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STEP TWO
DAILY QUIET TIME
Every new relationship takes time. A quiet time every day will allow you to deepen your relationship with God. He loves to communicate with you through His Word, the Bible, and He will encourage you every day with His presence in your life. You have to make time to spend time. Look for a quiet place where you will not be interrupted, a place where you can settle down, read, meditate and listen. We will now look into God’s Word for directions.
SEEKING GOD
With all my heart I have sought You; do not let me wander from Your commandments.
Psalm 119:10
God understands that we wander away from Him and His commandments. To avoid wandering away, we must continue to seek God with all of our hearts. Individually, daily, and spiritually, we must seek God. Seeking God means that spend time adoring God, confessing our sins, thanking God, and supplicating the God for our needs (“ACTS”). So, in our daily quiet time, we can spend time with God adoring Him, confessing our sins and experiencing the joy of cleansing and forgiveness each time we confess, thanking God for all of the great things and people He has put into our lives, and supplicating God by letting Him know the things we request of Him, according to His will. We will look at Psalm 119:9-16, to gain further insight into our daily quiet times.
PURITY
How can a young man keep his way pure? By keeping it according to Your word.
Psalm 119:9
God seeks people to worship Him in spirit and truth (John 4:23-24). As believers, we adore God for all the great and loving things He has done for us, and continues to do for us through all eternity. God seeks purity in our relationship with Him. We tend to wander away from God, like sheep that turn to their own way and fall into trouble (Isaiah 53:6). When we wander away, Jesus seeks us out like a Good Shepherd, puts us on His shoulders, and rejoices over us (Luke 15:5).
CONFESSION OF SINS
If we confess our sins, He is faithful and righteous to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness.
1 John 1:9
God seeks our holiness in every aspect of our lives. After the moment of salvation, we still find ourselves sinning and still falling short of the glory of God. God intends that we confess our sins.
Conviction of Sin. Confession starts with conviction. Both the verse before and after 1 John 1:9 indicates that we are sinners. God tells us spiritually in several different ways that we are sinners and make mistakes. He communicates conviction of sin: (a) through our friends who tell us the truth, (b) from an honest review of our own behavior, (c) from a conscience that hurts, and also (d) from God’s Word. So often when we read the Bible, it speaks to our weaknesses.
Confession of Sins. Taking time every day to hear the Holy Spirit talking to you regarding your sin will prompt you to keep your spiritual accounts short with God. This verse also calls upon us to count upon God’s faithfulness and righteousness. No matter how many times you confess, even the same sin, God will faithfully forgive you. Confession means that you say the same words about your sin that God would say. By the power of Jesus Christ, you consider yourself dead to sin and alive to Christ. You rely upon the strength of Jesus Christ to leave your sinful practices behind and live in the Holy Spirit. You look at your sin the same way God looks at your sin. As believers, we do not hide our sin, and we can never hide our sin from God who knows everything. Confession allows you to experience the forgiveness of God personally and continually. You will still go to heaven if you die with unconfessed sin, providing of course you have trusted Jesus Christ as your Savior, but you will not feel all of God’s forgiveness and cleansing during your life until you confess your sin as you become aware of it.
Cleansing from Sin. Count upon God to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. When you confess, you believe that God will clean up your life. Confessing is like taking a spiritual bath. Most people like to bathe regularly. Well, spiritually take a little time to let God forgive you and cleanse you every day. You will begin to notice you feel closer and closer to God and see more and more of your life changing to please Him. Never imagine that God wants to condemn you, because all condemnation for sin has been placed upon Jesus Christ at the cross. We now live in peace with God, and without a drop of condemnation. Keep in mind that confession only changes the way we feel towards God, because He always loves us and desires our close fellowship with Him. You can never do anything to change the fact that you are the child of God, adopted into His family by new birth in Christ. God’s Word assures our hearts before God, and it also leads us to analyze our lives as God does. God promises to cleanse you from all unrighteousness. As we believe the Word of God, we learn that God keeps His promises and He seeks to remove all unrighteousness from our lives, even the things that cause us the most persistent problems. See the video on confession of sin.
TREASURE THE WORD OF GOD
Your word I have treasured in my heart, that I may not sin against You.
Psalm 119:11
As we sit quietly before God, we need time to treasure the Word of God in our hearts. I like having my Bible handy when I spend time quietly with God. I read the Bible and think about what God is telling me. I memorize verses to place them into my heart, so that God can use His Word to help me live to His glory. We treasure the Word of God. Many people today do not place much value upon the written Word of God. They do not believe the Bible truly deserves their attention. God commands us to study His Word and handle it accurately, so that we will be workmen who are not ashamed as we stand before God (2 Timothy 2:15). Our quiet times can be a perfect time to memorize a verse and then think about it. As we think about it, we treasure it because the Word of God helps us love God all the more.
REJOICING
I have rejoiced in the way of Your testimonies, as much as in all riches.
Psalm 119:14
Quiet times should include times of rejoicing. The Psalmist declared that he rejoiced in the the testimonies of God. God wrote down so many things in the Bible, and all of them should serve to instruct us and draw us closer to God. As we read the Bible, we should love God more and more as we learn more about Him and how He deals with us. We need to learn individually why the Psalmist said that he rejoiced in the Word of God as much as in all riches. As we examine the riches in our lives, we appreciate valuable things. Often as we grow older, our understanding of true riches changes considerably over time. As believers, we value the activity of God and His presence in our lives as the greatest of all riches. The Word of God stands right there in value with our other riches.
MEDITATE
I will meditate upon Your precepts and regard Your ways.
Psalm 119:15
Meditate. God expects you to meditate upon His precepts. Meditation means that you spend time thinking deeply about His Word and the teachings of His Word. During your spiritual quiet time, take time to meditate. Let a passage, a verse, or just a word from a verse flow through your mind. God often draws my attention to a particular thought in His Word so that I can see how that thought applies to my life. I can see how God has been working with me on patience, or self-control, or diligence. I start to understand more about Jesus and His way of loving people, no matter what. I have learned that love does not mean you always do what makes your friends happy, but rather you do the right thing for them. Jesus never promised to do everything I wanted, but He did promise me that I can live a life pleasing to Him. I love to meditate upon His precepts. It lifts me up and refocuses my thinking upon Him and His ways. I need that blessing everyday.
WALK IN THE SPIRIT
But I say, walk by the Spirit, and you will not carry out the desire of the flesh.
Galatians 5:16
Quiet times provide interludes for believers to practice walking in the Holy Spirit. At the moment of salvation, you were born again and Jesus baptized you in the Holy Spirit. At that moment, you became a new creature in Christ; all the old things passed away; behold, new things came into your life (2 Corinthians 5:16-21). Walking in the Holy Spirit means that just as I walk around in life, so I walk in the Holy Spirit. I walk all the time, daily. I walk without giving it conscious thought. I am so used to walking, I walk all the time. During my quiet time, I count upon the Holy Spirit to walk me through my quiet time. What will I read? What will I meditate upon? What will I pray about? You get the idea. I want the Holy Spirit to answer those questions and use the time to the glory of God. He will do the leading and I will do the following.
LIVING AND ACTIVE WORD
For the word of God is living and active and sharper than any two-edged sword, and piercing as far as the division of soul and spirit, of both joints and marrow, and able to judge the thoughts and intentions of the heart.
Hebrews 4:12
The Word of God is living, active and sharper than any two-edged sword. The Word of God pierces our lives and divides our soul and spirit. It also judges the thoughts and intentions of our hearts. So, when you sit down to have your quiet time, take your Bible along and plan on reading it. Let it come to life as you read it, and feel it piercing into you spiritually. Let the Word of God judge your behavior, and the thoughts and intentions of your heart. Have you wondered if you are doing God’s will? Read the Bible and see if you are following what God says to do there. Compare what you are doing with what Jesus taught the people. Compare what Paul wrote to the churches in his letters to them. As you read the Bible, you will learn how to act as a Christian, because God will use the Bible to instruct you and bless you.
REJOICE IN THE LORD, ALWAYS
Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice!
Philippians 4:4
Not every day will be a perfect day, from a human standpoint. Some days believers will know loss, sickness, death, with all kinds of challenges confronting us. Especially in those times, we need to focus upon the words of Jesus Christ. He commanded us to rejoice in the Lord, always. Notice the command to rejoice. God commands us to give our emotions to Him, so that He may produce in us all the emotions He intends for us to feel. We are not so good at controlling our emotions, but God commanded us to deny ourselves, follow Jesus and take up our cross. Part of denying ourselves means that we lay aside our entire emotional life in favor of God controlling all our emotions. We set our hearts upon Him, allow the Holy Spirit to fill us, and then follow Jesus. Our lives will be filled with joy, even on the days when we shed tears. We know that in the Lord, we can rejoice always. We will never grieve as the Gentiles who have no hope, because we hope in the Lord Jesus Christ, and He never disappoints us and never will. Because of Jesus, all is well and will be well eternally. In Him, we rejoice always.
DWELLING UPON GOD’S WONDERS
Make me understand the way of Your precepts, so I will meditate on your wonders.
Psalm 119:27
The believer wants to understand the ways of God and His commands. The believer wants to love God more day by day. The Psalmist requests that God make him understand the way of the precepts of God. In our quiet times, we can greatly benefit from God causing us to understand passages in the Bible. We must rely upon God, and ask God to help us understand the Bible. God wrote it and we must depend upon Him to explain it to us and help us apply His truth to our lives. As we meditate upon the Word of God, we see the wonders of God. We see the sky displaying the moving glory of God and revealing some of His great power and artistic style. We see even greater wonders in the ways that God works in human lives to change them into living trophies of His grace and glory. He works wonders in your life and my life each day so that we love Him more for all He does. God loves sinners and saves sinners, according the wonders and glories of His grace. In our quiet times, we live in the wonder of God and meditate upon wonders of God all around us and within all of us.
First Steps in Christ–Step Two–Daily Quiet Time
