How do I Spend Time with Jesus?
“Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teaching and admonishing one another in all wisdom, singing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs, with thankfulness in your hearts to God.”-Colossians 3:16
As followers of Christ it is pivotal that we spend regular time (as in daily) with Jesus. This is the key of living a life that glorifies Christ and what allows us to overflow with his love onto others. When are are not spending daily time with Jesus we are not grounding ourselves into him, changing from our sinful habits/ways, and setting our minds and hearts on the things of Christ. We are incapable of loving others in the way we are called to love, we are often more irritable, selfish, boastful, small-visioned, arrogant, rude, insisting on our own way, not rejoicing in the truth of God, not patient, not kind, and unable to bear, believe, and endure all things that come our way. That being said, after some questions of “How do you spend time with Jesus each day?” and “What do you actually do when you do a quiet time in the morning?”, and “How do you know what to pray?”, I have decided to share with you what I do when I spend time with Jesus in the morning. Later on this month, I will share other things I do for other people, but for now, I'd like to share with you the four critical components of my daily time with Jesus.
My prayer is that this will be helpful and not cause you to compare your time to mine. It’s a guide to show you how do to purposeful things so that your walk with the Lord will grow and you are able to overflow his love onto others. Please let me know any other questions you may have! I’d love to help. How I spend time with Jesus is NOT perfect and in NO WAY the end all solution. How I spend time with Jesus in the morning has been shaped by wise, godly women. I have been taught how to do this so that I grow in my faith. None of this comes from me. My twist and spin is put onto some of what I talk about here (especially the "make a space" section), but this is all a learned process. It is also not a very in-depth guide to what I do. Lord willing, that will be a different post for a different time.
I am eternally thankful for the ladies (especially Ollivia Brown & Lauren Mitchell) in my life who have taught me how to spend purposeful time with Jesus. Please enjoy and feel free to ask questions. All the resources I am going to share will be linked.
Step 1: Make a Space.
Make a space for you to meet with Jesus. This has changed for me over the years. However, I currently have my desk set up with all my resources. It is a small space that I think “looks like me” and is a place where I am comfortable, vulnerable and ready to meet with Jesus. Ollivia and Lauren both taught me that this space is important because it is your go-to space. You are more willing to spend time at this space if you are comfortable and the space is attractive/filled with things you like. Light a candle, put a pretty lamp, hang stuff on the wall, put flowers in a vase, rearrange furniture so you are by a window, put a basket of blankets next to your space, get a pretty pen/pencil holder, put pictures of people you love, hang scripture on the wall/write it around you, and whatever else you like!Make it beautiful-hello, we are the beautiful women God created to show beauty in the world! Make your space pretty!!! (And then send me a picture so I can see it!) Let this also be a space you can leave your Bible, Notebook, and devotional at.
Step 2: Get a
Devotional that STARTS with SCRIPTURE as the FIRST Thing you Read!
I am obviously linking Lauren’s book Steadfast and her book A Love That Conquers because they are AMAZING & begin with scripture. Always go through a devotional that begins with God’s word- not man’s word. We must immerse ourselves in scripture first to see what God says before we do anything else. He is our reference point and the lens that we view life through. Let his word always be what we read first. I will also link some other devotionals I have gone through that begin with scripture. I also encourage you to highlight all the scripture you read, mark the date you read it, and even put where you were when you read it. It’s cool to go back in your Bible and remember what you read, when you read it, and be able to pinpoint what was going on in your life around the time you were reading certain scriptures.
Step 3: Go to Target and Get a Freaking Cute Prayer Journal
I am a newbie when it comes to prayer journaling. I’ve only been doing this for about 8 months and it has changed how I communicate with God. It also provides me with a hard copy of my prayers which allows me to go back and see God’s hand of faithfulness and redirection in my life. It shows me how God is in the details of my life and he cares about the the smallest of things that I care about. When I pray in this journal, I don’t pray elegant prayers. I will attach a prayer I have prayed before. My prayers sound like the way I talk. I ask God questions. I tell God things about my life- even though he knows, them! It is GOOD for me to talk to God like I would talk to my dad or to a friend. I actually write “hahaha” in my prayer journal when something happens that is funny. I ask God to create pink sunrises and sunsets at least once a week. I tell him I am looking for them (and guess what- there is always at least ONE pink sunrise or sunset each week since I’ve asked- Glory to God). I process all the things I am learning in this journal. I ask God to teach me his ways, to guard my mouth and thoughts. I pray against satan’s schemes in my life. I pray for my husband. I pray for my dad, my sister’s (however- each of them have their own journal that I’ll share about another time), my mom, my in-laws, my sister-in-law, my friends, my friend’s kids, Lauren’s books to go to the right people, Chick-fil-A, Lavish Bible Study,my future, Dylan’s future, Ollivia’s future and influence, my car to last another 5 years, spring to come sooner than later (haha), home depot to have rosemary bushes on sale, and even more!! I’m telling you. Praying how you talk and asking God to change you to be more like him is beneficial and necessary.
Step 4: Make all of this a Daily Routine
If you are close to me right now, you know that I am currently getting up at 5 am to spend at least an hour and a half in the word and praying each day before work. There is a lot going on in my life, so I’m doing my best to be purposeful in spending time with Jesus, praying over my situations and circumstance, and asking God for wisdom and discernment in my decisions. I am not saying your time needs to be this long- I just feel it necessary for this current season of my life. I cannot emphasize the importance of making this part of our daily routine. Once we get in the habit of spending time with Jesus, the more we will be rooted in him and able to combat the lies of Satan on a daily basis, the clearer our lens on life with be, the more at bay our emotional state will be, and the more we can love others the way Jesus has called us to love them. So friends, grab a good devotional, get a prayer journal, create a space, and be disciplined to spend time with Jesus daily. We are called to be the salt and light of the Earth. Let us not lose our saltiness because of our lack of discipline. (Matthew 5)
