Use this devo as you are able, in whole or in part. Don’t feel compelled to read it all. Simply read and meditate upon whatever catches your attention. The goal is enjoying time with God through His Word and in prayer. Questions about the devotional elements?

Call to Prayer

Prayer of Confession

Father in heaven, the hope of my eternal home with you offers visions of a goodness and glory that no eye has seen, no ear has heard, no heart has ever imagined, but yet I was made for. Give me a faith-filled imagination that finds ways to loop the hope of heaven back into today, living more of your life here and now. Amen. (Prayer based on the Heidelberg Catechism, Question 58)

*Prayer borrowed from Philip Reinders’ Seeking God’s Face: Praying with the Bible through the Year

Reading Plan

This reading plan will help you to develop the habit of being in God’s Word each morning and evening. Come to this time with expectation. Expect God to reveal himself to you. Expect that he delights in you being there, even when you’ve wandered away. Growing a spiritual habit is a slow, patient process. So be kind to yourself as you grow! 

Readings are hyperlinked. Simply hover over the passage or click Morning/Evening Reading (email version).

Morning Readings:

Pray Psalm 97 | Read Galatians 1

• Praying the Psalms: Read slowly. Take note of words and phrases. Bring them before the Lord in prayer and personalize the passage as you pray.
• NT Context: “Paul’s letter to the Galatian churches helps them, and us, recover the original freedom of the gospel. It also gives direction in the nature of God’s gift of freedom—most necessary guidance, for freedom is a delicate and subtle gift, easily perverted and often squandered.” Meditate on the passage, noting a few words or a phrase that stood out. Take them to God in prayer.

Evening Readings:

Pray Psalm 98 | Read Nehemiah 6

• OT Context: “Nehemiah started out as a government worker in the employ of a foreign king. Then he became—and this is the work he tells us of in these memoirs—a building contractor, called in to rebuild the walls of Jerusalem. His coworker Ezra was a scholar and teacher, working with the Scriptures. Nehemiah worked with stones and mortar. The stories of the two men are interwoven in a seamless fabric of vocational holiness. Neither job was more or less important or holy than the other. Nehemiah needed Ezra; Ezra needed Nehemiah. God’s people needed the work of both of them. We still do. Reflect on the passage. Who was the original audience, and what was their situation? How is that relevant to you today?

Sermon Devo

We are in our Spring series in Romans 8. Each day we will dig into a different aspect of this incomparable chapter and see how it alters the way we live “in Christ!”

Read: Romans 8:26-27

26 Likewise the Spirit helps us in our weakness. For we do not know what to pray for as we ought, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us with groanings too deep for words. 27 And he who searches hearts knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God.

Ray Ortlund notes that in the Christian life, “We never graduate out of weakness, even in prayer.” There’s a good deal of freedom in being able to admit to God just how weak you are at a given moment. How great is that? Even if you can’t say it to anyone else, you can tell your Heavenly Father that you don’t have it together, that you’re a complete mess. 

Coming to the end of yourself means arriving at a place where you are beyond your understanding. You don’t have to understand everything in order to move forward in trusting God and, even more great news, you don’t even need to have the right words, or words at all. 

If you can sigh deeply about your troubles, or groan out in pain because a friend has betrayed you, or exhale in grief, then you are ready to pray as a Christian. You don’t have to work your way up to being a Christian who prayers properly. You have the Spirit of the living God dwelling inside you, and He can translate and perfect your prayer. 

Why? Because God, your Father, understands you more fully than you do yourself. He knows not only the deepest longings of your heart, but also the faintest whisper of a thought that enters your mind. 

Again Ray Ortlund helps us discover what this means, “…when you have a stroke and cannot speak properly and you find yourself cut off even from those who love you most and all you have left is a desire to go home to be with the Lord, he will hear the longings of your heart. And when you are hit by a drunk driver and your life-blood is flowing out of you in the twisted wreckage of your car, in those final moments of semi-consciousness, when all you can do is moan, God will understand your prayer, take your devastation into his mighty hands and subdue it to his glorious purpose.”

REFLECT: God has so united himself with us in Christ that we are never, can never be separated from his Spirit listening, knowing, interpreting, and relaying even the subtlest longings of our hearts to our Father. What more could we want?

Evening Prayer of Examen

• Where did you move with or feel close to Jesus today?
• Where did you resist or feel far from Jesus today?
• Where is Jesus leading you tomorrow? Ask for joy as you follow him.

Benediction