This guided quiet time is an invitation to meet the Lord in a unique passage of Scripture. In John 13-17 we move from Jesus’ public ministry to his private ministry. We leave the crowds and come in behind closed doors. Here we read about the last night Jesus spent with the disciples. It is a tender time of affection. It is also a terrifying time for the disciples. The one they gave their lives to is going away. This they were not expecting, and their faith was shaken. Although Jesus too is hurting, he assures them that he knows what he is doing.

During this final night, he prepares the disciples for his departure. He wants them to know that their present pain will be changed to future joy. Their relationship with him is being transformed into a deeper dimension. Even though he is going away, it will be possible to be closer to him than ever—as close as a branch is to a vine, as close as the heart is to the head. What the disciples need to know is how the new way of following him is supposed to work.

Jesus offers you the same relationship. He wants to be so close to you that he is inside your heart. He wants you to be so close to him that you live in spiritual union with the God of heaven. There is a fullness and joy in this sort of intimacy. That is what he wants for you. Come join the disciples on the last night and learn along with them.

The book of Revelation is a strange book full of images that include plagues of boils, beings with eyes all over their bodies, angels and demons, dragons and beasts, lakes of fire, and lots of other unusual things. Some Christians avoid Revelation altogether. Others become obsessed by it. What draws some to Revelation is an underlying tension in the teachings of Jesus. Revelation helps put these things into perspective.

We invite you to join us in a month of guided quiet times in the book of Revelation. As you read and pray through the passages, we believe that you will find your hope enhanced along with your tension. There are several different ways to interpret Revelation. As we deal with controversial passages, we seek to ask the questions in a way that allows you to make some choices. However, whichever choice you make, there can be a common ground in eager anticipation of Jesus’ return. The central theme running through the book is that Jesus is coming back soon. As we read Jesus’ instruction to the disciples in the book of Revelation, we will see that he wants us to live with this sense of immediate anticipation about his return.

Worshiping God is revolutionary. It threatens the established powers and patterns of life. When Moses approached Pharaoh to let Israel go from their bondage and slavery, he asked that Israel be allowed to go into the desert for three days to worship God. Pharaoh was not pleased and the battle began. That request for freedom to worship began the process that led to the exodus and Israel’s deliverance from slavery. Make no mistake, in a fallen world, the worship of God is an act of insurrection. As we worship, we lift our eyes beyond the here and now to the eternal.

As the different-colored panes of glass in a stained-glass window of a church combine to give a picture, so the Gospels and epistles give a different color and piece of the picture of the ministry of Jesus. Each piece of the picture may be worth looking at individually, but you don’t get the total picture unless you put them all together.

• Starting in Mark, you will look at the beginnings of Jesus’ ministry as he called the disciples. You will taste Mark’s style of focusing on the actions of Jesus.
• In Matthew you will study at what Jesus taught the disciples about how to live life in his kingdom. You will get a glimpse of Matthew’s concern that we see Jesus as the King and Lawgiver of the new Israel.
• In Luke you will learn of the saving purpose of Jesus’ ministry as he goes to Jerusalem to be crucified. You will gain insight into Luke’s understanding of Jesus’ secret ambition to die for us.
• In John you will study and pray through Jesus’ death on the cross and the events surrounding his resurrection. You will see that John wrote so that those who read would believe.
• In the Epistles you will see what the lordship of Christ and the cross of Christ means for Christians as we live waiting for Jesus’ return.

The book of Ephesians tells us there is a spiritual dimension surrounding us called ”the heavenly realms”. Most people are not aware of this dimension. Certainly non-Christians are not. Sadly, because we are so immersed in our secular and materialistic society, a lot of Christians to whom this dimension should be home are only dimly aware of it. The heavenly realms may seem like a distant echo reserved for people who have died.

This needs to change. Christians have blessings in the heavenly realms and have access to them now. This movement into the heavenly dimensions of life and the blessing that Jesus Christ brings is a two-staged process. The first stage is spiritual regeneration. However it happens, it is a gift of God that we do nothing to deserve and can’t achieve through our own efforts.

The next stage in the process, however, is different. It is the development of a Christian mind. It is with the new mind that we begin to distinguish the sights and sounds of the heavens and that we begin to discern with our hearts. How we get this Christian mind is no mystery. Nor is it a mystical experience. It comes through the process of education. It requires all the effort that we can muster to learn to think like a Christian.

The unbelief of our age creates clouds of spiritual darkness. It penetrates even to the hearts of committed Christians. We can have a sense of devotion to God but then slowly, quietly slip away from God as the One we know, so that he becomes One we merely know about. Prayer and Bible study are the mainstay of any spiritual diet. But we must be alert. Our need to be productive Christians can lead us to do too much, too fast and in the wrong way. Instead of worshiping in the presence of God, we can barge in, tell God what to do and how to do it, read over a couple of Scriptures for inspiration, and then rush off to get on with life. This approach won’t get us very far. It robs God of our praise and deprives us of spiritual nourishment.

There are four parts in the method of approach that is suggested in this guide:

• Warming Up to God – We live in a world consumed with activity. The pace leaves us stretched and sluggish toward God. During this first week, we will look at what it means to desire God, ways that we resist God, and how to become quiet inside so that we can face God and worship him.
• Studying and Meditating on Scripture – When our hearts are warm, Scripture becomes the fuel that feeds the spiritual flame of knowledge. However, a proper handling of Scripture requires effort, time and skill. We need to soak in a passage, to read, study and meditate on it, until it becomes a part of us.
• Meditating on Life - In part three we will learn to use Scripture as spectacles to ponder God’s hand in the course of our lives. Along with Scripture, we will get in touch with our emotions. Then, we will look at God’s hand in the past, the present, and the future.
• Praying - In part four, we will consider the type of prayers that God answers. What should we pray for? How can we know we are praying properly? We will practice knowing that biblical prayer comes from hearts that have life by the Spirit, which are shaped by the Scriptures and which are enriched by meditation.

As Israel was about to enter the promised land, Moses warned them: “Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them slip from your heart as long as you live” (Deut 4:9). God is always meeting us, always caring for us and always directing us. It is possible to have amazing and wonderful experiences with God, such as rich times of worship, solid and inspiring nourishment in his Word, and times of quiet peaceful intimacy. And yet, given times of spiritual dryness, times of testing, or even times of ease and comfort, we can begin to wonder where God is and question how he is involved in our lives. Because we so easily slip away from him, we must sink deep spiritual roots that firmly grasp truth in Jesus Christ.

This guide is divided into four parts:

• A Warm Welcome
• Stay Free
• Stay Alive
• Staying in Touch

This guide has been written to be a means by which you can study the Sermon on the Mount in such in a way that you can personally talk with your Lord about his teaching. We are convinced that if you study the Lord’s written Word and pay attention with your spiritual eyes and ears, that Jesus Christ himself will teach you.

The theme of the Sermon on the Mount is righteousness. It is more than how Jesus wants his disciples to act; it is how he wants them to be. Living in a daily study of the Sermon for an extended period of time will be an unsettling experience, but a life-changing one.

Following the outline of the Sermon, this guide has four sections.

• The first part is an introduction. It covers three things: the Beatitudes, the salt-and-light effects of his disciples on others and Jesus’ relationship to the Old Testament and with religious leaders.
• The second section, “Righteous Relationships,” covers Jesus’ expectation of how his disciples should relate to others.
• The third section is “Righteous Acts and Attitudes.” It covers charitable giving, prayer, fasting, desiring God and trusting him for our daily needs.
• The final section, “Righteous Results,” covers a number of topics that conclude the Sermon and encourage obedience by showing what results come from believing and obeying Christ.

We must learn to wait on the Lord, not because there is time to waste but because it is the most efficient and effective way to get things, the most important things, done. Some time ago Bill Hybels wrote a book called “Too Busy Not to Pray.” Prayer and waiting are intimately connected. In the kingdom of God we can also say that we are too busy not to wait.

The textbook for waiting on the Lord is the Psalms. This is because throughout the Psalms you find a tone of dependence and anticipation. Those who wrote the Psalms knew that life was meant to be lived in partnership of the human and the divine. The Psalms record both the experiences and the inner lives of world- class waiters. Through the medium of Hebrew poetry, we discover that waiting in the Lord is a life of adventure, danger, exaltation and desperation.

You will work through Psalms 30-40. Why these psalms? Because they are cherished “friends.” From these psalms you will find encouragement to wait with confidence for the next phase of life. The quiet times are arranged in cycles of two to five on each chapter. Each day we ask you to read the whole chapter and then focus in on the verses for that particular day. This will help you begin to experience the rhythms of the psalmist.