Devotion Time!
In the life of a church minister, our days and weeks are filled with tasks we must complete. Just like any job, we will grow as a person the more we do our job as ministers. However, there are things that aren’t taught but learned that we must do in order to better ourselves, so we can better our churches.
One large and important aspect of a minister’s job is devotion. Devotion can be with family, friends, staff, church members and by ourselves. It is important for us to have daily devotion with God because our lives depend on it. Now, some may say this is going over the top dramatically. Compared to the lives of the military, public safety, first responders and medical professionals, our lives as ministers do not have a serious life or death situation as these do. In a strange way, our devotion times with God do have a life or death affect on others around us. We may miss the opportunities to witness to someone who needs Jesus or miss that last chance to speak with a church member before God calls them home to heaven. As leaders, ministers, and Christians we should see our devotion as steps to walking closer to God because if we don’t, we take one step back. That one step back gets farther and farther away from God the more we do not spend time in His Word.
Jon Bloom, author, board chair, and co-founder of Desiring God, says in one of his blogs from 2013 “Your devotions may have seemed ordinary today, but God is making something extraordinary through it.” What is sometimes a thought during our devotions with God is all part of God’s plan. Just as Jon said, our devotion may not make sense or fit into our life. But we do not know what will happen to us or someone we know within the next week, month or year that will remind us of that devotion we read. Yes there are skeptics that will tell us just because we read daily devotions does not mean God will use all of them for us. These skeptics are correct because they do not want us reading those devotions. They are pulling us down from God to get us back into the world. Those devotions we read will have an impact on our life or someone else’s and that is true for the devotions we do not read. The ones we miss will have a negative impact on us because we miss out on the blessings and power of God’s Word.
There is truly a Bible verse for everything that speaks to our lives, including devotions. Colossians 2:6–8 tells us:
“Therefore, as you have received Christ Jesus the Lord, walk in Him, rooted and built up in Him and established in the faith, just as you were taught, overflowing with gratitude. Be careful that no one takes you captive through philosophy and empty deceit based on human tradition, based on the elemental forces of the world, and not based on Christ. “(HCSB)
We are commanded to follow God once we receive Him into our hearts. That means doing more with God than just sitting around and waiting. God wants us to know Him more and worship Him daily. Verse 8 tell us to be careful that no one tries to capture us with thoughts based on the world. We must be on the look out for Satan trying to deceive us and get us away from God. God seeks us where we are and wants us to be a part of Him. There are many differences between Satan and God, but the way they seek us and get our attention is an important one. Satan gets our attention through deception and hate, while God uses love and compassion. God knows how we are as humans because He created us and was tempted by Satan.
The importance of devotion is something we will and will not see each time we read our Bible. It may take months or years for us to see what God was doing for us. The more we spend time with God, the closer we will be to Him and the more He will show us what He is doing for our lives.
