3. In light of your assurance in Christ, what did the Holy Spirit say to you or ask you to do from today’s reading?

This will become very clear to you after you have spent the time meditating on the reading for the day, listening for God’s voice. The Holy Spirit will often impress your mind with key verses that particularly spoke to you from the reading and that apply directly to your current life circumstances. He may also speak to you through the experience of one of the characters you read about in a story that directly relates to your experience. The Holy Spirit will speak encouragement to you, give you instructions He intends for you to obey (apply to your life by His power), ask you to share something with someone, correct you, rebuke you, convict you of sin in your life in order to lead you to grace or comfort your heart. Yet always remember that whatever He speaks to you, it is in light of God’s love for you revealed in Jesus & Him crucified for your salvation; or in other words, what you journaled about in entries 1 & 2 …the Gospel! Then write it down as though God is speaking directly to you, because He is!

4. Based on what He said, write at least one verse from today’s reading that you will meditate on and memorize today?

This daily experience with Jesus actually comes down to just one verse. That’s right, just one! Eventually you may want to do a few more, but one verse is good for now. This one verse will be what you hide in your heart through meditation and memorization for the day. The Bible says, “Your word I have hidden in my heart, that I might not sin against You.” Psalm 119:11 NKJV. The Holy Spirit actually uses this powerful practice to help you resist sin throughout the day! The Bible also says, “I will meditate on Your precepts, and contemplate Your ways.” 119:15 NKJV. Hiding this one verse in your heart through meditation is also apart of your contemplating the ways of the LORD, which is reflecting on His character of love. This is why the Holy Spirit uses this to help you resist the temptation we all have to sin during the day, because your heart will be abiding in the love of God. Yes, you will have an amazing experience with Jesus journaling through Scripture to start your day, but the truth is it doesn’t take very long in the day for us to realize just how much we desperately need Him again! Therefore I encourage you to maintain conversation with Him throughout the day in prayer over the big or small things of life, which is like oxygen to the soul. Yet I equally encourage you to select` just one verse from the reading, usually coming from one of the key verses that the Holy Spirit impressed on your mind while meditating on what He said to you that day (entry 3) in order to help you re-center back on abiding in Jesus at critical moments in your day. This is such a beautiful experience that I do not want you to miss the power of this! It’s actually quite simple. Just take at least 5 minutes at three different times in your day, which will likely be sometime around when you eat breakfast, lunch and dinner. In this moment it’s good to relax your body as much as possible, be still, breathe slowly and deeply, and then meditate on your verse. Say the verse slowly 7 times, beginning and ending the verse with the Scripture reference (ex: Psalm 119:11) each time. It’s like a sandwich: Scripture reference + Verse + Scripture reference.  In each of the 7 times you say the verse it’s good to pause and reflect on the meaning, imagery or application of the verse to your life. Briefly meditating on this one verse also has a trigger effect that brings back to your memory the larger context of the portion of Scripture you read and journaled about that morning from which you got this verse.