God’s attributes are on display in the natural world: “The heavens declare the glory of God, and the sky above proclaims his handiwork.” Creation is a testament to His attributes, and understanding the world He’s made can help us understand Him. When we are surrounded only by the things that man has made, it is much harder to focus on God, but when we are surrounded by nothing but what God has made, there is little else to focus on but Him. We are not capable of handling the noise of life perpetually. Jesus had to “withdraw,” partially because He was being intentional about spending time with the Father, but also because of the crowds that were increasingly seeking Him out. 

Matthew 14:10-13
…He sent and had John beheaded in the prison, and his head was brought on a platter and given to the girl, and she brought it to her mother. And his disciples came and took the body and buried it, and they went and told Jesus. Now when Jesus heard this, he withdrew from there in a boat to a desolate place by himself.
There are a number of passages that mention Jesus seeking solitude in a “desolate place,” but not just in moments of sorrow or pain. We see a pattern of Jesus routinely looking to get away from the crowds and spend time alone with the Father. As people who bear the name of Christ, it’s worth asking: what does Jesus’ pattern of withdrawing to desolate places mean for us?
What Does It Mean to “Spend Time with God?”
If you’ve been in church more than a few days, then you’re familiar with the terms “quiet time” and “devotions” to mean a specific time set aside each day for reading the Bible and praying. Unfortunately, when “having devotions” is discussed, it’s typically in a negative sense, referring to our lacking and inconsistency. This isn’t necessarily the same across all age levels – some are going to have more time flexibility by default – but in typical conversation, we lament the endless “struggle” of trying to maintain a consistent devotional time.
There’s no direct command in scripture that says, “Have a quiet time every day at 6 AM.” Instead, there are examples and patterns of men of God spending time alone with God, often in wilderness settings.
Here are some biblical examples:

 Enoch, who “walked with God, and was not for God took Him.” We can only speculate what his relationship with God looked like, but it resulted in a premature exit from this earth without dying.
Abraham is called the “friend of God” and speaks to God face-to-face in the desolate places of Canaan.
Moses is approached by God in the barren wilderness of Horeb in the form of a burning bush.
Job, it is said, would “rise early” to offer sacrifices specifically for his children.
David spent much time alone tending to his father’s sheep before he was King of Israel. The Psalms that he wrote contain many of the verses that we use to remind ourselves of the importance of spending time with God, alone.
Jesus is often found praying alone in a “desolate place.”
Peter goes up to the rooftop to pray in Acts 10 right before receiving his vision.

Why Seek a Desolate Place?
While trying to maintain a “quiet time” is a crucial spiritual discipline to cultivate, we would do well to set aside time to withdraw to a desolate place – a place where all or most of what can be seen is of God’s, not man’s handiwork. Specifically, places that are devoid of development and people. Desolate sounds like a negative term in English – like a barren wasteland – but it really just means “solitary,” and “lacking in population.” Here are three specific reasons why it’s worth withdrawing specifically to a desolate place to pray, meditate on scripture, and seek God on a regular basis:

We are trying our best to follow Christ’s actions and patterns. We pray as He prayed (“pray in this manner”), we fellowship with others as He did, and most importantly, we strive to model the sacrificial love that He demonstrated for us by dying on the Cross for our sins.

Read More
Related Posts:

I am still learning about Law and Gospel through the scriptures, and Luther helps me take hold of them, because the flesh always abides and the Gospel is always counterintuitive. Thus, the good Doctor wisely teaches me that I will never fully learn these lessons until I am finally purged of my sinful, self-justifying flesh in glory. In summary, Luther teaches me that I am still a sinner (by nature) and righteous (only by faith), and so I will need to hear and believe the Gospel every single day until I die and see my Savior face-to-face.

“What is a nice OPC minister like you doing constantly quoting Martin Luther on Twitter?” is the familiar refrain after people take a gander at my feed. Normally, I admit when I am guilty as charged, but there is no great guilt in learning from the good Doctor Luther. I would describe myself as an old-school, confessional Presbyterian. When I say I am “Reformed,” I mean that I sincerely subscribe to the Westminster Standards as a minister of the Gospel in the Orthodox Presbyterian Church. In my prior calling as a minister in the URCNA, I also gladly subscribed to the Three Forms of Unity because I am persuaded they fully agree with the Word of God.
In 2015, I left the PCA after 12 years of ministry there, in part, over the matter of confessional subscription. I was no longer comfortable with how the practice of “good faith subscription” seemed to be working out there, especially with the exoneration of ministers who publicly taught contrary to the Westminster Standards by espousing the Federal Vision error. I am sympathetic with my confessional brothers in the PCA, as they continue to deal with the inevitable if unintended consequences of good faith as it plays out now in the Revoice controversary.
In other words, I mean it when I say that I am confessionally Reformed. I am decidedly not confessionally Lutheran. So, what accounts for my love of Martin Luther? Luther taught me things that I believe are entirely compatible with my Reformed commitments. In fact, what I have learned from him clarifies and strengthens those commitments.
First, I learned from Luther that “Christ-centered” is not merely a slogan; it truly shapes the way I read Scripture, how I preach, and how I pastor. Luther said, “It is beyond a doubt that the entire Scripture points to Christ alone.”1 For some years, “Christ-centered and Gospel-driven,” and “preaching the Gospel to yourself” were popular slogans among the Young, Restless, and Reformed-ish crowd. Some, it seems, have moved on to other things, like mercy ministry or variations on the theme of social justice, but Christ as the center of Scripture is not a fad. The Gospel as the animating force of Christian life is not a gimmick. Luther understood the necessity of pounding this truth into the human heart: “The article of justification must be sounded in our ears incessantly because the frailty of our flesh will not permit us to take hold of it perfectly and to believe it with all our heart.” 2
I highly recommend Luther: Letters of Spiritual Counsel (originally published in The Library of Christian Classics but now republished via Muriwai Books for Kindle). There you can see Luther comforting the doubting and despondent by applying the healing balm of Christ and Him crucified to their wounds. There is certainly some good advice in his letters, but the main thrust of his pastoral counsel is to remind sinners and sufferers of the sufficiency of Christ. In his efforts to encourage, Luther frequently cites Jesus’ words in John 16:33: “In the world you will have tribulation; but be of good cheer, I have overcome the world.”
Luther also taught me the importance of rightly distinguishing the Law and the Gospel, both for my own sake and for the sake of my flock. Luther’s Commentary on the Epistle to the Galatians is a must-read for this purpose alone. As he explains, “It seems a small matter to mingle the Law and Gospel, faith and works, but it creates more mischief than man’s brain can conceive. To mix Law and Gospel not only clouds the knowledge of grace, but it also cuts out Christ altogether.”3 Is this yet another example of Luther’s gift of hyperbole in action?
Read More
Related Posts:

Written by Nicholas T. Batzig |
Wednesday, April 27, 2022
We worship the one person of the Son of God, who is both God and man. We now worship the Man, Christ Jesus, who is seated on the throne of God, the only Mediator between God and man–even as we will for all of eternity.

A number of years ago, Anna and I were at a concert to see one of our favorite singer-songwriters perform. During the break in between songs, someone in the crowd shouted, “You’re my hero. I worship you, man!” The performer stopped the show and said, “Don’t say that. You don’t know anything about me.” He then proceeded to tell the story about how he once tried to take his own life based on a struggle he has had with deep depression. When he was finished he said, “That’s why I said, don’t say that stuff.” It was a surreal moment. But, it was also quite a telling moment.
Men and women are ready to worship created beings while refusing to worship the living and true God. All of this is in step with what the Apostle Paul writes in Romans 1:25, “They exchanged the truth about God for a lie and worshiped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed forever! Amen.” This should cause us to ask a question about the apropriate object of our worship. To whom do we owe all of our admiration, affection, and allegiance? Who is worthy of our worship? The answer is straightforward. God, and God alone, is worthy of our worship. But, what about God incarnate, Jesus Christ? Can we worship the Man, Christ Jesus?
The Holy Spirit gives us ample amounts of proofs of the deity of Christ in Scripture. The fact that Jesus received worship from men and women–during his earthly ministry–has to be among the most marvelous proof of His divine nature. Four times in Matthew’s Gospel we read, “they…worshiped him” (Matt. 2:11; 14:33; 28:9; and 28:17). There numerous examples of men and women worshiping Jesus throughout the gospel records that help us understand that it is not only acceptable to worship the Man, Christ Jesus–it is right that He receives that worship.
First, when the magi presented their gifts to the child, Jesus, Matthew writes, “going into the house, they saw the child with Mary his mother, and they fell down and worshiped him” (Matt. 2:11). These Gentile astologers bowed down and worshiped a child. This would be idolatry if He were not “God over all blessed forever” (Rom. 9:5).
Read More
Related Posts: