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

Faithful Savior, teach me what it means to have you as my portion, finding my deepest satisfaction in you. Show me the way to find in you my only comfort in life—whatever it brings—and in death. Lead me to hope in you and know what it is for my soul to be well in all things. Amen. (Prayer based on the Heidelberg Catechism, Question 1)

*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 46 | Read Luke 18

• 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: Luke is a most vigorous champion of the outsider. An outsider himself, the only Gentile in an all-Jewish cast of New Testament writers, he shows how Jesus includes those who typically were treated as outsiders by the religious establishment of the day: women, common laborers (sheepherders), the racially different (Samaritans), the poor. He will not countenance religion as a club. As Luke tells the story, all of us who have found ourselves on the outside looking in on life with no hope of gaining entrance (and who of us hasn’t felt it?) now find the doors wide open, found and welcomed by God in Jesus. Meditate on the passage, noting a few words or a phrase that stood out. Take them to God in prayer.

Evening Readings:

Pray Psalm 47 | Read 2 Kings 7

• OT Context: “Sovereignty, God’s sovereignty, is one of the most difficult things for people of faith to live out in everyday routines…This story makes it clear that it was not God’s idea that the Hebrews have a king, but since they insisted, he let them have their way. But God never abdicated his sovereignty to any of the Hebrew kings; the idea was that they would represent his sovereignty, not that he would delegate his sovereignty to them. Reflect on the passage. Who was the original audience, and what was their situation? How is that relevant to you today?

Sermon Devo

This Fall our sermon series is in Jonah. Follow along here as we explore this work of literary genius (it is really multilayered and complex) and theological profundity (we discover much about the nature of God, humans, and redemption in just 4 chapters)

READ: Jonah 2:8-10

Yesterday we saw that Jonah viewed idolatry as the sort of problem “other people” have, and somehow missed the subtle idolatry in his own heart. Today I want us to explore what idolatry is a little more closely. This is no mere academic exercise. A clear understanding of idolatry will actually help us to worship God more fully in faith, whereas an underdeveloped view of idolatry will almost certainly lead us further into self-deception and self-worship.

So what is idolatry? In his very helpful commentary on Jonah, Peter Williams comments:

“The essence of idolatry … is anything that commands the central place in our lives, and to which we give the loyalty and devotion, which rightly belongs to God alone.… For some people money is their god, and the pursuit of materialistic goals dominates their lives.… But we can make an idol of anything, sport, sex, drugs, politics, career, even home and family. Anything that nudges God out to the perimeter of our lives can become idolatrous.”

What is the result of worshiping idols? Williams says,

“They become worthless “lying vanities,” and will always let man down, because—however much he tries to manipulate them for his own happiness—they will always fail to deliver in the long run on what they promise.”

The Hebrew word used here (“worthless” idols) by Jonah is actually best translated vaporous idols. The idea is that they have no staying power. They are like mist. The promise to slake your thirst in the moment but inevitably they leave you parched and searching again for something to sustain you.

REFLECT: How have you found idols to be like a mist in your own life? What image would you use to describe what the gospel offers?

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