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PRINCIPLES OF JESUS CHRIST SERIES
SOLITUDE
This morning lets look at the book of
Matthew 5: 6 “Blessed are those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, for
they shall be filled.”
Jesus is speaking about a desire. Not just an ordinary desire. Not an inclination but something that is deep
inside His life that is instilled in His disciples. A desire for God. From the first time that I was born again at
the age of seventeen, I had a burning desire for
God. Through the years, the desire has
not diminished but it has grown even stronger.
And that driving desire to know God has been the propulsion that drove
us to seek the best from God. And it
astounds me many times when I fellowship with people, why some lacks that
desire. That’s what we are going to touch on this morning.
Matthew 7 and it is in line with what we
are looking at. Verse 7 onwards, “Ask,
and it will be given to you, seek, and you will find; knock, and it will be
opened to you. For
everyone who asks receives, and he who seeks finds, and to him who knocks it
will be opened.” Those who
don’t ask, those who don’t seek and those who don’t knock will not have
it. There are many ways we could title
this message that we are bringing forth.
As you know some of the principles we have
titled them differently but this morning we want to look at one of the
principles of Jesus’ life that I call solitude.
Taking time for solitude to fulfill a desire to be
alone with God, seeking Him and away from the distraction of the crowd. Away from the hindrances of those who demand
a part of your life but just seeking solitude and a quiet moment with God. You will realize as you study the lives of
great men and women, whether in the kingdom of God and not in the
But great leaders are those who learned
how to strive on times of solitude. Why
is that so? In crowd psychology people
have a tendency to follow the crowd and herd instinct to have psychological
peace. They are easier to
manipulate. They become people easily
manipulated and they just flow with the tide and are as unstable as the wave of
the ocean. That’s what the devil wants
to do. He wants to bring people to the
place where he can cause them to walk as zombies in their daily life. Go to work, work, work, drive, drive, drive,
traffic jam, jam, jam, jam, go home, eat, sleep, on the alarm, wake up and
work. See we live life like a
zombie. And then what do these people do
when they are stressed out? They go to
the pub. They go among friends to play
snooker. They do all kinds of things to
draw out all those things. But none of
them seek solitude. In fact a lot of
people in the world are afraid of solitude because when they are on their own,
they do not know what to do with their time.
Have you notice this? If some of
the teenagers are left alone, they don’t know what to do with their time. They are either be
phoning some friends, surfing the Internet or looking at the TV box. They don’t know what to do with their
time. We are not producing a generation
of great leaders.
People are afraid to be alone. They are afraid. They always need to be somewhere. But aloneness was not designed for
loneliness. Aloneness is part and parcel
of every human life that God designed it.
We need fellowship yes, we also need solitude. Without a combination of both, we will not be
the perfect man or woman God wants us to be.
One of the key secrets in Jesus’ life is solitude. Let me give you some examples of His desire
for aloneness. You see people who are
strong, who know their God and who know what they want in God loves to be alone
with God. They love to be left alone
with God. But people who are afraid to
be alone with God are people who are filled with noise, that is external noise
and internal noise. Their soul is not at
peace. People who are not at peace in
themselves and with themselves are afraid of being alone. When there are internal noises, you are not
at peace in yourself. You are afraid to
be alone because when you are alone, all the external noises quiet down and you
can hear your internal noise and you can’t live with it. But those who are at peace with themselves,
at peace with God and with men love the quietness, the solitude because when
everything is quiet around them, they can set their quietness on their
inside. And it’s such a delight. It’s a powerful peace that garrison heart and
mind.
Jesus enjoys solitude and it’s one of His
principles. If you have never practice
that before, it may be time to start. If
you want to reach into greatness in God, it’s one of the key principles. If you are afraid of being alone, be daring,
this Christmas, just be alone for one whole day. For six hours. You will find that during that time of
solitude, you wrestle with your thought life.
You wrestle with the desires of your life until finally you are at
peace. And you come out a stronger
person. There will be solidness in your
character that was never there before. Lets quickly look at the life of Jesus.
Mark 1: 35 “Now in the morning, having risen a long while before daylight, He went out and departed
to a solitary place, and there He prayed.”
Do you think our Lord loves solitude? Do you think our Lord loves to be among the
sinners and publican too? Yes He
does. He is balanced and is not like
some people. They are either in a
vertical relationship with no horizontal relationships or in horizontal
relationships with no vertical relationship.
The Lord is balanced. And through
the teaching of Jesus we can find the balance.
He loves the solitude. Could He
have prayed in the house, after all He got up earlier than everybody. Yes, but He wants to get out of the
place. One of the things I enjoy most
when I go out for a walk is just get out of the house, just get out of
something that is made by man. Just be
like Adam with his clothes of course, walking and seeing all these houses and
see how small these pigeonholes are and how our minds become restricted. You just love to go out to an open field,
somewhere in the open, somewhere away from the things of man and just walk to
God, to hunger for Him, thirst for Him, to seek Him, to ask from Him, to knock
the door of the spirit realm.
Lets look at some
of the examples here. In the gospel of
Luke, do you know that the man who was going to announce Jesus’ coming, grew up
in great solitude? The greater God wants
to use your life, the greater your life is going to change other lives, the
greater your need of solitude because you need to be different and find the
difference to bring to humanity. John
the Baptist was going to change his generation and prepare them for Jesus. The
bible in the gospel of Luke speaks about his life in chapter one verse 80, “So
the child grew and became strong in spirit, and was in the deserts till the day
of his manifestation to
Lets look at Him in the gospel of Luke 4. The moment he was filled with the Holy
Spirit, He went to be alone. Isn’t it
strange? If people are filled with the
Holy Spirit you want to send them out.
Yet the moment He was filled with the Holy Spirit in chapter 4: 1 He was
led by the Holy Spirit into the wilderness to wrestle with the things in His
soul, in His flesh, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eye and the pride of
life. To be tempted by the enemy. To wrestle in a realm which no man has seen
before. The Holy Spirit can lead you
into the wilderness to be quiet and there in the quietness of the wilderness,
God deals with your life. You don’t know what that quietness is like. When I was in New Zealand Sr. Clara took me
to visit a farm and we were way out, we were acres and acres away from the city
and there’s hardly a soul in sight. You
sit down and there was quietness like you never feel. I call it awesome and I just enjoyed that
quietness, that peacefulness, internally and externally. The wilderness in there, although there is
some natural noises here and there but generally it’s quiet. And there for forty days and forty nights
there was a wrestling that went on in His soul but when He overcame the storms
and the temptations in His soul, Jesus walked out in the power of the
Spirit. Solitude makes strong
people. The lack of it makes weak
people. Weak people are easily
manipulated.
Even when He started His ministry in the
gospel of Luke 4: 42 “Now when it was day, He departed and went into a
deserted place. And the crowd sought
Him and came to Him and tried to keep Him from leaving them.” So we are told here that the Lord Jesus
continue to seek God’s face every time after great meetings. That’s why many preachers after they had
great meetings at night, and whenever they travel all
over in any nation of the world, Eastern or Western is always the same. The people want to take you out for supper;
it’s always the same. They will say, “Do
you want supper?” Usually you don’t eat
before the meeting. They always want to
feed you. After the meeting, it is time
for feasting. But as for me after a
meeting and the Holy Spirit has moved, what I like to do is not sit in a
restaurant. What I like to do is to
quickly get alone and just meditate and thank God. Just be in quietness with Him to enjoy and
review all that He has done. So different, not only it’s better for your
spiritual health, I think it’s also better for your natural health.
In chapter 5, another statement made by Jesus
and here it’s sort of another repetition.
Luke 5: 15-16 “the report went around concerning Him all the more;” Now
He was getting more famous. “And
great multitudes came together to hear, and to be healed by Him of their
infirmities. So He Himself often
withdrew into the wilderness and prayed.”
In anything of the human life, anything that
has touched your life or anything great, the great principles that you have
learned from people here and there have always come from the solitude of their
lives. Have you notice that? Or the great song that we sing, great phrases
that touched your life that come in those times of solitude. The great poems, the great stories that come
forth, great novels that are written that transformed people’s lives have come from
the solitude of human life who gets alone to draw from the riches of the spirit
and soul that God has placed within him or her.
So Jesus obviously loves that solitude.
What’s the reason for this love and what’s the necessity for that? You will realize that there is always a
necessary point in our life. In our
heavenly development it is necessary to get away from everyone, to get alone
with God, to ask, to seek, to hunger and thirst. It has to do with the hunger and thirst in
our lives for God. For when we are
really hungry and thirsty for God, you will seek solitude to be alone with
Him. To drink of the fountains of heaven
that God has so designed.
As we look at that area, we want to consider
two things. One is that there is always
noise out there on this earth. There are
two types of noise that we face. The
noises physically which includes the crowds in people and all those around
you. Now those noises are not just what
we classify as noise but the kind of noise that comes is this in Mark 4: 19 “and
the cares of this world, the deceitfulness of riches, and the desires for other
things entering in choke the word, and it becomes unfruitful.” Now if you know in this life that there is
something very dangerous to the Word of God in your life, would you be careful
to watch over it? Of course, now some of
those dangerous things are not what we consider dangerous in our natural
man. They are, for example, the cares of
this world. Do you know what the cares
of this world are like? I mean everyday
you have housework to do. Everyday you
have your office work, business deals, datelines to meet, bills to pay,
children to take care, books to study, reports to make etc. You could get so absorbed in them that they
are strangling the Word of God in your life.
Wouldn’t you be watchful of it?
Yet a lot of people are not watchful.
They just allowed the cares to overtake them and choke the Word. You don’t have to break the Ten Commandments
to lose your productivity in God. All
you have to do is get the cares of this world and they choke the Word. We have to be very watchful and treat all
these things as enemies. All your jobs
on this earth, you do it watchfully. You
have to constantly watch and pray with awareness that these things won’t pull
you down. And you got to say no many
times.
When we moved into the new house, there were
hundreds of thing to do. Boxes and boxes
and I have got to tell myself, forget it, I am going to leave them untidy. Let me feed my spirit man. I got to say no to it. I will give only that amount of time to do
this kind of things. The rest of the
time I just want to seek His face. The
world may call you a fool, the world may call you all kinds of names but in heaven
you got a bigger reward. You rather be
called a fool here than to be called a fool in heaven. Although in heaven everybody is so nice, they
won’t call you a fool. You don’t need to
be called a fool because you will know it.
You will know as you are known.
We got to put ourselves to a stop.
Lets not get too busy about this life. It doesn’t matter even if it doesn’t look
like a human habitation. Some of our
homes probably will look like Away in the manger. If your home looks like a manger shake hands
with me, it’s all right. I would rather
have Jesus and a manger than a palace without Jesus.
These are what I call the noises. These are the soul noises, the things that
are there. The more dangerous noise is
the noise in the soul. Worldly cares
occur in your mind and they are the internal noise that are
there all the time crying out things to be done. We have to learn to shut them out and say no,
I am not going to do it. Just leave this
aside and let me worship God. Be like
Mary. When Mary and Martha were having
Jesus coming to the house, Martha was busy cooking all the best food and so
busy thinking of pleasing Jesus in all these ways. Her intention was good, but her method was
wrong. But Mary, she was a different
type of character. She sat at Jesus’
feet and says, “Jesus tell me one more parable, one more story. Tell me Jesus tell
me.” But Martha was concerned for all
the physical things to be done and she got upset because her sister didn’t help
her. Since she cannot scold her sister,
probably she wouldn’t listen, she tried to get Jesus
to scold her. Yes, that was the master
plan. She said, “Jesus please talk to my
sister, she won’t listen to me. Tell her
to help me.” You think Jesus just do
what you tell Him to do. Surprise, Jesus
said, “Martha, Martha, why are you troubled about many things.” By that time Martha was about to cry. And Jesus said, “Mary has chosen the good
part.” What would be your feeling if you
were Martha? Rebuked, corrected and
loved at the same time. You want to cry.
You want to obey. You didn’t know what
to do. This was Jesus; you don’t just
react. If it had been anyone, you would
probably say, “What are you? You don’t care for me. Don’t want to cook for you next time.” But this is the Lord Jesus Christ,
you don’t scold the King of kings and the Lord of lords. Martha must have felt crushed, humbled. If I were her, I will quickly sneak out, put
off all the fires, take whatever cooking that is ready, just bring it there and
place it before Jesus. Quickly sit next
to Mary at Jesus’ feet and listen. You
can always eat food at any other time but you don’t have Jesus words to hear
all the time. Mary knew that the words
that Jesus spoke were more precious than any other things.
These are the noises that are out there that we
need to cut ourselves from. Move away
from. If you don’t learn to do that your
spiritual life will get choked. There
are a lot of Christians going to church whose spiritual life is actually choked
up. They sing Amazing grace how sweet
the sound but the sound that they sing were not so sweet in the spirit
because their lives are choked up. God
doesn’t want that. He wants us to be
free from those noises so that out from our life comes
fragrance to God. A
heart undefiled, pure without the cares of this life. That’s the noise we talk about. Have you notice that the only way to get out
of those noises is to get away. To get away. There is
no short cut. You just got to get
away. Ladies, if your kitchen is where
the noise is, get away. Lets look at it this way.
If you don’t get spiritual and get close to God, how do you expect God
to touch your husband? Do you realize
that, ask and you shall receive. Seek
and you shall find. Knock and it shall
be opened. You are knocking heaven’s
door for your husband. If you don’t get
into that kind of presence, how can your husband change? We are talking about an overabundance of that
crushing our lives. The only key is to
get away from it. I love to get out, get
away, and just be with the nature. If it
were possible to have a world where we don’t have to live with houses, all you
need is just build the toilet. Have you
wonder whether your heavenly mansion has a toilet? Do you know that Adam and Eve didn’t have to
go to toilet until they fell? They don’t
have to. It was a different kind of world. All these things took place only when we
began to depend on physical food for our lives.
When the body just feeds on spiritual food and the body is in line,
there is no such need to expel anything from our bodies.
Secondly, there is a noise that is
sub-conscious. That is at a higher level
than we realize. There is a noise, the
cares and concerns that are boggled up but there are some other things that we
need to get out from. There is what I
call a sub-conscious influence over every nation, over every city, over every
place that we need to get out from.
Somehow if in the city of one thousand, one thousand people are thinking
the wrong thoughts, it has a certain atmosphere over that place. In the book called ‘Prayer The Greatest Force On
Earth’ the author says he visualize the world like a world not just made of
buildings and people but a world made from peoples’ thoughts. For example, there could be five billions
people on earth, and he makes this statement, he has gone very deep in the area
of prayer. He says if all the five
billions people in the world and the majority of them are thinking the wrong
thoughts, the whole world pushes towards the evil side. But if the majority of the people began to
think the good thoughts of God then the world began to go into a closer walk
with God. Do you know that there is such
a thing as the world influences that are taking place besides the angels are
working, besides what we are doing by prayer?
In the book he was teaching people how to transmit thought prayer. Transmitting thoughts in
Jesus.
But there is something if we understand
carefully can explain some mysteries even in the natural realm. In the natural realm people have realized
that there are twins. If people who are
twins, there are something that can be explained, something that cannot be
explained. There is an example of two
twins and their names are Tony and Roger.
Tony and Roger were born and from the time they were born, they were
separated. They were twenty-four years
old. Identical twins who had been
separated at birth and reared far apart.
No two people can be more alike than this identical twin. There are two
types of twins but here we are talking about identical twins. One day they met together. When Tony and Roger were born in 1938, their
destitute parents could not support them and they were offered to an Italian
couple named Malassi.
Unfortunately, the couple could care for only one child, thus the twins
were separated. The lucky one Tony grew
up in a secular environment but in contrast Roger had dramatic early life. His life was full of insecurity. He was shunted among foster homes and
orphanages. He did not walk until 18
months compared to 12 months for Tony.
At age two, he was judged to be five months retarded in his
development. He had difficulty combining
words and was unable to do mathematical calculations. When he was four, his natural father’s wife
heard of his plight, took him in and continued to raise him up. Anyway they both grew separately and finally
when they met each other at about twenty-four years of age, brought up
differently but born of the same parents.
As soon as the twins were reunited, comparisons were made. They certainly were physically alike right
down to the same aching wisdom tooth but there were other unexpected and
puzzling similarities. Not only do they
used the same shaver, smoke the same cigarette, hold a pen in the same awkward
way. They both also used the same brand
of toothpaste, imported from
Let me read about other twins and some of
the similarities that they cannot explain.
Although there is no proof that twins has ESP, there is evidence that
many pairs communicate more closely and more mysteriously than normal
siblings. This unusual sensitivity for
each other thoughts and feelings, a kind of heighten empathy may account for
some strange experiences twins had reported.
One twin will occasionally feels the urge to call his brother. Usually he finds that his twin had wanted to
call him. Some twins also say that they
have felt each other’s pain. One woman,
whose identical twin was killed in a plane crash, reported feeling heat pain
and then a black void at the time of the crash.
How do you explain these things?
Scientists had no explanation.
I have a theological explanation that I am
bringing forth. Our brain works by
electrical impulses that produce magnetism and all electrical impulses and
magnetism produce electro magnetic waves.
There is something there about twins because twins basically are
biologically the same. Each one of us
here has a slightly different chemical make up.
The signs of our internal organs are slightly different and chemically
are slightly different. But twins
basically are same. Their genetic code
is very similar and what happens is when they think certain pattern, we could
measure the electrical impulses of the body using more powerful instrument kits
that were recently invented. Every time when a person thinks, there are certain
thought patterns and things that come forth.
Not only in the conscious realm, which you know, that are spoken in
words that are thought in the mind but their sub-conscious pattern that radiate
invisible vibrations when another person has an exact similar kind of chemical
make up or so make up. That thought
pattern causes what I call a vibration in the other person. Just like two tuning forks, when two tuning
forks of the exact pitch are placed at a certain distance, you hit one the
other will move. So people with similar
make up, especially twins are able to pick up in that way. It’s at a very level
that we cannot puck up at the moment.
Now you don’t believe that we are sensitive to magnetism, let me tell
you that it’s only been verified by science recently that sharks moves by
electricity and are sensitive to electricity and magnetism. They are affected by electricity and
magnetism. So the lower primates and
animals do sense electricity and magnetism in ways that scientist could only
imagine. They have even found one little
cell that knows which direction is north, south, east and west. There was an experiment in one of my research
books that was conducted by scientists to see whether man has a natural
magnetism. They blindfolded people and
turned them round and round and asked them which direction is north. They were surprised that the results were
quite comparative that although after some mistakes. That most of them could have an uncanny sense
where north is. Now that is not in the
area of our intellect at all. It is
something lower that that. It is
something more powerful than that.
Husband and wife who love each other or
family members also have keenness in that.
So that’s why even for people who love each other, who know each other
and they have been so united in their soul that when one thing happens to the
other, the other knows. It’s not
telepathy. Telepathy is the reading of
the mental thought but these are influences that are not in your intellect so
it’s not telepathy. Something you know
you pick up but you can’t explain it.
The whole world or even a group of people when
they are thinking the same kind of thought pattern would produce certain type
of electro magnetic patterns that can affect another person that is in the
natural. This is why sometimes even
radio broadcast and radio waves and television waves are different forms of
electro magnetic waves in just different waves
lengths. We could pick it up with
something deeper than your conscious mind.
This is why if you go to
Now that’s no.2, the second type of
noise. It is a sub-conscious noise. We need to be able to overcome those
things. I do it in my way. We always place music in the house and the
Word of God in the house. It produces a
totally different atmosphere. You will
notice it even if you go to a Christian house and they have been spending a lot
of time in prayer, you don’t have to say a word, when you go into the house,
every one of your thought tends towards God.
If you go to a pub or any place of sin, if I don’t tell you what it is,
you step in; you will suddenly feel all the temptations that were there. What is that something? It is in a very deep
sub-conscious. There is a necessity in
our lives to pull away from these two types of noises and move into the depths
of God in order to draw from the realm of God, realm of the spirit things that
will strengthen our spirit, which is more powerful. If you notice, Jesus likes
to draw away from people at the most important junctions in His life. During the most critical points in your life,
when you need to make a big decision in your life, don’t run from counselor to
counselor. Go into solitude and you will
find your answer there.
Turn with me to Luke 6: 12 “Now it came
to pass in those days that He went out to the mountain to pray, and continued
all night in prayer to God.”
He continued, He cried and He prayed to God. He must be alone. Which is why my friends, if you have learned
solitude, your closest solitude is with a group of people, you will never know
what it is to rise in greatness in God.
To soar like an eagle beyond the richest of what others could
comprehend.
In Jn. 6: 13-15, after the feeding of the five thousands only
recorded in the gospel of John. It is
not recorded in Matthew, Mark and Luke.
It is only recorded in John.
After the feeding of the five thousands Jesus sought solitude. You could imagine the many other times in the
gospel when something happen that He sought solitude that are
unrecorded. But here is the time that
John happened to record it in verse 13, “Therefore they gathered them up,
all filled twelve baskets with the fragments of the five barley loaves which
were left over by those who had eaten.
Then those men, when they had seen the sign that Jesus did, said, this is truly the Prophet who is to come into the
world. Therefore when Jesus perceived
that they were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king.” What did He do? He quickly walked out of it to be alone with
God. Why, because that’s where you get
your bearing and direction. All of us
need our bearing and direction in life.
So in verse 15 it says, “Therefore when Jesus perceived that they
were about to come and take Him by force to make Him king, He departed again to
the mountain by Himself alone.”
You can be alone but not lonely. Great men and women of God need solitude to
develop their strength in God. If you
want to be great in God’s kingdom, you learn to be a servant to serve, but you
also learn solitude in God. You say how
does it relate? Look at it carefully;
you cannot really serve properly until you have a relationship with God. If you are not in relationship with God, your
service and ministry is either for self or some other motives. But when you are in God your service is
pure. You reach the height of your
greatness and the greatest point in Jesus’ life. If you look and study people, a lot of the
people out there in the world, when they are about to make some decisions, they
run to the wrong places and they make blunders.
But if you want to make the right decision in your life, you seek to be
alone with God. In the silence of your
soul you find your resting place and you hear your spirit coming forth. Does Jesus love fellowship? Yes of course He does. But you need both. And of all the times in His life in the
gospel of Luke when Jesus knew that He was about to be betrayed and He was to
be crucified, where would He go? Not to
friends, not to people. At the greatest
point, when He was about to die on the cross in Luke 22, and there was a lot of
noise taking place around Him in verse 24.
There was also rivalry among them as to which of them should be
considered the greatest. The disciples
were excited because some of them had the Jewish concept that He was going to
be an earthly king. They were arguing
about who was to be the greatest next to Jesus the earthly king. They had all kinds of power ambitions in
their mind and they cannot comprehend what He really came to do. There was so much noise around. And Jesus in verse 39, “Coming
out, He went to the
In John 18, we are told that Judas knew
where He was. In the first few verses,
it says it’s because Jesus used to go to Kidron there
to pray and Judas knew where He was because Judas used to go there to
pray. My friends, when you have come
back from a hard day’s work, do you just go to your bed and slump on your bed? Or do you seek some solitude with God before
you sleep? Do you know Jesus worked
hard? There were times He hardly had
time to eat. No matter how tired His
physical body was He always needed to be alone with God before He let His
physical body sleep. How many Christians
seek to be alone with God? Do you know
there are not many? Most of them can
only survive in the crowd. They can only
survive with their cliques. That is why
we don’t have that kind of people on this earth to change the world. If we have one life like Jesus, if we have
just one more person who lives like Jesus, he will change the world. The vast majority is living in
mediocrity. There is not greatness,
there is no spirit of Jesus, the Lion of Judah that roar and change the
world. From time to time, this earth has
seen men and women come by who were like that.
Paul was a man who seeks solitude. When he was born again, his ministry could
not take off when he tried his best but God sent him back to his hometown. And for many unwritten years and unaccounted
time, hours, days and weeks, he was left on the back part of silence. But when he came out, he rose to greatness
and he changed and shook the world in his time.
Why solitude? The world’s
thinking is different. They think small
but when you touch God, your thoughts rise up.
For man’s thoughts are not like God’s thoughts. God’s thought are higher that our
thoughts. But people, men and women who
get alone with God, their thoughts began to soar. Their lives began to soar. Their spirits began to soar like an eagle and
they come not thinking their own thoughts but they come out with the thoughts
of God. When they speak forth those
thoughts, they lead people with those directions; they cause other to soar into
the heart of God to change the world.
Jesus needed His solitude. In
time of great suffering, most people ask for an arm to lean on, a heart from a
loved one but Jesus asked for the heart of the Father and an embrace from the
Father in His solitude.
In Luke chapter 22: 39 “Coming out, He went
to the
Jesus in verse 41, “And He was
withdrawn from them about a stone’s throw,” He had to be alone. When He was alone, “He knelt down and He
prayed, saying, Father, if it is Your will, take this
cup away from Me; nevertheless not My will, but Yours, be done.” Then an angel appeared to Him from heaven,
strengthening Him. And being in agony,
He prayed more earnestly. Then His sweat
became like great drops of blood falling down to the ground.” Three times He rose up to check on His
disciples and He could have joined them after that but He got to get alone and
pray.
Are you afraid to be alone? That fear needs to be cast out. It is not from God. Neither is it a natural human fear. It is the fallen nature of fear because God
made man for Himself, for His own bosom.
Renewed men are different.
Why must we be alone in God? No.1 like in Luke 6, there are
things that God wants to reveal to you.
That is your destiny. It’s nobody
else’s business but yours. A part of
your destiny has to do with them but there is a part that is specially
reserved for you. That it can only be
revealed when you are alone. Firstly,
this solitude is for God’s special revelation to you. In Luke 6, after He was alone He came down,
and He chose His twelve disciples. He
knew whom to choose. Where did He get
that? It’s from God. He needs to get alone so that He could hear
God. He could receive the revelation God
wants Him to receive. Moses never
received his call until he turned aside and went alone to seek after that
bush. You know why Elijah was
discouraged? He had been with the people
so long that he needed to be alone and God sent him all to be alone. In the
Secondly, to cut off ties from the wrong
things that is happening. It’s a kind of
purification. It’s a kind of separation
that is necessary to live a holy life.
It’s for cleansing and purification because you will never be cleansed
and purified unless you get alone and you hear whatever is in you that needs to
be cleansed. As long as you are with
people, you cannot really hear any noise on your inside. You need to get alone so that you got nobody
else but yourself to deal with and face it.
And that all the darkness and the woe from your own life will rise up
like a dragon and you will have to slay those dragons in your life. What
happens if you don’t? It will affect
your eternal destiny and reward in God.
You will be saved if you are born again but it won’t be effective. Slay the dragons in your life. Be daring to be alone to wrestle. What would you do today if you were left
alone for three days and three nights?
It’s easy to say if you were left alone in a desert island where there
is nothing, but if you were left alone with an opportunity to do every thing
you want. What would you have done? The dragons that you have kept in your life
will rise up and you are to slay them.
So no.2 for cleansing and purification is necessary in our life.
No. 3 is the most important. It is to meet with God beyond the revelation
beyond the cleansing. God wants to meet
you face to face. God spoke to Moses and
said, Moses don’t let anyone else come up to that mountain, neither man nor
beast if they do they will be killed because God wants to be alone with Moses. Why, although there are
billions of Christian on this earth, yet Jesus loves you as if you are the only
love in His life. You know what love
is? Love needs a special place and
time. Marvin Ford, my friend who went to
heaven recently sent me his latest book, a revised version. He said that when he went to heaven and he
saw Jesus, there on the throne of God before the crystals seat and Jesus was
just looking at him. He said, “Lord, why of all the billions of people on the
earth, how do you have all your attention for me?” Jesus said, “Son, there is enough of Me to go around.”
Jesus doesn’t love you generally; He loves you like you are the only one
who ever existed. And the only time you
can experience that kind of love is when you are alone with God. You will know that He did answer your prayer
because you prayed with somebody else, that He did answer your prayer because
you have two other brothers and sisters as strong as you helping you. Then you will know that He is there with you
because He loves you. And He is coming
to you right at your level in your desire for Him.
Thirdly, in the book of John 3: 17 we are told that God loves
us. Jesus prayed that we may know the
love of God as much as the Father loves Jesus.
Think about how much the Father loves Jesus. He loves you as much as He loves Jesus and He
has no opportunity to show it to you until you are alone with Him. In secret
place of the Most High God there will I ascend in God. Thank you Jesus for that
secret place. Do you have your
secret place of the Most High God? And
in that secret place you can say, I will say of the Lord, He is my rock, my
fortress; in Him alone will I trust. He
that dwelt in the secret place of the Most High shall abide under the shadow of
the Almighty. Are you in His shadow? He
wants you to come under His shadow to be loved, to be cuddled, to be embraced
by Him and Him alone.
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