Daily Tryst with God

One of the first things my late mentor Dr. Stephen F. Offord taught me, friends, was the absolute necessity of having a daily tryst with God each morning. He wrote a little booklet entitled, Man in the Morning. I highly recommend it.

I cannot stress the importance and priority of a daily set apart time to spend time in fellowship with the Lord. In my opinion, a believer is weighed not by pounds, but by how much time he or she spends on one's knees and in one's Bible. How deep we are spiritually is directly tied to how much time we spend alone with God.

I look at how Jesus prayed in the Gospel of Mark in chapter 1 and verse 35. It states, And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed. And allow me to share with you a story that tells why I needed to have a daily time with my God.

Years ago, I was at a week-long conference, and every day was practically a spiritual high. I was busy in the Lord day and night, and enjoying those mountaintop experiences. But what usually follows a mountaintop? You're right, a valley of despair.

At the end of this particular conference, I had to be at my office early the next morning, and I rushed my daily quiet time. I did not have a quality alone time with him that morning. While at my office that day, I sinned.

And on my drive home, tears streamed down my face as I cried out to God, O Lord, how could I sin like that? Just after the week I had with You, how could I do that? Just then, a certain passage of Scripture was brought to my mind, from Exodus 16, where the Israelites had manna to eat. But when some of the people stored up the manna, when they had hoarded it for the next day, it grew worms and stank. As I pondered that passage, a voice spoke to my heart.

Not an audible voice, mind you. Nevertheless, it was that voice that addresses a still part of our heart, you know of which I speak. I heard God telling me the following, You cannot live today on yesterday's experience of me.

You must come to me fresh every day for your portion. What the Lord was telling me was, I was acting like the Israelites by trying to live for Him today on yesterday's manna. That dramatic experience underlined my necessity of meeting with God every morning in a fresh, exciting way.

I believe, friends, when a believer's slack in their daily time spent with the Lord, then he or she will be more prone to sin and disobedience. Without a quality quiet time, one can expect both failure and discouragement in trying to live the Christian life. Neglecting prayer, Bible study, and fellowship with Him is a recipe for disaster.

How can we hope to walk in the spirit of victory for today when we fail to get our marching orders from our commanding officer? We cannot. I want to take some time and read us from the Gospel of John in chapter 15. You can turn in your Bibles there now, friends.

We'll be in verses 1 through 8, and I think this little study is pertinent to us each having a daily quiet time. Every branch in me that beareth not fruit, he taketh away. And every branch that beareth fruit, he purgeth it, that it may bring forth more fruit.

Now ye are clean through the word which I have spoken unto you. Abide in me, and I in you, as the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, except it abide in the vine. No more can ye, except ye abide in me.

I am the vine, ye are the branches. He that abideth in me, and I in him, the same bringeth forth much fruit. For without me, ye can do nothing.

And I want to tell you, friends, that first it is the branch that is pruned that bears more fruit. How many times do we shrink from the Father's pruning knife? Though it's painful to be pruned, nevertheless it is productive. As believers, if we truly desire more useful service to him, then we must submit to the heavenly surgeon scalpel.

And secondly, verse 4 tells us we cannot bear fruit of ourselves. All our service in the name of Christ is fleshly if we're producing it on our own. For us to have the fruit that remains in eternity, we must be empty channels for the heavenly sap to flow through us to bear lasting fruit.

When we produce our own fruit, it may look good on the outside, but it seldom lasts. Picture in your mind a bowl of plastic fruit. This wax fruit looks good from a distance.

It shines and abides, but upon closer examination, it reveals itself to be fake. And I believe a person in the pulpit is only as good as he is long on his knees in prayer, friends. And when we abide in the vine and bear fruit, we bring God glory.

And our purpose in life as believers is to bring God glory. And it's a wonderful example here we have in the Gospel of John of the abiding life and bringing glory to the Father. And I hope that this time of the daily tristing time will encourage you to set time apart each day to spend with your Lord.

I think it's important, friends. And I'll leave us with these words from John Barrage, a contemporary of George Whitefield. As a fact, Whitefield often had John Barrage preach for him in his pulpit in London when Whitefield was away in America.

This is what John Barrage wrote. All decays begin in the closet. No heart thrives without much secret converse with God, and nothing will make amends for the want of it.

I never rose from secret prayer without some quickening. Even when I said about it with heaviness or reluctance, the Lord is pleased in mercy to meet me in it. I hope that you, friends, will establish a daily quiet time, a tristing time with your Lord, so he can revitalize our lives all for his glory.

Let us pray.