Do you ever think any of these thoughts?
If I have my devotions, God will be pleased with me. If I have don't devotions, God will be disappointed with me.
Having daily devotions makes me more spiritual.
If I have devotions my day will go better. If I don't, I know it will be a disaster.
I have to have daily devotions - every good Christian does.
These thoughts tend to keep us in bondage to lies. The truth is "if we belong to [God], we already have his favor; He could not love us any more and He could not love us any less."
So if those are reasons to have devotions, why should we have them? In this week's chapter, Nancy gives us four reasons for quiet time that affect our inner life:
- Communion - to experience intimate union with God, who desires a deep, growing relationship with us.
- Purification - to cleanse our hearts and our lives. God uses the water of the Word to cleanse us. (John 17:17; 15:3; Ephesians 5:25-26).
- Restoration - to have our supply of grace, strength, and wisdom replenished and to gain fresh perspective and renewed desire and strength to serve him another day.
- Instruction - so that God would show us what He is like and how to live in a way that pleases Him.
She goes on to ask, "whom does the Lord teach? He instructs those whose hearts are humble - those who have a teachable spirit, whose who know how little they know and how much they need to learn. And He teaches those who fear Him and those who reverence and stand in awe of Him."
I don't know about you guys, but I would never use the word "teachable" to describe myself. But I am growing, and hopefully one day, that will change.
So my questions for the week are:
What are some inferior motives you have for spending time with God?
Think of someone you share a close relationship with. What are some elements of that relationship that help make it successful, and how can you apply it to your relationship with God?
If you haven't already read the chapter, I would encourage you to do it. It's such an amazing chapter, full of so much wisdom, and I think I covered about 3%. If I could I would quote the entire book!
To answer my own questions, I think one extremely wrong motive I have for having devotions is that I believe I need to have quiet time in order to even be a Christian. I know that sounds weird, but I am just coming out of a slump in my walk with God that I've been in for months, and the devil was actually able to question my faith because of it. But thankfully God is faithful, and is consistently calling me back to Him!
ReplyDeleteAnd for a relationship, I think one element that helps me is discussing my feelings and feeling understood. I think I need to spend less time praying for things, and more time just talking to God.
Hmmm a wrong motive for having devotions...I guess so I can be a 'better' Christian? That might be the wrong way to look at it, since I can't get any 'higher' in God's eyes than I already am. Quiet time is more for my personal benefit and the 4 points Nancy makes than to make me look/sound better to other Christians.
ReplyDeleteAs for a relationship...I like to listen. I like when people disclose things to me. So having devotions would help me get to a place where I feel like God is talking to me. I like to be able to talk things out too. With other people, this isn't so much to help them solve the problem as it is that, and I'm not sure about this, but maybe I think better when I hear everything aloud. So if I could have this same thing with God and be able to hear his response, which would be the ultimate I could ask for, then that would save me having to try and be the problem solver on my own.
That's pretty deep Gabby...but then you're always deep! lol I would love to hear God speak to me too. Sometimes its so frustrating asking Him for answers and never hearing a reply.
ReplyDelete