Saturday 16 Nov 2013

Saturday Reading: Job 9:16-19

Key Verse: Job 9:16
If I called and He answered me, I would not believe that He was listening to my voice.

Devotion:
Oh how many times do we have to blame God before we put aside our pride of life! Pride is something that grows from the smallest of things into a huge overwhelming mountain unless it is nipped in the bud! We have all been there so we cannot turn round and say “it must be them he is talking about”. God wants each of us to realise that we owe everything to Him and to Him alone. Satan continues to try to build up things like pride in our lives so that we will wander away from God without thinking about it, because if we are distracted whilst we walk away we will not think of it until it is too late.

God also wants us to know that He is just in all His ways and that if we do walk away from Him, we will have to pay the consequences until we put aside our pride and come back to Him. I do speak through experience from my past because I know that I have been in various positions that have been brought on by pride. I like to think that I am now able to identify pride more easily in my life because of what I have been through – but, like Job, I’m pretty sure that I will have to put it aside again before God is done with me!

God also wants us to know that He is merciful and continues to be very patient with us whilst we do run around in circles! Our pride does make us ignore directions and it does make us run after things we should not be. Job may have lost everything but his attitude was wrong in thinking that God had no right to allow anything bad into his life. Just because we love others, give things away, praise God always, and live an righteous life, does not mean that we will escape all bad things… We live in a very corrupt world and we will be affected by this world as we walk through it. That may well mean having to put up with the bad stuff we tread on as we walk.

But we must never forget that God has greater rewards for us in our futures with Him. No matter what we have to put up with in this world, we have a fantastic future with Him is we will place our faith and trust in Him. It may seem like we go through hell to get there, but God’s promises are sure!

Points to Ponder:
Do you get sick of this world?

Do you look forward to your future in Christ?