Take your devotional life to another level. Now when I'm talking about devotional life,
I am talking about mainly your devotions, not your devotion. Now devotion is your life committed to
Jesus. Devotions is your time spent with Jesus. I have another video where I deal about why you
should pray in the morning and develop your daily devotions. You can click below this video in the
description to watch that video. So now let's dive in. 10 things you can do to take your prayer life,
your morning prayer to another level. Number one, go to sleep earlier. Duh. You have no
idea how many people struggle with their early morning devotions because they stay up too late,
they don't go to sleep early enough. In fact your early morning prayer can only be as effective,
consistently, if you go to sleep early enough. And so if you make a decision to go to sleep earlier,
you'll be more alert in your morning time. If you read the Old Testament,
you will see that especially in the creation story, that the day begun with the night and
the morning. You know most of us, we begin our day with coffee or we begin our day with
some kind of a glass of water. In the Jewish culture, your day begun with a good night's
sleep. That's why the Shabbat, Saturday, didn't start on Saturday. It started on Friday night,
and it ended on Saturday night, not on Sunday morning. So each day started the night before,
the evening before and then it ended on the evening off. What does that tell us? That tells
us that your morning prayer is really starting before you go to sleep. So the last few hours
before going to sleep, what you do before you retreat has a huge effect on your devotion time.
And many people who spend that time just consuming entertainment, or just browsing through TikTok,
or Instagram. What they do is they stay up longer than usually they should, and then they battle
with the blankets. They have a hard time waking up. Not because the demons are attacking them,
but it's because they've developed a very bad habit of staying up late doing nothing.
Now if you're staying up late and you're praying or you're reading the Scriptures,
or you have meetings, or you have a small group, or you have a revival service, or you're reading,
or you are doing homework. That's a different story. But if you're just staying up late and
doing absolutely useless stuff, then begin to cut that useless stuff slowly and add those hours,
minutes to your morning devotions. You'll be more energized. You will wake up more early. You will
be more motivated throughout the day. It's just it does incredible things to your life if you
begin to cut off empty useless waste of time in the evening before, and add that to the morning.
The second thing that you can do to spice up your morning prayer life is consistency. One
of the biggest problems that people encounter is they start with hype and then they burn out,
or they fizzle out, or they lose that passion. In order not to have that, you must not
think that hype will get you through. It's the habits that will get you through, and so my
personal recommendation to people is this. Don't focus on trying to pray for very long every day.
Focus on praying every day consistently. It's better to pray regularly and have your devotional
time regularly, let's say 15 minutes, every single day. Then have 50 minutes, every other week. And
that's how many people live, their prayer life is you know they just go only when they feel they
have a big need. Which is nothing wrong with that but if you would apply that to food, if you were
apply that to sleep. You know you won't function properly. There are certain things that you need
them daily. Give us our daily bread. And so I've always been a huge proponent of consistency over
something radical, big and crazy. I tell people that in order to be consistent, choose something
that's reasonable, instead of something that's radical. Your goal is not to have a prayer life
that you can brag about. Your goal is to have a prayer life that blesses you, refreshes you,
and that honestly builds a habit where you're spending time with God. So consistency is the key.
The third thing is when you have your devotions, when you have your morning time with the Lord,
always ask God for a daily rhema, daily word. You know it's even in the Lord's Prayer. Give
us this day our daily bread. Now of course it's referring to our needs, but I do believe it could
be a broader application. We all need a word from God. Now that word is the Scripture, but
there's a logos and then there's the rhema. Rhema is when God quickens that word, when it speaks to
you. When it quickens, when it feeds you, when it empowers you, when it fuels your faith. And so,
it's one of my things is that when I go into my reading of the Scriptures, I look for that word.
Now do I get that every single day, no. But I try to really say, Lord I need a word from You. Not to
preach, not a word so I can post something but a word so I could be fed spiritually, and the Holy
Spirit always helps and quickens the reading of the Scripture. Sometimes I read one chapter many
times because you know something just caught my attention and the Lord just you know wouldn't let
me go. So my goal for reading the Scripture is not always make sure I go through the reading plan.
I just want to make sure the reading plan goes through me. Last few years I actually
have stopped putting the restriction on myself to make sure I read x amount of chapters. And I
usually put a restriction, make sure that I read x amount of time, and sometimes it could be the
same verse. One time I remember I was reading, actually just I think this week or last week,
five verses. I read the chapter and I read those five verses, maybe like 20 times. And
then I memorized them in my morning prayer because it spoke to me, it convicted me. It
brought me to my knees and repentance in that particular area. So God's Word is to be eaten
and you have to savor it, and to do that you got to give it some time. And so when you have these
rules that you have established, that I need to finish five chapters right now, six chapters. Then
what happens, sometimes you can skip on being fed by God's Word and actually make sure that
you read it. And so the goal, God is not tracking how many chapters you're reading in heaven. It's
important to develop a discipline of reading the Bible through the year. Everything is great with
that. But if you go hungry spiritually and just accumulated information, but not get a revelation
of God's Word, meaning a spiritual food. Then you're really missing the reason why God wants
you to read the Word. The fourth thing that you can do in your prayer time and that is beneficial,
I don't do that every single time, is journal. Now I do take written notes on my iPad but I also
have a physical journal where I write those deeper moments, deeper convictions, deeper visions that
God gives me. I usually take that journal with me on my going out of town or going somewhere
on the mountain. But I have this folder on my Bible app called "SOAP" where I write my daily
insights. Those are not sermons. They rarely will end up anywhere in public. It's just something the
Lord speaks to me as I read the Word. Now it does take few minutes but I try to listen. When I read,
I listen to God's Word and as I write that, type that out, it's me expressing what I feel the Lord
is saying through His Word. Number five. Something that is crucial I believe in our generation is to
turn off your phone's notifications. I believe it will be very helpful if in your prayer time
you don't have distractions. I wonder if closing the door actually represents that in our life,
to close the door of distractions, and for some of us we have notifications. Now others of us,
there is no distractions in our prayer time, we create those distractions by opening our
phone and scrolling through. And so it will be a good tip, a principle, honestly even a rule,
not to go through social media until you pray and read the Word. You will see that your mind is not
going to be focused on trying to respond, reply, "Oh wow, what did they post? Oh wow,
they tagged me in this. Well praise God." And so instead you're going fresh into God's presence and
saying, "Lord, make Your first impression on me. May Your Word make Your first impression instead
of what everybody's doing and what everybody is saying." The sixth thing that you can do
is change the prayer location. Sometimes you pray in the same room for years and honestly, you kind
of get in the rut. And what could be helpful is actually to change the room where you're praying,
and to change the place where you're praying. Sometimes Jesus went on the mountain,
sometimes he went in the wilderness. And so I don't think there's anything super sacred
about having that one room where you always pray. You know we have a church that's open for prayer,
so once a week I go to church to pray because it's a house of prayer. When it gets warmer I
try to go to the mountain. Sometimes I go to a park early in the morning,
partially just to kind of change a little bit, to spice things up you know. And so you don't have to
do that but if you feel stuck maybe change where you're praying. The seventh one is try to practice
getting away with the Lord for longer periods of time. Now you can start with a 24 hours and you
can go and rent a cabin or Airbnb, or honestly, I know some people who actually went in a tent,
got a tent and went on a mountain. You do have to be you know kind of conscious of snakes, and
bears and other stuff. Otherwise you're going to be really like David, killing bears and lions, or
you can get killed by them, eaten by them. So you got to be careful about that. Personally not my
preference. I would probably not, I'm not a tent guy. I love nature but I will not spend the night
in the tent on the mountain. It's just going to be freaky for me but some people love that. Maybe
that's something that you will enjoy. Personally for me I just would rent a cabin or Airbnb,
and I understand some of you will push back. You're like, "Oh wow, that's super expensive."
Really? How many times we went on a vacation? How many times we rented a hotel because we went to a
friend's wedding? Like we don't think of that as an expense. We think this as an investment
into a relationship. What about thinking about your relationship with God like that? And I can
guarantee you, the moment you make a decision to do that. Somebody will come alongside and neither
bless you with those finances or you will find those finances out of nowhere. Because when God
sees that you're putting extra effort to spend time with Him, He seems to provide for those
opportunities. And maybe you have a day off. What about taking a day, and on your day off and going
and having a getaway with Jesus for 24 hours. It could really reset your prayer life. For me
personally, that's been a really powerful secret, and I have videos where I talk about what to do on
you're getting away with the Lord and how to plan that. Some of the things that you can practice,
some of my own personal experiences from that. But I believe it's crucial to reset your heart, your
motives, your passion for Jesus. Is to get away from your town, sometimes your house for 24 hours.
I try to practice you know 48 hours or 72 hours. I disconnect and I just spend time with God.
Number eight and that is fasting. Add fasting to your prayer. Now again, when it comes to getting
away from outside of town, it's not something you can do every week and some of you cannot do that
even every month. Same thing with fasting. You might not be able to do that every day,
but you maybe can add one day of fasting to your schedule every week or three days every
month. Something we're practicing with our Fast Forward group challenge is that we are
fasting first Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday every month, and maybe you can join that. Go
to pastorvlad.org/fastforward and you can join our group or you can find your own rhythm. You don't
have to create a rule or some kind of a rigid law, but fasting does add fuel to your devotional life.
People who feel like they're stuck in the rut, they're not seemed to be getting a breakthrough,
usually if they will practice getting away out of town, or fasting, or both. It will really
take it to another level. Number nine. Spend more time in worship, than in petitions when you pray.
One of the things that could really spice up your prayer life by increasing your awareness of God's
presence is worshiping God more, than petitioning God. It's when you're worshiping, you're waiting
on His presence, you're serving God. Something happens to your prayer. It gets saturated with
awareness of God's presence. And the tenth final thing you can do to spice up your prayer life is
to add Bible memorizing to your prayer time. Yes. You may say, "But this is just me talking to God,
me hearing God, writing certain things." You can also pull up a notebook or an app,
and just take a few minutes while you're in God's presence and aggressively, intentionally put God's
Word inside of your heart and inside of your mind. You might not be able to do all the verses
but just few verses. And I have videos on how to memorize the Bible and how to join the group that
I have where we are memorizing two verses every single week, and you can join that as well. It's
free of charge. It will cost you nothing but your time. God wants your year this year to be your
best year spiritually, and in order for that to happen you can take your prayer life to another
level. Is there anything I have missed that you're practicing, that we all can learn from and
benefit, to increase and deepen our walk with the Lord in prayer? Drop your ideas in the comments
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