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Personal Devotion Plan

The following article is the product of what I adapted from early days of discipleship in campus ministry, my seminary training, and my work as a pastor in Atlanta. The result is a thorough but flexible personal devotion plan.

Personal Devotion Plan
by Trent McEntyre
Approach
Pray for God’s Spirit to give you understanding and submission to God and His will revealed in the Scripture. (Pray Psalm 119:10 or Ephesians 3:14-20)

 Study
Read a paragraph or a chapter of the Bible.
1. List what the passage tells about God or Christ. 
   a. His character or attributes
   b. His ways or works
2. List what the passage tells about us.
   a. Our sins or limitations
   b. Our likeness to God or potential 
3. List examples to follow or avoid, promises to claim, or commands to follow. 
Meditate 
Now write out one or two (at most!) of the main thoughts/teachings you derived from the passage. For each teaching, write or think out the answers to each of these questions.
    a. How can I praise God or Christ for what this reveals about him?
    b. Does my life demonstrate that I am remembering and acting out of this?
   c. What wrong behavior, harmful emotions, false attitudes result in me when I forget he is like this?
   d. What sins do I need to confess in light of this?
   e. What does this teaching reveal besides God that I may be looking to for security or satisfaction?
   
    f. Why is God showing you these particular things today?
    g. What do I need do or to become in light of this? Ask him for it!     
Pray
 First, pray especially for the things that came out of your meditation:
   a. Adoration – praise him for things you saw.
   b. Confession--sins that you saw, needs of your heart.
   c. Thanks – for anything that you realize you have received from God.
   d. Supplication – asking for what we need. You might keep a list in the front of your notebook and turn to it each day. List new items that came up during this quiet time: write them on your prayer list. Repeat requests for old items: for self, for family, for friends, for neighbors, for institutions in your community.
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