Grapevine Ministries
Messages from the bible to uplift and encourage those that need a word from the Lord, to strengthen their faith. Ps Phillip Barker is an itinerant pastor in Perth, Western Australia.
Grapevine Ministries
Navigating Life's Challenges with God's Guidance
Have you ever paused to consider how fleeting life truly is? Join me as I recount the deeply personal experience of attending my wife's mother's funeral, drawing strength from the comforting words of John 14:1-3. This moment of reflection emphasizes the brevity of life and the profound importance of nurturing our connection with God. I offer a heartfelt shoutout to Christina and Sandra, who have journeyed with us for so long, and extend comfort to all who are navigating times of grief by reminding you of the peace found in God's promise.
Good morning, good afternoon, wherever you are in the world - Welcome to Grapevine Ministries.
I'm stepping slightly away from the Book of Luke at the moment because, for the very first time in a long time, I had to attend a funeral where I wasn't officiating over that funeral. My wife's mother had passed away, and so I just want to reflect on that a little bit, because time is too short. And if you look at John 14, 1-3, this passage conveys the idea that death brings your loved ones to heaven. It's okay to be sad, but family and friends can take solace in it. So let's read that, john 14.1. Let not your heart be troubled. You believe in God, believe also in me. In my house there are many mansions, and if it were not so, I would have told you I go to prepare a place for you, and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you to myself. Where I am, you may also be, and when I go you will know the way you know to go.
Speaker 1:In our busy schedule, I think there are too many people that feel that they've always got plenty of time, but we never know when it is time for us to be called to the Lord, and I hope that through this podcast, people will hear what was lacking at the funeral this particular day. Now, don't get me wrong. The priest did a very good job and it was well received from everybody, but I think that the one thing that was missing was the ability for people to have a look at their own mortality and, knowing just how frail our life is and how short it is on this earth, we need to make sure that we have a relationship with our Heavenly Father, and through Jesus we can do this, and it says in the Word that you know he will come in a twinkling of an eye and no one will know the time or the place, but we need to be prepared for what is yet to come. At this time, I'd also like to say a special hi to Christina and Sandra, who are long-term listeners to my podcast, and also take this opportunity for everybody that is out there to know that the Lord is with you and he will strengthen you from the inner man, strengthen you in such a way that we know that there will be a time for grieving, but there will be a time for rejoicing now, and we know that Rosa is in a better place and she is now pain free. But just remember life is too short and we are too busy all the time, but we must find time to put him first and foremost in everything we say and everything we do. But before then, we need to look hard at what we are currently spending time doing, even the simplest thing like going down the street and picking up a pie or a drink or having a coffee.
Speaker 1:So I'd like to encourage you for just a moment to stop and ponder and look at your inventory of your daily activity. Maybe keep a catalogue of what you do on a daily basis. So how long does it take me to get ready in the morning to go to work or to start my day? What do I do every day? Where do I go after I finish work? How much time do I spend on social media? How much time do I spend with my wife and my kids? How much time do I spend watching the news or watching TV, or watching my favourite show or watching a movie?
Speaker 1:And then ask yourself is there any way that you can steal back just 10 minutes for the Lord? I used to always say the best thing for anybody is to take the first 10 minutes of the day and the last 10 minutes a day and commit that to the Lord. Now, 10 minutes isn't really much. It can be done while you're having breakfast. It can be done while you're brushing your teeth. It can be done on your train ride as you're commuting to work or you're stuck in peak hour traffic. 10 minutes out of your busy schedule is not much time to allocate in your hectic day, whether it be a Monday to Friday, nine to five, or if you're sacrificing eating lunch with a co-worker so you could actually spend 20 minutes reading the word of God while you're consuming your lunch. So you might have not even given this much of a thought because you're so busy doing what you always do that you don't realize just how easy it is for you to actually allocate that little bit of time to the Lord.
Speaker 1:And oftentimes, like this, we first commit ourselves to making time for God and we are very, very ambitious and we think, okay, well, that's it. I'm going to lock myself in my bedroom, spend three hours with the Lord and I'm not going to allow anything to distract me. But then that lasts one, maybe two days. Or the wife needs you, or the children need help with their homework, or there's a couple of messages comes through on Facebook or Instagram and all of these things are there, but you've, you've tried, you've failed and so, therefore, you move on. As admirable these commitments are, they tend to not last, because the trick is making time, for God is just doing that.
Speaker 1:The old adage I used to say was well, just keep it simple, all right, just keep it simple. Don't try and do anything rash or in a hurry or in big chunks. You don't get up in the morning and you have not exercised or done any physical activity for 10 years, and then, all of a sudden, you decide you're going to go out and you're going to go on a 10 kilometre hike. The thing is that you always start small just that 10 minutes with the lord every single day, or even just five days a week, and then you can expand from there, because once you get into a routine, I've always said that 40 days creates a habit, and it's ironic that, on many occasions throughout the Bible, 40 days has been spoken about time and time again as a significant point of change. Jesus went into the wilderness for 40 days. The Israelites were in the wilderness for 40 years. It was 40 days and 40 nights. It rained. Noah was in the ark. Try again. So all the time that there is a significance around this.
Speaker 1:So once you get into a habit of doing the same thing every day for 40 days, it becomes habit forming and after a while you'll get to a stage where, if you don't do it, you think there's something missing in your life, there's something that's not there and you need to make sure that it is there. Spending time with Jesus is exactly the same way. Creating new habits around spending time with the Lord is the golden ticket to making time for God in your busy schedule. However, new habits take time. Eventually it will come a routine, but scientifically it has been proven that it takes between 21 and 40 days to create a new habit. So if you've just begun your making time for God journey, then you're still struggling. Can I encourage you to just keep going, because both those time frames are very, very significant as far as scriptural numbers are concerned.
Speaker 1:Once your routine becomes a habit, spending time with the Lord will be as easy as taking a sip of your morning cup of coffee or, in my case, water spring water to be precise. And, honestly, even if it takes you more than 21 days, that's completely okay. There will be a point where it becomes easier and a normal part of your routine. It's the same whether you actually want to get fit. You're going to start by just simply walking around the block or going down to the local park and take a walk around the river. It starts off with baby steps. You don't start going for a jog straight away. You'll walk for half a kilometre, maybe a kilometre, and then the next day you'll try and expand that a little bit further and you'll get to a stage where you find that choosing quality over quantity is sometimes very, very much more important than actually doing something over the top but only lasting for a very, very short period of time.
Speaker 1:Basically, don't feel forced to do X, y, z every single day If you're not truly absorbing what you're doing. For example, let's say you've made it a really, really good goal to read a chapter of the Bible every single day, which is a good goal to have. However, if you're just skimming through the Bible or you aren't truly absorbing it, then you might as well be using that time for something else. You haven't really gained anything at all. If you're not focused during prayer and your mind is constantly wandering, then how much of that time are you truly spending with God. Our goals, including mine, should be to spend quality time with the Lord, even if it's just five or ten minutes a day. Thirty minutes to an hour is unfocused. 5 minutes which is totally focused on the Lord is a better option. You need to find your rhythm Now. Just remember, don't start beating yourself up about this, because it takes time to actually be able to actually get to where you want to get to. You need to find a way of making it work for you, and if you can't do that, then you know you're doomed before you start. You know you're doomed before you start.
Speaker 1:You try to discover ways that you can connect to the Lord. The best way. It might be that you're listening to praise and worship music. It might be that you're reading the Bible. It might be that you're able to be one of those people that can just shut down for five minutes and spend time with the Lord. God created us so that we could be unique, and the way we spend time with him is also unique, which is why we prefer to experience him in our own, different ways. What I do and the way that I spend time with the Lord is going to be different to the way that my wife does it, or my children, or even the pastor down the street. Everybody is different. Everybody is unique. Everybody finds a different way of doing it.
Speaker 1:Some people are very, very good at multitasking. You could be going for your daily walk, and that is how you spend time with the Lord. You could be going for your daily walk, and that is how you spend time with the Lord. You could be commuting to work and you're sitting in peak hour traffic. You've got praise and worship on and you're spending time with the Lord. I know people who like to stand up and pace while they're praying. Well, I prefer to sit and be still. No one is right and no one was wrong. Everything is done for a plan and a purpose. You can also try things like doing a Bible journal.
Speaker 1:I did that with one of my very early Bibles that I was given, and I found out that someone had actually asked me once what I was going to do about reading the Bible, and I said what do you mean about reading the Bible? Well, you know, nobody ever reads the Bible from cover to cover. No one's ever read it in its entirety, and I thought about that and realized that I was one of those people, but surely there are people out there that have read the Bible from cover to cover. So I took it upon myself to make this my goal, to ensure that I could read the Bible from Genesis through to Revelation. But it's not a novel, it's not a newspaper, it's not a magazine, it's the Holy Bible.
Speaker 1:So the first thing you do that when you start off in Genesis, you're on a roll, you're doing exceptionally well and you could read a chapter a day and so on. But then when you start getting to you know deuteronomy, leviticus, you know numbers it starts to get pretty heavy going and all of a sudden you've lost the urge and before you know it, you've put the bible down and you're not doing it anymore. But I had one of those bibles that had every chapter and every verse marked in the back of the book, and so what I realized and I still believe that this was, you know, like an inspiration from the Holy Spirit I actually got there and was able to actually read a chapter in the Old Testament and tick that off, and then read another chapter in the New Testament and tick that off, and I was going backwards and forwards, okay, making sure that I covered every chapter and every verse in the Bible until I'd read it from cover to cover, and I was able to do that because this chart in the back enabled me to keep a record of everything that I've read. Now I know for a fact that from time to time I would ring you know, be getting there, and I'd get into the book of Matthew, and I love the book of Matthew and Galatians, and you know even Hebrews, and you'd have a tendency to, oh yeah, I've already read that, but I wouldn't mind reading that again.
Speaker 1:And you do that, and so it may take you a little bit longer, but you actually achieve your goal, because the old adage is you know how do you eat an elephant? Well, it's one bite at a time. You don't look at the enormity of the task ahead of you and go oh my Lord, where am I going to start? It's just one bite at a time. This is the way that you need to approach everything in relation to the Lord it's little by little, line upon line, precept upon precept. You need to actually take it in small chunks, small bite-sized pieces, and then you'll find that sometimes, when you're reading that little, bite-sized piece or you're listening to a podcast or you're actually listening to a praise and worship song, it will resonate in you and it will inspire you to want more of what you've just heard, and you can do that, and that's how you start doing it. It is so much easier if you actually try to do it in small steps.
Speaker 1:I've realized that over the last seven or eight weeks, when I've been so preoccupied with my work and other commitments and all that sort of stuff, I've neglected my online listeners. And I'll tell you what you know there could be someone out there right now who's waiting for my next podcast. Not that I'm anybody fancy or anybody special, but the thing is I believe that from time to time I have something to bring that the Lord's laid on my heart and I want as many people to have access to that as possible. But if I'm not recording anything, then you've got nothing to listen to, or you'll go listen to another pastor about another message, and it may be something that you've already heard or it's not what you're looking for at that particular time. So we need to make sure that we've got all of our resources available to you, and that means that I've got a job to do. I'm called by our Lord and Saviour to speak the word of God and to speak into people's lives, and if I'm neglecting that, then I'm not doing what the Lord wants me to do. And if I'm not doing what the Lord wants me to do, then that means that I need to make sure that I am. It's important to make sure that in my busy schedule I have time for those that need to listen to the word of God. So this is what we need to do we need to make sure that we can draw close to God, and the only way we can do that is to start small.
Speaker 1:Oftentimes, when we first commit ourselves to making time for God, we are so, so ambitious that we forget the purpose behind it. It's like it's like deciding to actually run around all day and you're so busy and you think, oh, then, I've, I've got to get to church. So you race into church, you sit down, listen to the message, you get up, you walk out, get back on your schedule and someone asks you 10 minutes after you've left the church oh, you've just finished the 8.30 service. Yeah, yeah, yeah, what was it like? What was pastor speaking on today? And you go oh, it was yes, that's right. Right, you've forgotten. You've forgotten because you were so focused on something else that you did not even receive the word that was there for you.
Speaker 1:We get so busy getting tied up that we forget to start small and to do things Stick with it. So making time for God becomes a habit for me. That's what we need to do. We need to be honest with ourselves and make sure that we choose quality over quantity. And once you've found your rhythm, then you actually get into that zone and you can do that. They talk about you know, athletes, how they actually get into their rhythm when they're going for a run or they're swimming or whatever. Once they get into their rhythm, when they're going for a run or they're swimming or whatever, once they get into their rhythm, they are able to actually achieve greater, greater things than what they would if they were just rushing, trying to get things done another particular way. And we need to make sure that we need to try and spend as much time to God as we possibly can. Now, I'm hoping this sounds familiar to you, because it's definitely sounding familiar to me.
Speaker 1:When I prioritize my work routines. The first thing I'm doing in the morning is worrying about what my next thing is, that I've got to be doing and I try and eliminate all the excuses to make sure that I can achieve what I need to achieve and I'm so busy running around with my schedule sometimes I even forget what I'm actually supposed to be doing. If I held off spending time with God until the evening, other tasks would always come along and be screaming for my attention. However, this is where it starts. We need to shift our mindset. Sometimes you need to get your mindset shifted into the right line into the right line.
Speaker 1:For some of us, that means making more time in your schedule to spend time with the Lord, but the real problem is you just don't want to do it. So you need to make sure that you want to do it. There's nothing worse than trying to achieve something or to commit to something that you're not really into. Your heart has got to be there. Do you want to spend time with the Lord? Do you want God to start making a difference in your life? Do you want to be hearing from him? Do you want to actually have him communicating with you the way that you're communicating with him?
Speaker 1:The truth is, sometimes we get bored and we get tired of reading the same verse over and over again without any new revelation. Your prayers are starting to sound like the same old, same old, and you just don't see the point anymore. There are so many other things that you could be doing, but this is what you need to do. Do you want to be spending time with God? Do you want to be focusing on Him? What is your mindset?
Speaker 1:So, who is God? He's the creator of the universe. He's the saviour of our soul. He loves us unconditionally. He knows us better than we even know ourselves, and he cares deeply about every detail of our life. He is a God of beauty, majesty and wonder, endless creativity and excitement. So when we take a moment to remember who God is and why making time for him is important, then we remember what an absolute honour and privilege it is to know him. So spending time with Jesus is an honour, it's not an obligation. God is freaking amazing, and the fact that we can talk to him whenever we want to is a true gift. So all of a sudden, you've been able to change your mindset in just being aware of that simple fact, by knowing who he is and how important he is to our lives.
Speaker 1:Then, all of a sudden, your mindset has changed and you know that you have to spend time with him. Time with him. You begin to wonder what is God going to show me today? What new things can we discover about him that we didn't know before? In what way is God going to reveal himself to me this week? How is God going to show me he loves me today? How are you going to know unless you're spending time with him? It's important to remember that making time for God is partaking in a relationship. It's not something you do to check off your to-do list and look, I'm preaching to the converted. I know that, but I'm also speaking this into my own life. This is why it's been so long since I've actually given a message. It's because I wasn't making God a priority. He wasn't important to me. Well, not necessarily wasn't important to me, but he wasn't on the right spot on my list. My to-do list should be for God first and foremost, and it says in the word put him first and foremost in everything you say and everything you do.
Speaker 1:The Songs of Solomon compares our relationship with the Lord to a romantic relationship between a husband and wife. Just like it's important to prioritise a romantic relationship in order to keep the romance alive. We need to prioritise our time with Jesus in order to keep the romance alive. We need to prioritize our time with Jesus in order to keep the romance alive between us and our Creator. So if you're getting bored or finding it difficult to make time for God, be honest with him and tell him that you're struggling. Ask the Lord to reveal to you how to keep things fresh and exciting so your quiet time with him doesn't feel like work. But sometimes you look forward to it and you want to be excited about spending time with God. Our relationship with Jesus is the number one relationship in our life, so let's treat it that way.
Speaker 1:Sometimes relationships take work and require a sacrifice, but the reward for knowing our Heavenly Father is always been greater than anything else that I can possibly ever think of in my life, possibly ever think of in my life. So I hope this has helped you, because it's definitely helped me. But sometimes we actually forget about the simple things in life that we actually need. It's important to make sure that we actually have time for God and we want to make sure that we actually spend time with him because we want to, not because we need to. We've got to make sure that we spend time with him because it is a relationship and relationships build and get stronger, and they are always a two-way street. I hope this has helped you in as many ways as it's helped me.
Speaker 1:I've realized that I need to make God my number one priority, not only for my listeners, but for myself as well. I need to make sure that when god is actually wanting to hear from me, I need to be wanting to hear from him, and the only way I can hear from him is to spend time with him. It's like our faith. We're all given a measure of faith. It's like our faith. We're all given a measure of faith.
Speaker 1:In Hebrews 11.1 it says Faith is the substance of things hoped for, evidence of things not seen. But we've been given a measure of faith. But the thing is it talks about building our faith. And how can we build our faith? Because we've got our faith in our Lord Jesus Christ, and as long as we've got our faith in him, we know that he will come through for us every time.
Speaker 1:So if you're struggling, if you're going through difficulties in your life not necessarily just as far as your relationship with God is concerned. But if you're having struggles in your life, can I encourage you today to stop and smell the roses, spend time with the Lord, go out of your way to actually spend time with the Lord, and it might be challenging and it might be difficult, but the very first time that you do that, I can tell you right now you will feel yourself being refreshed, you will feel yourself being vitalized and you will feel yourself being lifted up, because the Lord will never leave you nor forsake you. He is always there, watching over you and keeping you safe. He wants to have a relationship with you. He's waiting for you right now to go and spend some time with him. So look at your schedule and I can tell you right now, without a shadow of a doubt, without you even thinking about it, you will find that there is five or ten minutes available between meetings or on the way home or any other time.
Speaker 1:Even these podcasts not just my podcasts, but anybody's, because these aren aren't mine. These are the Lord's and therefore the Lord's children, and because we are all God's children, we need to be spending time in fellowship and we need to be spending time together and we need to make sure that we spend time with him and his word, because his word is the same today, yesterday and forever. It doesn't change. He will never stop loving you. He will never stop caring for you. But what he does want, he wants to have a relationship with you. He wants you to spend time with him and he can spend time with you. He wants you to spend time with him and he can spend time with you Just right now, even while you're listening to this podcast. Don't listen to my words right now, but just close your eyes and spend some time with the Lord. Listen to him, that still small voice, as he talks to you and he utters those sweet words that only he can utter to you. Let them drop deep down into your spirit and as you sit there meditating and listening to the word of God, let it wash over you, let it flow over you, and you know that God is always there for you.
Speaker 1:I'm sitting here down by the lake in my car doing a podcast as I'm waiting for my wife to finish work. I'm looking out over the water and I see what God has created for me today, and it's new every day. I could come down here every single day and sit here, and it will be different. Every little thing about this day will be different. No day will be the same. There will be different people walking past, the wind will be different, the sky will be different, the clouds will be different, even the water and the re reads will be different. Every single time I sit here, I remember what God has created for us, not what man has, because even if this was forged by man, it was inspired by the Holy Spirit.
Speaker 1:Whether people would like to admit it or not, everything that you do, everything that you say, leads back to our Heavenly Father. I want to encourage you all today, and myself, not to be complacent about the Lord knowing that Jesus went to the cross for us. Not to be complacent about the Lord Knowing that Jesus went to the cross for us. Even before you were formed in your mother's womb, he knew that he was about to go to that cross for you. He was about to bear it all and to suffer on that cross for you so that you could live the life that you live today. Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, and we know that.
Speaker 1:It says in John 10.10 that the thief has come to rob, kill and destroy, but it says that he has come to give you life and give it to you more abundantly. So if he wants to give you an abundant life, how are you going to know what that abundant life is, unless you are going to spend some time with him and ask him what it is that he's got for you and what it is that he wants you to do? Because there's a plan and a purpose for every single one of us, and if you look back in some of my earlier podcasts, I spoke about a plan and a purpose. God has got a plan and a purpose for every single one of us, and it doesn't necessarily mean that you're in the ministry, but it does mean that he actually wants to speak to you about that, and the only way he can speak to you about that is by having a conversation with you. If your mother or your wife or your brother or your sister wanted to speak to you about something and they left you a message saying hey, tom, I need to speak to you about something, and they left you a message saying, hey, tom, I need to speak to you about something, how are you going to find out what? That is the only way you can find out what that is is if you actually pick up the phone and give them a call. Why don't you pick up the phone to Jesus right now and ask him? Finally, I just want to say to Jesus right now and ask him. Finally, I just want to say Ecclesiastics 4, sorry, ecclesiastics 3, 1 to 4, I think sums it up there is a time for everything and a season for every activity under the heavens a time to be born, a time to die, a time to plant and a time to uproot, a time to kill and a time to heal, a time to tear down and a time to build, a time to weep and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to laugh, a time to mourn and a time to dance.
Speaker 1:What I'm really trying to say is life is too short and we can make excuse after excuse after excuse about not having enough time. But just on reflection, why don't you look at your day and see how many moments in the day you're basically doing nothing and that time could be sent with the Lord, because having a relationship with a Heavenly Father, I think, is more important than anything else. And when you hear that saying oh but tomorrow? Well, tomorrow may never come. You never know what's around the corner. Life is too short. Be blessed and have a lovely week and I'll see you back in the Gospel of Luke next week. Bye for now. No-transcript.
