Secrets of the Secret Place: Keys to Igniting Your Personal Time With God by Bob Sorge

Author:Bob Sorge
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Prayer - Christianity, Meditations, Christian Life, Christianity, Religion, Prayer, Devotional
ISBN: 9780970479105
Publisher: Oasis House
Published: 2001-06-26T22:00:00+00:00

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The Secret of Manna Gathering

When you’re desperate for God, you become dependent upon the daily sustaining power of His word. Your source of survival is your daily manna—feeding on the word of God. We know the manna of the wilderness was good for only one day; if kept over into the next day, it would rot (Exodus 16:12-31). It’s still true that yesterday’s feeding in the word will never sustain us for today. One of the primary functions of the secret place is to be fed afresh each day in His word.

Proverbs 16:26 says, “The person who labors, labors for himself, for his hungry mouth drives him on.” It’s our hunger for the word that drives us into the secret place. When we are hungry spiritually, we are energized to labor in the word. A lack of hunger is a danger sign. When someone is sick, often the first symptom of their sickness is a loss of hunger. Those who lose their spiritual hunger need a medical exam, spiritually speaking. Is a cancerous sin destroying their spiritual vitality? What is true in the natural is also true in the spiritual. By drinking lots of water (the Holy Spirit), getting plenty of rest (ceasing from our own works), exercising ourselves in the word, avoiding junk foods (lousy replacements), often our spiritual appetite can be restored. Spiritual hunger is absolutely essential to spiritual health because without it we won’t be motivated to feed on the manna of God’s word.

It’s vitally important that each one of us learn how to collect manna for himself. Those who view the Sunday morning sermon as their source of nutrition are certain to be spiritual skeletons. God never intended that we live off the secret life of our pastor; He wants us to uncover the lifegiving thrill of feeding ourselves daily in His word.

Once you learn to feed yourself in the word, you are no longer upset when the Sunday sermon doesn’t apply to your life. You weren’t looking for the sermon to be your source of feeding and life anyways. If something in the sermon feeds you, you reckon it a bonus. You’re no longer dependent on others to give you milk because now you are cutting off your own meat.

Many Americans have misplaced expectations of what Sunday morning church is all about. They’re looking for a place to be taught in the word, to be filled up, and a place for their kids to be taught and strengthened. But often they are expecting out of Sunday morning church what God intended for them to get in the secret place and at the family altar. (By “family altar” I am referring to parents sitting down daily with their children to instruct them in the word and pray together, according to the commandment of Scripture.) When we place higher expectations upon Sunday morning church than it can sustain, we can easily become critical or even cynical toward the body of Christ (a disease which can be terminal and is highly infectious, especially with our children).

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