Where is the Best Place to have a Devotion?

Yes, it's even important to establish a specific place to meet with our heavenly Father each day. My wife and I used to have our devotions at the same place in our home, however, I normally got up much earlier than her and would be finishing up when she would be beginning her devotion time. Of course, I was always anxious to share what I got during my devotion (it's that pastor's heart thing) and so I would begin to engage her in conversation. We'll it wasn't long before I noticed that my wife left me - no not literally, but she moved into the den so that she would not be bothered by me and have uninterrupted time with her Abba Father.

Thus, all of us need a place for our devotions where we can obey the command, “Be still and know that I am God” (Ps. 46:10). Modern technological societies with their performance-oriented people usually equate activity with accomplishment. The mind, the mouth, and the body operate at a rapid rate while the spirit shrivels for lack of attention. Christians need a place where they can be still, silent, relaxed, and relieved from the rapidity and racket of intense living. That place should also be free from disturbing noise, distraction, and interruption.

Jesus sought out such a place for His prayer time. “And in the early morning, while it was still dark, He arose and went out and departed to a lonely place, and was praying there” (Mark 1:35). Both the “inner room” where Jesus taught us to go for prayer (Matt. 6:5) and the “secluded place” where Jesus went for prayer (Mark 1:35) show the importance of selecting a location where the world is temporarily shut out from our lives, and we are shut in alone with God for intimacy with Him.

We have also seen several instances where biblical characters spent time with God outdoors. Before my knees and back went bad from spending 21 years in the Army, I would spend time in prayer as I went for a run each morning. God used this practice to give me relief from a lot of pressures of the day, and would invigorate me for focused time later in reading His Word. It is also a good time for praising God as you look and admire God’s wonderful creation. Currently, I live in beautiful Jonesborough, Tennessee where I now take my dog for a walk each morning and praise God for who He is. Nonetheless, I hope you have a place where you can walk and talk with the Lord, even if it’s your own backyard or inside your home. Walking physically and talking with the Lord can help us walk closer to Him spiritually so that we become like Enoch who “walked with God” (Gen. 5:22, 24) and “was pleasing to God” (Heb. 11:5).

I also find it good to have a designated place as it's a reminder for me to spend time with Him. Each time I pass by it, I see my "tools" (Bible, prayer journal, etc) which reminds me that He's anxiously waiting for me to spend time with Him.

Do you have a special place?

Bibliography
Charles R. Swindoll and Roy B. Zuck, Understanding Christian Theology (Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson Publishers, 2003), 1070–1071.

Remembering Athanasius

May 2, marked the death of one of the great Church Fathers, Athanasius, in 373. Much of the church today gives very little attention to our Church Fathers, yet these are the shoulders that we stand on, shoulder that have given us the rich doctrines that we can now so easily access and rely on.  However, as believers, we need to understand that theology is always ongoing and we in the 21^st century need to also wrestle with the difficult questions that face us and go to the Scriptures for answers.  

His (Athanasius) most famous work is the De Incarnatione, the second of two closely linked treatises. In it he expounds how God the Word (Logos), by His union with manhood, restored to fallen man the image of God in which he had been created (Gen 1:27), and by His death and resurrection met and overcame death, the consequence of sin. Many scholars date the work before c.318, when Athanasius was still in his twenties, but others place it 15–20 years later. As bishop he was the greatest and most consistent theological opponent of Arianism. From 339 to 359 he wrote a series of works in defense of the faith proclaimed at Nicaea—that is, the true deity of God the Son. From about 361 onwards he especially sought the reconciliation of the large Semiarian party to the Nicene term homoousios (‘of one substance’), which they were reluctant to accept. The Council of Alexandria (362), under his direction, greatly furthered this end, by clearing up misunderstandings of the terms ὑπόστασις (translated ‘person’) and οὐσία (‘substance’). He also argued for the deity of the Holy Spirit in his Epistles to Serapion.

Bibliography:

F. L. Cross and Elizabeth A. Livingstone, “The Oxford Dictionary of the Christian Church”, 3rd ed. rev. (Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press, 2005), 121.

You can also learn more about Athanasius in John Piper's, “Contending for Our All”