Monday Reading: Jude 1:5-7
Key Verse: Jude 1:5
5 But I intend to remind you, you once knowing these things, that the Lord having delivered a people out of the land of Egypt, in the second place destroyed the ones not believing.
Devotion:
No manner of outward profession, outward living or outward appearances will ever secure a position for anyone in heaven. It is not the fact that someone goes to church, nor the fact that they give of everything they own nor the fact that they can indeed teach others that will save them from the wrath of God. There is nothing that will prevent God from delivering true justice to all men. Our only hope is in Jesus Christ.
God brought the children of Israel out of slavery in Egypt to walk through testing times in the desert to prove that He is all powerful and to deliver justice. God chose the Jews as a people and yet even they were not all safe from His judgement. Those that refused to believe in Him even though He had physically got them out of slavery would face His wrath there in the desert. He sustained them and protected them and made sure that they survived against all odds; yet in amongst them there were still those who refused to believe that power. That was their choice and their own undoing.
Of all the angels that God created, there were those that refused to submit to His power, wanting instead to reign in His stead. For them a life in chains waiting for the final judgement; be it considered to living on death row – you know you are guilty and you know what you punishment is, you just have to wait for it to be served!
If God has considered angels to be locked up awaiting judgment, do you think that He will not consider man for the same fate should we not choose to follow Him? Of all the things that have happened in the past after all His promises; do we have the gall to think that we should get away with it when no being has yet gotten away with it? Let us not forget our position. Let us not forget our God. Let us return to Him in true repentance!
Points to Ponder:
Do you think you get away with things?
Have you considered that God is always present?
