True Devotion

I decided to devote myself to writing devotionals this summer. After a discussion in my small group I decided my first devotional should be about what true devotion is. Since we are drawing our discussions from a book of devotionals centered on the spiritual disciplines, it is from that context that I write. Meanwhile as part of the Creative Arts Ministry at my church I receive emails from our worship leader. To encourage us to think deeper he sent us three quotes asking us to put them all together.

The first one is a quote by Oswald Chambers:

Faith never knows where it is being led, but it knows and loves the One who is leading.

The second quote is from Paul in a letter to the church at Corinth:

Don't you realize that your body is the temple of the Holy Spirit,
who lives in you and was given to you by God?
You do not belong to yourself,
for God bought you with a high price.
So you must honor God with your body.
1 Corinthians 6.18-20

The third quote is from a sermon our worship leader heard somewhere, sometime ago:

We are not physical beings having a spiritual experience;
we are spiritual beings having a physical experience.
~ unknown

I thought that the quotes fit within the idea of true devotion. As I meditated over these and considered the small group discussion I formed a question that I wanted some direction on and that is if the desire of my heart is to be truly devoted to God, how do I do that?

First I needed to define true devotion. The dictionary defines devotion as “profound dedication; consecration, earnest attachment to a cause, person, etc” (Random House). The acts of devotion consist of the spiritual disciplines; praying, fasting, studying the scriptures, giving, giving of oneself. These spiritual disciplines are the how of devotion but also are the how to honor God with your body. Often when I think of 1 Corinthians 6.18-20, I think of the not what to do’s. Yes, we are to rid ourselves of the things that hold us back from devotion to God, but that alone is not enough, we need to do, to exercise our spiritual muscle in order to be established in the faith.

We can fall short of devotion in the practice of the spiritual disciplines if they are not practice with the disposition of love. We can seek to improve our disposition but if we do not have in mind the interests of others, we fall short. Spiritual discipline is not self improvement, it is devotion to God. I think Oswald Chambers describes in the quote that devotion to God is loving, listening and abiding or making our home with the One who leads us.

How can we say we have moved further in a life of devotion to God if we cannot tolerate the short falls of others, nor lend a hand to the suffering? Even beyond that if we do not make the things of God our focus striving to understand and live out God’s higher purpose in our lives, then we very well may be devoted, but to what, only our own concerns. I think this is where the third quote comes in. We desperately need to see things differently, really inversely from the world. I have to admit I never thought of my time here on the earth as a spiritual being having a physical experience, but it works. And I think it helps put self concern, worries about what we will eat or drink or what we will wear into perspective. All these things will fade away when we pass from this life and enter fully into a relationship with the Father.

How then do we start? How do we start to a life of devotion to God? Change your thinking, do something that builds spiritual muscle and do it all in love, so as to not do it in vain.