January 23: Proverbs 18 10-12
Key Verse: Proverbs 18 12
Before destruction the heart of a man is haughty, And before honour is humility.
Devotion:
One thing we do have as Christians is a strong tower, a fortress where we can come to survive our enemies. The Lord's name is that sanctuary where we can be lifted up into His arms and protected from everything. All we need do is call out in His name! All the wealth we require is within that tower because it is a place where all we need is held within. All those who know God may enter in to be safe. All those who do not, will be held without as if they are trying to storm a fortress on foot. We need to be ever close to our fortress by continuing in prayer and depending on the promises of God with faith.
Those who look to the world as their strength will only find what protection the world can give them. They look for protection in what is around them with the uncertainty it provides. The more they trust in the world and gain from it, the more they build up their own wall of protection, getting more and more fearful of those who wish to take it away from them. No matter how much they try to build up that protection, they never have true peace about that protection because it only protects against what they have thought of. All it will take is one thing which they have not thought of to bring the earthly house crumbling down...
Pride and arrogance are the things which keep us from looking for that true fortress. The pride of wanting to protect oneself. The arrogance or ignorance of thinking we can against much stronger powers than ourselves. Pride or ignorance will keep anyone away from God.
Before we can gain a position within the fortress, before we can have a position of honour within God's arms, we need to come to Him in humility. We need to show that we are willing to put our worldly arrogance and pride behind us and give in to God's will in our lives. When we do that, confess and seek God, we find our strength and rock upon which we can build our lives.
Points to Ponder:
How much do you depend on things around you?
How much do you give to God to protect?
January 22: 2 Samuel 22 29-37
Key Verse: 2 Samuel 22 33
God is my strength and power, And He makes my way perfect.
Devotion:
Too many times we forget just what God is in our lives. We assume He walks with us in what we are doing without giving thought to whether He would approve of what we do day by day. We assume what we do is correct. It is only when something rocks the boat that we suddenly find out what He means to us. He is our perfect, unmoveable, just, loving, caring, encouraging, strengthening, wise rock on which we can build our entire lives.
David continued to find how God was always there for Him, through the good times and the bad times, the support was always there. God's wisdom and strength was always there for David and all he had to do was ask for it. His guidance was always there. His light in darkness. His perfect way. Every way in which David needed support was always fully fulfilled by God. Nothing else in his life could even come close to that fulfilment which he got from God.
Each time we get into trouble, we turn to God. Each time we have something go wrong in our lives, we turn to Him. Each time we feel trapped with no way out, we turn to Him. Yet, each time we have doubt, we try to work it out ourselves. Each time we are faced with something that frightens us, we turn to Him. Each time we can see a way out, we try take it rather than trusting in His perfect way. We are the ones who are not consistent in our love towards God. He is always consistent!
Most of the time we look for help when we need it. Most of the time we strive to find a friend or partner who will keep us strong. Most of the time we seek to make things better in our lives. Our strength is in Him. He is the Almighty. He is all powerful. He is our rock and our Salvation. What else could we ever want for in our lives if we fully embraced Him in everything that we do!
Points to Ponder:
Which friends do you depend on?
God wants to be your closest friend and father and carer.
January 21: Leviticus 26 3-8
Key Verse: Leviticus 26 8
Five of you shall chase a hundred, and a hundred of you shall put ten thousand to flight; your enemies shall fall by the sword before you.
Devotion:
Have you noticed how the strong will always gain respect from others? They build themselves up into a position by showing strength and being able to establish themselves as leaders of the packs – but the person who is strong and abuses that power may well simply make others afraid of them, but will never gain the same respect as the just one. Before too long there will be plots against the unjust one and they may well be brought down to size.
There have been tyrants who have ruled for many years in countries (and there still are) because of the powerful position they have made for themselves. They have ruled without care for the people. They have ruled with pride, selfishness and greed. Some of those tyrants have been forcibly removed from their countries in what many deem to be unjust wars, but God has allowed it because He alone knows what those tyrants were capable of.
His promise to the people of Israel was simple, keep my laws and I will make sure you remain strong and able to defend yourself from anything. Keep my laws and I will provide you with food all year round whilst those around you struggle. God wanted Israel to stand up and listen, He wanted to show them just how beautiful life can be when in a just and powerful position. Yet man's greed, spitefulness, pride and lust tempted him away from God's laws to such an extent that all of those gifts which were promised had to be removed whilst Israel sorted themselves out again. God continues to love His people throughout history, yet they continue to break the rules and continue to pay dearly for breaking those rules.
God wants each of us to live in a just and powerful position which will allow others to see His power and glory through us. The only way others will be able to see that is if we act like Christians and trust in God for everything, including the power to defend ourselves from everything!
Points to Ponder:
Do you bully for respect or work hard at gaining it?
God is all powerful and just, we need to fully respect Him!
January 20: Exodus 5 1-4
Key Verse: Exodus 5 3
So they said, “The God of the Hebrews has met with us. Please, let us go three days’ journey into the desert and sacrifice to the Lord our God, lest He fall upon us with pestilence or with the sword.”
Devotion:
War and fighting are certainly not new things; there has been fighting for as long as man has been on the planet! Arguments have been started over very simple things which have lead to the death of others. God has allowed those things to happen to show us just how rotten we can get so we can see the error of our ways. It does not please Him to have to allow such things, but sometimes it is the only thing which will get through to us! Is it not better to see what has happened in the past and learn from that than to have to go through the same thing for ourselves before we learn what is right and wrong?
God does not simply make war between two people or countries. He will always try to allow the people who are in the wrong to be warned about what they are doing wrong so they can repent of their ways before facing the sword. Before God took Israel out of slavery with the Egyptians, He made sure Pharaoh knew how God was about to exercise judgement and that there would be nothing he could do about it if he did not obey! God continues to be patient with us, but when we continue to do evil and to be evil, He has to draw the line somewhere. When He does, we had better listen or we may well face His wrath.
There are not too many places in the Bible where God personally showed His strength, but there are so many places where He showed it through others. He warned so many people that they faced doom unless they turned away from evil, and yet each one of them continued in their own pride and selfishness to refuse to believe all they were told. This was only the first warning God gave to Pharaoh, but we see his pride and selfishness covering that warning even before Moses and Aaron could finish the details of it...
Points to Ponder:
Do you always listen the first time?
How often does your pride leave God out of your life?
January 19: James 1 12-18
Key Verse: James 1 17
Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and comes down from the Father of lights, with whom there is no variation or shadow of turning.
Devotion:
I can remember trying to discuss wars with a group of young people and trying to get their views on whether wars are right or wrong. The first thing we have to do before we try and figure out any answers is where things come from. Who starts wars, who keeps them going and why?
In Jeremiah 17 9 we find “The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?”. If we really want to know what a person is like, then we should look into their hearts... unfortunately, that is where we have a bit of a problem, we can't. We don't have to look too far before we find out where wars and fighting comes from. What happens when someone walks into you in the street? Your first reaction is probably not such a pleasant one! That is because it is a reaction and is coming from within you. When you think about what has happened, you probably smile and forget about it. But that first reaction is quite often what counts in the other person's eyes.
We are tempted with all sorts of things every day, not just people walking into us... We have to work hard at avoiding our adverse reactions to those temptations – we have to try our best to walk with God throughout our days. God is not the one who is going to be tempting us but rather the one who will be whispering in our ears to get us to avoid the bad situations in the beginning! But still we are drawn in by our lust and pride... and that is where the arguments start and what brings in the fighting or even wars!
We are God's creations and we have to act like it. We must make sure we keep Him involved in our lives so we can avoid the tempting situations in life. God is the one supplying us with all good things (even some of those things that we don't like are good for us!) We know He does not change, so why do we?
Points to Ponder:
Do you change when you are angry?
God is just. He does not change. He is always there for us!