Biblical Instructions about a Quiet Time

We are helped both by biblical models as well as biblical principles. Christian, how could you ever enjoy the “day and night” meditation on Scripture that Joshua 1:8 and Psalm 1:2 speak about without some kind of daily habit? And who would not want to be that ‘tree planted by streams of water, yielding its fruit in season and prospering’? Or Psalm 119, filled with 176 verses from a man consumed with the Word of God and the God of the Word – verses that could never have been written if he had no devotional life.

Psalm 62 speaks of seeking God in silence, and Psalm 63 speaks of seeking God early and earnestly, hungering and thirsting for His presence publicly and privately. These are the kinds of longings that drive the believer into the closet to commune with Christ. The Apostle Paul speaks of constantly offering ourselves up as living sacrifices and renewing our minds, and praying without ceasing, and praying all kinds of different prayers (Rom. 12:1-2; 1 Thess. 5:17; Eph. 6:18-20). Hard to do this without a regular habit of some kind. Corrie Ten Boom said, “Don’t pray when you feel like it. Have an appointment with the Lord and keep it. A man is powerful on his knees.”

Paul also calls us to “discipline” ourselves “for the purpose of godliness” (1 Tim. 4:12). In my twenty-five years as a Christian, I’ve not met one mature believer who did not have regular devotions. J.C. Ryle states, “What is the reason that some believers are so much brighter and holier than others? I believe the difference in nineteen cases out of twenty, arises from different habits about private prayer. I believe that those who are not eminently holy pray little and those who are eminently holy pray
much.”

My brother or sister in Christ, how can you live a life of repentance and confession, without regular times of quiet soul-searching (1 Jn. 1:9; Ps. 139:23-24). How can you continue “drawing near”, as Scripture urges us, without private devotions (Heb. 4:16; 7:19; 10:1, 22; Jam. 4:8)? Don Whitney writes, “Can we expect the flames of our worship of God to burn brightly in public on the Lord’s Day when they barely flicker for him in secret on other days? Isn’t it because we do not worship well in private that our corporate worship experience often dissatisfies us?”

May the living God motivate you, and those around you, to become true ‘closet Christians’ who enjoy spiritual intimacy with their God. Murray-McCheyne said, “I ought to pray before seeing any one. …I feel it is far better to begin with God – to see His face first, to get my soul near Him before it is near another. …Ah! dear brethren, have you ever tasted this blessedness? There is greater rest and solace to be found in the presence of God for one hour, than in an eternity of the presence of man.”

– Tim Cantrell, President and Professor of Systematic Theology, Shepherds’ Se