The Holy Spirit this morning in my communion time reminded me to share with you the importance and priority of setting time on purpose to meet with Him to be taught and instructed in righteousness as your daily habit. I know you will say that you give Him time each day, but He wants you to now prioritize the time you take with Him and bring structure to it. Make it as you would plan each day to go to work for your employer.

You will not be lazy in being at work on time because you are looking at the salary your boss will give you each month and for that reason you will even wake up earlier to ensure that you are available early to start your day of work for your employer to demonstrate your commitment to the role.

Well today that is the mindset that the Holy Spirit wants you to apply to your walk with Him as that shows how valuable you think Him to be to you and your commitment is demonstrated in what you are willing to do to please Him.

In Luke.5:16 we read these words about Jesus However, He made a practice of withdrawing to remote places in order to pray. Now you can see from this passage that Jesus made withdrawing from people His practice to find deserted places so that He could pray and spend time with the Holy Spirit to know what He ought to do because that was His priority.

Now we know that Jesus was sent to help people because the Father sent Him to save the souls of men, so you would think that His practice would be to withdraw from God and spend time with the people because that is how He would be able to reach them by being with them and convincing them to change.

However His practice was to withdraw from men and pursue God and then from the overflow of being with God give man what he needed. This practice worked perfectly and enabled Jesus to accomplish the plan of God to the letter and avail us of so great a salvation.

For some reason we seem to believe that giving the Lord prescribed and arranged time is a crime or bondage and we can be slack with that because doing things for people is the priority.

Well Jesus said that we should seek first the kingdom of God and His righteousness and then all other things will be added unto us. He also said that except we deny ourselves daily, take up our cross and follow Him we cannot become His disciples. Well I have just pointed out what Jesus made His practice and we will need to follow that practice if we are truly following Him because that is what He did and that cannot be denied.

In the book of Acts.6:2-4 we read these words. Then the twelve summoned the multitude of the disciples and said, “It is not desirable that we should leave the word of God and serve tables. 3 Therefore, brethren, seek out from among you seven men of good reputation, full of the Holy Spirit and wisdom, whom we may appoint over this business; 4 but we will give ourselves continually to prayer and to the ministry of the word.

Now the followers of Jesus make the priority not serving people but giving themselves to prayer continually and then ministry of the word to people which is exactly what they observed their Master Jesus do and saw how successful that was and followed suit.

When conflict arose about how they used their time they clearly pointed out that it is undesirable to leave the practice of prayer and seeking God to minister to people’s needs because that is our priority. Just look at their results as they kept the priority of withdrawing to seek God, their practice.

Well today the Holy Spirit wants to remind you and stir you back up to the place of prioritizing your time with Him as your practice again and see how your life will again begin to take the God shape and progress more rapidly and produce much more fruit as your priority shifts back to your original practice to withdraw and be filled with the Holy Spirit and come out loaded with the Presence and power of God that will change lives eternally and expand His reach on the earth.

I pray today that as you hear these words, zeal for the Fathers house will again consume your hearts and minds and, propel you through the grace supplied to you by the Holy Spirit to be about the Father’s business of withdrawing to be empowered by the Holy Spirit and returning to show forth His glory to men and that cycle continuing day by day so that the name of Jesus is glorified and His Kingdom expanded on the earth. Let this be your purpose in Jesus’ name. Amen.