A daily devotional can be a great tool to help you grow in your faith and strengthen your relationship with God. They are usually short and focus on one passage of scripture. A good Christian devotional writer will explain the passage and then will share helpful applications for Christian life. Devotionals are great because they can be both simple and in-depth at the same time. They are especially great for women navigating transition seasons, feeling short on time, wanting to reignite their relationship with God, or are brand new to Christianity. While devotionals should not be the only part of your Christian spiritual walk, they can be a helpful part of it.
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What is a devotional?
Ray Deck III writes that a devotional is not meant to change your mind, it’s meant to change your heart. Devotionals are not meant to be theologically robust, comment on the Bible, or teach you something new about the faith. Instead, they draw on what you already know about scripture and provide space to meditate upon and put scripture into practice.
What to look for in a Christian devotional?
Not all devotionals are made equal. When looking for a Christian devotional, there are some things to consider.
Look for a devotional that points you back to God and Christ.
Some devotionals are mostly inspirational and focus more on meeting temporary needs than drawing us back to Christ. When choosing a devotional, we want to look for one that gets us thinking more about God than about ourselves.
Look for a devotional that uses scripture
Believe it or not, some devotionals don’t use scripture. Avoid choosing one like this.
Look for a devotional that is accurate in its interpretation of scripture
This one can be tricky especially if you are new to Christianity. However, we want to be careful that our devotional isn’t giving us a wrong message about God and Christianity. We don’t want to read something that just sounds good but isn’t theologically accurate. Instead, it needs to be faithful to the message of scripture. As you read your devotional, be sure to compare the author’s words against the message of scripture.
Look for a devotional that includes space for reflection
Reflection questions are great because they invite us to stop and think about what we have read. Instead of just reading and going about your day, spending time in reflection leads us to think about what we have read throughout the day.
What are the benefits of using a daily devotional?
I used to avoid devotionals at all costs and thought they were shallow and unhelpful for my spiritual growth. I was so wrong.
If you are more of an intellectual type of person and you enjoy diving deeply into the Bible, you can run the risk of gathering a lot of head knowledge and not enough heart knowledge. A good devotional will help you to avoid that.
A devotional is also great for women in transition seasons. Maybe you just moved to a new state, you’re a new mom with new responsibilities, or you just accepted a new role in your job. It can be difficult to adjust to these changes. Devotionals usually take 10-15 minutes and they can be pretty beneficial for women who are short on time and still want to spend time with God.
5 Great Daily Devotionals for Women
This isn’t exactly a devotional, but many people use it in this way. It focused on knowing about God and knowing God through our relationship with Christ. It’s great for Christians who enjoy reading about theology and Biblical scholarship, and would like to meditate on theological truths about God in a more practical way.
This is a newer book by Jackie Hill Perry. It releases on October 3rd but I have had the privilege of reading some of the excerpts. After reading Jackie Hill Perry’s previous books, I have no doubt that this one will be great as well. Like Knowing God, this devotional book can help us discover God and discover who we are in light of who God is.
I curated and edited this book that features the stories of thirty women who have encountered the faithfulness of God. This devotional is especially useful to anyone dealing with hardship or challenges and need to be reminded of God’s presence with them through life’s situations. If you are more of an ebook kind of person, there’s an e-book available here on our website.
The book of Common Courage is a book of prayer and poems inspired by Psalm 23. This is a great book for anyone who needs to find strength amidst anxiety, chronic illness, trauma or any other hardship of life. Through these prayers and poems, we are reminded that God is still with us even in the midst of pain.
I wrote this book for women who want to spend more time reading the Gospels but may not know where to start. These reflections focus on Jesus’ life, ministry and his interaction with women. They cover topics such as devotion to God, doubt, anxiety and fear, forgiveness and rest.
Online Devotional Apps for Women
If you prefer to use an app for your devotions, here are a few that I recommend:
- She Reads Truth – SRT offers Bible Studies and devotionals. They publish new studies regularly and you can follow along with each study directly in the app. I wrote a devotional for their study on Amos.
- YouVersion Bible App – it features many Bible Reading Plans covering various topics surrounding Christian life. Many of these are five or seven day devotionals.
- Lectio365 – Lectio 365 is an app that uses the ancient Christian practice of Lectio Divina to structure its devotionals. There is a morning reading and a night reading, and you can follow along directly in the app. It also includes audio for those who are commuting, making breakfast, or attending to other tasks while using the devotional.
Two Short Term Digital Devotionals available in the Daily She Pursues Shop
I didn’t want to end this article without pointing you to two short term devotionals that I wrote.
The first is called When You Are Waiting on God: 7 Devotions to Encourage and Strengthen Your Faith in the Waiting. It’s for those dealing with painful, long seasons of waiting.
The second is a devotional with reflections from a recent trip I took to Israel. This one is called Reflections From the Holy Land: Inspiring Devotions on the Life of Christ. It centers on the places that are important in Christ’s ministry and provides insight on some things we should know about those places.
P.S. If you’d like a weekly devotional or reflection delivered to your email each week, then I would encourage you to sign up for the Daily She Pursues Newsletter.
I hope you enjoyed this article all about daily devotions! It was great getting to share these with you. What are some of your favorite Christian devotionals?
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