July 17: Psalms 91 14-16
Key Verse: Psalms 91 15
He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honour him.
Devotion:
We often think we ought to know someone very well before we can love them. We are lucky God does already know each one of us intimately and so can love us for what He knows we are. He does not count us by how much we love Him, but by the fact we know His name – we know that He is God. If we had to get to know Him and His ways before we could be accepted by Him, we would be on a never ending journey.
But by the very fact we have accepted Him as our God, He is willing to listen to all of our prayers. Not only is He willing to listen to them, but to answer them as well. He knows our strengths and our weaknesses, He knows our wants and needs; but we should be willing to acknowledge Him as our God by asking for those needs daily. Through that act of daily prayer, we acknowledge Him as God and strengthen our faith.
When we are willing to talk to Him daily, He is more than willing to answer our prayers daily. Whilst we may not understand what is best in our lives and ask for things all the time; He understands our ways and requirements better than we do. He knows when the best time to answer prayers is. He knows when the right time comes along so we may see that He truly is an awesome God.
The more we are willing to walk close to Him, the more He is willing to look after us. The more we are willing to do His work, the more willing He is to allow us to live longer. The closer we walk with Him, the more secure we are. I am so glad my length of life does not depend on what I can physically do, or what I physically do right! But I know as long as He has work for me to continue doing, He will continue to grant me another day. Living for Christ and living in Him can never be beaten. Living for oneself can never be achieved! For as long as we continue to try to achieve what we think we need, our goals will continue to move – we will always want more than we have. But if we live for Christ, He will show us His pleasure – we will know His Salvation.
Points to Ponder:
What are your goals in life?
Which of those goals are Christ centred?
July 16: Galatians 2 15-19
Key Verse: Galatians 2 19
For I through the law died to the law that I might live to God.
Devotion:
What would it be like if we were able to read every book and understand them perfectly first time? I think I may get a bit bored with reading because I would not be able to go back and read a book again. But God's Word is far more than just a book. God's Word is our daily bread. Through it we begin to understand more and more each day and this is why we should be reading it each day. Coming across passages like this, we begin to see how it is not just us who have the problem of not quite understanding some things. Paul's letter to the Galatians provoked them into thinking and trying not to justify everything they did. We often fall into that category too because we want to be able to give a reason for everything we do!
This does not mean we should just accept things we read, but to meditate on them to make sure we get God's side of The Word and not just our own understanding. Paul gives the reader the dilemma of thinking whether Jesus was in fact the one who showed us sin. The simple answer is yes, but no! Yes, Jesus is able to enlighten us about the sinners we are, but He used the law to prove we are sinners and not anything else. Thus, He did not show us sin, but rather He showed us how we can recognise how we have sinned.
Jesus wants us to continue to turn our back on sin – just like the law was put in place to teach men to turn away from sinful ways. Jesus has not changed the law. He has shown us the futility of trying to keep to every rule in the law since we will never be able to achieve it! But He does not require us to abandon the law, but to live up to the truth. If we were to turn round and go back to the law, we would be turning our backs on Christ. But if we turn our backs on the law, we turn our backs on His will in our lives.
If we want to be able to succeed in life, we have to make sure Christ is first in our lives and the law does not control our beliefs. If we do everything we can to stick to the law, we are trying to stick to something we can never attain. But if we stick with Christ, we stick to the only one who can lift us over those transgressions!
Points to Ponder:
How often do you go against peoples wishes?
How often do you ask God for forgiveness of those transgressions?
July 15: 2 Corinthians 2 14-17
Key Verse: 2 Corinthians 2 16
To the one we are the aroma of death leading to death, and to the other the aroma of life leading to life. And who is sufficient for these things?
Devotion:
How many times do you have to try explain a joke to someone who just does not get it? After the first few goes of them not getting it, you probably start to get a bit annoyed because the joke has lost its savour. The joke is no longer a joke and now becomes a chore.
So many people who we meet will just not get God's Word. No matter how many times you try to explain things, they will continue to reject it and continue to live in denial or ignorance. To those we can only hope The Holy Spirit will someday shed some light into their hearts and minds so they too can enjoy the inner peace we have. To be able to explain that inner peace to someone is a difficult thing because it is not seen other than through your happiness (which soon may wear thin when you face someone in complete denial of God's Word).
We should never try to work out every little thing when God is in it; we may never understand the incredible ways of God because His ways are ways which we may not get until He has the time to personally tell us about things in heaven. What we should do is be willing to learn anything which God throws at us because He is doing these things for a reason. Maybe He is preparing us for something a short way down the line or maybe we are to face something new in our lives.
It is not what we get round to doing, it is not how many people we lead to The Lord, it is not how many people we can squeeze into our church building. God does not look upon the outward appearance as we do. God is concerned with the inner appearance. God is concerned with how we go about our lives, our attitude towards Him, our attitude towards His work and our attitude towards serving Him. If we are going to be true indicators to other people about what we are, we need to be sincere in what we do. This is the only way we will allow others to see God through us.
Points to Ponder:
How often do you wash, brush your hair or other personal grooming?
How often do you clean up your Christian duties?
July 14: Romans 10 6-9
Key Verse: Romans 10 9
that if you confess with your mouth the Lord Jesus and believe in your heart that God has raised Him from the dead, you will be saved.
Devotion:
It seems to get harder to make someone believe you the harder you try to get them to believe; but once you back off a little things change. That may sound like a bit of a contradiction, but when you start to think about how you act and how others act, then you start to realise there is quite a bit of sound knowledge in that statement. When someone goes out of their way to try and convince you about something, you reject them because they seem to be trying too hard which casts doubt in your mind.
But if you were simply to show them the truth or to live your life according to the truth, then they are going to be much more willing to listen to what you have to say. A good sales person will not come over as being aggressive and in your face but will try to win you over by demonstrating various things which seem to be best not to ignore!
God knows our innermost thoughts. He knows what we get up to and He knows just how we 'tick'. This is why He has given us the easiest way of actually accepting He is our creator – simply to believe in Him. Through this we get eternal life and all He has to give us. We certainly do not have to try and figure out how it works or how He is able to do things for us!
We talk about heaven being above us and hell being below us – but we do this because it makes it easier for us to picture and believe, not because they are physically up and down. If we were literally to believe this, we would be no better off than the people who tried to build the tower of Babel. (Genesis 11 1-9) In order to believe that Christ is our Saviour and our King – we just have to admit to ourselves that He is exactly what He is. Believing and saying we believe then shows Him we do believe the truth and that is all He asks.
Points to Ponder:
How hard do you try to convince people of your own ideas?
Are you living your life as an example of Christ to others?
July 13: 1 Corinthians 9 19-23
Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 9 19
For though I am free from all men, I have made myself a servant to all, that I might win the more;
Devotion:
Have you ever compared your life with someone else's life? Have you ever tried to live like someone else just to see what it was like? I'm not talking about trying out the life of a person who chooses to live on the streets, or a king or queen – but someone who you would think is 'just like you' but for the fact they are a Buddhist or they practice some other religion.
Again we need to define a very fine line here which we should not be crossing. God has dictated we should not follow other gods or idols and that is exactly what we must not do. But if you put yourself in the shoes of others, you would be more likely to find out what makes them 'tick' – why they do the things they do. If we want to be able to show them Christ, then we have to be able to know where they are and why they do what they do.
It's no good going headlong into an argument without knowing the other side of the argument. Doing that would be asking to be buried alive by your opponent. Likewise, we should not be trying to argue the point of Christianity without knowing what we are up against. This does not preclude us from showing people the Gospel; for if we are willing to show people the truth, the Holy Spirit is able to convince people of the truth. But how are you going to show them the truth in a nice way without blundering in?
If you were quite content in your diet and someone came along and started saying how you are eating all the wrong stuff, you would probably not be too pleased. But if that same person came along and looked at your food and then started to show you what was wrong with each part, you may well be more willing to listen. We as Christians need to make friends with people before we go about bashing them around the head with the truth otherwise we may well upset more people than we can help. What we need to be careful of is that we don't let our God down by letting our friends change our lives so we are not living for Christ!
Points to Ponder:
When you make new friends, do you reject your existing friends?
Do you reject God in the things you do with friends?