Thursday Reading: Philippians 2:12-13
Key Verse: Philippians 2:12
12 Therefore, my beloved, as you have always obeyed, not as in my presence only, but now much more in my absence, cultivate your own salvation with fear and trembling.
Devotion:
Much of the time we can tell when someone is not telling us the truth or when they are not putting all their effort into something that they should; and yet we still try to take shortcuts ourselves thinking that others will not be able to see the shortcuts and shortcomings that we take and make! Why then should we even begin to think that we can take shortcuts when God is concerned. If we start to think about what we are trying to do we should very quickly wake up to the fact that Christ will not miss out on anything that we do!
What has got to change is our attitude; our attitude towards the work that we do and our attitude towards the work that we have planned. It is not use making an elaborate plan if we are not then going to carry out that plan to the full. Why plan to do something incredible only to take a shortcut and do the least possible work? Why say we are going to do something in full when we know that we are going to take shortcuts and do as little as possible?
Jesus made sure that everything was done to the absolute when He was here on earth. He made sure that everything that was foretold came to pass. He made sure that He went ahead and did more than that too so that we could have inspiration to do that in our lives. When God asks us to be doing something we should not be being like Jonah and running the other way but we should stand fast and think of ways that we can do more than just the minimum to answer God! God will never give up on us so why should we even contemplate giving up on God? He knows what is best for us and He knows what is best for others too. Sometimes we do have to go a step further to make sure that we do complete our tasks for God in the best possible way we can think of!
Points to Ponder:
Do you like doing things properly?
Have you noticed how God completes everything?
