What Are Devotions and Why Are They Important?

What are devotions and why are they so important? This is a very good question. Come along with me as I hope to answer this in a simple way.

What are Devotions? What kind of word is that anyway, and what in the world does it mean? Many may have heard that it’s very important to have “devotions” in their Christian walk, yet they may have no clue to what that means. Well let’s break it down into what it is, and what it does for us.

What The Word Devotion Means

First, let’s explore what the word devotion actually means. Looking up the definition on the Oxford Languages, it would tell us that devotion is a love, loyalty, and an enthusiasm for a person or cause. We also may describe it as a commitment or steadfastness. These terms are all very good ideas of what our personal devotion to God means. They are all part of having a devotional life and it’s importance.

Personal daily devotions is a daily love, loyalty, enthusiasm, steadfastness and commitment to reading the word of God (the Bible) and praying to God. You may think, there is not enough time in my day to read and pray every single day of the week! Regardless of how you feel, there is always time. Sometimes we may have to do it on the run and that’s ok.

By the end of this chat I hope you will find that devotions are the most important part of your walk with God, because lets face it, without devotions there is no walk with God. That’s what being a Christian is all about. A personal walk and daily talk with the creator of the universe.

The Importance Of Devotions

Going to the Word to Find Our Purpose

First, lets look at the Bible to see why we were created. In the book of Revelations 4:11 it says that all things were created for His pleasure. So this tells me that everything, including the human race, is created for God to enjoy.

Secondly, let’s look at the book of Isaiah 43:7 which says that we are created for His glory. God created us to glorify Him. Well, what does glorify mean? Once again, we can look at the definition. According to Oxford Languages glorify means to give praise, lift up, elevate, worship, exalt and revere.

We can conclude with these verses and definitions that our sole purpose on earth is to bring God pleasure, to give Him praise, to lift Him up, to elevate Him, to worship Him, and to revere Him. In other words, daily devotions. It is a daily worship, enthusiasm toward God, which admittedly there will be days that are not as enthusiastic as others. Our human nature and our weakness will shine through at times. However, that is where the daily commitment part of “devotion” shows up. You just do it even when you don’t feel like it. Now to put it all together.

Reading The Bible In Our Devotions

Now that we have defined our words and our purpose, what does devotions look like in our every day life? Look back at our first purpose again.

We are to bring God pleasure but we do not know how to do this on our own. Therefore we need to daily read the Bible, study it, and learn what it says. This is allowing God speak to us and show us what He likes and does not like. It will show us what makes Him happy and what hurts Him. The Bible is simply our guide to what brings God pleasure.

I would like to point out what might seem obvious, its not just knowing what He likes but doing it as well. We have to implement what we have learned in our reading in our daily lives.

Prayer Life

Remember the second reason for being created? It was to glorify God. This is where our prayer life comes in. How can you give God praise, lift Him up, exalt Him, worship Him, and revere Him without praying? Lets pause for a moment because I don’t want you to get confused. To clarify, I do understand that we can glorify God through our daily lives, through songs, and through other avenues as well. I talk about that below in the additional notes. Nevertheless, we are talking about the importance of prayer life for now.

Prayer is a simple conversation to God. Here is a easy guide to praying.

The Guide To Praying

• THANK HIM: For what he has done for you. The Bible says in the Psalms 100:4 Enter His gates with thanks giving
• PRAISE HIM: And into His courts with praise (also part of the scripture from above)
• CONFESS: Anything that you may be struggling with and need His help with. He said in our weakness He is made strong found in 2 Corinthians 12:9
• PETITIONS: Bringing your burdens, requests, praying for lost souls, country, church etc. to Him.
• QUIET TIME: Give God time to speak to you as well.

In our prayer time we need to be glorifying Him. Even though prayer is a time to ask God for help and talk to him about our problems, I feel we too often get caught up in only bringing our problems to God. We want Him to save our loved ones and we have needs that we want to see him meet. Therefore, we go over a list of things we want to see Him do, meanwhile we forget to glorify Him. Do you feel this in your prayer life? Without a doubt, you can start today and make a change.

Even though God does want us to bring our problems to him and desires to save our loved ones, he wants us to love Him first and foremost.

Summarizing What Devotions Are And Their Importance

Devotions are a daily commitment to love and glorify God. It is also coupled with bringing Him pleasure by talking to him, reading His word, and applying it to our lives daily. Read the Bible and pray every day, it is that simple. It’s important because without this daily commitment we are not pleasing God.

Additional Notes

You can also glorify God in other ways. Here is a list of things that came to my mind. You may think of additional ways but here are a few.

• Put God first in all you do
• Chase after Him with your whole soul, mind, body, and strength
• Talking about God to others
• Giving to the poor
• Giving money to the church extra beyond tithe
• Helping others
• Sing songs that worship God
• Loving others
• Obeying Gods Word
• Trusting God in every situation

There will be so many days you don’t feel like getting out of bed in the morning and reading and praying. Do it anyway. It’s just like anything else. You may not always feel like going to work, or making meals, or whatever it may be that you do because you have to. Sometimes it’s a mind over matter situation. The devil will always give us excuses why we shouldn’t read or pray. The devil doesn’t want you to have the power in Jesus that prayer gives. But just like anything else in life that you do because you have to; DO IT ANYWAY!!! It is so important. Devotions are the life line between you and God.

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