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Your Devotional Life

Every long distance race requires the participant to set a pace. At the point in this pathway it is the goal of the discipler to help the disciplee set the pace for their relationship with God. In setting the pace of the Christian life it is vital to be daily reading and meditating on God's Word along with spending precious time in prayer talking to God.

For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous,
      and his ears are open to their prayer...

- 1 Peter 3:12a

Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.

- Psalm 119:105

Let my prayer be counted as incense before you,
      and the lifting up of my hands as the evening sacrifice!

- Psalm 141:2

Let's Pray and Read

Discipler and Disciplee should meet meet weekly or bi-weekly. This is to be decided by both individuals as the discipler prepares the disciplee to care for his or her own spiritual life through prayer and bible reading.

Goal

The primary goal at this point in the pathway is to help the disciplee develop a devotional life. The desire is to help the disciplee establish a self-sustaining prayer life and Bible study life. The discipler uses the resources to train the disciplee in these skills.

Resources

  • Face to Face, Volume One: Praying the Scriptures for Worship
  • Scripture Reading Plan: Pick a 90 day gospel reading plan. Once the 90 days are done the discipler can encourage the disciplee to continue using these plans for their bible reading the rest of the year.

Using Face to Face by Kenneth Boa

Using the Scripture Reading Plan

Face to Face by Kenneth Boa contains 3 months worth of prayers from scripture. Learning to formulate a personal prayer life directly from the Bible will greatly strengthen that prayer life. Face to Face is designed to develop this skill.

The process for going through this book is not to study out every passage in detail each day. When the discipler and disciplee meet the discipler should walk through one of the passages that has been read through since the last meeting and have each person pray the content of the biblical passage. If it helps to pray the passage, the discipler can take a few moments and discuss briefly what the passage is discussing and how it applies to each of them. The goal here is to spend more time in practicing praying the content of scripture rather than doing a thorough study on the passage. In the beginning it may go quickly. If this happens it is encouraged that you pick another passage or two and pray through them as well. One tip for doing this is to write out what a prayer according to the text when first reading through it before meeting.

Here is an example from Psalm 100:1-2:
Biblical Text - 1Make a joyful noise to the Lord, all the earth! 2Serve the Lord with gladness! Come into His presence with singing!

Example Prayer - “Lord, I pray that I would unashamedly proclaim joy and cry out in praise to you in my daily life. Help me to regularly obey your desire for me to lift up joyful worship to you. May I not only be joyful with my praise and worship to you but that my joy would flow into serving you with gladness regardless of the service you desire. May I always live before you with joy and gladness ever wanting to sing knowing that I am in your presence daily as I am in Christ and the Holy Spirit has indwelt me. No place I go, you are not there. Lord, help me to rejoice and be glad in you showing it through my words and actions.”
In conjunction with reading Face to Face the discipler and the disciplee will read through a 3 month Bible reading plan together. When meeting they will either, before or after praying through passages of scripture from Face to Face, discuss what God has been teaching them through their Bible reading. In this discussion it is important for the discipler to help teach the disciplee how to properly interpret and apply scripture. The discipler's task is to help the disciplee grow in their ability to read, interpret, understand, and apply biblical truth.  

Once the 3 months have finished the discipler should encourage the disciplee to remain faithful in prayer and bible reading. The discipler can encourage the disciplee to pick another one of the provided gospel reading plans.