It is very interesting to study the life of our Lord Jesus and to see His responses to the victories that came into His life. In Matt. 14:13-23, He has this multitude of people, there is no food, they need to eat, the disciples of course, looking at it from a natural perspective, beseech the Lord to send them all away. Our Lord, looking at it from a heavenly perspective, sees that here is a perfect opportunity to show forth the mighty works of God. We know the story; He takes 5 loaves and 2 fishes and feeds a multitude. After such a wonderful miracle as that He sends His disciples into the boat, tells them to go to the other side of the sea of Galilee, sends all the multitude away, and then He goes up into the mountain and there He is, alone. He is alone. That’s not quite the way that we would probably do things. We would rather be around a lot of people after there’s been some great victory. But as we see our Lord’s example, at times of great outpourings, at times of great blessings, our Lord departed into the mountains and He was alone. A Season Alone With God. Turn to Luke 6:12 and we see another one of these examples. Now in this example, it is just before some important decisions need to be made. Luke 6:12, “And it came to pass in those days, that he (our Lord Jesus) went out into a mountain to pray, and continued all night in prayer to God.” Here we see another example: “And when it was day, he called unto Him his disciples, and of them he chose twelve whom also he named apostles.” And then it gives the names of the twelve apostles. Our Lord knew He needed to make some choices the next day and He went alone to be alone with His God and His Father before those choices were made. So we can see from the ministry of our Lord Jesus, that His life was scattered with little seasons where He drew Himself aside, and was alone with His Heavenly Father. I like to envision our Lord doing this from time to time through His whole ministry and I believe that He did. He would give Himself out, and then He would fill Himself back up again, and then He would give Himself out, and then He would fill Himself back up again. He did this over and over, all throughout His ministry. He knew it was a key to the blessings of God, He knew it was a key to the strength that He needed in order to face the temptations that were upon Him, He knew it was the key for direction in His life, He knew it was the key to the power of God in His life, the miracle-working power which He worked out day by day in His earthly ministry. And I don’t believe for a minute, that our Lord Jesus did the things that He did because He was God, but He did the things He did by the power of His Holy Spirit, because He was anointed, and because the Father spoke to Him and gave Him faith and gave Him a vision and He believed the Father and did what the Father said, and the miracles took place. So thus He had to get alone and draw strength from His Father day by day. And if our Lord Jesus needed to get alone and have seasons with His God, how much more do we need seasons when we get alone with our God and just fill ourselves back up after we’ve been giving out, and giving out, and giving out.
I believe that many people do not practice this matter of being alone with God simply because they don’t have a vision to do it or they have no idea what they would do for a whole day. And maybe that’s where you are. You wonder, “What would I ever do?” And maybe you even tried to spend a day alone with God, but it didn’t work out for you. Well, I want to give you a little bit of an outline and describe how to spend a day alone with God, and explain some ways that may help you.
It was some years ago now, that two young men from the congregation here sought some counsel from me. They had a Bible School they wanted to go to, and asked what I thought about them going. Their desires were to learn more about God, to learn more about His word, to have God’s best for their lives. They asked, “Can we go away to Bible School?” And they suggested a Bible School to me. I investigated the Bible School and it didn’t seem to me to be a very good place for them. It was a school with a lot of liberal tendencies, and a lot of lightheartedness among the young people that were there. I told these two young men, “I don’t think you need to go there to Bible School, but I’ll give you another Bible School that you can go to.” And I told these two young men to just find themselves a cabin somewhere and go out to that cabin and spend a week out there alone with God. And I gave them a little bit of direction, but not a lot. At that point I hadn’t really meditated on this subject as much as I have now. But I gave them a little bit of direction as to what they could do, and then sent them on their way and I thought nothing else of it. Well, when Saturday of the following week came around, I was at the church studying and these two young men came in to see me, and they were so excited. They wanted to share with me all the things that had happened to them while they were away for that week. Their whole lives were changed! They came back saying, “We got filled with the Spirit.” And I thought to myself, “What a beautiful thing for young men to come back saying.” God filled us with His spirit. Now I’m not sure if they got the unction that we read about in the Scripture, but I know this, they had a meeting with God like they had never had before, and they’ve never been the same because of it. After I sat and listened to these two young men share their experience, I began to mediate further, and I thought to myself, “You know, that needs to be shared with other people.” And that’s what I want to do now. Let me list a few things that you’ll need to know as you are planning to spend some time alone with God.
- You need to be well rested when you start. It is no little thing to spend two days alone with God, and if you are tired and you are worn out, you will not be very alert and you may not have very much success.
- You need to have a place to go where you will not be disturbed. A place where no telephone is ringing, a place where nobody is going to come and distracte you, a place where nobody else is, where you can be alone, completely alone. When you are alone, you’ll express your heart to God best. When you are alone, you will think upon your own life more. When you are alone, you will examine your own heart more, than you will if you are around other people.
- You need to plan and schedule a specific time to do it. If you don’t, it will probably never happen, because we all have so many voices that are always crying to us, telling us what needs to be done.
- What you need:
A Bible
A hymnbook
A notebook (so you can record your thoughts while you are there alone)
A concordance (for study)
A couple stirring devotional books
A couple stirring sermon tapes
An alarm clock
An empty stomach (it will make you more alert and open to God’s spirit)
- One Day s Schedule -
5:30 am
Rise and wash and refresh yourself. This is your day to be alone with God, and you want to be wide-awake for it. You are meeting with someone important today, so take a shower and get cleaned up.
6:00 am
You begin your day. Sing a few hymns and worship your God. You can do this several different ways, but I recommend that you spend the first hour with a songbook in your hand. Sing a song or two, spend some time worshiping God, just tell God how much you love Him, tell Him how wonderful He is to you, praise Him, glorify Him, and then sing a couple more songs, and continue on like this for that first hour.
7:00 am
Now you take your Bible and you start to read. For this excersize, I would just recommend you read the Bible to be blessed, just feed off of it. A good place to read would be Psalms.
8:00 am
For this hour, I’d like to recommend that you have a season of earnest prayer. Earnest prayer, an hour of praying outloud, praying for yourself and others. And if you can’t stay awake on your knees, then you walk around in that little place that you have chosen to be alone in.
9:00 am
Get out your devotional book and you are going to spend an hour reading that. And this book is going to stir you; it’s going to lift your sights higher, etc.
10:00 am
Go for a walk with the Lord. Leave the place where you have chosen to be alone and go for a walk with your God. Talk with Him, enjoy His creation, mediate on Him, etc. This is also a bit of a diversion for you.
11:00 am
Spend this hour in memorization and meditation of the Word of God. Take a section of the Bible and memorize it, and while you memorize, mediate on the section of Scripture you have chosen.
12:00 pm
For this hour, listen to that stirring sermon tape that you brought along with you. Something that will shake you and bring you to reality with where you are with the Lord.
1:00 pm
Rest for an hour. Set your alarm clock for 1 hour later and lie down and rest. If you sleep, praise God, but if you don’t, you are just going to relax.
2:00 pm
You are going to start over again with the singing of hymns and worshipping your God. Take some different songs and do that same thing that you did earlier that morning.
3:00 pm
Turn to you Bible again. This time you are going to read your Bible looking for specific food. Maybe a need, maybe do some study with your concordance, what everyou want, but this is to be study time.
4:00 pm
Now, you are going to have again a season of earnest prayer for an hour. I don’t go for a lot of lists for prayer, but because of the amount of time you have to spend in prayer, you may want to jot yourself a little list of things you can pray about. Another idea would be to take the Lord’s prayer and break it down into 6 sections. 10 minutes hallowing His name. 10 minutes praying for the will of God. 10 minutes praying about spiritual food and physical needs in your life. 10 minutes praying about forgiveness and people who oppose you. 10 minutes praying about your needs and temptations. And 10 more minutes of hallowing and praising His name.
5:00 pm
Take your devotional book again and read for another hour in it.
6:00 pm
Go for another walk, with the Lord. Not just a regular walk, but a walk with the Lord.
7:00 pm
Turn back to your scripture memorization and mediation. You’ll spend an hour doing this.
8:00 pm
Listen to another sermon tape, that stirs your very being.
9:00 pm
Spend this hour in relaxation and mediation over the day and maybe take a sheet of paper and record your day, your thoughts and impressions that you had throughout the day.
10:00 pm
Go to bed for a sweet night of sleep.
In closing, these are guidelines, not laws of bondage. But I fear that many people, because they have no direction, do nothing.
