Sunday Reading: Romans 5:1-5
Key Verse: Romans 5:4
4 and patience works out experience, and experience works out hope.
Devotion:
When we do truly trust in God He changes us from the inside. Not only do we become Christians but we have the peace of God within us from that moment on. It may not seem like it at times because of the trials that we will continue to go through, but all we need do is call on God and He will make sure that we do know His peace. That is all it takes, for us to call on God. It may seem like a small thing to do but what we are demonstrating is faith in our God. When we call on God it should not be a shout for ‘help, is anyone out there’ but a direct and explicit call to Christ for His help – that is when He answers directly.
If you are calling out for anyone to help, who do you think is going to help? It may well not be the One you expect because He wants you to acknowledge Him as God and not to call on some random god out there. But far too often we start to give up hope because our faith is dwindling and we start to call for anyone to help us. God wants us to have patience. He did not promise us that all of our prayers would be answered before we ask them; He promised us that all our prayers would be answered... in His time. God wants us to learn patience because some of our prayers will be answered when we begin to realise just what we are asking for – for us to realise that we may well have to go through trials before we know that.
God wants us to understand that when we ask Him for things in prayer, He is the one who is going to answer them. That means that we have to understand that when we ask amiss, we may well get something very different as He brings us round to the way we should be asking. God wants us to make sure that we do know that He is our Lord and our King. That means that we need to show Him all the respect that is due Him. That means that we must not be flippant in our asking of Him. That means we need to be humble before Him, even in our prayers. When we do listen to Him we will find all manner of prayers being answered – but listen to Him we must. Not our hearts which fail us, but Him!
Points to Ponder:
What are you looking for this year?
Are you keeping God in the picture?
