What Profit Is There in Reading a Devotional Written by Another?

The title and core ideas are from an article I wrote on a prior blog.

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What profit is there in reading a devotional written by someone else?

Short answer: not much. Long answer: when used correctly, lots. Let me explain.

The whole Bible is about people becoming established in right relationship with God. Genesis opens with God’s account of creation, followed immediately by his account of how humanity lost its intimate relationship with Him. Christ’s life on earth, His atonement for our sin, His resurrection, and His future second coming will finally reestablish and secure what was lost. However, no person will ever be brought back to close communion with God solely because they are a member of the human race. Each person must come to God’s saving grace individually and personally.

God is Spirit. Because Christ has been revealed and the Holy Spirit has come, as Jesus said to Nicodemus, “You must all be born from above.” (NET  John 3:7)

Being “born from above” means that something happens between the Spirit of God and a person’s heart. A life giving transaction occurs.

Romans 8:9 You, however, are not in the flesh but in the Spirit, if indeed the Spirit of God lives in you. Now if anyone does not have the Spirit of Christ, this person does not belong to him (NET).

It follows that reading a devotional written by someone else, assuming that it has its basis in truth, will do a person no good, unless the person has a like interaction with God. A devotional is useful as a sign pointing to a meeting place with God. A devotional provides a location from which the view of God is good. The goal of all devotionals should be to lead the reader to his or her own private audience with God.

I think of driving a car through a mountainous landscape. On mountainous roads, travelers often come across a sign announcing an area set aside for vehicles to pull off and park, so they may enjoy a spectacular viewpoint. This is why, for example, I write my thoughts on Psalms. Because the viewpoint I present is not well known, I want to stand with a sign pointing others to vistas of great opportunity, namely, reading the psalms with an ear toward hearing the invitation by Father and Son for the reader to join them in a dialogue of life giving fellowship.

A devotional is like a crib sheet that helps someone get started in a certain direction. For example, many years ago when I was just beginning my Christian walk, I read C. S. Lewis’s The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. I read it without guidance. A short while later, I told a Christian friend that I had just finished the book. He asked me if I had seen the allegory of the life of Jesus Christ in it. Astounded, I told him that I hadn’t. I rushed back to the book and urgently read it again from this new vantage. What an entirely different reading experience I had as the book came to life for me under the guidance of that bit of information my friend had given!

Reading a devotional can have a similar effect to what I described above. Imagine that you are a hiker walking through forests, meadows, and brush. I or someone else crosses your path as you hike. We stop to talk. “Did you know,” I say, “that God is sitting in that clearing just over there? If you go to him now, right down this little path,” and I point to where I mean, “you’ll be able to meet with him yourself. As soon as you leave me, go down this path here, and see if you don’t find God waiting for you just over there.”

This is why I write about Psalms.