If you have read my blog or heard me teach a few times there is a recurring message in a lot of what I say, I talk about sitting with Jesus, sitting in His presence. Why do I do that and how do I do it?
The why? I desire to give Jesus the first part of my day as that sets the tone for the rest of my day. If I jump out of bed and frenetically engage in activity I have set the pattern for my day. I get up early in the morning to meet with Jesus for two reasons. One, He is worthy and I need to be with Him. Two, He is to be our pattern and a careful reading of the gospels shows that Jesus began His days getting up early to be with His Father. If Jesus needed to do this to be effective I certainly need to do likewise.
Sitting with Jesus is not a contest. The important factor is not whether I spend 5 or 50 minutes with Him, it is important to be at the place where my first desire is to get up and be with Him. This is not the case every day but that is my desire. I know of one well known preacher who speaks of spending the first hour or two of his day worshipping and interacting with Jesus before he gets out of bed.
I suspect that pattern would not work for most of us. However most of us can start our day with Him. If for some reason you cannot give Him at least the first few minutes of your day how soon can you get alone with Him? What is your first opportunity? Is it while riding the bus? We can get alone with Him in a crowd of people. While it is not ideal we can use this as an opportunity to train our attention and intention.
We are called to be with Him and His desire is to be with us. There is a key focus in both verses below.
12 Then the LORD said to Moses, “Come up to Me on the mountain and be there; and I will give you tablets of stone, and the law and commandments which I have written, that you may teach them.” Exodus 24:12 (NKJV)
14 Then He appointed twelve, that they might be with Him and that He might send them out to preach, Mark 3:14 (NKJV)
In both of the above verses there is a task given, however, the priority for both Moses and the twelve was first on ‘being with Him’ before doing anything for Him. Whatever we do for Him is to flow from our relationship with Him.
I have included a couple of images below that some of you may find helpful in focusing your hearts upon Him (we can think of one as Jesus and one as our Father). After all the descriptions of His throne in Isaiah, Ezekiel and Revelation are there for some reason! I do some of this although my own experience is that I sense/feel Jesus presence more than I see anything. Often His speaking comes in the form of a scripture, sometimes in the sense to do something like encourage or reach out to someone or to pray for a person or situation. The more frequent outcome of sitting with Him is that I simply experience His presence in and around me and find myself internally more focused and functional because I am very aware of Jesus with me and in me.
