Tag: devotionals

prayer, Uncategorized

Devotionals

The Kedge Anchor
Photo by Thought Catalog on Pexels.com

Reading God’s Word daily is essential to the Christian life. It’s our lifeline. Reading the God breathed words in the Bible is one way God communicates to us. Praying is talking to God and without prayer and daily communication with God… how does that relationship survive? How do we cope?

Our quiet time, devotionals, Bible study, time with God, whatever you call it looks different for everyone. Some are morning people, some are before bed people, some mid day people. I don’t think it really matters what time of day, just that we “get away often” as Jesus did. Luke 5:16 “But Jesus often went away to be by himself and pray.” The Bible doesn’t say what time of day or for how long, just often.

Now my point here is if you are in the habit daily of getting away and setting time for God, how many times have you said, or heard someone say, “my day just doesn’t go right if I don’t start my day with my devotional” or perhaps something similar. Well, what about the just before bed people? Does that carry over into the day for them? Will their sleep not go well? What about the morning people, will their sleep not go well?

Often times when we get up and hit the floor running, we sometimes don’t have time for a devotional and the day gets away from us and the day seems to go sideways, the car breaks down, sick kid at school, boss got crazy, lose your keys, computer crashes and you think, “see, I didn’t do my devotional.” Well, have you had days when you did your devotional and the day still went bad? I know I have countless times. And here is where I think the difference is; regardless what time of day we choose to spend time with God, life is going to happen. The car will break down, the kids, will get sick, the day can go sideways regardless. God is not punishing us by making the day hard and things braking down because we didn’t spend time with Him. He may use those things to remind us or use them in some way for our good and His glory (Romans 8:28). But I know there have been days I have spent time reading and praying and the day still sideways.

So, often it’s easy for me to attach a superstition to this and that’s just another subtle tactic of Satan to get us to feel guilty, like we are a bad Christian, or his popular lie, you’re a failure. God sees your heart. He’s not ready to beat you down with a bad day if you skip or miss time with Him. He never leaves us or forsakes us, (there are many verses about God always being with us, Google it) He is always waiting for us to come to Him. Sure you’re likely to feel a void or an emptiness because you’ve been out of synch but being aware and just having thoughts of God on your mind can be worship. Because think about it, when we worry and have a problem occupying or hearts weighing us down, thought churning in our heads, we are worshipping the problem. God has thought about us, Jeremiah 29:11 – “For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, saith the LORD, thoughts of peace, and not of evil, to give you an expected end.” (KJV). The difference is, when we spend time with God, no matter what time, when the car breaks down, when the kids are sick, when the day goes sideways, we handle it better. We have been armed with God’s Word (Ephesians 6:11-15). We deal with problems differently. God’s mercies are new each morning (Lamentations 3:22-23). Your day is going to go the way it’s going to go. God sees it, no surprise to Him. Just try and make it a priority. Priority just means it gets done, not necessarily first, but done. Keep the lines of communication and worship open when your quiet time looks a little different, sing, think about God, think about getting away with Him and then do it.

.

Uncategorized

My Five Favorite Bible Apps

The Kedge Anchor

If you’re like me you like apps that make your life easier. Banking is easier, scheduling appointments is easier, shopping, entertainment, even reading the Bible has become easier and really we can carry the Bible in our back pockets everywhere we go.

There are there Bible apps that I use regularly that I’d like to share and you have probably hear of them all or at least one.

The most used Bible app on my devices is YouVersion. And with recently achieving over 500,000,000 installs, I don’t know how anyone hasn’t heard of it. But I really enjoy the verse of the day videos that help set my mind for the day. There sometimes is an excerpt from a devotional plan that ends up in my list and I have quite a long list. But from these excerpts I have come to follow some really interesting people that have deepened my knowledge of God and expanded my thoughts. I’ll share those people in another post. YouVersion is free and you can connect with friends and family like with any social media app. With YouVersion, you’re not only carrying the Bible in your back pocket wherever you go, you are carrying multiple versions of scripture. You can even earn badges to help motivate you.

Abide is next on my list and I use this a lot. This app has a free trial version and you can still use it but to gain the full benefit from it is worth the $39.99/yr for the Premium version. With the Premium Abide app it gives you the options to listen to the meditation for 2, 5, 10, or 15 minutes. Abide offers meditations on just about any struggle or emotion you may be dealing with, grief, anxiety, healing, marriage, growing spiritually. There are meditations on love, money, forgiveness, blessing and my favorite is the sleep meditations. These sleep meditations put me to sleep and I usually have a hard time falling asleep. Abide offers options for these sleep meditations to run for 15, 30, 1 hour or 8 hours! I have a few people who have really soothing voices to whom I am partial. But now that I think about it, what’s it like to have a voice that puts people to sleep? LOL. Abide also has a place where you can journal your thoughts, you can add meditations to your favorites list, it keeps track of you history and you have the option to download as well.

FIrst 15 is another one that I found myself going to a lot as well. This daily devotional app starts with option to listen to the entire devotional or read it. They include a song that goes along with the devotional and of course scripture. A few months ago I realized that music wasn’t a part of my life like it was a few years ago. What I really like about First 15, is it introduces me to new artists and songs that I probably wouldn’t have picked up on just listening to the radio, which by the way, I don’t like like listening to, I find myself tuning it out. Too many commercials. There is a section that provides questions where you can meditate on the scripture and like most of these apps there is a community where you can leave comments, share thoughts and ask for prayer.

Christian Art is different. If you are into art this website or app connects a painting with scripture. This helps me since I lean on the visual side and visuals help me remember. You can subscribe and receive daily emails or download the app. Christian Art is based in the UK and is translated in Spanish and Dutch. And there is a section for you to comment and connect with a community.

Ok this last one isn’t really a devotional app, but it is one of my favorites, The Chosen. If you haven’t seen this yet, you gotta see it. The Chosen is a television series that is designed to bring viewers closer to God, “Come and See!” The app is free, to watch is free it’s all free. The series is created and directed by Dallas Jenkins and if you get the chance to listen to his testimony, it’s pretty amazing. This show isn’t to replace the Bible or it’s stories. There are some gaps in the Bible and Dallas has a team of people who help to keep the show true to the scriptures and historically factual to fill in the gaps. There have been some creative liberties taken, which are either humorous or very plausible as to what the times were like and how the disciples interacted with Jesus. Essentially the Bible is brought to life. For me it has caused me to read my Bible more and reread the stories. Jonathan Roumie who portrays Jesus, I have to remind myself, this is just an actor. But I can’t help but think this is how Jesus was here on earth. He was fully human and fully God, he laughed, he cried, he had struggles, he was human but God at the same time and Jonathan Roumie does an excellent job of communicating that. The cool part about the app is you can stream it to your TV with a streaming stick or you can watch it on any device, phone, tablet, laptop. Check it out if you haven’t already.

So if you haven’t heard of these five apps check ’em out. Share you favorite apps in the comments below. And as always if you like this post please like an share.