Monday 27 Oct 2014

October 27: Matthew 13:31-32

Key Verse: Matthew 13:32
which indeed is the least of all the seeds; but when it is grown it is greater than the herbs and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and nest in its branches.”

Devotion:
When I read about mustard plants I think of the mustard plants here in the UK which look more like grass than any bush or tree. But then when people talk about pepper trees I always think of a huge tree some 50 feet tall when most people think about a bush or small tree. It is all relative because we grow up in different places with different climates and environments.

We should not expect all our lives to be the same then either but to be as varied as the places and times we live in. Our lives are very different now to the lives of people just 50 years or 100 years ago. Our lives as Christians are going to be very varied as well and not all carved out of the same piece of wood. I was reading the other day the passages from the Old Testament where it talks about people using wood to make all sorts of things for the house and then using the left-overs to make idols that they could worship. To me that is totally alien, but to them, totally real!

God knows that we live in very different parts of the world where there are big differences. He knows we are going to face very different temptations and hardships. But He continues to prepare just the right environment to overcome all that will come up against us. Our strength and resolve is not going to come through how much we have had to endure over our lives but rather from the input we have had during our lives.

If we want to be able to come out on top then we should aim to take in as much experience as we can from God and from His ways; that way we will get just the right input to overcome the hurdles we are going to face. The problem comes when we lose sight of God and allow the world to turn over all we have done against God in the first place. Just because the hardship or temptation looks so much bigger than our own personal strength does not mean that we will lose the battle!

Points to Ponder:
Do you feel like you are running out of track?

Do you allow God to lay new track constantly?