a microphone, drive around to a window where they hand you a bag of food and you are off, and later gobbling it down in a hurry. But in a great restaurant, you sit down, spend time in fellowship, enjoy every bite and leave satisfied and nourished. Too many of us live on spiritual fast food and never experience the banquet that God has for us. We have a MacSnack instead of a Banquet. The question is, Have you learned to stay in His presence? Do you eat spiritual fast-food or have a feast? There are two problems we face in this situation; the lack of desire for Gods presence and not knowing how to stay in His presence. Sometimes we can look at others and say that its not fair that that person has a close walk with God and not us. We seem to think that God puts His hand in a hat and draws out the names of those whom He wants to be close to Him and the rest of us lose out. This idea is completely false. You are as close to God as you really want be. We may complain that we dont have any time, but the truth is that we make time for what we truly care about. How much time do you spend watching Television or your favourite hobby? In a survey of New Zealanders they found that television is our most popular leisure activity with an average of 2 hours a day spent in front of the box by Kiwis. Imagine if we spent half of that time in prayer and bible study each day? By the end of the week we would have spent 7 hours with God. The truth is we make time for what we really care about. If we really want to spend more time with God then we need to give something else up to accommodate Him. The second problem is that we dont know how to wait on God. One of the main problems is distractions, so we need to find a place where we are not distracted so much and give Him our full attention. Go to that place with your bible, daily bible reading, notepad and pen and then wait on God. We are all different so we need to try things that work for us. Maybe use a CD player with worship music to start us going or sing from a chorus book. With the 24 hour prayer list some find an hour too much and cant manage for that so long. Why not spend some of that time reading your bible so as to build up your faith to pray for the requests on the list or spend some of the time singing so as to invoke the presence of God. Some of the best times for me in prayer are in the middle of the night. In fact during last Friday night I awoke at 1.30 and had an awesome time with God until 3.30. I sat in my favourite lazy boy chair in the lounge and prayed in tongues for 5 minutes. I declared that God would speak to me for it says in 1 Corinthians 14:13 that when we speak in tongues we must pray that we get an interpretation. It wasnt long before I began to worship Him. Lots of ideas soon flooded my mind and I took a record of them and time just flew on by. Id like to point out that this isnt something that happens every night. Its like fishing, you just never know when the fish are going to bite, but if you arent there then you wont catch anything. We also see great blessing coming upon men of God in the night. Look at Jacob for instance.
Genesis 32:24 And Jacob was left alone; and there wrestled a man with him until the breaking of the day.And he blessed him there.
Jacob wrestled there with an Angel all night, and was blessed at the breaking of the day. It was then that God changed him into a "Prince with God". It was at night that God visited Samuel as a boy. Joseph the father of Jesus had his Angel visitation at night. The Children of Israel were delivered from cruel Egyptian bondage during the night as well.
Exodus 12:29 And it came to pass, that at midnight the LORD smote all the firstborn in the land.
David used to get up at night and wait on his God and receive blessings from Him. Psalm 16:7
I will bless the LORD, who hath given me counsel: my reins also instruct me in the night seasons. Psalm 119:148 Mine eyes prevent the [night] watches, which I might meditate in thy word. Psalm 119:62 At midnight I will rise to give thanks unto thee because of thy righteous judgments.
In these days of electric light bulbs and TV, we are inclined to stay up late every night and have no time for waiting on God anymore. In the New English version of Psalm 16:7 it says that wisdom comes to him in the watches of the night. Its then that God gives revelation to your soul. In the natural, night is also the time for the dew to fall. If you sleep outside at night you get covered in dew. It comes gradually over a period of time. I believe that at night God has supernatural dew called the "anointing" that will come upon you as we wait on God. In the Song of Solomon, the Lord says to the Church.
Song of Songs 5:2 I sleep, but my heart wakes: [it is] the voice of my beloved that knocks, [saying], Open to me, my sister, my love, my dove, my undefiled: for my head is filled with dew, [and] my locks with the drops of the night.
He comes to His beloved in the night and His head is filled with dew (the anointing). I believe that The Lord comes to us at night often, and wakes us up so that He might impart an anointing on us, but we don't understand or don't want to get up. We see from these verses that the Lord left her because of her procrastination, and she had to go looking for Him.
Psalm 110:3 Thy people [shall be] willing in the day of thy power, in the beauties of holiness from the womb of the morning: thou hast the dew of thy youth. The LORD shall send the rod of thy strength out of Zion: rule thou in the midst of your enemies.
There is a day of God's Power available to Gods people and I believe that the church on this day will be powerful and anointed. From this verse I can see that the "Dew" will be on the Church and it will come from the "Womb" of the morning. This speaks of the early hours of the day, during the night watch. The anointing is the dew of youthful anointing. It speaks of vigour and vitality. I have often found how refreshed one can become after waiting on God at night. Even when you fall asleep while in prayer, the dew still seems to fall on you.
Psalm 133:1 Behold, how good and how pleasant [it is] for brethren to dwell together in unity! [It is] like the precious ointment upon the head, that ran down upon the beard, [even] Aaron's beard: that went down to the skirts of his garments; as the dew of Hermon, [and as the dew] that descended upon the mountains of Zion: for there the LORD commanded the blessing, [even] life for evermore.
Here we read again of dew or anointing. Mt. Hermon was a high mountain that was known for its copious amounts of dew and this dew is here likened to the anointing that was put upon Aaron the Priest. Dew comes at night. Getting up at night may not be your thing for you may prefer to go for a walk. The activity of walking stops me from dozing off during prayer times and helps me to think clearer. The disciples must have done a lot of walking from one town to another. It was on the road to Emmaus that Jesus drew near to two of the disciples while they walked. It was also in the cool of the evening that God walked with Adam and Eve. We are products of an instant generation and often want God to speak straight away, but He doesnt often do that. Jeremiah had to wait 10 days for an answer from God and he was a Prophet. Jesus had to pray all through the night to find out who the 12 Apostles were. We are in a hurry and often dont wait or do all the talking instead of listening. I remember the story of the rich lady who lost a valuable broach at a theatre the night before. She rang the next morning and got hold of the cleaner who told here to wait while he went and had a look in the row where she was seated. The woman got tired of waiting so she hung up. A few minutes later the cleaner returned and said good news I found it. But she was gone. Do we also stop listening because things dont happen fast enough? God wants to prepare a table for us in these Last Days while the enemy is all around us. Psalm 23:5. Jesus is knocking on the door and asking if He can come in and dine with us - Revelation 3:20. Will you come and feast or continue to MacSnack? http://ghotter.blogspot.com
