How to effectively have Personal Devotion

Perhaps you are wondering how can you be consistent in your personal devotion and prayer. You might be even seeking to grow sanctification. Then, I hope this short piece will help you do so. It has been my desire to grow in knowing my God more and more. This has to go in hand with the study of scriptures and prayer. How shall we know our God if we never study His Word? God has revealed Himself in scripture and those who want to know him must study His Word.

Study to shew thyself approved unto God, a workman that needeth not to be ashamed, rightly dividing the word of truth. 2 Timothy 2:15

Please do not think I have been consistent in the study of the scriptures. I just found out last week how I had neglected the precious word of God. My friend called me and asked me how I was doing in the study of the scriptures. He wanted to know which book I was studying and where I was. Well, I was not studying any book! And he offered me a way on how to study the scriptures.

So, here I am going to share some tips he shared with me on how to do it. Personal Devotion is the best method if you want to grow in godliness, kill habitual sins, and grow more and more in the Lord.

1. Set aside a particular time each day for personal devotion

If you want to study God’s Word and you don’t want to miss it every single day, then you must set aside a particular time for personal Devotion each day. This will make sure, you cannot miss or forget. Do not depend on feelings when it comes to studying God’s word. I would recommend that you have your personal Devotions in the morning immediately after waking up.

This will make sure you will never forget having them. Sometimes, you may have a very rough day and in the evening you may be very tired. You can have personal devotions for either 15, 30, or 1 hour depending on how busy you are. This will make sure, you will never miss it.

2. Choose A book for your Personal Devotion

Don’t just take the Bible, open it anywhere and read the passage your eyes land on. Be systematic. Study a certain book, it may be a New Testament book or Old Testament. We should be willing to study the whole Bible and therefore we must be systematic in our study of the scriptures. Do not cherry-pick the passages you love to read and discard others. Remember Bible is not a buffet, where you select what your gut feeling tells you and leave the rest. It is God’s word. See to it that you treat it well.

3. Pray before Studying the Word

Prayer is the key to understanding the scripture. Pray to the Lord that He may show you the hidden treasures in His word. Pray that He may open your eyes and make you see. Pray that in your personal Devotions, you may see his goodness and faithfulness. Pray that through reading the scriptures, your broken spirit may be healed, and your spiritual thirst and hunger maybe be satisfied. Pray that He may teach you something you don’t know. There is no doubt in this, if you Pray, the Lord will grant you this desire.

4. Read and Mediate the Passage for the Personal Devotion

Read the whole chapter at first. Then divide the chapter into thoughts. Focus on a few verses for your study. Read the verses you have selected again. See what is the author saying. What was the intent of the author? See that you don’t miss the big picture while focusing on lesser issues. For example, someone doing 1 Peter 1:1-2 may start focusing on the mentioned places and end up missing the main point of the verses he or she is studying.

Ask them what is God teaching me from the passage. This is changing facts to doxology. See what the Word is saying in the selected passage. You may need to write this down. See how God wants you to respond to His Word. After the Word has taught you something about God, study to see how God expects you to respond to that truth.

5. Memorize the Key Verse and meditate on the personal Devotion that whole day.

Now, after reading that passage, see the verse that is carrying the main thought and memorize it. Spend the whole day when free thinking about that passage you read. Memorize the scriptures and store them in your head. Pray also that God may work in your heart to keep the truths you have learned.

By Doing this, you will find you have a consistent Bible study and you will find your soul flourishing day by day because of daily collecting true manna from God’s Word. Do not depend on what you read on Sunday or Bible study to always keep you. See that you study the word consistently.