discipleship | Kona Brown

4 Dangers of Depending on Devotionals

Nov 7, 2023 | Christianity, Discipline, Family, Prayer, Self help | 0 comments

The most worrying trend I’ve noticed as I have ministered among believing women is how many even long-time Christian women have difficulty with studying the Word of God in a direct way for themselves. And sadly there is a definite correlation between our lack of biblical depth, breadth and fidelity and our inability to respond in faith to our problems, challenges and our culture.

I get that the Bible is intimidating. Believe me! It’s why I wrote my 5 day free email course, DWELL, to address this very thing. It’s why I designed the Dwell Journal and the “Wandel Joernaal”, to help us push through our intimidation, overwhelm and reluctance around the direct study of God’s word. I know first-hand that devotionals are so much easier to understand, with the content often crafted to answer one specific need or question. And especially newer devotionals feel so much more relevant to us, chiefly because they often make us, the reader, the main character in every single story.

The Bible is no lazy man’s book! Much of it’s treasure, like the valuable minerals stored in the bowels of the earth, only yield up themselves to the diligent seeker.
Arthur W Pink

Here are 4 dangers we are consistently exposed to when we don’t learn to read the Bible for ourselves:

Disconnections & Distance:

Biblestudy is not primarily a pursuit of head knowledge, although, as I always say, you can’t trust someone you don’t know. It is primarily a pursuit of God himself. God’s word is his primary revelation about himself. It’s where he speaks to us most directly this side of heaven. Our time in God’s word should grow not just our understanding but also our intimacy.

Think about it this way:
There is a marked difference between the intimate relationship between a husband and wife who spend time together doing both meaningful and mundane things and a teenage romance where the communication consists of text messages and memes.
The first and most important danger of our dependence on devotionals is the effect it has on our personal relationship with God. When we think that we should get a specific message out of every interaction with God it robs the relationship of its joy and it becomes unnatural – because it becomes all about feelings and experiences. If marriages were dependent on feelings and experiences they would not last very long.

Our reliance on devotionals has created in us a strange expectation when it comes to “quiet time”. Instead of simply enjoying time with God, we constantly assess if it’s “doing something” for us. Instead of seeing it as intimacy and relationship building, we measure it for its “impact” and “self-help”. But when we ditch devotionals and come to the word with the understanding that we are growing closer to God through it, we allow ourselves to be free to enjoy our relationship with God as the gift of grace that it is. That is so much better than the devotional-driven mindset that causes us to be constantly morbidly introspective about the relationship and whether it makes us “feel good” or what it “does for us”. What if we chose devotion to God over devotionals? Devotion reflected in a dedication to spending time with Him regardless of how “personally relevant” or “exciting” that felt.

Deception:

When bitesized theology is all we have, it only takes someone who dresses in a relatable way and speaks in a confident way to convince and sway us. But if you know your Bible, you will not by swayed by tone and trend, but by truth. If you want to know how to test a teacher, know your Bible. Knowing God’s word for yourself is your best safeguard against false teaching. The blame for the growth of movements such as the New Apostolic Reformation (Bill Johnson and Bethel), the popularity of emergent (Rob Bell) and affirming (Jen Hatmaker) teachers, can be squarely blamed on our lack of Biblical literacy. Even though these teachers and their content present to us a version of Jesus almost unrecognisable from his portrayal in the gospels, we remain unable to apply the scriptural proof test to what they say and write because we simply do not know the Bible well enough!

Here’s something crazy. AW Tozer, in his book THE CRUCIFIED LIFE, spoke about applying a Scriptural Proof Test to “phrases and mottos that on the surface look great but are not rooted in Scripture or that mostly bolster one’s self-image,”. Nearly 60 years after his death, as we see more and more “self-help spirituality” in devotionals and “Christian” books marketed to women, you have to wonder, would any of them pass the Scriptural Proof Test?

If you are using human teachers as the sole means of understanding God’s word, by what will you judge the teachers?
John Piper

Dehydration:

Relying on second-hand revelation as the filter through which we get to know the heart and character of God is like relying on predigested food to sustain us in this marathon that is life. Pre-digested truth will not ultimately feed the truest and deepest longings of our souls and they won’t be enough when the trials come. God’s desire is for us to abide in his word, to actually live there, not to always only rent space from other people who live there.

But so many of us are unknowingly malnourished. And after a while, if we keep skipping meals, a page-a-day devotional here, an inspirational Instagram post there, we eventually do not feel hungry anymore. And it’s when the storms of life come upon us, as they inevitably will, that we realise that second-hand revelation is not enough to sustain us. We should see time in God’s word as a waterpoint, a feeding station for the race we are all called to run. It’s the waypoint we need to persevere because it is where we grow in our (first hand, experiential) knowledge of and confidence in God. That is why David can say Psalm 119 v 11: because I have treasured your word in my heart I can do your will.

Our ability to keep running our race is directly linked to our ability to keep returning to God’s word for sustenance.

Diluted Witness:

The number one accusation made about Christianity is an accusation made against Christians. Against us. That we are hypocrites. And we are. It’s the human condition. Even the people who call us hypocrites are hypocrites. But our inability to apply our faith to how we interact with our neighbours (or the guy next to you in traffic), pay our bills (or don’t pay them), exercise integrity in our business dealings and compassion in our context and, in general, the lack of the fruit of the spirit in our lives, can all be chalked up to us having very little by way of an authentic daily walk with God and a clear picture of what we really need to be obedient to.

This has been my experience. When I have spent time in God’s word and in prayer: It is like putting on a pair of glasses at the start of the day that influence how you see the rest of your day. It changes your expectations, your outlook, and your thinking, and therefore influences your actions, reactions and feelings. When our eyes are opened in that way, we see God operating in our lives more clearly, and we become first-hand witnesses. And our witness becomes authentic, fresh and relevant because it’s not the well-fitting story written by someone else at the start of every devotional chapter but your lived experience of walking with God. What if we tried that every day? Maybe then they will say about us what was said about Peter and John in Acts 4, that we are ordinary people made extraordinary just because we have “been with Jesus” (V13).

The Most Valuable Thing We Can Do With Our Kids During Lockdown…

Apr 6, 2020 | Uncategorized | 1 comment

I saw a post from an acquaintance recently showing the great lengths they are going to at home to ensure that their kids will be ready for school and for the next sport season once kids are allowed to return to school. They are definitely #winningatlife. And at parenting. Obviously. No one can fault that it would be wise for us as parents to – at a minimum – encourage our kids towards their sports and academic goals, regardless of how far removed that might feel from our current situation. Although the mom who posted this doesn’t know when and if lockdown will be lifted, she was creating conditions of readiness in her kids. She was looking into the future. But as I was (trying hopelessly) to busy myself with the same thing – you know, bar a million interruptions for snacks! – I couldn’t help but wonder, how far into the future? Are we looking far enough? We are all always as parents diligently trying to invest in our kids and their future, but are we investing the right things, and are we looking far enough into the future?

Yes, we can and should have the earthly wisdom to prepare our kids for the world, for thriving school careers and later, for thriving adulthood. But does that wisdom stand the test of time, no, eternity? Because I can do all the crafts, and install an astroturf in my garden, and do all the Kumon and all the coding-for-kids, but in light of eternity, would those investments have been wise…or foolish? Certainly, they would have been foolish if I neglected the most important things. Because what good would that do if my kids don’t know the difference between being forgiven and not being forgiven. If they, in our homes, never had the opportunity to come to a saving knowledge of who God is and what He says about them, how much He loves them and what He did because of that love, and how that changes literally everything?

I want to challenge all of us today that the most valuable thing we can do for our kids during lockdown is not online lessons and hockey drills, and trying to map out a 3km route around our garden for them to run. It’s the thing most of us are neglecting, because it takes time, because we might be slightly intimidated by the idea, and because it’s immediate value is not as apparent as the immediate value of every available privilege and opportunity we are trying to pour into the lives of our kids. But, in the end, it’s the only thing – in partnership with the work of the Holy Spirit – that can produce a harvest in them that will stand the test of all of time. We can easily start that investment today, by simply reading the bible with our kids and, depending on their age, teaching them to read the bible for themselves.

Because how can anyone be captivated by the love of God outside of the word of God? Nothing our kids see or hear in the world (truthfully nothing that they will even see and hear in and from us!) will give them a true enough picture to understand who God really is. And how will they hear if no one tells them? (Rom 10 v 14)

There are just 3 simple and important things I think we need to remember when having devotions/ reading the Bible with our kids:

Make the Bible accessible – Help them find their way around an actual bible. Ideally, from age 4 or 5, they should have their own one. That way over time it can become a familiar reference to them, not something that is only used at church or by grown ups. God’s word is powerful and in a world full of tools and devotionals and programs we’ve become somewhat disconnected from it. But empowering oud kids to fall in love with God’s word is one of the best gifts we could ever give them. Obviously our kids will not get excited about God’s word if we are not excited about it. Always start with the bible, and only ad resources to ad depth, not remove depth.

Equip kids to study God’s word for themselves: . Just like we need to teach our kids to prepare a physical meal for themselves, we need to teach them how to prepare a spiritual meal for themselves. using simple tools, modelling for them the HOW of time with God. I use a simple method that my mom taught me and devotional time I spend with my kids is basically just me modelling for them how I spend time with God myself.

Teach them to discern what God is saying and how to apply it: we have a saying in our home – Truth is God’s opinion about anything. But our kids are every day, in the books they read, the programs they watch and in the music they listen to, being exposed to alternative versions of truth and world views that are counter to the bible. Can our kids find a deep spiritual life in a shallow world? Not outside of the bible they can’t. Because what counts for us also counts for our kids: You can’t test what’s true if you don’t know what’s true. Without a grounding of truth, you become a slave to every new fad or teaching, and your measure of viability becomes if your teacher put it on the reading list (if you’re a kid) or if it – Lord help us – it made it onto the NYC best seller list or has a “Christian” publisher (if you’re an adult. And yes, I meant to put that in inverted commas!). That is why Jesus said to the Jews, by and large a well read bunch, in John 8 v 31 – 32 – READ YOUR BIBLE if you want to be free of being lead along by deception.

Equip kids to study God’s word for themselves: Just like we need to teach our kids to prepare a physical meal for themselves, we need to teach them how to prepare a spiritual meal for themselves. using simple tools, modelling for them the HOW of time with God. I use a simple method that my mom taught me and devotional time I spend with my kids is basically just me modelling for them how I spend time with God myself.

Teach them to discern what God is saying and how to apply it: we have a saying in our home – Truth is God’s opinion about anything. But our kids are every day, in the books they read, the programs they watch and in the music they listen to, being exposed to alternative versions of truth and world views that are counter to the bible. Can our kids find a deep spiritual life in a shallow world? Not outside of the bible they can’t. Because what counts for us also counts for our kids: You can’t test what’s true if you don’t know what’s true. Without a grounding of truth you become a slave to every new fad or teaching, and your measure of viability becomes if your teacher put it on the reading list (if you’re a kid) or if it – Lord help us – it made it onto the NYC best seller list (if you’re an adult). That is why Jesus said to the jews, a well read bunch, in John 8 v 31 – 32 – READ YOUR BIBLE if you want to be free of being lead along by deception.

For this reason our devotional time needs to be supremely practical and relevant, helping our kids identify challenges in their own lives and how God’s word speaks into that. That way what they learn about God and about themselves will become fuel for their prayers, start to drive their actions and shape their thinking. If you want help in using relevant examples from your kids’ every day challenges to shape biblical thinking in your kids – also maybe get my book, which is all about that.

Then lastly parents, don’t underestimate your kids, or yourselves

Also, take the pressure off. Ultimately God is the one who makes seeds grow. Our call as parents is to faithfulness in actually sowing the seeds. That’s all.