Friday 13 Jul 2018

July 13: Joel 1:3-14

Key Verse: Joel 1:14
Declare a holy fast; call a sacred assembly. Summon the elders and all who live in the land to the house of the Lord your God, and cry out to the Lord.

Devotion:
Things happen! We may not like some of the things which happen in our lives but they still happen. We may not want them to happen and we may even expect God to protect us from them, but still, things happen. This does not mean that God is not with us. This does not mean that God is not real. It is a simple reminder we live in a world which has been corrupted by sin.

Bad things are not always the direct result of sin; we may have things happen in our lives which are totally unrelated to our personal lives other than we are caught up in things. The simple fact is we live in a world with loads of sin in it. That sin corrupts things and breaks down the structure which God sets up. It breaks down things because God gives us the free choice to do what we will, whether we are followers of His or not; each of those things has the potential to break down a structure Christ has set up – it’s call consequences. People who lived before us in history have done things which still affect us today. People in power and in charge have left God out of the equation and have brought greed and lust into the equation instead. With that sort of history behind us we can expect a whole lot more corruption and a whole lot more to have to put up with because of the consequences of that corruption.

But what about our lives? Why are we personally affected? Is it because we ignore God? Is He punishing us in some way?

Our God is not a God who dishes out punishment to anyone just because they did not listen – we leave that to other extreme religions and sects. Our God is a loving God who patiently waits for us to return to His side. If we ignore Him, then we have to walk in our historically corrupt world, a world where people care more about themselves than others. Should we expect fair trade from that sort of world or should we expect what we seem to see? More often than not it is not our own sin which makes things happen to us but rather the fact we have chosen to live in a corrupt world instead of living by God’s side. Unfortunately for us, keeping close to God still means we have to put up with the corruption around us, but at least we can know our future is secure!

Points to Ponder:
Do you blame God when things go bad?

Or do you cry out to God?