Rooted in devotion
In this episode, I talk about what true devotion to God really looks like. Beyond routines, rules, or feeling “good enough.” I talk about staying consistent, navigating dry seasons, and keeping our focus on intimacy with God above all else.
So I want to tell you a story about a man named James Pearson.
He was not a celebrity. He wasn't a public figure.
He was just an ordinary man who found himself in an
extraordinary amount of trouble. So he worked for a small
manufacturing company. He was a quiet guy, lived a
simple life. I won't be out of nowhere.
He was accused of being involved in a serious financial crime at
his company, a crime that involved a heavy prison sentence
if found guilty. So the evidence against him was
terrible. Piles upon piles upon piles of
evidence stacked against him. There were transactions that
were traced to his computer, the one he used for work.
There was a Co worker that claimed to have seen him in
places he wasn't supposed to be. There were documents that had
his signature on them. Even the timing of the event
seemed to point straight at him. It was kind of situation where
even he could not explain how everything seemed to line up
against him. There wasn't much he could do.
He was as shocked as everybody else.
And so if you look at it from the surface, it was an open and
shut case for the detectives involved.
And there's something remarkable happened.
A lawyer, someone who didn't know James was not related to
him, had no obligation to help him, heard about the case and
something didn't sit right with him.
So he showed up on bed uninvited, entirely voluntarily.
And he's like, OK, I want to help you with this case.
So the man did not just file paperwork.
He fought for James. He spent weeks going through the
company's records, interviewing stuff, digging through time
stamps, accessing logs and all the things that they do.
And he found some inconsistencies, some small
cracks in the story, things that James himself would never have
known. And slowly, the whole story
began to unravel. The witness in quotes had
actually lied. The digital evidence was
tampered with. Essentially, someone inside the
company had set James up, using him as a sort of scapegoat.
And after months of, yeah, tears and, I think, court dates, James
was finally declared innocence completely free, no prison, no
criminal record. His life was handed back to him
intact. I think there was even some sort
of reimbursement for the trauma he experienced.
So later, during an interview, someone asked him, what do you
feel toward the man who helped you out of this?
And James could not answer at first.
In fact, he broke down crying, and he said this.
I don't think there's anything he could ever ask me to do that
I wouldn't do. He gave me my life back.
And just like James, when you truly understand what Christ has
done for you, what he saved you from, the privileges you now
have in him, there's a response, a sense of duty, a desire to
reciprocate the love that you've received from Christ.
And that's what we call devotion, the instinctive God, I
love you. God, I want to please you.
God, I want to live for you. It rises from a heart that
understands or realizes that he'd been rescued from death.
Hi, welcome. Welcome back to Rooted with me
for me here, timeless biblical truth is taken and brought into
everyday life in a way that's square, honest and grounded.
And I'm happy to have you here. Like if you can see my face and
you see that I'm blushing. I'm not upset, but I'm actually
serious. I'm a very shy facing.
People might disagree, but I am. Anyway, I want to talk to you
about something simple today, but deeply foundational
devotion. Not just the idea of having a
quiet time or doing spiritual routines, but the hard posture
behind it. The kind of devotion that flows
from truly seeing what God has done for you.
Something that's not forced, that's not mechanical, but real.
Because when devotion is understood properly, it stops
feeling like a Christian obligation and starts feeling
like a natural response to love, which it's actually supposed to
be. And so that leads me to the
first thing I want you to remember about devotion.
I have 5 of them. 1st is that your devotion to God will never
rise higher than your understanding of the gospel.
The more clearly you see what God has done for you, the more
naturally your heart responds in love, gratitude, and obedience.
Many times believers struggle devotion because they're trying
to force a response without first seeing the reason for the
response. When you understand, you're
seeing problem that we weren't just misbehaving, we're
spiritually dead. We talked about this in your
angelion. If you haven't watched it
Canyon, just jump back. And when you realize what our
choices actually deserved, the cross stops being a distant
Bible story. It becomes personal.
It becomes witty. Christ, the Son of God, mind
you, took our place. His death, burial and
resurrection didn't just help us, it recreated us.
It gave us a new life, new identity, new desires, new
realities, just like Paul talks about in collusions or even
efficient to read those books. We see new realities, new
possibilities that we have in Christ.
And it's from that understanding that devotion becomes alive.
Because when the gospel becomes clear, devotion becomes more
natural. It makes sense.
Essentially. R2.
One of the biggest barriers to a consistent devotional life is
the image we create of what devotion should look like.
We imagine it happening at a specific hour, with a specific
vibe for a specific amount of time.
And when life or when the actual experience does not match the
picture that we have in mind, we feel like we've feel good.
And sometimes, on the days when we actually meet the ideal
standard that's in our head, we feel so proud of ourselves that
we unconsciously check out spiritually for the rest of the
day. It's like, OK, I've prayed this
long today. That should carry me.
In fact, we might even push it. I had this very, very good
devotional experience on Saturday, and because of that,
for the next one or two days or even 3 days, I feel like I'm
good. Both extremes miss the point.
Devotion was never meant to be rigid because God did not put
His presence in a rigid temple. He put it in US.
Paul emphasizes this repeatedly in First Corinthians chapter 3,
chapter 6, telling us that God Spirit dwells within us.
In the Old Testament, devotion was tied to a place you went up
to the temple, you moved towards God, but in Christ, God lives in
you. We become mobile temples,
meaning devotion isn't tied to a location, posture or schedule.
It's tied to relationship. Where the Spirit of the Lord is,
there is liberty, liberty and expression, liberty and timing
and emotion in rhythm. I just have to say this, you're
no more spiritual. If we pray at nights, I get it
that it is sacrifice if when you're supposed to be sleeping,
you choose to pray the sacrifice, but do not know
limited to just praying at night.
That's an example, and David is a perfect example of this
freedom that we're talking about.
His devotion didn't always look or feel the same in Psalm 34.
It was more about gratitude. In Psalm 51.
That's a very popular one. He's broken and repentant in
some effect, saying he's confused and he's asking God
hard questions. In Psalm 23, he's confident and
steady, trusting God as a shepherd.
And then if someone for still is overwhelmed and is hiding in a
cave. So he's the same man, same God,
but different seasons, and yet God called him a man after his
heart. So David shows us that devotion
isn't always about performing at a consistent mood.
It's about consistently bringing your hearts, whether happy,
exhausted, scared, joyful, discouraged, whatever the case
might be, even depressed. There were sometimes when we
went to God, depressed. You don't need the perfect
atmosphere. The perfect emotions are the
perfect routine. You simply need honesty and
openness, the awareness that God is with you in every moment.
When you remove the pressure of a fixed picture, devotion
becomes less of a chore and more of a relationship.
You won't spend as much time trying to replicate that image
in your head. There's this for anything that
happens to me. I don't know if it happens to
everybody. I think it does where it's like
you want to read maybe for school, you have an exam coming
up and you want to read and maybe the time is 9:13 PM and
you're like, OK, I'm going to read by 9:30 PM.
And because you were doing something, you got distracted
and then the time is now 9:31 PM, you push it, I'm going to
read by 9:40 PM. And any of the you end up
wasting so much time simply because you want it's at a
particular time in a particular way.
And we devotion, we do that as well.
I didn't have my Bible study in the morning and because of that
you struggle to have Bible study for the rest of the day and
didn't wait till the next day. That ought not to be the case.
The third thing is, after understanding that devotion
doesn't always look the same, it's crucial to add this
devotion will not always feel the same.
There will be dry moments. There will be moments when
prayer feels empty. There will means when Bible
study feels boring, means when your emotions are not
cooperating and listen, dryness is normal.
Boredom is normal. What's not normal is giving up
because of it. Many believers think something
is wrong with them when they don't feel spiritual.
But in reality, it's often in those situations that devotion
becomes real because devotion is not proven in the days where you
feel goosebumps. It's proven in this where you
feel nothing but you still stay. There's some that would do my
church God stay. And the thing where you just
stay with God for some time, maybe 30 minutes, maybe an hour,
you just stay with God irrespective of how you feel.
Your attention might wander, but you command your affections to
stay with God. And this is where you have to
grow a spine. There's a diligence that you
must build, a willingness to keep showing up even when
nothing exciting seems to be happening.
A commitment to do the boring things because those boring
things are what will shape you. Think about.
Think about your favorite football club or your favorite
show. You don't always feel excited,
but you still show up. You stay consistent because
you've attached value to it. It should be the same and even
more for devotion. And the departure is if you stay
long enough, duty eventually becomes delights.
What starts as consistency becomes desire.
What starts as showing up becomes encountering.
Because God rewards those who diligently seek Him.
Paul says in Philippians 3 verse one that to write the same
things to you is not troublesome for me.
For you it is safe. Paul understood repetition.
He understood that sometimes you need to hear the same truth
again and again because repetition builds stability.
So keep reading the scriptures. Keep returning to the same
reminders. The fourth thing is that one of
the biggest hindrances to devotion is condemnation.
That feeling of I messed up. Oh, I'm struggling with this one
again. I'm too dirty to come before God
am I know a hypocrite. Those questions and sometimes
it's not even about committing some dramatic scene.
It can simply be a personal struggle, A weakness, a habit
that you're fighting and suddenly the enemy whispers, you
see, you're not worthy of devotion.
Stop pretending. Why are you lifting up your
hands in worship you that you just did that yet that thing
yesterday. But this is where you must
understand the scripture properly.
Even Paul opposed to Paul, the same man who encountered Jesus,
planted churches, wrote letters we still read today that Paul
described an internal struggle in Romans 7.
He said the good I want to do I don't do, and the evil I don't
want to do. That's what I find myself doing.
That's in Romans 7. This is not a baby Christian
speaking. That's a spiritual giant being
brutally honest about the tension between the flesh and
the spirits. I remember when I was in this
place myself, I had done something I wasn't supposed to
do, and I felt too bad. I felt terribly, but I was, I
was thinking how like going to the presence of God the next
day. By this time I was already even
a worker in my church. And so I'm thinking, how do I go
to church like this? What if, oh, I'm even asked to
do something like I would feel so unworthy.
And then I had to go back to scripture.
So I had to read this particular portion of scripture.
I had to read it to remind myself.
I'm saying this to also remind you.
Now. Paul shows us that struggle is
not a proof of hypocrisy. It's a proof of life.
Dead things don't fight, only living things wrestle.
And Paul ends Roman 7 not in despair, but in gratitude.
He says thanks to God, who delivers me through Christ Jesus
our Lord. He does not leave us drowning in
the struggle, which is what most of us do.
OK, you've done something bad and you realize that it's wrong,
which is good. It's not a bad thing.
It shows that your conscience is healthy, but you then begin to
wallow in that guilt and just stay there rather than look to
the person who can help you. And in some ways, it's a form of
pride. So imagine this.
Maybe, for example, in class, there's this girl, maybe there's
this guy, he's very smart, you're very smart.
You're both gone in for the first position in the class.
And so because you're competing with this person, maybe there's
something that you're struggling with and you don't understand
and the other person understands it.
Any of you going to go and meet them to ask, Oh, please, I need
your help. Our pride will not allow you
just feel like I should know this.
You feel disappointed or annoyed with yourself when you don't
understand something. And so Christ is offering you a
way out. But because you feel you have
this great sense of self, like I should be better than this.
I should be doing better. I need to be doing this.
You are allowing self condemnation.
You are allowing guilt instead of looking to the one who will
help you. Paul in Romans 8 verse one says
there is therefore now no condemnation to those who are in
Christ, not less condemnation, not reduced condemnation, no
temporary condemnation. There is no condemnation because
you are standing in. God is built not on your
perfection, but on Christ's perfection.
So when you fall, when you feel, when you feel unclean, this is
only time to run away from devotion.
It's a time to run towards it. Devotion is not a reward for
good behaviour. Devotion is a place where God
heals, God strengthens, God restores, God realigns you.
Your means of struggle do not disqualify you did draw you
closer to the grace that qualifies you.
How that makes sense. And finally, at the end of
everything, devotion is about a person.
It's not a routine, it's not performances, it's not religious
achievements. The object of our devotion must
always be Christ. There's a verse that the first
time I read, I think I was in my first day in the university
then. I might have read it before, but
I just never took note of it. But when I read it that time,
it's came alive. And it's John 3, verse 30.
Johnny Baptiziere says he must increase, but I must decrease,
and he's talking about Jesus Christ.
And that verse has anchored me for the rest of my Christian
journey. Christ is the object of our
devotion. More of him and less of me.
The goal of Bible is not just to know more verses, it's to know
Christ. The goal of prayer is not to
pray eloquently, it's to communicate with God.
The goal of worship is not to feel emotional, it's to set your
eyes on Jesus. Like everything that you're
going to do, journaling, fasting, there are good things,
but they are not the goal. They are things that lead you
towards the goal, which is intimacy with Christ, knowing
Christ, loving him, being conformed to his ways, conform
to his character. Everything else, spiritual
growth, holiness, purpose flows naturally from intimacy with
Christ. So as you walk in devotion, do
not forget you're not pursuing a habit, you're pursuing a person,
you're pursuing a relationship with a person.
His name is Jesus Christ. And that is a wrap for today's
episode. I hope you liked it.
I hope it blessed you. While I was thinking about this,
while I was preparing for this, it was really speaking to me a
lot has no news. I just kept on thinking like,
you know, these things make so much sense and these are things
that we might forget. So we just need that regular
reminder. And this is me reminding you.
I want you to do me a favour and share this with someone.
Remind them of these things as well.
Also read the show, leaving a nice written comments are still
disabled for now. Also, for next week's episode,
we're actually going to be looking at the book of the
Bible. I'll leave it to guess which one
it is or look out for that. Turn on your notifications.
And yeah, I'll see you next week Friday as well.
Stay with it. Bye.
Apple Podcasts
Castbox
Castro
Goodpods
Moon FM
Overcast
Pocket Casts
Podbean
Podcast Addict
Podcast Republic
Spotify