Devotional Tips


Looking to make your personal devotions a bit more exciting, real, regular, personal, or life-changing? Here are a few tips to help you try doing your personal devotions in a new way.

  1. Keep track of your faithfulness on a calendar.
  2. Read scripture out loud.
  3. Write out key verses in your own words.
  4. Memorize verses, passages, or entire chapters.
  5. Use a good study Bible and use its features to go deeper.
  6. Use a daily journal and write down thoughts, prayers, questions, and observations.
  7. Use cross-references given in your Bible.
  8. Read or sing a hymn.
  9. Find one key verse in each session. Ask God why that verse stood out, and what He wants you to do with that verse.
  10. Make notes (in your Bible or on a notepad).
  11. Mark / color code / underline / highlight key verses in your Bible.
  12. Use a Bible commentary to go deeper.
  13. Read, reread, reread, reread, reread…you get the idea.
  14. Do a study of a particular Bible character.
  15. Follow a schedule to read through the entire Bible (i.e. in 1 year or 2 years).
  16. Use an exhaustive concordance to trace key words or topics through the Bible.
  17. Take a short book and study it in depth (i.e. James, Philippians, Jonah, Ruth).
  18. Pray the Scriptures – that is, take a couple of verses and pray them to God.
  19. Use a computer Bible program.
  20. Remind yourself that you have a piece of God’s mind in your hands.
  21. Choose a place and time that you can usually count on having day.
  22. Make your special spot comfortable and emotionally warm.
  23. Read a passage in your usual translation, and then in a different translation.
  24. Talk to / write to / e-mail / chat online with other JIM Clubbers and see what they have discovered through their personal devotion times.
  25. Choose a prayer partner. Talk to him frequently and make sure that you’re both keeping up with your devotions.
  26. If you don’t understand what a word means, look it up in a dictionary.
  27. Make a list of ways that you will stay strong and regular in personal devotions.
  28. Don’t just pray for yourself – pray for family members, friends, enemies, teachers, school acquaintances, the unsaved, other JIM Clubbers, and leaders.
  29. Listen to a Christian song and find the message in it.
  30. Make a list of people to encourage or forgive. Speak to them soon.
  31. Download Adventures in Bible Study or Studies in John.
  32. Make a list of “tips” not on this list.