Thursday Reading: Job 11:13-16
Key Verse: Job 11:13
13 If you prepare your heart and stretch out your hands toward Him;
Devotion:
How many times have you tried to do the right thing and fallen flat on your face? We have a tendency to do that most of our lives; we try so hard to do what we think is the right thing and we end up making a mess of things... Whether it is telling someone something else just to smooth the waters over instead of telling the truth or whether it is doing something because you believe that that will help you to move on in life; if we do not have God involved in what we do then we are doing it for ourselves and not for Him!
If you take these verses from Job and read them through, you may think that they are quite encouraging and would help anyone in time of need. But then if you take them in the context that they are spoken their meaning is not so clear and can even be seen as being religious rather than in Christ’s love. When Christ tells us to come to Him it in is faith and in belief and not physically trying to do so yourself. There is no way that we can lift ourselves up to such a position as help by Christ! God confounded the people as they build their tower in Babel because they were the ones who had it in their hearts that they would lift themselves up. That’s just not going to happen, ever!
God wants us to come to Him but we need to make sure that we do that in the right manner. We need to come to Him through Christ because it is what Christ alone has done that will redeem us from the sin debt that we carry. We need to come to Christ in faith and in pure belief and not through works of our own. We need to make sure that God is getting the glory for lifting us up and not we ourselves for climbing up to be with Him! The line is very fine between lifting our own selves up and lifting up Christ but it is a very definite line that we need to make sure we never cross. “To God be the Glory, great things He has done” not “wayhey I can do anything”!
Points to Ponder:
Do you think you are quite capable?
Do you keep God with you whatever you do?
