Wednesday 28 Dec 2016

December 28: Habakkuk 1:12-17

Key Verse: Habakkuk 1:16
Therefore they sacrifice to their net, And burn incense to their dragnet; Because by them their share is sumptuous And their food plentiful.

Devotion:
When God does something which we don't like or don't agree with, we begin to question God. If things go wrong in our lives because of other people, we begin to question God for allowing things to go wrong. Basically, when God does not do what we want Him to do, we question Him! That is exactly what happened to Habakkuk; he saw all the bad things which the people of Israel were doing to each other and he questioned God for allowing that to happen.

But we have to remember a few things. First is that the world is an evil place which we inhabit. God has control over everything, but He continues to allow people to have their own free will. This means the people who want to go out and do evil things can still do out and do things with cunning minds. God wants to be able to stop all evil things, but because of that free will that He has given each of us, He will not stop all things.

God is Lord of all. God is in charge. God is in control. God does love us and God does care. We are the ones showing Him we do not care by doing the things that we do. We are made with no direct ruler over us. Whilst we may have kings and queens, police and armies, we have the ultimate choice as to whether we want to follow the rules as laid down by them or not.

God has given each of us abilities and we use those abilities – hopefully to glorify Him. But the more we find that we can do things, the more we believe in our own abilities and in the things we use. We begin to glorify the things that we use or do rather than our ultimate Creator’s abilities. That is how we lose sight of Him in our lives. We need to continually show Him we do love Him by depending on Him and following His Word. The more we walk away from Him, the more we think we can do and understand by ourselves.

Points to Ponder:
What was the last thing you blamed on God?

What was the last thing you thanked Him for?