Prioritizing God's Presence Over Life's Busyness

I believe that sometimes we get so overwhelmed in our lives and so busy with things that are going on that the things that are most important and are necessary we neglect. You yourself find yourself get busy you get overwhelmed work is a lot sometimes taking care of the things at your home or working through the things with your family to care uh for family members in their time of need. [00:40:00]

We get busy and the anxiety shows up or we get a depression that comes on and or we get sick ourselves because our bodies can't handle too much and and we neglect the things that are most important in our relationship with the Lord church becomes an obligation to us giving becomes an obligation to us serving in the church becomes an obligation to us and we get frustrated easy. [00:40:59]

When we're serving out of obligation and we're coming to church out of obligation and we give in tithe and offering out of obligation you have now missed the joys of the Lord you understand what I'm saying it's no longer a joy to have to write a tithe check it's no longer a joy to have to show up and teach a Sunday school class. [00:41:48]

Every believer reaches a moment in their Journey where they realize they've been running hard for God but not always running with God. The demands of Life Ministry and even good works can slowly shift our Focus from Deep intimacy with Christ to a performance-driven faith. We can find ourselves serving, leading and striving but missing the one thing that truly matters sitting at his feet. [00:44:27]

At his feet is an invitation to return it is a call that we would ReDiscover the joy and the peace and the fire that comes from abiding in his presence it's about shifting from doing for God to being with God. It's a whole lot easier for us to give of our time to give of our money to give of our resources to give of our worship to give of our service when we have spent time with the Lord. [00:45:01]

It's about choosing his presence over performance his voice over the noise and his love over labor. I want you to turn with me to Luke chapter 10 I'm going to read from the nasb here for a moment when I get to verse 42 I'll shift the the the phrasing here maybe verse 38 and now as they were traveling along he Jesus entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home. [00:46:00]

Martha was distracted with all her preparations and she came up to him and said Lord do you not care that my sister has left me to do all the serving alone then tell her to help me but the Lord answered and said to her Martha Martha you're worried and bothered about so many things I circled so many things we get so worried about all the things that are going on. [00:47:18]

We get so worried as a church who serving and who's not serving we get S we worried about what's going on but the problem is is we're not serving the way in which we need to be serving but we're also not sitting at the feet of Jesus the way we need to be sitting at the feet of Jesus you see it'd be different and as a pastor I'd be a little more okay with us not serving. [00:47:58]

If we were actually in his pres more does that make sense if I saw us at the feet of Jesus a little more if our lives reflected being in his presence a little bit more it'd be a little different Mark if they didn't show up and help us get rid of all that meat because I knew that the church was happening in the sanctuary and there were people in his presence who were worshiping. [00:48:38]

The drift away from intimacy with God does not happen suddenly but subtly it happens when serving takes priority over seeking when the noise of ministry drowns out the voice of God and when we begin measuring success by numbers instead of nearness there is hope the very fact that we sense a drift in our own lives is evidence that God is calling us back. [00:56:37]

He's not condemning us but he is inviting us his voice is not one of shame but of Love Whispering come back to me sit at my feet again and let your hearts burn for me once again you used to do so many things but yet now all we do is come to church now we're obligated to give now will show up do you know that the average church member if you are to be considered a part of a regular. [00:57:17]

If we're not intentional about guarding our hearts it'll take hold before we even realize what has happened there're substituting relationship for routine what was once deep personal communication with God becomes a checklist I was pastoring in Urbana Ohio I was working for Verizon and I was studying to complete my Master's Degree at the time every time that I open up my Bible it was in order to prepare for the Sunday morning sermon. [01:01:02]