Let us read from Psalm 63:1.
O God, Thou art my God;
Early will I seek Thee:
My soul thirsteth for Thee,
My flesh longeth for Thee
In a dry and thirsty land, where no water is.
Especially this phrase: “O God, Thou art my God; early will I seek Thee.”
Then also Proverbs 8:17:
I love them that love me;
And those that seek me diligently shall find me.
“I love them that love me, and they that seek me early shall find me.” Let us pray together.
Lord, we come this morning seeking Your face with our whole desire. We thank You for meeting with us already and being with us in Your presence. Lord, continue with us as Your people, pursuing You and seeking You regularly, daily.
We trust this time to You and pray, as we are in Your Word, that there would be something helpful for each of us—whether believers who have walked many days, new believers, or struggling believers. Lord, we come with all of our cares and all of our circumstances before You, and pray that You would meet with us. As we seek Your face, may we discover You. We pray in Jesus’ name. Amen.
Well, the topic of personal devotion can be very basic, or it can get too complex. One problem is that there is no rule, so we cannot give a command that is so specific.
But I think, as believers discover more and more of the Lord, we discover more of His ways and His principles. Then we can learn from each other and learn many helpful things.
Obviously, even the phrase we are using—personal devotion—may be called something else. Some may call it “Devo.” You may call it quiet time, personal time, morning watch, or morning rise. There are many phrases.
I am going to stick with personal devotion because that was the term assigned to me. But I actually appreciate it because it is broad and allows for the whole day to be involved.
Here is where we can come into a conflict. For some of us, when we have discovered walking with the Lord all day, we can yet become confused with the concept of an early-morning, set-apart time.
For example, if you discover how to know the Lord in your regular duties throughout the day, there can begin to develop an attitude against a wrong concept of a morning set-apart time for the Lord.
Occasionally—maybe, unfortunately, often—if we Christians have some set-apart time, hopefully at the beginning of the day, we can tend to check out or feel as if we have checked off our duty. For the rest of the day, we do not seem as devoted, as quiet, or as watchful. We seem a little more disconnected.
That is an unfortunate thing, and I do not think that is the principle we find in the Word of God. At the same time, there is something in the Word of God about how we start the day that affects the whole day.
The verses I read are Scriptures that spoke personally to my heart concerning the earnestness of the early part of the day. What we are going to look at is the whole day in light of this early aspect—having time with the Lord at the beginning and seeing how it affects the whole day.
With our personal devotion, we want it to cover the whole day. We want to be people of God who are personally devoted to the Lord through and through. If your whole day is devoted to the Lord, when should you start to devote your day? At the beginning of the day, right?
So it is okay that we are talking about the first part of the day. We are going to include the whole day as we go along and see how it affects everything.
If the Lord has enlightened you to the principle of walking with Him all day, that is a blessed thing. There is no need to be bothered by starting the day with the Lord, because it is actually part of the whole-day process.
If you have a regular habit of meeting with the Lord at the beginning of the day, we want to continue in that way. This is a good habit, and Christians throughout the ages have always talked about it. But we also want to see how it develops through the day and affects our whole day.
The verses I read in Psalm 63 and Proverbs 8 mention early, but the word early is the same word used for earnest. There is a reason for this. In the Hebrew language, it is a concept: earnest and early match each other.
If you are going to do something earnestly, you do it early. Sometimes the translation will say, “Those that seek Me earnestly will find Me,” and some will say, “Those that seek Me early shall find Me.” Both are correct, because it is the same word, and it is the same word on purpose.
When you are going to be diligent and earnest about something, it takes place at the beginning of the day. If you search for the word early in the Scriptures, even just in English without getting into the original language, there are so many verses.
If we went through a hundred verses, we might come away with the impression that early is awesome. Enemies are overcome early in the morning. Battles are won early in the morning. Consecration happens early in the morning. Worship happens early in the morning.
When God commands His servants to do something, typically they rise early the next day and go into it. I think that is a good concept to catch: the early aspect has to do with earnestness.
What we mean by that is, “It is on my heart to do this. It is occupying my heart’s attention to be about this thing.” If something is very important to you, it is on your mind when you first wake up.
For us as believers devoted to the Lord, if we seek Him earnestly, we will seek Him early. It is simply part of it.
To mention the whole-day concept, I will borrow a couple of verses. I think there is a principle to be caught in Psalm 119, that long psalm concerning the Word of God.
Psalm 119:164 says:
Seven times a day do I praise thee,
Because of thy righteous ordinances.
Now, humor me with this. I am not trying to build a teaching that says there are exactly seven times a day when you need to say, “Praise the Lord,” right? In religion, people can develop concepts like that: five times a day you must face a certain direction, do whatever you do, and say a certain prayer. It is not quite like that.
But here he says, “Seven times a day.” Probably, if he counted how many times he praised the Lord, and if many of us counted how many times we praised the Lord throughout the day, we would probably end up with seven times or more.
The thought I want to bring out is that throughout the day, praise is going on—not just in the morning. Seven times a day do I praise You. As a principle, throughout the day something of our personal devotion is happening.
In another place, Psalm 55:17, David mentions prayer:
Evening, and morning, and at noon, will I complain, and moan aloud;
And he shall hear my voice.
Again, this is not to say that we should pray only three times a day, and these are the required time slots. There is, actually, in the Bible, the concept of an hour of prayer. In Acts, Peter and John were going to the temple at the hour of prayer when they met and healed the lame man.
There is an hour-of-prayer concept, but here David is simply saying, “Evening, morning, and at noon will I pray.” Remember Daniel, who prayed three times a day even when it became illegal to pray to the Lord.
Daniel continued faithfully, and he set apart times during the day. In Daniel 9, we read one of his prayers, and Gabriel appears. It says it was at the time of the evening offering.
I bring these things up to say that, throughout the day, as believers devoted to the Lord, however we begin the day, it continues throughout the day. We are still praising. We are still praying.
A healthy and helpful morning experience should affect our whole day—even to the very end of the day.
I want to take two big pictures to describe a morning experience of beginning the day. Even though we cannot find a rule or all the details of how to begin, I think these types are definitely pictures for a believer.
One of them is in Exodus 29. This is the offering of consecration that happened at the tabernacle, or the tent of meeting. Exodus 29, beginning in verse 38.
Before all the worship that took place at the tabernacle in the wilderness with the Israelites, every morning and every evening there was one solid, regular constant: the offering of the lamb of consecration, or devotion.
Exodus 29:38–39 says:
Now this is that which thou shalt offer upon the altar: two lambs a year old day by day continually.
The one lamb thou shalt offer in the morning; and the other lamb thou shalt offer at even.
Then verse 42 says:
It shall be a continual burnt-offering throughout your generations at the door of the tent of meeting before the Lord, where I will meet with you, to speak there unto thee.
And verses 45–46 say:
And I will dwell among the children of Israel, and will be their God.
And they shall know that I am the Lord their God, that brought them forth out of the land of Egypt, that I might dwell among them: I am the Lord their God.
This continual burnt offering was the kind of offering that burned up completely. It had to do with being wholly devoted to the Lord. Burnt offerings happened throughout the day as people gave their lives, or some aspect of their lives, to the Lord.
A burnt offering was different from a sin offering. A sin offering dealt with, “I have messed up, and I need to come before the Lord and be forgiven.” But the burnt offering was a devoted offering.
These devoted burnt offerings could happen throughout the day, but here was the constant: morning and evening, on the altar, was the sacrifice. Everything involving coming into the presence of God and God’s relationship with His people took place at the tent of meeting.
The foundational stance of the people of God was that every morning and every evening they put the lamb sacrifice on the altar to be burned. In a way, you could say every offering came upon that one offering.
Though not much was happening through the night, that sacrifice burned slowly through the night. Through the night, they were consecrated. They were devoted to the Lord.
This experience became the basis for all the worship going on. The fire kept going. The reason the fire of worship kept going, and the reason they could continually come to the Lord, was that they were on the altar.
I think believers have this same picture, in a literal way, in Romans 12:1. Based on the mercies—the compassions—of God, we willingly offer our bodies as living sacrifices.
This is the same type of offering: the whole burnt offering. It is my life given to the Lord. When should that begin? It should happen whenever there is a response to the mercies and compassions of God.
Today, at some moment, you may meet with the Lord in a special way and say, “Yes, Lord.” In a fresh way, you may give your life to the Lord concerning something you had not thought about before.
But there is also this foundational constant in the life of a Christian: morning and evening, at the very basis and at the very end of the day.
Beyond the altar, in the tabernacle and in the Holy of Holies, was the presence of the Lord. With their worship and approach through sin offerings, the real desire of the people of God was to behold Him face to face—to be in His presence, to worship Him, and to draw near.
In the Old Testament types, this could only happen once a year, on the Day of Atonement, and through the blood. But in our reality, after Christ has been crucified and the curtain torn, the way has been opened into the presence of God.
By Christ, through His body and by His blood, we can go beyond the altar of consecration into His presence and pursue Him. “O God, Thou art my God; early will I seek Thee.” When we seek His face, we want to be in His presence.
Hebrews 10 speaks specifically to this concept. We often share this passage at the breaking of bread, but I want to bring it into our thoughts as a concept for the morning.
Hebrews 10:19–22 says:
Having therefore, brethren, boldness to enter into the holy place by the blood of Jesus,
By the way which he dedicated for us, a new and living way, through the veil, that is to say, his flesh;
And having a great priest over the house of God;
Let us draw near with a true heart in fullness of faith, having our hearts sprinkled from an evil conscience, and having our body washed with pure water.
Let us take this as the first principal aspect of something to do in the morning. We could spend thirty minutes just talking about the problem of being awake, not falling asleep, and asking, “What do we do?” Maybe I will mention a few things at the end.
But let us say you are awake. Let us say you wake up before the noise of the day and you have fifteen minutes. That is the goal. Maybe because of life circumstances, you can have three hours and do all kinds of neat things. But today we are considering the bare-bones essentials.
It is like the breaking of bread. In the New Testament they could have a love feast, but in 1 Corinthians 11, Paul gets down to the bare essentials: the bread and the cup. Let us focus.
What are the essentials of a morning devotional experience? Here is one: we come and worship.
Worship is basically realizing that He is worthy. When we realize that He is worthy, we offer our lives as a living sacrifice. We come and lay down the burnt offering—we are the burnt offering.
Based on His mercies, we come and say, “Lord, this day belongs to You. I belong to You. You are my God, and I am part of Your people.”
When we come to Him in this way, we go on. “Let us draw near” into the Holy of Holies.
I am not saying that you are outside the Holy of Holies until you have your morning time. We are abiding in Christ, and He is abiding in us. You may wake up abiding in Him and in the joy of the Lord. As you put your socks on, or whatever you are doing, you may be walking with the Lord.
But there is something about purposefully saying: even though you are a consecrated person, and even though there has been no time when you said, “Lord, I am off the altar,” there is a fresh beginning in the morning.
Remember, there was an evening laying down on the altar. The fire has been burning, but it is a fresh start. It is a new morning. It is worth a new laying down on the altar.
It is worth your time to say, “Today, Lord, though You know this already, I say on purpose: I belong to You.” Something happens with that. There is something of a fresh start and a purposeful devoting to the Lord.
Even though your whole life may be devoted, and even though our whole lives are what the Lord is looking at, He gives us one day at a time. Our one day teaches us about our whole life. We need a good beginning, and we also need a good end.
In a real way, you receive a fresh start. The mercies are new every morning. If you failed yesterday, you can rejoice in the new day. Weeping may have endured through the night, but joy comes in the morning.
At the beginning of the day, hopefully you have not messed up yet. You are just starting. You have not kicked the dog on your way down, or whatever you do. I mean, even if you have, there is something to do. But you come and say, “Lord, I belong to You.”
When we approach, we approach with a true heart. Everything is exposed. But we have full assurance of faith. How do we have that assurance? Our hearts are sprinkled from an evil conscience by the precious blood. We come by the precious blood.
If we did not do well with our evening sacrifice—if we ended the day poorly—you may come to devote yourself to the Lord, and the first thing you realize is an evil conscience. The Lord convicts you of something.
Maybe it is something you did not even realize yesterday. But in the early morning, when everything is quiet, you are able to hear from the Lord in that way.
Now, let us back up a step, because I said everything is quiet. This becomes our problem. You may get fifteen minutes before the busyness of the house, before the phones are ringing and whatever else is happening, but quietness has to happen in our hearts.
This is where we run into trouble. We must learn to quiet our hearts before the Lord—not to blank out our minds or enter some odd kind of meditation, but to approach the Lord focusing on Him.
What goes on in your heart? Your thoughts remember: “Today I have a dental appointment. Today I need to do this at my job. I wonder about this. Oh no.” Even when we go to bed, we have the same problem.
We have to develop a habit of learning how to quiet our hearts to behold Christ. If you have a to-do list pressing on you in the morning, I have to do this sometimes because there is so much going on.
I say, “Okay, I want to behold the Lord, but I know I am going to forget these five things if I do not do something.” So on a little piece of paper, write your to-do list. Somehow, when you write it on paper, it is out of your mind. Your mind realizes, “Okay, it is okay.” Just do not lose that paper.
The problem of putting too much other stuff into our minds shows up in the early morning. This is why Christians learn not to put so much stuff in their minds. We learn to change some of our music, what we put into our thoughts, what we read, and whatever else fills our minds.
If so many other things are in your mind, it is hard to behold the Lord. But if we develop the habit of setting our minds on things above and thinking on such things, it becomes easier. If we do this throughout the day, we get faster at it.
I say fifteen minutes because perhaps five minutes will be spent quieting your heart. You may really only need ten minutes. Older believers will say, “Just ten minutes.” But I say fifteen because your mind may be all over the place.
You sit down and think, “Okay, I am good.” Then suddenly your heart is quiet. It is like that song we sang at the beginning: “Nothing Between.”
I first heard that song from an older saint who said he would often sing it in his morning watch to help his heart become quiet. I tried that song and some others, and I found it very helpful.
Sometimes you are trying to worship the Lord, but your heart is all over the place, distracted, and not focused on Him. A hymn or a song can help you. Some people have a hymnbook, printed songs, or whatever they use—songs that help them focus on the Lord.
You begin to recognize some songs that are better than others at drawing you near to the Lord. At times, you need to do that. But the most important thing is, “I am approaching the Holy of Holies. I am approaching Christ. I am quieting all the other things, and here I come.”
When sins come up, we confess our sins, and the precious blood washes our hearts clean from all unrighteousness. That is how we are able to approach boldly: by the precious blood.
As we begin to come near to the Lord, we are in His presence and worshiping. This is how we want our whole day to go, right? We want to remain in the Holy of Holies, joined to the Lord.
Every sin and problem has been dealt with. We have confessed what needs to be confessed. Often, with that confession comes the realization that there is another area of life that has not yet been placed on the altar.
You repent of a sin, but you realize, “I am sinning in this way because I have not consecrated that area of my life.” Again, you come back to the morning offering: “Lord, I am sorry for this sin, but I also offer this time and this aspect of my life.”
With repentance, there is often a deeper consecration. Whatever the struggle is, you are on the altar as a living sacrifice, seeking the Lord, seeking His face, and in His presence.
If this is the morning’s start, let us consider the day. We will return to the other part of the morning—the manna—but the ability throughout the day to quiet your heart and behold the Lord is a lifesaver.
Just pull aside for ten seconds. Whatever you are in the middle of, whatever job you have, none of us are enslaved enough to not have ten seconds or even one minute. Everybody gets to go to the bathroom occasionally. We all have a moment. Just do not take your phone to the bathroom.
When you have a moment, or when you are walking somewhere, practice what you did in the morning. Practice quieting your heart, approaching the Lord, and offering yourself as a living sacrifice. These burnt offerings happen throughout the day.
We eat a few times a day, or maybe more. Even in the Word of God, it is good to give thanks when you eat your meal. This is not a religious habit. This is a lifesaver.
You do not just do it when others are around and you know that you should. This is a time to quiet your heart, behold the Lord, and say, “Thank You, Lord.” You are thanking Him for the food, but you know what has just happened: at least three times a day, perhaps with your snacks as well, you have turned again to the Lord.
Sometimes you should repent. But, anyway, you behold the Lord, and when you do that, you are right with the Lord.
Suppose you messed up an hour ago. It should be our habit to repent quickly when we mess up. But perhaps you are not yet in that habit, or it has not yet hit you.
Then you go to pray and think, “Oh, I cannot pray. What is wrong? I should not have said it that way. I should have been more gentle right there.” The Lord brings you back. You do not have to wait until the end of the day.
Throughout the day, you are praying, praising, coming, and worshiping. This affects us greatly. It gives strength as well.
If you use part of your lunch break, or any kind of break, for just a little beholding of the Lord, I can assure you that it affects you physically somehow. Spiritually, you are strengthened, but it almost seems to affect us physically.
You are able to do your job better. You are able to do your work better. You are able to be at peace when things are stressful. This affects the whole day.
If the morning start of beholding the Lord and having a quiet heart before Him is exercised throughout the day, you are living in the Holy of Holies. More and more, that becomes your habit. This trains us into the life of abiding in Christ.
As a brand-new believer, in the beginning, you may simply long for this: “Lord, I just wish I could remember You during the day.” I remember thinking, “Oh, I forgot that there is God. Oh no. If I could just remember God.”
I wrote things down everywhere: “God” over here, a verse over there, and things like that. I thought it would really help me. It did not seem to help me completely. But then I realized it is not merely thinking about God; it is the whole experience of the presence of God.
This may sound mature and beyond us, but it really comes down to those little breaks of quieting your heart. It does not mean that beyond those moments you are not devoted to the Lord, consecrated, or abiding.
Most of our abiding is not something we realize we are doing. Our thoughts are active on something else. Our bodies are active on something else. But spiritually, we are in the Lord, and He is in us.
It is when you come back to those quiet times that you receive strength to keep going.
At the very end of the day, there is the evening offering. Try this at the end of the day. I think this may be a lost practice, or perhaps it was simply something I did not know about in the beginning of my walk.
I knew about a morning watch, but I did not realize how much it affected my day. At the end of the day, I would go to bed with my mind racing about all kinds of things. Then you end up with crazy dreams—especially if you eat ice cream right before bed, right?
But if you want to be consecrated through the night, do not be afraid when you go to bed. Do not think, “Oh no, am I still going to be a Christian in practice through the night?”
At the end of the day, it is healthy and helpful to offer that evening consecration sacrifice. Morning and evening, the whole burnt offering was placed on the fire.
Imagine that you are at the end of the day. Maybe you are on your bed, maybe on your knees, or whatever you are doing. But before you sleep, quiet your heart again before the Lord. Consecrate your life before the Lord.
At the beginning of the day, you are looking forward to a fresh start and a whole day ahead. You give your life to the Lord with hope: “The Lord can meet me today. I can overcome today. That sin I have failed in so many times can be overcome because He is with me.”
You go through the day, and in practice it should be several times a day that you remember the Lord. But at the end of the day, in that offering and consecration, you are looking back through the day that just happened.
You are not looking at what will happen during the night—you are just going to be snoring. You are looking back. As you consecrate yourself, the Lord begins to speak about things you never even knew about.
He gives convictions concerning things that, in the moment, you did not have the quietness to recognize because your mind was occupied with the business of the day.
Many growth experiences can happen in this evening consecration time. At the very end of the day, practice quieting your heart again and say, “Lord, I give my life to You.”
It may seem strange. You may think, “I just finished the day. Now I am going to bed. What am I going to give to Him?” You give your life to Him and allow Him to work with the Word of God, dividing spirit and soul and showing you, through the day, what was flesh and what was not.
As He begins to work on that sacrifice, and the flames begin to burn, you realize what is Christ and what is not. You learn from your day.
This is a good way to end the day. It is a good way not to have your mind on everything. Maybe you need a notepad by your bed as well: “Okay, I wrote all my to-dos.” But then you can focus on Christ and fall asleep.
That is so good, and it really affects us. If you are focused on something you watched, something you read, all kinds of issues in your life, worries, cares, projects, and whatever else, it is difficult.
The Word of God tells us not to be anxious. But how do you do that at the end of the day, when you have so many things to think about and worry about? You do it by quieting your heart, beholding the Lord, and being in the Holy of Holies.
This is how the morning beginning can affect the whole day. Now let us return to the morning and consider another picture that is a type for Christians: the picture of manna. It is first mentioned in Exodus 16.
You cannot time exactly how this works, but typically, if you begin by worshiping the Lord and being in His presence, then, while you are in the Holy of Holies in that early-morning time, you gather some manna for the day.
Exodus 16 says:
At even ye shall eat flesh, and in the morning ye shall be filled with bread; and ye shall know that I am the Lord your God.
This is the original story of Israel discovering manna. They had come out of Egypt, had been redeemed by the precious blood, and were now in the wilderness. They needed food every day, and this is how the Lord provided daily bread.
The passage continues:
And it came to pass in the evening, that the quails came up, and covered the camp: and in the morning the dew lay round about the camp.
And when the dew that lay was gone up, behold, upon the face of the wilderness a small round thing, small as the hoar-frost on the ground.
It was bread. Of course, they did not know what it was. They asked, “What is this?” That is why it was called manna. Moses said to them, “This is the bread which the Lord hath given you to eat.”
Then Moses said:
This is the thing which the Lord hath commanded, Gather of it every man according to his eating; an omer a head, according to the number of your persons, shall ye take every man for them which are in his tent.
The children of Israel did so. Some gathered much, and some gathered little. Moses said, “Let no man leave of it till the morning.” But some did not listen, and what they kept became full of worms and stank.
They gathered it every morning, every man according to what he could eat. When the sun became hot, it melted.
At the end of the section, Exodus 16:31 says:
And the house of Israel called the name thereof Manna: and it was like coriander seed, white; and the taste of it was like wafers made with honey.
Many of us know the concept of manna, though not all of us do. I did not know about manna until I knew about manna, and I recognize that not everyone has even heard the story.
But manna is a principle for us, and I believe the Word of God shows us that. In Deuteronomy 8:3, Moses explains why God gave the manna.
Deuteronomy 8:3 says:
And he humbled thee, and suffered thee to hunger, and fed thee with manna, which thou knewest not, neither did thy fathers know; that he might make thee know that man doth not live by bread only, but by every thing that proceedeth out of the mouth of the Lord doth man live.
Jesus quotes this verse when He is tempted in the wilderness in Matthew 4. The devil tells Him to turn stones into bread, and Jesus answers that man shall not live by bread alone, but by every word that proceeds from God.
Later, in John 6, Jesus speaks of Himself as the bread that came down from heaven. In this sense, He says, “I am that manna.”
Every morning, Israel went out to gather manna. Manna is connected with the Word of God—the Scripture of God.
If we bring this picture into our own lives and consider all the Scriptures about the Word of God dwelling in us richly, such as Colossians 3:16, or Psalm 119, or studying and meditating on the Word, how should we begin our day as devoted Christians?
For the moment, let us think only about the beginning of the day. We are coming down to bare essentials. What is essential at the start? This is not primarily about what we will do throughout the day.
I recommend reading through the Bible regularly. But that can happen at any time of day. In fact, unless you can set aside a long time in the morning, I almost prefer that broader reading to happen at another time.
The specific thing you need in the morning, which can affect the whole day, is your portion of manna. It is a little bit of bread for that day.
Remember, in the picture of manna, they gathered it in the morning, but they ate several meals throughout the day. The word they received in the morning was chewed on in the middle of the day and in the evening.
This is food for the whole day. This is something I did not catch early on, and I wish someone had shared it with me earlier as a Christian: your morning word should be considered throughout your day. It will change your life.
It is manna. It is not merely Bible reading. It is not simply reading your Bible and completing your daily Bible reading as a religious duty.
I am all for Bible study, Bible reading, and Bible memorization. But we may only have ten or fifteen minutes. What are we going to gather?
In this early-morning time, as Christians come to the Lord and are in His presence, what do you want to chew on throughout the day? It should be a little portion of the Word of God—your amount to chew.
It is not a whole message or a complete study. If you have time afterward, do a study. Read a whole bunch. That is great. But if that has to happen later in the day, so be it. That is not a problem.
Early in the morning, take one or two verses. Perhaps let the verse finish its thought, because sometimes a verse begins or ends in the middle of a sentence. Take a little phrase or something that you read in the Bible.
When I first started having morning time, I realized that reading four chapters in the morning seemed to leave something missing. I was getting through it, and it was helpful for the panoramic view of the Word of God. It helped me know what was in the Word, and later it came back to me.
But for something to chew on throughout the day, it needed to be a smaller portion. Manna is your portion for the day. Do not gather too much, and do not gather too little.
Then I wondered, “Where am I going to find the verses?” A devotional book can be a problem if it is not handled correctly. I love devotional books. I have a bunch of them, and I like them.
But the comments from the person who wrote the devotion can remove your ability to chew on the Word if you read those comments first. What you are doing is chewing on the Word of God.
Suppose you get your verse from a devotional book. You may see the verse for the day, hide the accompanying text, and say, “Okay, I am going to meditate on this.” That is great. Chew on it, think about it, and consider it. Later in the day, read the devotional text. It may really help you.
You may be reading the Bible in your regular reading and find a verse that you want to consider. Set it aside for the morning. Or you may wake up with a verse coming to you and think, “That is my manna for today. I am going to be thinking about this.”
But what about those mornings when you are there and do not know where to start, where to go, or what to do? Perhaps your Bible reading has brought you to Leviticus, and it feels hard to chew on. Some passages do not lend themselves as easily.
An older brother recommended something to me that I found very helpful: use the New Testament letters. I will tell you why.
They are plain and simple. Now, everybody may say, “What?” What I mean is that you do not have to read three chapters to understand the type or picture that has to do with a Christian.
The New Testament letters can speak very directly to Christians because they were letters written to Christians. They are in our time period, and they lend themselves to something easy to gather.
The Psalms and Proverbs are wonderful, and I think they are great to read every day. But sometimes you are reading a psalm and come upon something difficult, and you think, “I do not want to chew on that today.”
Some Psalms are disturbing, and some are wonderful—such as the one we read earlier: “Early will I seek Thee.” But sometimes you read a passage and do not even know what it is talking about.
In the New Testament letters, I found direct words for Christians. Then I asked, “Okay, but which part?” I started to read a chapter, trying to find a verse that was especially good for me. I think that is where we can run into a problem.
Just take the Word of God and chew on it, even if it does not immediately speak to you. The Word of God is food for us even when we do not understand it.
For example, I have been reading 1 Peter. I am not studying or preaching through 1 Peter at the moment, but in my morning manna time, I have been taking one or two verses each day to chew on throughout the day.
Today, because I am sharing, I was tempted to use one of the verses I am talking about so that I could meditate on it more and be better prepared. But at the beginning of the day, as I was in the Holy of Holies with the Lord in my fifteen minutes of set-apart time, I thought, “No, I am just going to chew on my regular Word of God that I am going through.”
I write it down so I can look at it throughout the day, or I type it somewhere. Today I was in 1 Peter 2:17:
Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God. Honor the king.
This is great. But when I first read it, I might think, “There is nothing for me there,” right? But I did not say that at all, because I know from experience that you are chewing on it.
You may not understand it. You may ask, “What is the brotherhood? What king am I honoring? What am I doing right now?” But when a believer with the Holy Spirit inside reads the Word of God, something happens.
There is washing by the water of the Word, as Ephesians mentions. There is something that happens that soothes you. The Holy Spirit inside responds, “Yes, that is the Word.”
The sword of the Spirit that the Holy Spirit wields is the Word of God. As you contemplate it, consider it, and bring it back to the Lord, it begins to work.
I end up saying the verse aloud a few times, because then I memorize it. If you say it fifteen times, you basically have a verse memorized, at least for the day. I write it down and do these things because I am gathering manna for the whole day.
I no longer have to say, “Lord, unless You speak to me directly through this word, I am not letting go of You,” as Jacob wrestled with the Lord. Sometimes you are desperate for an answer, and I think we need times like that. But can you be like that every day?
Somebody once said, when this was brought up, “Yeah, but I have to go to work. I cannot be late. I have to go.” That is a good point.
But when you have gathered manna, remember that you are in the presence of the Lord because you have consecrated yourself and entered the Holy of Holies. You are not leaving without Christ.
You may leave your set-apart time without understanding exactly what the Word of God says. Praise the Lord. There is so much of His Word that we do not understand. But can you chew on it? Can you read it again through the day? Can you contemplate it?
Later in the day, you may look again at the verse: “Honor all men. Love the brotherhood. Fear God.” Perhaps something will come up that day relating to it.
As this works in your heart and the Word of God dwells in you richly, something changes. It may become a personal word for you, a teaching, or a revelation. Or you may finish the whole day, come to the evening, and still be chewing on your last meal of the day.
You may think, “You know what? I feel satisfied,” even though nothing has been intensely personal and nothing has been a dramatic revelation. You are satisfied with the Word of God because it is manna. This is enough. This is the experience of a believer.
I asked an older brother—Brother Kong, actually—where I should find my verses. He said, “Just go to the next verse.” I thought, “No way.” That helped me so much.
So I began to go to the next verse, even when I did not like that verse. It helped me tremendously to read through the New Testament letters in this way.
Now, in my morning time, I use all kinds of verses from the Old Testament and the Gospels as the Lord leads. But as a habit, I took that recommendation.
I am saying this as a recommendation because it was helpful. We are doing foundational talks, and sometimes we need to share how we would help somebody start out.
But in this room, we have many older believers who already have good habits. A lot of the details can be set aside because you may already have something great going on, and perhaps even know better practices.
Still, this was a recommendation that helped me. The next verse may not be one I naturally like, but then I read it, and it becomes my manna for the day.
Through chewing on it, I begin to appreciate every word of the Word of God. I begin to appreciate all of His Word. Throughout the day, this becomes a feeding.
Remember, we are devoted to the Lord for the whole day. If you read through the Bible regularly, read chapters whenever it fits. If you are memorizing Scripture or studying, perhaps you can set aside more time in the morning.
Maybe you are a mother with little children, and fifteen minutes is a great goal. Perhaps you have nap time for Bible reading. Or perhaps you work very early in the morning but have time later in the day.
We should not have guilt about those things. Throughout the day, we are devoted to the Lord. You can read the Bible at any point during the day.
But should we start the day with the Lord? Should we gather manna in the morning to chew on? I believe that is a principle we can find in the Word of God.
Imagine that throughout the day you want to have your mind on things above rather than on the things of earth. You have much to think about, much to do, and many temptations.
Do you know that a verse like “Honor the king” can deliver you from a temptation that has nothing to do with that phrase? I am not saying it must be twisted into a personal application, such as, “Christ is my King, and I will honor Him.”
I mean that it can be the most seemingly random thing. Yet that phrase is the Word of God.
When temptation comes—perhaps the normal sin in which you keep failing, whether saying something wrong to someone, using time unwisely, doing something worldly, or some obvious sin—you may not have a specific verse come to mind that addresses it.
But pull out your manna verse. Speak it aloud, and you are delivered. It is the Word of God working. It is powerful and effective.
I believe the Holy Spirit uses the Word in specific ways and delivers us from temptations through many different Scriptures. But I have been stuck in temptations where I could not think of any particular verse.
It seemed as if I had no weapon. Yet I remembered what I had read that morning. I had written it down. In my weakness, I pulled it out and read it. Then I said, “Yes.”
I remembered the whole experience of the morning: the worship, quieting my heart, beholding the Lord, coming by the precious blood, and chewing on the Word of God in His presence.
I was brought right back to that in the middle of the day, in the midst of nearly failing in temptation. I was brought through because we are devoted to the Lord the whole day.
Our beginning of the day starts and affects the whole day. That is what I wanted to lay before us.
“Early will I seek You, Lord.” His response is, “I love those that love Me. Those that seek Me early will find Me.”
Of course, the Lord loves every person in this room. He loves the whole world and gave Himself for the whole world. But if we do not love Him back, He cannot continue to share His love upon love with us.
He wants to share His love with us in the earnest, early morning as we seek Him. “I love those that love Me. Those that seek Me early will find Me.”
This can be our portion regularly and daily. Let us worship the Lord and thank Him for His provision of morning, evening, and the whole day of walking with us. Let us pray.
Lord, even in the middle of the day, we want to offer our lives before You as living sacrifices. We place our bodies on the altar and worship You. You are our God, and You are our King.
Lord, we come by the precious blood into the Holy of Holies—not by any good habits we have, and not by any good history we have, but knowing that by Your precious blood we can behold You face to face.
We can come and turn away from all the evil in which we have been walking. We can turn away from everything else. Lord, You know our many failures and the many times we love our bed more than we love You.
You know the many times our minds are on all kinds of other things. But Lord, we devote ourselves to You right now. We are before You.
We commit this to You, that regularly and daily we can walk in a devoted way. We pray that where there is some helpful thing for us, we would not see in the mirror and walk away and forget Your Word.
Instead, tomorrow morning, may we begin to walk with a fresh start in a good way. Lord, we pray for those of us who struggle to get up and struggle with all kinds of things that come against us, even to give us ten or fifteen minutes.
Lord, we pray tonight, as we go to bed, that we would have real dealings before You—to set apart our lives before You and to have a good evening so that we can have a good morning.
Lord, with a good death comes a good resurrection. We pray tonight that we would finish our day well, that we may start the day well tomorrow. We trust ourselves to You in Jesus’ name. Amen.