Strategies and Principles for Daily Worship
We are called by God to participate in daily worship. In our modern context this is usually achieved by so-called devotional time, or word and prayer.
I started walking with God about thirteen years ago, as an adult, and was immediately told about the importance of cultivating a habit of daily prayer and reading time. The motivation for why I should do it was explained; I even took a class on the "means of growth". But for years the practice eluded me. I would go through very good periods of daily reading and prayer, followed by periods of hit and miss time, and even periods where I was consistent but rarely got anything out of it.
This paper aims to explain some things and provide some guidance that I wish had been given to me when I first came to faith.
House Rules
Author Doug Wilson uses a device that he calls "house rules" to explain helpful distinctions when considering the faith and practice of a Christian. The reality is that while the Bible gives us much guidance and wisdom in how to order our daily lives, much of the detail work of exactly how this will all play out is highly individual.
As an example, consider rules for children. Children are required, universally, to obey everything their parents command them. But what time is bedtime? That really depends on a lot of factors, and thus varies house to house. Thus, we have "house rules" about bedtime. My children are required to go to bed at 7:30. Other kids might be allowed to stay up later. There are no universals when it comes to "what time is bedtime", but where a parent has instituted bedtime their children are required to follow it.
This is a useful distinction in other areas as well. We have an awful lot of things that God wants us to concern ourselves with and work into our daily lives. How does one go about it? That's going to depend a lot on the person.
Going Your Own Way
A lot of this could be boiled down to "find a way that works for you". However, this advice is hardly actionable and gives nothing to a person who is looking for guidance in how to improve his practice of devotional time. It is the opposite of practical. A lot of us simply don't have the spiritual background or gifting to just "develop" our own way of doing things and have it be any good.
There's a reason that great painters first master the classical form. Breaking the rules can be a great idea, but unless you understand that you are deviating from an established standard, your "own personal style" becomes a mishmash of half-hearted instincts, plagairism and a few sparks of genius that get washed out by the rest. A musician with an untuned guitar has a hard time being a genius, unless he's tuning it differently on purpose to accomplish something specific.
Your Own House Rules
What you need to do is come up with a list of "house rules" that work for you to accomplish the Biblical imperatives regarding prayer and study of God's word. These aren't universals, they are your particular implementation of universals. But as you exercise the fruit of the spirit, self-control, you need to make a plan and stick to it. Changing your process every two months is a recipe for failure.
But like the artist or musician who is not working from established standards, it is very difficult for most of us to just "summon up" something that is biblically based and effective in daily worship. We come from the world system, where all our instincts are fleshly and opposed to God. Unless we are taking those thoughts captive, how can we hope to have some real victory in this area? It is virtually certain that whatever "comes naturally" is from your flesh. Sanctification in the area of daily time with God is an absolute necessity if you want to see serious effectiveness in your life with God.
Dave Ramsey Approach to Private Worship
Dave Ramsey, for all his flaws, has one great attribute. He gives people broad principles and explains why his method helps get out of debt. But first and foremost, he provides a method for getting out of debt. It's a real, step by step, process that people can follow and more or less have it be successful.
The best option we have is to borrow from people who spent a long time and a lot of effort trying to understand an appropriate approach to daily private worship.
Imperatives for the Word
Let's consider some biblical imperatives regarding the word:
Deuteronomy 17:18 “And when he sits on the throne of his kingdom, he shall write for himself in a book a copy of this law, approved by the Levitical priests. 19 And it shall be with him, and he shall read in it all the days of his life, that he may learn to fear the Lord his God by keeping all the words of this law and these statutes, and doing them, 20 that his heart may not be lifted up above his brothers, and that he may not turn aside from the commandment, either to the right hand or to the left, so that he may continue long in his kingdom, he and his children, in Israel.
These are instructions for a king, which Peter helpfully reminds us is what all Christians are, the royal priesthood, following in the footsteps of the King of Kings.
We should read the word all of the days of our life so that we can learn to keep all of God's statutes. This is how we do not turn aside from the teaching of our God and our children reign as well as we do.
Do we want the promises of God? Do we want our heart not to be lifted above our brothers? Do we want to not turn aside from God's commands? Do we wish for long life and our children to follow in this way? Then we read the Bible. Every day and we learn from it, we put it into practice.
The importance of not letting the words of God just bounce off you are drawn out in many places.
James 1:22 But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves.
Romans 2:13 For it is not the hearers of the law who are righteous before God, but the doers of the law who will be justified.
Read Psalm 119 if you want a master's class on why reading and understanding your Bible is an absolute necessity for every Christian. It's why the reformers were so heavy on literacy. People fought long and hard to bring the gift of Bibles in your language and schools that taught you to read precisely so that you could be blessed by God in this way.
Likewise Paul reminds us that there are no unimportant parts of Scripture and thus we should make sure we're reading all of it, not just the parts that seem most relevant to us. This is of course not to say that you can't spend more time on the particularly relevant parts, but you do not know what the Spirit wishes to teach you in Deuteronomy or Leviticus.
Ephesians 5:18-19 give specific emphasis to the Psalms. We should be singing them regularly, or failing that, at least reading them. It is good practice to make psalm reading an every day aspect of your time in the word, but failing that it is good to make sure they are a part of your reflection on a regular basis.
Imperatives Regarding Prayer
Here are just a list of things that you are directly commanded by God or shown strong examples to pray for:
Pray for mercy/cleansing in confession (2 Chron 6:21; 1 John 1:9-10)
Pray for your enemies (Mt 5:44)
Pray for open doors for yourself and/or others (2 Cor 1:11; col 4:3)
Pray for others to be restored (2 Cor 13:9; 1 John 5:16)
Pray for civil rulers and leaders/elders of the church (1 Tim 2:2)
Pray for other churches (Eph 6:18; 2 Cor 9:14)
Pray for the sick (Jas 5:14)
Pray for salvation of the nation (Rom 10:1)
Pray for love and knowledge to abound to those in your circle of influence (Phil 1:9)
Pray in thanksgiving/adoration (1 Thes 1:2; examples in all the psalms)
Are these things regularly a part of your prayer life? If not, then you should strive to make them so. Work hard and diligently to find a way for these to characterize how you communicate to God. God works powerfully through prayer, but he wishes prayer to be done as HE prefers, not as we prefer. If you want to see the world change through the spread of the gospel, these things must become part of your prayer life.
The Method
If you want an out of the box method for devotional time, you could do worse than things like the Book of Common Prayer, morning and evening prayer, which I use. I like the old-timey feeling of it and it is careful to hit every point in the above. It also comes with a whole Bible reading plan, though frankly it's an aggressive one. Mine that was posted formerly is an adaptation of it.
A more loose and adaptable approach is the ACTS prayer method: Adoration, Confession, Thanksgiving, Supplication. Take your time to speak about who God is; this is adoration. Confession is especially important, not necessarily to get to every wrong you did this morning, but to simply acknowledge your sinful heart (with some specific examples if necessary) and remind yourself of God's pardon, and his promise to cleanse us from all unrighteousness as we confess.
Then follow with specific thankfulness for how God has blessed you and your friends and your family. Finally, take the time to pray for things that are on your heart, for yourself, for your church, for the church around the world, for your leaders, both civil and religious, for your family, for the lost.
As for reading the Bible, pick a systematic bible reading plan, preferably one that has daily psalm reading and a greater proportion of New to Old Testament readings. But pick one that gets you through the whole thing. Don't be satisified with just flitting to whatever book appeals to you at the moment. That's fine for some supplementary reading, but it is very easy to avoid the books that you're unfamiliar with and stick to what's comfortable.
Hardest of all, but very important, get used to adding the Old Testament in regularly. This is important because it is a gold mine of commands, examples, and understanding about who God is. But it is also very alien to most of us and not easy to cultivate a taste for. If you do not regularly read the Old Testament in a systematic way, you will never overcome the unfamiliarity that makes you avoid it. We get so much NT content, it becomes like a well worn pair of pants, whereas the OT, since we so rarely study it as a group is always somewhat stiff unless we actively make an effort to change that.
If you want an easy plan, rotate between a chapter of the NT, a chapter of the OT, a chapter of Proverbs and a chapter of Psalms at the rate of one chapter a day. Go through it in order. Easiest thing in the world, just get four bookmarks for your Bible. You'll be keeping good practical and prayer content at the forefront through Proverbs and Psalms and you'll have the NT at about 3 times the rate of the OT. I suggest going at at least twice that rate to get through the Bible in about 4 years, but speed is less important than the systematic approach. There are plenty of more creative plans on the YouVersion bible app if you want something fancier.
Do it every day, at least once a day. I think it's a good strategy to start out with a two-week-long palate cleanser where you read and pray once when you get up and once right before bed. Take some time at lunch to praise God, even if just for a moment. That will sort of reset your system if you haven't been doing this consistently for a while. After two weeks of doing it consistently that often, once in the morning will seem like NBD.
Concluding Thoughts
Don't overthink it. Doing it is more important than doing it right, but doing it right is important. How you feel matters a whole let less than what you do. Some people are blessed to feel a close personal connection with God each time they do devotion; most of us do not. That's awesome when it happens but it's not the point of prayer or word time. The point is that we are exercising our faith in God by doing what he commands. We bring his power to bear on our own minds so that they may be transformed and his power on the world around us so that it may be transformed. A worshipping church is a powerful church. Our weapons are not of flesh and blood but they are divinely powerful for destroying the fortresses that surround us.
Don't worry about getting every scrap of information out of a passage of scripture, especially when its unfamiliar to you. Getting the gist of it is a lot more important than spending half an hour meditating on it. The Bible is a piece of literature and much of its import will be hidden to you until you have a decent familiarity with the whole, and with the themes and references. It is flatly not possible to simply read a chapter of Ephesians and get more than the most basic information out of it without a broader understanding of what the Bible teaches in the rest of the book.
As you are faithful in the small things, God will bring greater things into your life. Whatever else you want to see change in your life, this must be at the center of all transformational efforts. I strongly recommend a "daily office" of a flavor that appeals to you, such as the Book of Common Prayer, since those prayers are from faithful saints who have spent a lot of time reflecting on God and his word and there is much we can learn from them. There are also books of prayers from the puritans, and many other resources we have at our fingertips because of the internet. Pick something and stick with it; you will see the fruit of a transformed life through consistency, not some mountaintop "experience" that changes everything for you.
It will feel unnatural and uncomfortable at first. That's the most normal thing in the world, worship of the living true God is very unnatural for a fleshly sinner. As you are transformed by consistent, DILIGENT practice it will become much more joyful and refreshing than it is at first. It is perfectly normal for it to feel dry, or just checking a box, or even "ritualistic". Do it anyway; it is divinely powerful.