A Plan for your daily time with God

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Above you will find a list of readings for each week. There are five New Testament chapters (and six optional Old Testament Chapters in parentheses.) If you read it all each week, you will complete the entire New Testament over the next year and the entire Old Testament in three years.

If you are doing both readings, you may want to do one in the morning and one in the evening. Remember since there are only five days of readings each week, you can use the weekend to catch up. Try to see this schedule as a tool for spending time with God, not as a legalistic burden. Pick a place and a time each day to be alone with God. Try the following plan to structure your time with God (in your thoughts or writing in a journal):

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Scripture:
Begin your quiet time by reading the selected Bible chapter for that day. As you read ask God to speak to your heart. When a particular verse strikes you, make note of it and move on to Observation . . .

Observation:
Think about what is happening in this verse, what is being described, and note your observations about what God is saying and what it means. Then move on to Application . . .

Application:
Ask yourself how this verse applies to you personally. Ask God to speak to you and show you what it would look like in your life if you were living out this truth. Notice some concrete ways you could begin to practice this and then move on to Prayer . . .

Prayer: Summarize what you’ve received from this verse and ask God’s help to live it out more fully in your life. Ask him to change those things in you that you cannot change in yourself. Then set your Bible down and focus your heart on deeper prayer using the CATS method outlined on the next page . . .
Too often our prayer life is reduced to asking God for what we or others need, but there is so much more to the adventure of prayer. Follow your time of journaling by exploring a deeper prayer life using the following plan:

Confession:
Ask God to search your heart and show you specific things he wants to change in you. Confess these sins and all your failures, asking him to forgive you and change you. Finish by accepting his grace by faith and claiming the complete forgiveness of all your sins! Then move on to Adoration . . .

Adoration:
In light of God’s amazing grace, spend some time worshiping him, expressing your wonder and awe at just how incredible he really is. When you run out of words to express your Reverence, just sit silently in God’s awesome presence soaking up his goodness. Then move on to

Thanksgiving . . .
Thanksgiving: begin to reflect on all the good things God has done for you and given you. Thank him for the simple things like air to breathe and food to eat, for the easily overlooked things like freedom, health, and family. Thank him for the extraordinary things, like his love, salvation, and a life of purpose. Then move on to

Supplication . . .
Supplication (asking): Out of an awareness of all you have received, begin to bring to him the needs that are on your heart and the hearts of others. You may want to refer to your prayer list during this time. Finish your prayer by asking him to help you walk with him through the rest of the day!