Friday 13 Jul 2012

Friday Reading: Philippians 2:9-11

Key Verse: Philippians 2:11
11  And that every tongue should confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.

Devotion:
There are lessons to be learned and there are no end of people that need to learn those lessons – starting with me. Read that out aloud and agree with it to start with… The apostle exalts Christ because of the person that He is and looks to us as being those in need of that example that we should need to seek to follow.

So we know that it is Christ who is going to strengthen us and yet we still find it difficult to trust in Him wholly because we cannot see the way out. Imagine being told the path through a complex maze before you even get to see the maze and then being expected to know you way through when you get there. Whilst that may not be a problem for someone with a photographic memory, most of us are going to struggle after the first set of turn left, then right then right again then miss the next turn and… we get lost!

That is why we need to have Christ with us every step of the way because without Him we are going to get lost and we are going to falter and we are going to fail. It does not mean that we will get everything right when we walk with Him though because we always make mistakes and we have to live with that fact. But what it does mean is that we should be more willing to listen and learn from what He tells us each step of the way.

Our problem is not so much that we don’t want to follow Christ but more of a fact that we don’t actually take Him with us. Yes we tell others that we are Christians when they ask and we even go to church and maybe even help out at youth clubs and that is our life. But what if that life is not quite full? What if we tell all our Christian friends what we do but we don’t tell those lost people. What if we stick to our own and don’t include the lost? If we are not going to sow any seeds then we should not really expect to be able to collect a harvest of any kind! It is not going to be our cunning or our generosity or our energy that is going to make the big difference – it is the fact that we confess that Jesus Christ is Lord that is going to make the difference. When people see that we are different, they will want to know why we love life so much – that is the point at which we can tell them that it is not us but Christ in us. That is the point the God can work in their hearts because He has finally managed to use us to allow someone to see a glimmer of light!

Points to Ponder:
What do you think of yourself?

Do you think others see you or see Christ through you?