I’m thankful for what God did in hearts. In fact, let me just say this, young people, if God worked in your heart in a specific way, please consider going to the Your Story or the Testimonies page on TheGeneration.org and sharing with us what God did in your heart.

In the event, the Zoom live event, Dr. Jim and I, we hosted it, and each of us presented a sermon, and we also had some funny comedy sketches and so forth, and it was just a fun time of competition and fellowship in a time when we’re really not able to get a whole lot of that. If you are interested in watching the recording of the event, you can find that on our The Generation YouTube channel.

And Lord willing, we will be having another one. We haven’t decided on the date yet, but you’ll be the first ones to know when we do. Here today on the podcast, I’d like to introduce to you someone who really needs no introduction, Caleb Reed.

Caleb is getting started in evangelism. I think most of you know that. and the pandemic has changed a little bit about how that’s been happening here lately.

But I know that every time that Caleb speaks, God is going to speak to you. And so, Caleb, why don’t you please come on and share your burden for the podcast here today? Okay, well, I have my Bible turned to Psalm 15.

This is a passage that I read in my devotion several months ago and was definitely greatly helped by it. So my wife and I actually memorized it, which that’s not too impressive. It’s only five verses, but we memorized this together and it was very helpful for me because what Psalm 15 does is it describes the man or the woman, the person who dwells in the presence of God.

I’m just going to read verse one for you and I want you to listen to these words. Psalm 15, verse one, Lord, who shall abide in thy tabernacle? Who shall dwell in thy holy hill?

Can you hear the psalmist kind of communicating with longing? Lord, who is that person that gets to spend time in your presence? And as I was meditating on verse 1 of Psalm 15, and meditating over several days on this passage, and as I continued to read through the Psalms, I found that those who contribute to the Psalms, the same theme carries throughout the whole book.

Psalm 24 is another example. This is maybe more common that we’ve heard this. Who shall ascend into the hill of the Lord?

Or who shall stand in his holy place? Psalm 27 verse 4 also has this same idea of dwelling in the house of the Lord. Dwelling in the temple, inquiring in the temple.

As I began to think about this from Psalm 15, Psalm 24, Psalm 27. You can find it in other places, but these are just three that I’m going to mention here at this time. The question that I have to ask you that I have been asking is, how much time do I spend in the presence of God?

And so really this podcast is dealing with what do you do with your time? Do you take time? Do you spend time?

Do you sacrifice time so that you can spend that in God’s presence? See, what Psalm 15 is dealing with is not necessarily a physical temple or a tabernacle that they would go to. In other words, in the Old Testament, they had a tabernacle that they would go and worship.

But for all of us as New Testament believers, the idea is I want to be where Jesus is. In other words, wherever I can meet with Jesus, I want to be there. And so the question is, again, what do you do with your time?

Do you take time to meet with the Lord? You know, meeting with the Lord is not something that you get by accident. If I allow my schedule to be run by pressures, if I allow my schedule to be ordered by the pressures of my day, often that will not leave me much time to spend with the Lord.

And truthfully, even if I don’t have a lot of things in my schedule for a day, if I go on autopilot, I’m probably not going to take much time to set it aside to spend time with the Lord. It has to be something that I determine to do. It has to be something that I set time aside to do.

You know, in Psalm 27, I referenced this just a moment ago, Psalm 27 verse 4, the psalmist writes this, one thing have I desired of the Lord, and that I will seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life, to behold the beauty of the Lord, and to inquire in his temple.

That’s not just my time in the morning with the Lord, or maybe for you in the evening, or maybe morning and evening. That’s all day long, but it starts in the morning, it finishes in the evening and it goes all day long. You know, we don’t have a physical tabernacle today that we can only meet in God’s presence.

If we go to that building, we don’t have that any longer because we have Jesus Christ living inside of us, the Holy spirit living inside of us. And we are that tabernacle. So at any point in the day, if I want to spend time with Jesus, if I want to fellowship with him, all I’ve got to do is talk to him.

And so I want to ask you, as I have been asking myself, How much time in my day do I really give to the Lord? I want you to think about your day, 24 hours. Now, six to eight of those hours you probably spend sleeping.

And then if you were to calculate it out for meals, you probably spend at least an hour and a half, say half an hour per meal, at least an hour and a half in meals. If you maybe sit around a dinner table with the family and talk for a while, as we are prone to do, maybe that’s two hours. But you think about it, you calculate all of that up.

you’re up to about maybe maximum of 10 hours in your day. That’s 14 hours left over. What do you do with that time that you have?

Okay, I spent eight hours at work. So what do you do with the other six hours? Here’s the thing I’m trying to get across.

How much of your time belongs to you to be used at your discretion and how much time belongs to the Lord? Have you ever considered that your entire day, 24 hours of your day, belongs to or ought to be given control to the Lord? In other words, 24 hours of the day, the Lord ought to have control of your time.

So if he says, hey, I want to meet with you. If he says, why don’t you take some time, why don’t you shut that off and take some time to pray? If he says, why don’t you just sit down in the chair and read your Bible?

It’s not a struggle because he owns your day. And guess what happens? When he owns your time and you’ve dedicated that time to him and you’re going to give him time in your day, you start meeting with Jesus.

In Psalm 27, the psalmist says, this is the one thing that I desire. And this is the one thing that I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord, that I may live in the presence of God. Now for me, okay, I work eight hours a day.

This has been something that I’ve wrestled with. How do I spend eight hours of my day working and yet still being in the presence of God? Because I can’t do my work that I’m required to do that takes mental focus, concentration.

I can’t do that and pray at the same time. What does that mean? That means that I’ve dedicated time in the day where I’m going to talk to just the Lord.

And then I’m going to have times where my eight-hour workday that I’ve got to spend doing the things that I have to do. but I’m always in a spirit of communication where it ought to be natural to me that when I hear someone cuss and take God’s name in vain, it hurts me because I’m in communication with the Lord.

And when people are talking about things that are inappropriate or jokes fly or just the conversation does not become godliness, that in me, because I’m in fellowship with the Lord, that bothers me and I don’t enter into those conversations. And maybe when I’m alone, I take time, even though I’m at the workday, to just talk to the Lord. Maybe out loud just talk to the Lord.

You know, recently I found myself enjoying every opportunity I get to work by myself because I don’t have to converse with anybody else. I can just take time to think and pray and talk with the Lord. And I just have to ask you, young people, how much of your day do you spend in the presence of God?

Now, maybe you’re taking that hour in the morning, And I just want to tell you, if you’re taking an hour with God in the morning, ah, that is so precious, that’s so sweet, and please continue. But is that all you’ve given the Lord? When you sit down on the couch or in the recliner with your cell phone, are you at God’s disposal?

If he says, you know what, why don’t you just put that away and read your Bible? Why don’t you put that away and play with your brothers and sisters? Why don’t you give some more time to me?

Why don’t you read your Bible? Why don’t you pray? How much of your day, how much of your time is spent pursuing, desiring your pleasures?

And how much of your time and your day is spent pursuing the Lord’s pleasures? You know, young people, and I’m going to close with this.

If you spend your waking hours, maybe you spend the hour and a half to two hours in eating, maybe you spend your eight-hour workday, or you’re at school for six and a half hours, and that leaves you maybe six to seven hours left over as discretionary time that you can use however you’d like to.

Young people, if you use that time in watching frivolous movies, in playing video games, Do you know how much time and opportunity you are losing by doing things, watching things, playing things that have no eternal value, but in fact degrade your sensitivity to the Lord? I was working with a fella, two fellas, not too long ago who were talking about the amount of time and money they spend on things like Call of Duty and Fortnite.

And I couldn’t believe it. I was not in the conversation, so I didn’t have really a place to say anything. But as I just listened to their candid conversation, I couldn’t help but think, don’t you know how much time you’re wasting?

And these were Christians. Don’t you know how much time you’re losing? Don’t you know that someday when you stand before the Lord, you will weep?

because the time that you wasted in earthly, fleshly, even ungodly things. But you know the truth is, when I sit home and veg in a book because I just want to entertain myself, I can do the exact same thing. So here’s my question for you, young people.

How much time in your day does God own? Give Him that time in the morning, that morning devotions, but then give the whole day to Him. Allow him to have free course to prompt you.

Give him the rights to challenge you to pray, to put the book down, to put the phone down, to converse with your siblings, to converse with your parents, to just spend time conversing with him. Give him the rights to have your whole entire day. And you will find that as you continue in your communication with the Lord, allowing him to have control of your schedule, you will be spending time in his presence.

and it’ll be so much sweeter than playing your video games. It’s so much more wholesome. It’s so much more enjoyable.

And as you grow closer to the Lord, you find his fellowship is the greatest joy you can have. One thing have I desired of the Lord and that will I seek after, that I may dwell in the house of the Lord all the days of my life to behold the beauty of the Lord and to inquire in his temple. Spend time with God.

Amen, Caleb. Thank you so much for that challenge. It’s a much needed challenge.

You know, even in this time where we have had our normal schedules uprooted, it’s so easy to take our time. And instead of spending it seeking the presence of God, spending it, we instead spend it seeking our own pursuits. Well, young people, this is something you’re going to need to surrender to.

And it’s something you’re going to need to depend upon Jesus to enable you to seek his face, to find his presence, and to find satisfaction in the presence and power of God. Thank you so much for listening.