“The next day, when they came down from the mountain, a large crowd met Him.” Luke 9:37 HCSB
I wonder how Peter slept after the cloud in verse 36? Did he toss and turn thinking about Jesus being the chooses one. Or did He sleep hard from the exhaustion felt after the rush? Either way Peter, James, and John came back down the mountain with Jesus. I would venture to guess it was a quiet trip down the mountain. And then the chaos started. The crowd had been waiting on Jesus and the nine disciples had their hands full.
Life seems to fill up for us when Jesus is away. We often too busy to read, pray, fellowship or go to church. Between home, work and family, life can get crazy. But Jesus helps set our priorities in order. If we would just stop for a few minutes to meditate on God.
We all have the same bank account of time each day. No one gets 30 hours in a day and no one gets 20 either. We all have 24 hours to work with. Why not set aside 10% of your day for God? This would be 2 hours and 24 minutes. If your not ready for a gross 10% how about trying a net 10% if subtract 8 hours to sleep from 24 hours we would get 16 hours. 10% would be 1 hour and 36 minutes. Could we find 1.6 hours to turn off the TV and tune into God? The latest figure from the New York Post is that we are steaming TV 8 hours a day during this stay at home order. (https://nypost.com/2020/04/14/average-american-streaming-content-8-hours-a-day-during-covid-19-according-to-new-research)
So how can we achieve 2.4 to 1.6 hours with God? If we were to spend 28 to 19 minutes on each of these 5 categories we could get to it pretty easily just with the word of God. And then if we throw in prayer at each step I think we would begin to grow into a more mature Christian in a matter of a few weeks maybe a month.
Hearing:
With new technology, we have access to hear the Bible read to us via c.d.s or an app. Or we could find a Facebook live sermon from a Church nearby. Or we can pull up a Youtube video of a sermon from one of our favorite pastors. Most of these would fall between 19 to 28-minute mark. During this time take notes, we will use them later.
Reading:
We then can pick up our physical Bible and read the passage the Pastor was reading from. If we were to read a chapter before and a chapter after twice this would take up our allotted time.
Study:
We could then do what the People did with Paul.
“As soon as it was night, the brothers sent Paul and Silas off to Berea. On arrival, they went into the synagogue of the Jews. The people here were more open-minded than those in Thessalonica, since they welcomed the message with eagerness and examined the Scriptures daily to see if these things were so. Consequently, many of them believed, including a number of the prominent Greek women as well as men.”
Acts 17:10-12 HCSB
We cold study to see if what we heard from the pastor was true according to the Bible. Most messages contain several scriptures and if we took good notes we could look up the verses to see if the pastor used them in the right context. If not pick a new pastor tomorrow.
Memorize:
Next, take time to write done one verse that spoke to you during your study time and try to memorize this. This will take more time throughout the day and if we keep at it we will memorize 7 verses a week. Do not be too hard on yourself if you only have 1 or 2 by the end of the week.
Meditate:
Take time to think about what you have heard, read, studied and memorized each day and pray that God will broaden your understanding of His scripture.
Yes, when you get down off the mountain with God, life will try to show up but you will be prepared for whatever it tries to throw your way.
Who will try to achieve 2.4 or 1.6 hours with me?
Look at these verses and decide if you were to give God 10% of your time then would He will give what He has promised to give back to you?
“Bring the full tenth into the storehouse so that there may be food in My house. Test Me in this way,” says the Lord of Hosts. “See if I will not open the floodgates of heaven and pour out a blessing for you without measure.”
Malachi 3:10 HCSB
“Give, and it will be given to you; a good measure — pressed down, shaken together, and running over — will be poured into your lap. For with the measure you use, it will be measured back to you.”
Luke 6:38 HCSB
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