Devotions Part One- How

I have a new nephew!
My sister had a baby on May 30, I was there the whole time and afterwards I was exhausted.
Exhausted and extra busy.
So I took a week off.

I'm back now and I have it in my head to write about devotions.

In the twenty-six years of my life I cannot say I have been very consistent devotion doer.
Most of the time my devotions get pushed aside in favour of things going on that day.
I was great at doing my devotions until my son was born.
I got to doing them again but getting up early wasn't something I could keep up.
And on and on it goes.
What I find amazing about spending consistent, dedicated time in the bible is how much you really grow.
It isn't by leaps and bounds but steady upward steps.

I don't believe there is one right way of doing devotions.
God doesn't give a how-to on that.
Scripture is full of commands to read, study, fast, and pray but how and when is completely up to us.

When I was first beginning to seek God my devotions were reading.
I would just read and read the Word.
I needed that badly since I grew up in church but hadn't even read Exodus for myself ever (so pathetic and shameful I know).
I needed the Word because I needed to be cleansed:

That he might sanctify and cleanse it

with the washing of water by the word,

Ephesians 5:26

My mind, heart, and soul needed cleansing from all the wordly influence.

Then I began to be under conviction that I needed to pray.

Thus I started by devotions by praying and ended them with a longer prayer.

I started a prayer book to keep track of requests and made a list of all the people I knew and divided them up into manageable groups to pray for.

Then I got bored.

Yep. Bored.

That sounds terrible doesn't it?

I had read most of the bible (I couldn't get very far in Leviticus and Deuteronomy) but it stopped soaking in because I stopped paying attention.

I stopped paying attention because I had already read it and felt like I knew it.

That's when I started to study the bible.

I got a notebook and studied each verse of whatever book I was reading.

Taking the time to dissect, cross-reference, and ponder each word of a verse in it's context has opened up the Word to me even more.

Honestly, sometimes I read on of Paul's epistles and the whole time I wonder what on earth he is talking about. When I stopped to take the time to go through each verse, see when the sentence started and where it stopped, read it in context and take it in with the everything else he was inspired to write, I began to understand more fully.

I believe God did that on purpose.

There are some books (Hello James, Titus, and Jude) where each verse stands alone and grabs you by the heart.

Paul has those stand alone verses too, but he has a lot more doctrine. Things to study and establish yourself in.

I do not go to any commentaries, if I am unsure of something I search the rest of the bible or I wait for a day or so and God gives me an answer. He always answers, often when I am at church or when I'm reading with my husband or son.

Studying the bible in depth also helps strengthen your knowledge of certain words, doctrines, and commandments.

For example, the word meek.

If you just read through your bible you come across it here and there. You get an idea of it in each verse  and you move along, learning of other things too.

I came across it one day and studied it in depth.

I knew Moses was meek and Jesus was meek, and God likes meekness but those things don't cover half of what God says about the meek.

Meekness is a fruit of the spirit.

Learning about it helped me understand it better and helped me grow into it and produce it in my life.

I intend to make this a devotion series (two or three posts at most) but let me encourage you, if your devotions have fallen off, if you just read for the sake of saying you read it, if you aren't as excited about the Word as you used to be, pick a book (ask God to help you) read it, and study it verse by verse.

I promise it will rejuvenate your walk with God and you will be closer to him.

I use www.thywordistrue.com to look up words and find verses when I need.

Two things:

Use a bible to study. Don't use an app on your ipad or a website to read.

Use your bible. Make notes, write cross references down in your bible.

It will help you as you study more and more books and you will remember it better having written it down. 

This method is best used on New Testament books, particularly the epistles.

I love reading the copious historical accounts found in the Bible, but as a New Testament believer, I need to establish myself in the doctrines, teachings, commandments, and encouragements written to me. Those books tend to be harder to read.

I hope this helps in some small way!