Peacemakers of the Heart
“Our Quiet Time with God”
Introduction:
1. Sometimes, when floods come, they will carry away houses, cars, furniture, etc. Yet, the giant oak tree stands unmoved. Why is this? Because it has something that all those other things don’t have – roots! It possesses a deep, embedded root system that no flood or wind will ever move.
2. We feel the force of lives flooded with demands, deadlines, deficits, and disappointments. As if the heavy rains aren’t enough, then a dam breaks (the accident, the surgery, the illness, the injury, the betrayal, the loss, the family crisis). We may feel like we are going to be swept downstream.
• There is only one solution – you’d better take care of your roots! Put down your roots and protect them, lest you get carried downstream!
3. Inner peace doesn’t come by accident. It happens at the root level of your inner spirit.
4. Sometimes, doctors will give a person a pacemaker to help regulate his or her heartbeat. This, of course, deals with the physical organ called the heart.
5. But when the Bible speaks of the heart, it speaks of our inner mental and emotional state. So instead of “pacemakers” of the heart, let’s consider “peacemakers” of the heart. I will give you five peacemakers of the heart over the course of the next several weeks.
• These peacemakers will send deep stabilizing roots down in your inner spirit – at the deepest level of your existence and being.
6. The first peacemaker we will consider is your quiet time with God.
Your quiet time with God must be a priority.
• Illustration of the nuclear submarine “Thresher” – Unequalized pressure causes people to collapse too. Our quiet time with God provides a presence greater than the pressure of the day ahead.
1. We were built to begin our day with our Creator. In Genesis 3:8 it says that Adam and Eve “heard the voice of the Lord God walking in the garden in the cool of the day…”
2. Since the very beginning, men and women have been incomplete (whether they recognize it or not) without their morning walk with God.
• Abraham rose early to stand before the Lord. Genesis 19:27
• Jacob rose early to worship the Lord. Genesis 28:18
• Moses rose early to meet the Lord at Sinai. Exodus 34:4
• David rose early to seek God. Psalm 63:1
• Jesus rose early to pray to His Father. Mark 1:35
3. There will always be reasons why we can’t have our quiet time with God. They all say the same thing: “Sorry Lord, I just can’t squeeze you in.”
4. When you fail to protect the peacemaker of your quiet time with God, you end up racing into another day with your spiritual and emotional gas tank on “empty.”
5. The harder it is to spend time with the Lord, the more it is needed and must be made a priority.
Your quiet time with God requires a plan.
• The commitment to an uncompromised time with Him involves five action steps.
1. Set a spot.
• Without a definite time and place, it will be crowded right out. Genesis 19:27
• Jesus made it part of his morning schedule. If we want to spend a few minutes with God, those minutes have to show up on the alarm clock setting the night before.
2. Clear your mind.
• God wants to commune with you, but it is difficult if there is too much static on the line. Psalm 46:10; Philippians 4:8
• Settle down for a few minutes and ask Him to help you to focus on Him.
3. Open your hands.
• You have accumulated a new handful since yesterday morning (a wound from a friend, a person you are deeply concerned for, a heavy schedule, an unanswered question, a preoccupying worry).
• This is the time to turn it all over to Him. Let go and cast it at His feet. 1 Peter 5:7
4. Get an assignment.
• As you pray and read God’s Word, it should not be a passive experience. You aren’t just meeting with a book, you are meeting with a Person!
• We are looking for something to do today, not just something to know. 2 Timothy 3:16-17; Philippians 4:9
5. Set your course.
• Think through the events and people that will be filling your day. Pray through each of them in advance.
• Consciously turn over to Christ the specific anticipations of the next 24 hours.
Your quiet time with God involves recognizing His presence.
1. That early morning closeness to God is crucial and wonderful, but it must extend into the heat of the battle. We do this by recognizing His presence with us all day. 1 Thessalonians 5:17; Proverbs 3:5-6
2. This gives to us that special sense of going places with Him and doing things with Him. It makes a peaceful difference.
3. You must recognize His presence all of the time:
• In your waking moments (your first conscious thoughts)
• In your running moments (most of our day)
• In your surprising moments (good and bad)
• In your nothing times – Illustration: radio station dead air
• In your fading times (Fall asleep talking to Him.)
4. A day begun with Him and run with Him provides a powerful shock absorber for the bumpy roads we travel.
Concluding Thoughts:
1. When your quiet time with the Lord is the number one priority of your schedule, your soul is anchored in the harbor only He can provide. Don’t compromise it for anything or anyone!
2. Your quiet time with God each day is a peacemaker of the heart that must be carefully guarded on the path to personal peace.
