The Big Rocks of Life: Pt. 5 — A ‘Time With God’ Audio Devotion

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Transcript

Good morning. As we head into the weekend, we want to hit our last big rock that we’re talking about this week. 5 big rocks of life that you need to put into your life and guard, because laziness can just make you forget these things, or busyness can make you forget them as well.

Big rocks refers to the big important things in life that often aren’t urgent, so they get squeezed out. But if they get squeezed out, your life is so much the poorer for not having them there. That’s why it’s the right plan to put these things in place first, to put them even into your schedule first, and then fit the other things of life around them.

We said on Monday, your daily time with God. Do it first in your day so it doesn’t get squeezed out. On Tuesday we saw that God sees work as one of the big rocks in your life, not to be lazy, but to work hard and earn what you need in life.

Wednesday we saw that family time is regarded by God as one of the most important things in your life as well. Everyone may have a different need for how much family time they spend, but don’t let family time get squeezed out of your life.

And then yesterday we saw that church and fellowship with your fellow believers is another one of the most important things in your life, spending time with other people who are pursuing God, sitting and listening to good teaching from the Bible. All of these things shape your life in a big way.

And today the final of the big rocks is this – I’m going to call it redemptive relationships.

If you’re listening and you’re a Christian and Jesus Christ is a living part of your life that is shaping your life in such significant ways, your ability to pray to Him in time of need, to listen to Him as He guides and shapes your life through the Bible.

To have his encouragement with you, the hope of knowing that he is in control and you can go to him, he’ll always be there no matter what painful situation you’re facing.

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You have this in your life, and there’s people around you who are searching for answers, who are looking for God, who are broken inside.

Even if they don’t show it on the surface, and they need you to be open about your relationship with Jesus, talking about Him, helping them know how to find him, how to discover him in life. This is the pattern that Jesus gave us, you know, the religious people often criticize Jesus for hanging out with people who were not religious, and they called them sinners, and you see it in Luke chapter 5 – that well known story of Levi, who began to follow Jesus, and he was a tax collector rejected by most of society, not just because of taxes, but because he was like a traitor working for the Romans against his own people, the Israelites, and Levi became a believer.

It says this in Luke 5:27. After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, Follow me. And leaving everything, he rose and followed Jesus.

And Levi made Jesus a great feast in his house, and there was a large company of tax collectors and others reclining at table with them, and the Pharisees and their scribes grumbled at Jesus’ disciples, saying, Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?

And Jesus answered them, those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. I’ve not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance.

Again and again and again as you read the Gospel of Luke, you find Jesus eating meals with people who are searching for answers and then just turning the conversation naturally to significant issues and surfacing these people’s search for God and helping them find God.

Well, that’s the pattern that we need to be following too. It’s one of the big rocks in life. You aren’t just in this world to enjoy time with people like you. You are here to help people find God, to help people find the answers to life, to help people encounter Jesus as you have. Put this as one of the big rocks in your life and carve out time to eat with people who need Jesus.

I’m John North.

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