Returning to a Devotional Life
Session 3: Enjoying Him Today
I. The Point of Life is to Know Him:
God certainly has stuff that He wants for us to do and experience but our primary reason for existence is to love Him. Loving Him is first, the point of life is to know God and enjoy Him each day. Our devotional life can be summed up in our efforts to enjoy God today as best as we can, to reach for God this day in hopes of connecting with Him. Our devotional life is all about the aim of our heart and the actions that follow in the wake of that aim.
A. Taste and See:
This is a room full of people who know His goodness, who know that He is worthy. We know what it is to connect to Him devotionally and to press into Him at a deeper level. I want to exhort us to stir ourselves to once again taste of His goodness.
“Oh, taste and see that the Lord is good! Blessed is the man who takes refuge in him (Ps. 34:8)!”
B. A Change of Focus:
We want to lay hold of the fact that our primary reason for existence isn’t to accomplish anything; it’s to love Him. It’s easy to say in a sentence, but it really requires us reigning in our thoughts and daily checking our motives to see if what we believe is really being fleshed out in our life and decisions.
1. Reigning in our thoughts.
2. Daily checking our motives.
3. Living what we believe.
C. Beholding Him:
In review from our last session, we want to make sure to take time to behold who He is. Taking time to just gaze, to meditate on Him takes real focus because you kinda have to leave Earth for a few minutes and go up somewhere to contemplate.
“One thing I have desired of the Lord, That will I seek: That I may dwell in the house of the Lord All the days of my life, To behold the beauty of the Lord, And to inquire in His temple (Ps. 27:4 NKJV).”
D. Inquiring of Him:
In effort to know Him deeper we also want to make sure that we are seeking Him out to discover new truths about His nature and what He wants for us. This takes time to seek God and gain understanding.
“The Lord looks down from heaven on all mankind to see if there are any who understand, any who seek God (Ps. 14:2).”
II. Practical Ways to Engage Him:
The following ideas aren’t comprehensive, but they may help provide some ideas for you about what you could be doing to help fuel your devotional life in this next season.
A. Start Your Day with Thanksgiving:
Begin every day with a time of giving thanks to Jesus for all the wonderful things in your life, this will cause your heart to connect with Him in an intentional way at an intimate level. Gratitude is powerful force in our soul.
“Let us come before him with thanksgiving and extol him (Ps. 95:2)”
“I will give thanks to you, Lord, with all my heart; I will tell of all your wonderful deeds (Ps. 9:1).”
“give thanks in all circumstances; for this is God’s will for you in Christ Jesus (1Th. 5:18).”
B. Tell Him that You Love Him:
Similarly, just saying the words I love you to the Lord is a powerful tool for your soul. Work this into your daily dialogue with Him, even plan a time of reflection about why you love Him.
“I love you, Lord, my strength (Ps. 18:1).”
“I love the Lord, for he heard my voice; he heard my cry for mercy (Ps. 116:1).”
C. Declare His Love For You:
What is even far better than telling Him that you love Him is declaring over yourself that He loves you. I was only bale to find a couple of instances in the Psalms of the psalmists declaring their love for God but countless examples of them declaring his love over them.
“But I trust in your unfailing love; my heart rejoices (Ps. 13:5)”
“Show me the wonders of your great love (Ps. 17:7)”
“Surely your goodness and love will follow me all the days of my life, and I will dwell in the house of the Lord forever (Ps. 23:6).”
“according to your love remember me, for you, Lord, are good (Ps. 25:7)”
“I will be glad and rejoice in your love (Ps. 31:7)”
D. Begin to Meditate on His Word Day and Night:
The Word of God is the breath of Jehovah in the Earth, it is alive, active and sharper than any sword. Work time into your daily life where you take just a small portion of scripture, maybe one verse and you meditate on it.
“Blessed is the one…whose delight is in the law of the Lord, and who meditates on his law day and night (Ps. 1:1-2).”
E. Pray in Tongues:
God gave the gift of tongues so that weary people could edify themselves by having the Holy Spirit pray through them and for them.
“For anyone who speaks in a tongue does not speak to people but to God. Indeed, no one understands them; they utter mysteries by the Spirit...Anyone who speaks in a tongue edifies themselves…I would like every one of you to speak in tongues (1Co. 14:2-5)”
“For if I pray in a tongue, my spirit prays, but my mind is unfruitful. 15 So what shall I do? I will pray with my spirit (in tongues), but I will also pray with my understanding (in English); I will sing with my spirit, but I will also sing with my understanding…I thank God that I speak in tongues more than all of you (1Co. 14:14-18).”
F. Start Praying the Word:
Pray the Word of God back to Him and He will awaken your cold heart. If you don’t already, then start praying the Apostolic prayers over yourself. This will greatly help to strengthen your inner man.
1. Understanding to know His will:
Paul prays that the Philippians would be able to have a love relationship with God that would continue to grow in understanding of His will.
“(Help me to) abound more and more in knowledge and depth of insight, so that (I would) be able to discern what is best (Php. 1:9-10)”
2. To grow in God’s love:
We all want to increase in the feeling and experience of God’s love; this is a great thing to pray over ourself. Paul articulates it well in his letter to the Ephesians.
“out of (Your) glorious riches…strengthen (me) with power through (Your) Spirit in (my) inner being, so that Christ may dwell in (my) heart through faith…being rooted and established in love, (give me) power…to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ, and to know this love that surpasses knowledge—that (I) may be filled to the measure of all the fullness of God. (Eph. 3:16-19).”
3. To mature in Christ:
It is a very venerable thing to pray that God will have His will in us. To pray for His to do in us what is pleasing to Him is a beautiful surrender and expression that we are fully submitted to Him.
“equip (me) with everything good for doing (Your) will, and…work in (me) what is pleasing to (You) (He. 13:21).”
IV. Responding to the Invitation:
It is not enough that we are exposed to challenging messages; the Lord wants us to turn our hearts to Him and receive grace to press in more.
A. Do Not Ignore His Beckoning:
We don’t want to become like those whose hearts hear a message but who are calloused and unable to respond.
“‘You will be ever hearing but never understanding; you will be ever seeing but never perceiving. For this people’s heart has become calloused; they hardly hear with their ears, and they have closed their eyes. Otherwise they might see with their eyes, hear with their ears, understand with their hearts and turn, and I would heal them (Mt. 13:14-15)."
B. Seize the Day:
Today, the first day of the new year is our chance to set things in motion in a the right way. Today is our opportunity; the Lord has given us today as the day to respond.
“This is the day the Lord has made; We will rejoice and be glad in it (Ps. 118:24 NKJV).”
C. Give Him More Time:
Make it your 2017 goal to carve out more time to connect with the Lord devotionally. I urge you today to make the decision, to strategize and to begin the new plan.
“choose for yourselves this day whom you will serve…as for me and my household, we will serve the Lord (Js. 24:15).”
“For I command you today to love the Lord your God…then you will live and increase, and the Lord your God will bless you in the land you are entering to possess (Dt. 30:16).”
D. Come Up with a Plan:
I want us to spend some time right now and come up with a plan. Maybe you’ve already started thinking through this for this year, maybe this is the first moment you’ve considered it. I want to give us some time to respond to the Lord. So everyone get out whatever you write stuff down on and get at least a few thoughts on paper.
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