I passionately believe that “Developing your personal dynamic disciplined daily devotions (yes it’s a mouthful!)” is a key to your spiritual health, vitality and fruitfulness. Get this right and it will become the SOURCE OF LIFE which impacts and fuels every single area of your life and ministry. Without it, you will end up dry, empty, discouraged, religious, self-absorbed… do I need to go on?

Here are a few thoughts about devotions:

1. The Gospel brings you to God; Your devotions will keep you close to God.
2. Devotion is more than commitment, it is DESIRE (heart) + DISCIPLINE (Consistent Actions)
3. Desire declares “I WANT”, and when pointed in the right direction it is a powerful motivator of the human flesh and spirit – much more powerful than “I must”/duty. Desire is expressed by David in Psalm 27v8  “My heart says of you, “Seek his face!” Your face, LORD, I will seek.”
4. Discipline cannot be separated from discipleship. I’m sure you can see that “Discipline” and “Discipleship” are very similar words, and while we are definitely absolutely  “saved by grace through faith”, there is no real discipleship without discipline. In fact , there is no success in any area of life without discipline.
5. Discipline is what gets you to do the things you dont want to do, in order to achieve that which you want to achieve.
6. Circle the number of days per week on which you currently typically have meaningful daily devotions: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7
7. Devotions, like bread, are required “daily”, as in “give us our daily bread” (not weekly/monthly!)
8. “Regular systematic Bible reading, results in regular specific Holy Spirit leading”

Lets get practical: HOW do I do it? Here are some tips from my personal experience:

Ingredients required to prepare and do:

• A clear decision (Do you really want and value this as a key part to your life? as much as your daily food?)
• The Time (When is best for you? Morning, midday, evening? “whenever” is only acceptable in a very few cases, like mums with tiny kids…)
• How long? (Don’t make unrealistic commitments. if you’re at zero, start with 15minutes and build up from there – you’ll soon want more!)
• Place (where? minimise distractions)
• Habit forming steps (what do I do to get from my alarm clock to the beginning of my devotions?)
• Bible (A readable version, preferably even more than one.)
• Tools (Journal, pen, to do list, notebook)
• Devotions plan/pattern – I use the acronym “A.C.T.  S.O.A.P” to guide me through a holistic devotional time. Download a planner I drew up below, and do listen to the full Coaching session online on our website at www.everynation.co.uk/media/

Download a Personal Devotions Planner

So: Seek His face, but beware: Doing this could seriously change your life!