Quiet Time Mix Up

Faith

Goodness

Knowledge

Self-Control

Perseverance

Godliness

Brotherly Kindness

Love

2 Peter 1:5-8

"For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindness; and to brotherly kindness, love. For if you possess these qualities in increasing measure, they will keep you from being ineffective and unproductive in your knowledge of our Lord Jesus Christ."

This whole week I have been reading in Francis Chan's book, Multiply, the reasons we study the Bible, both the good and bad reasons. (You can listen to what I have been reading by following the link.)From this lesson I discovered that I often read the Bible with the wrong motivations and that when I read the Bible it should be transforming my life.

My apartment does desert and devos together every Tuesday night and this week it was my turn to lead. Up until yesterday I didn't know what I was going to talk about. I asked God for some inspiration and continued with my regular quiet time routine. As I was reading in Multiply, I realized that I should probably talk about what I had been learning. So, there you go, God answers prayer awfully fast! 

So I did and in our discussion we talked about the monotony we can get into with our quiet times. And the danger that poses. Just as you wouldn't do the same exact thing every time you get together with a friend, neither should we do the exact same thing every time we come into God's presence. So I posed a challenge (mostly to myself) to mix it up in our quiet time routines. 

So today when I reading the book of 2 Peter, these verses really stuck out to me and I wanted to create a visual of what the verses look like. So I stop reading and grabbed a piece of paper and created the illustration you see above (though on my paper it had arrows but I don't know how to do that here). Each of the characteristics in "increasing"...font size in this case.

Not only was it neat to mix it up and do something creative to connect to the scripture, but the scripture also ties well into what I had been learning about the Bible being more than just knowledge, but a way to live. This passage talks about living what we learn from the scriptures. We should be gaining new character traits! 

So now I challenge you! Why are you reading the Bible? Are you reading it expecting to be transformed? Why not try mixing up your regular quiet time routine? 

Examine your heart, try something new and be transformed!

By Name

I am leading a Bible study on campus this semester and each week I am issuing challenges to myself and the other girls in my group. This week one of the challenges was to create something that reminds me of how precious I am to God. I thought I would share mine here with all of you as well.

Photo Credit: Chris Powell


By Name

Billions of stars,
Billions of people,
and still God knows me by name.
He knew me before I was born.
He knows the hairs on my head,
and He knows all the days of my life.
Who am I that He may know and love me?
I am His daughter!