Today we ask, once again, how can you have a consistent and meaningful devotional life? We want to continue following up on our previous little lesson talking about a devotional life, and how is it possible to have a meaningful devotional life?
Well, it has to be heartfelt, right? You don’t just want to be saying redundant prayers by rote.
How can you have a consistent and meaningful devotional life? We’re going to talk about daily devotions, having a devotional life. And what that means is, spending time consistently, usually every day, once a day, in prayer and in meditation in God’s Word.
And before we talk about how to do that consistently and meaningfully, we ought to just gently, first of all, talk about what it says about us if we don’t really have a devotional life.
Why do bad things happen to good people? In our previous two episodes, we’ve been considering some very difficult questions for which, in my more than 40 years of being in the ministry, and more than that of being a Christian, I’ve never come up with a answer or read an answer or heard an answer that fully satisfied me. I get some degree of understanding, but not as much as I would like.
Of course, that agrees with what Paul said. Paul said, “We’re looking through a glass darkly or dimly.” That is, imagine that that’s our perception of things. We don’t understand or see everything. It’s not all clear to us. We’re looking through a glass that’s fogged over, and we can make out some stuff on the other side of that glass, but we can’t see as much as we want. This is one of those questions. Why do bad things happen to good people?
Why are some children born with birth defects? Today is another very difficult question and one that a lot of people have wrestled over (I myself have), one that’s not easy to answer and one for which I don’t have a satisfactory answer in my own heart or mind.
I have some degree of an answer but not one that’s fully satisfying. Any parent who’s ever given birth to a child who’s less than perfect physically or mentally, or something is less than what they were hoping for with that baby, faces this very difficult question. Why? Why?
Did God create cancer? We’ve got a very difficult question to try to answer today regarding the origin of sickness, and where it is coming from.
Did God create sickness? Or does the Devil have the creative power to create disease and germs that plague and afflict so many people? What’s behind it?
How do you get yourself a good woman, or a good man? Today’s questions are very practical and important. If you’re single and you desire to be married, the person that you do marry has got to be one of the most important decisions of your life.
Marriage is not something that you’ll want to enter into without a lot of forethought and some counsel when so many marriages wind up in divorce. Think about it. All those people start off with the best intentions, believing that they were going to enjoy the rest of their lives together. But they were blindsided by something they didn’t anticipate. Those who are single and who would like to get married need to proceed with caution.
Is it wrong to use birth control? So many of the questions that we get, the definitive answers to those questions can’t be found in Scripture. Like today’s question.
Because birth control in the form that we know and understand it today in our modern society and culture, it didn’t exist back in Bible days. We have to search for principles and truths that we can apply to these modern situations.
What happens when you fast? On our previous Little Lesson, we were talking initially about fasting and looking at the fact that it is a biblical practice, something that every Christian should do. Just like they should pray and just like they should obey any of the Lord’s commandments.
Jesus said, “When you fast, here’s what you should do.” Not if you fast, but when you fast (see Matthew 6:16-18).
Should you fast? Fasting is abstaining from eating. Sometimes it could be considered abstaining from drinking as well.
There are various degrees of fasting. Perhaps the most common fast is the water-only fast. You abstain from all solid foods and just drink water and no other liquids or beverages besides water. That’s somewhat of a pure fast.