Friday 17 Aug 2012

Friday Reading: James 4:11-17

Key Verse: James 4:15
15  For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.

Devotion:
There are many times when you can shout about what you have done, such times as being the fastest person to run a race or to throw something the furthest or jump the highest; those are times when we can celebrate what we have been able to achieve. But if we close off everything else in our lives just so that we can attain that goal, we are closing off too much for too little gain. Yes it is amazing what we can achieve when we put our minds to it but let us never forget that it is God who has created us and He that has designed us the way we are. Without the gifts that He has given us we would not be in a position to have gained what we have been able to gain.

How quickly we lose focus on God when things do go our own way. How quickly we forget about exactly what He has done for us when we don’t seem to have to depend on Him. But then how much we seek Him when things go wrong or when everything is piling up against us. If we, however, were to be more consistent in our approach toward loving God and keeping Him close to our hearts we would find just how much He could do for us.

Drawing the line between living for ourselves and living for God is something that many of us will find hard to do because we cannot seem to separate the two. When we do not focus on God we forget about how much He can do and how much He wants to do in our lives. But when we do live for God and keep Him close to our hearts we begin to understand what He wants in our lives and also just how much He is willing to allow us to achieve with Him.

Our goal should be to work with God and not to work against Him. I’m not one to say that if you do everything right God will bless you and give you all your desires or visa versa. God kicked man out of the garden of Eden for disobeying Him in the beginning and told us that we would have to work hard for our living. That has not stopped because we still live in this harsh world in which we have to make ends meet. If we are consistent and keep God close to us we will be able to understand better the direction He wants us to take – the right direction that will be best for us; after all, He does want what is best for us in our lives…

Points to Ponder:
Are you keeping up with your goals?

Are you keeping God’s goals in mind?