Are You a Christian on Monday? — Morning Devotions

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Transcript

Have you ever asked the question, Can God bless me each day? In other words, is God’s presence for real 24 hours a day? Is God with me Monday to Saturday as well as on Sunday? Perhaps I go to church on Sunday and I feel that God is with me there.

Well, on this programme, I’ve spoken before about Monday Christians. These people who are professing Christians on Sunday, but they are no different to anybody else on Monday or any other day of the week. They go to church on Sunday. But do you know that God calls us to be different? He has a new set of values that are from Him.

Now no one is perfect, but God calls His people out of the world to follow Him. I came across some quotes from a book, an interesting book written by an 18th century French Jesuit priest, and this was a book called The Sacrament of the Present Moment. And the priest’s name was Jean-Pierre de Caussade. Now it’s a reprint of a very old devotional classic and relates to everyday living, and Jean Pierre maintains it’s possible to make every second and minute a sacred time, an offering to God. Now I think this is a tremendous concept, and if you can get your head around this, it really does make life worth living. In other words, God is with us every second, and he says that if you look in the right place, God’s presence is overflowing everywhere.

So he says it’s possible to realise that every moment of your life is holy, not just a stepping stone to some big important dramatic event in the future.

Now today we’d probably find that’s a little bit difficult to take in. I mean, our modern preoccupation is with the big things of life, not so much with the boring mundane things that we all have to do. We have diaries and very busy schedules to keep, and we’re not so concerned with the small details of every day.

Now this French priest says that God speaks to every person through what happens to him or her moment by moment. Let me say that again. God speaks to every person through what happens to him or her moment by moment, and I believe that to be true. And we have to be prepared to live in the moment that God has given.

And we know that God is powerful. He’s omnipotent, which means He’s the Lord of all. He’s all powerful. And do you know that God is in charge of the seconds as well as the minutes and the hours and the days and the years.

We get tied up with the past. We get worried about the future, and sometimes we forget that this is the only day we’ve got because the past is gone. Tomorrow hasn’t arrived, and we’re not sure about tomorrow, but we can be sure of this very moment that I’m talking to you now.

Now the Bible says in some wonderful verses in Psalm 90:

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Lord, through all the generations you’ve been our home before the mountains were created, before the earth was formed, you are God without beginning or end. You speak and man turns back to dust. 1000 years are like yesterday to you. They’re like a single hour. We glide along the tides of time as swiftly as a racing river and vanish as quickly as a dream.

We’re like grass that’s green in the morning but mowed down and withered before the evening shadows fall.

That’s in Psalm 90:1-6.

Now I think that tells us that life is very short. People live longer today, maybe 80 or 90 years, but it still is important for us to concentrate on the very present moment because in Psalm 90:12 we read, Teach us to number our days that we may gain a heart of wisdom.

Jean Pierre refers to the sacrament of the present moment. Let me quote him again. He says, no moment is trivial, since each moment contains a divine kingdom and a heavenly sustenance.

So a sacrament is something as a like a visible sign of an invisible reality.

So God is present with you and me this morning. So what I’m saying is that God comes to us in the ordinary everyday things of life, and God knows exactly what’s going on in your life.

Let’s Pray

Well, Heavenly Father, sometimes we’re like disobedient children. We try to be good, but we’re not listening to really what you’re saying to us. We’re filled up with our own selfish thoughts.

And we forget to listen to you. So I pray that you’ll help us, particularly, Lord, to see that each day and each second and each moment is sacred. And this is a prayer I ask in the name of Jesus. Amen.

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