How To Spend Each Day With God # 2 (and others)

How To Spend Each Day With God # 2 (and others)

Redeeming The Time

Place a high value upon your time, be more careful of not losing it than you would of losing your money. Do not let worthless recreations, worldly entertainment, idle talk, unprofitable company, or sleep - rob you of your precious time.

Be more careful to escape that person, action, or course of life which would rob you of your time - than you would be to escape thieves and robbers.

Make sure that you are not merely idle, but rather that you are using your time in the most profitable way that you can, and do not prefer a less profitable way before one of greater profit.

Eating and Drinking

Eat and drink with moderation and thankfulness for health, not for unprofitable pleasure. Never please your appetite in food or drink, when it is prone to be detrimental to your health.

Remember the sin of Sodom: "Look, this was the iniquity of your sister Sodom: She and her daughter had pride, fullness of food and abundance of idleness" (Ezekiel 16:49).

The Apostle Paul wept when he mentioned those "whose end is destruction, whose god is their belly, and whose glory is in their shame - who set their minds on earthly things, being enemies to the Cross of Christ" (Phil. 3:18-19). O then do not live according to the flesh, lest you die! (Romans 8:13).

Prevailing Sins

If any temptation prevails against you, and you fall into any sins in addition to habitual failures, immediately lament it and confess it to God; repent quickly whatever the cost. It will certainly cost you more if you continue in sin and remain unrepentant.

Do not make light of your habitual failures, but confess them and daily strive against them, taking care not to aggravate them by unrepentance and contempt.

Relationships

Remember every day, the special duties of various relationships: whether as husbands, wives, children, masters, servants, pastors, people, magistrates, subjects.

Remember every relationship has its special duty and its advantages for the doing of some good. God requires your faithfulness in this matter, as well as in any other duty.

Closing the Day

Before returning to sleep, it is wise and necessary to review the actions and mercies of the day past, so that you may be thankful for all the special mercies, and humbled for all your sins.

This is necessary in order that you might renew your repentance as well as your resolve for obedience, and in order that you may examine yourself to see whether your soul grew better or worse, whether sin goes down and grace goes up, and whether you are better prepared for suffering, death and eternity.

May these directions be engraved upon your mind and be made the daily practice of your life.

If sincerely adhered to, these will be conducive to the holiness, fruitfulness, and quietness of your life, and bring you to a comfortable and peaceful death.

~Richard Baxter~

(The End)
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Life .... Revealed!

In John 4 we have two days of interruption.

What a two days were those! For two days the divine mission to Israel was set aside, for two days the burden of Israel's prophets, and the fulfillment of their prophecies, was held in abeyance and a new mission was brought to light.

The Grace, the Mercy and the Truth of the Son of God were not for Israel in those days, but for an alien people outside the scope of the promises.

In those days revelation was given to Samaria. A people without the history and the knowledge of which Israel boasted, was given a special unveiling which Israel was incapable of receiving.

In those two days God reached beyond the racial and cultural divide, beyond the division of religion and of sin, and unveiled a realm where the Spirit alone was important. In those two days, in the outworking of God's purpose, there was revealed: truth which was not local in its scope, pertaining to a particular nation or city, truth not found in the outward righteousness of ceremonial observances.

Jesus' words to the woman at the well were the essence of simplicity and directness: "there is Living Water...A Gift."

With what infinite compassion He showed her, 'That water of yours will give way to thirst...the water I give is Life within - ever springing"...

Think how this woman, an alien to Israel and the promises of the chosen people, ignorant of the Way, stained with a life of sin, and without hope, grasped what was hidden to Israel; and SAW the Life, and the Grace, and the Mercy.

Think how the instant capture of the Truth led her back into town and ushered in two days in which the heavens were opened upon Samaria, and Grace was outpoured.

Think how for two days Jesus laid aside His mission to His own people and gave Himself wholly to those forgotten ones.

Today in our society, just as in Israel then, the God-given revelation has become choked with all sorts of human conditioning. We have lost the Living Essence, and are left to follow vainly empty forms, seeking light from extinguished lamps.

To the woman Jesus said, "The hour cometh, and NOW is." For us also, in our day, it is the hour; the time when God desires to reveal again to those who thirst Waters which Satisfy Forever.

"The hour" of His promise, His visitation - how we allow Time to steal it from us... how hard it is for us to say, "Now"... how hard to believe for an answer NOW. God interrupted her world with a "NOW", and so with us, we need the interruption of God's NOW in our living. He would say to us today, that NOW as we seek Him, He will come to us also in a new-born revelation of the limitlessness of Life as it is poured forth from Him.

Beyond all we know, beyond all we have rested upon, there awaits us God's Life flowing - Fresh and Forever!

~Paul Ravenhill~