The New year is fast approaching. Many of us find ourselves in the time of holiday hurry and fast paced days. We also find ourselves reflective. Wondering if we grew the way we wanted to this year. If we achieved any goals, lost weight, read our quota of books and so so on.
For many of us this is also a time when we examine our relationship with God. We ponder our wanderings and and celebrate His faithfulness. We find a renewed awareness of our need to spend time with God and a renewed desire and passion to pursue Him in the quiet spaces and places of our life.
In other words, we have a renewed energy and commitment to make our devotional time our top priority. So we download Bible reading plans, buy journals and organize our planners with outrageously early times to rise and read and pray.
This is all good and to be applauded.
What I want to do is give your five elements that will make your devotional time effective.
Routine
We begin with a bang. Energy and enthusiasm mark our efforts. Just like Genesis 1! We begin there, take notes, see new themes we never saw and revisit old ones.
Then as days go by we get into those sections that seem complicated to us, hard to understand and hard to retain an interest in. This is normal.
That is why it is important that these precious hours are fixed into a good rhythm and rigorous routine. There will be days when you don't want to do your devotions. Life happens, bodies get tired and kids... well... kids are kids.
But if we approach our time with God with a routine, we ensure a more effective and consistent devotional life. This is exactly what we see with the great saints of church history and in the Bible. I think specifically of Daniel. Daniel was a very busy man with a host of excuses to not make time to pray. But we are told he prayed thee times a day no matter what. We even see this with Jesus, who often rose early to go be alone with His Father in fellowship.
A good routine will have a repeated time, place and rhythm to it.
Relational
In our devotional time, we do not want to slip into some form of religious dullness. This is hard, and it will happen at times. But overall the way to avoid this is to remember we are engaging with a person. God is not a concept or theory. Nor is He simply the provider of some concept or theory. He is a person who fellowships with us on an intimate level.
Through the humanity of Jesus, we as humans come to God who is Divine and partake in His eternal life, which is marked by joy and holiness.
When Jesus taught us to pray, He immediately emphasized the relational aspect of being with God as our Father. There is an intimate expression of fellowship that awaits us as we spend time with God.
When we lose the relational aspect, we become cold and disinterested because it has lost it's power of personal connection.
Reflective
One of the most helpful things to do in reading our Bibles is to meditate and reflect. To learn to listen to the voice of our shepherd as we listen to God's voice in the text. It is in the process of reflection that new insights are drawn, new discoveries are made and growth begins to happen.
Think of all the times God spoke you as you reflected on His word. The ways He led you and loved you and changed you.
This also reinforces the words we read and aids us in memorization.
Renewing
Lastly, effective devotional time will be renewing. Paul describes it as having a renewed mind. God renews us as we spend time with Him. And this, is ultimately the goal. We want our time with God to change us.
I would like to emphasize something here. A good devotional time should have an impact on the rest of your day. It is not like we are to make Jesus first, and then move on to the rest of our day and compartmentalize our devotional time.
There is a power at work that is to shape our approach to the day. An effective devotional time will prepare me for what the day has so I can approach it as a disciple, equipped by Scripture and empowered by the Spirit.
So there are 5 key elements to having an effective devotional time. I hope you are encouraged and equipped and apply these elements to your life and live a faithful and fulfilling 2020.
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