Devotions

I am composing this message based on a topic that came up this week, several times.  To make it simple I just titled it devotions, but it is so much more than that. I will start this with a little story.  I had a friend when I was growing up, he went to the same church camp in the summer, we ended up in the same National Guard armory together when we were in college, and he went to a church that a friend of my family pastored. This guy impressed me every time I met him, he was constantly reading his bible.  I walked into the armory one day and witnessed him reading his bible in the armory, not a popular thing to do, but I thought wow what a great Christian.  I know the question came up, no I did not read my bible while at the armory, but did carry a small pocket one with me.

This guy was a couple years older than me and I really began to look up to him.  While at college one day he invited me to visit his house and I went there with him, it was a really nice house and I was impressed with his Christian family as I had not met them before.  Then one day I hear from a friend in his church that he stopped attending church. I saw him one day and asked him what was going on, this was someone I looked up too and now he is “backsliding”.  He told me he could not deal with the false people, and issues in the church and that he would be better just doing his own studies and devotions.  I thought wow, what a “backslider”, that’s not how this works.

The years went by, and if you read my church post, then as you know my home church split and started having all their issues. It made me think, my friend did not really change, he continued reading his bible and being a strong Christian, at least until I loss contact with him.  It brought up a deep subject, I had been raised to spend time with God every day, reading and studying his word and in prayer.  I was also raised to be in church every time the doors were open, or you were not in God’s will.

Can you split these two things, church and devotions. Is one more important than the other?  I think these are deep and personal questions for each Christian to deal with God regarding.  Personally, in my experiences your personal walk with God each day is the most important thing in your life, and I believe the Bible clearly details this.  I also believe that every Christian needs time with other Christians to fellowship and grow.

Personally, I believe your personal devotions and walk with God and attending church should both be important to every Christian.  However, I also do believe if you have a strong daily walk with God and a strong Christian spouse always helps, then church may not be as critical, but still plays a role in a Christians life. You are not sinning if you miss some church services, or do not attend church one service a week.  I have heard pastors preach this.

The Bible seems pretty clear on this from my many years of reading and studying it.  I also know that many people don’t have that great daily walk with God, and may rely upon their time in church as possibly the only time that week they spend in God’s word.  I had a pastor once from the pulpit tell his congregation that he struggled with this, as he was very busy and found it hard to find time each day studying the Bible and in prayer,  yes he was a full time pastor.

I have to wonder sometimes if that is where we are headed, that Christians rely on the church services to provide them what they need from the Bible for the week.  This has traditionally been a Catholic practice, it sometimes makes me wonder how much their practices are coming into the Protestant Christian churches.  I think of I Thessalonians 3:10, when they mention day and night praying exceedingly, 2 Timothy 1:3 when Paul talks about praying for timothy day and night. There are so many examples in the Bible of the prophets, apostles, and the early church as a whole having a daily walk with God.

I don’t know in this current world we live in, how you can survive as a Christian without this daily walk.  It is what makes us the Christians we are.  I constantly see couples go to marriage retreats and after the couple days they are right back in the same routines, and no real change is made.  There is an old saying, the family that prays together, stays together.  I would go further with this. I have seen a lot in my experiences, but I know in my own life, the strong personal walk me and my wife have with God has been the strength and rock of our marriage.

Before we were married we discussed using a devotional book for the first year of our marriage, and we did. It was called “Quiet Times for Couples”.  It was the strong start we needed in our marriage.  We have done joint devotions on and off during our marriage, and just started a new one this year we are doing “The Love and Respect Experience”.  There are many couples devotionals out there, and I am not endorsing any specific one, I am just saying that not only is your personal walk important, but your families personal walk is important also, and your marriage commitment to God.  I think so many issues Christians have and go through can be helped with a closer walk with God, and I think daily time in God’s word and in prayer is so very critical.

Myself and my wife do our personal devotions and our couples devotions both, I feel we need to make time for the most important things in life.  I have heard a lot of complaints because people try to do devotions in the morning and then time gets away from them and they don’t do them. I know my mother did them in the morning, but she was up at 3:30am every morning so she ensured she had a couple hours in the morning to spend in devotions and prayer before she started the day.

I am not a morning person, and could not stand growing up to my mom singing hymnals at 5:30 am.  But now that I am older I can appreciate it. I do my devotions at night before I go to bed, you know the old saying that if you place a text book under your pillow at night, you will do better in school the next day because it will be on your mind all night as you sleep. what better than to fill your mind with the word of God before drifting off to sleep.  This way I cannot say I don’t have time, I may loose sleep, but I can make time at night to ensure I get my devotions in and my wife does the same.

I have done so many different devotion lessons over the years, but I started an old one that keeps coming around for me this year, “My Upmost for His Highest” it is an old devotional book, but I really like that if you read and meditate on it, there are some really good, deep lessons to learn from the scriptures that he points out.  Another one I continue doing over the years is “Unto The Hills” by Rev.  Billy Graham, there are several revisions of this one, and the 2010 one I like the best.  I started the last several years doing a series of devotionals entitled “Battlefields and Blessings” I have the Vietnam War, WWII, and Civil War ones.  I love the civil war one, it is such a great devotional, and those that know me, know my hobby is to study the Civil War, so I am not being bias, but it was such a blessing to me personally.  I have also done years where I do a topical study or just read sections of the Bible for my daily devotions.

I think having a set plan for your devotions is important to keeping them going.  This is a long write up, but it is something that has been on my mind, I think this topic is so important and so many people have an issue with it, including those in ministry. I hope this is a blessing to you, and may spark some great comments we all can learn from.  In Christ.