Tag Archives: early in the morning

NEED DRIVEN OR SPIRIT LED?

Christian Life, ,

NEED DRIVEN OR SPIRIT LED?

For those who are led by the Spirit of God are the children of God. Romans 8:14

Today I have a word for Christian leaders.

One of the buzzwords among pastors today is the word “burnout” because many of them seem to be teetering on the brink. There may be many reasons for burnout but perhaps one of them is simply the difficulty of differentiating between the urgent and the important. In other words, how do we move from being need driven to being Spirit led?

Have you ever taken time to walk with Jesus through the Gospels? They may not provide a biography, but they are a treasure store of glimpses into an amazing man!

“Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where He prayed. Simon and his companions went to look for Him and, when they found Him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!” Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else – to the nearby villages – so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” So, He travelled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons.” (Mark 1:35-39, NIV).

This incident happened at the beginning of Jesus’ ministry and reveals His strategy from its inception. How did He know how to balance work and rest, busyness and timeout, the clamouring demands of the crowd and the times apart with His disciples? How could He walk away from the pressing needs of sick and tormented people and not feel guilty?

Jesus not only shows us but tells how He could maintain His serenity and sanity in the same kind of world in which we lose our way.

Firstly, what He did was always linked to His mission. His priority was not to meet every need but to announce the coming of God’s kingdom and to demonstrate how it worked by healing the sick, raising the dead and casting out demons. He always made sure that what occupied His time fitted into the bigger picture.

Secondly, He functioned in perfect tandem with the Father through the Holy Spirit. He spent so much time with the Father that He was aware of His presence and of what He was doing all the time. He could say with honesty and confidence, “I tell you the truth, the Son can do nothing by Himself; He can only do what He sees the Father doing, because whatever the Father does, the Son does also. For the Father loves the Son and shows Him all He does.” (John 5:19, 20, NIV)

Since every believer has received the same Spirit that indwelt Jesus, we have the same potential to live as He did. So says the Apostle Paul, “Since we live by the Spirit, let us keep in step with the Spirit.” (Galatians 5:25, NIV).

Is our frantic busyness somehow connected with the idea that we must “work for God”? God has called us into His rest so He can work through us! We are too blessed to be stressed!

THE GOSPEL OF MARK – IN A SOLITARY PLACE, HE PRAYED

Bible Study, ,

IN A SOLITARY PLACE, HE PRAYED

35 Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed. 36 Simon and his companions went to look for him, 37 and when they found him, they exclaimed: “Everyone is looking for you!”
38 Jesus replied, “Let us go somewhere else—to the nearby villages—so I can preach there also. That is why I have come.” 39 So he traveled throughout Galilee, preaching in their synagogues and driving out demons. Mark 1:35-39

The disciples were in for a rough ride! They were called to follow a most unusual man. Whoever went out before dawn to seek solitude to pray? Those who took prayer seriously went to the synagogue or prayed the written prayers of the Bible or the prescribed prayers of their religious system, but to go out into the night alone?

They also didn’t understand that Jesus wanted to be alone. They intruded on His private prayer time because people were clamouring after Him. His response was lovely. He was unfazed by this burst of popularity. What the people thought or said about him was irrelevant. His heart was set on His mission. He was here on kingdom business. He focussed on telling and showing people that they were immersed in God and that He was a good God, not anything like what their religious leaders taught and represented; a loving, kind and merciful God who cared about them and wanted to restore their lives to wholeness – shalom. It was a message for everyone, not just for those in Capernaum. He had to tell the good news everywhere and He had a limited time in which to do it because there were those who hated what He was doing and would eventually have Him killed for doing it.

If we were to track Jesus’ path, we would find that He criss-crossed the whole of Israel and beyond in three and a half years. Is it possible that He visited every town and village in the land? He was not caught up in people’s need to the extent that He lost sight of the bigger picture – hence the many hours He spent in prayer with the Father. He was lining up His “flute” with the “wind” so that God could play His “tune” through Him.

An imitator of Jesus, then, is someone who sees what He sees and copies what He does, not in a mindless but in a purposeful way to achieve the same result – ECHAD with God.