My Morning Time With The Lord

A sip of coffee and being cozied up by the fireplace in the mornings and I'm ready to sit at the feet of the Lord and glean from His Word.  My time in the mornings continues to vary over the years as to what and how I read various parts of Scripture and what books I like to include in my devotional time but here is what my current mornings look like:

Current Reads:

-Charles Spurgeon is such a powerful read and I've been working through Alistair Begg's version of his Morning and Evening book.  I love Spurgeon's heart for the gospel and his passion for holiness.

-My prayer journal has been a favorite addition to my time in the mornings.  There is space to write in my normal daily prayers for friends and family and a daily area to write in a scripture I am praying over the day.

–The Narrated Bible (highly recommended by John MacArthur) has given me a fresh perspective on the Old Testament as it's a chronological Bible and the narration adds good insight to the daily readings.  I'm working through the Old Testament in a year.

-My ESV Women's Devotional Bible was a sweet purchase and one I am thankful I took the plunge for.  It has wonderful short devotions throughout each book of the bible from various authors and the format is simple, clean and easy to read.

-Scripture memory has been fun and easy with the Scripture Typer App.  It is one app that is worth the cost because it keeps track and reminds me of what scriptures I need to work on for the day.  I just put in the scriptures, work on them until they're memorized and then the app does all the work in bringing them back up for me to review again so they are always fresh in my memory.  It is amazing how much scripture you can memorize in just a few minutes a day!

My Daily Schedule:

I am a planner and having a plan helps me to stay focused during my time with the Lord.  I don't have to wonder what to read or work on next because it is already planned from the night before.

–Morning and Evening – (morning reading for the day – I like to do the evening one before bed)
–Prayer time
–Narrated Bible Old Testament Reading
–ESV Devotional Bible New Testament Reading – (see schedule below)
–Journal time – (I use this time to expand on a passage that stood out to me in my reading time in the Word.)
–Scripture Memory Work – (I'm still memorizing the book of Colossians and my scripture memory verses for church.  I will probably add some verses from the book of James as we study through it).)

This year I'm reading through a different book of the New Testament for each month and breaking up longer books in to a couple of months.  If it's a short book I read the whole book every day of the month and longer books I break up into several days or over a couple of months.

My New Testament Reading Schedule:
January – James
February – John
March – John
April – 1 John
May – 1 Corinthians
June – 2 Corinthians
July – Titus
August – 1 Peter
September – 2 Peter
October – Galatians
November – Matthew
December – Matthew

Special Studies:

I have several studies I'm working on throughout the year on James, John and I'm taking an online class through the Institute for Nouthetic Studies on Biblical Counseling.

We are working through the book of James this year in our women's Bible study at church and using Jen Wilkin's free online resources from her Flower Mound Bible Study.  You can find all the resources for her online studies here.

Need a jump start to your mornings? Crystal Paine from Money Saving Mom has a great 14 day course to Make Over Your Mornings.  I highly recommend it and I'm going to go through it again because it is just that good! Click here for all the details.