Thursday Reading: 1 Peter 5 5-9
Key Verse: 1 Peter 5 7
7 casting all your anxiety onto Him, for He cares for you.
Devotion:
Here we have a stark contrast between the destinies of humility and pride; humility will bring peace and order in Christians and societies, whereas pride will disturb everything. It is little wonder then that we are encouraged to come forward with humility and to set aside our pride. When God gives us the grace to be humble He gives us more than wisdom to do what is right in those ways, He gives us wisdom, faith and holiness. That grace He shows us will bring us greater comfort than anything we can achieve even through the gratification of our most prideful ideas.
Another pitfall of pride is that we need to have things done in our own timescales and not to other people’s times! When we are driven through pride, we do what we can to keep things according to our own rules and times. In other words, we are focusing on ourselves and seeking to gain the glory from all that we do. But what God wants us to do is to come forward and allow Him to work in His own time. In other words, He wants us to be dependent on Him and not ourselves. He wants to make sure that when we see things going along nicely, that He will get the glory for what He does. We may be the ones sitting in the driving seat, but without God, we don’t know where we are and where we are going.
However, we should not be so obnoxious as to think that God is going to be our own personal chauffeur for us! We still have to drive the car. We still have to be in control of it. We just need to make sure that we drive according to His rules and according to His directions. We still live in a world where Satan is doing his best to trap us in every possible way. We still live in a world where we can “crash and burn”... But we do have God on our side and we do have His protection – so long as we seek it and listen to it and trust in Him. God gives us the grace so that we can stand in faith bringing all our troubles to Him just as He has asked.
Points to Ponder:
Do you feel like you are on a roller coaster?
Are you depending on God?
Key Verse: 1 Peter 5 7
7 casting all your anxiety onto Him, for He cares for you.
Devotion:
Here we have a stark contrast between the destinies of humility and pride; humility will bring peace and order in Christians and societies, whereas pride will disturb everything. It is little wonder then that we are encouraged to come forward with humility and to set aside our pride. When God gives us the grace to be humble He gives us more than wisdom to do what is right in those ways, He gives us wisdom, faith and holiness. That grace He shows us will bring us greater comfort than anything we can achieve even through the gratification of our most prideful ideas.
Another pitfall of pride is that we need to have things done in our own timescales and not to other people’s times! When we are driven through pride, we do what we can to keep things according to our own rules and times. In other words, we are focusing on ourselves and seeking to gain the glory from all that we do. But what God wants us to do is to come forward and allow Him to work in His own time. In other words, He wants us to be dependent on Him and not ourselves. He wants to make sure that when we see things going along nicely, that He will get the glory for what He does. We may be the ones sitting in the driving seat, but without God, we don’t know where we are and where we are going.
However, we should not be so obnoxious as to think that God is going to be our own personal chauffeur for us! We still have to drive the car. We still have to be in control of it. We just need to make sure that we drive according to His rules and according to His directions. We still live in a world where Satan is doing his best to trap us in every possible way. We still live in a world where we can “crash and burn”... But we do have God on our side and we do have His protection – so long as we seek it and listen to it and trust in Him. God gives us the grace so that we can stand in faith bringing all our troubles to Him just as He has asked.
Points to Ponder:
Do you feel like you are on a roller coaster?
Are you depending on God?