Six Benefits of Daily Devotions by Jon Bloom

Private devotions aren’t magic. We know that (for the most part).
But still, we can be tempted to think that if we just figure out the secret formula — the right mixture of Bible meditation and prayer — we will experience euphoric moments of rapturous communion with the Lord. And if that doesn’t happen, our formula must be wrong.

The danger of this misconception is that it can produce chronic disappointment and discouragement. Cynicism sets in and we give up or whip through them to alleviate guilt because devotions don’t seem to work for us.
Our longing for intimate communion with God is God-given. It’s a good thing to desire, ask for, and pursue. The Spirit does give us wonderful occasional tastes. And this longing will be satisfied to overflowing some day (Psalm 16:11).

But God has other purposes for us in the discipline of daily Bible meditation and prayer. Here are a few:

Soul Exercise (1 Corinthians 9:24, Romans 15:4): We exercise our bodies to increase strength, endurance, promote general health, and keep unnecessary weight off. Devotions are like exercise for our souls. They force our attention off of self-indulgent distractions and pursuits and on to God’s purposes and promises. If we neglect this exercise our souls will go to pot.

Soul Shaping (Romans 12:2): The body will generally take the shape of how we exercise it. Running shapes one way, weight training shapes another way. The same is true for the soul. It will conform to how we exercise (or don’t exercise) it. This is why changing your exercise routine can be helpful. Read through the Bible one year, camp in a book and memorize it another year, take a few months to meditate on and pray through texts related to an area of special concern, etc.

Bible Copiousness (Psalm 119:11, Psalm 119:97, Proverbs 23:12): A thorough, repeated, soaking in the Bible over the course of years increases our overall Biblical knowledge, providing fuel for the fire of worship and increasing our ability to draw from all parts of the Bible in applying God’s wisdom to life.

Fight Training (Ephesians 6:10–17): Marines undergo rigorous training in order to so ingrain their weapons knowledge that when suddenly faced with the chaos of combat they instinctively know how to handle their weapons. Similarly, daily handling and using the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17) makes us more skilled spiritual warriors.

Sight Training (2 Corinthians 5:7, 2 Corinthians 4:18): Jesus really does want us to see and savor him. Savoring comes through seeing. But only the eyes of faith see him. “Blind faith” is a contradiction, at least biblically. Faith is not blind. Unbelief is blind (John 9:38–41). Faith is seeing a reality that physical eyes can’t see and believing it (1 Peter 1:8). And “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). So if we’re going to savor Jesus, we must see him in the word he speaks. Faith is a gift (Ephesians 2:8). 

And like most of God’s gifts, they are intended to be cultivated. Daily devotions are an important way to train our faith-eyes to see the glory of Jesus in his word and training our emotions to respond to what our faith-eyes see. Keep looking for glory. Jesus will give you Emmaus moments (Luke 24:31–32).

Delight Cultivation (Psalm 37:3–4, James 4:8, Psalm 130:5): When a couple falls in love there are hormonal fireworks. But when married they must cultivate delight in one another. It is the consistent, persistent, faithful, intentional, affectionate pursuit of one another during better and worse, richer and poorer, sickness and health that cultivates a capacity for delight in each other far deeper and richer than the fireworks phase. Similarly, devotions are one of the ways we cultivate delight in God. Many days it may seem mundane. But we will be surprised at the cumulative power they have to deepen our love for and awareness of him.
There are many more benefits. You could certainly add to this list. But the bottom line is this: don’t give up on daily devotions. Don’t whip through them. Don’t let them get crowded out by other demands.


Brick upon brick a building is built. Lesson upon lesson a degree is earned. Stroke upon stroke a painting is created. Your devotions may have seemed ordinary today, but God is making something extraordinary through it. Press on. Don’t short-change the process.

An Angliterian Prayer by Scott Sauls

The Episcopal / Anglican tradition has provided a rich resource, accessible to all traditions, in the Book of Common Prayer and Liturgy which is saturated with Scripture and provides excellent resources to guide us in our prayers. The following pastoral prayer, offered during CPC's services on Sunday, July 14, 2013, is an adaptation of several prayers from the Anglican tradition. Enjoy. 

Gracious Father, in our creeds we affirm that we believe in one, holy, catholic or universal church. We pray for your church around the world, the people that you call your bride. Fill her, fill us, with all truth, in all truth with all peace. Where we are corrupt, purify us; where we are in error, direct us; where in any thing us is amiss, reform us. Where we are right, strengthen us; where we are in want, provide for us; where we are divided, reunite us. We also pray that your kingdom would come, and your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven. May this also be so, Father. Everything in heaven and earth is your kingdom, Lord. There is not a single square inch in the universe that you do not look at and declare, “Mine!” Demonstrate your ownership over everything, Father. Heal the sick, according to your will. Strengthen the weak. Liberate the oppressed. Minister to those in prison. Feed the hungry. Lift up the poor. Hold and comfort the lonely, and put the lonely in families, in your family, Father. As for those of us who are your family, Father, fill us with faith, virtue, knowledge, temperance, patience, and godliness. Knit us together as your daughters and sons, and as brothers and sisters to one another. Lastly, Father, we remember that we are not only loved by you, and knit to each other…we are also your ambassadors to the world, called by you to follow Christ in His mission of loving people, places, and things to life. This being true, Father, we join millions of your children around the world asking this on our own behalf: Lord, make us instruments of your peace. Where there is hatred, let us sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is discord, union; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; where there is sadness, joy. Grant that we may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved as to love. For it is in giving that we receive; it is in pardoning that we are pardoned; and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. We pray this in the name of Jesus, who lives and reigns forever with you and the Holy Spirit. Amen. 

Save Me, O My God: A Prayer From Psalm 3:1-7

A Psalm of David, when he fled from Absalom his son.

O Lord, how many are my foes!

Many are rising against me;

many are saying of my soul,

there is no salvation for him in God. Selah

But you, O Lord, are a shield about me,

my glory, and the lifter of my head.

I cried aloud to the Lord,

and he answered me from his holy hill. Selah

I lay down and slept;

I woke again, for the Lord sustained me.

I will not be afraid of many thousands of people

who have set themselves against me all around.

Arise, O Lord!

Save me, O my God!

For you strike all my enemies on the cheek;

you break the teeth of the wicked. (Psalm 3:1-7, ESV)

God Saves Me In Battle: Psalm 55:16-19

But I call to God,

and the Lord will save me.

Evening and morning and at noon

I utter my complaint and moan,

and he hears my voice.

He redeems my soul in safety

from the battle that I wage,

for many are arrayed against me.

God will give ear and humble them,

he who is enthroned from of old, Selah

because they do not change

and do not fear God. (Psalm 55:16-19, ESV)

The Prayers of The Saints: Revelation 8:1-5

"When the Lamb opened the seventh seal, there was silence in heaven for about half an hour. 2 Then I saw the seven angels who stand before God, and seven trumpets were given to them. 3 And another angel came and stood at the altar with a golden censer, and he was given much incense to offer with the prayers of all the saints on the golden altar before the throne, 4 and the smoke of the incense, with the prayers of the saints, rose before God from the hand of the angel. 5 Then the angel took the censer and filled it with fire from the altar and threw it on the earth, and there were peals of thunder, rumblings, flashes of lightning, and an earthquake."

The Kingdom Prayer Matthew 6:9-13: Craig Keener

Many pagans added up as many names of their deities as possible, reminding the deities of all their sacrifices and how the deities were therefore obligated in some sense to answer them.  Jesus, however, says that we should predicate our prayers instead on the relationship our heavenly Father has given us with himself: we can cry out to him because he is our Father (Matt 6:7-9).

Jesus used some things in his culture, which was already full of biblical knowledge.  Jesus here adapts a common synagogue prayer, that went something like this: “Our Father in heaven, exalted and hallowed be your great and glorious name, and may your kingdom come speedily and soon…”

Jewish people expected a time when God’s name would be “hallowed,” or shown to be holy, among all peoples.  For Jewish people, there was a sense in which God reigns in the present, but when they prayed for the coming of God’s kingdom they were praying for him to rule unchallenged over all the earth and his will to be done on earth just as it is in heaven.  Jesus therefore taught his disciples to pray for God’s reign to come soon, when God’s name would be universally honored.

To ask God for “daily bread” recalls how God provided bread each day for Israel in the wilderness; God is still our provider.  To ask God to forgive our “debts” would stir a familiar image for many of Jesus’ hearers.  Poor peasants had to borrow much money to sow their crops, and Jesus’ contemporaries understood that our sins were debts before God.  To ask God not to “lead us into temptation” probably recalls a Jewish synagogue prayer of the day which asked God to preserve people from sinning.  If so, the prayer might mean not, “Let us not be tested,” but rather, “Do not let us fail the test” (compare 26:41, 45). 

- Craig Keener

Overcome Distractions by A.W. Tozer

But you, when you pray, go into your room, and when you have shut your door, pray to your Father who is in the secret place; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you openly. — Matthew 6:6

Among the enemies to devotion none is so harmful as distractions.

Whatever excites the curiosity, scatters the thoughts, disquiets the heart, absorbs the interests or shifts our life focus from the kingdom of God within us to the world around us—that is a distraction; and the world is full of them. Our science-based civilization has given us many benefits but it has multiplied our distractions and so taken away far more than it has given....

The remedy for distractions is the same now as it was in earlier and simpler times, viz., prayer, meditation and the cultivation of the inner life. The psalmist said “Be still, and know,” and Christ told us to enter into our closet, shut the door and pray unto the Father.

It still works....

Distractions must be conquered or they will conquer us. So let us cultivate simplicity; let us want fewer things; let us walk in the Spirit; let us fill our minds with the Word of God and our hearts with praise. In that way we can live in peace even in such a distraught world as this. “Peace I leave with you, my peace I give unto you.” (Set Of The Sail: Directions for Your Spiritual Journey, pp. 129-132)

- A.W. Tozer