Soaring Above it All

0:17 it's important and how to do it the video that was the first time I saw the video on soaring above it all what struck me is if you can make a latte that nice at home I'd like to know who you are that thing was beautiful for a homemade latte with a decorations on it and everything. So yeah, this is a new book and the table might fall over, but the staff thought it would be a good idea to have a special launch evening for it. But I want to talk to you about daily devotions. Now, this is a true story that happened to a man by the name of Crowfoot, who was the chief of the Blackfoot Indians in Alberta, Canada. It seems that the Canadian Railroad needed to run their rail on his native land, his property, from Calgary to Medicine Hat up in Alberta, Canada. And so they needed permission. He gave them permission to run their rail. And in exchange, they gave to him a lifetime pass.

1:37 He could get on that train free of charge anytime he wanted to just by showing a certified lifetime pass to ride anywhere he wanted to. What he did with it was interesting. He put it in a little leather pouch and wore it around his neck his entire life, but never once used it. Sound familiar? We keep something in a nice leather pouch and oftentimes never really put it to use. And I want to talk a little bit about putting it to use. We have our Bibles, but we don't always let the scripture have its impact. The solution to that is daily seeking the Lord, what we call daily devotions. We have a friend, our family has a friend in a woman named Ann Graham Lotz.

2:38 She is the sister of Franklin Graham, the daughter of Dr. Billy Graham and Ruth Graham. He was, of course, an evangelist who preached around the world. And she was one of five children, Anne was. And she said, because my dad was gone a lot, my mom essentially raised five kids. And she said, what I remember was the place the Bible had in her life. And she said, it particularly came to me when I was a mother, a young mother, and I was stressed out and I was spiritually dry, says Ann. And during that period of being dry spiritually, I would think about my mom with an open Bible. And she said, my mom got up early before anybody else did, opened her Bible, read it, then got the kids up, got them ready for school, went back to her Bible. and then Ann said no matter what time I went to bed at night when I'd walked by my mother's room the light was always on she was always on her knees with an open Bible and she said it was that memory that helped me during that time of being spiritually dry to do this to seek the Lord with all my heart so this is a daily devotional called soaring above it all it is going to be available it is through the bible in a year it highlights people it highlights events it highlights principles in an easy digestible daily devotional form why do i think something like this is important we'll listen to what one person wrote they said i started to read the bible more times than i can count but I never seemed to make it past Genesis.

4:32 As soon as the exciting parts of the Old Testament faded, so did my interest. Plus, I felt like I was reading Mandarin Chinese half the time. It was hard. It was confusing and it was not always that enjoyable and so I gave up. another person wrote and asked how can I love my bible if I don't enjoy reading it okay that's where daily devotions come in it is important that the relationship we have with the Lord whatever that might be it is cultivated it is cultivated on a daily basis we came to Jesus at whatever time, whether it was last week or decades ago, you came to Jesus. Daily devotions is where you keep on coming to him regularly. Now, the New Testament talks about several different ways that God's people pursue him, get in touch with him.

5:35 Primarily, we do that with other people. It's called the church. We gather together. Acts chapter 2 verse 42 they devoted themselves to the apostles doctrine the breaking of bread fellowship and prayer and the Lord added daily those who were being saved so primarily we do that we get together with other Christians why because they encourage us we hear about their walk we listen to how they're processing spiritual truth applying it to their lives. And all of that is encouraging when we pray with them, sing with them, read the scriptures with them. However, all of those are communal practices. There must also be a personal dimension, a private personal devotional life, what we often call your quiet time, your quiet time. and one of the scriptures that comes to my mind is one that we covered in the gospel of mark on our weekend services in mark chapter one it says jesus rising up a long while before the day departed went to a solitary place and there he prayed he was getting ready early in the day for what the rest of the day would bring. Now, I will admit to you the phrase daily devotions is not a biblical phrase. You'll never find daily devotion. You look it up in your concordance, you won't find it.

7:07 But you will find over and over again the principle of seeking after God, searching after the Lord. David said to his son Solomon, know the God of your father. If you seek him, he will be found by you. Or Isaiah chapter 55, seek the Lord while he may be found. Or Jeremiah 29, where God says, you will seek me and you will find me when you seek for me with all your heart. Or Psalm 63, oh God, you are my God. Earnestly I seek you. My soul thirsts for you. And then one of my favorite, Hebrews chapter 11, God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him. Diligently seek him. Now, when it comes to daily devotions or quiet time, there's a few ways to go about it. Some people try to sort of do it on their own. They want to figure it out on their own. They read a portion of scripture that resonates with them or they're drawn to, or they like in particular, and then they will pray according to what they read. So it's sort of like freestyling.

8:25 Not everybody's like that. A lot of people would like to have some kind of structure, something prepared something directed for them a portion of scripture marked out with devotional thoughts given now I thought a lot about when I was writing this book about a couple of books that have resonated with me as daily devotions and I I happened to find them I kept them so the very first daily devotional was this exact book that I bought in 1975 and you can tell it's from 1975 because it's sort of fallen apart but it is a daily devotional called morning and evening by Charles Haddon Spurgeon and I remember I was two years old in the Lord I found I heard about Spurgeon I think I bought a book back in early 1973 or four of sermons that Spurgeon preached. And then when I found out he had a daily devotional, one for the morning and one for the evening, that became a daily go-to. Then I discovered that I also kept in my library, sort of a show and tell section of tonight's study, a book called Search the Scriptures, which is a three-year Bible study plan.

9:42 I don't even think it's printed anymore. It was originally like in the early 1900s called Union Scripture Notes. And I wrote the date, 1976 is when I bought it and started reading it. And then I even wrote in it a text that we looked at last week in our study in the book of Job, where Job said, I have esteemed the words of his mouth more than my necessary food. So I kept those two books. I was looking at them this week. And then I also found my personal daily Bible study notes journal that I kept based upon the Search the Scriptures book. So that sort of has become to me kind of like a living map of where I have been devotionally. Now, I want to talk to you in the time that we have about three basic things concerning daily devotions. What it is, what it does, and then how it's done. Very simply, what it is, what it does, and then how it is done or accomplished. First of all, what is having a quiet time? What does that mean? Here's another term for it. Drawing near. Drawing near. Deliberately coming into the presence of God. It's you sort of like getting on the phone saying, hey, God, I'm coming over to hang out. James chapter four, verse eight says, draw near unto God and he will draw near unto you.

11:21 So it is you knocking on the door saying, I'm coming over. This is me drawing near to you, Lord. And the promise is you do that and he'll show up, draw near unto God. He'll draw near into you, James 4, 8. Or Asaph in Psalm 73, he said, it is good for me to draw near to God, for I have put my trust in the Lord. Now that term, drawing near, is actually an Old Testament terminology of the priesthood in the Old Testament. The priests represented the people before God. but before they could represent the people of Israel before their God they had to what was called draw near and purify themselves and get themselves ready and it is that kind of terminology that old testament phraseology that the writer of Hebrews uses in Hebrews chapter 10 when he says let us draw near with a true heart in full assurance of faith. So just as the Old Testament priests would prepare themselves by drawing near to the Lord, we too should prepare ourselves for the day we're going to launch into. So devotions or quiet time is building the relationship to God. It is cultivating the connection that you have to God. Think of it this way. The gospel brings us to God. Your devotion keeps you close to God. It cultivates the proximity.

13:08 It draws you closer. It draws you near. It lets you hang out with him. in Genesis chapter five, one of the early patriarchs was a guy named Enoch. And it says, and Enoch walked with God. Remember that Enoch walked with God and he was not for God took him. So I like that Enoch walked with God. Enoch moved in the same direction that God was moving. it's not like God walk with me I'm going to walk with you Lord what direction are you going let me find that rhythm and go there Enoch walked with God and that is a way of saying he pursued God because Enoch becomes the example in the book of Hebrews when the writer says God is a rewarder of those who diligently seek him it uses then the example of Enoch who walked with God there's a guy who sought the Lord, who pursued the Lord. I think that the best word to capture this whole enterprise of daily devotions or quiet time is a word that Jesus himself used in the gospel of John, a word you're familiar with, I trust, the word abide. Abide. Jesus said this, I am the vine, you are the branches. He who abides in me and I in him bears much fruit for without me, you can do nothing. If anyone does not abide in me, he is cast out as a branch and is withered and they gather them and throw them into the fire and they are burned. If you abide in me and my words abide in you. You will ask what you desire and it shall be done for you. By this, my father is glorified that you bear much fruit. So you will be my disciples. Now that little word abide is the key word. It is the Greek word men know, not men know. That's a fish men know

15:21 and meno means to stay close to or to maintain a constant living communion with. That's exactly how Kenneth Weiss translates the word abide in his translation of the New Testament. Jesus said, maintain a constant living communion with me and you will bring forth much fruit. So it means to remain or to stick around or to stay around or to maintain constant living communion. And to do that, it involves his word. It always involves his word. In John chapter eight, Jesus said to those Jews who believed in him, if you abide in my word, that is, if you keep on obeying my teachings, maintain a constant living communion with my teachings, then you are my disciples indeed. So before we move on to what it does, I have a couple of questions to ask.

16:26 One, are you connected? Two, are you close? Are you connected? Are you close? Are you connected? Do you have a relationship with God? Have you been personally converted? Have you been born again? And if you are connected, you are converted. How close are you? How intimate are you? Abiding is what brings the intimacy. It is not formality. It is intimacy. Over the years, I've been asked by people about how do you do your devotions, pastor? when do you do your devotions how do you do them how much time do you do usually those technical questions all of those are good questions to ask but the all-important fact besides how to do them technically is that we must do them we must actually do them our spiritual life depends on our relationship to the voice and revelation of God. So that's what it is. It's drawing near.

17:37 What does it do? That's the second question. What it does? Well, it does a few things. Having a devotional life does several things. Number one, it purifies our thoughts. And I could actually build a whole study just on this. I won't. But it purifies our thoughts. Romans 12 speaks about the renewal of our thought life, our minds. Romans 12, 1, I beseech you, brethren, by the mercies of God, that you present your body a living sacrifice, holy and acceptable to God, which is your reasonable service. And don't be conformed to this world, but transformed by the renewing of your mind. When you have a time set aside to connect with God daily over his word and prayer, it renews your mind. It purifies your thoughts. Another text that comes to mind is Ephesians 5, which is written to husbands. Husbands, love your wives just as, listen to how he puts it, Christ loved the church and gave himself for her that he might sanctify her and cleanse her.

18:51 Listen, by the washing of water through the word, the washing of water through the word, as you meditate upon scripture, you are giving your brain a bath. and you know what it needs it especially if you spend a lot of time on that little rectangular device of yours that I notice everybody now doing in traffic let alone in private our brain needs to be washed the best cleansing solution on the planet is the word of God so it will purify our thoughts it will also prepare us for the day because as you spend time in God's presence hear God's voice in his word talk back to him in your prayers your faith is growing and all of that will help you face whatever you face that day whatever situation is going to come at you you will be prepared for the day why because you are getting biblical wisdom. You're learning the mind of Christ. Remember Paul says we have the mind of Christ.

20:05 You know how we have the mind of Christ? Because it's here. It's in the book. The mind of Christ, the thoughts of Christ, the attitude of Christ is in scripture. You'll know God's will. You'll make better choices. So it purifies our thoughts. It prepares us for the day. Third, it provides clarity. we live in a world that not only is divided, but is also very angrily divided. And everywhere you look or everywhere you turn to listen, you are hearing what's wrong with the world, what's missing in the world. And there's a lot that is wrong and there's a lot that is missing. But when you go to scripture and spend time there, you're reminded of God's blessings. you're reminded of God's gifts, you're reminded of God's grace, and that develops in you a heart of gratitude where you just don't notice all the things that are wrong, but all the things that God has made right and made you a partaker of all of his blessings. So don't be in a hurry when you spend time with the Lord. Don't go too fast. Let the truth saturate your ground, just like the rain the last few days has been saturating your yard. Let God's truth saturate, which means you might have a reading plan, but don't be a slave to it.

21:45 don't be a slave to your reading plan deuteronomy chapter 6 god says these words shall be in your heart allow god's truth to occupy your thoughts your mind your heart not just at the moment but through the day now i want to talk about how to do it so i said don't be a slave to a plan. At the same time, I want to pivot and say, it's good to have a plan, some kind of a plan. You know, the old saying, if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail. So a plan is good. So let me give you a few, um, a few recommendations of that. First of all, set a time, set a time when up to you for me. And usually I find most people that I know who have their devotions, do it in the morning. Your mind is fresh in the morning, typically, and your mind is alert, typically. I'm usually up first in the house. I like it that way before the busyness begins, before I get phone calls, before I get email, before I get text messages.

23:00 I'll look at it this way before I do email I want to do knee mail I want to have a contact with heaven so a great psalm that I've always loved is psalm 5 where the psalmist says give ear to my words oh lord consider my meditations hearken into the voice of my cry my king and my god for unto you will I pray my voice. You will hear in the morning. Oh Lord, in the morning, I will look up to you and give praise. So the morning is a good time to do it. Psalm 119. David said, I rise before the dawning of the morning and I cry for help. Now, having said that, I realize not all y'all are morning people. If morning doesn't work for you, it doesn't work. Somebody said this and I wrote it down. God made both larks and owls.

24:04 So figure out if you're a lark early to rise or an owl. You stay up really late and that's your best time. He said, God made both larks and owls. So learn your circadian rhythm and cooperate with it. Set a time. You pick the time. Second, make it a priority. Make it a priority. You know it's a priority to him. You know when you come knocking on the door, you have a heavenly father who's been waiting for that time that you are seeking him. You're drawing near to him. God says all draw near to you. You happen to be a priority to God, right? We are. For God so loved the world. That's his heart. That's his motivation. We love him because he first loved us. So it's his priority. Make it your priority. The reason I like to do it in the morning isn't because I'm a morning person, but this is my way of putting God first. He gets the first fruits of my day, right? This is Leviticus 23 that you give God the first sheaf of the harvest. You give it to him. So my first meeting of the day is with him. My first conversation of the day is with him. My first scheduled appointment is with him. For some of you that would require a little more planning.

25:36 Like I'm going to go to bed at a reasonable time and get a good night's sleep. So that can happen. Proverbs 8 says, I love those who love me and those who seek me will find me. So set a time, make it a priority. Now, it's not going to be a priority if it's not something you actually want to do at some level.

26:06 right? If you're hungry, you eat. Only hungry people I've discovered really eat. People who aren't hungry really don't spend much time eating. Hungry people do. So if you're hungry, you will. So set a time, make it a priority. Third little tip on this, start with scripture. start with scripture the reason I like to start with scripture is the scripture is going to inform me it's going to inform me about God it's going to inform me about God's will what God loves what God hates it's going to inform me about myself it's going to inform me about the world that I occupy and that is around me so I begin with the scripture because the scripture is the permanent expression of God's heart to your heart in writing. The permanent expression of God's heart to your heart in writing. Yes, God wrote a book and his book is far more important than any book that I've written. So you want to start with his book. Start with scripture.

27:19 everything flows from that listen to isaiah 55 as the rain comes down and the snow from heaven this is perfect for the last few days as the rain comes down and the snow from heaven do and do not return there but water the earth and make it bring forth and bud that it may give seed to the sower and bread to the eater, so shall my word be that goes forth from my mouth. It shall not return to me void, but it shall accomplish what I please and it shall prosper in the thing for which I sent it. So you get up, you take your Bible and you pray. I like to begin by saying, Father, I seek you forgive me of my sins cleanse me of my unrighteousness teach me something give me a hunger for your truth and the reason I think it's important to begin that way is because anything we do over and over and over again repeatedly can become routine even if it's a good thing it can become routine and therefore boring and we can just sort of do it legalistically and it becomes sort of empty to us so so you want to ask the lord's favor in this meeting in conversation you're going to start with him in the morning and let me add to this um by saying slower is better than faster yeah but I didn't cover all my chapters slower is better than faster I think there's room for both but I'm gonna I'm gonna make a pitch for meditating on the scripture not just reading it but meditating on it it's a good bible word by the way meditate Joshua 1 8 the book of the law shall not depart from your mouth but you shall meditate on it day and night that you may observe

29:26 to do all that is written in it. For then you will make your way prosperous. Then you will have good success. To meditate is to ponder, to reflect, to think about the nuance of what it means. Again, Psalm 119, the psalmist said, I will meditate on your precepts and I will contemplate your ways. Okay. Reading without meditating will deepen your knowledge, but reading and meditating will deepen your relationship. It's important to have knowledge, but it's also important to have relationship. The relationship will be based upon the knowledge grow in the grace, 2 Peter 3, 18, and the knowledge of our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ. But just reading will increase your knowledge. Reading and meditating will increase and deepen your relationship. First Psalm, blessed is the man who doesn't walk in the counsel of the ungodly, or stand in the way of sinners, or sit in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord. And in his law, does he meditate, ponder, reflect on day and night? He will be like a tree planted by the rivers of water that brings forth fruit in its season. So you start with the scripture. So set a time, make it a priority, start with scripture. Number four, pray it back.

30:55 pray it back. Daily devotions is two-way communication. You're having relationship with God. You're not just reading what God has put down. You're not just reading knowledge from the scripture. It's two-way communication. So you read and you pick up thoughts, ideas, promises, principles if you are prompted by what you read and pray that back now it is a two-way communication here's just a little example the other day i was reading in my daily devotions through the book of second samuel and i came upon david fleeing jerusalem do you remember when absalom rebelled against him his son and he had to leave with his entourage and go down into the kidron valley and up the Mount of Olives and out into the wilderness. Well, there was a guy who met him on his journey named Ittai the Gittite. He had just come from his place where he used to live and moved to Jerusalem to hang out with David. Now David's leaving. And David says, you know, go back home.

32:15 I'm not going to uproot you from your location. You should just, you shouldn't follow me. And he wrote this, or he said this to David. This is Ittai the Gittai. As the Lord lives, and as my Lord, the King lives, surely in whatever place my Lord, the King shall be, whether in death or in life, even there your servant will be and that verse just slowed me down and spoke to me and I applied that in my relationship not to King David because I have no relationship with King David yet but I do have a relationship with King Jesus who is my Lord and King so I made that my prayer wherever my Lord, the King is, that's where your servant will be. Lord, help me beat to be content in whatever I place you allow me to be in today. That was my prayer for the day. I prayed it back to him.

33:15 So if you come across a prayer or a statement like that in your Bible reading, use that as a diving board, a model to prompt you in your prayers, use Bible prayers. Now I'll caution you because some of the prayers in the Psalms are what we call imprecatory Psalms, like, oh Lord, break their teeth in their mouth. be careful what you wish for and how you pray, but use, use the scripture as prompts. So pray it back. Number five, um, write it down. Boy, I'm glad that I could go over. This is from the 1980s and early 1990s. So as you're going through your section of scripture that you read that morning.

34:10 what does this passage tell you about God? What does this passage tell you about Jesus or about the Holy Spirit? What does the passage reveal about you, about mankind, about humanity? What does this passage have to do about direction you're seeking? What kind of response will you have to what you read? Is there a command that I have to obey? Is there a warning in this that I have to heed? Is there a promise that I need to claim? I think I told you before that D.L. Moody made it a practice to carry a notebook with him everywhere he went, just to keep it with his Bible when he would go anywhere, just in case God was speaking something to his heart, or he heard somebody say something that was important that he thought he should write down. Or of course, you have your cell phone. You could write a message to yourself in that. A lot of us do that.

35:09 Or if he heard a message, a sermon, he'd want to take notes to it. So write it down. So those are the five little tips, I think, that are good on how to do it. Set a time. Make it a priority. Start with Scripture. Pray it back. Write it down. Now listen to George Mueller.

35:31 And he wrote extensively on this. I'm only going to give you a sentence or two. George Mueller was a man of faith who started an orphanage in Bristol England and in his lifetime his adult lifetime serviced thousands of street orphans and evangelized them and nourished them and nurtured them took care of them in his orphanage and he said this great I'm quoting great has been the blessing from consecutive diligent daily study of the scriptures I look upon it as a lost day when I have not had a good time over the word of God. I haven't spent any quiet time today, a lost day. My day is lost until I begin there or I end there if you're going to do it, if you're the owl rather than the lark. Now just a word of caution. Because we are human, you're going to find yourself dozing, drifting, daydreaming. You're going to feel even as you read sometimes, depending on what you're reading about, it becomes a little dull. You end up a little joyless. All of that is normal. It's like when I went to college and if you wanted to graduate with in a certain field, you had to take an array of classes. I couldn't just go and say, I don't like that class. I'd rather do that class. I'm sorry. If you want the degree, you have to have all of these classes because we consider that a well-rounded education.

37:17 So think of your Bible as a well-rounded application. All those parts that you think have nothing to do with me. You muscle through them because you want to remind yourself that your daily devotions are not an end in themselves. They are a means to an end. They are a means to an end. And what is the end? Not just getting through the chapters, but the relationship of love and intimacy with my Lord that God promised he would bring. Listen, just don't let that dullness that sometimes settle in throw you. Even human relationships can become dull. Am I right? And need to be cultivated, right? You have to kind of add things to them to keep them going. So it's not about how many times you've been through the Bible. It's how many times the Bible has been through you and how thoroughly it has been through you. It's saturated through you. Okay. I began with Crowfoot and giving the permission for the Canadian railroad to go through tribal lands. And he had a promise, but he never acted on the promise, even though he had a lifetime promise. I want to close with another story. William Penn and another tribe of Indians, the Delaware Indians. William Penn, in meeting with the Delaware Indians, struck a deal. And the Delaware tribe promised William Penn that he could have as much of their land as he could encompass on foot in a single day.

39:16 You can have as much of our land as you can walk around, circumnavigate in a single day. He got up early the next day, very early before the sun was up with a map in hand and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked and walked into the night, marking it on his map. When he went to claim the land, the tribe was shocked. They were surprised that he really did it, but they kept their promise and they gave to him, to William Penn, what is today a large part of the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. That William Penn, that city he walked with the map right we enoch walked with god and so take those promises walk through it claim those promises and add them to your life okay really quickly just a word about how this book is written it's 365 day devotional um if you want it you're gonna you can get it This is not a sales pitch. If you don't want it, you might have your own style of devotions.

40:33 This is what it does. It will take you through the entire Bible in a year, but in a devotional way. So I've sort of, I have kept indeed the same outline as I did for the Bible from 30,000 feet. So as you open each book of the Bible from Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, you'll notice an outline of the whole book, same outline as 30K. and there are references to what pages to read from the Bible from 30,000 feet if you so desire to do it that way. But you could just make this a standalone book if you like. Then each day begins with a recommended reading for the day, what chapters of the Bible to read. Like the first day is Genesis 1 through 3. And then after that is what I call the itinerary. It's just a summary statement of what those chapters are about. That then is followed by what we call touching down.

41:35 It is not a macroscopic view, a sentence view. It's a microscopic view where I take a verse or a few verses of the scripture and drill down in that single verse and make application to your personal life. And then it closes with what we call a travel tip. And the travel tip is a question that you're asked or a suggestion about the poignant theme of that text. And if you do that for 365 days, you'll make it through the entire Bible in a year and you'll do it devotionally. Now it's not marked January 1st through December 31st. You could begin any day you like. We thought we would do that because some people go, Oh, I missed a day. So what? You can always get back to it. No, no legalism that way. So there's no date that you have to have that assignment on. You might be traveling or have something else, but you can always get back to it.

42:35 Okay. So this is a shortened study so we can close with a good time of worship. And then we'll have our book signing. Should you decide to do that? Father, thank you for your word. But more than that, I want to thank you for a flock, a group of people that love your word and come to seek your face in the scriptures. I pray you'd bless them because they are those who diligently seek you in Jesus name. Amen. By the way, as we're going to close with a few songs of worship, this book is dedicated to you. That's the dedication. I dedicated this book to the faithful flock of the church of Calvary church in Albuquerque, New Mexico, whose hunger for the scripture has been an inspiration to me for more than 40 years. So thank you for your inspiration.