Tuesday 4 Nov 2014

November 4: Matthew 7:15-20

Key Verse: Matthew 7:17
Even so, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.

Devotion:
You would be forgiven for thinking that were a lot of very nasty people lately because of the annual Halloween pastime of dressing up in the most evil looking costumes! I must admit that the pictures that have come out in the last few days of the makeup artists and clothes designers who have found a new vocation is incredible. But this is a one-off event which does not really get covered by this statement because when you meet the people dressed up as ghoulish characters they are actually normal people underneath it all!

But what about the people that look normal and yet you cannot even begin to imagine how they are going to react to the things which you would think of as being normal. The actions of some people in relation to what we think are normal events is jaw dropping in many cases. But who are we to judge how they should react to the situations? Well – we can’t judge in reality because we do not know how their minds work.

What we can do is to see how God through Christ has reacted to so many things in our bibles. We can then look at how we react and try to figure out how we can fix our own attitudes to make them more in line with Christ. Being Christ-like is not just about being good and not sinning but also about reaching out to the people around us with love and respect.

But as we do this we do have to be very aware of the people that look normal but are not what they seem to be. Satan is very aware of the types of people we will accept in our lives and he will use those types of people to distract us or tempt us just when we do not expect it at all. Just because they look like they are going to be the type of people we like, does not make them good people in God’s eyes. Take a good look at how Christ would react and compare what we do and say to what Christ would do and say. We can then aim to be more Christ-like and aim to be people that others can trust…

Points to Ponder:
Do you think you are trust-worthy?

How does your life compare to Christ’s?