two most important ingredients are also squeezed out of your life. You watch, as soon as you

get rushed or overwhelmed, the two most important things that we should never let go of are

often the very first things to go. What are those two things?

The first thing, if you are taking notes is intimate time with God. Intimate and consistent

time realigning daily with God, because by nature our hearts are out of alignment. Daily

we realign our hearts with the Word of God, with His truth and with His presence. Jesus

said in Matthew 6:33; He said, "But seek

first his kingdom and his righteousness, and all these things..." you know, where you are

going to live and what you are going to wear; "...all these things will be given to you

as well"; when you seek Him first. A lot of you are going to say, "Well you know, that's

real good for you preacher guy, we know you work Sundays, but we don't know what you do

the rest of the week so you can have time with God. We live in the real world, I don't

have time to have time with God." I would argue all day long that you don't have time

not to have time with God; you don't! If you want everything else to be added unto you,

you seek Him first. It's like the tithe, you put aside the first and He blesses the rest.

You seek Him first and the rest of your day is aligned to the heartbeat of God.

I will give you the best example of this. My wife, Amy, is one of the most spiritually

productive, relationally productive people that I have ever met in my entire life. I

just want to tell you about what she does. First of all, last week I asked her how the

Margin message spoke to her. She said, "Well, it was a good message but I've got margin";

and she does. I want to tell you what she accomplishes.

Now first of all, I want to acknowledge that we have a wonderful friend who is actually

in this experience that works with us in our home. This was a very difficult thing for

Amy to allow because she is like, "You know, a good mom has to do everything!" What I tried

to convince her of, is that if you do have financial margin, one of the best things you

can do is you can bring someone else in to do what someone else can do, to free you up

to do what only you can do. Gentlemen, I will just give you a little word that will make

your wife really happy. If you have financial margin, you can hire someone to help relieve

her of housework, or you can get up off your buns and you can do some yourself; but, it's

a great way to do what anyone can do to free her up to do what only she can do. Ladies,

if you like that you can send a donation to the Groeschel college kid fund and we will

make sure that it goes to the right place! But, when we freed Amy up to do some of the

other things, let me tell you what she does, and she does with margin in her life, I made

a list:

First of all, she homeschools our six kids. People say, "Well, you guys homeschool"; I

don't, she does it all. She homeschools our six kids and spends an enormous amount of

time nurturing our children. She maintains our house. She takes care of me; and I must

say I am exceptionally high maintenance in every way! She serves our church, unpaid as

a volunteer and works with me caring for people, and volunteers in so many different capacities.

She is involved in a couple of nonprofits, helping with adoptions and helping pastor's

families that are very important to her. She speaks to woman's groups, to homeschool groups

on behalf of our church, she writes curriculum, she mentors a group of very young women. She

mentors and leads a Life Group for other women, and she leads a Life Group with me, and she

is phenomenally productive with tons of margin. Ladies ask her all of the time, "How do you

do it? What is your secret?" Here is what she says, "My secret is, I give the first

part of my day to God." They are like, "How do you have time for that?" She says, "I don't

have time not to do that!" Here is what happens. When she gives the first portion of her day

to God, she has realigned her heart to her Heavenly Father, then during the day she is

very sensitive to the things she should do and not do. When there are distractions that

are not from God, she very easily says, "No". When there are interruptions that are obviously

from God, it's easy for her to tell, and she says, "Oh, this is obvious God wants me to

do this and so I am able to say yes to it", and have margin to do it. Then, check this

out, she is very secure in who she is. She doesn't need to say yes to your invitation

to help her feel good about herself, to have you like her because she is secure with who

she is in Christ.

I will give you an example. She was nominated to be the Mother of the Year in our state.

Kind of a big award, she looked at it and she said, "You know, I don't have time for

that, no thank you!" That is exactly what the Mother of the Year would say; "I don't

need that!" I love that because she didn't need someone else to say here's an award to

validate you, now you are a good Mom. She is very busy being a good Mom, and doesn't

need someone from the outside to say, "Oh, we like you, we value you, we approve of you";

because she's already approved by God daily in her time with Him.

Last week, I asked you to spend five minutes just being in the presence of God. This week,

I challenge you to double it; double it, go to 10. Open up God's Word this week daily,

first thing, and just take it in. Realign your heart to the things of God and watch

as the rest of your day, things are more productive and more in place because you have sought

first the Father of all. The first thing to go is the most important thing. Intimate time

with God.

The second thing, if you are taking notes, that very few of us have is what I call intentional

times of rest, intentional times of rest. Jesus said in Matthew 11:28-29; "Come to me,

all you who are weary and burdened"; those who are overwhelmed, those who are hurting,

those who are single parents and do not think you can make it another day, those who are

business owners and are stressed, those who are financially worried right now; "Come to

me, all you who are weary and burdened"; and what will I give you? Jesus said, "I will

give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart,

and you will find rest for your souls." The very thing that many of us do not have; rest

in our souls, if you will come to Him.

Check this out. Most of us, when we get busy, and when we lose margin, we feel like we cannot

afford to take a day of rest. God worked six days and on the seventh day what did he do?

He rested! One of the 10 Commands, "Thou shalt honor the Sabbath"; take a day of rest. In

the Old Testament, God said; "You can work the land for six years, on the seventh year

you cannot plant and you cannot harvest, you have to give it a year of rest." Do you think

anybody would do that today in our businesses? Ain't no way! No! We have to make money, we

have got to produce! And God is saying, "You don't understand, if you'll work the land

six years, and give it a year off, you will produce more in the six then you would in

the seven." It is a principle of faith.

Here is the deal. Most of you think that you are too busy or too important to truly take

a day of rest. "You have no idea how important I am! You have no idea! I can't do that!"

What are you saying? God's principles are not true, that is what you are saying. You

don't truly believe that to rest will make you more productive and more spiritually healthy;

it's a faith issue, it's one of the first things to go. Our culture is like, "Yea, I've

gone a whole year without a vacation!" Oh, that's real smart! Let me ask you this, those

of you that are Christians; do you think it's wise to neglect time with God daily? Do you think it's wise to not honor God with

one of His top Ten Commandments to rest?

Here is the deal. You think that you don't have time for these important things and the

reality is, you don't have time for the most important things because you are out of alignment

with God. I will not surrender to culture and I am fighting with everything in me to

be different, to be weird, because normal is not working. If you don't have margin,

you are missing out on the most important things. Realign daily with time with God,

rest, rest in your souls. Or, you can just be normal.

God, I ask that the truth of your Word would just penetrate our hearts, that we would truly

be very careful then how we live.

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