May 23, 2025 • 46 mins
In this episode of afterWord, Pastor Kent sits down with executive pastors Matt Rehrer and Jeremy Pray to dive into the life-changing discipline of daily devotions. They unpack why carving out regular time in God’s Word isn’t just a good idea, but essential nourishment for your soul—and a key weapon in the ongoing spiritual battle against distraction.Together, they share candid stories of how buzzing smartphones, work pressures, and family responsibilities have derailed their own rhythms—and the practical tweaks that helped them recommit. You’ll learn:When to choose print versus audio ScriptureSimple strategies for staying mentally engaged—even on hectic morningsHabits that turn brief Bible time into lasting spiritual impactPlus, Matt, Jeremy, and Kent swap favorite tools, reading plans, and “light bulb” techniques designed to spark curiosity and fuel deeper meditation. Whether you’re just starting your devotional journey or seeking fresh inspiration, this honest conversation will equip you to overcome common barriers, strengthen your faith, and feast on your “daily bread.”Tune in, be encouraged, and make every moment count with afterWord!
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Episode Transcript
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(00:08):
Welcome back to Afterward podcast with extended
conversations about topics that matter.
I'm joined by Matt Rare again and Jeremy Pray, our executive
pastors here at North Creek. Welcome back, guys.
And with today, our topic is some people will call it
devotions, your devotions, your time in the word, your personal
worship of the Lord Jesus Christ.
(00:28):
Like what are you doing in termsof spending time in God's Word
throughout the week for yourself?
And so we thought we would spendtime on this topic, guys.
Why? Like why do we think that this
is an important topic to addressand is worthy of an even podcast
episode? Can you guys think of reasons
why this is pressing and why we need to bring it to bear?
(00:50):
Yeah, I think 1 because it's hard to do.
I think we struggle with this. Some of that's just a spiritual
battle component. I think the enemy doesn't want
us in the Word, and I think our flesh does everything it can to
distract and keep us from that and not prioritize it.
And so, yeah, I think it's a very relevant conversation for
us to pick up. I think it's interesting, if you
(01:10):
think about just literal food for your physical body, how
frequently we eat. Why did the Lord set it up that
way? Why didn't we just have one meal
once a month and that's it? But it's just, I think even
carrying that over the frequencyin which we need to eat physical
food for our physical bodies, the Lord set it up the same kind
of way, right? Give us this day, Our Daily
Bread, the constant reminder that we need the sustenance from
(01:33):
the Lord to continue on. So why don't we talk about it?
Because it's something that the Lord set up to help us see our
dependence on Him day after day after day.
And so it's a need. And we struggle when we don't do
it. It's it's hard to do it, but we
certainly struggle spiritually when we are not in the Word.
So yeah, just very simply, it's a need.
(01:54):
Yeah. What do you guys think?
I mean with in terms of distractions like you use the
word distraction, man, My wife and I have talked about this how
for us personally just having it's, it's a good thing.
It's a good thing. But having a device ready,
right, like having my iPad readyto go with any number of
different resources available atmy fingertips to help me in my
(02:16):
study of God's Word actually canbecome a distraction we've
actually had to wonder about. And at different times, I've
done different things with not having my device with me versus
which is a super helpful resource versus not having my
device with me. And I've kind of drifted back
and forth on that. But it does seem like 1
distraction that I think I have struggled with personally is
(02:37):
just, well, if I have my device with me, then here comes
everything else with it. Here comes the text.
Boom, you know, at 6:30 in the morning, here comes the e-mail
that I need to check from last night.
Here comes all these different little notifications that, you
know, crowd out my, my personal time with the Lord.
So for me, that's been a distraction.
And my wife and I have talked about that.
(02:58):
It doesn't mean you can't use it.
It just means, man, it's always there and kind of calling for
your attention for me personally, away from God's
Word, even though the resources on my device are so helpful.
So I don't know, it's been, that's been one area for me that
I think it's been a distraction.But as you think about just our
(03:20):
folks, right, just our folks at the church, what is it that it
makes just reading God's Word sohard, Maybe beyond the device or
alongside the device? Anything else come to mind that
you guys can think of? I don't know.
For me, it was really hard when I was in my previous job in
construction because everything happened in the morning.
Everything's lined up ready to go.
There's people that are countingon me.
(03:40):
And so I part of it's my job, like I need to respond.
And so many times I'd be sittingthere reading the word in the
morning, trying to get my heart in the right spot for the day.
And then here comes a text or something happens or something,
whatever, that just people are counting on me.
That was so distracting. Once my mind went that
direction, My time with the Lordis most of the time not even
(04:04):
recoverable. It's hard.
And so that was super hard for me.
And I always battled with, well,I don't want it to mess my, my
work to, to mess with my relationship with the Lord.
Then again, it's my job. I'm supposed to be doing this.
And so I would have to try to remedy that with different
things, getting up earlier or whatever.
But yeah, that's the first thingthat comes to to mind for me.
(04:25):
Yeah, I I think going along withthat distraction concept is
we've just filled our lives withso many things that make us busy
or feel busy or kind of de prioritize the word over things
that would be maybe even good priorities like your jobs, kids.
Think about all the reasons you could be tired in the morning to
(04:45):
make it really hard to stay focused and not fall asleep in
the text, which I think probablyall of us have done at some
point. Another where you're head
bobbing as you're trying to makeit through numbers, you know, So
yeah, I just think, man, there'sso much.
They're both in distraction. Your mind is active and finding
things or just in. Not a distracted mind, but just
(05:06):
a mind that can't stay focused because it's tired or just
falling asleep or apathetic. Just makes it hard.
That would be a lot of people that try to do it at the end
find it better to do at the end of the day.
And my, my mind is wiped at the end of the day.
So there's but there's difficulties on both ends.
Yeah, for sure. I just know I can think of many
mornings where, you know, you'rejust, you really are having a
(05:28):
sweet time with the Lord and then all of a sudden you hear
steps upstairs and you're like, here they come.
It's coming. Yeah, it's.
Coming. That's good.
In other words, like these are all good things, right?
I don't I don't have you guys mentioned any bad things.
I mean, your job, if you're, if you have a family, your kids,
distractions, yes, but they're all good, necessary things.
(05:49):
And so I think that that's encouraging though.
I mean, I in my mind, I hope that if, if people are listening
in or watching that they're actually hearing all these
things and going like, wait, youguys struggle with that?
Yeah. You know, I mean, I don't know
about you guys. I set off air.
I I spent three hours with Lord every morning.
So I don't know what you guys are doing.
But a major profit a day, I justgo Isaiah to Jeremiah to
(06:12):
Ezekiel, you know? That's just this.
Week for you Yeah, it was just yeah, it was 3 days so you know
I'm in good. Shape right now in the major
province. But yeah, it's just but I, I I
would hope that the encouragement is that that these
things are common. You know, the distractions are
common and the distractions are actually probably most of the
time good things, right. In other words, like their
(06:34):
responsibilities God's put before us.
And so praise the Lord for thoseresponsibilities.
But man, there's something that's most necessary right in
in that regard. I do think of like a a Mary and
a Martha, right in Luke 10, where there's there's so many
things that are so good. And Martha was about those
things serving the Lord. I mean, very noble, right good.
But there was one thing that waseven more needful and that was
(06:55):
to sit at the feet of the Savior, which is what Mary was
doing. And so in in some ways that is
kind of the image, I think for this podcast, even for this
episode, just like man, yes, good be about all those things
that God's called us to. Those things are right.
I mean, there are sinful distractions too, but I don't
know if that's where a lot of our people are at.
(07:16):
I mean, we can talk about that just in a moment, but I just
that image comes to mind of likewe need to be in a place where
we're just are sitting at the feet of Christ, right in his
word. I.
To add another layer to that, for a long, many years, even
when I was a young kid, I, I developed the habit of reading
scripture in the morning. So I would say that that's in,
there are distractions for me and getting in the word.
(07:38):
So everything we said so far is definitely true.
There's another layer to it though.
Even going like reading the text, I can be distracted even
when I have no phone, I have no other texts coming in.
I have like I'm distracted just in my own mind.
I'm just going through the motions and so for me, the
distraction doesn't always mean that I'm not even sitting there
(08:01):
with my Bible open. I can be doing that.
A distraction, if you want to use that word is just I don't
even remember what I read. So in a in that sense, my
devotion is distracted. My worship is distracted or
mixed or I don't know how else to say it.
It's just another layer on the the same kind of thing.
So just because you got your Bible open, you go through your
(08:22):
time, doesn't necessarily mean that your mind is totally there.
I struggle with that, probably more so than I do with the
actual routine of cracking open my Bible.
Getting started. Yeah, yeah.
What would you say, Kent? Because I we're talking about
literally opening a physical Bible right now and reading it.
What would you say to those folks who are like, man, my time
is limited. So my my plan is on my phone,
(08:46):
like I'm either doing that or I'm listening or doing like an
audio version of the Bible. How would we, how would we view
that? Yeah.
Yeah, I think first of all, I mean, most of for most of church
history, people did not have an access to their own personal
copy of God's word written, right?
So although the word of God is, is the written word of God,
right? For, I mean, going back into
(09:08):
biblical history, most people would have heard the written
word in the synagogue or in the early church.
They would not have had a copy of the Scriptures for
themselves. So we cannot discount the value
of the word heard even on your device, right?
So that's if that's a place where you can, where you can
access God's word, maybe in yourcommute on into the office or in
(09:32):
the car or on Bart or, you know,if you're going for a walk or
working out, just wherever you can carve out five or 10
minutes. You'd be amazed what you can
listen to. I mean, you could easily listen
to a chapter of the Bible in 5 or 10 minutes, which is, you
know, what most people would sayis like, yeah, I spent time with
the Lord and his word. What they would mean is
something like probably a chapter, you know, at least
(09:52):
well, you can listen to that in 5 or 10 minutes.
The the difference is, and we'regoing to get maybe get to this
in a different episode. The difference is we don't live
in that time. We do have access to God's word
written. And so I think the open like the
book opened does call for a bit more meditation than the word
just heard. I don't know, I don't know.
(10:12):
Do you guys think that's true? In other words, like if you're
listening on a on the way in on Bart, are you able to meditate
on like just stop and reflect onGod's word as much or as deeply
as if you were sitting with the the word open?
I don't know. Do you have thoughts on that or?
Yeah, it's interesting because this is getting a little bit
into memory too in that. Do you?
Know anything about that? Yeah, OK.
(10:33):
I feel like you've written. Was it a booklet I wrote?
Yeah, it was a booklet. No, but but memory.
Like you guys know if you've hadyour Bible for a while, you
spatially even know where stuff is on the page because that's
just another tool. And so it's very well documented
that you remember very well whensomething is written and then
being able to be read and seen helps it sink in now.
(10:55):
And to your point, I think it also promotes meditation as well
because you're able to sit, ponder, go back to it, cross
reference easily see areas you've highlighted before.
So there is a value to that. Again, not necessarily saying,
hey, if you're doing audio, I think I think that's great.
Yes, it's a good deposit to be made to be hearing the word.
(11:17):
But for meditation, I think it gets challenging.
Yeah, I think to be able to to go from audio to meditation.
Would you say I, I'm thinking about this live so I want to be
careful here, but as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking,
you know what, yes, 1 medium is static.
It's the written page and one isaudio and passing by right?
Like it's, it's moving through in an audible sense and that
(11:42):
you, you are able to go back to it.
I mean, I guess you can press backwards, but once it's heard,
it's done versus here, once it'sread, it's not done.
And so you can go back to it, goback to it, sit on it, stare at
it. Like it's just, it seems like
it's more, it does call for morereflection because it's static.
I don't know, I would, I don't even know how to research that
(12:03):
or how to know biblically. Nothing comes to mind on that to
verify if that's true or not. But that just strikes me in my
own personal observance. The things I listen to are a
little bit less unless they're gauged to the book.
Like in a sermon. I'm looking at my Bible then if
I actually have the written word.
Yeah, I in talking to people as the as Kindles out there too,
(12:24):
right. Just says the way you just read
books or think about books. What's hard with Kindle is it's
not tied to the page. So you're like flipping and you
can find a page number associated with it, but the
retention of the content goes way down versus when you have
paper copy. So yeah, it's definitely tight
in. I think God has given us both
(12:45):
and I think they're really helpful in different ways with
the different mediums that we have and content that we can
take in. But yeah, for reflection,
there's definitely something to say about about a static word.
I was trying to think of a word picture almost the difference
between tubing like riding down the river versus like you're
sitting in your pool. You get very familiar with the
(13:05):
surroundings when you're in yourown backyard.
You're in Pool. You know the surroundings where
it's a river. You're just floating by.
You notice some things, but you can't really take it all in.
So you you'll remember some of the things you saw on your float
down. It's going back to my Texas
days. Tubings in Texas.
Sorry, guys. Yeah, it's good.
But but in your in your backyardpool, you know everything around
the pool. You know where the slide is or
(13:25):
where where your chairs normallysit.
And you get very familiar with it.
It's the same idea I think of just familiarity.
Yeah, it's good. The image got me thinking about
like when you even drive around town.
So play enough what you're saying there, you drive around
town, it's all familiar. But as soon as you ride your
bike or you walk somewhere wherethat you normally drive, you
look, how long has that been there?
(13:46):
Forever. Like I've never noticed that
house. I've never noticed this or that.
And I think that's the same kindof thing when you're when you're
reading. When I listen to something, it
forces me to go quick and I'm just getting more volume just
and that's good. Sometimes it's the pace is
helpful to speed me up. What I find way more valuable
for me personally is when I can read it, because then I can stop
and look at something like, wait, hold on, what did that
(14:07):
say? So it's different.
I wouldn't want to put one against the other as if one's
good one's bad. But there I do think that
there's a lot more value and a lot more gold to be mined when
you when you slow it down and you read the written text.
Yeah, I'm sure. I mean, again, we're thinking
(14:29):
about this in the context of ourown people, right.
What if we haven't done the research on this across, you
know, wide landscape of a cross section of humanity to know
about the difference between listening versus reading.
But you know, it does seem like there's wisdom in just putting
yourselves in front of an open book, right in front of the Word
that way. Can I ask you guys, you
mentioned it, that you had been just in your own reading.
(14:51):
So let me just ask you guys. We're we're not necessarily
talking here about our time in prayer.
I mean, that would be a separateepisode.
Maybe even meditating on God's Word.
That would be a separate episode.
I think ideally when you're spending time with the Lord and
worshiping Christ privately, allthose things are happening,
right? But we're trying to just say,
OK, how about time and the word as that first element.
(15:14):
So what, what is your guys like personal worship of Christ look
like? I mean, we've been talking about
it, barriers to it, distractionsin it, you know, the different
kind of ways that it that gets read or heard.
But it might be, I think, helpful just for people to hear
like, Hey, how do you guys spendtime with the Lord?
It is specifically with a focus on just reading God's word.
(15:36):
What does that look like? What has been helpful to you?
We've talked about distractions.What maybe has not been as
helpful to you? If anything comes to mind along
those lines, just kind of open up a little more personally for
I think folks you might want to know and learn.
Yeah, I think we're all in different places right now,
probably in Scripture. I had just started back in
Genesis, so I'm Genesis, like I'd say 10 was the last one.
(15:59):
So I'm in 11 today, a Tower of Babel 10.
So what catches my eye there is Nimrod.
So so when I'm reading through like there's different ways we
knew this and sometimes my DeVoshave more or less time, right?
You know, something catches my mind, but I'm spending time on
Nimrod. I see he starts the city of
Nineveh and I do a lot of my quick cross reference when I'm
in the Old Testament. One of the things I do in DeVos
(16:21):
is I quickly look, is there any,is there any interesting cross
references off the section I'm in, especially New Testament?
But Nimrod goes to Nineveh, which took me to Jonah, which we
were in family, DeVos and Jonah.So so I was thinking through me
on this guy who was a mighty warrior who comes out of like
the line of Noah now has startedthese cities of which Tower of
(16:45):
Babel is another one and that we're going to get to Chapter
11. And so then my mind's just going
down like what kind of leader hewas and how that led to Nineveh
and it's a gentile city and talking about Jonah.
So it, it wasn't like I had someprofound thought, but it was
more just reading through and something caught my eye.
So it'd be that we talked about different ways to study the
(17:06):
word. That would be as you're reading
through. We do this in one to one, but
that would be the concept of reading through.
And it's like what caught my eye, what caught me.
That would've been one of those things for me that would catch
my attention and then send me down a trail just of thoughts.
And sometimes it's different meditations that be an example
for me. When I talk to other people I
and hear what they do for their own devotions, I think that I
(17:28):
probably read less than your average person.
I've tried to read a lot like 5-6 chapters with it, like try
to just really take in a lot. Every time I try to do that I
don't I probably time wise and maybe I'm similar, but I always
get stopped on something that I want to think about and I'm like
wait, no hold on. I'm sure like my job is to read
5 chapters. I got to keep going.
(17:49):
I'm like no hold on, I want to think about that.
I know I got to go like I'm having this internal battle.
So I've done, I've done little sections.
I've just started in Matthew. In fact, when Haley and I were
first dating, we, we did it together like 1 chapter and went
all the way through the New Testament, then go back to the
Old Testament just one chapter at a time allowed us to talk
about it together. And then so I've done that.
(18:10):
Then now I'm on a Bible reading plan, but I don't like to be
bound to the day because I don'twant to feel guilty for not
having read everything. And if I stop on something.
So I have, I don't remember whatthis one's called.
I have it in my Bible. But anyway, so I read second or
second Chronicles 5 through 7 today and then it jumped me to
Psalm 121, which I read and thatwas great.
(18:30):
So my eyes up to the heavens andwhere does my help come from?
And, and that was great. And then I never made it the
first Timothy 4 because I was supposed to or I was supposed
to, but I didn't make it that far.
So now I'm on A5 day reading plan that I like.
It just gets you in the New Testament, the Old Testament.
I've done a variety of things. The last thing I'd say is that
that what doesn't you're talkingabout what doesn't work for me,
(18:51):
and I've already just mentioned it a little bit, is forcing
myself to try to go through it in a in one year, like holding
myself to it in one year. This is what I have to read on
this day made me way more of a box checker and I don't like
that it's for me. It stripped out the devotion
element of it and more. This is what I have to do.
And if I get a day behind, I gotto go make up like I don't want
(19:13):
to think like that. I just want to wake up and spend
some time with the Lord. So it's changed over the years,
but generally speaking, what you're saying, Matt, that's what
I would I, I do, I read generally what I'm what my, my
plan is, but I want to get to some kind of nugget, something I
can chew on for the rest of the day.
Sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't.
Yeah. So what our take away is, is you
(19:34):
don't have to read the whole Bible in a year.
Yes, Yep. Don't stick to the plan and get
off on things, you know, start focusing on Nimrod and you're in
good shape. So we're doing great so far in
our recommendations. Excellent what?
Do you do, Ken? Yeah, yeah.
What do you do, Ken? Please take this up a notch
'cause we're starting off stronger all.
Right. Our.
Our. Fearless leader, Our pastor,
What is your normal devotion? I will.
(19:55):
Well, here's why we're hoping. Here's where he was at today.
Not because we're bragging. We're just going like, hey, what
do you guys do? Which I hope that that's helpful
about this because we're all doing different things in in the
church and trying to help them be purposeful to serve people in
different ways. Oftentimes it's more up in
front. That's not more noble.
We talked about that last time than somebody else who's serving
(20:16):
behind the scenes. So we understand that we're not
trying to. We, we know our place, we know
we're zeros and we're just as useful as the Lord wants us to
be. And that's it, right?
OK, but I was reading this morning, my assignment was in
Second Chronicles. I'm in Second Chronicles 225
through 27. And so the Kings, well, a
Messiah was somewhat helpful in 25.
(20:36):
So I just read through that. I thought that's an interesting
chapter. I'm just going to continue to
read. I did wonder about the numbers
of the guys, like there's a lot of dudes in Judah at this time.
I thought about that. But then Uziah in 26, what
struck me, and I'm reading a devotional actually that helps
me kind of get into the assignedreading for the day.
And I'll share maybe about that later in a bit.
(20:58):
But Uzziah in in Second Chronicles 2616, this hit me
this morning. So all this stuff about what he
does and then a statement about what he was like.
And that was where I was like, here's a character assessment.
And I need to pause here. So verse 16.
But when Uzziah was strong, he grew proud to his destruction,
(21:18):
for he was unfaithful to the Lord, his God and entered the
temple of Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.
So he, he worshipped unbiblically.
It was unbiblical worship. He tried to take over what was
not his, to take over with the priesthood.
He gets confronted for that. And as he's he's, as he gets
confronted, the expression of pride, he's not teachable, he's
(21:39):
not humble. He fires back at them in anger
and then leprosy breaks out his forehead and he's a leper for
the rest of his reign, which is really useful because that tells
you why there was such a long CoRegency with Uzziah and his son
Jotham. Nobody cares about that.
But in my mind, I was like, oh, that's why there was a Co
Regency because he grew strong, he grew proud and he he
(22:02):
basically defiled worship. As the result of that, leprosy
broke out. He was put in his own house and
Jotham had to reign in his place, but not in his place but
with his dad. But his dad was in a separate
house. So that was helpful for me for
chronology stuff said like, I'm a total dork on that.
But then I came back to, yeah. But the issue is he was the
leader of God's people and he, when he got strong, he got proud
(22:25):
and God destroyed him. And so I'm like, man.
So you could just tell. I mean, I was thinking about
like, oh, Lord, I'm we're not, nobody's a king, right?
Nobody's a king. We have a king.
It's Christ. But, but if you're a leader,
this is a constant temptation. So I just went to the Lord,
Like, Lord, this is going to be a, this is a temptation for
people in any area of authority.God protect us from ourselves,
(22:48):
especially if we grow strong. So to me, I'm like, God, the
most dangerous place to be is inan area of strength where you
assume like, hey, man, that's because of me, you know, And
then you get checked by some thoughtful brothers like these
guys, the priests and Uzziah blows up, blows up at them.
So man, that can all happen so fast, right?
(23:08):
And so I was just asking the Lord, Lord help us to say if we
do grow strong, that's OK. That's not the indictment.
The indictment is when he grew stronger than he got proud.
So there was that. And I've been thinking about
that today, by the way. So just that's that single like,
oh God, growing proud to our owndestruction.
Protect us as a church, protect me as a pastor, you know what I
(23:30):
mean? There's that second thing.
Jotham in chapter 27, his son, he reigns when he's 25 years
old. So he's a young guy and it he
the general statement of verse 2was that he did what was right
in the Lord's eyes. And and then it comes down to
like all the ways that in verse 6, Jotham became mighty.
(23:52):
And so the statements made. So Jotham became mighty just
like his dad, but look at but because he ordered his ways
before the Lord is God, and that's really the only statement
made about him and his character.
So I just took that to the Lord.Like Lord, I don't even know
entirely what that means to order his ways.
I could look up commentaries. I can get into the Hebrew.
I could do all that, but I'm trying just to worship the Lord.
(24:13):
So I just took that to the Lord.Lord, would you help me to order
my ways before you? That seems to be well pleasing
to you and I want to, I just want to please you with having
things ordered. I don't want to be disordered.
That strikes me as probably whatsome of what that means.
Don't want to be chaotic, don't want to be impulsive, don't want
to be, you know, I don't even know all what that means.
I mean, I can obviously go find out, but in my time with the
(24:35):
Lord just this morning, there's how many verses?
I mean, there's that's probably 60 verses I read this morning,
but I really focused on on 2616 and 27 verse 6.
And to me that was enough to feed me for the day.
So I've even been thinking aboutthat ordering my ways.
What does that mean? I need to look into that, but
you know, just you're just that thought has stuck and that's I
(24:58):
love Jeremy what you said It's that's my daily bread.
Like those are my thoughts. That's where my thought goes to
keep me praying and depend on the Lord to walk by faith, not
trusting myself. And then tomorrow it's going to
be on to a has who is a total punk.
So it's going to be a study in contrast like I want to be
nothing like this man. I already know that I get to
find out tomorrow what that why I don't want to be like him, you
(25:20):
know, and also like I did think,having recently read about
Solomon, I mean, he was the guy who was David's son.
So, so when I read through the Solomon thing, I was amazed at
how much he built in the glory of his Kingdom.
And I thought my, my reflection on that was I was with Julie, we
were away for a night when I read through that section on
(25:41):
Solomon. Someone greater than Solomon is
here, you know, and, and his reign is going to be so much
more glorious. So just Jesus isn't in that
text, but like, as I was thinking about Solomon, I was
thinking about Jesus's own word to the point of your cross
reference. Someone greater than Solomon has
come because he is amazing. And so, yeah, I think in my
(26:03):
mind, that's how my my heart kind of gets drawn out from the
word, you know? And I don't think that's magic.
I don't I don't think that that's hard.
We're in Second Chronicles in Genesis.
I mean, you know, but hopefully that's encouraging just to have
people realize like, man, there is food for your soul in 15
minutes, you know, about as longas you'd spend eating your meal
(26:26):
anyways, your physical meal. So we don't want to
overcomplicate it. We don't want to, you know, make
it something that's just this huge amount of time, but come to
the Word anticipating that God, through his spirits going to
feed you. I'm hearing what you're saying
to Kent now. I'm a little disappointed you
didn't have three points of alliteration on those 3
chapters, but I think something.I'll walk on that for.
(26:47):
Tomorrow, yeah, good. Something though, that's I think
getting captured here is curiosity like you're you want
to know more not just for the sense of like I just want more
knowledge, but you're like, how does this help me in my walk
with the Lord? So you're just looking for
things in Scripture that are going to just draw that out,
connecting to Christ or or connecting your heart and just
(27:09):
checking your heart. So it's just a sweet, sweet to
see Second Chronicles doing thatright and just speaking,
speaking back and forth. You know, I have a question
about that though. OK, so.
Did I do that wrong? No, just do that whole thing
wrong. No, you're good.
You're good. But here's the question, because
here's I'm thinking. You're kind of winding up for
it. I was like, I'm ready for it,
man. No, I'm putting myself in the
(27:30):
shoes of some people that sometimes we do this right.
You hear, like, oh, this awesomeabout Nimrod.
And it's like, oh, he's in Second Chronicles.
They're both in Second Chronicles.
Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, that's awesome. And then they go open up the
Bible tomorrow because apparently there's a lot in
there. But then they get to like,
Jotham, Uzziah and Ahaz and like, I don't even know who
these guys. Like.
This is doing nothing for me. Yeah.
(27:51):
So what would you you then say? So so the Lord, you didn't do
this like, right when you were first saved, it wasn't like
you're all of a sudden immediately learning from these
texts as you are now. So what would you say to the
person who's like, that's awesome.
And they flop open their Bible and they read it and they're
like, I got to go to work, but like, that did nothing for me.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, so, so.
What do you say to those? Well.
(28:12):
I would say it did. So my contention is when you
think nothing happened, something happened.
You, you just by faith chose to believe that God's word is
enough for you to read and, and to be able to take in at least
mentally. And you have to just trust the
spirits going to do the work to,to drive that home spiritually
(28:34):
at some point. It doesn't have to be today.
I mean, you use the word deposit, and that's a good word.
Like you're making spiritual deposits like Paul tells Timothy
to make like this is the good deposit, the gospel, the word of
God. And so you're making deposits
that at some point you have to just trust by faith that that
(28:54):
the Spirit is going to put into play in your life.
You're not sanctifying yourself.A spirit is right.
So so we we trust that. The other thing I'd say too, is
you do have to come to the Biblewith some anticipation, you
know, like the anticipation thatyou would have for the thing
that you're excited about in anything in life.
So if you're excited about sports, you you turn on the game
(29:14):
with the anticipation that the game is going to be good.
If you knew the game was going to be a total lame game, then
then you probably wouldn't be asexcited to watch it, or maybe
you wouldn't even turn it on or open up the book or whatever.
But there's always something here.
So there's always just there's acuriosity.
I'd say there's an anticipation.And then what is your method to
to get to to like find out my hunch that there's something
(29:39):
here was right. More often than not, there's
always going to be a dud day. And that's because of us, not
the book, right? But OK, how how do you see
wonderful things in God's word like Psalm 119 talks about,
well, we talk about this all thetime and discipleship, right?
You need to read the word looking for light bulbs, right?
The light bulb, the question mark arrow method.
(30:00):
So like you just have to anticipate that something in
your reading is going to light you up.
Like, wait a minute, what's that?
That's the curiosity thing or the excitement thing.
And if you can't get excited about God's word, then ask
someone to help you get excited about God's word.
But the point is something, probably one thing or even
several things is going to lightyou up.
Light bulb. Second thing question, you need
to be curious. You should be asking questions
(30:21):
on things you don't know. One of the reasons why I think
are people don't maybe always know how to get something out of
God's word is because they don'tjust write down the questions
that that come to mind. Like I didn't get any of that.
Well, what didn't you get? Like, I've done this with a guy
in discipleship before. What didn't you get?
Why I didn't, I didn't understand any of it.
OK, that's great. Super helpful.
Actually. That's helpful.
(30:42):
So what didn't you get? And let's just make note of
those questions. And so then we were talking
through his questions and by thetime we were done 20 minutes
later, he's like, that was awesome.
So he went from some generic impression of I don't get any of
this to writing down what he didn't get.
And then he found some answers to questions and here come the
light bulbs, right? And then the last thing is the
arrow, right? So light bulbs, question Marks
(31:04):
and then arrows being the application.
I just shared the application. But you heard some of my arrows,
right? Their chronology, the the Co
Regency thing. I'm like, that's so cool.
That explains that leprosy in the forehead.
What does that look like? You know, he put he got put in
his own house. So all of that to say, that
would be a way, I think to help grow in I have 15 minutes, I'm
(31:28):
going to get into God's word. I have to get back out of God's
word and get to work or the kidsare coming downstairs or school
starting or whatever. And and that could be a way to
try to get more mind more out ofour feed better on on God's
word. Is that answering the question
you're asking? For sure.
OK going back to the physical bread, sometimes you're
sometimes it's a great meal. Yeah, sometimes it's do you
(31:50):
know, I just got to I got to getsome sustenance.
Sometimes we eat because we don't want to be hungry.
In fact, most of the time in America we eat because we don't
want to be hungry or so that we don't become hungry.
And it's the same kind of thing spiritually.
So even I like what you said about doing the work I hit, you
are getting something from it. You are.
(32:11):
Yeah. And it's the same kind of thing.
Like, we're not going to say that every single meal we eat
just blew our socks off. Except for my wife.
It's true. Oh, boy, it's true.
Good. Way to get that in there.
Good catch. Hope she listens to this
episode. Yeah, if I could like, tap, I'm
going to make thumbs up emoji. I'd be tapping the lights.
Right now it helps with our 10 listener I.
Don't remember my point now. Actually I don't remember my
(32:31):
point. I think I made my point with
the. One thing part I think you know
what? You're talking about.
I was so busy pressing the like button on that that was solved.
But it but I see like what you were mentioning Kent of
questions. I see questions as kind of
shovels, right? They are what's digging out,
getting the dirt off so you can get to the treasure.
They're forcing your mind deeperand you're not just settling.
You're going like, hey, what is there?
(32:53):
You know, because there's so much there.
I think that it's what brings about a life and I do like cross
referencing old to new and new to old because that's what
starts to give me excitement AndI start asking myself, where is
Christ in this? Like, how are we getting to
Christ? And those kind of things are
like my shovels. I those get me excited because
then I'm like, discover something and you want to go and
(33:14):
look for more. Yep.
Because it's all about a relationship with the living
God, right? All about a relationship with
Christ. And so this isn't a, this isn't
a dead book. It's a book that has its own
life. And it's pointing us to the one
who is life. And so, yeah, for sure, you want
to make sure you're not just making character assessments and
that's it. Like you want to drive
everything back to the Lord. And that gets to meditation and
(33:34):
prayer, which is for a differenttime, but yeah, yeah.
Did you want to say something else or I was going to shift,
but go ahead. Yeah, I well, you did a job too
of like it's not just for us to feel good to you.
Even some of the comments you made about the stuff you're
reading the Bible's living active and sharper than two
energy 2 edged sword to get at your heart because there's sin
(33:55):
sitting there. So you're asking like pride like
what is my thought on pride? Like, am I, is my success going
to get going to outstrip me here?
Is there something I need to think about with pride?
So I think too, like it's not just to feel good.
Like, you know, relationally, though there's more work there.
It's also digging at a maybe uncovered sin that we need to,
(34:17):
to start like looking at like, Hey, what, what do I need to
address in my own life? And the Bible comes to bear on
you so faithfully. So one of the reasons we get in
the word, it says we need the word to work on our heart
because otherwise we're just sitting there with, I think
crevices of sin hiding that thatneed to be dugout.
Yep, Yep, that's good. Well, if you think about it in
(34:37):
terms of a relationship, like like what you said, Matt, and,
and the meal concept, like what you mentioned, Jeremy, it does
kind of, it takes down this thing that I think we, we
sometimes set up as an ideal, which is like, I need some, I
need some encounter with God. You know, that word gets
mentioned. I'm a fresh encounter with God.
Like it's something like intergalactic and up in space,
(34:59):
like this super magical thing that's going to happen every
time or I need some. I just, I'm waiting for this
experience with God. You know, actually what you need
is a meal. You just, you just need, you
just need to be strengthened forthe day.
And what you what you need is you need to be pointed back to
Christ. You need to be reminded of the
glories of the relationship thatyou already possessed in him by
(35:21):
grace. It's not this encounter
language, this experience stuff.I'm like, I don't talk with my
wife like about that. I need this encounter with my
wife. Actually, I just wanted to want
to like, grow my love with my wife.
And it really helps when I spendtime with her and when he, she
talks to me and I talk to her, you know, which is, which is
reading God's word, is he? He's speaking to me.
(35:44):
And then my prayer is my speaking to him.
That's how the relationship grows, right?
And so, yeah, I, I, I, I, I likewhat you guys are saying because
it speaks to that. I mean, it's relational.
It's a meal. It's not rocket science.
It can be simple. It can take 10 minutes, it can
take 10 hours, you know, like I there's days where I do a whole
day retreat, you know, and when I've done that before, it's been
(36:07):
so great. But usually it's just, it's just
a 10 minute, 15 minute meal, right.
Can I ask you guys what what aresome when you think about the
person who may say like, I don'teven I hear you.
That's all sounds great. Where do you get that in the
Bible? The idea of having whatever word
you want to use, quiet time, devotions, time with the Lord,
(36:30):
private worship of whatever wordyou want to use, Where, where
would you guys go to just go? Hey, this, this is where the
Bible does talk about that dynamic in your life, that
reality in your life. Does anything come to mind?
Yeah, I think a number of Psalmsdo.
So that's usually where I would take people when we're trying to
just think through like, hey, what?
How does this, how should this be a priority in your life?
(36:51):
Why should this be set up as a as a daily practice, a
discipline and we go all the back to Psalm one, right.
Just to start it off with basics.
Psalm one kind of setting the tone for the rest of the book
really. And Psalm one starts off how
blessed is made is not walk in the council, wicked stand, sit.
So you got that. And then here's here's how he's
(37:12):
doing that where his delight is,but his delight is in the law of
the Lord, his Bible. And in his law he meditates day
and night. And then, and then this is the
benefit of that life is he will be like a tree firmly planted by
streams of water, which yields its fruit and it sees and its
leaf does not weather. Whatever he does, he prospers.
(37:33):
A man watered by the word is prospering, and he's doing it
day and night. And this is, this is the blessed
man. So that this is basically
setting the tone for the rest ofthe book of Psalms.
Yeah, yeah, it's good. It's good and yet, well, Psalm.
There's several Psalms, the one that I was thinking that may not
(37:53):
directly answer your question, but my mind goes there is is
Psalm one O 1 talks about. They're pondering the way that
is blameless. It starts out Psalm 1O11.
I will sing of the steadfast love and justice to you, O Lord,
I will make music. I will ponder the way that is
blameless and that's the line that always grabs me.
I will ponder the way that is blameless.
When will you come to me? I will walk with integrity of
(38:16):
heart within my house. I will not set before my eyes
anything that's worthless. And it's just he he goes on.
But the basically it's just I'vealways thought about the
pondering the way that is blameless.
And then he's talking about walking with integrity.
So it's not directly answering your question.
So I'm one I think is probably more direct, but he's still
thinking about how can I walk blamelessly?
(38:37):
He's pondering or in in what's coming.
It does not necessarily saying it's at the beginning of the
day, however he's just thinking about like I'm going to think
and I'm going to actually put effort into and be intentional
with how I can walk with integrity.
Well, if I think about that, forme, I, for me, that's my
conviction. At the end of the day, it's fine
to look back and see whether or not you walked with integrity.
(39:00):
But for me, it's more strategic to think with what's coming at
me today, how can I walk with integrity?
And so that for me is the conviction then of like I want
to start my day with that question setting my mind.
It's like seek things above, setyour mind on things above and
caution talks about that. So all those put together, I
(39:20):
want to start with that as my emphasis.
I want to ponder the way this blame list.
Yeah, so good. Yeah.
I mean, of course, I went to Psalm 119, so we're all in the
Psalms, but I would just challenge anybody, like read any
stanza out of Psalm 1/19 and tryto make a defense of why you
shouldn't consistently be in theword And, and really like daily
(39:41):
night and day comes up a fair amount in here.
And so that whole Psalm, the longest Psalm or song of the
Bible, is dominated by our intake of God's word, which he
calls the law in his time, right?
His his copy of the Scripture. I was thinking about Deuteronomy
6 as well, that we're to always have God's word before us in our
homes and our families. Certainly Jesus and John 1717
(40:05):
says sanctify them in the truth.Your word is truth.
And so always having this idea that like the only thing, the
only way we're going to grow by the Spirit is with the spirit
working according to his word. And so there's probably so many
other passages, but the day and night passages are really
helpful too because that that actually does occur through the
Psalms as well. So just want to make sure that
(40:26):
that folks knew we're not makingthis up.
This isn't a I don't I, you know, it's not like a spiritual
discipline that we just made-up as a rule.
This is actually something that rises up as a principle of
someone who delights, someone who delights in the Lord will
delight in his word. And so it is a rounded in the
word regularly and day to night language comes up in that
(40:48):
regard. And so whether it's early in the
day or late at night or whatever, there's a there's a
tendency in the believer to be in the word with regularity.
Let me, just as we're kind of putting a bow on this, let me
just ask you guys, what are there any personal resources
that you would recommend? And this is going to be a speed
round question that you'd recommend to kind of get people
(41:10):
into the word. I have a couple, so let me name
them. I, I have been hugely blessed by
Robert Murray Machine's Bible reading plan and it is a year
long Bible reading plan. So, you know, excuse him on
that, Jeremy, but. Hey, you could read it on your
own face even if it is a year long.
What are the five year plan? The five year plan can work
well. He actually has a one year and a
two year plan like you can. You can have it and then you can
(41:31):
make it 2 years, which is what Iwas doing for a long time.
And so the Robert Murray machineplan, you can look online and
grab that. And DA Carson, Don Carson has a
devotional paired to those Biblereadings every day.
It's called for the Love of God.And for years I used that.
It was so good for me to like just sit down in my chair.
I was half asleep in the morningearly, but I would, I would read
(41:53):
his little devotional and it washelpful to kind of wake me up.
You know, right now I'm going through Paul Tripp's little
devotional, Everyday Gospel, which is the Bible reading plan
for a year. So I'm reading, you know, 3 or 4
chapters a day. So it is hard.
I do get bogged down and I'm glad to get bogged down, but
he's trying to keep me on pace. And it's just a devotional that
(42:14):
goes with the text, always points to Christ.
And then I get into my Bible reading.
Spurgeon's morning and evening is not tied to your Bible
reading, but it will wake you upin the Word, right?
So just as a good rich feeding on a phrase or a verse in God's
Word, not necessarily tied to your Bible reading, but you guys
have other ideas we need to. Yeah, that's awful.
(42:35):
I'll say one quick one that's not tied to Bible reading.
So it's just interesting, right?Though sometimes there's these
trends in literature right now. All these devotionals have come
out, these 31 day devotionals from PNR Publishing and one that
has excellent is on anxiety. So for 31 days, the author Paul
Talcas walks you through every day.
It's basically a, a verse or a passage on some aspect of
(42:58):
thinking through anxiety in yourlife and you walk it through for
31 days and it's really sweet. So that would be someone who's
like, hey, I'm focused on this and I need to renew my mind in
this area. And so every day you're putting
your thought into that. So just another a little bit
different, but it's tied to a passage of Scripture, so a
little bit different too. Just to give some people some
(43:18):
different ideas. It's good.
Yeah, I appreciate the valley ofvision to for the prayer part.
And that's not necessarily getting you into the word per
SE, but to me it's, it works as a good pair with with the word
of God to kind of help learn howto pray much deeper.
And so when I pair it directly with my reading it it or like
(43:39):
right after it or something likethat, I found it even more
recently to be helpful to help me to pray Scripture.
So that's one. Now I'm starting to get into the
prayer side of things, but the the reading plan I'm on right
now is just called 5 day or fiveday.
Wait, shoot, I just pulled it out.
Well, your pace would be 5 years.
Well, come on, come on, come on.Five day Bible reading program,
(44:03):
5 day, meaning they, they line it out for getting it through
Scripture in a year, but only doing for five days.
But I don't do it Monday throughFriday.
I just do it every day. Yep.
And, and I sometimes I get bogged down, sometimes I go
faster or slower, whatever. But it gets you in different
parts of Scripture. So that's the one that I've
found to be helpful. I have not found the devotionals
to be as helpful for me. OK, that's just personally,
(44:25):
people. People love it.
But I would say that, like when Spurgeon takes just like one his
morning and evening and has one phrase, just reading it not in
my normal devotions, but like, man, it gets a lot out of that
phrase. And so that just gets me excited
to go back to my own reading andthink about it more deeply.
Yeah. So in terms of resources, I
(44:45):
don't pull in a lot of other things in my time.
I just want to be alone with my Bible.
So I don't use a resource in themoment, but those other ones aid
me when I read them outside of that time.
They helped me when I open up myBible, you know, the next
morning. Yeah, that's good.
Well, I, I hope. I mean, the goal for our time
here has been to just talk aboutlike what to open with, what are
(45:06):
the distractions? Because I think we have to
acknowledge all of us are all ofus are US included.
There is a bit of a warfare going on.
I mean, the enemy does not want us to open the word, right?
Certainly our flesh rages against it and throws up all
kinds of distractions. So we want to acknowledge that,
talk about that and then try to talk about how to like punch
past that to OK, So what are we doing in our time in God's word?
(45:29):
And we talked about his personalexamples also shared about some
resources as well. Also that we can have more of
our people spending more of their time in, in the word of
God, the word of the living God,right?
I mean, with all the ministry that happens to this church, I,
I do think that one of the very most needful things our people
(45:50):
need is to be alone with Christ and to worship him as he speaks
to them in this word, right? I, I, just, I, at the end of
everything we do, if our people could be there more, praise the
Lord. And so I hope this is an
encouragement. And guys, I appreciate your
input on that too. We'll take some time to come
back later and talk about what? So what does prayer look like in
(46:13):
the midst of all that? How does it work with my
reading? What does meditation look like
as well? So, so that hopefully we can
help our people grow in their private worship of Christ,
right? We want to, we want to make
disciples who really love to spend time worshipping God.
And so praise the Lord for that.So thank you guys and TuneIn
next time for the next episode of Afterward, an extended
(46:35):
conversation about topics that matter.
And this one definitely matters.Thanks so much.
Yeah.
Welcome back to Afterward podcast with extended
conversations about topics that matter.
I'm joined by Matt Rare again and Jeremy Pray, our executive
pastors here at North Creek. Welcome back, guys.
And with today, our topic is some people will call it
devotions, your devotions, your time in the word, your personal
worship of the Lord Jesus Christ.
(00:28):
Like what are you doing in termsof spending time in God's Word
throughout the week for yourself?
And so we thought we would spendtime on this topic, guys.
Why? Like why do we think that this
is an important topic to addressand is worthy of an even podcast
episode? Can you guys think of reasons
why this is pressing and why we need to bring it to bear?
(00:50):
Yeah, I think 1 because it's hard to do.
I think we struggle with this. Some of that's just a spiritual
battle component. I think the enemy doesn't want
us in the Word, and I think our flesh does everything it can to
distract and keep us from that and not prioritize it.
And so, yeah, I think it's a very relevant conversation for
us to pick up. I think it's interesting, if you
(01:10):
think about just literal food for your physical body, how
frequently we eat. Why did the Lord set it up that
way? Why didn't we just have one meal
once a month and that's it? But it's just, I think even
carrying that over the frequencyin which we need to eat physical
food for our physical bodies, the Lord set it up the same kind
of way, right? Give us this day, Our Daily
Bread, the constant reminder that we need the sustenance from
(01:33):
the Lord to continue on. So why don't we talk about it?
Because it's something that the Lord set up to help us see our
dependence on Him day after day after day.
And so it's a need. And we struggle when we don't do
it. It's it's hard to do it, but we
certainly struggle spiritually when we are not in the Word.
So yeah, just very simply, it's a need.
(01:54):
Yeah. What do you guys think?
I mean with in terms of distractions like you use the
word distraction, man, My wife and I have talked about this how
for us personally just having it's, it's a good thing.
It's a good thing. But having a device ready,
right, like having my iPad readyto go with any number of
different resources available atmy fingertips to help me in my
(02:16):
study of God's Word actually canbecome a distraction we've
actually had to wonder about. And at different times, I've
done different things with not having my device with me versus
which is a super helpful resource versus not having my
device with me. And I've kind of drifted back
and forth on that. But it does seem like 1
distraction that I think I have struggled with personally is
(02:37):
just, well, if I have my device with me, then here comes
everything else with it. Here comes the text.
Boom, you know, at 6:30 in the morning, here comes the e-mail
that I need to check from last night.
Here comes all these different little notifications that, you
know, crowd out my, my personal time with the Lord.
So for me, that's been a distraction.
And my wife and I have talked about that.
(02:58):
It doesn't mean you can't use it.
It just means, man, it's always there and kind of calling for
your attention for me personally, away from God's
Word, even though the resources on my device are so helpful.
So I don't know, it's been, that's been one area for me that
I think it's been a distraction.But as you think about just our
(03:20):
folks, right, just our folks at the church, what is it that it
makes just reading God's Word sohard, Maybe beyond the device or
alongside the device? Anything else come to mind that
you guys can think of? I don't know.
For me, it was really hard when I was in my previous job in
construction because everything happened in the morning.
Everything's lined up ready to go.
There's people that are countingon me.
(03:40):
And so I part of it's my job, like I need to respond.
And so many times I'd be sittingthere reading the word in the
morning, trying to get my heart in the right spot for the day.
And then here comes a text or something happens or something,
whatever, that just people are counting on me.
That was so distracting. Once my mind went that
direction, My time with the Lordis most of the time not even
(04:04):
recoverable. It's hard.
And so that was super hard for me.
And I always battled with, well,I don't want it to mess my, my
work to, to mess with my relationship with the Lord.
Then again, it's my job. I'm supposed to be doing this.
And so I would have to try to remedy that with different
things, getting up earlier or whatever.
But yeah, that's the first thingthat comes to to mind for me.
(04:25):
Yeah, I I think going along withthat distraction concept is
we've just filled our lives withso many things that make us busy
or feel busy or kind of de prioritize the word over things
that would be maybe even good priorities like your jobs, kids.
Think about all the reasons you could be tired in the morning to
(04:45):
make it really hard to stay focused and not fall asleep in
the text, which I think probablyall of us have done at some
point. Another where you're head
bobbing as you're trying to makeit through numbers, you know, So
yeah, I just think, man, there'sso much.
They're both in distraction. Your mind is active and finding
things or just in. Not a distracted mind, but just
(05:06):
a mind that can't stay focused because it's tired or just
falling asleep or apathetic. Just makes it hard.
That would be a lot of people that try to do it at the end
find it better to do at the end of the day.
And my, my mind is wiped at the end of the day.
So there's but there's difficulties on both ends.
Yeah, for sure. I just know I can think of many
mornings where, you know, you'rejust, you really are having a
(05:28):
sweet time with the Lord and then all of a sudden you hear
steps upstairs and you're like, here they come.
It's coming. Yeah, it's.
Coming. That's good.
In other words, like these are all good things, right?
I don't I don't have you guys mentioned any bad things.
I mean, your job, if you're, if you have a family, your kids,
distractions, yes, but they're all good, necessary things.
(05:49):
And so I think that that's encouraging though.
I mean, I in my mind, I hope that if, if people are listening
in or watching that they're actually hearing all these
things and going like, wait, youguys struggle with that?
Yeah. You know, I mean, I don't know
about you guys. I set off air.
I I spent three hours with Lord every morning.
So I don't know what you guys are doing.
But a major profit a day, I justgo Isaiah to Jeremiah to
(06:12):
Ezekiel, you know? That's just this.
Week for you Yeah, it was just yeah, it was 3 days so you know
I'm in good. Shape right now in the major
province. But yeah, it's just but I, I I
would hope that the encouragement is that that these
things are common. You know, the distractions are
common and the distractions are actually probably most of the
time good things, right. In other words, like their
(06:34):
responsibilities God's put before us.
And so praise the Lord for thoseresponsibilities.
But man, there's something that's most necessary right in
in that regard. I do think of like a a Mary and
a Martha, right in Luke 10, where there's there's so many
things that are so good. And Martha was about those
things serving the Lord. I mean, very noble, right good.
But there was one thing that waseven more needful and that was
(06:55):
to sit at the feet of the Savior, which is what Mary was
doing. And so in in some ways that is
kind of the image, I think for this podcast, even for this
episode, just like man, yes, good be about all those things
that God's called us to. Those things are right.
I mean, there are sinful distractions too, but I don't
know if that's where a lot of our people are at.
(07:16):
I mean, we can talk about that just in a moment, but I just
that image comes to mind of likewe need to be in a place where
we're just are sitting at the feet of Christ, right in his
word. I.
To add another layer to that, for a long, many years, even
when I was a young kid, I, I developed the habit of reading
scripture in the morning. So I would say that that's in,
there are distractions for me and getting in the word.
(07:38):
So everything we said so far is definitely true.
There's another layer to it though.
Even going like reading the text, I can be distracted even
when I have no phone, I have no other texts coming in.
I have like I'm distracted just in my own mind.
I'm just going through the motions and so for me, the
distraction doesn't always mean that I'm not even sitting there
(08:01):
with my Bible open. I can be doing that.
A distraction, if you want to use that word is just I don't
even remember what I read. So in a in that sense, my
devotion is distracted. My worship is distracted or
mixed or I don't know how else to say it.
It's just another layer on the the same kind of thing.
So just because you got your Bible open, you go through your
(08:22):
time, doesn't necessarily mean that your mind is totally there.
I struggle with that, probably more so than I do with the
actual routine of cracking open my Bible.
Getting started. Yeah, yeah.
What would you say, Kent? Because I we're talking about
literally opening a physical Bible right now and reading it.
What would you say to those folks who are like, man, my time
is limited. So my my plan is on my phone,
(08:46):
like I'm either doing that or I'm listening or doing like an
audio version of the Bible. How would we, how would we view
that? Yeah.
Yeah, I think first of all, I mean, most of for most of church
history, people did not have an access to their own personal
copy of God's word written, right?
So although the word of God is, is the written word of God,
right? For, I mean, going back into
(09:08):
biblical history, most people would have heard the written
word in the synagogue or in the early church.
They would not have had a copy of the Scriptures for
themselves. So we cannot discount the value
of the word heard even on your device, right?
So that's if that's a place where you can, where you can
access God's word, maybe in yourcommute on into the office or in
(09:32):
the car or on Bart or, you know,if you're going for a walk or
working out, just wherever you can carve out five or 10
minutes. You'd be amazed what you can
listen to. I mean, you could easily listen
to a chapter of the Bible in 5 or 10 minutes, which is, you
know, what most people would sayis like, yeah, I spent time with
the Lord and his word. What they would mean is
something like probably a chapter, you know, at least
(09:52):
well, you can listen to that in 5 or 10 minutes.
The the difference is, and we'regoing to get maybe get to this
in a different episode. The difference is we don't live
in that time. We do have access to God's word
written. And so I think the open like the
book opened does call for a bit more meditation than the word
just heard. I don't know, I don't know.
(10:12):
Do you guys think that's true? In other words, like if you're
listening on a on the way in on Bart, are you able to meditate
on like just stop and reflect onGod's word as much or as deeply
as if you were sitting with the the word open?
I don't know. Do you have thoughts on that or?
Yeah, it's interesting because this is getting a little bit
into memory too in that. Do you?
Know anything about that? Yeah, OK.
(10:33):
I feel like you've written. Was it a booklet I wrote?
Yeah, it was a booklet. No, but but memory.
Like you guys know if you've hadyour Bible for a while, you
spatially even know where stuff is on the page because that's
just another tool. And so it's very well documented
that you remember very well whensomething is written and then
being able to be read and seen helps it sink in now.
(10:55):
And to your point, I think it also promotes meditation as well
because you're able to sit, ponder, go back to it, cross
reference easily see areas you've highlighted before.
So there is a value to that. Again, not necessarily saying,
hey, if you're doing audio, I think I think that's great.
Yes, it's a good deposit to be made to be hearing the word.
(11:17):
But for meditation, I think it gets challenging.
Yeah, I think to be able to to go from audio to meditation.
Would you say I, I'm thinking about this live so I want to be
careful here, but as I'm listening to you, I'm thinking,
you know what, yes, 1 medium is static.
It's the written page and one isaudio and passing by right?
Like it's, it's moving through in an audible sense and that
(11:42):
you, you are able to go back to it.
I mean, I guess you can press backwards, but once it's heard,
it's done versus here, once it'sread, it's not done.
And so you can go back to it, goback to it, sit on it, stare at
it. Like it's just, it seems like
it's more, it does call for morereflection because it's static.
I don't know, I would, I don't even know how to research that
(12:03):
or how to know biblically. Nothing comes to mind on that to
verify if that's true or not. But that just strikes me in my
own personal observance. The things I listen to are a
little bit less unless they're gauged to the book.
Like in a sermon. I'm looking at my Bible then if
I actually have the written word.
Yeah, I in talking to people as the as Kindles out there too,
(12:24):
right. Just says the way you just read
books or think about books. What's hard with Kindle is it's
not tied to the page. So you're like flipping and you
can find a page number associated with it, but the
retention of the content goes way down versus when you have
paper copy. So yeah, it's definitely tight
in. I think God has given us both
(12:45):
and I think they're really helpful in different ways with
the different mediums that we have and content that we can
take in. But yeah, for reflection,
there's definitely something to say about about a static word.
I was trying to think of a word picture almost the difference
between tubing like riding down the river versus like you're
sitting in your pool. You get very familiar with the
(13:05):
surroundings when you're in yourown backyard.
You're in Pool. You know the surroundings where
it's a river. You're just floating by.
You notice some things, but you can't really take it all in.
So you you'll remember some of the things you saw on your float
down. It's going back to my Texas
days. Tubings in Texas.
Sorry, guys. Yeah, it's good.
But but in your in your backyardpool, you know everything around
the pool. You know where the slide is or
(13:25):
where where your chairs normallysit.
And you get very familiar with it.
It's the same idea I think of just familiarity.
Yeah, it's good. The image got me thinking about
like when you even drive around town.
So play enough what you're saying there, you drive around
town, it's all familiar. But as soon as you ride your
bike or you walk somewhere wherethat you normally drive, you
look, how long has that been there?
(13:46):
Forever. Like I've never noticed that
house. I've never noticed this or that.
And I think that's the same kindof thing when you're when you're
reading. When I listen to something, it
forces me to go quick and I'm just getting more volume just
and that's good. Sometimes it's the pace is
helpful to speed me up. What I find way more valuable
for me personally is when I can read it, because then I can stop
and look at something like, wait, hold on, what did that
(14:07):
say? So it's different.
I wouldn't want to put one against the other as if one's
good one's bad. But there I do think that
there's a lot more value and a lot more gold to be mined when
you when you slow it down and you read the written text.
Yeah, I'm sure. I mean, again, we're thinking
(14:29):
about this in the context of ourown people, right.
What if we haven't done the research on this across, you
know, wide landscape of a cross section of humanity to know
about the difference between listening versus reading.
But you know, it does seem like there's wisdom in just putting
yourselves in front of an open book, right in front of the Word
that way. Can I ask you guys, you
mentioned it, that you had been just in your own reading.
(14:51):
So let me just ask you guys. We're we're not necessarily
talking here about our time in prayer.
I mean, that would be a separateepisode.
Maybe even meditating on God's Word.
That would be a separate episode.
I think ideally when you're spending time with the Lord and
worshiping Christ privately, allthose things are happening,
right? But we're trying to just say,
OK, how about time and the word as that first element.
(15:14):
So what, what is your guys like personal worship of Christ look
like? I mean, we've been talking about
it, barriers to it, distractionsin it, you know, the different
kind of ways that it that gets read or heard.
But it might be, I think, helpful just for people to hear
like, Hey, how do you guys spendtime with the Lord?
It is specifically with a focus on just reading God's word.
(15:36):
What does that look like? What has been helpful to you?
We've talked about distractions.What maybe has not been as
helpful to you? If anything comes to mind along
those lines, just kind of open up a little more personally for
I think folks you might want to know and learn.
Yeah, I think we're all in different places right now,
probably in Scripture. I had just started back in
Genesis, so I'm Genesis, like I'd say 10 was the last one.
(15:59):
So I'm in 11 today, a Tower of Babel 10.
So what catches my eye there is Nimrod.
So so when I'm reading through like there's different ways we
knew this and sometimes my DeVoshave more or less time, right?
You know, something catches my mind, but I'm spending time on
Nimrod. I see he starts the city of
Nineveh and I do a lot of my quick cross reference when I'm
in the Old Testament. One of the things I do in DeVos
(16:21):
is I quickly look, is there any,is there any interesting cross
references off the section I'm in, especially New Testament?
But Nimrod goes to Nineveh, which took me to Jonah, which we
were in family, DeVos and Jonah.So so I was thinking through me
on this guy who was a mighty warrior who comes out of like
the line of Noah now has startedthese cities of which Tower of
(16:45):
Babel is another one and that we're going to get to Chapter
11. And so then my mind's just going
down like what kind of leader hewas and how that led to Nineveh
and it's a gentile city and talking about Jonah.
So it, it wasn't like I had someprofound thought, but it was
more just reading through and something caught my eye.
So it'd be that we talked about different ways to study the
(17:06):
word. That would be as you're reading
through. We do this in one to one, but
that would be the concept of reading through.
And it's like what caught my eye, what caught me.
That would've been one of those things for me that would catch
my attention and then send me down a trail just of thoughts.
And sometimes it's different meditations that be an example
for me. When I talk to other people I
and hear what they do for their own devotions, I think that I
(17:28):
probably read less than your average person.
I've tried to read a lot like 5-6 chapters with it, like try
to just really take in a lot. Every time I try to do that I
don't I probably time wise and maybe I'm similar, but I always
get stopped on something that I want to think about and I'm like
wait, no hold on. I'm sure like my job is to read
5 chapters. I got to keep going.
(17:49):
I'm like no hold on, I want to think about that.
I know I got to go like I'm having this internal battle.
So I've done, I've done little sections.
I've just started in Matthew. In fact, when Haley and I were
first dating, we, we did it together like 1 chapter and went
all the way through the New Testament, then go back to the
Old Testament just one chapter at a time allowed us to talk
about it together. And then so I've done that.
(18:10):
Then now I'm on a Bible reading plan, but I don't like to be
bound to the day because I don'twant to feel guilty for not
having read everything. And if I stop on something.
So I have, I don't remember whatthis one's called.
I have it in my Bible. But anyway, so I read second or
second Chronicles 5 through 7 today and then it jumped me to
Psalm 121, which I read and thatwas great.
(18:30):
So my eyes up to the heavens andwhere does my help come from?
And, and that was great. And then I never made it the
first Timothy 4 because I was supposed to or I was supposed
to, but I didn't make it that far.
So now I'm on A5 day reading plan that I like.
It just gets you in the New Testament, the Old Testament.
I've done a variety of things. The last thing I'd say is that
that what doesn't you're talkingabout what doesn't work for me,
(18:51):
and I've already just mentioned it a little bit, is forcing
myself to try to go through it in a in one year, like holding
myself to it in one year. This is what I have to read on
this day made me way more of a box checker and I don't like
that it's for me. It stripped out the devotion
element of it and more. This is what I have to do.
And if I get a day behind, I gotto go make up like I don't want
(19:13):
to think like that. I just want to wake up and spend
some time with the Lord. So it's changed over the years,
but generally speaking, what you're saying, Matt, that's what
I would I, I do, I read generally what I'm what my, my
plan is, but I want to get to some kind of nugget, something I
can chew on for the rest of the day.
Sometimes I get it, sometimes I don't.
Yeah. So what our take away is, is you
(19:34):
don't have to read the whole Bible in a year.
Yes, Yep. Don't stick to the plan and get
off on things, you know, start focusing on Nimrod and you're in
good shape. So we're doing great so far in
our recommendations. Excellent what?
Do you do, Ken? Yeah, yeah.
What do you do, Ken? Please take this up a notch
'cause we're starting off stronger all.
Right. Our.
Our. Fearless leader, Our pastor,
What is your normal devotion? I will.
(19:55):
Well, here's why we're hoping. Here's where he was at today.
Not because we're bragging. We're just going like, hey, what
do you guys do? Which I hope that that's helpful
about this because we're all doing different things in in the
church and trying to help them be purposeful to serve people in
different ways. Oftentimes it's more up in
front. That's not more noble.
We talked about that last time than somebody else who's serving
(20:16):
behind the scenes. So we understand that we're not
trying to. We, we know our place, we know
we're zeros and we're just as useful as the Lord wants us to
be. And that's it, right?
OK, but I was reading this morning, my assignment was in
Second Chronicles. I'm in Second Chronicles 225
through 27. And so the Kings, well, a
Messiah was somewhat helpful in 25.
(20:36):
So I just read through that. I thought that's an interesting
chapter. I'm just going to continue to
read. I did wonder about the numbers
of the guys, like there's a lot of dudes in Judah at this time.
I thought about that. But then Uziah in 26, what
struck me, and I'm reading a devotional actually that helps
me kind of get into the assignedreading for the day.
And I'll share maybe about that later in a bit.
(20:58):
But Uzziah in in Second Chronicles 2616, this hit me
this morning. So all this stuff about what he
does and then a statement about what he was like.
And that was where I was like, here's a character assessment.
And I need to pause here. So verse 16.
But when Uzziah was strong, he grew proud to his destruction,
(21:18):
for he was unfaithful to the Lord, his God and entered the
temple of Lord to burn incense on the altar of incense.
So he, he worshipped unbiblically.
It was unbiblical worship. He tried to take over what was
not his, to take over with the priesthood.
He gets confronted for that. And as he's he's, as he gets
confronted, the expression of pride, he's not teachable, he's
(21:39):
not humble. He fires back at them in anger
and then leprosy breaks out his forehead and he's a leper for
the rest of his reign, which is really useful because that tells
you why there was such a long CoRegency with Uzziah and his son
Jotham. Nobody cares about that.
But in my mind, I was like, oh, that's why there was a Co
Regency because he grew strong, he grew proud and he he
(22:02):
basically defiled worship. As the result of that, leprosy
broke out. He was put in his own house and
Jotham had to reign in his place, but not in his place but
with his dad. But his dad was in a separate
house. So that was helpful for me for
chronology stuff said like, I'm a total dork on that.
But then I came back to, yeah. But the issue is he was the
leader of God's people and he, when he got strong, he got proud
(22:25):
and God destroyed him. And so I'm like, man.
So you could just tell. I mean, I was thinking about
like, oh, Lord, I'm we're not, nobody's a king, right?
Nobody's a king. We have a king.
It's Christ. But, but if you're a leader,
this is a constant temptation. So I just went to the Lord,
Like, Lord, this is going to be a, this is a temptation for
people in any area of authority.God protect us from ourselves,
(22:48):
especially if we grow strong. So to me, I'm like, God, the
most dangerous place to be is inan area of strength where you
assume like, hey, man, that's because of me, you know, And
then you get checked by some thoughtful brothers like these
guys, the priests and Uzziah blows up, blows up at them.
So man, that can all happen so fast, right?
(23:08):
And so I was just asking the Lord, Lord help us to say if we
do grow strong, that's OK. That's not the indictment.
The indictment is when he grew stronger than he got proud.
So there was that. And I've been thinking about
that today, by the way. So just that's that single like,
oh God, growing proud to our owndestruction.
Protect us as a church, protect me as a pastor, you know what I
(23:30):
mean? There's that second thing.
Jotham in chapter 27, his son, he reigns when he's 25 years
old. So he's a young guy and it he
the general statement of verse 2was that he did what was right
in the Lord's eyes. And and then it comes down to
like all the ways that in verse 6, Jotham became mighty.
(23:52):
And so the statements made. So Jotham became mighty just
like his dad, but look at but because he ordered his ways
before the Lord is God, and that's really the only statement
made about him and his character.
So I just took that to the Lord.Like Lord, I don't even know
entirely what that means to order his ways.
I could look up commentaries. I can get into the Hebrew.
I could do all that, but I'm trying just to worship the Lord.
(24:13):
So I just took that to the Lord.Lord, would you help me to order
my ways before you? That seems to be well pleasing
to you and I want to, I just want to please you with having
things ordered. I don't want to be disordered.
That strikes me as probably whatsome of what that means.
Don't want to be chaotic, don't want to be impulsive, don't want
to be, you know, I don't even know all what that means.
I mean, I can obviously go find out, but in my time with the
(24:35):
Lord just this morning, there's how many verses?
I mean, there's that's probably 60 verses I read this morning,
but I really focused on on 2616 and 27 verse 6.
And to me that was enough to feed me for the day.
So I've even been thinking aboutthat ordering my ways.
What does that mean? I need to look into that, but
you know, just you're just that thought has stuck and that's I
(24:58):
love Jeremy what you said It's that's my daily bread.
Like those are my thoughts. That's where my thought goes to
keep me praying and depend on the Lord to walk by faith, not
trusting myself. And then tomorrow it's going to
be on to a has who is a total punk.
So it's going to be a study in contrast like I want to be
nothing like this man. I already know that I get to
find out tomorrow what that why I don't want to be like him, you
(25:20):
know, and also like I did think,having recently read about
Solomon, I mean, he was the guy who was David's son.
So, so when I read through the Solomon thing, I was amazed at
how much he built in the glory of his Kingdom.
And I thought my, my reflection on that was I was with Julie, we
were away for a night when I read through that section on
(25:41):
Solomon. Someone greater than Solomon is
here, you know, and, and his reign is going to be so much
more glorious. So just Jesus isn't in that
text, but like, as I was thinking about Solomon, I was
thinking about Jesus's own word to the point of your cross
reference. Someone greater than Solomon has
come because he is amazing. And so, yeah, I think in my
(26:03):
mind, that's how my my heart kind of gets drawn out from the
word, you know? And I don't think that's magic.
I don't I don't think that that's hard.
We're in Second Chronicles in Genesis.
I mean, you know, but hopefully that's encouraging just to have
people realize like, man, there is food for your soul in 15
minutes, you know, about as longas you'd spend eating your meal
(26:26):
anyways, your physical meal. So we don't want to
overcomplicate it. We don't want to, you know, make
it something that's just this huge amount of time, but come to
the Word anticipating that God, through his spirits going to
feed you. I'm hearing what you're saying
to Kent now. I'm a little disappointed you
didn't have three points of alliteration on those 3
chapters, but I think something.I'll walk on that for.
(26:47):
Tomorrow, yeah, good. Something though, that's I think
getting captured here is curiosity like you're you want
to know more not just for the sense of like I just want more
knowledge, but you're like, how does this help me in my walk
with the Lord? So you're just looking for
things in Scripture that are going to just draw that out,
connecting to Christ or or connecting your heart and just
(27:09):
checking your heart. So it's just a sweet, sweet to
see Second Chronicles doing thatright and just speaking,
speaking back and forth. You know, I have a question
about that though. OK, so.
Did I do that wrong? No, just do that whole thing
wrong. No, you're good.
You're good. But here's the question, because
here's I'm thinking. You're kind of winding up for
it. I was like, I'm ready for it,
man. No, I'm putting myself in the
(27:30):
shoes of some people that sometimes we do this right.
You hear, like, oh, this awesomeabout Nimrod.
And it's like, oh, he's in Second Chronicles.
They're both in Second Chronicles.
Yeah. Yeah.
Oh, that's awesome. And then they go open up the
Bible tomorrow because apparently there's a lot in
there. But then they get to like,
Jotham, Uzziah and Ahaz and like, I don't even know who
these guys. Like.
This is doing nothing for me. Yeah.
(27:51):
So what would you you then say? So so the Lord, you didn't do
this like, right when you were first saved, it wasn't like
you're all of a sudden immediately learning from these
texts as you are now. So what would you say to the
person who's like, that's awesome.
And they flop open their Bible and they read it and they're
like, I got to go to work, but like, that did nothing for me.
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, so, so.
What do you say to those? Well.
(28:12):
I would say it did. So my contention is when you
think nothing happened, something happened.
You, you just by faith chose to believe that God's word is
enough for you to read and, and to be able to take in at least
mentally. And you have to just trust the
spirits going to do the work to,to drive that home spiritually
(28:34):
at some point. It doesn't have to be today.
I mean, you use the word deposit, and that's a good word.
Like you're making spiritual deposits like Paul tells Timothy
to make like this is the good deposit, the gospel, the word of
God. And so you're making deposits
that at some point you have to just trust by faith that that
(28:54):
the Spirit is going to put into play in your life.
You're not sanctifying yourself.A spirit is right.
So so we we trust that. The other thing I'd say too, is
you do have to come to the Biblewith some anticipation, you
know, like the anticipation thatyou would have for the thing
that you're excited about in anything in life.
So if you're excited about sports, you you turn on the game
(29:14):
with the anticipation that the game is going to be good.
If you knew the game was going to be a total lame game, then
then you probably wouldn't be asexcited to watch it, or maybe
you wouldn't even turn it on or open up the book or whatever.
But there's always something here.
So there's always just there's acuriosity.
I'd say there's an anticipation.And then what is your method to
to get to to like find out my hunch that there's something
(29:39):
here was right. More often than not, there's
always going to be a dud day. And that's because of us, not
the book, right? But OK, how how do you see
wonderful things in God's word like Psalm 119 talks about,
well, we talk about this all thetime and discipleship, right?
You need to read the word looking for light bulbs, right?
The light bulb, the question mark arrow method.
(30:00):
So like you just have to anticipate that something in
your reading is going to light you up.
Like, wait a minute, what's that?
That's the curiosity thing or the excitement thing.
And if you can't get excited about God's word, then ask
someone to help you get excited about God's word.
But the point is something, probably one thing or even
several things is going to lightyou up.
Light bulb. Second thing question, you need
to be curious. You should be asking questions
(30:21):
on things you don't know. One of the reasons why I think
are people don't maybe always know how to get something out of
God's word is because they don'tjust write down the questions
that that come to mind. Like I didn't get any of that.
Well, what didn't you get? Like, I've done this with a guy
in discipleship before. What didn't you get?
Why I didn't, I didn't understand any of it.
OK, that's great. Super helpful.
Actually. That's helpful.
(30:42):
So what didn't you get? And let's just make note of
those questions. And so then we were talking
through his questions and by thetime we were done 20 minutes
later, he's like, that was awesome.
So he went from some generic impression of I don't get any of
this to writing down what he didn't get.
And then he found some answers to questions and here come the
light bulbs, right? And then the last thing is the
arrow, right? So light bulbs, question Marks
(31:04):
and then arrows being the application.
I just shared the application. But you heard some of my arrows,
right? Their chronology, the the Co
Regency thing. I'm like, that's so cool.
That explains that leprosy in the forehead.
What does that look like? You know, he put he got put in
his own house. So all of that to say, that
would be a way, I think to help grow in I have 15 minutes, I'm
(31:28):
going to get into God's word. I have to get back out of God's
word and get to work or the kidsare coming downstairs or school
starting or whatever. And and that could be a way to
try to get more mind more out ofour feed better on on God's
word. Is that answering the question
you're asking? For sure.
OK going back to the physical bread, sometimes you're
sometimes it's a great meal. Yeah, sometimes it's do you
(31:50):
know, I just got to I got to getsome sustenance.
Sometimes we eat because we don't want to be hungry.
In fact, most of the time in America we eat because we don't
want to be hungry or so that we don't become hungry.
And it's the same kind of thing spiritually.
So even I like what you said about doing the work I hit, you
are getting something from it. You are.
(32:11):
Yeah. And it's the same kind of thing.
Like, we're not going to say that every single meal we eat
just blew our socks off. Except for my wife.
It's true. Oh, boy, it's true.
Good. Way to get that in there.
Good catch. Hope she listens to this
episode. Yeah, if I could like, tap, I'm
going to make thumbs up emoji. I'd be tapping the lights.
Right now it helps with our 10 listener I.
Don't remember my point now. Actually I don't remember my
(32:31):
point. I think I made my point with
the. One thing part I think you know
what? You're talking about.
I was so busy pressing the like button on that that was solved.
But it but I see like what you were mentioning Kent of
questions. I see questions as kind of
shovels, right? They are what's digging out,
getting the dirt off so you can get to the treasure.
They're forcing your mind deeperand you're not just settling.
You're going like, hey, what is there?
(32:53):
You know, because there's so much there.
I think that it's what brings about a life and I do like cross
referencing old to new and new to old because that's what
starts to give me excitement AndI start asking myself, where is
Christ in this? Like, how are we getting to
Christ? And those kind of things are
like my shovels. I those get me excited because
then I'm like, discover something and you want to go and
(33:14):
look for more. Yep.
Because it's all about a relationship with the living
God, right? All about a relationship with
Christ. And so this isn't a, this isn't
a dead book. It's a book that has its own
life. And it's pointing us to the one
who is life. And so, yeah, for sure, you want
to make sure you're not just making character assessments and
that's it. Like you want to drive
everything back to the Lord. And that gets to meditation and
(33:34):
prayer, which is for a differenttime, but yeah, yeah.
Did you want to say something else or I was going to shift,
but go ahead. Yeah, I well, you did a job too
of like it's not just for us to feel good to you.
Even some of the comments you made about the stuff you're
reading the Bible's living active and sharper than two
energy 2 edged sword to get at your heart because there's sin
(33:55):
sitting there. So you're asking like pride like
what is my thought on pride? Like, am I, is my success going
to get going to outstrip me here?
Is there something I need to think about with pride?
So I think too, like it's not just to feel good.
Like, you know, relationally, though there's more work there.
It's also digging at a maybe uncovered sin that we need to,
(34:17):
to start like looking at like, Hey, what, what do I need to
address in my own life? And the Bible comes to bear on
you so faithfully. So one of the reasons we get in
the word, it says we need the word to work on our heart
because otherwise we're just sitting there with, I think
crevices of sin hiding that thatneed to be dugout.
Yep, Yep, that's good. Well, if you think about it in
(34:37):
terms of a relationship, like like what you said, Matt, and,
and the meal concept, like what you mentioned, Jeremy, it does
kind of, it takes down this thing that I think we, we
sometimes set up as an ideal, which is like, I need some, I
need some encounter with God. You know, that word gets
mentioned. I'm a fresh encounter with God.
Like it's something like intergalactic and up in space,
(34:59):
like this super magical thing that's going to happen every
time or I need some. I just, I'm waiting for this
experience with God. You know, actually what you need
is a meal. You just, you just need, you
just need to be strengthened forthe day.
And what you what you need is you need to be pointed back to
Christ. You need to be reminded of the
glories of the relationship thatyou already possessed in him by
(35:21):
grace. It's not this encounter
language, this experience stuff.I'm like, I don't talk with my
wife like about that. I need this encounter with my
wife. Actually, I just wanted to want
to like, grow my love with my wife.
And it really helps when I spendtime with her and when he, she
talks to me and I talk to her, you know, which is, which is
reading God's word, is he? He's speaking to me.
(35:44):
And then my prayer is my speaking to him.
That's how the relationship grows, right?
And so, yeah, I, I, I, I, I likewhat you guys are saying because
it speaks to that. I mean, it's relational.
It's a meal. It's not rocket science.
It can be simple. It can take 10 minutes, it can
take 10 hours, you know, like I there's days where I do a whole
day retreat, you know, and when I've done that before, it's been
(36:07):
so great. But usually it's just, it's just
a 10 minute, 15 minute meal, right.
Can I ask you guys what what aresome when you think about the
person who may say like, I don'teven I hear you.
That's all sounds great. Where do you get that in the
Bible? The idea of having whatever word
you want to use, quiet time, devotions, time with the Lord,
(36:30):
private worship of whatever wordyou want to use, Where, where
would you guys go to just go? Hey, this, this is where the
Bible does talk about that dynamic in your life, that
reality in your life. Does anything come to mind?
Yeah, I think a number of Psalmsdo.
So that's usually where I would take people when we're trying to
just think through like, hey, what?
How does this, how should this be a priority in your life?
(36:51):
Why should this be set up as a as a daily practice, a
discipline and we go all the back to Psalm one, right.
Just to start it off with basics.
Psalm one kind of setting the tone for the rest of the book
really. And Psalm one starts off how
blessed is made is not walk in the council, wicked stand, sit.
So you got that. And then here's here's how he's
(37:12):
doing that where his delight is,but his delight is in the law of
the Lord, his Bible. And in his law he meditates day
and night. And then, and then this is the
benefit of that life is he will be like a tree firmly planted by
streams of water, which yields its fruit and it sees and its
leaf does not weather. Whatever he does, he prospers.
(37:33):
A man watered by the word is prospering, and he's doing it
day and night. And this is, this is the blessed
man. So that this is basically
setting the tone for the rest ofthe book of Psalms.
Yeah, yeah, it's good. It's good and yet, well, Psalm.
There's several Psalms, the one that I was thinking that may not
(37:53):
directly answer your question, but my mind goes there is is
Psalm one O 1 talks about. They're pondering the way that
is blameless. It starts out Psalm 1O11.
I will sing of the steadfast love and justice to you, O Lord,
I will make music. I will ponder the way that is
blameless and that's the line that always grabs me.
I will ponder the way that is blameless.
When will you come to me? I will walk with integrity of
(38:16):
heart within my house. I will not set before my eyes
anything that's worthless. And it's just he he goes on.
But the basically it's just I'vealways thought about the
pondering the way that is blameless.
And then he's talking about walking with integrity.
So it's not directly answering your question.
So I'm one I think is probably more direct, but he's still
thinking about how can I walk blamelessly?
(38:37):
He's pondering or in in what's coming.
It does not necessarily saying it's at the beginning of the
day, however he's just thinking about like I'm going to think
and I'm going to actually put effort into and be intentional
with how I can walk with integrity.
Well, if I think about that, forme, I, for me, that's my
conviction. At the end of the day, it's fine
to look back and see whether or not you walked with integrity.
(39:00):
But for me, it's more strategic to think with what's coming at
me today, how can I walk with integrity?
And so that for me is the conviction then of like I want
to start my day with that question setting my mind.
It's like seek things above, setyour mind on things above and
caution talks about that. So all those put together, I
(39:20):
want to start with that as my emphasis.
I want to ponder the way this blame list.
Yeah, so good. Yeah.
I mean, of course, I went to Psalm 119, so we're all in the
Psalms, but I would just challenge anybody, like read any
stanza out of Psalm 1/19 and tryto make a defense of why you
shouldn't consistently be in theword And, and really like daily
(39:41):
night and day comes up a fair amount in here.
And so that whole Psalm, the longest Psalm or song of the
Bible, is dominated by our intake of God's word, which he
calls the law in his time, right?
His his copy of the Scripture. I was thinking about Deuteronomy
6 as well, that we're to always have God's word before us in our
homes and our families. Certainly Jesus and John 1717
(40:05):
says sanctify them in the truth.Your word is truth.
And so always having this idea that like the only thing, the
only way we're going to grow by the Spirit is with the spirit
working according to his word. And so there's probably so many
other passages, but the day and night passages are really
helpful too because that that actually does occur through the
Psalms as well. So just want to make sure that
(40:26):
that folks knew we're not makingthis up.
This isn't a I don't I, you know, it's not like a spiritual
discipline that we just made-up as a rule.
This is actually something that rises up as a principle of
someone who delights, someone who delights in the Lord will
delight in his word. And so it is a rounded in the
word regularly and day to night language comes up in that
(40:48):
regard. And so whether it's early in the
day or late at night or whatever, there's a there's a
tendency in the believer to be in the word with regularity.
Let me, just as we're kind of putting a bow on this, let me
just ask you guys, what are there any personal resources
that you would recommend? And this is going to be a speed
round question that you'd recommend to kind of get people
(41:10):
into the word. I have a couple, so let me name
them. I, I have been hugely blessed by
Robert Murray Machine's Bible reading plan and it is a year
long Bible reading plan. So, you know, excuse him on
that, Jeremy, but. Hey, you could read it on your
own face even if it is a year long.
What are the five year plan? The five year plan can work
well. He actually has a one year and a
two year plan like you can. You can have it and then you can
(41:31):
make it 2 years, which is what Iwas doing for a long time.
And so the Robert Murray machineplan, you can look online and
grab that. And DA Carson, Don Carson has a
devotional paired to those Biblereadings every day.
It's called for the Love of God.And for years I used that.
It was so good for me to like just sit down in my chair.
I was half asleep in the morningearly, but I would, I would read
(41:53):
his little devotional and it washelpful to kind of wake me up.
You know, right now I'm going through Paul Tripp's little
devotional, Everyday Gospel, which is the Bible reading plan
for a year. So I'm reading, you know, 3 or 4
chapters a day. So it is hard.
I do get bogged down and I'm glad to get bogged down, but
he's trying to keep me on pace. And it's just a devotional that
(42:14):
goes with the text, always points to Christ.
And then I get into my Bible reading.
Spurgeon's morning and evening is not tied to your Bible
reading, but it will wake you upin the Word, right?
So just as a good rich feeding on a phrase or a verse in God's
Word, not necessarily tied to your Bible reading, but you guys
have other ideas we need to. Yeah, that's awful.
(42:35):
I'll say one quick one that's not tied to Bible reading.
So it's just interesting, right?Though sometimes there's these
trends in literature right now. All these devotionals have come
out, these 31 day devotionals from PNR Publishing and one that
has excellent is on anxiety. So for 31 days, the author Paul
Talcas walks you through every day.
It's basically a, a verse or a passage on some aspect of
(42:58):
thinking through anxiety in yourlife and you walk it through for
31 days and it's really sweet. So that would be someone who's
like, hey, I'm focused on this and I need to renew my mind in
this area. And so every day you're putting
your thought into that. So just another a little bit
different, but it's tied to a passage of Scripture, so a
little bit different too. Just to give some people some
(43:18):
different ideas. It's good.
Yeah, I appreciate the valley ofvision to for the prayer part.
And that's not necessarily getting you into the word per
SE, but to me it's, it works as a good pair with with the word
of God to kind of help learn howto pray much deeper.
And so when I pair it directly with my reading it it or like
(43:39):
right after it or something likethat, I found it even more
recently to be helpful to help me to pray Scripture.
So that's one. Now I'm starting to get into the
prayer side of things, but the the reading plan I'm on right
now is just called 5 day or fiveday.
Wait, shoot, I just pulled it out.
Well, your pace would be 5 years.
Well, come on, come on, come on.Five day Bible reading program,
(44:03):
5 day, meaning they, they line it out for getting it through
Scripture in a year, but only doing for five days.
But I don't do it Monday throughFriday.
I just do it every day. Yep.
And, and I sometimes I get bogged down, sometimes I go
faster or slower, whatever. But it gets you in different
parts of Scripture. So that's the one that I've
found to be helpful. I have not found the devotionals
to be as helpful for me. OK, that's just personally,
(44:25):
people. People love it.
But I would say that, like when Spurgeon takes just like one his
morning and evening and has one phrase, just reading it not in
my normal devotions, but like, man, it gets a lot out of that
phrase. And so that just gets me excited
to go back to my own reading andthink about it more deeply.
Yeah. So in terms of resources, I
(44:45):
don't pull in a lot of other things in my time.
I just want to be alone with my Bible.
So I don't use a resource in themoment, but those other ones aid
me when I read them outside of that time.
They helped me when I open up myBible, you know, the next
morning. Yeah, that's good.
Well, I, I hope. I mean, the goal for our time
here has been to just talk aboutlike what to open with, what are
(45:06):
the distractions? Because I think we have to
acknowledge all of us are all ofus are US included.
There is a bit of a warfare going on.
I mean, the enemy does not want us to open the word, right?
Certainly our flesh rages against it and throws up all
kinds of distractions. So we want to acknowledge that,
talk about that and then try to talk about how to like punch
past that to OK, So what are we doing in our time in God's word?
(45:29):
And we talked about his personalexamples also shared about some
resources as well. Also that we can have more of
our people spending more of their time in, in the word of
God, the word of the living God,right?
I mean, with all the ministry that happens to this church, I,
I do think that one of the very most needful things our people
(45:50):
need is to be alone with Christ and to worship him as he speaks
to them in this word, right? I, I, just, I, at the end of
everything we do, if our people could be there more, praise the
Lord. And so I hope this is an
encouragement. And guys, I appreciate your
input on that too. We'll take some time to come
back later and talk about what? So what does prayer look like in
(46:13):
the midst of all that? How does it work with my
reading? What does meditation look like
as well? So, so that hopefully we can
help our people grow in their private worship of Christ,
right? We want to, we want to make
disciples who really love to spend time worshipping God.
And so praise the Lord for that.So thank you guys and TuneIn
next time for the next episode of Afterward, an extended
(46:35):
conversation about topics that matter.
And this one definitely matters.Thanks so much.
Yeah.
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