Tuesday 5 Mar 2013

Tuesday Reading: Genesis 4:1-7

Key Verse: Genesis 4:7
7  If thou doest well, shalt thou not be accepted? and if thou doest not well, sin lieth at the door. And unto thee shall be his desire, and thou shalt rule over him.

Devotion:
When we know that we are doing things wrong we should not really have any excuse to be upset when everything goes pear shaped; but we do get upset. We expect that things should still go alright even when we are not following the rules… But when Cain got upset that God was not as pleased with his offering as He was with Abel’s offering, God asked him why he was upset. I expect the standard response of “I don’t know” came back; but that is just speculation because that is not what we are told. Instead God reminds Cain why things were not going his way.

God expects us to follow His Word and when His Word says one thing and we run off and do something else, then we should not be too surprised to find out that God will get to see what we have done wrong; furthermore we should not be surprised to find that we have upset God because we have gone against His will. But if we are willing to listen and learn what God expects from us, we can be much better prepared to do His will as He expects us to. But when we run off and start going against God’s will we will find that there is temptation waiting for us.

Satan is not so stupid as to miss out on any tricks. If he knows that we have done something against God’s will then he can use that against us – and he is not going to pass over any opportunity that is given to him on a plate! So we should not be at all surprised to find that the temptation is waiting for us as soon as we break the rules!

God knows that we cannot keep His laws because we are sinners, but He also knows that Satan is even worse and will be waiting to trip us up all the time. That is another reason why He would have us to do His will – because when we are doing His will we find that we are closest to Him and less likely to fall into any temptations.

When we find that sin is waiting for us at every corner we will give in a lot quicker than if we have to go looking for it. And if we are going to follow God’s will, we are going to find that we do get what God has lined up for us; whereas we will find we get what Satan has lined up for us when we are out of the will of God.

Points to Ponder:
Do you get upset when others succeed and you don’t?

Do you know what God has lined up for you?