Sunday 28 Jul 2013

Sunday Reading: James 4:13-16

Key Verse: James 4:15
15  For that ye ought to say, If the Lord will, we shall live, and do this, or that.

Devotion:
When God says that we should be treating each other with brotherly or Christian love, it is not just limited to the way that we are toward others face to face but our whole attitude should be based around that fact – Christian love! I’m sure I would have used my mother’s tapestry before in a devotional, but it goes well with this text. The tapestry states “If there is peace in every home there will be peace in all the world”

It may seem obvious to people that peace would ensue but it would be a whole lot more than just peace. We would be living together in a closer harmony. We would be helping and supporting each other. We would be working toward common goals. We would be able to show love to each other without worrying about being politically correct and we would be safe with each other!

God is the one whole has control over all things and He uses that control with absolute wisdom. We are the ones who continue breaking His ways because we insist on going against God’s ways and take our own paths toward destruction. When we do that we take a whole lot of people with us and not just ourselves. So when we aim for peace at home first of all we are aiming toward a much greater goal than we think.

God wants us to know that peace that He can give us. He wants us to know that love that He wants to share with us. He wants each of us to share what He wants for us with those people around us – that way we will be able to share in that common goal that He has designed from the beginning; the one that we seem to want to avoid! If we relied more on God and His guidance then we would get closer to living for Him and not living for this world. We have seen that we cannot serve two masters and yet we continue to serve the world instead of God. With God in our hearts and minds we will be different people because we will not hanker after the things of this world as much as we currently do. That would mean we are already one step closer to living in His peace, which means one step closer to living at peace with others, which means one step closer to our lives in God.

Points to Ponder:
Do you annoy others for fun?

How much of God’s peace do you ignore?