The Pastor’s Devotional Life
July 9, 2009The penny is finally dropping for me that the minister’s devotional life really, really is his number one priority. On the subject, John Tindall has some excellent discussion starter questions about pastor’s personal walk with the Lord. I’m planning to write my thoughts on each of them shortly.
• What benefits overflow to families and congregations when a minister is walking closely with the Lord?
• What other aspects are there to our devotional life? What part should retreats or fasting have, for example?
• Should we keep a spiritual journal?
• What are the obstacles to having quality time with God? How do we overcome these obstacles?
• In spiritual oversight, who pastors the pastor?
• What should we be praying for? How should we divide up our prayer time?
• How do we keep our reading of Scripture fresh?
• John Wesley used to say that he thought very little of a man who did not pray for four hours every day. Discuss.
• Are there devotional Christian books that should be read by every minister?
• How can we encourage one another to read good books?
• How important is it to vary our reading?
• How can we help one another when we are feeling spiritually barren?
” John Wesley used to say that he thought very little of a man who did not pray for four hours every day.”
At the risk of sounding really unspiritual, I’ll simply refer to Martin Luther’s comment that our prayers should be “brief, frequent, and intense.”
Also on the Wesley quote, I would say that I am glad that I will be judged by Jesus and not John Wesley! I used to be inspired by such quotes to try and prove myself worthy, but now I see they are just legalism in pious language. Our prayer life should infuse our whole lives and be combined with daily time for private meditation and prayer. Our prayer life should be expressed under the liberating freedom of grace, not the rigid bonds of legalistic rules. My prayer for today: Lord, keep me from legalism and laziness!
Prayer. Pastors generally pray so little. We mean to, we plan to, we even do sometimes. But oh that we would all pray more.
‘Devote yourselves to prayer’ Col 4 vs 1
I for one need to think on that word ‘devote’.
I am an advocate of the journal. Ron Klugs little book ‘How to keep a spiritual journal’ was helpful in getting me started. Thanks for the post. David
Only four hours a day? That is twenty hours of not praying. What a spiritual pigmy John Wesley was!
I’m with Luther’s quote on this. I believe Spurgeon made a comment about prayer regarding how he was praying on-and-off all the time.
We should live in a prayerful way. If we are walking with the Lord, we should be able to address Him in every situation, naturally, easily.
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