Good Morning Everyone,
Our theme for this month: “Taking care of your soul”
Our Bible verse for today: “During those days he went out to the mountain to pray and spent all night in prayer to God.” Luke 6:12 (HCSB)
Our thought for today: “Jesus spent lots of time in prayerful preparation.”
WWJD (What Would Jesus Do)? We love to ask that question. The implication is that once we know what Jesus would do in any given situation that then will become the guide and model for our own behavior. That’s perfectly reasonable and appropriate. Being Christ-followers we should in fact be mimicking His behavior and relying on His example to guide us.
Part of the problem with this though, lies in the fact that we almost always associate the answer with some action. We like to envision Jesus as having been a man of action, and therefore we too should be men and women of action. Jesus did stuff, and therefore we do stuff too! But actually, it would probably be more accurate to say that Jesus did nothing much more often than He did something.
By most estimates Jesus was here on earth for thirty-three years. However His public ministry was only three years long. That means that of His thirty-three years on earth, thirty of them – 90% – were not spent in ministry. As we’ve already discussed in a previous devotional, during those “hidden” years Jesus was almost certainly living a simple and quiet life of obedience and devotion as God prepared Him for the three busy years.
And even during those three busy years of ministry, we often read of Him walking away from the crowds, withdrawing into solitude and silence, and spending lots of time in prayerful preparation for what the next hours and days would bring.
When we ask the question “What Would Jesus Do” we like to say “Well, He would do this, or He would do that, or He would do some other thing.” Well, maybe He would. But more than likely the answer is “He would pray”. Statistically, purely in terms of percentages of how He spent His thirty-three years on earth, Jesus spent much more time in prayer and preparation than He did in action.
And so should we.
God Bless,
Pastor Jim
Oak Hill Baptist Church 