home

You may freely copy and distribute this article in part or in full as long as you include the following:

from The Prayerline Newsletter by Darrell C. Porter

"TIME"

April - June, 2010

It is something you cannot see, cannot feel and cannot hold. Yet it governs every area of life. You are given only so much at birth, to do what is right and good or what is wrong and evil. When spent it is all gone. You cannot get it back. You can never start over. You can only proceed from where you are. Time does not repeat itself. It is the most rare of all things in the universe. Unlike precious metals, when time is lost it cannot be found; or like money, once spent or wasted, it can never be regained. Much time invested into a thing bears much fruit. A little time bears little fruit. No time no fruit.

Laid upon this rare commodity is the hand of God Who bids us give a wholesome portion to Him. This will bear fruit. Time with God is wise and never a waste.
What can lift up a soul plunged into despair? So far down is he that none can find him. Yet God can. The LORD alone is able to restore our soul and fill us with His breath of life, hope and strength. The air of Christ restores the humble soul.

No car can run without power; nor a Christian without prayer.

PRAYER IS FUEL FOR THE BELIEVER. It drives you into the presence of Christ. Hence it is good to take your time when you pray, and not rush. "He that believeth shall not make haste." (Isa.28:16)

Prayer… personal and private is important. It places you into that personal meeting place with the LORD, where you can take the time you need to truly interact and commune with Him.

A true connoisseur of the finest wine will never gulp down a $24,000 bottle of Montrachet 1978, as though it were mere Cool-aid. Nor will the connoisseur of God.
The things of the LORD are succulent to the discriminating soul. His Holy Spirit must be savored. His Word valued, and His will most highly esteemed. Such a connoisseur of God will gladly offer Him to another, saying happily, "Oh taste and see that the Lord is good." (Ps.34:8)

Blessed is he who even receives such an invite. Or even to ask God yourself; to receive Him as a favored guest, a dear friend or beloved family member, is to engage His presence.

Mere knowledge will not deeply move you to God. One can know everything about Him yet be empty of any intimate acquaintance with Him. This comes only by personal surrender. Meekness of spirit lifts you up where your soul can feel and know Him. Ah! Who can tell what it is like to touch, or more to embrace, God; or to be embraced by Him? In Him the world of woe disappears – all cares and concerns lift off and vanish like a whiff of smoke.

Words alone cannot describe it. For communion with heaven's Creator is more than mere words. Who can tell what it is like to be touched by God? A blind man whose sight is restored or a mother whose daughter is brought back to life or a soldier whose servant is healed. When nothing like this ever happened before, and nothing in them deserves it – what can they say? When desperation, fear and trouble digs deep, while at the same time rising higher than your very life, then suddenly the goodness of God is upon you. What can you say? Where are the words? And should any be found or borrowed, then like mere crumbs upon the ground, they are sadly unable to satisfy the desire to do so.

LIKEWISE, WORDS ALONE DO NOT MAKE PRAYER. Spirit led prayer passes through walls where words cannot go. Words are simply vehicles of prayer. It is the Spirit of the one who prays that is the driver of prayer. God's Spirit takes you beyond the limits of the world and into the throne room, even into the very heart of God, by prayer. (cf. Heb. 4:16; Mat.9:20-22)

True prayer mounts up with purpose, feeling and intent. Words carry these. Words without purpose or intent are like dried up shells on a barren seashore. If you don't feel what you say to God then how can God feel it? If you have no idea why you are talking to Him then why should He bow to listen? Prayer without purpose is like a vehicle without wheels. The engine may run, and even sound strong, yet the car doesn't move. It can't. It has no wheels. Prayer without purpose goes nowhere.
Words alone do not make prayer. Heart makes prayer. One may easily pray without words and enter the very throne room of heaven by the earnestness of your faith filled heart. While the other who prays with all colorful words, and no heart, is as one standing there talking to himself, where even he is not listening.

Spiritual prayer is a key to entering the presence of God. In Him is all power and every perfect answer. The world may pour upon you problems and persecutions and distresses. Yet prayer takes you out from under it, into God's holy presence. Here there is help. Here there is encouragement. Here you can be re-filled and made ready to confront those obstacles with renewed courage and strength, to go forward once more to fight the good fight of faith. (1Tim.6:12)

MUCH TIME IN PRAYER means much power. Little time means little power. No time... none. "Draw night to God, and he will draw night to you." (Jam.4:8) How sad the implication if one will not draw near to God. Prayer uplifts you and gives you spiritual increase. Daniel prayed three times a day, faithfully; and the Bible says in him was found an excellent spirit. (Dan.6:3, 10)

Prayer brings growth. As with all things excellent, to grow in the goodness and knowledge of God takes time. (2Pet.3:18) The more time you spend with God the more of Him you receive. Those who receive God want more of Him.

Just like a treasure hunter combing the sandy beach with his metal detector, and happily discovers a rare and precious object. He holds it up and examines it. "Awesome!" He cries out. He then looks out, wide-eyed, at the endless golden shore before him, bordering the vast ocean waters. He knows instantly there is much more hidden underneath. So too is it with God. There is much more to the God of heaven and earth than can be gained in a mere moment. To possess this treasure you must pursue it through earnest prayer.

Such time with God leaves a stamp on your soul. The world may not see it. Yet heaven sees it plainly. It plainly reveals the thing that's of highest value to your heart. That above family, friends, money and education, recreation or TV, even ministry itself, God is of far greater value. (Matt.22:37; Lu.14:36; Php.3:7-8)

Nevertheless, in a fast paced world true prayer also requires discipline. We cannot pray as we want if we make no time for it, if we do not commit to it. Prayer is not all beautiful and lustrous. It's a work-out of faith and desire and seeking the will of God. You don't look pretty after you've prayed earnestly. You look worn. Trusting God while standing in the midst of a hail of arrows and opposition against you takes courage. It takes temerity. It requires humbling of yourself under His mighty hand. (1Pet.5:6)

"Be careful for nothing; but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known unto God." (Php 4:6)

"Trust in him at all times; ye people, pour out your heart before him: God is a refuge for us." (Ps 62:8)

" Hear my prayer, O LORD, and let my cry come unto thee. " (Ps 102:1)

"I poured out my complaint before him; I shewed before him my trouble." (Ps 142:2)

"Arise, cry out in the night: in the beginning of the watches pour out thine heart like water before the face of the Lord: lift up thy hands toward him for the life of thy young children, that faint for hunger in the top of every street." (La 2:19)

God gives grace to the humble. (1Pet.5:5) The vain and conceited and self-seeking will not trust God, nor humble themselves to Him in prayer. Their vanity dejects Him.

Glancing back over our shoulder we can see that so much of our time has been spent gaining the world. Yet all of its abundance ends up being little more than a vapor of smoke that rises and quickly disappears. We are left empty handed and naked; stunned at how much time and strength it took to get it, only to leave us with nothing in return. The old saints used to say, "With nothing you come into the world; and with nothing you will leave." In the end all worldly gain is as nothing. You cannot take any of it with you. The things of the world have no place among the matchless treasures of heaven. Nor can they be taken into hell. Hell may only possess those who rejected Christ, whose time on earth was spent with not even a mustard seed of faith planted into the Kingdom of God.

So short are our days. So brief is our time. Every click of the clock, every passing of the second takes that much time away from us. Sin is the greatest destroyer of time. Let your money be lost... your health and your life, but not your time with God. Nothing equals the individual's gain of Christ. He is the GRAND prize of life. (Php.3:8) To die without Christ is to have wasted all of your time in this world.

Consider the time spent gossiping, buried in TV, video games, reading and listening to unwholesome things, drugs, drunkenness, whoring and laziness. Where does it all go? What fruit does it provide? What benefits does it give? If none for you then does it bring any to anyone else? Do the angels look on it? Can it be found in heaven anywhere? If not there, then where is it? Look where all the wasteland is, in the dust of the earth. All step on it. Serpents crawl through it. Scorpions hide in it. The living return to it. Wasted time is as barren dust.

God gave us time to get right with Him and to get right with each other. The wise use it wisely. The foolish foolishly. The ignorant ignorantly. The carnal carnally. The careless carelessly, while the purposeful purposely. You don't get more time. You only have what you have.

Do right or do evil. Help someone or refuse. Be a blessing or a constant pain. Honor God or dishonor Him. Repent or remain in sin. Believe God or argue with Him. When your time is up only what you have laid up in heaven will meet you at the gate.

Everything in the world will be destroyed, perish, pass away. Everything! And those without Christ, without belonging to Him, will pass away, perish, be destroyed right along with everything else. It is foolish when you think about it, not to save yourself from the judgment to come by receiving heaven's Salvation, while you have the time now to do so. (Acts 2:40)

Consider how the world has spent so much time to give you every make, shape, size of sin, delusion and disappointment. It did it freely. Why? Because it is coming to a final end, and has little more to offer than what is of no eternal benefit. Look closer. Time has no moral or spiritual value to the world. Rather, it is like a very precious pearl cast into a vast pig pen (Mat.7:6) that despises God (Rom.3:11) and cares nothing about giving time to Him.

Now consider the wise who hold time as precious. Time with the Maker of time; time with the perfect Answer; time with eternal Truth; time with the perfect Healer; time with the Counselor of their soul; time with their heavenly Defender and mighty Protector; time with the Savior of their soul.

Truly, time with our dearest friends and loved ones or our most favored hobbies and interests are cherishing; and we need these times. Yet the greatest benefit of all is time with God. (cf. Mat.10:37-38)

A poor man is enriched who spends much time with God. A wealthy man is impoverished who spends little or no time with God. What we have is what we have put our time into. Time into nothing gives nothing. Time into God gives God. We reap what we sow. (Gal.6:7)

None of this world will last forever. The world of culture, crime, comedy, childhood… all rise and take their forms and shapes like multi-colored flowers or weeds spread out across a wide open field. They all come up and fill their moment of time and glory. Then they die. All things die - all worlds, both good and bad. Even the constellations of "Heaven and earth will pass away." (Matt.24:35) Yet only one world remains forever. That is the eternal and glorious Kingdom of God. His "world" alone will remain forever. His own will live with Him forever. (John 8:35) This is Truth!

The world of flesh, of gender and race, of politics and power, of lawlessness and rebellion, of fame and fortune… will all end. For all had their beginning; and all things with a beginning will have an end. Only God – and those found in Him – will last and remain forever. The constant pull of the world and its endless demands upon you to turn away from God and His Christ, to engage in worldly matters without God, are nothing more than a waste... a mere waste of time.

###

The PRAYERLINE Newsletter is a quarterly publication of Darrell C. Porter Evangelistic Assoc., Inc.

www.oneaglewings.com

To be placed on our email list complete sign up form click Here.