Devotion With Christ

It is a joy to spend these few moments with you this afternoon as we look at how we can develop a quiet time with Jesus. What I want to do really in this breakout is not necessarily give you some tips that are helpful for a moment in your day but give you something that you can carry with you throughout your entire day. I truly believe that each and every person needs to retreat to a quiet place to be alone with God but I also believe that what you gain from that time alone with Him cannot stay there. That which you gain from those moments must go out with you as you go about your day, as you come into contact with others, as you go to school and to church and to work, you name it. That time you spend alone with God is the most important part of your day. So what I want to do today is give you 8 tips on how to develop that time alone with Christ but before we even get to those 8 tips, I want to read Deuteronomy 6:4-9 because that will sort of be our guide for what we are going to talk about but really we will be all over the Bible but here is a good place to start because it stresses just how important it is to love God and spend time with Him. Moses writes,

Deuteronomy 6:4–9 ESV

“Hear, O Israel: The Lord our God, the Lord is one. You shall love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might. And these words that I command you today shall be on your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and shall talk of them when you sit in your house, and when you walk by the way, and when you lie down, and when you rise. You shall bind them as a sign on your hand, and they shall be as frontlets between your eyes. You shall write them on the doorposts of your house and on your gates.

From the very beginning, it was imperative that God’s people spend time with Him. God wants us to love Him. He wants us to see Him as the supreme treasure that is worth leaving all else to obtain. He wants us to spend time in His Word, He wants us to meditate and speak of Him and His goodness from dusk to dawn, and He wants us to have His truths glued to our hearts and eyelids. Clearly we serve a God that wants us to commune with Him. So, how can we? Let’s dive into these 8 steps that will not only help you develop a successful quiet time but will help you develop a successful life. Before we do that though, let’s go to the Lord in prayer.

Step 1- You Must be Born Again

What is the first step to developing a quiet time with Christ? It may go without saying but I would be doing you a disservice if I didn’t say it, the first step is that you must be born again. If you want to have quality time with Christ, you must be born again. The reason that I think many struggle with the idea of having devotional time is because they aren’t truly devoted to Christ. They have grown up in church, they have read the Bible, they have seen all the Veggietales, they may pray when others pray, they may worship when other worship, they may even have a great deal of head knowledge but that head knowledge has not truly penetrated their heart. Yes, it is possible to know a lot about the Bible and not be a Christian. It is possible to to speak the Christian language but not truly possess it. Just because your name is in the church role, that doesn’t make you a Christian. Just because you have a lot of Awana badges for verse memorization doesn’t make you a Christian. Just because you were baptized, that does not make you a Christian. Just because you come to Camp Refuel, that doesn’t make you a Christian. I’ve been to a lot of camps like this in my lifetime and like clockwork, there is always some student that says that they are recommitting their life to Christ and they do this every single year that they come but here’s the thing, for some of you it is impossible to recommit because you were never committed in the first place! Even the term revival is implying that something is dead that must be given life! So, have you been born again? Because until you have been, Bible study will always be a struggle because you are blind to what it really has to say. Just like a blind man can’t appreciate a rainbow, a spiritually blind man can’t appreciate the beauty and splendor of Christ and the Word of God. Have you truly been born again? Has the Holy Spirit brought you from death to life? Have you recognized that you are a sinner and totally unable to save yourself? Do you know and believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God, the one that died in our place on the cross and rose again from the dead? Our salvation is by faith alone by grace alone by Jesus Christ alone for the glory of God alone! Has this truth infiltrated your life? Because until it has, you won’t have quality time with Christ. Instead you will continue to be His enemy, the one that nailed Him to a cross and slaughtered Him. Yet there is room for you at His table despite that. The Apostle Paul says in Ephesians 2:1-9

Ephesians 2:1–9 ESV

And you were dead in the trespasses and sins in which you once walked, following the course of this world, following the prince of the power of the air, the spirit that is now at work in the sons of disobedience— among whom we all once lived in the passions of our flesh, carrying out the desires of the body and the mind, and were by nature children of wrath, like the rest of mankind. But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved— and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.

While you were in your sins, you weren’t just floating in a hopeless ocean desperate to grab onto a heavenly life preserver, you were dead at the bottom of the ocean. Yet Christ in His mercy, dives down to us and He gives us a life that we could never earn on our own and it is by His grace and His mercy that we are saved. There is no other way to salvation. The path to Heaven isn’t multiple choice, you don’t get points for trying. You must be born again through the saving power of Jesus Christ. Once that has happened in your life, you will be able to truly have quality time with Christ.

Step 2- Recognize the Bible for What it Truly is (2 Timothy 3:16-17)

The second step that I believe you need to know is that it is vitally important for you to recognize the Bible for what it truly is. This is not man’s book. This is the Word of God. It is the only book that lays claim to being straight from God. It is authoritative. Where the Bible speaks, God speaks. It is inerrant, it is truth and there are no errors found within these pages. It is infallible, it is trustworthy and crucial for life. This book is composed of 66 books, written in 3 different languages, on 3 different continents, over the span of 1,500 years, by 35 different authors and they all testify to the same things. From Genesis to Revelation, the Bible is 1 story. It is God’s Word that points to Jesus Christ. Paul writes in 2 Timothy 3:16-17 “All Scripture is breathed out by God and profitable for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, that the man of God may be complete, equipped for every good work.” This book is not a compilation of morally good sounding saying. These words have been breathed out by God for the purpose of teaching, for training, for correction, and reproof. The Bible that we have is God’s way of speaking to you. It reveals His Son, it reveals His will for your life, it reveals the future, and it reveals the way of salvation. There is no other book like this! You will never find another book like this! You don’t just read this book, this book reads you! You search it and it searches you! It brings you to tears on one page and rejoicing in the next! It puts wind in your sails and gives you a reason to get up in the morning and it gives you hope as you put your head to the pillow at night. Thomas Watson said, “The Scripture is the standard of truth, the judge of controversy; it is the pole star to direct us to heaven. The Scripture is the compass by which the rudder of our will is to be steered; it is the field in which Christ, the pearl of price, is hid; it is a rock of diamond; it is a sacred salve for the eyes; it mends their eyes who look upon it; it is a spiritual optic glass, in which the glory of God is resplendent; it is the panacea, or universal medicine for the soul.” This book is the most needed book in all the world. It is as relevant today as the day it was first written. I have had many people ask me over the years how I make the Bible relevant or applicable for teenagers and I’ve started answering in this way: I can’t make it what it already is. It’s already applicable and one of the great testimonies of this book is that when you read it, it sounds as if it is being written for us in the 21st century. How so? Because its truths and subjects are timeless! So recognize that which you have in your hands as something that you truly need to spend time with Christ.

Step 3- Pray the Bible and Hunt for Meaning

Now that you have been made right with Christ and now that you recognize the Bible for what it is, what’s the next step as you come to dive into this Word? Step 3 is that you pray the Bible and hunt for meaning. It is one thing to have your eyes glide over Scripture, it is another thing for you to grab hold of that book, pray that the Spirit would open up to you, and hunt for what the Word says. When we go to God’s Word, whenever it is that we do it in our day, we need to take hold of what it says and not let go. We need to wrestle with the Bible. We need to be like Jacob wrestling with God in Genesis 32 and even if we must do battle with the Word all night, we will cry out with Jacob, “I will not let you go unless you bless me!” There is something for you, I believe, on every page of Scripture. We just need to pray that God would reveal it to us. The truths of God are not hard to understand, but they can often be hard for some of us to swallow. There is such a richness and depth in God’s Word that you can take one chapter of Scripture and have a plethora of truths jump out at you. Pray that God would bless your time in His Word. Hunt for meaning in each and every passage that you come across. Ultimately, there is only one true interpretation of Scripture and that is God’s interpretation but there are multiple applications for each and every one of us.

Step 4- Find a Time and Space that Benefits You

The 4th step I won’t spend too much time on but in order to have a devotional time with Christ, you need to find a time and space that benefits you. If you are trying to learn something, it doesn’t make much sense to do it in the middle of a concert with thousands of people pushing around you right? If you want to learn something or if you want to spend quality time with someone, you go where it’s quiet right? You go to a place where you can be alone and it is there where you can best know the other person. If you want to learn how to play the piano, what makes more sense, less practice or more practice? It’s the same with our quiet time. They improve the more we do it. What part of your day is the best for spending time with the Lord? For me, it’s early in the morning. I wake up between 6 and 7, before my kids are up and I go to my recliner and I read God’s Word. It’s quiet, it’s peaceful, it’s me and Him. Is it easy to get up this early with a 7 month old keeping me up all night? Not always, but you need to fight for your time with the Lord. Satan will give you tons of reasons why you shouldn’t do it but we can’t fall victim to his temptations. Are you making an effort to spend time with God? R.C. Sproul said, “We fail in our duty to study God’s Word not so much because it is difficult to understand, not so much because it is dull and boring, but because it is work. Our problem is not a lack of intelligence or a lack of passion. Our problem is that we are lazy.” You also need to find a space in your house or maybe outdoors where you can be alone with God. To be honest, my best prayers and sermons are the ones that I pray and preach to myself when I’m in the shower in the morning. I think of Jesus calling Nathanael at the end of John 1 when He told Nathanael that He saw Him while he was under the fig tree and Nathanael is ecstatic about this. Why? Because Christ saw Him in the place He was most vulnerable and saw him at the very spot where Nathanael went to be alone with the Lord. There is a tremendous value in your quiet time alone with God. And let me quickly say this: Don’t beat yourself up over 1 missed moment. Let’s say something happens and you miss out on a day’s worth of quiet devotion. Does that mean the next day you don’t do it? Absolutely not! Keep moving, keep fighting, find a time and space that benefits you, and grab hold of the Lord and cry out with Jacob, I will not let go until you bless me.

Step 5- Quality, Not Quantity

Step 5 is pretty important: Aim for quality, not quantity. We shouldn’t approach our Bibles just to check it off our checklist. That’s not quality time with God. Our time with God needs to be intentional. One of the mistakes that I made as a young Christian was that I thought I would do better with my faith if I read an insane amount of chapters each day. My Bible plan was literally: Read 10 chapters of the Old Testament in the morning and 10 of the New Testament at night. Within 6 months I had burned myself out so much that I was just doing it with the hopes of getting it done. Now I believe that there are great reading plans out there that you can take advantage of. For me personally, my Bible reading plan is about 4 chapters a day and I find that good for me but there is also nothing wrong with just taking a small portion of Scripture each day and really taking the time to digest it. I think the best sermons that I have ever heard are the one’s that only cover a handful of verses. D.L. Moody said, “Read the Bible, my friends, as if you were seeking for something of value. It is a good deal better to take a single chapter, and spend a month on it, than to read the Bible at random for a month.” One verse of the Bible truly meditated over is substantially better than multiple chapters or books that are hardly read. In the course of your quality time, you need to actually go in with the intention of working. We study Scripture, we don’t skim. We go in with the intention of falling deeper in love with the One that saved us. Also, don’t just read the passages that you like or are easy to understand. We need to read the whole Bible. A.W. Tozer said that it takes a whole Bible to make a whole Christian. And let me just throw this out there, in terms of theology, don’t get yours from TikTok. I think the reason that a lot of people struggle with theology and reading the Bible is because the people they listen to are gravely uninformed.

Step 6- Approach the Throne Boldly

When it comes to spending time alone with God, we need to remember that when we are saved and united to Him through His Son. We can confidently go before our Heavenly Father. Step 6 is that we are to approach the Throne boldly. Hebrews 4:14-16

Hebrews 4:14–16 ESV

Since then we have a great high priest who has passed through the heavens, Jesus, the Son of God, let us hold fast our confession. For we do not have a high priest who is unable to sympathize with our weaknesses, but one who in every respect has been tempted as we are, yet without sin. Let us then with confidence draw near to the throne of grace, that we may receive mercy and find grace to help in time of need.

Jesus reminds us in John 15 that we are no longer servants, we are His friends. While we certainly are servants to God, we do not need to go before Him in fear and cowardice. We should certainly have a certain amount of respect, Godly fear, and humbleness before our God but we can also go to Him with confidence and rejoicing because we know that Christ is our Great High Priest. Tim Keller said, “The only person who dares wake up a king at 3:00 AM for a glass of water is a child. We have that kind of access.” As a Child of God, go to Him as His child. God really does want to talk to you. He really does want to spend time with you. He is our Perfect Father and Christ our dearest friend so approach God boldly. There are no small conversations with this God, no small requests, He truly and dearly loves you and He wants to spend time with you. Boldly, go to Him with the confidence that God is for you and not against you. We’re running low on time so I’m just going to quickly go through these last 2 steps. Of course if you have any questions or want to dive deeper, I’ve got the rest of my afternoon free and would love to talk to you more and I’ll try to answer any questions you might have.

Step 7- Love the Church, Love the People, Love Preaching

Step 7 is really a response to what you do to steps 2-6 and there are layers to this. I think that in order to truly have quality devotional time with Christ, it needs to extend beyond what you do in those moments alone with Him. So, I bring step 7 down to 3 loves or 3 areas of help: Love the Church, Love God’s People, Love preaching. Love the Church. Desire to be in God’s House and strive to be there as often as you can. Hebrews 10:24-25 “And let us consider how to stir up one another to love and good works, not neglecting to meet together, as is the habit of some, but encouraging one another, and all the more as you see the Day drawing near.” Do you desire to be in God’s house? Do you desire to hear the Word of God preached to you? Do you desire to gather in worship with others that have been brought into the family of God? And you need to love the people of God. The church is a perfect example of imperfect people but it is an example of imperfect people coming together with the same set purpose. We need to support one another, we need to build one another up, we need to love the People of God. We aren’t meant to serve God alone. Christ commands us that we are to love one another and if you don’t love the people of God, you are rejecting what Christ has commanded you to do. Understand this, your love for others should not depend on the worthiness of the person. Your love for your neighbor is a response to the love that God has shown you. Look at yourself, God has to love us for a reason that is outside of us because if He looked at me in my sins, He would not find much of anything worth loving. Moses writes a good reminder for us in Deuteronomy 7:6-8

Deuteronomy 7:6–8 ESV

“For you are a people holy to the Lord your God. The Lord your God has chosen you to be a people for his treasured possession, out of all the peoples who are on the face of the earth. It was not because you were more in number than any other people that the Lord set his love on you and chose you, for you were the fewest of all peoples, but it is because the Lord loves you and is keeping the oath that he swore to your fathers, that the Lord has brought you out with a mighty hand and redeemed you from the house of slavery, from the hand of Pharaoh king of Egypt.

God loves us because He loves us and not because of how deserving we are of that love. As you love and serve along the people of God, you will come to love the God that has brought you together. I think you also need to love preaching but not just any preaching. I think one of the greatest things that you can do is fall in love with verse by verse, expository preaching. Find a church that doesn’t preach themes but preaches the Word of God and find a church that does this faithfully. Far too much preaching is me-centered. The problem isn’t that there aren’t enough preachers, the problem is that there are too many that aren’t doing any real preaching! The problem isn’t that there aren’t enough churches, the problem is that there are too many churches that do not care for doctrinal integrity, that do not stand firm on the authority and inerrancy of Scripture, and do not hold fast to the things of God. Are you part of a Church that faithfully preaches the Word of God. I think you need to examine that in your own life. Are the preachers you listen to Big God preachers or little god preachers. Do they faithfully cut the Word of Truth for you to take in? If all you do is listen to Steven Furtick or Joel Osteen, or “theologians”” on TikTok, or Hillsong or Bethel or some other man-centered preaching, you are going to be a shallow Christian, if you are a Christian at all. Paul Washer said that the church must seek to be biblical rather than relevant. Surround yourself with teachers of the Word that declare the whole counsel of God and you will find that you will have a greater love for God and His Word and this will stretch into your own quiet time.

Step 8- Be Mindful of What God has Done and Look Ahead to What He Will Do

Finally, let me share step 8 with you. As you spend time with Christ, be mindful of what God has done in the past and look ahead to what He will do in the future. Paul said in Philippians 4:4-7

Philippians 4:4–7 ESV

Rejoice in the Lord always; again I will say, rejoice. Let your reasonableness be known to everyone. The Lord is at hand; do not be anxious about anything, but in everything by prayer and supplication with thanksgiving let your requests be made known to God. And the peace of God, which surpasses all understanding, will guard your hearts and your minds in Christ Jesus.

This verse came to me at a very important time in my life because it helped me to realize that my prayer time with God can’t just be a list of wants like I’m praying to Santa. Before we get to requests, we must start with thanksgiving. Take a moment and think of all that God has done in your life. Think of Christ and what He did on your behalf and allow that to overwhelm your heart and your words. I’m not always good at seeing where God is taking me but I have gotten better at looking at the past and seeing how He led me. Look at the life of Christ and savor what He has done. J. Gresham Machen said, “By reading how He went about doing good, how He healed the sick and raised the dead and forgave sins, we learn that He is a Person who is worthy of trust. But such knowledge is to the Christian man not an end in itself, but a means to an end. It is not enough to know that Jesus is a Person worthy of trust; it is also necessary to know that He is willing to have us trust Him. It is not enough that He saved others; we need to know also that He has saved us.” God was faithful in the past, He is faithful now in the present, and He will be faithful far into the future. We should be people that look ahead. As you spend time alone with Christ, are you looking ahead with joy for when He comes again. At the end of 1 Thessalonians 4, Paul says that we as Christians should encourage one another and build each other up as we look ahead to Christ’s return. In 2 Timothy 4:8 Paul writes: “Henceforth there is laid up for me the crown of righteousness, which the Lord, the righteous judge, will award to me on that day, and not only to me but also to all who have loved his appearing.” The Christians with the greatest joys and the most fruitful quiet times are the ones that look ahead with joy of the day of our King’s return. John Calvin wrote, “This is a singular mark which he employs in describing believers. And, indeed, wherever faith is strong, it will not permit their minds to fall asleep in this world, but will elevate them to the hope of the last resurrection. His meaning therefore is, that all who are so much devoted to the world, and who love so much this fleeting life, as not to care about the coming of Christ, and not to be moved by any desire of it, deprive themselves of immortal glory. Woe to our stupidity, therefore, which exercises such power over us, that we never think seriously about the coming of Christ, to which we ought to give our whole attention.” Look ahead to the one who is to come because He is the One that you are spending this quiet time with now and one day you shall see Him face to face and all of the trials and tribulations, struggles and strifes, of this world will be seen as next to nothing because nothing can surpass knowing the Lord Jesus Christ. Let’s pray together.