Telling the Truth

Female Host: Are you trying to live on bread alone? Daily devotions are an integral part of the Christian life, and worship should be a part of those devotions.

Today on Telling the Truth, Stuart Briscoe is teaching from his series on worship, explaining how including worship in your devotional time enhances it and will bring you closer to God than you ever thought possible. He'll get started in just a moment.

Building a consistent prayer life can be a challenge. That's why we want to let you know about a special opportunity to soak in Stuart and Jill's wisdom on prayer through a newly curated collection of their messages called Powerful and Effective Prayer.

This resource is our thanks for your gift today to help others experience life in Christ through the global ministry of Telling the Truth. So call today to request your copy of this special collection. 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org.

Now, here's Stuart with his message, Worship and Devotions, on today's Telling the Truth.

Stuart Briscoe: If we are called on a daily basis to be developing an attitude of praise and adoration and worship to God on a daily basis, and we do it by embarking on the morning and going through the day and concluding it in the evening, then what is going to stimulate us to that worship? And the answer is, first of all, not the only answer, but the first answer is, we will be stimulated to this kind of worship through our understanding of God's self-revelation in creation.

Now, you can't go anywhere. You can't go anywhere without bumping into God's creation. But it is possible to go all over the place in God's creation and not have eyes to see Him in it. It is possible to have eyes to see Him in it and refuse to worship Him on an ongoing basis. And therein lies the problem for many, many people when we get down to the business of having an attitude and an activity of continual worship.

Or if you like daily devotion. Elizabeth Barrett Browning put it in very poignant terms. This is what she said: "Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush a fire with God. But only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries and daub their natural faces unaware."

Her statement here is very powerful, that if you have eyes to see in the creation something of the Creator, that will lead you to an attitude of gratitude and adoration and admiration and worship. On the other hand, it is perfectly possible to move around in the creation and simply sit around and eat blackberries and daub your faces with its juice, totally unaware of who God is.

And therein lies the problem for many men and women today. They haven't learned to worship on a daily basis, spontaneously in response to God's revelation in creation. You see, we're talking about making the connection. We're talking about the invisible characteristics of God being clearly seen in the things that He has made.

"Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush a fire with God. But only he who sees takes off his shoes. The rest sit around it and pluck blackberries." The problem is making the connection between the revelation and the one who's been revealed. G.K. Chesterton said this: "The world will never starve for want of wonders, but only for want of wonder."

Our world is full of sheer wonder. Wonders upon wonders upon wonders upon wonders. No shortage of wonders, terrible shortage of wonder. On our kitchen window we have a little feeder. It contains four parts of water and one part of sugar. It is there for the little friend that I have there called the hummingbird.

The reason it's called the hummingbird is that if you get close enough to it, you can actually hear a humming sound. It doesn't come from its throat, it comes from its wings, which are moving so quickly you can barely see it. And the sheer velocity of its wing energy is creating the humming sound. The hummingbird is the most incredible flying machine. It can fly as quick as a dart.

And it can put on the brakes, and from going full speed ahead, it can suddenly stop and hover motionless. And then, it actually has a reverse, and it can fly backwards. The only bird in the North American continent that can do that. It has to revisit our sugared water regularly, every 10 or 12 minutes. The reason being it is burning up so much energy. It needs quick energy every few minutes, sugared water.

How much energy does it use up? Well, if a 170-pound man were to exert the same amount of energy that a hummingbird does, which incidentally weighs as heavy as a dime. If a 170-pound man were to exert as much energy as a hummingbird, he would require 150,000 calories a day.

And it's all in that little bird that weighs as much as a dime. And I watch the hummingbird. And I worship. And I say, "Well done, God." I've flown in a lot of man's flying machines. I think I've flown in just about every kind there is. And they're pretty good. They're sure beat oxcarts, but they have no clue compared to the hummingbird. Do you get my drift?

"Earth's crammed with heaven, and every common bush a-flame with God." That's the first thing I wanted to say. You say, "You're not through?" No, not quite. But I'll go through this second bit very, very quickly because I think we're a little bit more familiar with this second part. God reveals Himself in creation in order that we might practice spontaneous devotion as we see Him surprisingly revealed.

But God also reveals Himself in Scripture. Psalm 19 goes on to talk about the law of the Lord and the precepts of the Lord, and it gives all kinds of wonderful statements about the word of the Lord. And as we think about the great statements of the word of the Lord, we are reminded of the fact that God reveals Himself in Scripture. And what is necessary if we're going to engage in daily devotion is not only the development of spontaneous devotion, but also the discipline of structured devotions, in which we know what it is on a daily basis to be feeding on God's self-revelation in Scripture.

Female Host: Worship, in its truest definition, it's our continuous daily response to God revealing Himself. But as life sometimes gets crazy, worship can fall to the wayside. Don't let it. Today on Telling the Truth, Stuart Briscoe is showing you what a difference including worship in your daily time with God makes, and he'll tell you much more coming up.

Okay, let's be honest. Prayer can sometimes feel like a bit of a mystery. Some people feel so confused by how prayer works that they'll just forget it altogether. But Scripture paints an exciting picture of what a life of prayer can be and how you can experience it yourself. That's why we want to send you a newly curated collection of messages from Stuart and Jill called Powerful and Effective Prayer.

These five eye-opening messages will help you push past today's common platitudes on prayer and develop the rich and vibrant prayer life you're longing for. We're excited to send you this one-of-a-kind resource as thanks for your gift today to help keep sharing the life-changing truth of God's love with people around the world through Telling the Truth. So call today to request Powerful and Effective Prayer when you give. 1-800-889-5388. That's 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online at tellingthetruth.org.

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Now, let's go back to Stuart for more about Worship and Devotions on today's Telling the Truth.

Stuart Briscoe: Now, you've heard me say this repeatedly. I'm not sure that some people have heard it, however, really heard it. But a simple rule of thumb as far as a disciplined approach to daily devotions would be based on this statement: "Don't put your head on the pillow at night if you haven't had your nose in the book during the day." Do you hear me? "Don't put your head on the pillow at night if you haven't had your nose in the book during the day." Why?

Because man cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from the mouth of God. And who do you know who only has bread once a week? My guess is that you know people who have a very balanced diet, probably three times a day. Where is the logic that says, "If I cannot live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds out of the mouth of God," where's the logic that says, "But I will have a careful balanced diet of regular food, and I won't even crack the word of God from Sunday to Sunday, and sometimes I won't even do it then"?

Where's the logic of that? There's none. So what we need to be developing is the discipline of structured devotions. Now, I don't have time to go into details here. In fact, we will endeavor to make something available to help people who are interested in this in the next few weeks. Let me just say a couple of things, and then we'll conclude.

If you're going to develop the discipline of structured devotions, you will need to develop some specific practical things. Like a time to do it. If we're talking discipline, and you have a more or less regular schedule—now, I don't, and others of you don't—but if you have a more or less regular schedule, then the smart thing to do if you're going to develop a regular structured devotional life is have a certain time that you set aside specifically for that.

The second thing you do is you set aside a place where you do it. I know some businessmen who purposely go to work a little early in order that they can get to their offices before everybody else so that they can spend time in the word of God in devotion before everybody else comes. I know some who say, "I don't want to do that in the office, so I get in my car, and I drive to a certain park, and I park my car, and I'm there every morning at 6:45 to 7:00, and I've got my nose in the book." You can work it out yourself.

A time, and a place, and a method. There are all kinds of ways of making sure that you're in the word of God on a regular basis, which leads to the fourth thing: you need to get the tools that will assist you in the method once you've got the place and the time.

Just supposing you say, "You know, I really need to do this. I really need to begin to develop some kind of structured devotional life where I take the time on a daily basis, a regular basis, to hear from God through His word." In addition to the spontaneous worship that will come through seeing Him at work in His creation. What would it look like? Let me give you five keywords here.

First of all, it would mean getting into the word of God and reading it, reading it. I meet lots of people who say the Bible is the most wonderful book in the world. And I've said to them, "How do you know? You never read it?" "Oh, it's a wonderful book." There's some people who think it's such a wonderful book that they keep it to press flowers in. And some keep pictures of their grandchildren in it. And some have any genealogy in the front of it. And others of it use it to prop up the broken leg of their piano.

But it is designed to be read. Sorry to be elementary here, but this has escaped a lot of people. It does not work if you just hold it in your hand and say, "Oh, what a wonderful book." Doesn't help if you rub it on your head. Reading it. That's where you start. Read a section of it every single day. Read it. Then reflect upon it.

The Bible talks a lot about reflecting or meditating upon what you've read. In fact, Paul writing to Timothy says that if you do reflect upon it, God will give you understanding. People often say to me, "Oh, I've read the Bible, I can't understand it." I say, "How long did you spend reflecting on it?" How much brainpower did you exert on it? How much did you think through what it was saying? How much did you compare it with what it is saying somewhere else? How long did you spend just letting it marinate in your mind?

You read it and you reflect on it. Sheep love green grass. They munch on it with their munchers. They get their bellies full of it. And then they find a nice shady tree, and they lie down under the shady tree. And then they do the most disgusting thing. They regurgitate what they've eaten and they chew it over all over again. It's called contemplation, meditation. It is called reflection. You take the time, you see, to read and reflect.

Thirdly, you then learn how to relate. You relate what you're reading and reflecting upon to your life as it now is. And as you begin to relate what it is saying, you begin to discover things like this: "Wow, it's talking about anger here, and I've got a problem with anger." Never occurred to me. It never occurred to me that I should relate what the Bible is saying to me. And I begin to realize what it is saying about anger, what it says I should be doing about anger, and I begin to say to myself, "God, You're going to have to help me do what it says here about my anger."

And somebody else says, "That's my problem, my problem is fear." And we you begin to read in the Bible about fear. And as you read about fear, and you reflect on what it says about fear, and what you should do about fear, you begin to relate it to your life. And you know what you discover? You begin to discover a change in your life. And your changed life is a pean of praise to God.

And then the fourth thing you do is you record, because you see, there's some good stuff you've learned and you don't want to forget it. Now, some people are very meticulous in writing a journal every day. I've tried that a few times. I usually lose my journal. But other people are more disciplined. But I have found that I can make notes of the key things that have happened to me, which leads to the fifth thing, and that is review.

Because you see, if God has been showing you things in His word that are making all the difference in your life and lifting your spirits at the beginning of the end of the day, whenever you do it, there will be times when you want to go back over the things that He showed to you in order that you might identify if there's any discernible progress. You know, that as you can identify the progress, so you're able to give Him praise.

So what do I do? I make sure I've got a time, I make sure I've got a place, I make sure I've got a method, I make sure I've got the tools. When I put all that together, then I embark on the simple process of reading, reflecting, relating, recording, and reviewing. And I promise you something. If on a regular basis, you start to meet with God in His word like that, you will find your attitude is changed to Him, your attitude is changed to you, and your attitude is changed to life. And you will be a worshiper.

It is good and right and proper for God's people to meet on the Lord's Day in a place of worship and to corporately lift their voices in praise and adoration and thanksgiving to Him, and to hear His word, and to worship Him by concentrating on what He has to say. Bring in their offerings. But remember this: the effectiveness of your Sunday morning worship is directly related to the depth of your Monday through Saturday experience of Him.

If you just rush in at the last minute or after the last minute into a worship service from a week that has been fundamentally barren of personal experience of Him, don't be surprised if you, quote, "get nothing out of it." End quote. But if you come to meet with God's people with a full heart from a week of worship, you will not be able to contain the overflow.

Oh, the interesting thing about it is this: the weekly experience of worship will then be a tremendous stimulus for the rest of the week as you go out. So, would you check to see if you're engaging in a spontaneous response to God's revelation of Himself in creation? And would you check to see if you're disciplining yourself to a structured approach to devotional study of God's revelation in His word? Because you see, if we're going to talk about worship, we've got to talk about daily devotion.

Female Host: Making it a priority to spend time with God each day is a huge part of the Christian life. And as Stuart Briscoe has shown us on today's Telling the Truth, incorporating worship with your devotional time adds beauty to what worship truly is. Stuart will be right back to answer a few questions about how to combine worship and devotions, so stay with us.

You probably hear people talk about prayer all the time. But aside from knowing that you ought to do it, how much do you truly know about prayer? For example, how does God want to use prayer in our lives? Is He listening to every single request? And can prayer really make a difference? We'd love to help shine some much-needed light on the subject of prayer by sending you Stuart and Jill's new five-message collection, Powerful and Effective Prayer.

This specially curated set of messages is our thanks for your gift to share the life-changing truth of God's word around the world through Telling the Truth. It's only thanks to the support of generous friends like you that broadcasts like this one can keep going out, reaching others with God's love, so they can experience life in Christ. So if you haven't given before, please consider a gift today and remember to request Powerful and Effective Prayer when you call and give. Just call 1-800-889-5388. 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org.

And now Stuart's here to answer a few practical questions about putting worship and devotions together. Stuart, do you think having a daily scheduled devotion time is important?

Stuart Briscoe: Yes, I think it is a good idea, and it is important to have a daily scheduled devotional time, but we've got to be very, very careful that this does not become an end in itself. I remember when I first got to know Jill, she had been brought up by some people who'd invested in her early Christian life, and she had a certain little mantra she would often say to me, and it's this, "If I don't have my devotions first thing in the morning, it ruins my day."

And I said, "Well, I understand the sentiment of what you're saying there, but are you telling me that the secret of the Christian life is a scheduled devotional time?" Well, she wasn't saying that in so many words, but she was in danger of getting there. And I when when our baby was born, it was very interesting. He didn't seem to have a scheduled devotional time. In fact, he was rather demanding. And my wife got herself into a real pickle and a real panic on the issue because the baby needed feeding, but she had to have her devotional time. And I said, "Look, you don't have to have a set schedule necessarily. What you do need to make sure is that you're living in communion with the Lord during the course of the day. And you will work out what is the best way of doing that."

Female Host: Stuart, how can a person apply what they're learning from the Bible to their life right now? I mean, should they seek out topics, just look to the Spirit for insight, or a little of both?

Stuart Briscoe: There is there are certainly lots of different ways of going about studying the Bible. I think the most important thing is not the technique that we use, but the attitude with which we approach the Bible. If I approach the Bible as a matter of discipline only, if I approach it as something in which I hope I'm going to get a little nugget of help, then there's no question about it that the discipline will be helpful, and there's a probability that we'll get a nugget of help as well.

But I think the thing we need to recognize is that we need to study the Bible systematically. In other words, if you're studying the the epistles, or you're studying the the wisdom literature, say to yourself, what was the point of this writing? What did the writer, the author of this have in mind? What did it mean to the people to whom it was addressed, and then how does it apply to me? And you'll find that you're not just bouncing around looking for a little nugget, and you're not just engaging in a discipline, you're getting into the life of real people in whose life God was at work, and you're learning the lessons of God at work in real people, and then you're saying, how is God at work in me?

Female Host: Thanks, Stuart.

Before you go, we want to remind you to request Stuart and Jill's newly curated five-message collection, Powerful and Effective Prayer. It's our thanks for your gift today to continue sharing God's word through Telling the Truth broadcasts and resources. So please request yours when you call and give. 1-800-889-5388. 1-800-889-5388. Or you can give online when you visit tellingthetruth.org.

Thanks for listening to today's program. Tune in again next time to experience life right here on Telling the Truth with Stuart and Jill Briscoe.