8 Spiritual Principles to Writing a Devotional

Filoiann Wiedenhoff

In Part one, I addressed the technical side of writing a devotional, how to pick your scripture, find your overall theme, do your research, draw your conclusion, personal application, write it out and Edit it. In this article I want to address the spiritual side of writing a devotional. This deals mainly with preparing your heart and your mind when writing your devotional and the value devotionals carry.

Here are eight principles to spiritually prepare your heart and mind

for writing a devotional.

Pray

You must first pray before, during and after; and ask God to not only speak to you about the passage you will be writing about but also prepare your own heart to receive it. The majority of devotionals you will write are meant for you first. Prayer also helps you to be more led by the Holy Spirit and enables you to have spiritual understanding of the passages and themes you are writing about.

Ponder

Pray for God to help you ponder it for a few minutes so that you can receive something new or something you already know but need to digest fully and understand. It is one thing to think or assume that we know something; it is another to really understand fully what it means.

Most of the devotionals you will write are meant for you first. Prayer also helps you to be more led by the Holy Spirit and enables you to have spiritual understanding of the passages and themes you are writing about.

Piece

As you are in prayer, ask God to help you piece it together and see the bigger picture. This will help you have a smooth flow from introduction to conclusion. When you are able to see the big picture from beginning to end, it is much easier to understand and communicate it on paper.

Practical

In writing devotionals that speak not only to you but to others; another important principle is to keep it practical. Over-spiritualizing by talking in platitudes, though may sound nice and spiritual, may not help the average person apply it practically to their life. Keep it simple, make it practical and applicable to everyday life and you will find it is more affective.

Personalize

Personalizing your devotional means to include personal information about you as long as the focus stays on the overall theme and the scripture passage. Personalizing is optional and helps the reader identify with you the writer. Just make sure you stay on point and not make it more about you than the passage you are writing about.

Point

No matter what the overall theme is, it should always point to Jesus! I can't stress this enough. You can stress your theme for example "Having Faith through Life Storms" using faith as your focus but make sure that Christ, our Heavenly Father and/or His Word is weaved throughout the text. This creates a wholesome dependence on Christ and not on the writer or on the action but on the person who gives us everything we need, Jesus Christ Himself. In doing this we are pointing them to the one who is our healer, our provider and our portion.

Personal Prayer

After you finish writing the conclusion, you can add a personal prayer at the end. This is where you take the conclusion and turn it into a prayer by rewriting it in a way that is personal. For example: If the conclusion is to trust God through life's storms, my prayer may sound like this: "Dear Lord, no matter what I'm going through I know that you are faithful and will see me through this. Help me to put my trust in you even when I don't understand and help me to cling to you more now than ever. Thank you Lord for loving me and hearing my prayers. Amen"

Precious

Remember in the end that writing devotionals is personal between you and God and whether others read it or not, it is precious not only to you but to God because it comes from your heart. King David wrote the Psalms with love and devotion and God called him a man after his own heart. Isn't that all you really want in the end? I know that I do.

I hope these spiritual principles will help give you more to work with when writing your devotionals. The most important principle is to have fun and enjoy writing them. May the Lord bless your devotional endeavors!   

Filoiann M. Wiedenhoff is a pastor's wife,work at home mom, Womans Biblical Counselor, Bible Teacher and Writer. View her website for more articles http://filoiannwiedenhoff.com/
Article Source: http://www.faithwriters.com-CHRISTIAN WRITERS