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There’s Purpose to Your Work Problems

by Rick Warren — December 11, 2022 From Building Character

“We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they are good for us—they help us learn to be patient. And patience develops strength of character.”

Romans 5:3-4 (TLB)

Have you ever had a problem at work? Of course you have. Everyone—no matter where they work or who they work with—has had some kind of trouble at some point in their job.

The Bible tells you what to do with that kind of trouble: “We can rejoice, too, when we run into problems and trials, for we know that they are good for us—they help us learn to be patient. And patience develops strength of character” (Romans 5:3-4 TLB).

God is far more interested in your character than he is in your comfort. He’s working to perfect you, not to pamper you. His goal in your life and in your work is not to make you comfortable; his goal is to help you grow up. And he uses problems in your life to grow your character.

When you have a problem at work, don’t ask God why you’re having that problem. Instead, ask God, “What do you want me to learn from this? What are you trying to teach me? What’s my blind spot? What character issue needs to be worked on?”

And as you ask God, “What?” also remember this simple truth: While you’re working on your job, God is working on you.

Sometimes temptation will be a problem for you at work—but God can use even temptations for your good! Many believers say they don’t like working with unbelievers because those unbelievers bring more temptations. But that’s just not true. You’ll be tempted with believers just as much as with unbelievers. And it’s not a sin to be tempted anyway; it’s just a sin to give in to temptation. The Bible says Jesus was tempted in every way, just like you are, and yet he never sinned.

You’re going to be tempted the rest of your life, no matter where you work. But God can use those temptations for good. He can use them to build character. Every time you’re tempted, you get to make a choice. You can choose to resist temptation, or you can choose to act on it.

Every time you give in, temptation harms you. Every time you choose to do good, temptation becomes a stepping stone for growth.

• Why does God want you to rejoice when you have problems and trials (Romans 5:3-4)? What do you think it takes to be able to do that?
• How does asking God “what” instead of “why” change your perspective?
• What has God provided to help you resist temptation at work?

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Devotion: A Fundamental Exploration and Practical Guide to Formation

By adam c. clark.

Editor’s note: This is the first of two articles that originated as a sectional presentation at the 2019 Theological Symposium, “Devoted: (Re)forming the Devotional Life.” We publish them here in conjunction with the articles published in the Summer 2020 issue of the Concordia Journal . Adam Clark earned his Ph.D. in Christian Ethics at the University of Notre Dame with a dissertation on Christ and creation in the moral and political thought of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. He currently serves as associate pastor of outreach and teaching at St. Peter Lutheran Church, Mishawaka, IN, and as director of Michiana Lifetree Conversation Cafe.

What is devotion? We often think first of “daily devotions”—that is, individual devotional practices like praying and reading Scripture. And certainly, these practices are vital. This paper, however, seeks a fuller picture of devotion and how to live into it. In the first section, I explore several key scriptural passages that lead us to think of devotion first as a central disposition in the internal form of the human being; specifically, the disposition whereby every aspect of life is encompassed in an undivided orientation to God. These passages also show that this internal form correlates with specific actions and practices that express devotion and give the “external” world a devoted form as well. Next I show that according to Scripture, the form of devotion is in fact original to creation, destroyed through sin, but now both restored and transformed in Jesus Christ and his church. I also show: that devotion intrinsically connects with other key elements of the human form like worship, hope, love, gratitude, and obedience; that faith forms the basis of devotion, especially in the midst of suffering and sacrifice, which press devotion both to its limits and its most exemplary expression; and finally, that a door to understanding how devotion and these other forms come about is opened by viewing them as “habits” in the sense traditional to virtue theory, only now reformulated in light of key scriptural claims about God’s action in justification and sanctification. In all of this, we discover that devotion occupies a far more central place in the Christian’s core existence than is often recognized. This is the first half of the paper.

The second half of the paper begins by showing that since human life is intrinsically historical in nature, full devotion happens only as all the historical particulars of life are taken up into the specific history God has graciously given and commanded us in Christ, a history that gives the virtues a concrete historical form as well. We then explore how preaching and teaching, the sacraments, worship, and the living out of our various vocations come together, as forms enlivened by the one word of God, in a single sacramental-liturgical drama in which each component devotes our lives to God in distinctive ways. Finally, we explore specific means to amplify devotion in our preaching, liturgy, Bible studies, and life in church and world.

Devotion and the Core Form of Human Life

We begin to understand the heart of devotion by looking at a passage like Jeremiah 2:1–2: “The word of the Lord came to me, saying, ‘Go and proclaim in the hearing of Jerusalem, Thus says the Lord, “I remember the devotion of your youth, your love as a bride, how you followed me in the wilderness, in a land not sown.”’” Here Jeremiah describes the (erstwhile) devotion of God’s people as like the dedication of a bride to her husband: so dedicated were they to God, so much did they desire to be with him, they went willingly into desolation and hardship to stay by his side. Here devotion is at once an internal disposition and an external action, specifically one closely linked to love, a point to which we will return momentarily. Significantly, however, in the next verse (Jer 2:3), the Lord also goes on to link devotion to holiness: “Israel was holy to the Lord, the firstfruits of his harvest.” Holiness is being “set apart” to the Lord. On the one hand, it is a division that creates undividedness : one is separated from everything besides God in order to be wholly with and for God. So too, there is implied a comprehensiveness : to be wholly for God and separated from all that is not of God means that everything in one’s life besides God must be “comprehended,” contained within , one’s fundamental orientation to and relationship with the Lord. There is a kind of fundamental logical necessity at work here: devotion will only remain undivided as long as that undividedness is preserved in every other attitude and action. This undivided and comprehensive dedication, in turn, comes to include a devotion to the “things of God” that also shapes one’s disposition and actions. For instance, in 1 Chronicles 29:3, David speaks of his “devotion to the house of my God,” that is the temple that David’s son was soon to build; this devotion led him to dedicate a host of goods from his treasury for the building of the temple.

Similar features appear in the New Testament’s invocation of devotion. We might think, for instance, of Jesus’s words in Matthew 6:24(a): “No one can serve two masters, for either he will hate the one and love the other, or he will be devoted to the one and despise the other.” Here too, devotion is an all-or-nothing matter of undivided dedication and loyalty: one can have only one master. Implicit here and in the passages above is the idea that devotion necessarily entails sacrifice: to be devoted to God, one must surrender not only all other loyalties but also one’s goods for service in the kingdom—even one’s very life. Jesus’s call to save one’s life by “losing” it in and for the gospel underscores the point: this master requires all (Mk :34–37). Just as importantly, this sacrifice is strange: in devoting one’s life to the Lord, one loses it; and yet, it is also returned—but now, with the concrete shape of a life of discipleship in and to Christ, who now has become the disciple’s very life (Col 3:3). Devotion draws us out of conformation to the world, to present our bodies as living sacrifices in the Lord (Rom 12:1–2).

Perhaps one of the best passages for seeing the specifics of devotion displayed in vivid detail is 1 Corinthians 7. Here Paul offers a host of instructions about the believer’s approach to singleness, marriage, and the goods embodied in these “estates.” Here Paul registers a certain “preference” for singleness, a preference that in fact aims at devotion:

I want you to be free from anxieties. The unmarried man is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to please the Lord. But the married man is anxious about worldly things, how to please his wife, and his interests are divided. And the unmarried or betrothed woman is anxious about the things of the Lord, how to be holy in body and spirit. But the married woman is anxious about worldly things, how to please her husband. I say this for your own benefit, not to lay any restraint upon you, but to promote good order and to secure your undivided devotion to the Lord. (1 Cor 7:32–35)

In this passage, devotion appears as an undivided dedication and orientation to the Lord and his purposes in the world. On the one side, this devotion “forms” the person inwardly : it shapes desires and concerns (“interests” and what one “is anxious about”), as well as judgment and decisions (e.g., in preferring singleness). Here there is an “inner detachment” from the goods of this world, like marriage, in favor of the overriding orientation to God. Yet on the other side, it comes to comprehend and determine the concrete form of one’s life and world as these desires, thoughts, and choices become actions that shape the choice of “vocation” as part of a wider “good order” in the world.

In the same passage, Paul calls for the same kind of devotion also in those Christians who enter into marriage. On the one hand, he writes, “This is what I mean, brothers: the appointed time has drawn in! From now on, let those who have wives live as though they had none, and those who mourn as though they were not mourning, and those who rejoice as though they were not rejoicing, and those who buy as though they had no goods, and those who deal with the world as though they had no dealings with it. For the present form of this world is passing away” (1 Cor 29–32). Here the married are called, even in their pursuit of the goods of this world, to reserve a foundational “inner detachment” from those goods in favor of an undivided orientation to God, who has drawn the end close through Christ’s fulfillment of salvation history. On the other hand, Paul calls for devotion to God to encompass and positively shape the concrete decisions, actions, practices, and life that these same believers pursue in marriage itself: time is to be set aside that both partners might devote themselves to prayer; yet the spouses are also to come together, so that temptation might be avoided (vv. 3–5).

In this way, devotion guides and is expressed in both abstention from sex and sexual expression—that is, when, as Paul said in v. 35, both of these are set in their good and proper order with full devotion to the Lord. Likewise, Paul asserts, devotion to the Lord and his missional, kingdom purposes should also define Christian decision and action with respect to divorce: if both spouses are believers, they should remain together—or if they cannot, should remain single and seek reconciliation (vv. 10–11); vice versa, if an unbelieving spouse will live with a believer, Paul says, the believer should remain in the marriage—for who knows if the witness of that decision and the believer’s life of Christ-like love might not save the spouse? (vv. 12–16). To be sure, the appropriate application of these passages in specific human lives and relationships requires a great deal of prayer, practical wisdom, and pastoral sensitivity. However, the point for our purposes here is to see that Paul expects devotion to God, and specifically to the “norms” given by God in Christ (like a focus on reconciliation and pursuing God’s mission in all things, as well as the covenantal faithfulness given and commanded marriage in Ephesians 5), to define the very form of life in marriage, just as much as in singleness.

Taken together, Paul’s treatment of singleness and marriage shows how devotion is both internal and external, and one intended by God to apply to the whole of every Christian life. This point is further affirmed and extended in 1 Corinthians 7:17–24, a passage that interrupts Paul’s treatment of singleness and marriage precisely to assert that the critical focus in any historical situation, identity, or community—for example, also as a circumcised Jew or an uncircumcised Greek, a slave or a master—is to abide in that particular form of life with God (v. 24). Full devotion to God thus means, to use terms borrowed from Dietrich Bonhoeffer, that none of these things is to be considered or pursued as “good” simply “in and of itself,” rather, all things are to be pursued only as part of a wholehearted devotion to God and his grace as our all-encompassing, and only necessary, true good (cf. Ps 73:25–28 and 2 Cor 12:1–10). [1] This devotion is, in short, required of all people in all things.

At this point, we have ample evidence for the basic thesis that devotion is an internal-external form in which an undivided and comprehensive orientation and dedication to God shapes the entirety of the Christian person and the world embraced and shaped; we also see that it directs us to foster devotion in each area of our lives by concretely shaping the practices of each vocation and community toward God in Christ.

We turn briefly to our second thesis about the fundamental nature of devotion as such, that is, that devotion is thus constitutive of the core form not just of “Christian” life but of human existence, as both created and redeemed. That devotion is fundamental to the creaturely form of human beings is evident already in the Genesis creation narrative when God commands human beings “not to eat of the tree of knowledge of good and evil.” This command seeks to stop more than simple, physical eating; rather, as Bonhoeffer helpfully elaborates, it forbids human beings from attempting to decide upon the meaning of good and evil for themselves, precisely by deciding whether or not to obey, rather than simply receiving God’s will as (the) good. Thus it seeks to preserve their total and complete orientation to God and his will, that is, their comprehensive and undivided devotion. [2]

Devotion is thus clearly fundamental to our creaturely form. Vice versa, in Genesis 3, we see that the fall of Adam and Eve is precisely a fall from total and undivided devotion, even as Paul’s identification of devotion as a central component of Christian life in 1 Corinthians 7 shows that its restoration is equally fundamental to redemption. All this is further affirmed in 2 Corinthians 11:3: “But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.” Here too the fall is identified with loss of “sincere and pure devotion.” But more is said: the redemption of devotion is now no longer simply redemption of the creature’s basic devotion to its Creator; it now is identical specifically to devotion to Jesus Christ—“that I may be his own and live under him in his kingdom.” [3] This redeemed devotion to Christ brings with it not only the cultivation of this devotion in our vocations but also to the church and its core practices: to preaching, fellowship, the sacraments, prayer, worship, the works of God, and the works of mercy and of mission. [4] Vice versa, as 2 Corinthians 11:3 makes clear, Christians also were cautioned to be on guard against thoughts that would lead them astray even from this wonderful form of devotion redeemed.

In all these passages, then, devotion is central to the creaturely and redeemed form(s) of human life. This realization grows further when we notice how powerfully devotion is bound up with other core elements of our human form. In the passage from Jeremiah, we noted devotion is fundamentally connected to the love of God, which in turn is placed at the head of all human life in the “great commandment”: “you shall love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength” (Mt 22:37–38). In fact, note how such love itself essentially embodies devotion: this love is undivided and comprehensive! A similar point could be made about the call to obedience , summarized in the first commandment as font of all others: what else is “having no other gods” but wholehearted devotion to the one true God!

The point is not that devotion, love, and obedience are collapsible into each other. To the contrary, each has its own distinct elements that respond to distinct aspects of God’s identity and action: love is affection and desire oriented to God as good and the giver of all good gifts; obedience is submission before God in his sovereignty; and devotion is our committed dedication and our express gathering of all things in our lives and world within our undivided orientation to God. The point is that all these forms only fully become what God gives them to be in, with, and through one another. Devotion is pivotal to a nexus of characteristics that defines our fundamental form as creatures redeemed in Christ.

Indeed, several other key characteristics of human life identified by Scripture also discernibly embody and extend devotion in other pivotal ways. Devotion lies, for instance, at the heart of worship , which devotes to God alone the glory in all things, and of gratitude , hope , and prayerfulness , which in diverse ways all fix our being wholly on God as the source of all good. (The idea of devotion as a form that makes a form of prayer perhaps also helps us understand what Paul means by the command to “pray without ceasing” in 1 Thessalonians 5:17. Obviously, we cannot be consciously praying in every moment; otherwise we wouldn’t do anything else. But through devotion we gain a prayerful form that always opens to God as the giver of all good, even if this is not always a conscious thought or action.) Ultimately, since devotion essentially is our undivided directedness to God, more or less every Christian act and orientation that directs us to God in any way finally will, by definition, be both a necessary element within devotion and a crucial extension of it into the totality of our lived existence.

The qualification, “more or less” is important. For there is one fundamental “form” that is not “coeval” with devotion in quite the same way, namely faith . For as Scripture attests, faith , especially as trust ( fiducia ) and knowledge ( fides ) of God in his basic self-revelation, is rather the starting point of the Spirit’s work in orienting the person toward God through Christ. [5] This would seem to indicate that we should expect faith to be the operative basis that ignites and supports devotion. And indeed, our own experience grants this a certain intuitive plausibility: in all of human life, do we not tend to devote ourselves firmly and wholeheartedly only to those people, communities, and so on which we trust ?

Recent philosophical research further supports this basic scriptural claim and personal intuition in a way that adds an important focus to our study of devotion. One example appears in the work of Joseph Godfrey—though to be clear from the start, some of Godfrey’s arguments are problematic while others are at least in need of clarification and elaboration. [6] Examining a multitude of human “phenomena,” Godfrey shows that devotion is consistently based in trust in relationships, religious experiences, knowledge and language acquisition, and more (86–87). Godfrey adds this “trust” manifests as a “receptivity to enhancement” (88): we trust those whom we believe will care for us. Martin Luther makes a similar argument with respect to trust in God: “For I could not have faith in God if I did not think he wanted to be favorable and kind to me. This in turn makes me feel kindly disposed toward him, and I am moved to trust him with all my heart and to look to him for all good things.” [7] Trust is fundamentally linked to the expectation of good .

Godfrey’s arguments seem plausible. And yet, they also need (more) careful clarification and elaboration—especially if they are to apply to the kind of God-directed trust and devotion that is attested and enjoined in Scripture. For a focus on “enhancement” could easily sound like—or mistakenly be embraced as —crass egoism: I am focused only on my own advantage, and therefore trust only as part of the pursuit of my own advantage. This of course would be the precise opposite of devotion as we have defined it from the Scriptures, namely as an orientation, form, and acts that are fundamentally and even self-sacrificially focused on God and his will.

Nevertheless, God promises to work all things for our good (Rom 8) and encourages us to receive our true good in him (Is 55:1, Mt 6:19–21, Mt 11:25, etc.). Likewise, as Luther’s comment implies, even the gospel itself is in some sense “keyed” to our good: Christ is for you ! Therefore, it ultimately must be in keeping with God’s will to desire, receive, and pursue our “enhancement” and “good”— as long as this enhancement and good are enfolded within a more fundamental orientation to the glory of God, and as long as “enhancement” and “good” themselves thus come to be defined as God and his gracious plan and presence in Christ . Indeed, this kind of careful definition is particularly vital insofar as Scripture attests that God himself, and his grace and plan for us, are to be received as our true and sufficient good, with or without other “lesser” goods (e.g., Ps 73:25–28 and 2 Cor 12:1–10). Since God does not always enhance such “lesser” goods (e.g., by giving some a calling against pursuing marriage), these are not properly included in our definition of our ultimate and necessary good. Just as importantly, neither will we trust God in faith for our enhancement unless we understand God and his concrete will to be our true fulfillment. In short, there is nothing wrong with identifying the link between trust and enhancement as Godfrey and Luther do, as long as this enhancement is clearly and explicitly defined in an overriding way as our life in and with God.

Godfrey seems to attempt clarification in places (see e.g., pp.75, 170–173, 367–399)—though not without other complications from the perspective of a wider biblical theology. Most importantly for our present line of inquiry, Godfrey also calls our attention to the link between devotion and trust. Indeed, he sharpens our grasp of this link: only such trust , he argues, can account for and support devotion when God does not provide other forms of “enhancement.” Interestingly, here Godfrey gives both Jesus and Abraham as key examples (86–87): Abraham faced a call to sacrifice his beloved son and heir, Isaac; Christ faced the cross that demanded a total and complete sacrifice. Given that we only trust those we take to have our ultimate enhancement at heart, Godfrey reasons, what else could have preserved the devotion of Abraham and Jesus Christ except a profound faith that God still was working their good, even in and beyond these things? And indeed, Scripture confirms Godfrey’s claim: on the one side, in Romans 4 and Hebrews 11 respectively, Paul and the author of Hebrews expressly base Abraham’s action in his trust of God. On the other, in the Gospel accounts, Jesus’s trust of the Father is likewise in evidence in his willingness to surrender himself to the Father’s will in Gethsemane (Lk 22:39–46) and also, especially, in his continued entrusting of himself into the Father’s hands even on the cross (Lk 23:46).

Philosophical examination thus converges with our own testimony and that of Scripture in showing not only that faith is the operative basis for devotion but also that such devotion based in faith is pivotal to preserving our creaturely and redeemed human form especially at two critical junctures that occur repeatedly in human life: in the midst of the suffering God often permits, and in those instances where he actually calls on us to sacrifice other goods for his sake and the sake of Christ and the gospel—in the call to singleness, or martyrdom, or any of the other thousand ways God calls us to put him, his kingdom, and/or the neighbor ahead of ourselves. Vice versa, these same events also develop and display devotion in its exemplary form, since it is precisely in the cases that our allegiance to God above and beyond all things stands out clearly in its own right. Furthermore, it is quite clear that this same faith in the goodness of God and his reign in Christ is what sustains hope, love, gratitude, worship, obedience, and the rest in these same instances. Therefore, we must also conclude that while devotion is bound up with these latter traits and their ensuing actions, devotion is not their sole or most fundamental cause . Rather, through God’s own action, faith operates as the foundation for the entire nexus, which ultimately appears as nothing other than the many traits and deeds by which the form of faith overflows into all of life.

Thus far we have seen that devotion is a form constitutive of human existence as it is both created and redeemed in Christ. Specifically, devotion is a fundamental orientation toward God that is both undivided and comprehensive, bringing within itself the whole of our concrete historical life: shaping our desires, choices, and actions, as well as the fundamental ordering of the goods of earthly life that these yield. Likewise, devotion lies at the nexus of still other basic orientations and actions that define the core of our creaturely and redeemed form. Finally, flowing out of faith as trust, this nexus operates to keep the whole of life rigorously devoted to the Father who loves us in Christ and draws us through the Spirit—even in the face of the suffering and sacrifice that life and discipleship bring.

I have also suggested that we should think of devotion as a virtue and habitus . What do these terms signify, and what are their benefits? The next section will argue that both the way these terms appear in traditional virtue theory and their refraction through Lutheran theology have something vital to teach us about how devotion comes about in the human person.

Devotion as a Virtue—and its Sacramental and Liturgical Source(s)

Traditional virtue theory appears first in philosophical sources like Aristotle and the Stoics, which are then reworked in the church by theologians like Augustine and Aquinas. [8] The philosophical versions begin from a basic description of human existence as an orientation and movement toward a “ telos ,” an end or goal that is at once a good to be desired, a historical destination, and the perfection of the human being’s true nature. As good, this telos functions as something like a magnetic target that draws the human being as “arrow” toward itself. [9] Insofar as human beings are conscious agents, however, our orientation to the telos is not just an “inanimate” response; rather, it includes an “intentional” aiming at the telos , and pursuit of it, through our own capacities, powers, and action. Especially for the Aristotelian tradition, repeated actions directed toward a telos in turn form a habitus , a steady disposition to orient oneself toward it and then act out of this orientation. A “virtue” is in fact nothing other than this habitus, taken to be a “form” in the human soul. For the ancients, the “cardinal” or primary virtues were prudence, temperance, justice, and fortitude (courage). Theologians like Augustine and Aquinas adopted this basic framework but also attempted to reformulate such virtue theories in light of scriptural claims about God and humanity. For them, the telos thus became God himself, along with the encompassing “common good” he gives the whole creation, ultimately in Christ. This good in turn reshapes the specific form of the cardinal virtues and also leads to the addition of the forms identified above; faith, hope, and love (1 Cor 13) became the core “theological” virtues, joined by worshipfulness, gratitude, obedience, and so on as correlates.

If this scheme is adopted, devotion too would then figure, at least in part, as one key virtue interwoven with these. In fact, devotion already appears briefly in this guise in both Augustine and Aquinas. However, Augustine seems to mention devotion only in passing while Aquinas puts it at the end of a chain of “secondary” virtues. [10] The claims of the first section, in contrast, suggest that devotion holds a more pivotal place at the nexus of the virtues: it is the form by which faith extends to encompass every other aspect of our being and action into our trust in God and our undivided orientation and dedication to him.

But what, precisely, is gained by thus speaking of devotion as a “virtue” rather than simply as a “form” of human life? First, virtue theory supplies us with more specific terms that help crystalize the basic description unearthed in our exploration of Scripture: the undivided and comprehensive orientation that is devotion is nothing else than the form that gathers the entirety of the person and one’s action into the intentional orientation and dedication to God and his will as our true telos , the eschatological destination of our history, our true good, and that which brings our creaturely nature to its true fulfillment. Second, virtue theory identifies character as a moral matter of fundamental significance, and this corresponds to God’s continual concern and commands regarding the character of his people, including their devotedness, which appears throughout Scripture. Third, the Aristotelian emphasis on “habituation” also corresponds to the implication of the scriptural commands that our own action has at least some role to play in the acquisition of a virtuous character. Indeed, one New Testament passage (2 Pt 1:5–7) directly employs the most common Greek term for virtue, ar?te , in precisely this context: “ make every effort to supplement your faith with virtue ( ar?te ), and virtue with knowledge, and knowledge with self-control, and self-control with steadfastness, and steadfastness with godliness, and godliness with brotherly affection, and brotherly affection with love.” Fourth, as Aquinas notes, the emphasis on stabilization in the concept of habituation corresponds to biblical depiction of both the created and fallen “nature” of human beings: as created, human beings have a given form and set of capacities (reason, will, etc.) that yet require the “stabilizing” development of training ; as fallen, this need increases precisely because sin is now actively destabilizing us. [11] Applying these last points to devotion, by calling devotion a virtue, we identify it as a form with fundamental moral and ontological/anthropological significance; it answers to the command of God to develop our creaturely nature and stabilize it against sin, in part through our own repeated action according to the good God gives and commands.

Of course, the grammar of virtue has been somewhat controversial theologically. Luther, for instance, directly opposes the language of habitus in multiple works on the grounds that any attribution of our righteousness to an internal form that we acquire seems to make justification something we possess in ourselves and gain through our works . [12] To be sure, the core theological commitments motivating this concern is apt. Passages like Romans 4 and Ephesians 2:8–9 make clear, as Luther insists, that justification occurs by grace through faith on account of Christ alone . Nevertheless, not only does Scripture sometimes explicitly draw some connection between our action and our character (e.g., 2 Pt 1:5ff, “make every effort . . .”), God’s very action of commanding a whole range of specific actions toward the end of devotion through Paul in 1 Corinthians 7 also implies that these very actions will at once express, and help us cultivate, devotion. The same point could be made with regard to commands given with respect to many of the other character traits proposed as virtues above. Thus, holding to the unity and inspiration of Scripture, it seems it must be possible to square Scripture’s own doctrine of justification with its own call for human action in pursuit of the virtues.

Thankfully, even from the earliest appropriations of the grammar of virtue, Christian theologians have worked to reformulate it through these twin scriptural emphases. [13] Moreover, recently Joel Biermann proposed a specifically Lutheran paradigm through which virtue can be fully integrated with a robust doctrine of justification: the “two kinds of righteousness” introduced by Luther in a 1518 sermon of the same name and adopted in the Lutheran Confessions. This framework emphasizes that alongside the primordial, passive righteousness of justification, there is an active righteousness of sanctification in which the human being comes to participate, in and through the Holy Spirit. In sanctifying righteousness, Biermann argues, there is thus ample room not only for virtue but also for the idea that virtue is acquired , at least in part, by human action toward our divinely appointed end. [14]

At the same time, as Gifford Grobien recently has underscored, building on Biermann’s work, we should not miss the full force of the priority of divine grace and action also with regard to sanctification. [15] Since God’s own action through Christ and Spirit is the font of our sanctification, in which we then participate , we should expect that the prime source of our virtues, including devotion, will be these agents, Christ and the Spirit, and the means of grace through which they accomplish their work (i.e., the word and sacraments). Thus, it is to a close examination of the way each of these means source devotion that we will turn in the next section.

Yet in that section, we also will extend the ambit of what is sometimes considered under this head, that is, preaching, baptism, and the Lord’s Supper. Luther and the Confessions begin this expansion by calling confession with absolution a “third sacrament” while later adding the “mutual conversation and consolation of the brethren” to the core means of grace. [16] This expansion follows on the key Augustinian insight that it is the word added to an element that makes a sacrament, which in principle implies that anything to which God adds his word can count as “sacramental,” at least in a broad sense. [17] At the same time, the identification of confession/absolution as a sacrament adds the further recognition that even the spoken word is a kind of “material element,” thus making every use of the word (including in preaching and mutual conversation and consolation) broadly “sacramental.”

What we glimpse in these descriptions is the beginning of a profound indication that God works through a unified , word-driven sacramentality with both core forms and a wider extension. It is this unified form that we will continue to explore, precisely as the unifying means by which Christian life is comprehended as a whole within devotion’s undivided orientation to God. In particular, we will attend closely to the liturgy , understood first as the church’s formal practices of common worship. As William Cwirla has argued, such liturgy embodies the word of God. [18] Thus, it too holds a pivotal place in God’s “sacramental” formation of human beings. Yet, insofar as the sacramental word in all its forms awakens the worship at the heart of the liturgy, we also can regard all forms of the sacramental word as intrinsically “liturgical” in the broad sense.

Taken together, these points indicate that we should think of God’s means of grace as a unified, expansive sacramental-liturgical network. We should also recognize that even as this network is the site of God’s work in us, it also becomes the site of practices through which we embody and express devotion as our response to God—and thus also engage in those repeated human actions by which we acquire the “habitual” side of devotion as a virtue. Ultimately we can say that the sacramental-liturgical network simultaneously gives , embodies , expresses , and cultivates our devotion.

As we turn to examine the specific ways this happens it is necessary to examine another dimension of human life: its “historicity,” that is, its “social and historical particularity.” As we will see, attention to this dimension profoundly affects the way we understand the nature of devotion as virtue. Likewise, amplifying our view of devotion as an external as well as internal form (virtue), the emphasis on history will allow us to see the unfolding of the word across all the means of grace as an apocalyptic, salvation-historical drama that enfolds individuals, communities, and all of life in a unified enactment of devotion to God.

The Sacramental-Liturgical Network and God’s Apocalyptic, Salvation-Historical Drama

Simply put, human life is fundamentally social and historical . It is social because we were created by God for community: in our families, societies, and even “humanity” and “all creation” considered as encompassing wholes. It is historical in turn because (a) particular individuals, communities, institutions, and places converge in specific but contingent ways, and (b) human beings intentionally shape all these things into specific historical forms by acting on their visions of the telos , what each takes to be real, true, and good. Therefore, to understand how devotion forms in the individual as virtue, we must understand how it forms individuals in their concrete histories and relationships; otherwise, our “virtue” of devotion would be only a very “formal” form that fails to incorporate the actual content of a real human life (which is constitutively historical, social, and concrete). Vice versa, considering how human beings embody devotion in these contexts will show us how devotion takes on external form in just these histories and relationships.

We must make a turn to history for another reason: according to Scripture, God himself ultimately elects a concrete history for the world. This history includes certain common forms, including especially the individual virtues and the communal practices that belong to Israel’s way of life, now fulfilled and transformed in the specific life(form) that Christ shares with individual believers and his body, the church. Yet it also includes more specific historical decisions, works, and identities commanded to particular individuals and communities. (For both aspects, see Col 1, Eph 1–2, Acts 17:26 and really the whole historical narrative of Scripture). On the one hand, since God’s history and specific commands are wider than the general forms, the whole of this history and its commands, rather than just those forms, must remain the focus of the Christian. Indeed, to our specific concerns, only thus is devotion—which is nothing else than the wholehearted dedication to God and the whole of his will—rightly and fully formed in us. On the other hand, precisely because there is a common general form of individual virtue and communal practice at the heart of God’s concrete will for us, we can focus especially on that core form. [19] In what follows, we will join Biermann and Grobien—as they appropriate Alasdair MacIntyre and Stanley Hauerwas—in describing God’s work through all the means of grace and ecclesial practices as God’s “narration” of our lives, a narration which also gives to the church and its members a concrete culture that integrates the practices in a unified, historical way of life, or Lebensform (lifeform). [20]

What becomes clear is that the “narration” at work in these practices is not “just” storytelling but something like “dramatic performance.” As Kevin Vanhoozer points out, “drama is a doing , an enactment,” and one that typically involves a physical embodiment. The gospel itself, Vanhoozer argues, is a drama of God’s mighty acts embodied in our concrete world, from the garden through the exodus to the death and resurrection of Christ and the growth of his body the church in the Spirit, even as the word and sacraments make this drama ours by “re-enacting” it in and for us. [21] These claims are substantially similar to the common Lutheran claim that the word gives or performs what it promises. [22] Yet they highlight both the sacramental materiality of this performance, as well as the fact that the discrete forms of the word are not just a string of “one-off” deeds but linked performances of an integrated historical narrative, which likewise integrates the whole of our historical and embodied lives within it. Thus, the concept of drama expresses both the sacramentality of the word and the way its specific instances combine to bring the whole of existence—individual and communal, inner and outer—into unified devotion to God.

In all of this we also come face to face with the “apocalyptic” character of devotion and the means of grace that source it. “Apocalypse” in Scripture refers to the “revelatory unveiling” of God and his will in history , in distinction from and victory over sin, death, and the devil and all fallen powers (see, paradigmatically, Revelation as introduced by Rv 1:1). [23] This unveiling often includes an explicit judgment. And yet, precisely because God’s appearance already draws an absolute line between God as the good and all that opposes him as evil, this apocalypse itself already is and performs in the world the division basic to such judgment. For our concerns, through this very division, God’s apocalypse performs in us the “undividedness” and positive “comprehension” at the heart of devotion: it crucifies and hews away all in us that is not of God and raises to life only that which is . As we will see, this is what the means of grace do both in general and with regard to the specific historical content of our present lives—and the fallen powers that play through it.

We can see this once more in liturgical terms. As Jamie Smith notes, just as the church’s liturgical life (in the broad sense) is its own culture, so too cultures outside the church also constitute a “liturgy,” since they too form human beings in the worship of [devotion to!] something—albeit false gods. For instance, he argues, through the “sacred space” of malls that look like cathedrals, the narratives of advertising, and so much more, we are being formed in “liturgies of consumption, hoarding, and greed” that make mammon, our bellies, and ourselves into our gods. [24] Therefore, we can regard God’s apocalypse in Christ, Scripture, and all the forms of the word precisely as fundamentally liturgical —a reclamation of the worship that interpenetrates closely with our focal point of devotion.

Let us then delve into specifics. The formation of devotion in human beings in all these ways is most immediately evident in the practices of preaching and teaching the faith. Insofar as the Spirit uses the word to establish faith these practices likewise establish devotion as well as the whole range of other virtues that unfold from faith. Vice versa, for hearing and reflecting consciousness, preaching and teaching elaborate the specifics of the whole narrative of God’s history with the world in a way that takes up the specifics of each hearer’s life within it, vividly declaring that God’s work, promises, and commands are “for me” and showing how they direct one’s life and action today. As Gifford Grobien points out, it is through preaching and teaching that the biblical narrative becomes a “symbolic order,” an “applied language” or “culture” that in turn frames all other church practices. [25] It is preaching and teaching that establishes the grammar that enables one to understand both that and how all these practices give, embody, and cultivate our devotion and wider life in Christ.

Likewise, it is easy to see how the sacraments of baptism and the eucharist are means toward the wholly devoted life. Like preaching and teaching, these sacraments anchor faith, devotion, and all the virtues. They also simultaneously work and proclaim to reflective consciousness other aspects of devotion: it is the very nature of baptism to incorporate the candidate into Christ’s own total devotion to God, as well as his death and resurrection, which crucify all that is not devoted to God in order to raise a new life that is (Rom 6). Likewise, baptism’s core words, “I baptize you in the Name of the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit,” not only “narrates” the candidate into God’s family but devotes the baptized to it by instantiating a “break” between this family (including both Christ and the church) and all other communities and identities (both creaturely and fallen), establishing the candidate’s undivided loyalty to God. [26] Similarly, the Lord’s Supper gathers the whole of individual and communal life into its telos in Christ, forming believers in love, changing them into one another by that same love (Luther), and thus transforming them into one, reconciled, catholic “new humanity” (Bonhoeffer; Eph 2:11–22) that is a foretaste of the ultimate telos of all things. This formation in the love of Christ in turn leads directly into the corresponding virtue of compassion and the sacrificial sharing of burdens that fulfills the “law of Christ” (Gal 6:2). [27]

As we have seen, the Lutheran Confessions identify the next core extensions of the sacramental drama, confession with absolution and the “mutual conversation and consolation of the brethren” to the list of core means of grace. [28] If we take “mutual conversation and consolation” to open ultimately on the whole of Christian life together in word and deed, these two additional means of grace manifest themselves precisely as the further extension of the specific kinds of devotion fostered by the two core sacraments into our wider, ongoing history. On the one hand, confession and absolution extends our baptismal death to all that is undevoted in our concrete life at the present moment, so that a new, wholly devoted life may once more emerge in every present. [29] On the other, Christian life together extends the love and reconciliation of the communion table into an ongoing form of human existence. [30]

These five means of grace thus converge to form the core of the dramatic-sacramental network of grace. Yet as noted above, properly conducted, the church’s liturgy, understood first as its established worship services, is itself a form of the word of God. [31] Again, this would be true of any form of Christian worship that brings the word to bear. Yet it is also true of the church’s historic liturgy. [32] For on the one hand, as Gifford Grobien notes, the individual elements of the historic liturgy allow us to actively practice and inhabit the core dispositions and acts of Christian virtue: the Kyrie embodies prayer, the Gloria thanksgiving, the offering sacrificial love, and so on. [33] Each of these liturgical moments thus embody and extend our devotional form. So too, distinct gestures like making the sign of the cross re-inscribe the whole dramatic re-enactment of Christ’s death and resurrection on our bodies through a single, concise movement. Other individual elements “flesh out” our dramatic connections to specific elements of the wider salvation story. For instance, drawing on both Isaiah’s vision of God’s throne (Is 6) and the Hosanna of Palm Sunday, the Sanctus stitches our story into central moments of salvation history where God was becoming present to his new creation as King, ultimately in Christ. So too the Agnus Dei stitches our lives into Christ as the fulfillment and end of the sacrificial trajectory from Abraham to temple, even as the Aaronic blessing stitches us into God’s history of blessing a people as his own. Similarly, specific elements of the liturgy confront the fallen powers most directly at work in our current history. For instance, as Smith points out, the offering tears us away from our false devotion to “mammon” and gives the self and all that it has over to Christ, even as communion and the use of the offering to help the needy tears us away from our “individualism” and restores us to our fundamentally relational mode of being. [34]

While these diverse elements each enact devotion in their own distinctive way, we should take notice that the service as a whole embodies an integrated dramatic trajectory that performs the core narrative of salvation again week in and week out, devoting all our history to that point to God. This begins with the invocation, confession, and absolution, which links us to our baptismal death and resurrection with Christ and so takes us “back to the beginning,” to conversion, repentance, and justifying forgiveness. Cleared of sin, the Kyrie and Gloria then perform what are perhaps the pivotal points of “re-entry” into life as a creature: the prayerfulness that cries out to the giver of all good, both for his ongoing mercies in all of life and in thanksgiving for all he is and does. Next come the Collect, Scripture readings, and sermon, which take us beyond forgiveness and the beginnings of creatureliness toward mature devotion, growing our faith through specific knowledge of God and growing us also in knowledge of what God desires for specific areas of our lives. Then comes the Creed, where faith bodies itself forth as confession and solidifies core reflective knowledge of God and the core narrative of history as such. Next, intercessory prayer performs a central role given God’s people, namely the lifting up of all concrete people and situations in the fallen world to him.

Another central part of the telos to which God devotes human life is existence as community, and in truth, even the simple performance of all the liturgy so far described embodies this element of our devotion. However, the second half of the divine service also strengthens this formation of the individual in and with the community: the sharing of the peace performs the repentance that leads to reconciliation. In the offering, we offer up the goods of this world and our very selves to God by offering them in, with, and to his church as well. Next the great thanksgiving embodies our collective sigh of praise for these gifts and the opportunity to use them in mission as we are led to the consummation of our unity in Christ in the Eucharist. Finally, we are sealed as the blest and sent people of God, called to receive and serve him in the rest of our lives.

I would also like to note the contribution to this “retelling of the whole of our lives” offered by a perhaps underappreciated moment of the historic liturgy, the Nunc Dimitiis. The Nunc Dimitiis is of course the song of Symeon, who was readied to depart this world by his encounter with the infant messiah. We are perhaps most likely to participate in this moment primarily by receiving it as another element preparing us for departure into the world and mission, and indeed, it is that. However, the deeper intimation here is that, having received God’s promises in Christ, we too like Symeon are prepared for death itself , whenever it may come. In this way, the Nunc Dimitiis actually, if proleptically, brings our lives to their final moment and portends their eschatological transformation and assurance. In my view, the Nunc Dimitiis offers a distinctively powerful service in fostering the complete giving over of the whole of our lives to God that is devotion.

We should note how the liturgical calendar, linked with the propers of the day and thence the Scriptures and sermon, serves to bring the whole of Scripture and the drama of salvation into our lives over wider spans of time. Concisely summarized, each year, Advent, Christmas, Epiphany, Lent, Holy Week, and Ascension “press in” on our life the transformational significance of each moment of Christ’s life. Each year, Pentecost and “Ordinary Time” then form us to be the church that is born in the Spirit, that grows into the full-breadth of Christ’s teachings through his active rule from on high, and that lives all life “toward” the final end of all things in the return of Christ the King. Likewise, whether on a one- or three-year cycle, or even structured in other ways, the lectionary ensures that the whole of our lives are brought under the whole counsel of God’s will and word. As Jamie Smith notes, a liturgical calendar is an important practice for confronting the “secularization” of our time by absorbing it back into God’s time . [35] In our terms, it devotes our very temporality to God.

In these ways and more, the weekly liturgy and correlative worship practices like the church year play a pivotal part in the “sacramental” network and drama that embodies the word and wholly devotes us to God. Finally, since devotion encompasses all of life within a rigorously undivided orientation to God, ultimately devotion requires bringing all of life, Monday through Saturday too, into alignment with the specifics of our true telos in Christ. One way this happens is through what we perhaps are most used to thinking of as “devotions,” that is, Scripture reading and prayer. However, as Bonhoeffer and Grobien note, developing points made by Luther, it also happens as the “transposition into the other” that Christians experience at the Lord’s table and in mutual conversation and consolation gives impetus to a wider communal action and existence with and on behalf of all the various neighbors in all the communities of our lives: not only the most commonly identified “orders” or “mandates,” like family and political society, but also every friendship, workplace, school, and voluntary association—essentially any “neighborhood” that makes other human beings “neighbors” through proximity in time, geography, interest, or common projects. [36]

Importantly however, for all of these relationships to be gathered into their proper telos in the glorification of God through our reception of Christ-life and so into devotion, these relationships cannot simply be affirmed “in and of themselves,” that is, in the earthly goods they are and secure for their members. To the contrary, as Bonhoeffer takes pains to insist, each community must be directed toward the specific embodiment God gives it within the overall Christ-directed drama of creation. [37] This is precisely what we begin to see in 1 Corinthians 7 where the goal of devotion to God and to his missional purposes both establishes a preference for singleness as well as a specific form and set of practices for both singleness and marriage. One is single in order to have more focus on God and spend more time directly serving the kingdom. Yet even in marriage disciples are to cultivate a certain detachment from the spouse and all earthly goods for the sake of an undivided, foundational orientation to God alone. They are to practice this devotion by setting aside time from the goods of marriage, like sexual activity, for the sake of devoting time to God in prayer. So too, devotion to the Lord and his mission keeps a believer in a relationship even with an unbeliever, with the hope that the believer’s witness might save the spouse.

The importance of this point can be seen in the way that devotion to the Lord’s purposes is the controlling interest in several other passages on marriage. For instance, 1 Peter 3:1–7 begins by making clear that husbands are given headship in marriage, but that this too is for missional purposes: “wives, be subject to your own husbands, so that even if some do not obey the word, they may be won without a word by the conduct of their wives, when they see your respectful and pure conduct” (vv. 1–2). Similarly, the wife is directed to adorn herself with spiritual rather than physical beauty for the same missional purpose, and also because such beauty of spirit is “precious” to the Lord (vv. 3–4). In the same passage husbands are directed to live with their wives “in an understanding way,” especially in regard to their (typically) lesser physical strength—not just because this “makes a happy marriage” but because this honors their wife’s equality as heirs of life and ensures that the husband’s own prayers are not hindered (v. 7). Here too the core rationale has to do with honoring eschatological realities and divine purposes: the equality given and commanded men and women in Christ (cf. Gal 3:28), and the prayer constitutive of the true life of a redeemed creature.

None of this is to say that God does not care for the earthly good itself or gives commands that see to that good. As we see in Ephesians 5, God calls spouses to covenantal fidelity and the exchange of sacrificial love that does indeed provide the vital foundation for the maintenance of the marital relation as an earthly good. Yet even here the concern with the christological telos notably predominates: the love of husband and wife reflect the relationship of Christ and church, and as Paul concludes in Ephesians 5:25, the husband and wife relationship was in fact always intended to refer in this way to Christ and the church—and thus the core narrative of God’s salvation history with his people. Thus we see that even in providing for his people’s earthly goods and directing them to the pursuit of those goods, God never simply affirmed those goods “in and of themselves.” To the contrary, he affirms earthly goods as earthly goods only by reaching them “in and through” his shaping of all things toward their ultimate telos in Christ.

To receive, express, and cultivate devotion in every area and community of life, we should likewise continually be looking for the ways the word of God orders each of those areas in and to Jesus Christ. Bonhoeffer gives us another pertinent example: in pursuing the relationship of parents to children, we should understand that “human beings are procreated for the glory and service of Jesus Christ and the enlarging of Christ’s kingdom. This means that marriage is the place where children not only are born but also are educated into obedience to Jesus Christ.” [38] To devote one’s family life to God is thus to make it the site of discipleship and not just the pursuit of family entertainment and memories, or the support and education of children for financial and social status. This is, Bonhoeffer concludes, how we should give form to every one of God’s “mandates” (orders) and every relationship. All should be shaped toward the ultimate purposes God gives them in Christ. [39] Bonhoeffer also emphasizes, we should not forget that God calls each of us to specific good works as individuals (Eph 2:10). Therefore, full devotion of all things to God will come about only as every individual also considers the “command of God” for the particular, concrete history God has given them, in but also beyond and sometimes over against the mandates. [40]

On the most basic level, this section has shown that devotion comes through the reception not just of distinctive virtues but of a unified life cogently given by God through the word embodied in all the diverse practices of the sacramental-liturgical drama as it moves from the core life of the church in word and sacrament out into the world. However, it is possible to amplify devotion in these sacramental-liturgical practices. In the next section, we will examine a few of the most fruitful ways in which to do so.

Amplifying Devotion in the Sacramental-Liturgical Drama of Our Lives

Perhaps the most obvious way to increase devotion is simply to engage in the preaching and other sacramental and liturgical practices that foster it. All who participate in these practices are already being formed into the devoted people of God, whether they have ever considered devotion as a Christian concept or not. However, such devotion is no doubt more fully pursued (and embodied) when pursued consciously. This in turn recommends explicit public teaching and preaching on devotion as a form and act constitutive of our creaturely and redeemed nature; my hope is that this essay will be an aid to just this kind of explicit preaching and teaching.

It also seems wise not only to teach the role of preaching, sacraments, and liturgy in fostering devotion by “narrating” our histories toward God but also to encourage fully engaging in the practices of the church to this end. Not only should we teach how each moment of the liturgy and each particular means of grace devotes particular aspects of our lives to God, while the Sunday service as a whole recapitulates the core of salvation in our lives each week; we also should encourage one another to consciously engage preaching, sacraments, and liturgy in a way that sharpens their gathering of our specific history into God. For instance, we teach one another to approach the confession with specific sins in mind, the Kyrie with the needs of the present moment, the readings and sermon to hear how God’s word speaks “today and here,” the offering with a desire not just to dedicate our money and the whole of our lives to God but perhaps also with specific areas of life in mind that need this rededication, and so on. In the same way, in both Bible classes and sermons, we try to help one another think through what it means to follow the pattern of 1 Corinthians 7, Ephesians 5, and 1 Peter 3 in each area and vocation of our lives: what practices can devote that area explicitly to God and not just to “itself,” or to our own “earthly” good in it? What does it mean to direct all things to God in Christ in our workplaces, our schools, our hobby groups (sports, etc.), and so on?

Insofar as our devotion is sustained by fully identifying God and his specific will with our true telos , another vital way to amplify that devotion is to be clear and explicit about that telos in our preaching and teaching. Not only does this mean continually pointing to God and the specifics of his will as our true end and goal, it also means identifying and defining key concepts by which human beings tend to be ordered to a concrete goal for their lives. One that is vital for our concerns is the idea of “the good.” By “the good,” we generally signify what is ultimately fitting and/or desirable. [41] Related terms include “valuable” and “values.” Another key concept is “life”: everyone has some idea of what it means to “truly live” that guides their choices. We often link this idea to concepts related to “reality” and “truth”: insofar as we all intrinsically act on what we believe actually exists, or can exist, in our lives and world, describing something as “real” or “true” gives it power to define the good we pursue. Finally, we might think of more “aesthetic” terms like “beauty,” or “excellence.” These are all terms we use to describe or flesh out what we take to be our telos ; therefore, we must link these terms to our true end in God and his will, in all its specifics, if we are to be wholly directed and devoted to God.

Specifically, we should take pains to make certain key points about life, reality, and goodness in our preaching and teaching. First, we should clearly identify God in his glory—initially, in distinction from God in his benefit for us—as the ultimate reality and good. We should then identify God and the whole of his concrete will for us and our world also as our true and sufficient life, reality, and good—our true “fulfillment” or “enhancement.” These things are, quite simply, the core of our true life, reality, and good in God, and thus the proper object of our devotion per se; as we saw in the opening section, the greatest challenge to faith, and thus also the devotion it sustains, comes when suffering or the call to sacrifice produces a stark division between these and every other “earthly good,” including our biological life as such. If we are to remain devoted to God when such crosses come, we must trust and love God, and his will for us as part of the creation directed to Christ, as our true and sufficient end and good—precisely over against and in the absence of every other putative end or good. Otherwise we will either be tempted to choose those other “goods” over God, or to conclude that God himself is not “good,” since in suffering or sacrifice, God refuses to provide us with all possible earthly goods. In either event, devotion fails.

Thus, it is crucial to cultivating devotion the reality and sufficiency of God and the specifics he wills for us in Christ as our true life and good. It is equally critical not to falsely present other things besides God’s glory and will for us in Christ as good simply “in and of themselves.” In so doing, we set up for our hearers a false and misleading notion of life, reality, and goodness that causes them to “fall away” from knowledge of and devotion to our true telos in God. Furthermore, we should recognize that we do not have to use any of the specific concepts for a telos just mentioned in order to direct our hearers toward one. Whatever we treat, even implicitly, as good, true, and valuable is offered to our hearers as a guiding telos. Moreover, it is also possible even to name “God,” “Christ,” or “the gospel” as goal and yet tacitly attach these names to other goods. For instance, if I articulate the “good news” primarily (or worse, solely ) as Christ providing for the needs of this earthly life in itself, this wrongly frames these needs as my true end and good, rather than God himself in Christ. This happens perhaps most obviously in the so-called “prosperity gospel.” But it can happen, even unintentionally, when we focus on Christ as the “solution” to earthly problems in our career, relationships, self-esteem and so on, or even as the healer of our physical and other earthly ills. Do not misunderstand: Scripture does clearly portray Christ as a healer and as one who is concerned with this bodily, earthly life; so this is part of the gospel (in the “wide” sense of all the good news Jesus brings). And yet, when not explicitly ordered “under, to and by” our good in God and the concrete historical life he has willed for each of us in Christ , these “lesser” elements of the good subtly displace God—and so undermine our wholehearted devotion to him. [42]

Another way we might amplify devotion is by carefully amplifying the “apocalyptic” in our preaching, sacraments, and liturgy. One excellent example appears in Luther’s baptismal liturgy, translated with light modifications in the Lutheran Service Book (268ff). That liturgy begins with the “minor exorcism,” which radically divides that which is of the Holy Spirit from all that is of the “unclean spirit.” It then proceeds to the “prayer for the flood waters of baptism,” which embeds the baptismal act within God’s whole history of “salvation by water” as it divides Noah, Israel, Christ, church, and the baptized from Noah’s “unbelieving world,” Pharaoh and his host, the “multitude of unbelievers,” and the sinfulness of the baptized herself. At each step, this liturgy places the baptismal candidate into the apocalyptic history whereby God himself fosters an absolute division between faith and unbelief, devotion and rebellion. The stark terms of this liturgy, and its vivid invocation of the unseen world long discounted by many scientistic moderns, could tempt us to look for a “rosier” alternative. And to be sure, such liturgy needs to be preceded by solid teaching in order to be rightly heard and salutarily received. Nevertheless, as we have seen, it is just such “stark,” apocalyptic words that are critical to God’s formation of wholly devoted disciples; thus, we should preserve them even as we seek to ensure they are rightly understood and used.

We likewise can amplify apocalyptic formation of devotion in preaching and teaching by confronting the specific idols common in our particular lives and communities—for instance, the consumerism and individualism Smith identifies. In the interest of incorporating devotion in every area of our lives in our undivided dedication to God, we can use sermons and Bible studies to probe how particular idols influence specific areas like marriage and childrearing, local and national community and politics, and so on. At its best, indeed precisely on the model of 1 Corinthians 7 and related passages, this “negative” exploration of idolatry would dovetail with our positive imagination of how to embody Christ-shaped alternative practices in those same situations.

In all of these amplifications of apocalyptic, however, we are well-advised to proceed carefully , in the following specific ways. First, it is all too easy for “apocalyptic” thoughts, conversation, and practice to focus on “the culture out there.” However, as church we are called to judge ourselves , not the “worldly”; indeed, we Christians, simul justus et peccator , find that we have been influenced in conscious and unconscious ways by our cultures, so that we “do the very same things” (1 Cor 5, Rom 2). Thus, our goal in sermons and Bible studies should be to grow in devotion ourselves by allowing God’s apocalypse to reveal our sins, these cultural influences which we have made our own. Second, any faithful amplification of apocalyptic needs to proceed always with a nuanced understanding of key biblical distinctions. In all our preaching and practice, we must make clear that apocalyptic divides what is godly from what is sinful and not from what is created . For instance, Scripture makes clear that God desires us generally to pursue the bodily good of all except where this pursuit collides with the call to sacrifice for God’s ultimate purposes in Christ or to vindicate God’s goodness in the midst of suffering in our witness. Therefore, while apocalyptic might condemn turning bodily goods into idols , it should be careful not to suggest that all pursuit of bodily goods is evil as such. Third, in speaking apocalyptically, we need a nuanced analysis of what is happening “on the ground.” Since even outside the church God preserves some of the ordering that belongs to creation amidst the fall and loves all things in and toward Christ (Col 1), we must not simply refer to everything in “the world” as that which God’s apocalypse rules out. Rather, we must distinguish the positive elements in the world from those that “fall away.” We ultimately will fail to draw the line of devotion rightly if we do not explicitly identify and “retrieve” these creaturely elements within “fallen” culture—and so clarify where the real sin lies while actively learning how to devote that area of our lives to God once more. [43]

Let me make these points more concrete with one example, the “apocalyptic” confrontation with individualism. On the one hand, God has created human beings as communal and relational in his own Trinitarian image (Gn 1:26–27); therefore, it is valid to speak “apocalyptically” against a common North American bent toward emphasizing the individual in an isolated and egoistic way ; against this, we can explore what it concretely means today to totally devote ourselves to God, neighbor, and the common life of the church and our other communities (cf. Acts 2:42ff; Phil 2:4; Heb 10:25). However, since God also created human beings with “individual” destinies, works, and rights (Eph 2:10, Prv 31:8–9), we would be mistaken to rail “apocalyptically” against all emphasis on the individual as such. Instead, we should present and explore God’s own subtly-nuanced, given and commanded relation of individuals to their communities. A full exploration would require attending to the different ways God relates individuals to the community throughout Scripture, that is in the example of God’s interactions with the patriarchs, his specific commands in the Mosaic law and NT apostolic paraenesis, and the practices of the various early congregations. Yet we can also begin to make headway by simply asking what it would mean for a given context to “love the neighbor as myself ,” act as a member whose own life and good is organically and cooperatively bound up with the overall health of a given communal “body,” and seek first the kingdom in that situation for one’s self and others.

Finally, in all of this, we must be careful not to speak of devotion only or primarily as a “law” that judges what is not of God and directs us to do what is. To be sure, devotion includes this too. However, at its root, our lack of devotion stems from a corrupted orientation to and desire for false “gods”; and as Lutheran ethicist Bernd Wannenwetsch notes, while “moralizing” can make us feel shame and guilt, the desire for a false good itself can only be displaced by a stronger positive desire for God as the greater and true good. It is precisely this desire that God gives us through the gospel. [44] Therefore, in all our preaching and teaching, we should highlight the “gospel” side of devotion. For instance, we might highlight the image of Jeremiah 2: devotion as part of our “marital” relation to God, and the joy and love to be found there, rooted as it is in his ever-greater devotion to us in Christ. Likewise, we might highlight how what God devotes us to —himself and his concrete will—is in fact our true good and the good of all things. So too, we might highlight the gospel side of sanctification itself: this sanctification is first and foremost God’s gift to us of a life freed from the fallen powers that ultimately enslave us (Rom 6). We might also note that devotion is a sharing in the life of Christ, who literally found his most fundamental nourishment in his complete dedication to the Father and his will (Jn 4–5). Recognizing, with Alasdair MacIntyre, that one of the fundamental problems of contemporary life is its fragmentation into the pursuit of discrete and conflicting goods by discrete and conflicting individuals in discrete and conflicting communities, we might welcome the undivided comprehensiveness of devotion as the alleviation of this pressing human condition in complete freedom for God. [45] Exploring how devotion is thus gospel in each of these ways in each area of our lives thus should also be a critical component of our preaching and Bible studies.

This essay argued that Scripture calls us to think of devotion first as a key component of the core created and redeemed form of the human being, which is simultaneously embodied in and through our external lives and actions. We also saw that devotion interweaves with other core dispositions like love, obedience, and worship, but also how it depends on faith, especially when pressed to its greatest test and most exemplary form by suffering and sacrifice. We then considered the benefits of speaking of this form as a “virtue,” refined by the robust scriptural and Lutheran insistence on the precedence of justification and divine action also in sanctification and the formation of devotion itself. We explored how devotion is given, expressed, embodied, and cultivated especially through the apocalyptic, sacramental-liturgical drama that unifies the diverse instantiations of God’s word as means to devote the whole of our lives unto the Lord. We considered the specific, intrinsic contributions of each of these means in their regular administration and also how to amplify devotion within these practices and clearly present devotion as part of the “good news” of the life God gives us in Christ. May these reflections assist in some small measure as we continue to receive and participate in God’s own gracious action to devote us ever more deeply to himself and one another.

[1] Dietrich Bonhoeffer, Ethics: Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Works in English (DBWE), vol. 6, trans. and ed. Clifford J. Green, et al. (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2005), 47–59. Bonhoeffer does not expressly use the term devotion in this passage, but his claims express and elaborate upon just the kind of undivided comprehensiveness we have found in 1 Corinthians 7.

[2] Bonhoeffer, Creation and Fall (DBWE 3)

[3] Martin Luther, Small Catechism (SC), Explanation to the First Article of the Creed.

[4] Acts 2:42–47: “They devoted themselves to the apostles’ teaching and the fellowship, to the breaking of bread and the prayers. And awe came upon every soul, and many wonders and signs were being done through the apostles. And all who believed were together and had all things in common. And they were selling their possessions and belongings and distributing the proceeds to all, as any had need. And day by day, attending the temple together and breaking bread in their homes, they received their food with glad and generous hearts, praising God and having favor with all the people. And the Lord added to their number day by day those who were being saved.”

[5] Cf. Ephesians 2:8–9, Romans 4, and AC IV.

[6] Joseph J. Godfrey, Trust of People, Words, and God: A Route for Philosophy of Religion (Notre Dame: University of Notre Dame Press, 2012). In addition to mounting the arguments described here, Godfrey also offers a helpful overview of key literature on trust in philosophy, philosophical theology, and several social sciences.

[7] Luther, “Treatise on Good Works,” AE 44:30. Cited in Gifford Grobien, Christian Character Formation: Lutheran Studies of the Law, Anthropology, Worship, and Virtue (Oxford: OUP, 2019).

[8] This paragraph draws on aspects of Jean Porter, “Virtue,” The Oxford Handbook of Theological Ethics , Gilbert Meilaender and William Werpehowski, eds. (New York: OUP, 2007) and Porter, “Virtue and the Happy Life,” Nature as Reason: A Thomistic Theory of the Natural Law (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2005), 141–230.

[9] The image of the good as magnet comes from Iris Murdoch’s Sovereignty of the Good , refracted through the work of John Hare, God’s Call: Moral Realism, God’s Commands, and Human Autonomy (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2000). I added the image of the human as arrow to highlight the centrality of intentionality (aim).

[10] Augustine mentions devotion in at least one list of virtues in On the Morals of the Catholic Church (31.67), albeit only in passing: “quiet, modest, peaceful, their life is one of perfect harmony and devotion to God, an offering most acceptable to Him.” Aquinas makes devotion an auxiliary virtue “annexed” to the virtue of “religion,” which itself is “annexed” to the primary virtue of “justice.” See his Summa Theologica (ST) II–II 82.2c, ad 1.

[11] See e.g. Aquinas, ST I–II 49.4 ad 1, 71.1, 85.1 et passim.

[12] “Treatise on Good Works” AE 44:77–78; Isaiah AE 16:321; Greater Galatians Commentary AE 26:127.

[13] This is true of both Augustine and Aquinas (see again, Porter, “Virtue”), even if we ultimately conclude they did not go far enough.

[14] Joel Biermann, A Case for Character: Toward a Lutheran Virtue Ethics (Minneapolis: Fortress, 2014), 118–133, 162.

[15] Grobien, Christian Character Formation , 84ff et passim.

[16] Apology XIII.4; Luther, Large Catechism 4.65; Luther, Smalcald Articles III.4.

[17] See, Smalcald Articles III 5.1: “as also Augustine says:  Let the Word come to the element ,  and it becomes a Sacrament .”

[18] William M. Cwirla, “Unfolding the Meaning of the Liturgy” in Paul J. Grime and Dean W. Nadasdy, eds. Liturgical Preaching: Contemporary Essays (St. Louis: Concordia Publishing House, 2001), 135–161 (136).

[19] I take my cue here from Bonhoeffer’s emphasis in Ethics that God has elected a concrete history with concrete commands that must determine our “form” on every level, individual, communal, thoughts, words, deeds. Notably, in Ethics , Bonhoeffer seems to refuse any notion of “virtue” as one such level. However, as Jennifer Moberley has recently pointed out, Bonhoeffer does speak of certain “virtue-like” forms. See Moberley, The Virtue of Bonhoeffer’s Ethics: A Study of Dietrich Bonhoeffer’s Ethics in Relation to Virtue Ethics (Eugene, OR: Pickwick, 2013). While Moberely leaves form and command largely side by side, we can go further: for Bonhoeffer himself, these forms are commanded , which should lead to the logical resolution implicit in the claims above: virtue is one element within the command of God, though that command cannot be reduced to virtue and the virtues must be continually determined by the breadth of God’s concrete commands.

[20] Biermann, A Case for Character , 1–14 et passim. Grobien, Christian Character Formation , 71–72. For a mature essay by Hauerwas that concisely uses MacIntyre to show the importance of narrative, virtue, and practices for the human existence in its historicity, see “How to be an Agent: Why Character Matters,” chapter 4 in The Work of Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2015), 70–89.

[21] Kevin J. Vanhoozer, The Drama of Doctrine: A Canonical-Linguistic Approach to Christian Theology (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2005), 37–56, 407–409.

[22] Perhaps few have done more to advance this claim than Oswald Bayer. See, e.g., his Theology the Lutheran Way , ed. and trans. Jeffrey G. Silcock and Mark C. Mattes (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2007). See also Grobien’s use of Bayer and others in this vein in Christian Character Formation , 144ff.

[23] “Apocalyptic” has recently experienced a resurgence as a major theological category, especially in the wake of the work of Ernst Käsemann and J. Louis Martyn. For an overview of Martyn and an indication of the variety of directions taken thereafter, see Joshua B. Davis and Douglas Harink, eds. Apocalyptic and the Future of Theology: With and Beyond J. Louis Martyn (Eugene, OR: Cascade, 2012). For a critical appropriation of Käsemann and a perspective on apocalyptic particularly close to that employed here, see Philip G. Ziegler, Militant Grace: The Apocalyptic Turn and the Future of Christian Theology (Grand Rapids: Eerdmans, 2018).

[24] James K. A. Smith, Desiring the Kingdom: Worship, Worldview, and Cultural Formation (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2009), 19–22; Imagining the Kingdom: How Worship Works (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2013), 75–103; Awaiting the King: Reforming Public Theology (Grand Rapids: Baker Academic, 2017), 203–205.

[25] Cf. Grobien, 148–152. I offer my own summary of Grobien’s use of the term “symbolic order.” Grobien in turn takes it over from Louis-Marie Chauvet, Symbol and Sacrament: A Sacramental Reinterpretation of Christian Existence , trans. Madeleine Beaumont and Patrick Madigan (Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press, 1995), including from the following from p.84–85: “This symbolic order designates the system of connections between the different elements and levels of a culture . . . a system forming a coherent whole that allows the social group and individuals to orient themselves in space, find their place in time, and . . . situate themselves in the world in a significant way.”

[26] Bonhoeffer, Discipleship , 207–210. NB: Bonhoeffer is drawing implicitly here on the narrative of Mark’s Gospel in which Jesus performs this devoted “supplanting” of the natural family for God and “those who do God’s will” first with respect to himself (“whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother,” Mk 3:35) and then with respect to the disciples, who, in place of the families and fields they have left to follow Jesus, are given “a hundredfold in houses and brothers and sisters and mothers and children and lands in this life, with persecutions, and in the age to come, eternal life” in place of the families and fields they have left to follow Jesus (Mk 10:30). While Bonhoeffer doesn’t explain the hermeneutic moves that get him to the final point, it seems likely that he is aptly taking the idea of a “hundredfold” increase to rule out the standard, “biological” definition of family and property; instead, Jesus must be speaking metaphorically (parabolically?) of the disciple’s reception of new “brothers, sisters, and mothers” and “mission fields” as the join Jesus in the new family of the church.

[27] Both Bonhoeffer and Grobien develop the first point by citing and building on Luther’s “The Blessed Sacrament of the Holy and True body of Christ and the Brotherhoods (1519), AE 35:45–74. Bonhoeffer, Sanctorum Communio , 178–182; Grobien, Christian Character Formation , 170–172.

[28] Apology XIII.4; Luther, Large Catechism 4.65; Luther, Smalcald Articles III.4.

[29] Cf. Grobien, Christian Character Formation , 164–167. I also agree with Grobien when he argues in this passage that proclaiming and practicing this link between baptism and confession/absolution is vital for countering Hauerwas’s charge that Lutheran theology tends to divorce baptismal conversion from the equally biblical conception of life and salvation as an ongoing journey of continual (re-)conversion, faith, and sanctified growth.

[30] Bonhoeffer points the way toward these claims with his connection of baptism and the Lord’s Supper to the ongoing life of the church in Sanctorum Communio , 178–208 and in the way that his “Lectures on Christology,” narrate the “Form [Gestalt] of Christ” (NB the singular, “Form” ) precisely as a threefold movement: “Christ as Word, Christ as Sacrament, Christ as Church-Community.” Berlin , 315–323.

[31] See again, Cwirla, “Unfolding the Meaning of the Liturgy,” 136.

[32] The term “historic liturgy” simply refers to the basic form or structure of the historic rite of the western church.

[33] Grobien, Christian Character Formation, 163–182.

[34] Smith, Desiring , 203ff.

[35] Smith, Desiring , 155ff.

[36] I am drawing on Bonhoeffer, Ethics , 388–405 and Grobien, Christian Character Formation , 204–207.

[37] Bonhoeffer, Ethics , 70ff.

[38] Ethics , 71.

[39] Ethics, 69: “It is a matter of ‘divine’ mandates in the midst of the world, whether they concern work, marriage, government, or church. These mandates are divine, however, only because of their original and final relation to Christ. Detached from this relation, ‘in themselves,’ they are not divine, just as the world ‘in itself’ is not divine. Work ‘in itself’ is not divine, but work for the sake of Jesus Christ, for the sake of a divine task and goal, is divine. The reason for the divine character of work cannot be seen in its general usefulness, its value, but can only be found when looking to the origin, the existence, and the goal of work given in Jesus Christ. So it is with the other mandates.”

[40] Bonhoeffer, Ethics , 289–293.

[41] This is a modification of the definition of goodness offered by Aristotle and taken up by Thomas Aquinas: “The essence of goodness consists in this, that it is in some way desirable. Hence the Philosopher [ Aristotle ] says [Nichomachean Ethics I]: ‘Goodness is what all desire.’” (ST I 5.1). Across the history of “Western” ethics, the notion of “desirability” has tended to be indexed to the self, i.e. desirable for me . The addition of the term “fitting” intends to emphasize that the desirability can be more “objective” and less egocentric, i.e. desirable on account of its intrinsic goodness, truth, and beauty.

[42] Many of the specifics in the last three paragraphs are my own. However, I take from Dietrich Bonhoeffer the core awareness that critical terms like life, reality, and goodness need to be explicitly connected to God and his will in Christ, and that the naming of anything else as good “in and of itself” creates a false notion of our end that causes us to “fall away” from God as our true reality and goal. See for instance Ethics , 48–49, 59, 249–250.

[43] We spent eight months in Sunday adult Bible class in my own parish, St. Peter Lutheran in Mishawaka, IN, doing just this, before being interrupted by COVID-19. We were in the midst of considering particular areas of reality and practice like: cultivating one’s own bodily existence (practices of health, well-being, and dying; consumption and leisure; success and achievement, etc.); near relationships (interpersonal friendship; singleness, marriage, sexuality, childrearing, and household-building; schools and education; companies and economic relations; sports teams and other voluntary associations); larger relationships (city, state, and national political communities; arts, culture, and entertainment; military and legal communities and practices; media and social media; racial and ethnic groups); global relationships (international relationships and the human community; animals, the environment, and us). Participants found it a fruitful way to discern what the Gospel and devotion to God means, practically and concretely, for each area of their lives. However, in support of the points above, I want to flag that we were unable as a group to even identify the “idols” of culture until we first explicitly “retrieved” what is at least partially in line with creation and even “redemption” (e.g. the cultural exercise of mercy) in common cultural practices. Also, this side of the eschaton, as the parable of the wheat and tares reminds us (Mt 13:24–30), it is not always possible to totally separate what is righteous from what is wicked, since the fallen world is precisely the weaving together of God’s good gift with human misuse of it. This calls for a great deal of discernment, as well as refusal of falsely “ideal” solutions that uproot good with bad. Finally, NB also that Smith confesses, in the preface to Awaiting (xii–xiv), that his earlier volumes had failed to draw this distinction rightly—in part, he thinks, because he relied too much on the work of Stanley Hauerwas, which tends to draw an absolute [I would say: “ideal” and rhetorical, rather than concrete, “real,” and biblical] church-world distinction. Smith credits Augustine and Oliver O’Donovan for drawing him back to the more nuanced view represented here.

[44] I paraphrase these claims from memory. Sadly, I cannot locate the original reference.

[45] MacIntyre, Chaper 15, After Virtue (Notre Dame, IN: University of Notre Dame Press, 1981). I thank Gerald McKenny for encouraging me to think about the significance of devotion as the opposite of fragmentation.

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The Glorious Table

where life is shared and grace is poured out

in Calling · Courage · Service · Work

Are You Doing Kingdom Work?

“Whatever you do or say, do it as a representative of the Lord Jesus, giving thanks through him to God the Father.” ( Col. 3:17 NLT )

A recent poll discovered that 21 percent of millennials say they’ve changed jobs within the past year—over three times the number of older people. Only 29 percent are engaged at work—again, less than any other generation. They’re largely “checked out,” indifferent, and unexcited.

It’s not all their fault. Much of the blame lies with the economic reality of working 2-3 jobs; knowing jobs will change, so personal brand is more important; and workplace failure to engage.

The truth remains: more see their job as a stop-gap tool for making money, not as a vocation . They certainly don’t view a job as kingdom work.

Two women in Scripture show us the meaning work can have. Theirs is not glamorous work. It’s messy, frightening, bloody work. They occupy one of the lowest occupational rungs in their day, in terms of social standing.

Yet they also had the opportunity, every day, to offer comfort and bring life. They massaged the backs of women who couldn’t go on. They celebrated new life with giddy parents. They held the ones whose children didn’t live.

These are, of course, Shiphrah and Puah, the midwives of Exodus 1. They are there for the questions, concerns, confusions, and adjustments of family transition. They share the greatest rejoicing, and sometimes the greatest sorrow, of a couple’s life. These two have made their job their holy calling. They have done this because they have looked to God for how they can bring forward the kingdom of God by what they do.

Because they’ve made this kingdom mindset their constant practice, they are handed an opportunity to do something extraordinary in their ordinary lives.

Pharaoh, frightened by the growing numbers of “other” people in his country, issues them an order:

Then Pharaoh, the king of Egypt, gave this order to the Hebrew midwives, Shiphrah and Puah: “When you help the Hebrew women as they give birth, watch as they deliver. If the baby is a boy, kill him; if it is a girl, let her live.” But because the midwives feared God, they refused to obey the king’s orders. They allowed the boys to live, too.

So the king of Egypt called for the midwives. “Why have you done this?” he demanded. “Why have you allowed the boys to live?” “The Hebrew women are not like the Egyptian women,” the midwives replied. “They are more vigorous and have their babies so quickly that we cannot get there in time.” ( Ex.1:15-19 NLT )

These women know their lives are at stake. If they obey Pharaoh, they live. If they don’t, no guarantees. Yet they clearly decided long ago that their vocation was to bring life, not death. Their purpose in life was to comfort, not bring distress. They found meaning, despite a low-level, unglamorous position, in becoming a part of the lives and families of the Hebrew women. Because they feared, and loved, God, they chose his side every day when they did their job.

They knew what they had to do because they knew what their calling–their kingdom work–needed to be.

Their defining role was to get people through pain to joy. To walk beside. To foster and prioritize life. These unknown midwives went about mundane, common jobs fraught with everything our jobs are, and they were heroes for what they brought to it. They saw their job as a vocation to accomplish God’s purposes.

Because of that, when Pharaoh gave his order, they immediately sensed that they have been given their jobs for such a time as this—to love their neighbors as themselves. They had the option to just follow orders, just do their jobs. But they choose to do their jobs with an eternal kingdom mindset first. As a result, Moses lived, and eventually, he overthrew the very government system that tried to kill him.

The statistics for millennial adults who have a deep, resilient faith, like that of the midwives, are markedly different than the average. Sixty-one percent are excited about their career path. Sixty percent believe their job is making a positive impact in the world, and 57 percent believe they are using their God-given talents in their work. An enormous 94 percent want to use their unique talents and gifts to honor God.

Many people find deep satisfaction in their jobs, but many other struggle every day to find meaning in what they do 9-5 (or 24/7, for some). Approaching what we do as a vocation, a divine calling, offers us a chance to see it in a new light. We’re able to view the choices we make daily, not as mundane chores but as opportunities to decide if we will show love through that choice or not. We can see our experience as training for kingdom work, not busy work. We will be able, then, to notice when the calling comes for extraordinary obedience in the middle of an ordinary day.

It seems that when we “fear God” as the midwives did, we gain a different perspective on how to go about our daily vocation. We understand that, whatever its significance in human terms, our job has deep meaning in the kingdom of God.

Scripture for Reflection

“Then God blessed them and said, ‘Be fruitful and multiply. Fill the earth and govern it. Reign over the fish in the sea, the birds in the sky, and all the animals that scurry along the ground.’” ( Gen. 1:28 NLT )

“May the Lord our God show us his approval, and make our efforts successful. Yes, make our efforts successful!” ( Ps. 90:17 NLT )

“Commit your actions to the Lord, and your plans will succeed.” ( Pr. 16:3 NLT )

Reach for More

• In a culture where a job might change 20 times, what does it mean to see your work as kingdom work, a holy calling?
• How can we raise kids who value vocation over success?
• What does it look like to bring the fear of God into our workplaces every day?

Jill Richardson is a writer, speaker, pastor, mom of three, and author of five books. She likes to travel, grow flowers, read Tolkien, and research her next project. She believes in Jesus, grace, restoration, kindness, justice, and dark chocolate. Her passion is partnering with the next generation of faith. Jill blogs at jillmrichardson.com .

Photograph © Thought Catalog , used with permission

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How to Write a Devotional: The Definitive Guide

Do you enjoy writing?

Are you passionate about helping others grow in their spiritual lives?

If you answered yes and yes, then you’ll enjoy learning the art of writing thought-provoking devotionals.

There are many, many ways to write a devotional. But the principles that tie them together? Mostly the same.

And in this guide, I’ll lay out some of the most popular and effective methods—as well as show you some strategies for coming up with great devotional ideas.

Ready? Let’s start with the basics:

• Devotional books are released thematically for:
• Grandparents
• College students
• And just about any other people group you can think of

Devotionals are used by a wide variety of media, including large-circulation daily devotional guides, such as The Quiet Hour , The Upper Room , The Secret Place, The Word in Season, Devozine , Pathways to God , and Wesleyan Church  (These links will take you to their submission guidelines.)

More than 25 devotional quarterlies each publish 365 new entries each year. Naturally, these need fresh material annually.

Publishers of vacation Bible school and Sunday school materials often include devotionals for teachers and students. Many independent and denominational magazines (such as The War Cry and The Baptist Bulletin ) run devotionals in each of their issues.

Some publishing houses produce not only devotional books, but also devotional desk calendars and greeting cards.

Again, this market must be replenished annually. Publications can’t just recycle devotionals they ran the previous year. They depend on freelance writers to provide hundreds upon hundreds of fresh, insightful new ones.

• What You Should Bring to the Table

Writers of devotionals should have a pure heart (James 3:8-11). With humility, graciousness, and spiritual sensitivity, you can create something that can alter a reader’s thinking and behavior.

You also need a focused mind (Ps. 1:1-3; 73:28). A succinct and powerful message must be distilled to 150-175 words. This demands clarity.

And you must have a burning desire (Jeremiah 20:9). Ask for God’s guidance to say the right words to someone who may be reading a devotional published a year after you write it.

God is the Alpha, but He is also the Omega. He knows what hurts and needs people will have in the future, and He can use you to prepare materials today to help people during hard times tomorrow.

You won’t get rich writing devotionals. In fact, you may have to write a half dozen to see more than $100. That’s why it’s important to write them in batches to make it worth your while—not that you’re doing it solely for the money.

You can revise and resell your print devotionals as radio devotionals for about the same rate of pay. And you can collect your devotionals and publish them as a book , receiving an advance and royalties.

But beyond payment, you may also enjoy the deep gratification of readers telling you your words changed a mind about an abortion, a suicide, or a divorce.

• Meeting Readers Where They Are

People turn to devotionals to meet deep needs. Some have lost friendships, been divorced, suffered from criticism, betrayal, or the death of a loved one. They need the balm of God’s comfort.

Others seek intimacy with God. Their prayer lives are lax, their testimonies weak, and their church attendance sporadic. They need to find their way back to Jesus.

Some just want to grow spiritually or to discover a better way to share their faith. Your devotional may be their only connection to the Bible all day.

A harried mom may read one just before bed.

A busy teacher may read one during lunch.

An executive may read one during breakfast.

• The Writing Method

When you settle on a passage of Scripture as your anchor text, read it in different translations. Pray and meditate over it until you’re certain you thoroughly understand the verse in context.

Stay current by offering an illustration today’s reader can relate to. Link modern challenges and questions to longstanding solutions from God’s Word—and make the connections obvious and logical.

• The Makings of a Good Devotional

Your reader is giving you a few minutes, and in exchange you must provide an engaging piece of writing that offers new insights. Be genuine and honest, not grandiose or admonishing.

Good devotional writing says, “Walk with me a few minutes. Examine something with me.”

Keep your style appropriate to your audience. Writing devotionals for teens is not the same as writing for seniors.

Although your anecdotes and illustrations should be drawn from your life, the lesson should always be drawn from Scripture.

Present God’s wisdom in a package your reader can relate to.

Stick with tangible images, things readers can see, touch, smell, hear, and taste.

Be specific, yet precise. Make each word count .

Use visual nouns, punchy verbs , short sentences, and the active voice .

• Five Basic Patterns

Learn these and you can begin using them immediately:

1.  The Self-examination

Draw on personal experiences and use anecdotes to teach valuable lessons. Often such devotionals begin with:

“When I was in high school …”

“When I was fishing alone one morning …”

“During my first year at camp … .”

The recollection always has a moral or application that ties in with the selected Scripture.

2.  An Outside Observer Reports

Here you’re telling what happened to someone else. Real names may be used with permission, or changed, as long as the story is true.

Often these devotionals begin with a phrase such as:

“When my great-grandmother first came to America …”

“My best friend had just gotten his driver’s license …”

“Most people are unaware that George Washington … .”

3.  You Interact with Other People

Report on something you learned from a friend, coworker, or family member. Begin with a phrase such as:

“My son taught me a lesson one day when I was walking him to school …”

“My friend could always make me laugh …”

“One day my college history professor was explaining … .”

4.  The Object Lesson

Use a tangible object to parallel an event or circumstance. Jesus often used this format, employing such things as a mustard seed, a Roman coin, a lamp and a bushel, or a tower as metaphors .

Object lesson devotionals quickly make readers see the parallel between the object and the lesson. “Trees killed by saltwater brought in by a tsunami will still stand upright and take up space, but they will bear no fruit. People who come to church each Sunday and occupy a pew but do nothing all week to share their faith are like these trees.”

5.  The Double Meaning Phrase

Take a well-known line from advertising, history, a song, or a poem and convert it to a Christian message, as in “A day without Sonshine is a gloomy day.”

One devotional writer compared the rigid discipline of being a United States Marine to the discipline Christians should adhere to, calling the devotional, “Corps Values vs. Core Values.”

• Developing a Devotional Journal

Because much of what we observe and say has potential to become material for a devotional, keep a journal for ideas, thoughts, and feelings. Begin today by answering:

• Did God use a specific verse of Scripture to change your life? Hows did it affect your outlook?
• Has God brought a person into your life to alter your direction? Like Philip with the Ethiopian eunuch, how did someone suddenly enter your life as a teacher, friend, mentor, or accountability partner?
• When did God make Himself known to you in a dramatic way? Did you receive an answer to prayer regarding a health issue, financial need, or spiritual awakening that proved He was working in your life? Record the details.
• Had God ever reprimanded and brought you back in line when you were spiritually wayward? Explain how you felt God’s chastening and corrective hand.
• Did God use a deep hurt in your life to make you sensitive to others or to show you new ways to be effective to those you serve?

In answering these questions, you’ll discover your life is a source of great lessons you can pass along.

• Brainstorming More Devotional Topics

As you make entries in your devotional journal each day, try to recall:

• A sad or funny experience you’ve had in the past year
• Things you’ve learned while traveling
• Challenging relationships with people at work, home, or school
• Something you are an expert on
• An item in a newspaper or magazine that fascinated you
• An editorial or column you strongly disagreed with
• An unusual experience or new challenge you’ve recently faced
• An opinion based on years of experience
• Something startling or insightful you recently learned from TV or a book
• A new perspective you gained from a sermon
• Societal trends that concern you
• An event that restored your faith in mankind
• Something related to science, nature, weather, or time that stunned you
• A trip to a museum that awakened a new appreciation for nature
• A new job assignment that has stretched you
• A family picnic or class reunion that gave you a special perspective
• Letters or diaries you recently discovered
• A poem or song that keeps coming to mind
• Volunteer work that helped you see the suffering of others
• A friend’s sickness or accident that alarmed you

Avoiding Blind Spots

Although certain publications use devotionals targeted to teens, working women, or seniors, most devotionals you will write will be read by a broad spectrum. So keep in mind:

• People live in many different financial and social conditions.
• The distinctive beliefs of many denominations and theological traditions are precious to people and must be respected.
• Some readers have limited education. So keep things simple but not condescending.
• People in other countries may not understand your slang and pop culture references.
• It is usually better not to write devotionals that stir controversy. So avoid topics such as infant baptism, female ordination, or speaking in tongues.

The Basic Format

Before submitting a devotional, obtain a publication’s writers guidelines and copies of the publication itself. Follow the guidelines exactly.

Your name, address, and phone number should appear on each page. But some publications also ask for your email address.

The basic format calls for a suggested passage of Scripture (usually 5 to 12 verses), a title, one printed-out specific verse from the suggested reading, and an anecdote or story that shows how that biblical lesson applies today.

The writer’s byline usually appears at the end.

Some publications ask that you begin or end with a prayer or thought for the day.

Length varies, from as short as 75 words to as long as 225.

The guidelines will state the preferred method of submission.

Some editors like printouts mailed to the publication’s office. Some like email submissions. Some accept either.

Most publications buy first rights, important because you can then re-use your devotionals in books.

Writing devotionals is a good way to enter nonfiction writing, earn money, and make a positive impact on thousands of readers. Your experiences and those of others are rich sources for ideas .

How to Get Started

1) List 20 emotional hurts people are dealing with (loneliness, depression, guilt, shame, abandonment, grief, prejudice, etc.). Then list what aspects of spiritual growth could come out of each such experience (learning to pray more effectively, learning to bring the Good News to others, cultivating humility, etc.).

2) Start a devotional journal.

3) Try writing a one-page devotional and submit it to one of the devotional markets listed in The Christian Writer’s Market Guide.

You’re on your way!

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Daily Devotional | What Do We Gain from Work?

• September 3, 2024 | Ecclesiastes 1:3–18

Have you ever asked yourself after a long day of work, “What is the point?” If you have, you’re not alone. Thousands of years ago the author of Ecclesiastes asked the same question. He could relate to the emotional and psychological despair that comes from working hard all day—or your whole life—only to realize that what we’re really looking for remains out of reach.

Throughout Ecclesiastes you’ll notice a lot of talk about work. Pay attention to the words “labor,” “work,” and “toil.” Also pay attention to how many times Ecclesiastes either asks what “gain” there is in work or states plainly that there is no “gain” in work. You may conclude that the author has a low view of work, but that is not true at all. Ecclesiastes does demonstrate a low view of idolizing work, or expecting from our labor something only God can give us.

“Gain” in Hebrew refers to a “leftover portion,” or something that remains. It can be translated as “advantage” or “profit.” In Ecclesiastes, this term not only refers to the reward we expect from our work but also highlights the natural human tendency to expect work to provide more than it was intended to give. This sense of ultimate fulfillment is a “gain” that can only come from God.

When we make work our idol, we ask it to fulfill what only the Creator can do. We will soon see how work is a good gift from God that we should enjoy , but today the author of Ecclesiastes reminds us of what work was never meant to be. Work is not our identity. It does not make God value us more than He already does. It is not our insurance against the unknown. Instead, let’s consider where our trust, hope, and worth truly lies: in Christ our King.

How does Ecclesiastes’ view of work reflect your own view of work? Where do you find your value and worth? And what role does your vocation play in that?

Pray with Us: Lord Jesus, thank You for all Your good gifts! May the good things of life, we pray, never replace You in our hearts. May we always treasure You as the greatest, most precious gift. Thank You for Your love that is more valuable than life!

BY Dr. Russell L. Meek

Russell Meek teaches Old Testament and Hebrew at Moody Theological Seminary. He writes a regular column on understanding and applying the Old Testament at Fathom Magazine, and his books include Ecclesiastes and the Search for Meaning in an Upside-Down World and the co-authored Book-by-Book Guide to Biblical Hebrew Vocabulary . Russ, his wife, and their three sons live in northern Idaho.

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In the Workplace

God blesses those who choose to labor with integrity, honoring Him with their finest efforts.

December 21, 2022

Colossians 3:23-24

God’s plan for us includes work of various kinds. Not only are we to help others and be involved in mission-related pursuits; we’re also expected to serve our employers. 

Regardless of your boss’s actions or temperament, the Lord is our ultimate authority, and one way we honor Him is by doing our job with integrity. He expects that whether we work in transportation, technology, education, or any other field, we will carry out our tasks with excellence.  

To do anything else dishonors God. Lazy employees might abuse company time, execute duties poorly, or do the bare minimum. Often their focus is exclusively on the paycheck. But work is not simply about receiving a wage; the Lord wants His followers to better themselves and their organization. Certainly, these outcomes are rewards in and of themselves. But God also shows favor to His followers who choose diligence and integrity. 

Wherever the Lord places us is where we are to work for His glory. So, as children who want to please our heavenly Father, let’s offer our finest efforts in all we do. 

Bible in One Year: Hebrews 12-13 

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How to Rediscover Joy in Your Work

“Do you see someone skilled in their work? They will serve before kings; they will not serve before officials of low rank.” Proverbs 22:29 (NIV)

As I faced the heaviest workload of my life, I fretted. To-do lists multiplied, and details started to feel overwhelming. Each day, I worked from sunup to sundown, and lay awake at night thinking about what the next 24 hours held.

I was exhausted, discouraged and wondering if all my work meant anything.

Then two things happened that changed my perspective.

I remembered a prayer I’d prayed months before at the beginning of my gargantuan project. I prayed, “Lord, help me to do all that You call me to do in this season and not one thing more.”

The Lord also brought to mind a conversation that I had with my friend Suzie, where she shared a new concept. Suzie had prayed God would convert her work to worship. What a beautiful idea! Each morning she spent time with God, reading her Bible and praying, and then she moved into her work, letting God’s presence flow seamlessly into each task.

As I reflected on the bad attitude I was starting to develop, I realized I had failed on both counts. I was overworking, and I was compartmentalizing my work as if it weren’t related to any other part of my life. Those two missteps were making me miserable by skewing my perspective about the labor of my hands.

Here’s what happens when we work with wrong beliefs:

1) We overwork

Instead of following my prayer “Lord, help me to do all that You call me to do in this season and not one thing more” by listening for direction, I just dove right into my tasks — where I ended up frustrated, feeling like I was on a never-ending treadmill.

Exhaustion is a sure indicator we need to consult God about our schedule. We need to ask Him questions such as: What do You want me to do? What do You want me to stop? What boundaries should I set on my work?

God is amazingly faithful, and I’ve experienced His provision over and over with my time. When I listen for His directions for work and rest, it all gets done within a timeframe that astounds me. Working within His plan reminds me that His good gifts include both joy in our work and fulfillment of the other needs of our souls — love, friendship, community and rest.

2) We compartmentalize our work

One of my most harmful misconceptions over the years is seeing my spiritual life as something separate from my “real life.”

As Proverbs 22:29 says, “Do you see someone skilled in their work? They will serve before kings; they will not serve before officials of low rank.”

Although we might never work for a person with a prestigious title, and regardless of whether our tasks are inside or outside the home, we still work for the King of Kings. An element of skill in our work is knowing who our true Boss is — and working for His pleasure. It’s seeking His direction so we’re working smarter, not harder. It’s following Him to find joy in what we’re accomplishing.

Our triune God has created us as fully integrated beings with a body, soul and spirit. God designed work as good — even in the Garden of Eden. Worship flows into the way we treat our bodies, which includes how we feed our minds and the plans we have for our work. Seeing our spiritual life connected to our workload helps us do everything as if we’re doing it for God, because whether we recognize it or not, we really are !

Turning our work into worship gives it worth.

In truth, because God created us as spiritual beings, we’ll automatically worship while we work. The question is, Who are we worshipping ? Are we worshipping ourselves by setting our own agendas and goals, or are we worshipping God by following His? The results are completely different.

Let’s worship God with our work so we can find joy and fulfillment again!

Dear Lord, I need to regain joy in my tasks. Help me to worship You as I work, doing it all for the King of Kings. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

TRUTH FOR TODAY:

Proverbs 31:17, “She sets about her work vigorously; her arms are strong for her tasks.” (NIV)

Genesis 2:15, “The L ORD God took the man and put him in the garden of Eden to work it and keep it.” (ESV)

RELATED RESOURCES:

Amy Carroll received great advice in a time of exhaustion. Her friend Suzie Eller’s latest, Come with Me Devotional , is a great way to start your day with Jesus, setting you up for powerful worship in your work.

How do I live in God's love when I don't feel loved? Our next Online Bible Study is I Am Loved by Proverbs 31 author Wendy Blight. Wendy wrote this in-depth study of the book of 1 John for every woman who craves to truly understand, walk confidently in and live out God’s unconditional, extravagant, lavish love … because His love truly changes everything! All of our studies are free to join — click here for more information .

Visit Amy’s blog today for more ways to amp up the joy in your work life.

REFLECT AND RESPOND:

Does your work feel like delight or drudgery? (Keep in mind, “work” could refer to employment, school, ministry or other tasks God has called you to accomplish.)

Invite Jesus to come to work with you today. At the end of the day, record how awareness of His presence changed your day.

© 2018 by Amy Carroll. All rights reserved.

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Work Is Worship Essay

500 words work is worship essay.

The life we receive is given by God and so is this beautiful earth . It gives us all the necessary things to lead a happy life. However, some people do not understand the importance of all this. The proverb work is worship helps us understand that work is real worship. Through work is worship essay, we will understand its meaning and importance.

Work is Worship

This proverb teaches us that real worship is work. It does not take away the fact of worshipping God, but it lays emphasis on work. While it is good to spend hours worshipping God, it is also important to worship your work.

The proverb does not literally ask us to worship work. It makes us understand that we must treat our work utmost importance. Once we start doing it, we can get the same satisfaction we get from worshipping God .

In other words, if we have faith in our own work, we will not lose hope in life. Even when things turn terrible, we will be able to make our way out of it by working hard. Thus, we must take our work as worship in order to have a peaceful mind and soul.

Work will help us derive real pleasure in life. When we will worship our work, we will value it a lot more. As a result, we will be able to perform well in life and attain all the satisfaction.

Get the huge list of more than 500 Essay Topics and Ideas

Importance of Working Hard

It is important to work passionately and with commitment because then we will be able to achieve success. Our work is what adds great meaning to life. When we do not work, life becomes dull and uninteresting.

Thus, to avoid monotony, we work hard. Every great civilization you see has been achieved through hard work and commitment. Man is the most skilled creation who is meant to work hard.

Our intelligent brain allows us to do the right work and have a logical conclusion. If a person sits idle, he will ultimately become unhappy. As we know, an idle mind is the workshop of the devil.

Thus, when we will work with full commitment, we will get real peace and satisfaction in life. It will also bring us closer to success. Similarly, every one of us has dreams of some kind.

Through hard work, we can achieve our dreams, no matter how big or small. Moreover, when we give our best, we will be able to fulfil all our needs. In addition, working hard also makes a person better and more disciplined.

Thus, we can achieve hard work when we believe that work is worship. In order to do so, we must believe in the power of hard work.

Conclusion of Work Is Worship Essay

All in all, work is worship because if we don’t do work properly, it will not give a good outcome. When we will consider our work as worship, we will try to do our best. Work adds meaning to our lives and brings confidence. Thus, it is best to work hard and well so that we can lead a great and content life.

FAQ on Work Is Worship Essay

Question 1: Who said that work is worship?

Answer 1: Mahatma Gandhi said this. It was because he wanted to instil the importance of hard work in his countrymen and how it produces great results, thus he said this.

Question 2: Why do we say that work is worship?

Answer 2: We use this proverb because it teaches us about the value of work. When we compare the work to that of God, man will do it more diligently. Thus, it will produce a great outcome.

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14 Motivational Devotions for Success

• The Editors

Refresh and affirm your life goals with these inspiring devotions.

1 of 14 Building Self-Esteem

by Tricia Goyer

The Lord your God in your midst, The Mighty One, will save; He will rejoice over you with gladness, He will quiet you with His love, He will rejoice over you with singing.” Zephaniah 3:17 (NKJV)

Growing up I never felt beautiful. We didn’t have much money and all my clothes—except one new outfit every year—came from yard sales. A few times my mom tried to cut my hair herself and my long locks ended up at my ears, and after my baby teeth came in, my adult teeth came in crooked.

The worst year was sixth grade. I weighed more than my stick-thin friends and it was determined I needed glasses. I picked out Jordache frames—a popular brand at the time—but I still got made fun of when I showed up wearing them at school….

Read more and take this faith step

2 of 14 Are You a People Pleaser?

by Susanna Foth Aughtmon

On the contrary, we speak as those approved by God to be entrusted with the gospel. We are not trying to please people but God, who tests our hearts. 1 Thessalonians 2:4 (NIV)

I have realized a few things about myself: (1) I have a huge desire to please people; (2) people are changeable; (3) trying to please everyone all the time is impossible; (4) I still want to do it; and lastly, (5) this is a one-way ticket on the crazy train.

I have been known to make up scenarios and conversations in my head about what I believe people are thinking about me when I think I have disappointed them. I also like to reimagine conversations that I think have gone poorly. Conversation do-overs. Sadly, I am much more brilliant in my do-over conversations than I am in real-life conversations…

Read more and take this faith step.

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3 of 14 Overcome Your Fear of the Unknown

by Camy Tang

But blessed are those who trust in the Lord, whose confidence is in him. They will be like a tree planted by the water that sends out its roots by the stream….” Jeremiah 17:7–8

New ventures can be scary. Going on a trip somewhere new, or starting a new ministry at church, or starting on a new work project—it’s hard to take that first step. What if you get sick away from home? What if no one’s interested in the new ministry? What if you do a terrible job on the new project?

There are always too many fears and too many unknowns, and we like to be in control of our environments. But sometimes new ventures are exactly what we need…

4 of 14 Need a Jolt of Energy?

“But he said to me, ‘My grace is sufficient for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness. Therefore I will boast all the more gladly about my weaknesses, so that Christ’s power may rest on me.” 2 Corinthians 12:9

I have officially relinquished my sanity and have started running for exercise. It started off as more of a shuffle-for-thirty-seconds-and-then-walk-for-five-minutes as opposed to running. As my knees began to protest less and actually feel rather good, I built up slowly until I ran those thirty seconds and shortened the walking to thirty seconds, and that’s where I still am today.

The first few times I exercised, I felt like my lungs were going to fly out of my mouth and my heart would follow in a sad heap on the sidewalk. My legs were jelly after only a few minutes, and I had to sit down to rest a couple times during my “run” so I wouldn’t pass out in the middle of the street…

5 of 14 Start a Thankfulness Journal

“And God is able to bless you abundantly, so that in all things at all times, having all that you need, you will abound in every good work.” 2 Corinthians 9:8 (TNIV)

I remember to thank God for my food, or when He heals a friend, but I don’t meditate on the abundant blessings He’s given to me. “Abundant blessings” is certainly not a phrase I use every day, and I don’t often see the things in my life as “blessings.” I see them as their more mundane forms—car, house, friends, etc.

But a few months ago, I started a Thankfulness Journal. Each day, I listed five things that I was thankful for, and I tried not to repeat myself. It was amazing how many things I could list that I hadn’t thought of before. It made me realize that God has truly blessed me abundantly. I have everything I need, whether it’s material, spiritual or emotional…

6 of 14 Get Real with Jesus

by Sharon Hinck

Once when we were going to the place of prayer, we were met by a female slave who had a spirit by which she predicted the future. She earned a great deal of money for her owners by fortune-telling. She followed Paul and the rest of us, shouting, “These men are servants of the Most High God, who are telling you the way to be saved.” Acts 16:16–17 (NIV)

When Paul and Silas told the people of Philippi about Jesus, they had a strange encounter with a woman who followed them and shouted affirmations . At first, it sounds like a little fan club of one. Yes, it may have been disruptive, but her intentions were good, right? When we look closer, we see a woman who was enslaved, not just by her human owners but by a demon. She said the right words, but she was eaten up inside. Paul responded with compassion, and in Jesus’s name, he cast the demon from her. She was freed to live in truth…

7 of 14 How to Overcome Your Shortcomings

by Jeannie Blackmer

Confess your sins to one another and pray for one another, that you may be healed. James 5:16 (ESV)

I regularly attend Al-Anon family meetings, a group dedicated to helping family members of alcoholics. At a recent meeting the topic was step 7, “Humbly ask Him to remove our shortcomings.” My “Him” is Jesus who died, not only to take away my shortcomings but to take away the sin of the world (John 1:29). The woman leading the group read a passage out of an Al-Anon book called Courage to Change that struck me. “Sometimes the sign that I have actually gotten humble enough to ask my Higher Power to remove a shortcoming is that I can laugh about it.” Then the meeting was opened up to sharing…

8 of 14 Jesus Gives You Joy in the Midst of Trouble

by Gwen Ford Faulkenberry

Let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus, the pioneer and perfecter of faith. For the joy set before him he endured the cross, scorning its shame, and sat down at the right hand of the throne of God. Hebrews 12:1–2 (NIV)

It’s been a particularly difficult week. I have some tough decisions looming, and even though I’ve prayed and sought direction, I haven’t found any peace yet. On top of that, I’m experiencing stress at home that can be described in one word: teenagers. And, of course, there is always a mountain of laundry to do and a pile of papers to grade. I know everyone has weeks like this, but the question is, How do we keep difficulties from stealing our joy? …

9 of 14 Rediscover Your Childlike Wonder

Remember the wonders he has done, his miracles, and the judgments he pronounced. 1 Chronicles 16:12 (NIV)

As a new beekeeper, I am often awestruck because the bee-colony ecosystem is amazing! For example, one of my hives recently, unexplainably, lost its queen. Without a queen, the colony would die. Knowing this, the bees created queen cells, fed the larvae extra royal jelly and produced a new queen. Watching this phenomenal process ignited a dormant sense of wonder in me. It reminded me of the sense of wonder I had when I was a child…

10 of 14 A Devotion for Good Health

by Grace Fox

They [our bodies] were made for the Lord, and the Lord cares about our bodies. 1 Corinthians 6:13 (NLT)

Wrong thinking about my physical health landed me in dire straits. For too long, I allowed my schedule to override my body’s need for exercise. I don’t have time to take a walk now, I reasoned as I worked at my computer desk. I’ll walk later. But later never came. At the same time, I justified eating chocolate bars—big ones.

My brain’s tired from thinking so hard, so I’ll give it a little boost , I thought. One bite led to another and then another. Before long, I’d eaten the entire bar. Oh well, that’s no big deal. I’ll walk off the calories later. But later never came…

11 of 14 Cure for Worry on a Morning Run

by Rick Hamlin

Peace I leave with you. My peace I give you. I give to you not as the world gives. Don’t be troubled or afraid.”  —John 14:27 (CEB)

I headed out to the park for my morning run. I had such a passel of worries somersaulting through my brain that I could hardly take in the sun rising behind the clouds, flushing the sky with pink, nor the daffodils opening up in brave yellow flanks on the hillside. Not for nothing did Jesus say, “Consider now the lilies.”

I was on my first loop, dreading the hill, my steps slowing, my thoughts stuck on an absurd cycle of looming penury and decrepitude, when I saw a runner in a fluorescent-green jacket coming toward me. Was that Jim? Yes, it was. A history professor and writer, he’s always got something interesting to say…

12 of 14 Plan a 'Worry Hour' to Help Ease Anxiety

by Susan Williams

“Who of you by worrying can add a single hour to his life?” —Matthew 6:27 (NIV)

Worrying. I think I got it from my dad. “If I’m not worrying,” he used to say, “I don’t feel normal!” A few years ago, during an especially stressful time , I admitted to a friend that worry was robbing me of sleep, distracting me from important work, even invading my relationship with the Lord.

My friend told me about a technique her own father had developed to conquer worry. “Dad set up a daily ‘Worry Hour,”’ she explained. “When anxieties nagged at him during the day, he jotted them down and promised himself he’d deal with them at five P.M., when he’d set aside a full, focused hour to do  nothing  but worry…

13 of 14 Devotion for an Active Prayer Life

by Tracy Elridge

Stay alert; be in prayer so you don’t wander into temptation without even knowing you’re in danger. There is a part of you that is eager, ready for anything in God. But there’s another part that’s as lazy as an old dog sleeping by the fire. Matthew 26:41 (MSG)

Sometimes I can be lazy when it comes to prayer. I know it is my time to commune with Jesus, to seek His face for direction and guidance, and to pray for loved ones, lost souls, and world matters. However, there are times I let the busyness of life take precedence over prayer. I don’t take the time to spend quiet time in prayer. Each time I renew my mission to be more consistent in prayer, I tell the Lord the same thing, “I’m going to make quiet prayer time with You a daily habit .” So this week I am starting over again. I am so thankful that Jesus knows my weaknesses and always gives me more chances…

14 of 14 Riding Out the Storms of Life

by Katie Minter Jones

“Come,” he said. Then Peter got down out of the boat, walked on water and came toward Jesus. But when he saw the wind, he was afraid and, beginning to sink, cried out, “Lord, save me!” Matthew 14:29–30 (NIV)

Like Peter, I worry when I am faced with the storms of life. Too often, when life gets wild, I forget to stay focused on Jesus. We all have storms in our lives, but Jesus is there for us. A day at the lake with my boys when they were small brought this truth home to me.

My husband, Clay, and I were enjoying a day of fishing with our six-year-old twin sons, Jeremy and Joshua. After a few hours, I noticed a little bit of water in the back of the boat and mentioned it to my husband. “Don’t worry,” he said, “the boat is fine. It’s just a small leak. It’ll be all right. We’ll be leaving soon.” …

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Six Benefits of Ordinary Daily Devotions

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Private devotions aren’t magic. We know that (for the most part).

But still, we can be tempted to think that if we just figure out the secret formula — the right mixture of Bible meditation and prayer — we will experience euphoric moments of rapturous communion with the Lord. And if that doesn’t happen, our formula must be wrong.

The danger of this misconception is that it can produce chronic disappointment and discouragement. Cynicism sets in and we give up or whip through them to alleviate guilt because devotions don’t seem to work for us.

Our longing for intimate communion with God is God-given. It’s a good thing to desire, ask for, and pursue. The Spirit does give us wonderful, occasional tastes. And this longing will be satisfied to overflowing some day (Psalm 16:11).

But God has other purposes for us in the discipline of daily Bible meditation and prayer. Here are a few:

• Soul Exercise (1 Corinthians 9:24; Romans 15:4): We exercise our bodies to increase strength and endurance, promote general health, and keep unnecessary weight off. Devotions are like exercise for our souls. They force our attention off of self-indulgent distractions and pursuits, and on to God’s purposes and promises. If we neglect this exercise, our souls will go to pot.

“It’s okay if there was no special spark in your Bible reading today. In fact, ordinary devotions are a good thing.”

Soul Shaping (Romans 12:2): The body will generally take the shape of how we exercise it. Running shapes one way, weight training shapes another way. The same is true for the soul. It will conform to how we exercise (or don’t exercise) it. This is why changing your exercise routine can be helpful. Read through the Bible one year, camp in a book and memorize it another year, take a few months to meditate on and pray through texts related to an area of special concern, etc.

Bible Copiousness (Psalm 119:11; Psalm 119:97; Proverbs 23:12): A thorough, repeated soaking in the Bible over the course of years increases our overall biblical knowledge, providing fuel for the fire of worship and increasing our ability to draw from all parts of the Bible in applying God’s wisdom to life.

Fight Training (Ephesians 6:10–17): Marines undergo rigorous training in order to so ingrain their weapons knowledge that when suddenly faced with the chaos of combat they instinctively know how to handle their weapons. Similarly, daily handling and using the sword of the Spirit (Ephesians 6:17) makes us more skilled spiritual warriors.

Sight Training (2 Corinthians 5:7; 2 Corinthians 4:18): Jesus really does want us to see and savor him. Savoring comes through seeing. But only the eyes of faith see him. “Blind faith” is a contradiction, at least biblically. Faith is not blind. Unbelief is blind (John 9:38–41). Faith is seeing a reality that physical eyes can’t see and believing it (1 Peter 1:8). And “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ” (Romans 10:17). So if we’re going to savor Jesus, we must see him in the word he speaks. Faith is a gift (Ephesians 2:8). And like most of God’s gifts, they are intended to be cultivated. Daily devotions are an important way to train our faith-eyes to see the glory of Jesus in his word and to train our emotions to respond to what our faith-eyes see. Keep looking for glory. Jesus will give you Emmaus moments (Luke 24:31–32).

Delight Cultivation (Psalm 37:3–4; James 4:8; Psalm 130:5): When a couple falls in love, there are hormonal fireworks. But when married, they must cultivate delight in one another. It is the consistent, persistent, faithful, intentional, affectionate pursuit of one another during better and worse, richer and poorer, sickness and health that cultivates a capacity for delight in each other far deeper and richer than the fireworks phase. Similarly, devotions are one of the ways we cultivate delight in God. Many days it may seem mundane. But we will be surprised at the cumulative power they have to deepen our love for and awareness of him.

There are many more benefits. You could certainly add to this list. But the bottom line is this: Don’t give up on daily devotions. Don’t whip through them. Don’t let them get crowded out by other demands.

Brick upon brick a building is built. Lesson upon lesson a degree is earned. Stroke upon stroke a painting is created. Your devotions may have seemed ordinary today, but God is making something extraordinary through it. Press on. Don’t short-change the process.

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The surge in popularity of daily devotional books and articles has been notable, paralleled by a growing demand for quality daily devotionals. Writing a devotional that invites Christians into the throne room for communion with the Father, transforms lives, and leaves a yearning for more is an art. It’s not merely about recording thoughts; it involves intertwining scripture with the fabric of life, shining as a beacon that encourages others to draw nearer to God.

Welcome to “Mastering Devotional Writing: A Step-by-Step Guide to Crafting Impactful Devotionals.” This guide serves seasoned writers looking to enrich their skills and beginners eager to embark on devotional writing. We delve into the essentials of compelling devotional writing, including choosing relevant scriptures, connecting with readers through personal stories, and motivating action through thoughtful application. Embark on this holy voyage with us, crafting devotionals that mirror our deepest revelations and illuminate the path for others.

Understanding Devotionals

We define a devotional as “the time we set aside for fellowship with God through prayer and His Word, during which He nourishes, strengthens, and refreshes us.”

The ultimate goal of the devotional we will write is to break down God’s Word, aiding believers in communing or fellowshipping with God and being nourished, strengthened, and refreshed by His presence and power.

Here are essential points to remember each time you craft a daily devotional:

• View a devotional as a mini-sermon. In it, we expound or break down God’s Word for readers, enabling them to understand and apply it to their lives.
• The divine impact of a devotional is directly related to the amount of God’s Word conveyed. It is the Word that encourages and builds, not our stories, ideas, or thoughts.
• For God’s Word to have an impact, it must be understood and appropriately applied. As devotional writers, our role is to assist believers in understanding a passage and demonstrating its application to their lives.

The influence of devotionals on readers can be significant. Having written daily devotionals since 2016, I can testify to their immense effect. A well-crafted devotional, readable in 3 to 5 minutes, can sometimes impact a believer’s life more profoundly than an hour-long sermon.

Carefully crafted narratives that merge scriptural insights with real-life applications provide a path to deeper scripture understanding and application, guiding believers in their relationship with the Lord. They offer respite in our hectic lives, a sacred space for reflection and prayer. For those learning to write a devotional, grasping this transformative potential is crucial. A well-written devotional can uplift the spirit, encourage personal growth, and offer solace in times of need, serving as a potent instrument for connection and transformation.

The Core Elements of a Devotional Piece

Creating a meaningful devotional relies on three foundational elements: Scriptural Foundation (S), Accurate Interpretation (I), and Proper Application (A). Remember these with the acronym S.I.A.

As devotional writers, our task is straightforward: begin with scripture, elucidate its meaning for the believer, potentially using a relatable story, and then demonstrate its application to their life or the challenges they face.

The bedrock of any devotional is its scriptural foundation. It’s worth repeating that impactful devotional writing is not about sharing intriguing facts. It’s an exposition of scripture, breaking down God’s Word with a specific focus on application to problems and challenges people encounter.

• The first step is selecting the most suitable passage of scripture that addresses your devotional’s topic.
• For instance, numerous passages exist to write a devotional encouraging people not to worry. Tools such as a topical Bible or AI can assist in finding verses related to anxiety as your foundation.
• At this point, you allow the Holy Spirit to guide you in selecting the anchor passage for the devotional.

Accurate Interpretation:

As some preachers encounter, a common pitfall in devotional writing is selecting a verse and then imparting a message unrelated to the text. This mistake should be avoided.

A proper devotional starts with an accurate interpretation of the chosen scripture. Since devotionals are most impactful when they bring the Word into relatable contexts, using a story, as Jesus often did, to explain the passage’s meaning can have a significant effect. However, a story isn’t mandatory if not applicable.

Nevertheless, a story or analogy that resonates with the Christian’s challenge facilitates understanding.

Proper Application:

After comprehension, the next step is to guide the believer in applying the scripture’s truth to their life. Show them how Philippians 4:6’s instruction to “be anxious for nothing” can be applied in various settings – at home, work, or on the bus to school. This stage is where the devotional truly excels. It brings the Word closer to our daily lives, enabling us to see its relevance.

Elements of Good Writing

Assuming that transitioning from preaching the Word to writing it for Christians would be seamless was a misconception I quickly had to correct.

While good writing shares rhetorical similarities with effective speaking, it possesses distinct qualities.

• One principle that revolutionized my writing career and ministry, and I hope will impact yours as well, is the recognition that good writing is a learnable skill.
• For those serious about writing, I encourage you to delve into books on the subject. Below are a few recommendations to start with.

Effective devotional writing relies on clarity, simplicity, and the capacity to create engaging narratives.

These elements are vital for presenting deep spiritual truths in a way that is both accessible and meaningful to readers. In learning how to write a devotional, it’s crucial to distill complex theological ideas into clear and easy-to-understand language.

Such clarity ensures the core message remains intact, making scriptural wisdom available to everyone.

Simplicity in writing should not be mistaken for superficiality but should be seen as a clear articulation of the message, cutting through the clutter of everyday life. It involves capturing the essence of the scripture and delivering it in a manner that directly touches the reader’s heart.

This simplicity keeps the focus sharp and fosters a deeper engagement with the reader. The most effective devotionals resonate widely because they speak to universal experiences, making simplicity a conduit to broader relevance.

Engaging narratives elevate a devotional from being merely good to unforgettable. They invite readers into a space where they can mirror their lives against the biblical teachings being explored.

• Whether through personal anecdotes, historical instances, or imaginative scenarios, these stories powerfully embody scriptural truths.
• This element of storytelling often has a profound and lasting impact, rendering the devotional not just educational but deeply transformative.

As you refine your devotional writing, remember the ultimate aim: to lead readers into a more intimate relationship with God. By emphasizing clarity, simplicity, and compelling storytelling, you can craft devotionals that shed light on the path and encourage readers to journey down it with you.

The Four-Step Writing Process for Devotionals: Prewriting, Drafting, Revising, and Proofreading

Effective writing, including devotional writing, is a deliberate process. Experts have outlined a four-step method: prewriting, drafting, revising, and proofreading, augmented by feedback for optimal clarity and impact.

Phase 1: Prewriting

Prewriting involves brainstorming and outlining your thoughts. Start by choosing a scripture and identifying the core message you wish to share. Contemplate the passage and its connection to real-life experiences, either your own or those of others.

This phase may also involve delving into scripture to elucidate any unclear aspects and consulting theological resources such as commentaries or study Bible notes. Additionally, it encompasses considerations regarding the length and format tailored to the platform on which you intend to publish.

My go-to resources for devotional writing are the ESV Bible study notes, and the NET Bible notes for their conciseness and theological precision—in most cases!

Phase 2: Drafting

Drafting is the phase where your ideas begin to form a structured narrative. Write freely, aiming to express your thoughts without the pressure of perfection. Concentrate on adhering to the structure that includes a scriptural foundation, a personal story, and a practical application.

Phase 3: Revising

Revising is the pivotal stage of refinement. Re-evaluate your devotional for clarity and impact, ensuring your message is concise and compelling. Incorporating feedback is crucial at this juncture. Share your draft with trusted individuals for constructive feedback. Query them about the clarity of your message, the integration of scripture, and the practicability of the application.

Phase 4: Proofreading

Proofreading provides the final touches, focusing on correcting grammatical, spelling, and punctuation mistakes. This step is about professionally presenting your devotional, ensuring it is motivational and polished.

An advantageous aspect of contemporary devotional writing is the availability of AI tools like ChatGPT, which can assist at each process stage. Rather than using it to write the devotional for you(as a ghost writer), leverage it as a supportive tool (an assistant) in each phase for significant assistance.

Employing this four-step process, especially with feedback from trusted peers or mentors, guarantees that your devotional is meticulously crafted. Each word is chosen for its potential to resonate and make a significant impact.

Publishing Your Devotional: Sharing Options and Building an Audience

After refining your devotional, the subsequent phase involves disseminating it to impact and uplift others spiritually. Whether your target audience is a select few or a broader spectrum, various platforms can facilitate reaching your desired demographic.

Blogs and Websites : Initiating a personal blog or a dedicated website for your devotional writings grants complete autonomy over presentation and dissemination. You can also publish your devotionals on sites that accept devotionals from guest authors, such as Probers 31 Ministries.

Social Media : Using Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter platforms can significantly amplify your devotional’s visibility. Engaging visuals, strategic use of hashtags, and compelling excerpts can draw attention and foster wider sharing.

Email Newsletters : Cultivating a mailing list allows you to deliver your devotionals directly to subscribers’ inboxes, creating a more intimate connection with your audience.

Print and Digital Publications : Consider submitting your devotionals to established religious magazines, available in print and digital formats. This exposure can connect your writings with individuals already seeking spiritual enrichment.

Community Sharing : The value of local community platforms, including churches, study groups, and community centers, should not be overlooked for sharing your devotionals, whether through printed distributions or live readings.

Audience development is a gradual process that requires dedication and engagement. Interacting with your readers through comments and discussions can provide insights into their interests and needs. Consistently delivering valuable and relevant devotionals will help you cultivate a devoted and engaged readership eager for your spiritual guidance.

Common Challenges and Solutions

Navigating the journey of devotional writing entails facing specific challenges, yet all can be overcome. Two prevalent issues are writer’s block and maintaining theological accuracy.

Overcoming Writer’s Block

A ubiquitous hurdle, writer’s block can impede even seasoned writers. A crucial insight is that the depth of your devotionals mirrors your current spiritual state. A vibrant relationship with God enriches your writings significantly. Therefore, nurturing your spiritual life is the most effective strategy to conquer writer’s block. An ignited spirit within you ensures a continuous flow of ideas. To tackle writer’s block, immerse yourself in Scripture and prayer, enhancing your spiritual vitality in His presence. Drawing inspiration from other devotionals or spiritual literature can also spark new ideas and perspectives.

Ensuring Theological Accuracy

The essence of devotionals is their spiritual guidance, making theological soundness critical. To uphold accuracy, reference various scripture translations and consult respected commentaries. If uncertain, seek feedback from a theologian, a mentor, or a peer well-versed in biblical studies. This practice bolsters your devotional’s authenticity and enriches your grasp of the subject, reinforcing your connection to the divine narrative.

The path to crafting devotionals is enriching, offering a platform to disseminate God’s Word in a manner that edifies, encourages, and inspires fellow believers. It’s a journey transcending mere writing; it’s about melding scriptural truths with life, providing insights and applications that resonate deeply with readers. As you proceed through the stages of prewriting, drafting, revising, and proofreading, confronting challenges such as writer’s block and ensuring theological accuracy, let the potential impact of your words drive you. Use this guide as a launching point, and let your devotionals serve as sources of inspiration, comfort, and challenge to your readers. Begin your writing journey today—your distinct voice is invaluable and eagerly awaited.

Recommended Resources

• What is a Devotional?
• Is It Biblical To Write Or Read Devotionals?
• Five Fundamental Devotional Concepts
• Free Ebook: The Devotional Life of Jesus: Finding Inspiration and Encouragement to Spend Time Daily with the Father.
• More Bible Study Articles

Books on Writing

• Writing Devotionals That Stick: A Step-by-Step Guide ” by Kathy Widenhouse .
• On Writing Well: The Classic Guide to Writing Nonfiction ” by William Zinsser
• My Favorite Writing Book: Rhetorical Grammar: Grammatical Choices, Rhetorical Effects 8th Edition

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Examples of Dedication and Devotion in the Workplace

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Signs of Self-Motivation at Work

How job security influences job satisfaction & performance, signs of good employee work relationships.

• Factors Influencing Absenteeism in a Workplace
• How to Give Kudos to an Employee

It was not uncommon in the past to devote one's entire work life to a single company. Nowadays, workers tend to job-hop much more often. In fact, the average employee stays at the same job for only about four years. Even though employees want to explore different options today, they can still show dedication and devotion while in their positions. There are solid ways to show this interest in a job that a boss will notice.

Proactive Learning

Any time an employee shows that he wants to learn more about his job, it shows dedication in the workplace. Wanting to grow and learn about a position emphasizes that an employee cares about not only personal growth but the company's well-being. Stagnation is going to affect a company's bottom line. Ways to show growth in a job position are asking questions, taking classes for further development, and staying interested in new developments in the company's field. For example, a web developer could show devotion to growing in his position by achieving new levels of certification.

Volunteering Solutions

Another way to show devotion is coming up with solutions to problems that are encountered in the workplace. An uninterested employee may sit back and watch processes take place that lead to the demise of the company without saying anything. However, dedicated employees jump in and think of solutions even if they aren't on a managerial level. For example, if an administrative assistant witnesses that too much paper is being wasted when clearing out the printer and copier, he can present solutions to that problem to his boss. He could volunteer what documents can be be put online to save paper, and volunteer to monitor the company's recycle bin. Regardless, showing this kind of interest is indicative of dedication to one's job.

Putting In Overtime

One of the surefire ways of showing dedication to a job is by devoting more personal time to it. Time is a valuable commodity and a limited resource for everyone. When an employee is willing to give up his personal time, it's one of the best ways to show devotion. The most obvious way to work overtime is by coming in early or staying late. Extra hours can also entail volunteering for special assignments or agreeing to be on call 24/7 for after-hours customer inquiries. While it's necessary to still draw boundaries so that an employee isn't burning himself out, giving a little extra here and there definitely shows dedication to work.

Assisting Co-Workers

Being a dedicated teammate also shows devotion to your job. Very few companies were built by a single person who had no help. It usually takes a team of dedicated workers to make a company a success. An employee can show that he is part of the team by jumping in and helping a co-worker complete a huge assignment on time, or training another employee on how to perform calculations on a spreadsheet when she's stuck. To contribute more to the team atmosphere, an employee can look for ways to add to his team by sharing his unique skills.

• Bureau of Labor Statistics: Employee Tenure Summary
• Six Sigma Online: The Advantages of Business Teamwork
• Management Issues: Three Ways to Impress Your Boss
• The Daily Muse: Bosses Tell Us: Eleven Things That Will Get You Promoted

Based in the Midwest, Gina Scott has been writing professionally since 2008. She has worked in real estate since 2004 and has expertise in pop culture and health-related topics. She has also self-published a book on how to overcome chronic health conditions. Scott holds a Master of Arts in higher-education administration from Ball State University.

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How to Write a Devotional

Last Updated: April 9, 2024 Approved

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Writing a devotional is a great way to share the insights and experiences you've had throughout your Christian walk. When you write a devotional, focus on one short passage—often, just one verse. Then, engage the reader by connecting that verse to an anecdote or a personal interpretation of that verse, and finish with a call to action. Once you're comfortable writing one devotional, try compiling a collection of them to submit to a publisher!

Formatting the Devotional

• For example, you might choose a publisher who specializes in devotionals that are geared toward women and that are 150-250 words long.
• When you're researching formatting guidelines, look for a submission calendar for that publisher. For instance, the publisher may put out a series of devotionals on the book of Psalms during the month of May, although the deadline for that collection might be in February.
• If the publisher is affiliated with a certain denomination, you may need to take their particular tenets and beliefs into account while you're writing.

Did You Know? Some publications that publish devotionals include Guideposts, The Upper Room, and Christianity Today.

• Different versions of the Bible can have slightly different wording, so be sure to double-check that your verse is exactly the same as the version you cite.
• If you're already working with a publisher, they may provide you with the passage. You could also choose a verse to fit a submission calendar, or you could find a passage that you feel is appropriate for your chosen market's target audience.
• For instance, if you want to submit to a collection of devotionals centered on the book of Psalms, you might choose a verse like Psalms 22:14: "I am poured out like water, and all my bones are out of joint. My heart has turned to wax; it has melted within me."

• Don't be afraid to let your personality show! Readers will relate better to your devotionals if you're authentic.
• For your devotional on Psalms 22:14, for example, you might share a personal example of a time you were grieving, such as: "In the fall of 2012, I was a wreck. I'd just been fired from my first real job, and then I got the call that my father had passed away. He was my spiritual mentor and my best friend, and I didn't know what I was going to do without him."

• For instance, you might connect your story of grief back to Psalms 22:14 by saying something like: "I felt weak and empty—as though my bones had slipped out of joint, my heart had melted like wax, and my emotions had all been poured out. I felt like I wasn't in control of my body or my mind, but in the middle of that haze, something deep within me urged me to pray. I don't think there were even words—just a soul crying out to God. King David felt similarly broken and defeated, and yet his heart still called out for God."

• In your devotional on Psalms 22:14, you might say something like, "Whether you're grieving a recent loss or there's an unhealed hurt in your past that you can't move past, God's love is big enough to heal your pain."

• For example, you might conclude your Psalms devotion with something like: "Try saying this prayer today: 'Dear Lord, please comfort my broken heart. Help me understand how to use this hurt for Your glory, and guide me as I try to figure out my path. In Jesus' name, Amen.'"

Fine-Tuning Your Writing

• It may help to write your devotional after you've done your own morning prayers and Scripture reading.

• If you narrow your focus, it will also be easier to meet word count limits.
• For instance, if you're writing about John 15:13, which says, "Greater love has no one than this: to lay down one's life for one's friends," you wouldn't write about all of the different types of love people have for each other. Instead, you might write about the deep love shown when someone sacrifices themselves.

• For instance, if you're writing about forgiveness and you're submitting to a market geared toward married Christian couples, you might write about forgiving your spouse. However, if the market is geared toward teens, you might write about forgiving your friends, parents, or siblings instead.

• For instance, you wouldn't want to say, "You've probably told a lie, right? That's a sin, and everyone who sins is going to hell." Instead, you might share a story about a time you told a lie to be polite, then got caught.

• For instance, it's best to avoid writing about politics, sexuality, free will vs. predetermination, or whether Scripture is meant to be interpreted literally or as a metaphor.
• You may need to take the publication's denominational affiliation into account when you're deciding whether a topic is controversial. For instance, many Southern Baptists frown on drinking any alcohol at all, so it would be best to avoid writing about drinking in moderation if you were writing for a Baptist devotional magazine.
• If you do feel led to write about topics that are controversial within the church, consider publishing them as blogs, articles on Christian websites, or even in book form. Devotionals might not be the best fit for these subjects, but that doesn't mean you shouldn't write about them at all.

Creating a Devotional Manuscript

• Read each passage carefully so you don't accidentally write a devotional with a verse that's taken out of context.

• Each night, read through your notes and try to match them up with any verses that come to mind.

• For instance, you might write a devotional book geared toward for teens, new mothers, busy professionals, or people who are grieving.

• If you're working with a publisher, they may specify how many entries to include.

• Try reading each entry backward—start with the last sentence and work your way to the first. This proofreading trick can sometimes help you find errors you wouldn't otherwise.
• It's often a good idea to ask someone else to help you proofread since they might catch errors that you won't see.

• Even if your manuscript is accepted, keep in mind that your collection will likely need to go through revisions with an editor. Be sure to carefully adhere to any deadlines, and don't take any editing suggestions personally.

Community Q&A

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• ↑ https://writersweekly.com/this-weeks-article/writing-and-selling-devotionals-by-kim-sheard
• ↑ https://www.wow-womenonwriting.com/69-FE-Devotional.html
• ↑ http://xulonpressblog.com/ask-editor/writing-tips/5-tips-for-writing-a-devotional/
• ↑ https://xulonpressblog.com/ask-editor/writing-tips/5-tips-for-writing-a-devotional/

About This Article

A devotional is a text or collection of texts that form a basis for spiritual reflection. To write a devotional entry, first choose a theme to tie your ideas and prayers together. For example, you could write a devotional for mothers on the theme of maternity. Your entry should consist of a scriptural passage, a meditation, a prayer, and a key thought. Look for a passage that links to your theme and teaches your readers something. Your meditation should reflect on the scripture and offer your own insight. Follow with a short prayer related to the teaching. Then, finish with a key thought that should summarize the lesson. For example, “Be mindful of every thought, word, and deed.” For more tips, including how to find inspiration for your devotional, read on! Did this summary help you? Yes No

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