15 Ideas for Doing Daily Devotions
- Read a chapter of the Bible a day, make as many observations and applications as you can. After that, follow along in a good commentary.
- Create principles from Scripture passages. The two most important things you should note from any passage of Scripture is:
a. What does this tell me about who God is? (His attributes or anything about Him)
b. What does this tell me about how I should live?
- Use a thought-provoking question guide such as This Morning With God. Answer the questions in your spiritual notebook and make notes for applications, verses to memorize, things to study later, etc.
- Use a guide such as Treasury Of Scriptural Knowledge and look up all the cross references on one verse each day.
- Go through certain books of the Bible and summarize all the paragraphs (in as few words as you can).
- Outline portions of Scripture.
- Read through a chapter (or other portion) Scripture in a spirit of prayer and meditation.
- Read through a book of the Bible in one sitting and write down the key words, key thoughts, reason this book is in Scripture, the questions it answers, and the lessons it teaches.
- Comparing two different translations, paraphrase verses of Scripture in your own words.
- Note the near context and far context of each verse, theme, or paragraph. Note how the context gives special meaning to the given passages of Scripture. For example, the law of sowing and reaping in Galatians 6:7-8 occurs in the context of supporting those who teach the word of God. Likewise "the love chapter," 1 Cor. 13 is spliced between two chapters dealing with the body of believers in a local assembly. While the principles of love apply to family and relationships, etc., the actual context is referring to a local body of believers.
- Turn passages of Scripture into prayers.
- Write short sermons, studies, or devotionals on various passages of Scripture.
- Analyze the figures of speech (such as metaphors and similes). How do the metaphors and similes convey truth analogically? What are the disparities in the analogies? Ponder the comparisons. Why peace is like a river or why the tongue compared to a fire?
- Examine Scripture in a 'contrafactual' manner. What does the passage not say? For example: 1 John 5:13 "These things have I written unto you...that you may know (NOT: hope, wonder, eventually know) that ye have eternal life . . . "
- Use a concordance for a word study or a Topical Bible for a theme study and write down what you learn.
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