Sitting Before God
By
Clarence Killingsworth
I Chronicles 17:16
II Samuel 7:18
And David the king came and sat before the Lord..........
It is not necessary to point out what a busy life style we all lead
in maintaining a marriage, raising a family, going to a job five or six
days a week, and if there is a ministry, performing as we believe that
God would have it the calling that he has put upon us. When all of this
is said and done, we look for some time to just sit and rest or
meditate. We often think like David and say "And I said, Oh that I had
wings like a dove! for then would I fly away, and be at rest." We might
take a lesson from David when he made the aforementioned statement; "And
David the king came and sat before the Lord....." When is the last time
that you or I have determined to just do as David said and sit before
the Lord?
I worked with a Pastor 'Buddy' Garret in McAlister, Oklahoma who
taught me more about this concept than any other preacher that I have
been privileged to know. It is very easy to be 'doing' at the expense of
'being.' Both are absolutely necessary and both are fruitful and
sometimes it is not easy to see where the balance should be between the
two of them. Pastor Garrett knew and practiced the presence of God. He
spent hours sitting before the Lord and knowing him. The apostle Paul
expressed in Philippians 3:10 That I may know him, and the power of his
resurrection, and the fellowship of his sufferings, being made
conformable unto his death; Paul's greatest desire was not that he might
be a great preacher or missionary, or evangelist, or teacher, but that
he might know Christ. Pastor Garret's greatest desire was to know his
Saviour. When he preached it was very evident that he had accomplished
this goal in his life and ministry. Brother Garrett taught me more than
any other pastor than I have known about the presence of God. When you
are privileged to company with a man of God such as this you never
forget it.
I would like to add at this point that what I am saying about Pastor
Garrett does not in any way take away from the importance that I place
upon my current pastor. Bro. Baker is exactly what God designed for my
present needs as my pastor. At the time when I was under the leadership
of Bro. Garret, I need the unique ministry that was available from his
perspective and of course was affected for life, even as I am affected
for life by my present pastor.
There are so many wonderful projects and ministries and people in
need and things to attend to and budgets to maintain and souls to win
and on and on and on that we end up by saying; well Lord, I have no time
to sit before you today, maybe tomorrow. We go out then with no
presence of God, no confidence in the Spirit, no heart preparation and
we find ourselves chopping with a dull ax and hacking on a tree that is
unyielding to the dull spirit that we possess. Where is the power? Where
is the confident boldness of the Spirit of God? Left in the place where
we should have been sitting before the Lord as David did.
Paul expressed over and over again his sweet fellowship and close
relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Philippians 3:8-9 Yea
doubtless, and I count all things but loss for the excellency of the
knowledge of Christ Jesus my Lord: for whom I have suffered the loss of
all things, and do count them but dung, that I may win Christ,
And
be found in him, not having mine own righteousness, which is of the law,
but that which is through the faith of Christ, the righteousness which
is of God by faith:
We cannot affect people to God unless we are first affected by God.
We cannot bring people to God until we have been to God and sat before
him and gazed upon the crucified one and been changed by him. 2Co 3:18
But we all, with open face beholding as in a glass the glory of the
Lord, are changed into the same image from glory to glory, even as by
the Spirit of the Lord. A story written by Nathaniel Hawthorne titled
'The Great Stone Face,' a young man named Earnest spent many hours
gazing on a rock formation of a huge face which had such a countenance
of peace and tranquility that he was fascinated by the effect that it
had upon him. After years of returning to the same place to look upon
the face and meditate upon it, it was said that Earnest had become
himself a picture of the tranquility exuded by the image.
Paul the apostle said, BE ye followers of me. That little word 'be'
is so very important; to be must proceed to do. If we have not been with
him and sat with him and learned him we will not affectively be able to
do. Obviously both are absolutely necessary and we cannot attend to one
to the elimination of the other; both are vitally important. When
Joshua had watched his troops defeated by the little nation of Ai and
fell on his face before God to find what was wrong, God reproved him
telling him to get off his face and find out what was the cause of the
failure and correct the problem and then do battle.
Do we have the spirit that David the sweet psalmist had? Is our
greatest desire to know him as the apostle Paul said? Have we sat before
him today, or do we rush out with our dull ax and begin to swing again
and again without the power or the confidence that comes with knowing
him? Let's determine today that we will not begin our day without first
giving ourselves to him and waiting on him to prepare us for what we
will face in each day of our lives. Let us sit before him.
Author Resource:-
Clarence Killingsworth Assistant to the Pastor
Gospel Light Baptist Church
Greeley, Colorado 80634
www.glbcgreeley.com
You can read more on
kostenlos Handy orten PerfectResources:
handy orten kostenlos Great
hostgator promo codesTry also
handy orten kostenlos GreatGo to
hoover vhd 716 Waschmaschine
Thanksstudy2010:
Waschmaschinen kaufen
ThanksFurther information
Waschmaschine Kaufempfehlung
cuGo toTry
elektrische Zigarette
PerfectStudy 2008:
elektrische Zigarette
Good to knowLearn more about
elektronische Zigarette
ThanksGot to
e Zigarette
Ciao
Article From
Christian Baptist Articles
The Wall