Welcome to the Daily Disciple Podcast, where we seek daily to be with and to become like Jesus, our teacher. Good morning, everyone, and welcome to the Daily Together on Mission podcast. This is Travis, and you are going to need a Bible and a journal if you want. I've got a cup of coffee, and I'm in my spot, my morning spot.
And for me, that's a specific chair in my home office. And I go first to the coffee pot, to be completely honest with you. And then I go into my home office and sit in my chair and I grab my Bible and I begin to have a conversation with Jesus. And I'm excited about this season of the podcast because we're talking about enjoying time with Jesus and diving deep into our relationship with Jesus and talking about contemplation and hearing from God and kind of reframing prayer and even making a connection between our private life of prayer and hearing from God and our public life of hearing from God and responding to what God is doing.
And so we're going to be in John chapter 5, a couple of famous verses in John chapter 5. And the title of the podcast this morning is Practice. And as we all know, you've got practice and then you've got game time. And practice is more relaxed and the environment is a little bit more relaxed and less charged because a game has more intensity to it.
And I don't mean intense in a bad way because it's really intense in a good way and it's super exciting, but a game is quick and it's intense and it moves. And sometimes you have to play out a system and there's all kind of dynamics to a game. Practice, as we all know, is a bit slower, less intense. There's time to work on a skill and then rework on that skill and focus in on that skill.
And before I go any further in this podcast, I'd just like to say that spending time connecting with Jesus and listening to his voice is much more than simply practice, but it's definitely not less. The more we practice, the better we play. The more we practice, the more automatic things become. The more we practice, the more comfortable we are in the game, the more relaxed we are, the more muscle memory we have, and it's easier for us to play out a system the more we practice and handle curveballs and all the different situations that come within the game.
There's no question that one will play better and in more of a calm way when one practices. And this is the case in sports. It's the case with musical performances, public speaking, learning a language, and it's the case when we're in a live prayer encounter with someone else and inviting the kingdom of God to come. And so here is the verse or the few verses that I want to meditate on this morning.
John chapter 5, beginning in verse 17. Jesus says, My father is always at his work to this very day, and I am working too. Let me read that again. My father's always at work to this very day, and I too am working.
And then we go down to verse 19. Jesus said, as he answered, Very truly, I tell you, the son of man, the son can do nothing. He can only do what he sees the father doing because whatever the father does, the son also does. And first of all, if we could just pause for a moment and if I could remind us of the model of prayer that I talked about just a couple of days ago, simple prayer or praying the scripture, right?
When we're encountering Jesus, I think it's important in our quiet time not to be so goal oriented, right? Not trying to, you know, accomplish, you know, a certain amount of reading or, you know, getting through the Bible in a year or even accomplishing the reading of a chapter in the morning. Now there's a place for more of a rapid reading of scripture. And that's part of my quiet time.
It has been for a while, but when we speed through scripture, sometimes there's little benefit as far as engaging and relaxing in the presence of God. So as you're reading these verses this morning about Jesus, you know, seeing the work that his father is doing and working the works of the father, read until you experience the door opening right. And then and then when you experience that door opening to the presence of God, just stop reading and stay right there and stay there as long as you want to stay there and just enjoy the presence of God. Because throughout the history of the church, most saints, most prayer gurus, most of those that have really entered into the depths of Jesus and have written about it have said something like this.
Allow the scripture to be kind of an invitation or a summons to just enjoy the presence of Jesus. So this passage in John is amazing. And this is what Jesus did. He saw what the father was doing.
He heard the father's voice and he did the works that the father was working. So the father would give him direction and Jesus would go in that direction. He was led by his father. He spoke what he wanted, what the father wanted him to speak.
And so what we must realize is that when we see these verses in the gospel of John that describe the public ministry of Jesus, what we have to realize is that behind the scenes, behind the public ministry was this rich, private, devotional relationship with whom Jesus called father, where Jesus learned to hear and he practiced hearing and he practiced waiting and he became accustomed to the voice of his father. So much so that then in public, when he's talking with people, praying for people, answering questions that the scribes, the Pharisees are throwing at him, it's natural. And those are key words. It's automatic.
That's a key word. Almost like a, where Jesus was able to trust that he would hear the voice of the father when he was in the game, if you will, because he has spent so much time practicing hearing the voice of the father when he was alone with his father. And so again, spending time with Jesus is much more than simply practice, but it is certainly not less. This is such an incredible passage.
Let's just take a little bit of time and read this passage, right? I only work the works that I see the father working. The son can do nothing by himself. He can only do what he sees the father doing.
And read the passage until you begin to experience the presence of Jesus and then stop and then listen and relax and enjoy. And if you finish the passage, that's fine. Then just stop and listen and enjoy. Maybe even walk around.
Whatever feels natural, just listen. And God can speak in all kinds of different ways. God can speak in our emotions. He can speak to our mind.
He can remind us of things. He can bring back a memory. He can remind us of a vision or a dream. He can bring us to a certain experience.
And he speaks in all different kinds of ways. And what we're doing in this season of the podcast is we're practicing hearing the voice of God. And as we practice it, it's not only going to become natural to hear it when we're alone with Jesus, but it's going to become natural to hear the voice of God when we are doing life and praying for people and in the game, if you will. Because hearing God's voice is very natural.
Right? Paul talked about the way Paul said it was Christ is in you. So hearing from God will often feel like it's welling up from within. We'll just have this thought or we'll sense a strong encouragement or God will bring to mind something.
It could be a scripture or through a scripture. It could be through a sunset. And, you know, I probably have to land the plane of this podcast because I try to do these in 10 minutes, which is sometimes difficult. But, you know, we could talk on and on about this.
The reality is we're not going to learn to swim unless we jump in the water. Right? We can talk and talk and talk and training is good, but unless we jump in the water, we're not going to learn to swim. And so what I'm advocating is that we just jump into the water of prayer over the next 365 days and we're going to learn how to swim.
We're going to learn how to hear. We're going to learn what the voice of God sounds like and how he naturally speaks to us and how he uniquely speaks to us. And we're going to learn that and practice it. And then it's going to become a bit more automatic in life, in the game, in the prayer encounter.
So let's do what has often been called just practicing the presence of God. Read the passage, listen, wait, respond by talking, listen a little bit more because there's this incredible connection between our private hearing and prayer encounter and our public living and prayer encounters. So enjoy. We'll talk soon.
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