Developing Your Devotions
posted: Oct 15, 2009
"Spiritual growth for a Christian is fully dependant upon his walk with the Lord!"
As true as this statement is, and as much as we would attest to its' truth, the act of walking with the Lord on a consistent daily basis is one of the hardest things in the Christian walk. Why is this true? How can we fix this? In my own personal walk I believe that I have found the answer to this perplexity and have found a model that I can form my personal devotions after. It is found in Mark 1:35 where the Bible says "And in the morning, rising up a great while before day, he went out, and departed into a solitary place, and there prayed."
This verse is speaking of Jesus - our ultimate example! In this verse we can extract a great model for how we can develop our own devotional walk with the Lord. I hope this thought will help you as we look at three steps the Lord developed in His walk with His Heavenly Father!
First, we see that He woke. What a job it is for some of us to wake up early in the morning to walk with the Lord. Aside from all of the excuses that each of us can come up with, the Lord Himself woke up early. Before His day began, before the hustle and bustle of life, before the "priorities" arose...the Lord woke up. Many times I can make the excuse that I had to stay up late for "ministry reasons,” and in turn sleep in a bit, and fit in my devotions later in the day. What a cop-out! In verses leading up to verse 35, we see the Lord was up all day the day before healing the sick, and casting out demons. I don't think our excuses can hold up to that! He Woke Up!!!
Secondly, we see that He went. We see very simply that the Lord had a place that He went to talk with the Lord. It is so critical today that we have a place to go to. It is critical that we go away from the TV, iPod, and cell phones and get ALONE with the Lord.
Lastly, we see that He worshipped. The Lord prayed. This is simple, but profound if you think about it. The Lord, God the Son; prayed to His Father, God the Father. Jesus made it a priority to pray and to give us an example of how to develop our walk with Him. Will you heed to this example or disregard the truth.
I challenge you this week to follow this example of Christ as He woke, went, and worshipped His Heavenly Father! It will take character and discipline to wake up, it will take commitment to the Lord and His Word, and it will take you counting the cost of walking with the Lord; but I can assure you that it is MORE than worth it!