July 28, 2023 -- Luke 5:16 -- Appointed Meeting Times with the Father in Heaven

People loved by the Father, in the Spirit's power: Sh'ma ~ hear and obey Jesus!

But he would withdraw to desolate places and pray.
Luke 5:16 ESV

Don’t you hate getting stood up? You plan. You anticipate the get together. You alter your schedule. You keep the time free. And you wait. And the friend you’d expected doesn’t show. You might make excuses for the other person while you wait. But at a certain point you get exasperated. You realize this is just not going to happen.

The Bible records the fact that Jesus would withdraw to desolate places and pray. In fact, sprinkled through-out the Gospels are numerous references to this. It’d be easy to miss these notes if you weren’t looking for then. Once you start looking, you see it everywhere. Jesus was a man of prayer. He kept His appointments with the Father.

His times with His Father, prayer-times, were held in desolate places. Notice the meaning here. Humanly speaking they were desolate. They were without people, entertainment, distractions. They would be, humanly speaking, lonely places. For Jesus’ purposes they were desolate places transformed to rich meeting places blessed by His time with His Father in heaven. 

Jesus would pray. He was human. He had the same struggles, weaknesses, hunger pains, tiredness, and so on, that we experience. But He would push past these. He would withdraw and pray. Why? Because it is in the time of prayer that His soul was revived. No doubt prayer was just as much a struggle for Jesus as it is for us. Keeping the time free. Avoiding people who would crowd out His time with His Father. Not yielding to the tyranny of the urgent, but staying in place and pouring out His heart to God.

Dear fellow believer keep at it. Zealously guard your appointment with God. Don’t stand Him up! Call on Jesus, Who is seated at the throne of grace and mercy, to help you and to send His Spirit on you so that your soul is encouraged and strengthened to meet with the Father. Fight your flesh and your laziness and get close to God.

Our Father in heaven honor and praise, worship and blessing be unto Your Name! Thank You for the gift of life lived in Your presence. Thank You that You have prepared the possibility of meeting with Your people because of the blood of Jesus, poured out so that Your just anger against our sin has been set aside. Show us the spiritual pleasures awaiting us at Your right hand that begin now and stretch into eternity. Forgive us for the times we've stood You up and the many times we rushed through our appointments with You. Help us to rest in You. Help us to praise You so that the dividing walls of hostility will be broken down and nothing will hinder the ever-increasing felicity of meeting with You. Amen.

https://youtu.be/rNuGOFMvvAk Keith Green “My Eyes are Dry”

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