The Benefits of Spending Time With God

Excerpt From the Booklet Spending Time With God

Benefits of Spending Time With God
Spending Time With God by Danny Hodges. Image: © Calvary Chapel St. Petersburg

This look at the benefits of spending time with God is an excerpt from the booklet Spending Time With God by Pastor Danny Hodges of Calvary Chapel Fellowship in St. Petersburg, Florida.

Become More Forgiving

It's impossible to spend time with God and not become more forgiving. Since we have experienced the forgiveness of God in our lives, He enables us to forgive others. In Luke 11:4, Jesus taught His disciples to pray, "Forgive us our sins, for we also forgive everyone who sins against us." We are to forgive as the Lord forgave us. We have been forgiven much, so, in turn, we forgive much.

Become More Forbearing

I have found in my experience that to forgive is one thing, but to forbear is quite another. Often the Lord will deal with us about a matter of forgiveness. He humbles us and forgives us, allowing us to get to the point where we, in turn, can forgive the person He's told us to forgive. But if that person is our spouse, or someone we see on a regular basis, it's not as easy. We can't simply forgive and then walk away. We have to live with one another, and the thing that we forgave this person for may happen again—and again. Then we find ourselves having to forgive over and over again. We might feel like Peter in Matthew 18:21-22:

Then Peter came to Jesus and asked, "Lord, how many times shall I forgive my brother when he sins against me? Up to seven times?"

Jesus answered, "I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times." (NIV)

Jesus wasn't giving us a mathematical equation. He meant that we are to forgive indefinitely, repeatedly, and as often as necessary—the way He has forgiven us. And God's continual forgiveness and tolerance of our own failures and shortcomings creates within us a tolerance for the imperfections of others. By the Lord's example we learn, as Ephesians 4:2 describes, to be "completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love."

Experience Freedom

I remember when I first accepted Jesus into my life. It was so good to know I had been forgiven of the burden and guilt of all my sins. I felt so incredibly free! Nothing compares to the freedom that comes from forgiveness. When we choose not to forgive, we become enslaved to our bitterness, and we are the ones most hurt by that unforgiveness.

But when we forgive, Jesus sets us free from all the hurt, anger, resentment, and bitterness that once held us captive. Lewis B. Smedes wrote in his book, Forgive and Forget, "When you release the wrongdoer from the wrong, you cut a malignant tumor out of your inner life. You set a prisoner free, but you discover that the real prisoner was yourself."

Experience Unspeakable Joy

Jesus said on several occasions, "Whoever loses his life for my sake will find it" (Matthew 10:39 and 16:25; Mark 8:35; Luke 9:24 and 17:33; John 12:25). One thing about Jesus that we sometimes fail to realize is that He was the most joyful person that ever walked this planet. The writer of Hebrews gives us insight into this truth as he refers to a prophecy about Jesus found in Psalm 45:7:

"You have loved righteousness and hated wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy."
(Hebrews 1:9, NIV)

Jesus denied Himself in order to obey His Father's will. As we spend time with God, we will become like Jesus, and as a result, we too will experience His joy.

Honor God With Our Money

Jesus said a great deal about spiritual maturity as it relates to money.

"Whoever can be trusted with very little can also be trusted with much, and whoever is dishonest with very little will also be dishonest with much. So if you have not been trustworthy in handling worldly wealth, who will trust you with true riches? And if you have not been trustworthy with someone else's property, who will give you property of your own?

No servant can serve two masters. Either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other. You cannot serve both God and Money."

The Pharisees, who loved money, heard all this and were sneering at Jesus. He said to them, "You are the ones who justify yourselves in the eyes of men, but God knows your hearts. What is highly valued among men is detestable in God's sight."
(Luke 16:10-15, NIV)

I'll never forget the time I heard a friend keenly remark that financial giving is not God's way of raising money—it's His way of raising children! How true that is. God wants His children to be free from the love of money, which the Bible says in 1 Timothy 6:10 is "a root of all kinds of evil."

As God's children, He also wants us to invest in "kingdom work" through the regular giving of our wealth. Giving to honor the Lord will also build our faith. There are times when other needs may demand financial attention, yet the Lord wants us to honor Him first, and trust Him for our daily needs.

I personally believe the tithe (one-tenth of our income) is the basic standard in giving. It should not be the limit to our giving, and it's certainly not law. We see in Genesis 14:18-20 that even before the law was given to Moses, Abraham gave a tenth to Melchizedek. Melchizedek was a type of Christ. The tenth represented the whole. In giving the tithe, Abraham simply acknowledged that everything he had was God's.

After God appeared to Jacob in a dream at Bethel, beginning in Genesis 28:20, Jacob made a vow: If God would be with him, keep him safe, give him food and clothes to wear, and become his God, then of all that God gave him, Jacob would give back a tenth. It is clear throughout the Scriptures that growing spiritually involves giving monetarily.

Experience God's Fullness in the Body of Christ

The body of Christ is not a building.

It's a people. Even though we commonly hear the church building referred to as "the church," we must remember that the true church is the body of Christ. The church is you and me.

Chuck Colson makes this profound statement in his book, The Body: "Our involvement in the body of Christ is indistinguishable from our relationship to Him." I find that very interesting.

Ephesians 1:22-23 is a powerful passage concerning the body of Christ. Speaking about Jesus, it says, "And God placed all things under his feet and appointed him to be head over everything for the church, which is his body, the fullness of him who fills everything in every way." The word "church" is ecclesia, meaning "the called out ones," referring to His people, not a building.

Christ is the head, and mysteriously enough, we as a people are His body here on this earth. His body is "the fullness of him who fills everything in every way." That tells me, among other things, that we will never be full, in the sense of our growth as Christians, unless we are rightly related to the body of Christ, because that's where His fullness dwells.

We will never experience all that God wants us to know in terms of spiritual maturity and godliness in the Christian life unless we become relational in the church.

Some people aren't willing to be relational in the body because they are afraid others will find out what they're really like. Surprisingly enough, as we become involved in the body of Christ, we find out that other people have weaknesses and problems just like we do. Because I'm a pastor, some people get the wrong idea that I have somehow arrived at the height of spiritual maturity. They think I don't have faults or weaknesses. But anyone who hangs around me for very long will find out that I have faults just like everybody else.

I'd like to share five things that can only happen by being relational in the body of Christ:

Discipleship

As I see it, discipleship takes place in three categories in the body of Christ. These are clearly illustrated in the life of Jesus. The first category is the large group. Jesus discipled people first by teaching them in large groups—"the multitudes." To me, this corresponds to the worship service.

We will grow in the Lord as we meet together corporately to worship and sit under the teaching of the Word of God. The large group meeting is part of our discipleship. It has a place in the Christian life.

The second category is the small group. Jesus called 12 disciples, and the Bible specifically says He called them "that they might be with him" (Mark 3:14).

That's one of the main reasons He called them. He spent a lot of time just with those 12 men developing a special relationship with them. The small group is where we become relational. It's where we get to know each other more personally and build relationships.

Small groups include various church ministries such as life groups and home fellowship, men's and women's Bible studies, children's ministry, youth group, prison outreach, and a host of others. For many years, I took part in our prison ministry once a month. Over time, those team members got to see my imperfections, and I saw theirs. We even joked with each other about our differences. But one thing happened. We got to know one another personally through that ministry time together.

Even now, I continue to make it a priority to stay involved in some form of small group fellowship on a monthly basis.

The third category of discipleship is the smaller group. Among the 12 apostles, Jesus often took with Him Peter, James, and John to places that the other nine didn't get to go. And even among those three, there was one, John, who became known as "the disciple whom Jesus loved" (John 13:23).

John had a unique, singular relationship with Jesus that was unlike that of the other 11. The smaller group is where we experience three-on-one, two-on-one, or one-on-­one discipleship.

I believe each category—the large group, small group, and smaller group—constitutes a vital part of our discipleship, and that no part should be excluded. Yet, it's in the small groups that we become connected with each other. In those relationships, not only will we grow, but through our lives, others will grow too. In turn, our investments in one another's lives will contribute to the growth of the body. Small groups, home fellowships, and relational ministries are a necessary part of our Christian walk. As we become relational in the church of Jesus Christ, we will mature as Christians.

The Grace of God

The grace of God is manifest through the body of Christ as we exercise our spiritual gifts within the body of Christ. 1 Peter 4:8-11a says:

"Above all, love each other deeply, because love covers over a multitude of sins. Offer hospitality to one another without grumbling. Each one should use whatever gift he has received to serve others, faithfully administering God's grace in its various forms. If anyone speaks, he should do it as one speaking the very words of God. If anyone serves, he should do it with the strength God provides, so that in all things God may be praised through Jesus Christ..." (NIV)

Peter gives two broad categories of gifts: speaking gifts and serving gifts. You may have a speaking gift and not even know it yet. That speaking gift doesn't necessarily have to be worked out on a stage on Sunday mornings. You may teach in a Sunday School class, lead a life group, or facilitate a three-on-one or one-on-one discipleship. Perhaps you have a gift to serve. There are multitudes of ways to serve the body that will not only bless others, but you as well. So, as we get involved or "plugged in" to ministry, the grace of God will be revealed through the gifts He has so graciously given us.

The Sufferings of Christ

Paul said in Philippians 3:10, "I want to know Christ and the power of his resurrection and the fellowship of sharing in his sufferings, becoming like him in his death …" Some of the sufferings of Christ are experienced only within the body of Christ. I think of Jesus and the apostles—those 12 He chose to be with Him. One of them, Judas, betrayed Him. When the betrayer appeared at that crucial hour in the Garden of Gethsemane, Jesus' three closest followers had fallen asleep.

They should have been praying. They let their Lord down, and they let themselves down. When the soldiers came and arrested Jesus, every one of them deserted Him.

On one occasion Paul pleaded with Timothy:

"Do your best to come to me quickly, for Demas, because he loved this world, has deserted me and has gone to Thessalonica. Crescens has gone to Galatia, and Titus to Dalmatia. Only Luke is with me. Get Mark and bring him with you, because he is helpful to me in my ministry."
(2 Timothy 4:9-11, NIV)

Paul knew what it was to be deserted by friends and fellow laborers. He, too, experienced suffering within the body of Christ.

It saddens me that so many Christians find it easy to leave a church because they get hurt or offended. I'm convinced that those who leave because the pastor let them down, or the congregation let them down, or somebody offended them or wronged them, will take that hurt with them. Unless they resolve the problem, it will affect them the rest of their Christian lives, and it will make it easier for them to leave the next church. Not only will they cease to mature, they will fail to grow close to Christ through suffering.

We must understand that part of the suffering of Christ is actually experienced within the body of Christ, and God uses this suffering to mature us.

"...to live a life worthy of the calling you have received. Be completely humble and gentle; be patient, bearing with one another in love. Make every effort to keep the unity of the Spirit through the bond of peace."
(Ephesians 4:1b-3, NIV)

Maturity and Stability

Maturity and stability are produced by service in the body of Christ.

In 1 Timothy 3:13, it says, "Those who have served well gain an excellent standing and great assurance in their faith in Christ Jesus." The term "excellent standing" means a grade or degree. Those who serve well gain a firm foundation in their Christian walk. In other words, when we serve the body, we grow.

I have observed through the years that those who grow and mature the most, are those who really get plugged in and serve somewhere in the church.

Love

Ephesians 4:16 says, "From him the whole body, joined and held together by every supporting ligament, grows and builds itself up in love, as each part does its work."

With this concept of an interconnected body of Christ in mind, I'd like to share a portion of a fascinating article I read entitled "Together Forever" in Life magazine (April 1996). It was about co-joined twins—a miraculous pairing of two heads on one body with one set of arms and legs.

Abigail and Brittany Hensel are co-joined twins, products of a single egg that for some unknown reason failed to divide fully into identical twins... The paradoxes of the twins' lives are metaphysical as well as medical. They raise far-reaching questions about human nature. What is individuality? How sharp are the boundaries of the self? How essential is privacy to happiness? ...Bound to each other but defiantly independent, these little girls are a living textbook on camaraderie and compromise, on dignity and flexibility, on the subtler varieties of freedom...they have volumes to teach us about love.

The article went on to describe these two girls that are at the same time one. They have been forced to live together, and now nobody can separate them. They do not want an operation. They do not want to be separated. They each have individual personalities, tastes, likes, and dislikes. But they share one body. And they have chosen to remain as one.

What a beautiful picture of the body of Christ. We are all different. We all have individual tastes, and distinct likes and dislikes. Still, God has put us together. And one of the main things He wants to show in a body that has such a multiplicity of parts and personalities is that something about us is unique. We can be wholly different, and yet we can live as one. Our love for one another is the greatest evidence of our being true disciples of Jesus Christ: "By this all men will know that you are my disciples, if you love one another" (John 13:35).

Closing Thoughts

Will you make it a priority to spend time with God? I believe these words I mentioned earlier bear repeating. I came across them years ago in my devotional reading, and they have never left me. Though the source of the quote now eludes me, the truth of its message has impacted and inspired me deeply.

"Fellowship with God is the privilege of all, and the unceasing experience of but a few."
--Author Unknown

I long to be one of the few; I pray you do as well.

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Fairchild, Mary. "The Benefits of Spending Time With God." Learn Religions, Apr. 5, 2023, learnreligions.com/spending-time-with-god-part-four-701254. Fairchild, Mary. (2023, April 5). The Benefits of Spending Time With God. Retrieved from https://www.learnreligions.com/spending-time-with-god-part-four-701254 Fairchild, Mary. "The Benefits of Spending Time With God." Learn Religions. https://www.learnreligions.com/spending-time-with-god-part-four-701254 (accessed March 29, 2024).