Justin Tucker, LHBC Worship Pastor
Matthew 6:6
But when you pray, go into your private room, shut your door, and pray to your Father who is in secret. And your Father who sees in secret will reward you.”
Here is where I lay it down
Every burden, every crown
This is my surrender
This is my surrender
https://youtu.be/hk-ReRHb_2s (add thumbnail)
The things in life that matter most to us are the things that we intentionally invest in. With us just having Valentine’s Day last week, a lot of us celebrated by creating intentional time and space to spend with our spouses or significant others. Intentionally spending time with the people that we love allows us to enter into intimacy with them. It allows us to know them. To see them. To hear them. It gives us an opportunity to let them know that they are important to us and that they matter to us. It gives us an opportunity to let them know that their hopes, dreams, and aspirations mean something to us. It’s an awesome day that reminds us to set aside ourselves and focus on the people we love. The thing we have to remember is that we have 364 other days of the year that we should treat with the same intentionality because our spouse deserves that intimacy that they crave.
Our relationship with the Lord isn’t very different at all. God has been extremely intentional with us. He has created us, He provides for us, He meets our every need, He gave up His son so that we could have access to Him, and He desires intimacy with us. I think that may be the big problem for some of us as believers. We mistake access for intimacy. If you don’t get anything else from this, please take this to heart…Access to God does not beget intimacy with Him. We have access to almighty God but do we truly have intimacy with Him. Do we spend time with Him daily in prayer and in His Word? Creating room and space for intentional, intimate time with God is something that we have to choose to do. The specifics look different for everyone. Maybe you have to wake up before the rest of your house to create that time. If your life looks like ours and you feel like every moment of your day is spoken for until you collapse with exhaustion at 9pm, then maybe right before bed is best for you. Either way and anything in between works. We just have to choose it. Time and space won’t materialize out of thin air. We have to make room.
PRAYER FOR TODAY:
Lord, teach us to make room. Set a fire inside us that burns for you daily. Teach us to enter into the intimacy that you desire and that we need. Thank you for loving us even when the distractions and busyness of this world steal our attention. Jesus, thank you for coming and paying the price with your blood that gives the access to intimacy with the Father. Holy Spirit, guide us and direct us. Give us wisdom and discernment to make decisions to follow after Jesus. It is in Jesus’ name I pray, amen.
MEMORY VERSE OF THE WEEK:
Psalm 23:6
Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me
all the days of my life,
and I shall dwell in the house of the Lord
forever.