Heart Matters Blog

Take some time to sit quietly. Allow your spirit to settle. Savor this opportunity to be still in God’s presence.

Have a journal and pen or pencil ready to jot down any thoughts that come to you during your time together.

Ask Him to hush any stray thoughts that may distract you from hearing His still small voice. And ask the Spirit to give you an open, responsive heart that you may hear all that He longs to say to you today. 

Keeping Vigil: A Christmas Quiet Time Devotional

Before you get started, take a few minutes to quiet your spirit.

Close your eyes and take some slow, deep breaths. Imagine laying every burden and all of those holiday pressures at Jesus’s feet.

Be sure that you are in a comfortable position that allows your heart to be most attentive to His voice. Try to make that space as interruption-free as possible. It should be a set-apart place where you enter, as it were, the Holy of Holies to meet with your Savior.

Ask Jesus to clear away any stray thoughts that may distract you from truly meeting with Him - in order hear all of the things that He has on His heart to say to you today.

Open your journal and have your pen/pencil ready.

When you sense a readiness in your soul...read the passages below slowly.

The Lord is good to those who wait for him, to the one who looks for him. It is good that one should be quiet and wait patiently for the Lord’s salvation.

Lamentations 3:25-26

When eight days had passed, Jesus’ parents circumcised him and gave him the name Jesus. This was the name given to him by the angel before he was conceived.

When the time came for Mary and Joseph to do the things the Law of Moses taught about being pure, they brought Jesus to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.

In Jerusalem at the time, there was a man, Simeon by name, a righteous man devoted to God, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. He was waiting in prayerful expectancy for the time when God would come to help Israel. The Holy Spirit had revealed to him that he wouldn’t die before he had seen the Messiah.

Led by the Spirit, he went into the temple area; so, when Mary and Joseph arrived to present the baby Jesus to the Lord in obedience to the law, Simeon was there. He took the child in his arms and praised God, and said,

“Now, Lord, you can let me, your servant, die in peace as you promised. For I have seen with my own eyes how you will save your people. Now all people can see your plan. He is a light to show your way to the other nations and he will bring honor to your people Israel.”

Luke 2:21, 22, 25-32

Now Anna, a prophetess, was also there. She was very old, having lived with her husband for seven years after her marriage, and then as a widow for 84 years. She never left the Temple, but continued to worship there night and day with times of fasting and prayer. She came along just as Simeon was talking with Mary and Joseph, and she began praising God. She talked about the child to everyone who had been waiting expectantly for redemption in Jerusalem.

Luke 2:36-38

Whoever waits at my door and listens for me will be blessed.

Proverbs 8:34

• Now, go back and read the passage again. As you do, be aware of any phrases that tug at your heart. You may want to write those phrases down.

One of my favorite ways to spend time with the Savior is to sit quietly reading his love letter, the Bible, using the slow, meditative approach known as Lectio Divina. Lectio divina means divine or sacred reading in Latin. It is a quiet, prayerful practice where we invite the Holy Spirit to open the ears of our hearts in order to hear God's still small voice speaking to us through His Word. It is not a discipline meant to master the Word or to acquire new information or knowledge, it is what Henri Nouwen calls, reading the Bible on your knees...where we allow the Word to descend from our minds into our hearts and become a personal word to us. 

Using the lectio divina method, then, we will be reading the following Bible passage several times, each time with a different intent. 

Before you get started, however, take a few minutes to quiet your spirit.  

This is a 5-day Bible Study Journey through the Book of Philippians. May your life be enriched as you "walk" with the Apostle Paul.

Philippians.pdf

This is a 5-day Bible Study Journey through the Book of Galatians. May your life be enriched as you "walk" with the Apostle Paul. 

Galatians.pdf

This is a 5-day Bible Study Journey through the Book of 2nd Thessalonians. May your life be enriched as you "walk" with the Apostle Paul.

2ndThess.pdf

This is a 5-day Bible Study Journey through the book of 1st Thessalonians. May your life be enriched as you "walk" with the Apostle Paul.

 1stThess.pdf