6:45 AM - 7:30 AM, Tuesday through Friday, the few, the strong, the awake, the ones-who-battled-the-alarm-and-won, the mighty men of Waypoint gather around my dining table for morning daily devotional time together. We’ve been meeting for a while now, giving the firstfruits of our day to God. To be sure, sometimes our firstfruits aren’t ripe (as some don’t get ready until Starbucks diffuse into their brain cells), but nonetheless, my morning fellowship of the band of brothers is sweet. (BTW, there are other brothers who cannot make it because of work/school schedule who meet at other times, and many sisters meet elsewhere and even earlier than our men!)
But every morning, I walk downstairs to meet my band of brothers and it’s truly an honor to be with these brave men who fight slothfulness in an attempt to discipline body and mind to be in obedience to God’s Words for the day. It’s the kind of camaraderie that you’d expect in a fierce time of war and these men are there in the trenches with me in this spiritual battle.
Sometimes I wonder how the early church met for their devotions. I could picture them getting up from their mats with bad breath and all, just barely making it in time for Paul’s exegesis of Isaiah. Men and women wanting to meet God through the study and meditation of Scripture, to have the living Word of God be incarnate once again. Maybe they sensed with excitement that someday, in a land far far away, a group of brothers will be encouraged by their morning fellowship, and do likewise…
As Hebrews 10:25 says, “Let us not give up meeting together, as some are in the habit of doing, but let us encourage one another–and all the more as you see the Day approaching.” Yes, and especially as we see the start of the new day approaching!
I’m very thankful that we have been able to do the morning dt’s for quite a while now (and the 15 minutes difference did make a big difference!).. Although some (maybe most..) mornings, I really don’t FEEL like going, I KNOW that it is best for me personally and I never regretted rising up early to do daily devotions.. Through these times, I have also begun to experience 1 Cor. 9:27, “No, I beat my body and make it my slave…” It’s also especially encouraging to meet with other precious brothers in Christ, whom I seldom get to see in the midst of our busy schedules, and just being together bonds us to a common goal and vision..
Hi Robolai,
Amen to that! But also be sure that when your body feels sick with a flu (for example), please know that the best thing is to sleep in and get some rest. But the problem is, sometimes the body feels like it’s sick, when in reality it is not! The body fools itself and I’ve played the fool many times as well.
Actually, this morning, I got an interesting article forward from Eric who made me think about the connection between the discipline of the body and the discipline of the mind. I will be posting in a few days on it, so be on the lookout for it!
-Pastor Jonathan