Why is devotion to god important

Every time I read, I am reminded of God's holy and perfect standard and my complete inability to live up to it. This regular reminder of my sin helps my humility and keeps me dependent upon His grace.

I need reviving on a regular basis. Coffee has a way of reviving my mind in the morning. Sleep has a way of reviving my body at night. A good laugh with a great friend has a way of reviving my emotions. But only God's Word by the power of God's Spirit has the power to revive our hearts—the very seat of all we are. In Psalm , the psalmist prays, "This is my comfort in my affliction, that your word has revived me.

The Spirit of God uses the Word of God to fill our hearts afresh with love, joy, peace, patience, and the rest of the fruit He has promised us Gal. Do not miss another opportunity to get on your knees, open God's Book, and beg Him to revive your heart in the way that only He can. Clearly, there is no shortage of reasons why our devotional lives are important, and my guess is that little of what I've shared thus far comes as a surprise to you.

Unfortunately, familiarity does not necessarily guard us from the legalistic motives that lurk in the dark corners of our hearts.

Motives matter. Why you do what you do is just as important as what you do. Prayer is never a price we pay to put God in our debt.

Bible reading is never a means of meriting the approval of God. We do not build a devotional life so that God will love us. We build a devotional life because, in Christ, God already does love us. If your devotional life degenerates into attempts at pandering for the favor and approval of God, you are devaluing the beauty of God's grace in Christ. Make no mistake, your devotional life is of the utmost importance. We can compare the devotional life to refilling the gas tank of a car.

Every car needs gas or fuel to function. As the car runs around, the gas slowly depletes, and the driver must revisit the gas station and refill the gas tank. We cannot pray once and run on this prayer for the rest of our Christian lives.

We will be as a driver trying to drive his car on an empty tank if we do! Neither can we meditate on the Word once and live fully for the next 3 or 6 months. The best illustration of the devotional life in the scripture is that of a tree planted by the river.

David describes the devotional life as follows. But they delight in the law of the LORD, meditating on it day and night. They are like trees planted along the riverbank, bearing fruit each season. Their leaves never wither, and they prosper in all they do Psalm —3 NLT. The devotional life practically plants us by the rivers of living waters.

Trees planted by the river always have access to water, so their leaves are always green and fruit abundant. Trees located away from the water source end up becoming dry and withered. Read more: Flourishing like trees planted by the river. As Jesus and the disciples continued their way to Jerusalem, they came to a certain village where a woman named Martha welcomed him into her home.

But Martha was distracted by the big dinner she was preparing. Tell her to come and help me. There is only one thing worth being concerned about. Mary has discovered it, and it will not be taken away from her. Mary, at the feet of Jesus, hearing His Word is a perfect picture of the devotional life. The dinner preparation distracted Martha. We will now review fundamental concepts in the definition of the devotional presented above: the essence, means, terminology issues, daily devotional, and devotional life.

This is the devotional effect mentioned above. This process is the treasure or gold of the devotional and is a mystery accomplished by the Spirit of God. The scriptures show us two primary means by which the Spirit of God produces the devotional effect on our hearts and lives:. Please note that I did not write meditation or Bible reading, but the knowledge of God. It is the knowledge of God entering our hearts during meditation or reading that produces the devotional effect. Knowledge and fellowship form a duo that forms the basis of including Bible reading and prayer in our devotions.

They work together in a way comparable to the combined effects of nutrition and exercise to build muscles. Food provides the basic building blocks for muscle growth. Exercise, however, functions differently. It does not offer building blocks for the muscle but engages the muscles in activities that stimulate growth and development. Knowledge is a building block of the human heart. Prayer promotes the development of our hearts using the building blocks already there, just as exercise stimulates muscle growth using nutrients supplied by food.

Read more: The mysteries of the knowledge of God at work in us. The devotional effect, as described above, can occur anywhere. It can transpire when you listen to a sermon in church, or when you meditate in your quiet place. When we make the devotional effect a daily occurrence at a specified time set aside for this purpose, we can appropriately call it a daily devotional or devotion. The idea of the daily devotional leads naturally to the concept of devotional life.

We use the term devotional life in a precise context in this article and our ministry. The devotional life is the habit of devoting time to be with the Lord and the flourishing life that results from this practice. First, the devotional life is a habit of diligently and consistently spending time with God, which creates the devotional effects on our lives. This habit requires consistency, devotion, and dedication.

Second, the devotional life describes the outward manifestations of the results of time with God. Our lives flourish as trees planted by rivers with effects in our spiritual lives, spiritual growth, and relationship with the Lord.

The devotional life is not merely reading a piece of daily devotional every day or reading a passage of the Bible. It is the knowledge of the Word received in the heart that produces the refreshing effect. With this understanding, we can move on to discuss a few subtle nuances regarding terminology. Read more: Your devotional life determines your spiritual temperature.

Christians have used different names to describe the concept of the devotional, as discussed above. Various examples include quiet time, meditation, prayer, Bible study. Each of these names focuses on an aspect of the devotional framework. For instance, meditation describes a specific element of the means of our time with God. It does not capture every part. Similarly, we cannot blindly equate prayer or Bible study with the devotional because they do not automatically lead to the devotional effect in themselves!

I prefer the term devotional as used in the context above. It captures both the means and the essence. The terminology is not as important as the act itself.

Read more: Re-ignite meditation in your life. The devotional is your key to a prosperous, intimate, enjoyable, and fruitful relationship with the Lord. Like trees, we receive sap from the Lord to bear fruit. If we want to continue bearing fruit, we must maintain the inflow of nourishment from the Lord. That inflow comes from consistently feeding on the Word and spending time with the Lord in prayer.

The Father has a place of continual supply from heaven, furnishing everything we need for a healthy, vibrant, and victorious life. That place is devotional life puts you in just the right place to receive from the Lord. Read more: How to be fruitful every day of your christian life.

There is a primary and a secondary purpose of the devotional. We have already considered the essence of the devotional, and this makes up the primary purpose of our quiet time with the Lord. It is to bring our hearts into practical communion with God so that He can nourish, build up, encourage, strengthen, inspire, and refresh us. As our hearts encounter and interact with Him, we experience spiritual renewal, growth, and a deepening of our relationship with Him.

The secondary purpose of the devotional is to prepare us for the day ahead. It prepares us for the tasks of everyday Christian living or Christian service.

Spiritual preparation for the affairs that life throws at us is essential. Jesus spent the entire night praying before He chose His disciples the following day Luke This act is not a coincidence. There is such a thing as spiritual readiness for life. A healthy devotional life keeps us from a rampant problem in Christianity today: spiritual dryness and emptiness.

A tree that grows by a river or stream will always flourish. However, one that grows in the desert will struggle for its life and ultimately wither. A desert is a place without water. Spiritually, the desert is a place without practical access to the presence and power of God to meet our needs. In a spiritual wilderness, Christianity is boring and spiritual life is a daunting chore. Believers living in the desert always struggle with practical elements of the Christian life, such as believing the Bible, spiritual understanding, joy, or peace.

Sin, bondages, and the flesh rule in dry places. Spiritual life is dead in dry areas. Spiritual dryness vanishes in the presence of the abundant living waters of heaven. Many believers do not live by the rivers of living waters because there do not overcome the obstacles and threats to spending time with God.

Spending time with the Lord is one of the most challenging things of our Christian lives today. The demands of modern life seem to be incompatible with taking time out to spend with an invisible God.

These demands might make us reconsider if prayer and meditation still belong to this age or we should leave them alone with the less busy generations past. The first lie is that life is too busy today to take time out regularly for God. Even contemporary teenagers have more crammed into a day than an entire combined household of their ancient counterparts! However, life is never too busy for God—who is life itself.

Second, we often assume highs and lows are a normal part of our Christian life. The scripture says about those who pay attention to the Word:. He is like a tree planted by streams of water that yields its fruit in its season, and its leaf does not wither. In all that he does, he prospers Ps. A tree by the river never experiences dryness.

Its leaves are fresh, and its fruit abundant every day of the year. This flourishing life does not imply we will not have problems or challenges. Time is not the primary reason most of us struggle with spending time with the Lord. Let me briefly discuss surprising hidden reasons many believers cannot spend time with the Lord consistently. Perspective of our needs and priorities. It was everything to him and was a matter of life or death. Sadly, the average Christian typically does not yet grasp the actual value of the Word of God.

We know how to make time for what we think is valuable. If you doubt this, think about how we treat our jobs or businesses which put bread on our table. We need divine wisdom to discern our most essential needs and set our priorities right.

Insight helps us distinguish the major and the minor issues in life based on perceived values and priorities. This casualty of ministry might shock some of you. When Ministry should not erode our intimacy and relationship with the Lord. The word enemy here refers to things that are actively opposed to a healthy devotional life.

I will enlist a few of them here:. Yes, the flesh is number one! That flesh is you and me. The flesh body and mind does not like the things of God, but the things of the world. Try getting up in the morning to pray, and your body will give you a million reasons you should not. That same body can stay up all night watching your favorite movies or TV shows.

Read more: Living according to the flesh. Distractions are things that interfere with the time we set aside to spend with the Lord. Would you mind thinking of the escalating number of items in our day begging for our time? Some are legitimate, while others are not. Examples include entertainment or even the regular issues of life, like the case of Martha above. The religious spirit robes us of the essence while leading us to become obsessed with the form.

For example, we are cautious about following the steps in Bible study, even if nothing is entering our hearts. We could mumble a few prayers to ensure we have prayed for the day, even if there was no fellowship with God. The religious spirit ruins the devotional life. In that attitude, God exists solely to solve our problems in life. We will attend all prayer meetings when the situation is critical.

It is proper for us to define not only what the devotional is but what it is not. Let me enlist a few things the devotional life is not. The devotional life is not reading daily devotionals every day.

It is possible to read devotional after devotional and never indeed have a devotional! Daily devotionals can be an excellent vehicle to help us in our quiet time when used correctly.

Still, they can become a hindrance if we do not use them wisely. The habit of consistently reading the Word or praying is not a means to prove your devotion or commitment to God. When we think God loves us more or we are better than other Christians because we are consistent in Bible study or prayer, we are in trouble. Beware of the religious spirit. The Word will inspire us, but God did not give us the Word primarily to inspire us.

He is not a motivational speaker. He gave the Word to impart life, build up, encourage, comfort, correct, and often rebuke us. Christian religion is the religious spirit at work in Christianity. They had devotionals as prescribed, but God never had a devotional with them.

We could pray and read devotionals for 50 years with no noticeable changes in our hearts if we embrace the form and ignore the essence.

Read more: Are you tired of Christian religion? The devotional life is only one crucial facet of our Christian lives and not everything. There is more to the Christian life, Bible study, or prayer than our limited time spent in devotions. With this understanding, let us now review critical practical concepts for adequately understanding the devotional life. There are still a few essential concepts that we need to understand regarding spending time with the Lord.

You will find relevant links to related posts and articles that will get into a little more detail as required. Saints of old used the words positional and practical to describe our lives in Christ. Positional refers to the spiritual realities of our born-again spirit. For a few minutes every school morning, we pause and listen to a staff member or student share a passage from the Bible and a brief message God has laid on his or her heart.

A time of prayer follows for our student body and whatever else may be going on in the world at that time. This small amount of time we take each morning has four powerful benefits:. These short daily devotions help us remember the important truths of what being followers of Jesus is all about. It's a designated opportunity for everyone in the building to stop and reset their minds. This dedication of time set aside for personal reflection becomes habit-forming for students and teachers.

They become filled up by the Word every day and come to miss this calm beginning on days when school is not in session. MPCS is fortunate to have the freedom to begin each day with a devotion provided by faculty, staff, and student leaders.

However, a daily devotion may not be possible at every school or workplace. Because of the value we have gleaned from having this daily time with God, we believe it is worth the effort in trying to prioritize this initiative in your organization.

If a daily group devotion is not plausible, instead create a time each morning to personally read scripture and pray. It is amazing how this short, quiet time helps to focus the whole day on the things that matter most. To learn more about how MPCS integrates prayer and Biblical teaching throughout a rigorous curriculum, please click here.