“Been With Jesus”

The Directional Team and myself at The Vertical Church has been for months now strategically going through parts of the Bible together.  Right now we are in Acts.  This week’s chapter is 4.  I have read this chapter many times; however this one phrase has never stuck out at me like it did this morning.  Here is the entire verse:

“When they saw the courage of Peter and John and realized that they were unschooled, ordinary men, they were astonished and they took note that these men had been with Jesus.” Acts 4:13

That last phrase really hit my heart hard:  ”..been with Jesus.”  I then did what I do every morning with passages like this, I wrote down the phrase and began meditating upon it.  

As I sat in silence the Spirit of the Lord began to reveal to me some hidden motives that I needed to deal with.  One was, “Why do I do what I do?”  ”Why am I a pastor?”  ”Is it ego driven?” “Have I let the ministry drive me instead of Jesus driving me?”  

As I dealt with these questions, I began to dialogue with God about my life.  What does God want me to leave behind?  I believe for all of us His heart’s desire is that people would say of us that we had “been with Jesus”.  These three words are the greatest legacy and testimony that we could leave with people we meet every day.   

So I began to ask God in prayer, what do I need to do to really leave a mark that says I had “been with Jesus”.  You see Jesus is who I want in my life.  More than anything, I want Him to permeate every part of my being.  So how do I do this?  What does God want from me?  This one word kept popping in my head:

TIME

God wants my time.  He wants to be with me and I with Him.  I am not talking about just flippantly reading a verse in the Bible, but really spending time with Him.  

This past summer my wife and kids were gone for 3 days.  I decided that I was going to do something that I had never done before.  I was going to spend time with God the entire time.  I turned off the TV and literally spent hours each day basking, soaking, meditating, praying, reading His word, and listening in His presence.  It was a great time.  

As I began to think about this time I began to realize, I can’t do that for hours each day when life is happening at 100 mph!  So how can I accomplish being with Jesus in a real, profound way each day.  Here is what came to mind:

T- God wants my TOTAL attention  Yes, everyday I need to be “praying without ceasing” but it is impossible to just be like a monk and spend every waking moment with Jesus.  The disciples had 3 and 1/2 years with Jesus and then He was gone.  But the Holy Spirit came so that we could call upon Him any time.  We could be in His presence any time.  But there has to be time every day when my total attention is given to Him. 

I – God wants INCREMENTAL amounts  God knows my life.  I have a family, wife, two kids, and a ministry.  And I don’t believe that God wants us to build monasteries 24/7 so that we can cut ourselves off from the world and just be with Him.  This defeats the purpose of the Great Commission.  So their has to be incremental amounts of time.  Not just moments, but real time.  We must wait upon the Lord.  The problem is for most of us this means getting up early.  So am I willing to make that commitment to spend a total attentive incremental amount of time  with God.  

M- God wants us to MEDITATE upon His word  Of course deep down our thoughts are evil.  We have to have a compass.  That compass or road map is the word of God.  God wants me to meditate in incremental amounts of time with my total attention on Him.  The Word is one way that God will speak to us.  

E- God wants me to do this EVERYDAY  Of course there can be times 3 days here or 1 day there when we can completely wipe our schedule clean and spend with God.  But for the long haul, I need to have a plan for God to have my total attention incrementally as I meditate upon His word, everyday.  

So right now I am working on a plan for 2009 to help me accomplish this better.  If there is one thing I want to be guilty of striving for, that is knowing God more and knowing the power of His resurrection.  

What are you striving for? 

What’s your plan for being with Jesus?

Advertisement