Thursday 6 Dec 2012

Thursday Reading: Luke 6:33-36

Key Verse: Luke 6:35
35  But love ye your enemies, and do good, and lend, hoping for nothing again; and your reward shall be great, and ye shall be the children of the Highest: for he is kind unto the unthankful and to the evil.

Devotion:
One of the hardest things to accept in life is when someone works against you, puts you down or is just plain unkind toward you; when we are faced with such odds we tend to try and think of ways in which we can get our own back or get our own way instead. But that is not what Christ has been trying to teach us all these years – He has been trying to build up that part of our heart that allows us to love our enemies.

God does not want us to get our own back when things go wrong. He does not want us to give in and make other people’s lives difficult just because they have done so for us! God wants us to be strong, be strengthened by His Word but also to accept the hardships we have and learn to try and work with them. God may well allow various hard things through our lives so that we can understand how amazing He is and how He could get us through anything!

We need to also build up our strength so that when people come complaining to us, we have strength to help them out as well as to help those around us. Another big thing that we get trapped into very quickly is working for the world instead of working for God. Just because we live in this world and we have to make money to survive, it does not mean that we have to forget about all those people around us that need God because He wants us to tell those same people about our awesome God!

Just because our enemies want to extract every last cent out of the world, does not mean that we have to give up on everything of this world and only live like missionaries. God has given some of us remarkable skills so that we can go out there and earn money; and maybe that is so that we can support those saints around us that God has chosen to reach out to others through. I find it very encouraging to know that this is going out to hundreds of people and that they can share in the love for God’s Word that I have found. Let us not hope for any return but instead rely on God to make the return possible that is going to glorify Him! Nothing is impossible for our God, but sometimes we do have to put aside the fear that we have for the impossible and trust that God can do things!

Points to Ponder:
Do you expect favours in return?

Do you expect God to do things just because you did something for Him?