Jeremy Hoover

This is our home devotional guide for next week, May 29-June 4, 2011. The questions are from Psalms 1 and 49 and James 4:13-5:6.

Gather your family together each day, read a section of God's word, and use these questions to guide your discussion. As usual, each day ends with a prayer focus that is tied in with that day.

Please make copies and share this with others if you find it helpful!

This week's devotional guide continues through James and the Psalms. Looking at Psalms 91 and 92, and James 3:13-4:12, the questions focus on godly wisdom versus worldly wisdom. The Bible passages are from the texts we will read and study on Sunday, May 22.

Please download this guide and use it with your family. Feel free to make copies and share it with others if you find it useful!

This is the home devotional guide for May 15-21, 2011. The questions are from Psalms 52 and 53 and James 3:1-12.

I encourage you to download this guide and use it, not only in your personal time but also in a family time of worship and Bible reading and prayer. Gather your family together for 20 minutes, read the Bible passage for the day, discuss the questions together, and pray for each other using the prayer focus for the day.

You have permission to copy and distribute this devotional guide if you find it useful.

This devotional guide includes questions from James and Psalms 15 and 19. I'm combining some of the wisdom psalms with our study of James. The download link is below.

Please share this devotional guide if you find it useful. Permission is given to print and distribute to others.

Some of the men in the church here are going through a leadership training class by Lynn Anderson called They Smell Like Sheep. The idea is, using the biblical metaphor of shepherding, that leaders (shepherds) are so entwined with people's lives (their "sheep") that they "smell" like sheep. It's a good book, and a good course.

In lesson one, Anderson includes an article about praying the psalms. I've read about this before and have some experience in praying the psalms, but was reminded in this reading of this great habit that I've neglected. He challenges those taking the course to pray through the entire book of Psalms in one month (5 psalms each day) and then to continue praying one each day.

I took up his challenge but modified it. I'm going to begin praying one psalm each day. Today, of course, I prayed Psalm 1. Thinking about the psalm, I was reminded of the two ways to approach God. One way ends in life and righteousness, the other in perishing. The key to walking in the life-ending and life-affirming way is to meditate on the law (scripture; the words of God) day and night.

This was critical for me. Over the last 6 months or so, I have probably read more of the Bible than at any other time of my life. But I haven't meditated on it. (There is a difference.) Through praying Psalm 1, God challenged me to meditate on his word, not just in the morning when I do my Bible reading, but also in the evening. I've been brainstorming ways to do this.

It is through meditation that we grow in strength of faith to be like the great tree planted by a stream that yields its fruit in season. This is what we want to be--giants in faith. But we only get there through meditation on God's word, which allows his word to seep into the cracks and crevices of our souls, take root, and blossom.

Below is an audio devotional I made awhile back on Psalm 1. I think it's appropriate to repost it.

My Sunday morning Bible class finished reading much of the New Testament in the fall quarter (October-December). In that experiment, we read about 2 chapters of a book of the New Testament each day, 7 days a week, and read nearly all of the New Testament. We decided to keep on with this pattern for the winter quarter, but to read from the Old Testament this time. Because the New Testament relies so heavily on Isaiah and Psalms (these two books are the most often cited OT books in the NT), we decided to read these books.

This time, I broke it down differently. Rather than reading 2 chapters each day, I divided Isaiah and Psalms into equal divisions based on number of pages. We'll read Isaiah over 5 weeks and Psalms over 7 weeks by reading an equal number of pages. (I used a standard Bible with no notes to count pages.)

Using the bookmark below, please feel free to read along with us! This is a great way for you to read two very important Old Testament books right at the beginning of the year and get your Bible reading off to a fast start.