Saturday 29 Jun 2013

Saturday Reading: Job 33:14-18

Key Verse: Job 33:15
15  In a dream, in a vision of the night, when deep sleep falleth upon men, in slumberings upon the bed;

Devotion:
God speaks to us in many ways and one of those ways is through His Word, our bibles. There was probably not any scriptures written down at this stage in history that Job or his so called friends could call on but that did not mean that they had nothing to call upon from God! God continues to encourage and guide us through the same ways as Elihu describes here.

God has built in our consciences to guide us even before we know Him. Our conscience tells us what is right and what is wrong and we expand on that every time we learn new things. Unfortunately for us we also tend to learn bad habits which corrupt our thoughts and lead us astray. We should always remember that he is the one who cared for us from the beginning and through our great history of care that He has shown us we learn more about Him.

God also speaks to us through His ministers that He has encouraged to take His Word out to others. Each one of us has been given the task of taking the gospel out to others but for some God has encouraged them to study His Word deeper so that they may bring a deeper understanding to others as they seek it. God raises us up to take care of others, not just physically but also spiritually. Elihu at least understood these facts even though his words were of little comfort to Job who had lost everything.

Job instead remembered all of what God had done for him and all that he had done in giving God the glory in his life; all that must have encouraged him to know deep in his own heart that God was going to make sure that he got through this as well. God is the one who designed the good into us in the beginning, giving us our consciences to guide us toward that good and away from evil. But when we close our hearts to our consciences and to the various other ways that God tried to talk to us, we hanker after sinful ways instead. We indulge ourselves in the sins because we stop listening to God and ignore our consciences, God’s providences and His ministers. Let us remember that God instilled the sense of good into our hearts for a reason, so that we can get to know Him better. We now have the scriptures written down so that we can recall all of our history with God; let us take those providences to build up our consciences bolstered by lessons from our ministers and glorify God for all that He has done in our lives.

Points to Ponder:
Do you listen to your conscience?

Do you keep God’s Word in your heart?