If you have your Bibles, turn to the Gospel of Luke chapter 10. I was really blessed this morning in our prayer meeting. Those who weren't here with us, I would encourage you to consider coming. deeply ministered this morning by the prayers of the saints, by God's people lifting up their hearts to the Lord. And the thought occurred to me, where else do you find a place like this? Where God is lifted up in the hearts of the saints, trusted in and looked to and pleaded with. It seemed to me like every prayer, every single prayer was helpful. Every prayer was attended with grace. And I said, God is with us. God is with us in this place. God's presence is among His people. This is not this building, but the saints collectively is the house of God. This is where God dwells, not just in us individually, but He dwells with us and in us corporately. The saints together make up the household of God, according to the book of Ephesians. And this is no place like it, not just, I'm not talking about GBC, I'm talking about the church, wherever the church is gathered across this land, across this world. The church is the most precious thing on earth. It's something to be treasured and be grateful for. And I heard some of the young men pray. I was like, God is doing the work. in the next generation among us. I heard some older people pray. God has done a work in the generation that is ahead of us. It's very precious to be in the house of the Lord. There's nothing like it. And I pray today that God will feed us. Luke chapter 10, verse 38, Now, as they went on their way, Jesus entered a village and a woman named Martha welcomed him into her house. And she had a sister called Mary, who sat at the Lord's feet and listened to his teaching. But Martha was distracted with much serving. And she went up to him and said, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? Tell her then to help me. But the Lord answered her, Martha, Martha, you're anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. Now this is the Lord coming into Bethany, and Bethany is a little village about two miles outside of Jerusalem. I believe this is the first time that the Lord meets Martha and her sister Mary, and I'm assuming their brother Lazarus is there with them. And Martha apparently is the older sister. This is her house. And the Lord has made his final journey out of Galilee. He was not going to return to Galilee until after the resurrection. And this is most likely middle of December of 29 AD. And so he's got four months left and he's going to spend the rest of his ministry in Judea and the surrounding areas of Jerusalem. And he came out of Galilee with all of his disciples. I'm assuming some of the leading ladies that ministered with him along the way are with him. It says that a large crowd followed him. And here he comes in to Bethany. And by this time, the Lord Jesus is well known to everyone. And here he comes into the city of Bethany preaching, and Martha, having the gift of hospitality, says, come, you and your disciples come, and to my house, I will put you up, I will take care of you, I will lodge you, I will feed you. Which is a wonderful, wonderful thing for Martha to do. The Bible tells us if we give a cup of water to a prophet, you'll receive the prophet's reward. And as much as you've done it to the least of these, you've done it to the Lord. And the Lord has commanded us to serve and be hospitable and to serve Christ and to serve the servants of Christ. And Martha was doing just that. What a wonderful thing she was doing. She was a servant and a good servant. She loved the Lord Jesus and she showed that love by welcoming him and the disciples into her home. But how would you feel if the Lord Jesus was coming to your house tonight? What preparations would you make? And it appears to me that Martha did not have a whole lot of time to make preparations. It doesn't appear to me that she knew he was coming. So here he comes into the city and the culture of that day was you welcome in those who come into your city and provided for them. That was the culture. And of course, Martha took delight in the Lord Jesus of all the guests to have, to have the son of God lodge with you and that you could cook a meal for the Lord Jesus. What a privilege and what an honor. And imagine that being you. Imagine that you're Martha and the Lord Jesus is coming to your house for dinner. And not just for dinner. He's going to stay with his disciples at your place tonight. And I know what you'll be thinking. Do I have room? Is there enough beds? Is there enough food in the pantry? And you'd probably be stopping at the store on the way home and saying, do I need this? Do I need that? Do we have drinks? Do we have everything in preparation? Is the house clean? Am I ready for this? And Martha felt these things, no doubt. Martha was troubled because she was delighted, but also she, understandably, had a lot to do, a lot to prepare. And off she went, preparing. Imagine in that day, there wasn't a convenience store to stop at. There wasn't any type of fast food stores or restaurants to order in. You had to go and find a chicken and do the plucking yourself. You had to go and fetch water, not from indoor plumbing. You'd have to go outside of the house and bring water in. And did you have enough water? How many trips would it take? And by this time, the Lord Jesus and His disciples are already in the house. And if you're like me, I would be looking at the house and wondering if it's clean enough. And so I'd be cleaning and cooking and preparing and making sure they had water and their cups were refilled. This was what I would be doing. And most likely this is what you would be doing as well. You would be concerned to do a good job, to all things be prepared and well. And what a wonderful thing to do. What an amazing thing to do for the Lord, to serve Him with excellence, to serve Him with care, to serve His people with care. Martha was doing that. And we find ourselves a lot of times being Marthas. I've always looked at this passage and always thought of other people as the Marthas. And I thought, well, I'm the Mary in this story. I've come to realize, no, I'm the Martha. In this story, I'm a Martha. But don't come down hard on Martha just yet because what she was doing was good. She was not troubled and vexed because she was worried about her own pleasures. She wasn't concerned about all the things that people of this world are concerned about. She was serving the church. She was giving herself to good things. She was a servant of servants. She was a minister. She had the gift of hospitality. She was a kind woman. She was full of love. She was a woman who we should, in many ways, seek to emulate, seek to be. May we all be servants of the church. May we all be hospitable. May we all take people in and cook for them and clean for them and help them and do what we can to assist the servants of the Lord. The Lord is pleased with those who serve his people and care for his people well. So this is not just Martha being someone who's caught up in sin, if you would, or caught up in distractions with this world. This is Martha serving the people of God and serving Jesus Christ. And we'd all would want to do that, would we not? Well, she had one complaint, however. In her service, she began to feel a little bit bitter, a little bit upset with her younger sister. Her younger sister was in there in the living room, enjoying herself. I mean, she was having the time of her life, eating it up, you know, just with the men, hanging out. And Martha was all alone. She didn't have anybody else. She didn't have any maids or any other ones to come beside her. There was too many people for her to help. I mean, there's a lot of mouths to feed. There's a lot of water to distribute. There was a lot of needs of cleaning and all this work. And here her sister, who should be by her side, is just with the men, having a good old time. And how does that make Martha feel? Well, she become a little bitter and upset with her sister. I think I would too, under the circumstances. I'd be, where are you? I'm doing everything. Have you ever thought that in your work for the Lord, you feel like you're all alone? that you're doing all the work and no one's helping you? Like, am I the only one that vacuums the sanctuary? Is no one else feel the need to help out here? Am I the only one that does this and only one is concerned about that? Or only one that really cares about greeting people at the door, at the church houses? It seems like I'm alone in this work. Sometimes we feel like we're concerned about an issue and no one else seems to be concerned about it. And that causes us to feel a little disgruntled and we begin to be upset with the other saints because they're not helping out the way we think they should help. And of course, this is how Martha felt about her sister. And so she comes to the Lord and she even thinks the Lord is unmindful of the fact that she's doing all the work. She says, you know, it's what we do when we get upset, we pray about it. And she prayed directly in the presence of Jesus. Do you not care? Do you not care? Do you not see? Have you not noticed? Is no one noticing that I'm doing all the work? Am I the only one that's aware of what I'm doing and no one else seems to, everybody else is enjoying their drinks, everybody else is enjoying their time here, but does no one see that behind the scenes I'm really working hard? That I am running to and fro, trying to serve everyone? Well, she prayed about it. Do you not care, Lord, that my sister has left me to serve alone? Please tell her, ask her, tell her to come help me. I could use it. Look at verse 41. This is the Lord's response. And she, the Lord lovingly rebukes her. I don't think it was a harsh rebuke. I think it was a tender rebuke, but he does rebuke her and basically says no to her prayer request. No, I'm not gonna do what you're asking. But the Lord answered her in verse 41, Martha, Martha, you're anxious and troubled about many things, but one thing is necessary. Mary has chosen the good portion, which will not be taken away from her. That is, I'm not gonna tell her to leave. She's chosen wisely. She's enjoying herself. She's delighting at setting at my feet. I'm not going to ask her to leave. She's free to stay. She's free to take it in. She's free to have a good time sitting at my feet. You see, he says there's only one thing necessary. One of the things we often forget, I know I forget this, one of the things we often forget is there's only one thing necessary and it's not us serving Christ. Serving Christ doesn't get you to heaven. Serving the church is a good thing, but it doesn't get you to heaven. It's not vital. Now, this is not an encouragement to not serve Christ and his people, but we got to remember the heart of salvation, the heart of gospel is not what we do for the Lord. It's not us serving the Lord that is vital. It's Christ serving us. That's the essence of the gospel. One thing is necessary. The thief on the cross did not serve the Lord, but the Lord did serve him. One thing is necessary for all of us. is that we sit at the feet of Jesus, that we delight in His presence, that we, you know, His burden is easy. And He says, come and dine with me. Come, I will serve you. Relax for a moment. You're anxious. You're troubled by many things. Come, take off your burden, take off your concerns, take off your worries. Let the house work set aside. Let all the ministries you're in be put aside and just set for a while. Set at my feet and I will feed you. I will serve you rich things, good things. I will bless you. I'll feed you. I will nourish you. I'll give you life. I'll give you water. I'll give you food. I'll give you joy. I will fill your tanks. You're not gonna be able to serve the Lord if you're not feasting from the Lord. You're not gonna be much good to the church, not much good for Christ if you're not taking time to set at His feet. Setting at the feet of Christ is the better portion. If you choose what to do, don't neglect your quiet time. Do not neglect your personal devotional time setting at the feet of the Lord Jesus Christ. What does it mean to set at the feet of Christ? We see in verse 39, it's to listen to Him. It's to be taught by Him. It's Him serving us. To sit at the feet of Christ is to enjoy His presence. In fact, I have seven things this morning that help us sit at the feet of Christ. Then I'll have 10 applications. First of all, sitting at the feet of Christ is Bible intake. It's taking in His Word, the words of Christ. It's setting under the Word and listening to Him. It's feasting on His Word. Now, I want us to be careful as I work through these six other things. all under this idea of taking in the word. I want us to make sure that we don't rush through this process. The concept of setting at the feet of Christ is not opening up your Bible on your phone app in the car as you're driving to work. and just, you know, breezing through your checklist, I read my Bible today. It's really, as we'll see, it's taking our time and dwelling in the presence of Christ. So, second aspect of sitting at the feet of Christ is to slow down and be still. Zechariah 2.13 says, Be still before the Lord. When's the last time your heart has been stilled? You know, Martha was anxious, running to and fro, vexed. And she was anxious and vexed by doing good things, wonderful things, not sinful activities. She was serving the Lord. I find that that's true of myself. I'm so busy, it seems. So many people to counsel, so many people to see, so many people to respond to in emails and text messages. There's so much events. Every night, there seems to be something, right? And off we go. We go to sleep tired, we wake up, and we have a list of things to accomplish. And we're busy. All of us, we're busy, and we're distracted. We have notifications constantly ringing in our ears. But the Lord tells us, be still, be quiet. Psalm 46.10, be still and know that I am God. Micah 2.20, the Lord is in his temple and the earth is to be quiet in his presence. Setting at the feet of the Lord is just calming your soul, removing distractions, becoming quiet. Spurgeon says there are times when solitude is better than society and silence is wiser than speech. We should be better Christians if we were more alone, waiting upon God and gathering through meditation on his word. Spiritual strength for labor is from his service. We ought to muse upon the things of God because we thus get real nutrients from them. So being still, but being still is not this form of mysticism where you just enjoy quietness for quietness sake. Maybe there is some therapeutic benefits of just being still and not thinking about anything, but I honestly think it's impossible to have a blank mind. It's not trying to get into some mystical trance where you think about nothing. instilling your soul from all the other distractions so that you can put your whole attention and focus on the Word of God. So that you can listen, not to some extra biblical voice, but that you can listen to Christ speak in and through and by His Word. And one of the lost arts of contemporary Christianity is taking time to meditate, to muse, to soak in, to contemplate the Word of God. Take your Bible reading. You would do better to read less and think more on what you did read than to read a whole chunk and not think much through it. What is meditation? Jerry Bridges says, the word meditate, as used in the Old Testament, literally means to murmur or to mutter, and by implication, to talk to oneself. When we meditate on the scriptures, we talk to ourselves about them, turning over in our minds the meanings, the implications, the applications in our own lives. By meditation, you become your own preacher. You preach to yourself what you've read. You think through the words, the context, the meaning, the applications. Psalm 1, 2 says, delight in the law of the Lord, meditating on it day and night. Psalm 119, 15, I will meditate on your precepts and fix my eyes on your ways. Psalm 119, verse 97, oh, how I love your law. It is my meditation all the day. We meditate upon the things we love. Whatever you're interested in, or if you're making a big purchase, or you're buying a new car, or you're buying a house, it's easy to have your mind, with joy and excitement, meditate upon those exciting things, or a vacation. Your mind just wanders naturally to these things. We need to fix our minds on the things of the Lord and His word, where throughout the day, our morning meditations, our morning readings is feeding us throughout the day. It's nourishing us throughout the day. And we're going back to what we read and thinking through it. Meditating is to become a laser focus on what we have heard. It's taking heed how we have, what we have read. Spurgeon says, why is it that some Christians, although they hear many sermons, make slow advances in the divine life? It's because they neglect their clauses and do not thoughtfully meditate on God's word. They love the wheat, but they do not grind it. Here are some people listening to 30 podcasts a day, 30 podcasts a week, and they're just reading so many sermons and listening to so many sermons, and they're taking all this Bible content, but they may be neglecting the art of thinking through things deeply. Meditating is keeping your mind on the word of God. Isaiah 26, three, you will keep perfectly peaceful the ones whose mind remains focused on you. Thomas Matten says, one of the old Puritans, to hear and not meditate is unfruitful. We may hear and hear, but without meditating, it's like putting a thing into a bag with holes. Joshua 1a, the book of the law shall not depart from your mouth, but you shall meditate on it day and night. Another Puritan, Thomas Burks, remember that is not hasty reading, but serious meditation on holy and heavenly truths that makes them prove sweet and profitable to the soul. It's not the mere touching of the flower by the bee that gathers honey. but her abiding for a time on the flower by the bee, abiding for a time on the flower that draws out the sweet. It is not he that reads most, but he that meditates most that will prove to be the choicest, sweetest, wisest, and strongest Christian. This is what it means to sit at the feet of Christ and take it in, soak it in, to revelish it, to apply it. I do think sometimes we need to pray until we pray. Sometimes I think we need to read and think until we have heard. My sheep, Jesus says, know my voice and they hear me. And we all have experienced those light bulb moments when we read something and some spark affects us, or some encouragement comes to us, or some rebuke or correction. We're edified by what we've heard, or something comes afresh, new to us, and it makes our soul sing within. And it's so sweet because we know It is the voice of Christ speaking to us. It's our beloved ministering to us. And there's nothing sweeter, nothing more precious, nothing more vital to us than to hear our Savior say, you are mine, I am yours. And here is a fresh word. Here is a new word for your soul to keep you, to minister to you. And we need that. And God, I'm getting ahead of myself out of excitement. Because God's not going to turn us away. He's not going to turn Mary away. I'm not going to tell her she can't sit at my feet. The Lord's not going to push you away and say, no, you don't need time with me. He beckons us to come and sit at his feet. The fourth aspect of sitting at the feet of Christ is to take heed how we hear. Proverbs 4.20 says, My son, be attentive to my words, incline your ear to my sayings. Let them not escape from your sight. Keep them within your heart, for they are life to those who find them. They're healing to all the flesh. Sometimes we just need to hear from God. And I say sometimes. That's how we live. We don't live off bread. Food. Sometimes we say, I just need some encouragement. I just need some good news. I just need something for my soul. I'm weary. I'm trial. I'm tired. I'm vexed. I'm troubled. I'm going to and fro. I got all this stuff on my mind and I'm anxious about this and that. And we just need to go and follow the example of Mary and just sit for a while. Well, how am I going to get my things done if I'm relaxing? And that's the temptation that Satan says, you don't have time. You don't have time to sit at the feet of Christ. I always tell you, you don't have time not to. In the preparation of this sermon, I think it was Tuesday, my wife asked me when I come home, how was your day? I said, it was awful. I said, why was it so bad? I said, all the work that I did today, it was erased. It wasn't saved. I worked 30 minutes trying to recover it and it's gone. The next day I apologized to the Lord. I apologized to the Lord. I said, Lord, I'm vexed about this and I'm vexed about that. And regardless of what I accomplish or don't accomplish today, please be with me today. I just need to refocus myself, my thoughts. And you know, sometimes I'm tempted. In fact, not sometimes, I'm tempted every day to be honest and transparent to you. I'm tempted every day to rush through devotion time because of the list of chores and duties and responsibilities that's upon me. Well, the next day I spent a good time just soaking in the word and delighting myself in Christ. And I found that it was 10 times easier to prepare a sermon. And then I had time left over and I, in about two hours, did everything that I lost the day before. You're not going to hurt yourself by spending time with Jesus. You're not going to be a lesser servant. You'll be a greater servant if you spend more time with Christ. You see, fifthly, sitting at the feet of Christ is delighting in His Word. How many psalms talks about the psalmist saying, I just love the Word. It's joy to me. I delight in it. I find it to be precious. Sweeter than honey. I find it to be my life, my nourishment. I can sit there and muse upon it, think about it, dwell upon it, enjoy it, soak it in. And it's not burdensome. It's not a cumbersome. It's not like this is a heavy weight, a heavy burden. You know, this coming to Jesus, setting his feet is not a burden. Well, how do I add that to my list of chores and duties? Now you're asking me to spend more time with the Lord? No, don't look at it that way. This is the Lord says, relax. Relax for a while, especially on the Lord's day. Come, put aside your concerns, the duties of the week. Enjoy yourself, feast on the Lord and His word. Jeremiah 15, 16 says, your words were found and I ate them and your words become to me a joy and the delight of my heart. And we've all experienced it. We all know what Jeremiah is talking about. There's been moments in our life we've heard a word from the Lord and it wasn't the word from the preacher. It wasn't word from the Sunday school teacher. It wasn't a word from mom or dad. It was a word from his living book, the Bible. The Word of Christ. And that Word came with power and might and healing and balm to our soul. And it helped us throughout the week. It helped us throughout that day. And it became our life. It became our nourishment. It became our joy. The words of Christ are rich. The Bible tells us in Colossians 3.16, let the Word of Christ dwell in you richly. For you mothers and fathers that are worried about your lost children, you're worried about this need and that need, don't in all your worries about all your needs, good needs, good prayer request, first put your time in seeking the Lord. First, come and be fed yourself. One of my mentors, Conrad Murrell, told me, he says, if you're not eating from Christ, you have no food to serve to others. If you're not first being fed and built up from the word, you're going to be a poor servant to the other servants of Christ. So delight in the Lord. Let the word of Christ dwell in you. Richly, not just dwell in you, but dwell in you richly. Setting at the feet of Christ, I think, includes memorizing the word. The psalmist said in Psalm 119 verse 11, I have stored up your word in my heart. I have memorized it. I have put it in my heart. I'm letting it richly dwell in my heart and I'm focused upon it. And I asked my dad once how he had so much Bible in his mind. How could you quote this passage and that passage? Like he could almost quote the whole Bible from cover to cover. It's a marvel. I asked him, how are you doing this? Where did you learn to memorize this? He says, I've never tried to memorize it. have read it and read it and read it and read it. And he has, he reads the Bible probably two hours a day. It's unbelievable, but he has it in his heart. And he can't speak without the Bible coming out of his words because it's in his heart, in his mind. I pray that I can be like that. Take time to store up the words in your heart, memorize it, study it. Seventh, setting at the feet of Christ. And I love this last one. And I think this is what Mary's doing. She's just having a good old time. She's enjoying the presence of Christ. Now, think about this. I know if he was coming to your house, the Lord Jesus was visiting your house. You would want your house to be clean. You would want to have food. You'd want to be a good hospitable servant to the Lord. No doubt we'd all want that. But what would be amazing is sitting there with him in the living room. And he starts teaching. He just starts saying some things. He would be sitting there. I mean, we would just be sitting there and just like, and let's imagine your friend, your spouse missed out on it. I can just imagine Kayla Irons not being there. And she's thinking to Eric, what did he say? What did the Lord say? And Eric would be going, well, he said this. No, no, go back over it again. Did he say anything else? And he would say, yeah, he said this and this. Well, no, go back over that again. I want to make sure you're not missing anything. Tell me again. I want everything he said. He was in our living room. Tell me more. And it was just be with such joy and delight, every word, hanging on every single word. This is the words of life. Tell me more, tell me more what the Lord said. And here you have the most precious book in the whole world. It's not like Plato or Aristotle, it's not like anything else. It is the words of the living God at your fingertips. You have it, go open it up and feast, dive in, enjoy yourself, store up for yourself these words of life. Enjoy it, delight in it. In the presence of Christ, there is joy. And much of the times, if we're anxious and fretting and worried about all our service, we need to just stop, quiet ourselves, and get back to the fundamentals. It's more important, as I said, to be served by Christ than to serve Christ. Here's my 10 closing applications. One serving Christ can be distracting. This is not being distracted by the world or ungodly things. This is being distracted by good things. And be careful. Again, this is not an exhortation to serve less, per se. This is not a discouragement for all the great servants of the church. Thank God for each of you. But we have to keep in the back of our mind or in the front of our mind, even pastors, even me being called to this conference, called to this thing, asked to do this, asked to serve this person, asked to go here. Even I need to go, wait a minute, am I making time for my Lord? Am I serving become a distraction? Second application. Serving can lead to anxiety and stress. She went up to him and said, in verse 40, Lord, do you not care that my sister has left me to serve alone? The Lord says, Martha, Martha, you're anxious and troubled about many things. I think when we become anxious and troubled about our service to the Lord, it's time or maybe it's our jobs or whatever it may be. Or we become anxious and troubled. It's time. It's a little light on your car dash. It says you need fuel. You need refilling. You need nourishment. You're getting weary. You're getting depleted. you're getting worn thin. It's time to fill your gas tanks. Come, set aside, richly enjoy the Lord. Third, serving can lead to pride and sin. It seems like Martha had a tendency to be a little bitter and upset with her sister. And it made her like, look, don't you see I'm doing the, I'm doing the better part. I am the servant. I am the one that is doing all the work, a sense of pride, and then a sense of bitterness towards a sister. You see, Martha became anxious. And I don't think there's too many occasions, if any occasions, we need to be anxious about anything. And here, Martha fell in, in her service, she fell into anxiety. And the Bible tells us to be anxious for nothing. Fourth, setting at the feet of Christ is the better portion. And now we can do both. And I think our service comes out of being fed by Christ. Setting his feet gets us the nurture, nutrients, the fuel to serve him and serve his people. But again, that's the nature of the gospel. It's Christ giving to us. And we take what he's given to us and give back to him. Someone described it like Niagara Falls. The Niagara Falls is His love, His gifts, His service to us. It's the pouring into us. Our service back is the mist, that little bit of mist that flies back up. In comparison, it's nothing to the water that's coming down on us. This is the better portion, sitting at the feet of Christ and being fed by Him. Fifth, the necessity of being served by Christ. Verse 42, but one thing is necessary. You can go to heaven with little to hardly any service. It could be the thief on the cross that did not do much, but you can't go to heaven without being fed by Christ, without hearing from the Lord. It is necessary, necessary. Your Christian walk is necessary. It is the good portion. Six, Mary has chosen the good portion. She shows of the two, she shows the right one, the better portion. Seventh, Christ will not shoo us away. Mary has chosen the good portion which will not be taken away from her. When you go before the Lord and just set at his feet and say, I'm here, Lord, I'm ready to listen. Please speak to me, please minister to me. I need food. I need what you have to serve. He's not gonna go, I'm too busy for you. He's not gonna push you away. He's not gonna say, well, don't you got some work to do? Don't you got some important things to accomplish? You see, setting at the feet of Christ and knowing Christ is the end of all end. It's not a means to something greater, even though knowing Christ does empower us to do all the other works that God has called us to do. All the fruits of the Spirit comes out of knowing Christ and His Word. The goal is knowing Christ. That's the pinnacle. That's the best use of your time. You could do nothing better with your time than to spend time with Christ. It is the good portion. And Christ will not take it away from us. If Christ will not take it away from Mary or take it away from us, why do we take it away from ourselves? It's not Christ pushing us away. Why do we not? go into the living room and sat down. Eighth. Well, that was my eighth. If Christ will not take this away from us, let us not take it away from ourselves. Ninth. And this is just a question. When was the last time you have heard the voice of Christ in his word? Or let me ask you this question. When was the last time you sat down and prayed without a time limit to tell you to stop? It's been a long time since I've done that. I did it this morning for the first time in a long time. I just woke up and I said, you know, I don't have a time limit here. I don't have, you know, I got to get this done. So I get back to my sermon preparation. I just, I'm just going to pray and pray and pray. And there's no, there was no end time. And just to be honest, it was the most delightful time I've had in a long time. 10th. And this is just encouragement. Give the best energy of your day. I mean, sometimes it might be at the evening. You're more awake at the evening. Maybe that's when you're more attentive. Maybe it's at noontime. Maybe it's in the morning time. You know. There's no rules for when you get alone. But you know, the Lord, He was a busy man. And he went off to nights without sleep because he was so busy. But he always made time to pray. And he would pray and pray for good lengths of time. And this is the Lord, he had to wake up. Sometimes he went in the middle of the night and prayed through the night. This is the Lord. And this is not like, hey, you're putting all this legalistic burdens on me. No, this is saying, here's the buffet, come and enjoy. What kind of burden is that? Come and enjoy feasts. Stay as long as you like. There's no pressure to brush off. View it as a joy. View the presence of Christ as a delight. It's not a burden. It's not hard. There's not a time limit you have to make. God's not putting you on, oh, you didn't spend an hour. No, if you can spend five minutes and it's real meaningful, that five minutes will push you throughout the day and keep you. But if you can have an hour, that's even better. Spend time with the Lord, give your best energy to serve Christ. And in that, you'll be a much better servant and you won't be as filled or I won't be as filled with anxiety. We'll be full, we'll be satisfied, we'll be useful for his service, sitting at his feet. Let's pray. Dear Lord, We love the fact that you love us, and we love the fact that you tell us to come to you. You told the children to come to you, you tell old people to come to you, you tell me to come to you. How would you be mindful of us? Oh God, God of the universe, that I can have personal, intimate time with my God, with my Savior, my Lord. Lord, I hear you call me. I hear your word saying, come. Lord, I want to come. You said, seek my face. And my heart says back to you, your face will I seek. Amen.