Multi-Tasking for the Words of Life

August, 2006

by: Jack Hughes

• Spiritual Growth

Being a pastor and preacher, people often ask me what I do when I spend time with the Lord and how I go about maintaining my intake of God’s Word. I would like to say that I have reached perfection in this area – but I have not. I am also in a different position than most because I get paid to study my Bible! However, I am also called upon to preach and teach frequently. And in order to do that I have to study a lot. I have a busy schedule like most people and everything seems to want to crowd out my study time.

Every time I preach and teach I draw from my spiritual gas tank and in order to have something good and fresh and different to say each time I preach, I need to constantly fill up my tank with spiritual fuel. If I fail to do this, I run out of gas in the pulpit. People don’t like to hear the same sermon or Bible study every week. They prefer sermons and studies that are exciting, interesting, new and delivered in a passionate way, full of conviction. The only way to do this is to spend the necessary time in God’s Word.

But even if you aren’t a preacher or Bible study teacher, you still need to keep your spiritual gas tank full so you can live your life passionately for Jesus. You will grow in your knowledge of God and passion for Christ. So the question remains, “How do you maintain a constant intake of the Word especially when you are really busy?”

Plan to Spend Time with the Lord

Someone wise has said, “People don’t plan to fail, they fail to plan.” This is so true! Most Christians would love to be Bible experts, know their Bible inside and out, understand all the deep doctrines of the Bible so well they could explain them to a child. Yet most never come close. And the reason they don’t come close is not that they haven’t been Christians long enough and not that they don’t have 24 hours in a day, but because they have failed to plan. If you are going to obey God and “Let the word of Christ richly dwell within you” (Col. 3:16), you have to have a plan to get the Word in you – richly! Which means a lot. But even if you are faithful and only do a little bit of Bible reading and study every day, you will discover your knowledge of the Word of God increasing and you will be amazed at how much you learn.

I have been remodeling my house and yard coming up on six years now. People who periodically visit often comment on how much I have gotten done. They seem to be in awe that I have accomplished so much. They look at me and wonder if I am ever at the Church Office. Rest assured, I live at the Church Office and sleep at home. But I do have a plan and that plan is to work on my house and yard on Mondays from early morning until about noon. There are times on Saturday afternoon or during an evening when I have time to work on my house or times when I take vacation to do some big project, but most of my remodeling and landscaping is accomplished from 6:00am to 12:00 noon on Mondays. That is my time and even though my Mondays are often gobbled up with other commitments, and even though I may go a month or two and never do a single thing on my house, I plan on using Monday morning.

In the same way you have to decide when you are going to spend time with the Lord. Do you have a time? You have to have a time! Yes, it may be interrupted. Yes, you may have to change periodically, but you should have a standard time you spend in the Word every day. You must live your Christian life on purpose, not by accident, and that means planning. Now if you are thinking to yourself, “Jack, you don’t know me. I am so unorganized, I am not a very good planner.” Sorry, that excuse doesn’t work for me or God. You plan to get up in the morning when you have to work. You plan to eat breakfast, lunch, or dinner, don’t you? Sure you do. You plan to check email and plan to fill up your car before it runs out of gas or to watch your favorite TV programs. Well, plan to fill up your soul with the Word of God so you can grow in the Lord.

So what time is it going to be? If you have never done this before, plan on spending 30 minutes to an hour every day, at a certain time of day, to spend time with the Lord. Most people like to do this in the morning, some have quiet times at night, others have an ongoing lunch appointment with the Lord, still others plan to spend time with the Lord during their children’s nap time in the afternoon. Whatever works, do it, but make sure you plan to do it. Put in on the calendar and guard that time slot from trivial interruptions. Prov. 21:5 says, “The plans of the diligent lead surely to advantage, But everyone who is hasty comes surely to poverty.”

Now if you have tried to do this but keep failing then you need to ask yourself why you keep failing. Do you not want to hear from God? Do you not want to grow in the Lord and in spiritual wisdom and insight? Do you have no hunger for the Word? Are you too undisciplined to go to bed at a decent hour so you can get up and spend time with the Lord? What is it? Discover the root problem and then deal with it. If you can’t overcome it on your own, then get some help, but don’t continue to live an undisciplined life in this area.

Years ago whenever I would have a dental appointment to have my teeth cleaned, I would start to feel guilty as the appointment came near. I knew I wasn’t flossing and I knew the dental assistant would ask, “Have you been flossing?” And I hated saying with ears tucked back and a whipped dog look on my face, “No.” So then I decided to become a Pharisee about it. Two weeks before my teeth cleaning appointment I would try to be faithful to floss my teeth every day. Then, when the technician would ask, “Have you been flossing?” I would say with a pious look on my face, “Yes.” I thought I was sneaking one past the hygienist but she responded, “Well from the looks of your gums, it hasn’t been for very long.” She was right. I was caught.

One year I went to have my teeth cleaned and they found a cavity, ground out the decayed tooth matter and the dentist did me a favor. He gave me a mirror so I could see the consequences of being undisciplined in the care of my teeth. It was scary to look at. My molar, instead of looking like a crushing machine, looked like a fragile cup. Thankfully he filled the cup with some sturdy material.

I started to think about this. I asked myself some questions, “Are my teeth important to me? Do I want to have them when I am old? Is flossing good for my teeth and gums?” The answers to all these questions was, “Yes!” I realized that I was just lazy and undisciplined. I didn’t want to spend 2 minutes every night flossing my teeth in order to keep my teeth and gums in good condition.

I realized it was a moment of reckoning, a time to make a resolution, and resolve to either take care of my teeth because it was the right thing to do, or not take care of them and be a grief to myself and my dentist. I decided that I liked my teeth so I started flossing every day and haven’t stopped. At first it was a struggle. I was lazy, undisciplined, sluggardly and excuses came easy. But I kept telling myself, “I floss every day.” Soon it became a habit and years have past and it is no problem at all.

Don’t miss the point here. I am not trying to get you to take care of your teeth. The point I am trying to make is you need to come to a place of reckoning and resolve before the Lord, by His grace, to either spend the necessary time to grow in the Lord or walk away form Christ and follow Satan. Choose this day whom you will serve. Is it important to read your Bible or not? Is it important to grow in the Lord or not? Are you going to obey God or not? It’s time to resolve to spend time with the Lord, to say to yourself, “I read and study my Bible every day,” to make it a habit and not look back.

Fill up the Cracks

Having resolved that you are a person who spends time, a certain time, a planned time with the Lord every day, it is time to fill up the cracks in your life with the mortar of the Word. This too, like all areas of the Christian life, takes discipline and self control. Praise God that the fruit of the Holy Spirit dwelling in the believer is self control (Gal. 5:22-23) and that God has given us a spirit of discipline (II Tim. 1:7). So if you know Christ, you have what it takes to be disciplined in this area too.

Your goal is to have God’s Word richly dwelling within you, but you have a job, a wife, children and things you must do. You may love studying the Bible but there are things that just must be done and each time you pull away from Bible study, you are like a man letting go of a life line. The rest of the day seems to slowly erode away God’s Word in your heart. The world with all of its temptations, amusements, entertainments and distractions begs to take your focus off of God. It seems that the world and its sewage is pouring into your eyes and ears all day long. This makes your time in the Word, by comparison, seem small indeed. What can you do about this? Fill up the cracks!

What I mean by this is daily consider those times in your life when you can multitask for the Words of life. Do you drive to work? Then instead of listening to the same old radio station play the same old songs, with the same never ending string of commercials, with the same old announcers, don’t waste your time. Don’t let the world entertain you to death. Instead, resolve to listen to sermons, the Bible on tape, or Christian radio during those times when solid Bible teachers are preaching. Recently my wife got me the book (audio) Valley of Vision read by Max McLean. It is a collection of Puritan prayers that are amazing and will transport you right out of this world into the heavenlies!

I listen to sermons when I drive and if I don’t have any new to listen to I often listen to good sermons over and over again. I listen to the Bible on tape. Sometimes if I am studying a particular book or section I will record just that portion and then listen to it over and over again. Recently I have listened to the audio version of the Valley of Vision. You can go to www.christianaudio.com and find all sorts of great stuff that will fill up your soul with the Word and encourage you in your walk with the Lord. Listen to a biography of a famous Christian or the sermon “Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God” by Jonathan Edwards, read by Max McLean. Fill up your driving times with the audio of the Word. I downloaded 360 Spurgeon sermons read by Prince of Preachers ministries from www.sermonaudio.com. Many of the sermons on that site are not worth listening to, but with some searching you can find some gems.

f you haven’t learned about MP3 players, you need to learn about them. Go to an electronics store and ask about them. Learn how to download sermons, Bible studies, and Christian books from the internet and how to download them into a MP3 player. Any junior high or high school student can show you how to do this. It’s easy. Listen to these things when you are working in the yard, cleaning house, or exercising. If you take a commuter train, listen as you travel or read while you travel. Fill up the cracks of your life with the Word of God and things that will encourage you in your walk. Instead of watching TV at night, read some exciting Christian biographies or other books that will help you grow in the Lord. Get control of your life for Christ so you will be a walking and living Bible.

Below is a quote from one of C. H. Spurgeon’s sermons where he discusses the need to read and study the Word of God. Read it, meditate on it, and put it into practice. Learn to multitask for the Word of God! It will change your life!

How instructive to us is this great truth that the Incarnate Word lived on the Inspired Word! It was food to Him, as it is to us; and, brothers and sisters, if Christ thus lived upon the Word of God, should not you and I do the same! He, in some respects, did not need this Book as much as we do. The Spirit of God rested upon Him without measure, yet He loved the Scriptures, and he went to it, and studied it, and used its expressions continually. Oh, that, you and I might get into the very heart of the Word of God, and get that Word into ourselves!

As I have seen the silkworm eat into the leaf, and consume it, so ought we to do with the Word of the Lord; not crawl over its surface, but eat right into it till we have taken it into our inmost parts. It is idle merely to let the eye glance over the words, or to recollect the poetical expressions, or the historic facts; but it is blessed to eat into the very soul of the Bible until, at last, you come to talk in Scriptural language, and your very style is fashioned upon Scripture models, and, what is better still, your spirit is flavored with the words of the Lord.

I would quote John Bunyan as an instance of what I mean. Read anything of his, and you will see that it is almost like reading the Bible itself. . . he had read it till his very soul was saturated with Scripture; and, though his writings are charmingly full of poetry, yet he cannot give us his Pilgrim’s Progress — that sweetest of all prose poems — without continually making us feel and say, “Why, this man is a living Bible!” Prick him anywhere; his blood is Bibline, the very essence of the Bible flows from him. He cannot speak without quoting a text, for his very soul is full of the Word of God.

I commend his example to you, beloved, and, still more, the example of our Lord Jesus. If the Spirit of God be in you, He will make you love the Word of God; and, if any of you imagine that the Spirit of God will lead you to dispense with the Bible, you are under the influence of another spirit which is not the Spirit of God at all. (C. H. Spurgeon, from a sermon entitled, “The Last Words of Christ on the Cross” preached June 25th, 1882.)