The best time to start a personal relationship with God is now through the help of a daily devotional. Here are five tips to grow leaps and bounds today.
Having a sound personal relationship with God is greatly improved by a daily devotional. It allows an individual to create a strong bond with God with the help of the word. As one works on this relationship, it becomes easier to face every day life with God on your side.
The best way to go about this is to spend at least 15 minutes every day in a daily devotional to focus on the word and discern the will of God to keep your life on track through faith. For many, this may be challenging because everyone lives a busy life but if you are really serious in cultivating your faith, doing this and making time is not impossible.
There is also great online help available in terms of having a daily devotional. Websites offer materials and bible guides which will help in understanding scriptures better and developing insights which will lead to a bolstering of spiritual life.
Are you ready to start your own daily devotional? Here are some tips that will set you off in the right direction.
Pick the best time available. A daily devotional is about forming a habit. The best thing to start with is a commitment that you will do it every day and the best way to support that is to do it at the same time daily. What you need to do is pick the best time of the day or evening where you are alone, quiet, and away from distractions. Once you have selected this time, give yourself 15 minutes every day to pray and meditate on God’s word.
Get material to use in meditating. You can pick out a verse or a book in the bible that you are interested to meditate in. There are many translations of the bible and you may want to sort through those too. Sometimes one translation is harder to understand than others so for your daily devotional, make sure you pick one that is easier on the mind and body. To make things even simpler, you can look up in the Internet and see some selected verses and other materials already prepared for your daily devotional.
Start with a prayer. Before you start your daily devotional, before you do anything, spend some time praying and asking God in your little space to bless you with understanding and wisdom so that you can fully comprehend the daily devotional that you are about to consume. Ask for guidance that you can learn what you need to learn and for you to be able to use that new knowledge in improving your daily life.
There is nothing wrong with going slow. Your daily devotional is about you investing in yourself and trying to cultivate your relationship with God. It is okay if you go slow. There is absolutely no need to rush. You can use a Bible-Guide to make sure you are at the right pace. Generally, it is best if you tackle a few verses at a time. If you go one chapter after another, that may be too much information to process for a daily devotional. It may lead to frustrations which may result to you quitting the daily devotional altogether instead of you getting inspired to continue with it.
Apply what you have learned. As you do your daily devotional, make sure you also look for opportunities for you to apply what you have learned. Developing a personal relationship with God is not about study but ultimately about action so make sure you apply what you have learned. Check out ideas in taking action on your daily devotional.
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The above article is good, as far as it goes. But I want to add a quote from another devotional.
Be Saturated in the Bible
Ten minutes a day in the Bible will not cut it in this world. This is the very Word of God. Read it. Meditate on it. Memorize large portions of it. I didn’t hear anyone recite from memory a paragraph of the Bible until I was 20 years old. I only heard verses. Never 20 years in the church. I never heard a paragraph of the Bible recited from memory and the effect it had on me. When Art Lewis recited Matthew 6:25-33 was paradigm changing in my life. Memorized chapters of the Bible are important. Memorized chapters. Memorize whole books. Memorize the Sermon on the Mount. Memorize particular psalms. I doubt that anyone will be an effective Christian in our day, standing against the culture, and for the culture, without much Bible memory.
But you have to start somewhere. Thus the original devotion is good, and I posted it.