Today’s first-time writer here is Heather Knowles who lives in the West Highlands of Scotland. She is a wife, mother, grandmother, and daughter. Her blog is An Unfinished Work of Art (tag line: Otherwise known as a Work in Progress.)
You can be a blessing to the various writers we feature by creating some traffic for their site. There’s two devotionals by Heather today, and you’re encouraged to click the titles for each, which follow, and read them on her page.
Making Time for Prayer
Before daybreak the next morning, Jesus got up and went out to an isolated place to pray. – Mark 1:35 NLT
Is it important to make time for prayer? Well, yes it is, but why? I’m sure that we have all sat through sermons expounding the benefits of prayer and underlining the fact that Jesus took Himself off to pray on a regular basis, and if He needed to pray, then so do we! But actually going out of our way to make time for it? Letting prayer “interfere” with our established daily routines? Let’s take a closer look. Consider for a moment your relationship with your partner, best friend, parents, siblings, children, grandchildren, anyone important in your life.
When two people first fall in love, they become a bit obsessed with each other, spending as much time as possible in each other’s company, ringing up, sending messages, cards, gifts, etc. If a relationship is ‘one-sided’, it’s not going to go very far – it takes two people to build a relationship. Any relationship can only grow and develop as people spend time in each other’s company, as they get to know each other better and on a deeper level.
And now think about your relationship with God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit. I don’t know about you, but my relationship with God can only grow, deepen and develop as I spend time with Him – not just a rushed few seconds here and there, when I can ‘fit Him in’ to my day/schedule/diary/routine, but real, quality time. God has done His part. He speaks to us through His Word, He has given His Son, He has laid down His Life, He has sent His Holy Spirit. Now it’s up to me to do my part to grow my relationship with Him – to spend quality time with Him, to prioritize Him in my day, to listen to His promptings. I know that I am richly blessed to be in such a privileged relationship, where I can come before the throne of God and simply chat to Him.
Jesus took Himself away to pray before and after performing miracles, when He needed peace and quiet, when He needed to hear from His Father, when He wanted to strengthen and consolidate His relationship with God the Father. To grow my relationship with God, to strengthen it and to consolidate it, I need to do likewise, and it is such a wonderful blessing to be free to come to Father God to get to know Him on a deeper, more personal level.
Bonus article:
A Challenge!
Matthew 22:36-39 (NIV): “Teacher, which is the greatest commandment in the Law?” Jesus replied: ““Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.” This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: “Love your neighbour as yourself.””
How’s that for a challenge? You’re not following me?
Well, Jesus said that we have to love God totally and completely – that’s the most important thing to do, the first and greatest commandment. It’s the second one that presents the challenge.
Love your neighbour as yourself. That’s a huge challenge – why?
Because I have to love myself! In order to love my neighbour, I have to love myself. I can only love them as I love myself.
So who is my neighbour? Is it really only the people that live next-door? In the parable of the Good Samaritan, Jesus taught that loving your neighbour means more than loving your immediate circle of family, friends and next-door neighbours. He taught that loving your neighbour means more than just being kind and considerate to people you meet in your day-to-day life. He taught that loving your neighbour meant more than just being respectful, generous and tolerant. He taught that loving your neighbour means searching for the outcast, the rejected, the marginalized, the abused. It means drawing alongside them, making space for them, listening to them, getting close to them, accepting them as they are, looking for the spark of Christ in them, searching within them for the likeness of God – for He is surely there, as we are all created in His image – and then holding out the hand of love and friendship, being pro-active to right wrongs and to end injustices.
I can only love them as I love myself, and to do that I need to have a God-given perspective of who and what I am because it’s easy to be self-depreciating and to hold myself unforgiven, and to beat myself up over past mistakes, to drag up memories of past sin and feel so very, very unrighteous and unworthy. But what does God say about who I am, and what I am? His word tells me that I am:
- His
- His beloved
- His prize
- His bride
- Called
- Chosen
- The apple of His eye
- A new creation
- A temple of His Spirit
- Forgiven
- Redeemed
- Blessed
- Elect
- Victorious
- One in Christ
- Fearfully and wonderfully made
- Set free
Thank you Lord for your great love for me, and thank you that you have that same love for everyone I meet, for everyone who has ever and will ever live here on earth. Help me Lord to have a right self-image, and to see you in others, that I may love myself and my neighbour. Amen
Loved by God 
Christianity 201 