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John Hagee, the well known Christian TV evangelist, is having three hundred pastors visit his
campus in San Antonio during his Feast of Tabernacles in early October. They and others are
calling for forty days of prayer for America, from September 20 to October 30.

That brings up the subject of personal devotions. We have cited George Barna·s surveys that
indicate that nine out of ten church going Christians don·t have any. I think that conservative
Christian homeschoolers will agree that is not good, because they are among the few who do have
regular devotions, or time spent with their Creator.

What a terrible thing it is for churches to allow their people to go on like that, year after year, going
to church but never going to God. Speakers need to confront their listeners about this foundational
problem and urge, implore and exhort them to go to God personally. This is the biggest problem
that America has, Christians without Christ. They are like wells without water, emphasizing the love
of God for them without emphasizing them loving God. Being without God leads to personally
corrupt lives.

2 Peter 2 Modern King James

(17) These are wells without water, clouds driven with a tempest, for whom the blackness of
darkness is reserved forever.
(18) For when they speak great swelling words of vanity, they lure through the lusts of the flesh, by
unbridled lust, the ones who were escaping from those who live in error;
(19) promising them liberty, they themselves are the slaves of corruption. For by whom anyone has
been overcome, even to this one he has been enslaved.
(20) For if they have escaped the pollutions of the world through the full knowledge of the Lord and
Savior Jesus Christ, and are again entangled, they have been overcome by these, their last things
are worse than the first.

God wants us to connect with Him directly, not just through an institution.

Psalm 5 World English Bible

(1) Give ear to my words, Yahweh. Consider my meditation.
(2) Listen to the voice of my cry, my King and my God; for to you do I pray.
(3) Yahweh, in the morning you shall hear my voice. In the morning I will lay my requests before
you, and will watch expectantly.

So if never personally going to God is bad, then what is good practice in personal devotions?

They certainly must be included in every day. Remember that the great problem of the big
government schools was to exclude God. If an individual excludes God from his day, he is making
the same terrible mistake. Sacrifices were offered daily, including the burning of sweet incense.

Exodus 30 World English Bible

(7) Aaron shall burn incense of sweet spices on it every morning. When he tends the lamps, he
shall burn it.
(8) When Aaron lights the lamps at evening, he shall burn it, a perpetual incense before Yahweh
throughout your generations.

That incense represented the prayers of the saints.

Revelation 8 Modern King James

(3) And another angel came and stood at the altar, having a golden censer. And many incenses
were given to him, so that he should offer it with the prayers of all saints on the golden altar before
the throne.
(4) And the smoke of the incense which came with the prayers of the saints, ascended up before
God from the angel's hand.

Those sacrifices were offered morning and evening, which timing seems very worthy of copying in
going personally to God. The temple had three times of prayer, and Daniel followed that practice.

Daniel 6 World English Bible

(10) When Daniel knew that the writing was signed, he went into his house (now his windows were
open in his chamber toward Jerusalem) and he kneeled on his knees three times a day, and
prayed, and gave thanks before his God, as he did before.

When we pray, that is us talking to God. When we read His word, that is Him talking to us. The Bible
is our Manufacturer·s Manual and is truly beyond amazing. The Bible was written by forty men over
about four thousand years. It was not written in verses but in thoughts, and those thoughts are
God·s. Our thoughts are not Yahweh·s thoughts.

Isaiah 55 World English Bible

(8) "For my thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways," says Yahweh.
(9) "For as the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my
thoughts than your thoughts.

So it is vital that we take in His thoughts every day.

How much time should we spend each day in our personal devotions?
God does not give detailed specifications, other than the analogy of the sacrifices. How much time
do you want to spend with God?
Anna wanted a lot.

Luke 2 MKJV
(36) And there was a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was
advanced in many days, and had lived with a husband seven years from her virginity.
(37) And she was a widow of eighty-four years, who did not depart from the temple, serving God
with fastings and prayers night and day.

Short of what Anna did, the Bible gives the principle of tithing, which was ten percent of physical
increase. If we tithed on our waking time, that would be about an hour and a half a day that we give
to God. I know there are people who read hundred word email devotionals, and they probably think
they have gotten in their God time with that. From our personal experience, it is impossible to get
any depth from less than an hour of personal devotions. It has taken me two hours just to write this
correspondence out, and that is after I had spent more time beforehand thinking it out, and more
time will be spent rewriting. An hour a day of reading with God, thinking with God and speaking
with God is not much, especially as it is broken down into two or three segments. Anything less
than that is nearly nothing, as far as renewing your mind and lifting your life to a new level.

Again there is a call in America now for forty days of prayer. That·s terrific. The fact is, though, that
most people who go to church don·t have one day of prayer, much less forty. We can take up the
challenge of forty days of prayer for America. Conservative Christian homeschoolers, more than
any other group, realize the depth of depravity that our nation has sunk to, and we realize that the
root of this problem is America·s young people are being educated to hate God. But we will go
beyond forty days to forty months and forty years and a whole future lifetime of spending time with
God, each day, a lot of time every day, because that·s what we want. We will never be satisfied with
an email devotion or a stolen minute for ´devotionsµ here or there. God and Christ is the love of our
heart, as our spirits yearn to be joined with that spirit, and every day, after an hour or two of
piercing the spiritual depths, we reluctantly put down our Bibles, or walk out of the woods, or get
off our knees, and then go back to the mundane remainder of our day.