A rut is a grave without both ends kicked out of it mmm good point something
to ponder Phil.
As for praying without ceasing it took me a while to get there and I'm not
all the way there but I'm getting there. and I love it
Lelia Struve email [log in to unmask] msn [log in to unmask]
----- Original Message -----
From: "Phil Scovell" <[log in to unmask]>
To: <[log in to unmask]>
Sent: Friday, September 03, 2004 5:02 PM
Subject: Re: Bible Study Question.
> I am likely the black sheep of the family, as they say, when it comes to
> daily Bible reading, a daily prayer time, or even having family devotions.
> I went for several years spending a minimum of 90 minutes each day and
> dividing my time between 45 minutes of prayer time and 45 minutes of Bible
> reading. I stopped doing that after reading through the Bible 108 times.
> Now I am up to 114 times so it has taken me about 22 or 23 years to read
the
> Bible through just 6 times or so. I have tried every prayer scheme I have
> ever heard about including Larry Lee's one hour per day using the Lord's
> prayer, so called, as the guide for that one hour. I went for a period of
> time praying two hours every day. Interestingly enough, over 20 years
ago,
> the Lord revealed things to me about prayer which took years before I was
> willing to give up my own ways and pray without ceasing. That one scared
me
> big time. I mean, I was already praying a lot for a Baptist boy, I
figured,
> so how could anybody pray without ceasing. Once the Lord showed me and I
> was able to lay aside the traditions of men, and once I got over feeling
> guilty not spending X number of minutes, or hours, each day praying and
> reading the Bible, I began to realize my relationship with the Lord was to
> be natural and not regimented or scripted according to man's standards.
Now
> before you blow a gasket, I am not against things like praying a scheduled
> amount of time each day. I am not against reading the Bible every day. I
> am not against a lot of things but I have come to realize that such things
> are highly personal in nature and is between that person and the Lord. My
> folks did not have daily devotions with us growing up and my dad was a
> preacher. They did read Bible stories to us almost every night and on
> Sunday mornings, we used Our Daily Bread. I jumped in and out of this
> conflict when my kids were growing up. Sometimes we had daily devotions
for
> periods of time but mostly we did not. My best friends growing up were a
> family of five children. They had family devotions every single night of
> the week without fail. I considered this family more Godly than any
family
> I knew. Most of the kids grew up and do not serve the Lord at all today.
> In my humble opinion, yes, I can be humble some times but it is certainly
> difficult for me, in my humble opinion, as I was saying, first you have to
> decide what makes you spiritual. I went round and round with the Lord
about
> this for a long time as I prayed each day asking that question until I
> finally got the answer He gave to me now over 20 years ago. But that's
for
> another message. I think what is much more spiritually profitable is a
> study guide where Scripture, and doctrine, are studied systematically.
> Daily devotions, daily prayer, or daily Bible reading certainly have their
> value but a rut is a grave with both ends kicked out of it.
>
> Phil.
>
>
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