When I’m in it, I’m stronger; when I miss, I’m weaker. It’s an essential part of my personal discipleship. I’m a morning QT guy, but I don’t think that’s mandatory. I do know that for me it sets the tone for the day, and gives me an aspect of my relationship with God to consider through the rest of the day.

When I look back through my QT journal, I can see what He’s been getting through to me, and maybe understand my purpose better. I read consecutively through Bible books, but He sets the theme that surfaces, consistently.

Life’s too important to try to go through it alone, and I think without some kind of consistent QT you are alone. I know that it definitely changed – and continues to change – my life.

In every work I have read on the subject, it is described more along the lines of focusing on a particular passage of Scripture, filling our hearts and minds with it, seeking understanding and application. Stephen Charnock’s sermon, “The Sinfulness and Cure of Thoughts” or Don Whitney’s book, “Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life” are examples of this perspective.

Hope that helps. Thanks for stopping by and commenting Rob. I plan on recommending a lot of material at the end of the series.

I would agree with your statement, “DAILY time in personal prayer with God and reading and thinking upon his Word is also an obligation and an indication of sin if it is left off.” So to suggest that I am pointing to that perspective as legalism is a bit off. My point in this area is that obligation is never a proper motive – rather love for God is the proper motive. Obligation is true and real, but love is what moves us.

I would only encourage you to stay with the series and see what I actually am saying “in the end” (which has not yet come). But, in the end I believe daily time alone with God in prayer and Scripture is critically important. I am cautioning against particular models of this being held over Christians as law, and improper motives for engaging in the disciplines.

1) A healthy mature adult Christian should spend time DAILY alone with God in prayer. “Alone” (e.g., shut the door going into your closet) presumes some sort of ‘quietness’.

2) The strong weight of evidence of the psalms (e.g., Ps 5:3 “In the morning, O Lord, you hear my voice, in the morning I lay my requests before you and wait”, Ps 59:16 “in the morning I will sing of your love”, Ps 88:13 “in the morning my prayer comes before you”, Ps 90:14 “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love”) and Christ, whom in this facet of the life of faith we are generally told to emulate and imitate, the Holy Spirit provides details of Christ’s practice during a busy healing and preaching ministry (e.g., Mk 1:35 “Very early in the morning, while it was still dark, Jesus got up, left the house and went off to a solitary place, where he prayed) all model rising early (among other times, but especially in the morning) to praise and pray to God.

3) At the beginning of any venture, it is wise and reverent to pray and “commit our plans to the LORD”. The morning is where we begin our day of work and plans.

Absent extraordinary circumstances, what God-glorifying reason (which is the standard for considering whether anything we do is sin) or faith-reliant reason (which is the standard for considering whether anything we do is sin) would a Christian have for
a) NOT going to the LORD in the morning to begin his day with prayer?
b) NOT having a daily practice of spending some time in the Word of God?

I am bothered by the constant scoffing at “quiet times” I have heard. These ‘enlightened’ evangelicals who would like to downplay the efficacy or value in God’s eyes of a commitment to honor daily in a disciplined manner this delightful privilege have no corresponding parallel in any of the heroes of Church history beyond this current legalist-paranoid generation. Funny how an American evangelical world that is so shallow in its piety and prayerful life today as never before are such experts as never before at watching out for all these legalistic dangers. We’re so terrified that somebody somewhere MIGHT think that because they entertain the idea of having a disciplined daily prayer life, they might also entertain the idea that it is in some way ‘metitorious’. In contrast to such anxiety that is constantly warning people to see a link between their prayer life and any graceful benefit bestowed by God, Jesus’ most extensive teaching at the sermon on the mount clearly and repeatedly links ‘reward’ as a motivation for prayer.

Joe, I appreciate you wanting to spend some time advocating the ‘quiet time’. But its a wierd sad indication of the times that we need this long drawn out defense that others are commending so highly to finally, at the end, say nothing more than SOME frequency of prayer and meditation on God’s word are essential to the Christian life.

I suspect the praise in the comments would have been largely withheld if you had stepped on anyone’s ‘freedom’ by urging anything more than the vague statement that “at some interval that should happen in a way you interpret ‘frequent’ you ought to pray alone with God.

The discerning reader of the Bible (and one famliar with all the great works and habits of and on prayer and devotional life by the great Christians who have gone before us) know that it implicates both the regularity, amount, and shallowness of most of our prayer and devotional lives and bible reading as something to be repented of as woefully and sinfuly inadequate of the repeated biblical admonition to be “constant”, even if no crass quantifiable number of hours or times of regularity is specifically delineated.

Jonathan Edwards, whom many modern evangelical thinkers still consider the greatest theologian-pastoral writer this country has ever produced (D. M.Lloyd-Jones said no man is more relevant to the present condition of Christianity) in his sermon “Hypocrites Deficient in Duty of Daily Prayer” specifically makes a biblical case for “constant DAILY” prayer as a line between true and false Christians. Note that a ‘hypocrite’ is not truly converted/saved in this terminology, and the duty of “secret prayer” is for “constant daily” prayer, and that an indication that one only has a certain intermittant prayer life (in the course of his whole biblical argument in the sermon) has no reason to think themselves truly saved.

“(Hypocrites) in a great measure leave off the practice of secret prayer. They come to this pass by degrees. At first, they begin to be careless about it under some particular temptations. …Thus, it presently becomes a frequent thing with them to omit it; and after a while, it comes to that pass, that they seldom attend it. Perhaps they attend it on Sabbath-days and sometimes on other days. But they have ceased to make it a CONSTANT PRACTICE DAILY to retire to worship God alone and to seek His face in secret places. They sometimes do a little to quiet conscience and just to keep alive their old hop because it would be shocking to them, even after all their subtle dealing with their consciences, to call themselves converts and yet totally to live without prayer. Yet…they have, in a great measure, left off.

…I would exhort those who have entertained a hope of their being true converts – and who since their supposed conversions have left off the duty of secret prayer and ordinarily allow themselves in the omission of it – to throw away their hope. If you have left off calling upon God, it is time for you to leave off hoping and flattering yourselves with an imagination that you are the children of God. ”

Read the whole sermon at http://www.ccel.org/ccel/edwards/works2.iv.viii.html