What are you believing for yourself and your family for 2020?
Seven Areas of Breakthrough This Year:
- Faith – your personal walk with God
- Family – marriage, with children
- Finances – managing our money, etc.
- Freedom – areas of our lives that we have strongholds
- Fun – we need to enjoy life (Satan did not create fun, he just perverted it.)
- Field of endeavor (job or vocation)
- Friendships (social relationships)
If I told you, you could do something for 15 minutes a day and you will without a doubt experience a supernatural breakthrough in your relationship with God, would you do it?
We are going to talk about how to have a quiet time.
Many of us had tried to have a quiet time and it did not work like we had hoped.
Understand that having quiet time is not the same thing as a time of intercessory prayer time. There are manuals that tell us how to have a prayer life but this is not necessarily a prayer time.
There are three myths about quiet time that we need to address:
- You can only have a quiet time from 4 AM until 6 AM.
If you show up at 7 AM God is not going to tell you, “We’re closed.”
You can have quiet time anytime. I do suggest that you do it at the beginning of your day because it sets the tone for your day.
- Your quiet time must last at least one hour.
There is nothing in the scripture that mandates that our quiet time should be a minimum of an hour.
Remember, it is the quality of your quiet time that always outweighs the quantity of your quiet time.
- Your quiet time journal must sound like the Bible.
Most of the time the Lord speaks to us in real life terms.
Really the key in all of this is you and God come up with the best format on your quiet time.
Be flexible with the Lord. He may have you read the Bible the entire time. He may have you pray in the Spirit the whole time.
Four Steps to Starting a Quiet Time:
- Quiet or clear your mind.
This is supposed to be a quiet time and sometimes our prayer manuals make it a busy time.
Psalms 131:2 | TPT I am humbled and quieted in your presence. Like a contented child who rests on its mother’s lap, I’m your resting child and my soul is content in you.
Psalms 62:1,5 | NIV For the director of music. For Jeduthun. A psalm of David. Truly my soul finds rest in God; my salvation comes from him. (5) Yes, my soul, find rest in God; my hope comes from him.
Your soul will try and talk to you when you are supposed to be getting quiet and listening to the Lord.
As your spirit grows and matures, your soul begins to lose control and it will throw a fit and try and rebel.
If your soul is not held in the bosom of God it will pitch a fit all the time.
If a thought comes to your mind, jot it down so that you can move on with God.
- Focus your mind.
Music is a great tool to use to focus your mind on the Lord.
Psalms 108:1 | TPT A poetic psalm, by King David. My heart, O God, is quiet and confident, all because of you. Now I can sing my song with passionate praises! Awake, O my soul, with the music of his splendor.
Psalms 49:3-4 | TPT For wisdom will come from my mouth; words of insight and understanding will be heard from the musings of my heart. (4) I will break open mysteries with my music, and my song will release riddles solved.
God will give you a song that is for you that day.
Don’t worry about how it sounds. When you sing, God does not hear your voice. He hears your heart. (John 4:23)
(This is the link to some of the worship music I use to create a prayerful atmosphere while I have my quiet time:)
- Pray your heart.
You need to pray about what is on your heart that day.
Sometimes our prayer list is not necessarily on our hearts for that day.
James 5:16 | TPT Confess and acknowledge how you have offended one another and then pray for one another to be instantly healed, for tremendous power is released through the passionate, heartfelt prayer of a godly believer!
You only pray fervently and passionately about what is on your heart, not just “vain repetitions.”
There is nothing selfish about praying about the areas of your life that are on your heart during that quiet time.
Philippians 4:6-7 | TPT Don’t be pulled in different directions or worried about a thing. Be saturated in prayer throughout each day, offering your faith-filled requests before God with overflowing gratitude. Tell him every detail of your life, (7) then God’s wonderful peace that transcends human understanding, will make the answers known to you through Jesus Christ.
The way that you can be anxious for nothing is by praying about all those things that you are being tempted to be anxious about.
- Prayer is talking to God like you would talk to anyone else.
- If you pour your stresses out on God in the morning it will amaze you how stress free you will be all day.
- God will give you wisdom on how to handle the situation that is causing the stress.
- Pray for one other person in your life.
James 5:16 | TPT Confess and acknowledge how you have offended one another and then pray for one another to be instantly healed, for tremendous power is released through the passionate, heartfelt prayer of a godly believer!
There is a lot that can happen when we pray for someone in our lives that needs your prayer. God will move in their lives and in yours.
Job 42:10 | NLT When Job prayed for his friends, the LORD restored his fortunes. In fact, the LORD gave him twice as much as before!
- Renew your mind.
You must spend time every day reading and thinking about the Word of God in order for your mind to be renewed.
Romans 12:2 | TPT Stop imitating the ideals and opinions of the culture around you, but be inwardly transformed by the Holy Spirit through a total reformation of how you think. This will empower you to discern God’s will as you live a beautiful life, satisfying and perfect in his eyes.
James 1:21 | TLB So get rid of all that is wrong in your life, both inside and outside, and humbly be glad for the wonderful message we have received, for it is able to save our souls as it takes hold of our hearts.
You and God can come up with a plan on reading the Bible. You can read a chapter a day from Proverbs or you can use a read through the Bible in a year plan.
Understand this: you will have quiet times where you read the Word and it does not seem like you are getting anything out of it and sometimes it will jump off the page.
It is just like exercising; sometimes it feels good and sometimes it does not feel good but if you keep doing it, you are going to see results from it after time. It is part of life and growing in the Lord and you will sharpen your ability to hear from the Lord.
People who don’t know the Word cannot have faith.
You will never be able to believe God for your breakthrough in any situation until you get in the Word.
Coming to church and hearing me preach the Word once a week is not enough Word to build your faith for a breakthrough in that area. You need the Word every day.
Five Steps To Starting A Quiet Time:
- Quiet your mind.
- Focus your mind.
- Pray your heart.
- Pray for one other person in your life.
- Renew your mind.