trumpet

In high school my career aspirations were to be a professional tennis player or trumpet player. This was before reality set in. I played tennis for eight hours every summer day, and three times a week during the school year.  And I  practiced the trumpet every day.  I studied with the principal trumpet player in the Houston Symphony Orchestra.  And I had visions of grandeur.

My trumpet hero was Doc Severinson. If you remember him, you're old (like me). He was the band leader on Johnny Carson's "The Tonight Show", and an amazing musician.  I once heard him say of his trumpet regime: if I miss one day of practice, I know it; if I miss two days, the band knows it; if I miss three days, the world knows it.  My thought was: if he needs to practice every day, how much more do I.  I was right.

Would it surprise you to learn that the Lord Jesus Christ had to spend time every day alone with his Father?  That the secret to his spiritual power over Satan and his demons came from his extended times of solitude?  Think about  it - the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, the eternal Son of God himself, had to meet with his Father every day.  And for extended periods of time regularly.

Luke 6:12: "One of those days Jesus went out to a mountainside to pray, and spent the night praying to God."

Matthew 14:22-23: "Immediately Jesus made the disciples get into the boat and go on ahead of him to the other side, while he dismissed the crowd. After he had dismissed them, he went up on a mountainside by himself to pray. When evening came, he was there alone."   For how long?  "During the fourth watch of the night Jesus went out to them, walking on the lake" (v. 25). This was 3 a.m. Jesus prayed for nine hours. When did you last pray for one?

Today's devotional is not about guilt. It is meant to encourage us to adopt the spiritual strategy guaranteed to give us victory over the enemy. It is a strategy available to every single Christian - no seminary degrees or ordination needed. It's a simple matter of priorities.

Martin Luther said, "If I fail to spend two hours in prayer each morning, the devil gets the victory through the day."  If the founder of the Protestant Reformation needed time with God to win spiritual victory, what of us?  If God himself would model this discipline, and his Son would practice it daily without fail, don't we need it also?

-james c. denison.