Tuesday 17 Apr 2012

Tuesday Reading: Matthew 5:3-12

Key Verse: Matthew 5:9
9  Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Devotion:
When we are willing to continue listening to God as we allow our personal relationship to grow with Him then we can and should expect Him to bless us – just like our parents bless us in so many ways as we grow up and behave ourselves. When we misbehave with our own parents we can expect them to get mad at us or to reprove or punish us in some manner so that we can be taught the difference between right and wrong. That we accept as part of life and as part of growing up. But when God ‘dares’ to reprove us we then turn round and blame Him for things that go wrong and complain bitterly that He is not blessing us!

We do need to aim to have a correct relationship with God and that does mean that we are going to have to watch quite a few things in our lives. Reading through the Beatitudes will help us to understand the things that will please God even though we may read it as though these are the weaknesses that God will support us through.

God wants us to be pure in spirit which means that we need to put aside that prideful spirit that we may harbour and instead accept that we are nothing in comparison to Him. God wants us to comfort those who are in need of comfort and just to demand comfort when we are feeling down. He wants us to accept the fact that He does own the world and that all that we have does come from Him and not through what we have achieved. He wants us to continually seek out all that is right and to leave behind the things which He does not accept. He wants us to be merciful towards others when they do make mistakes. He wants us to be honest and pure in all that we do in His sight (which means always). He wants us to try to keep the peace rather than winding people up otherwise we do not reflect His ways through what we do. And then He reminds us that when we do all of these things we can expect some people to have issues with the way we are living – mostly because we will be showing them up for the wicked things that they do and try to get away with.

But as long as we are willing to continue try to follow Gods ways and to show the rest of the world that we are willing to do that, He reminds us that He does notice what we do and He will bless us for what we are doing. But it is not that we can attain eternal life through anything we can do; that remains a gift He will give to His children – those of us who accept Him as Lord or Lords and King of Kings believing on all that He accomplished for us on that cross at Calvary!

Points to Ponder:
Do you seek blessings rather than giving them?

Do you think you deserve what God has already given you?