Friday 16 Nov 2012

Friday Reading: Psalm 119:25-32

Key Verse: Psalm 119:28
28  My soul melteth for heaviness: strengthen thou me according unto thy word.

Devotion:
We start out like everyone else, reaching out to the world, clinging to it, depending on it and then wondering why we are disappointed in it when things go wrong. The world gives us short term fixes and nothing long term because it is tending toward chaos rather than stability. The more our leaders talk about things the more desperate they seem to be to fix things as ‘the wheels fall off’ the parts they thought they were in control of. If we are placed in positions of authority we find that we have to face the unexpected at times and have to work out how to deal with it – that is just life.

Is it any different when we become believers in Christ? Well, the world is the same place and we are surrounded by the same problems and the same worldly outlooks; so it does not seem very different. But when we look to God and His Word for answers instead of looking toward the earthly solutions we begin to find a whole new life that has promise and that has a future that is stable. We still do need guidance as to what God’s Word means because we come in from the outside and wonder at what is written down. We need strength to stick to the rules that God lays down so that we can be encouraged and built up in the right ways.

We do need to accept God’s Word as the truth and then to try and live by that truth; we need to cling to His Word so that we remain strengthened in what lays ahead. And then we also have to be willing to stick with it because if we get weak and grow weary of doing what God wants us to do, we will turn back to those earthly ways that we have found wanting all along. We do not have anything in this world that promises us an eternal life other than God’s Word. Satan will try to tempt us into his lies but that is only so that he can take us away from the truth and prevent us from worshipping God.

We can look back at the disasters of this world and we think that there is no hope. We look at the pain and suffering and we wonder how this can be. We need to remember that the god of this world wants to reign in and with chaos so that he can continue to dash our hopes and forces us to think that there is no hope. That is not true. God has shown us we do have hope. He is the God of the living, the God of the whole universe and He has promised us eternal life if we keep His commandments and believe that His Son died for our sakes.

Points to Ponder:
What gets you down on this planet?

Do you know God’s promises?