Monday 26 Nov 2012

Monday Reading: John 10:7-11

Key Verse: John 10:8
8  All that ever came before me are thieves and robbers: but the sheep did not hear them.

Devotion:
When Christ spoke of being the Good Shepherd it was not just that He was a shepherd that really did care for His sheep but so much more than that. We can study about how much He has done as a good shepherd in the fact that He continues to look out for us, to track us down when we go astray, to being us back, to love us and to protect us in ways which we can see… but how many times have we thought about the protection that He gives to us from the unseen?

When we look back in our own lives and compare them with the stories that we hear from the world around us we may well be very thankful that God has not allowed us to go through the same problems as others or to face the same temptations as others may have had to face. We can look back on those things and be very thankful because we can see or hear about the evidence of the trial and temptations others may have had to face. For some, you may well have been centre stage and have had to face those things. But then we only know what we hear about or see for our own selves.

If we take a closer look at the world around us we find all sorts of things that we probably do not already know about. The more that we are able to study God’s Word the more that we find that it explains so much more than just a little of the history of the earth like some would believe. This is God’s Word we are talking about and it is certainly not limited as the numbers of words in our bibles are finite.

The hints about what we don’t know about start in the very beginning when Adam and Eve were faced by the serpent who successfully tempted them to eat of the fruit of the knowledge of good and evil. They gave in to the evil side and they had to pay the price for what they had done; but again, they saw temptation. If we look at Job and what he had to go through we see a different story. He was faced with evil and did not give in, but he was only able to see the effects of evil and not evil itself. God continues to protect us from that evil whilst we rely on Him; but if we wander off into the wilderness to see what is out there, we may well come face to face with something we do not need to see!

Points to Ponder:
What scares you most?

Do you see how much God protects you from?