January 13: Isaiah 53 1-12

Key Verse: Isaiah 53 5
But He was wounded for our transgressions, He was bruised for our iniquities; The chastisement for our peace was upon Him, And by His stripes we are healed.

Devotion:
I had been putting off writing this lesson simply because I do not like writing about Christ's death – why I should not, I don't know; for He is risen and building a place for us in heaven! Then it struck me... His crucifixion was predicted from the beginning of time, so why not highlight one of those events. Isaiah chapter 53 is one place in our bibles which was written about 700 years before Christ was born! Everything about Christ's crucifixion had been planned a long time before He came to earth. When He was here, He simply carried out what had to be done. It is not only until we read up about His death are we profoundly affected by how He lived His life... Just because of His awesome love for us!

He endured the pain of knowing what was about to come. He endured the physical pain as it happened. He endured the pain of people rejecting Him. He endured the pain of knowing how many had not turned to Him before it was finished. Each time we know of someone in our families who dies without knowing Christ, we are affected. Sometimes we think we will never get over people’s deaths, but with His grace and support we live on. But it must have been something else to know He was saying goodbye to many people who had rejected Him when He went to that cross!

Jesus was not just doing this all to prove a point. He was not doing this all to be a martyr. He was doing this all because He had promised to do this. He had shown others like Isaiah the promises He had made. Now was the time to show us His extraordinary love by living up to His promises.

When we make a promise to follow Him, we often get side tracked as we go along our way. There are times when we even forget about that promise. Christ never forgot. Christ never wavered. Christ will never forget and will never waiver. He is our rock of absolute truth whom we can depend on to help us live for Him!

Points to Ponder:
Have you broken a promise recently?

What sort of example were you?

January 12: John 19 1-16

Key Verse: John 19 6
Therefore, when the chief priests and officers saw Him, they cried out, saying, “Crucify Him, crucify Him!” Pilate said to them, “You take Him and crucify Him, for I find no fault in Him.”

Devotion:
Have you ever been in a crowd where people are shouting about something that you do not quite agree with; but because they shout so loud and they want you to join in so you give in and join in? It is so easy to give in to a very persuasive crowd! Leaders are no different to us, they are humans and they give in to the majority at times just as we do.

Pilate did not want to crucify Jesus but everything seemed to go against him. He tried to pacify the crowd by having Jesus scourged or whipped. The guards doing the job seemed to enjoy what they were doing because they dressed Christ up in a kingly robe and gave Him a crown of thorns. But when the tumultuous crowd saw Christ they again cried out to have Him crucified.

Pilate again tries to get the Jews to crucify Christ so the blood will not be on his hands; they do not want to kill any man but to use the law to kill Jesus. They try to convince Pilate by telling Him of the law of blasphemy even though they seem to be breaking all sorts of their own laws already. After that does not seem to work, they again pressure Pilate by saying that he would not be Caesar's friend if he does not judge Christ. How to get into a politician’s head, tell them they are working against their party or government!

Throughout this Christ is being kept cruelly and unjustly imprisoned. But Christ does not shout out about this but accepts it because He knows this has all been done for a reason. He never tells Pilate He would seek vengeance. He never tells Pilate he has got the wrong man. He knows this has all got to come to pass and willingly accepts it for our sins. The one person who has the greater sin than Pilate (who is about to put an innocent man to death) was the man who had heard Christ's testimony and rejected it. That man carried the one and only sin that Christ cannot forgive, the sin of unbelief.

Points to Ponder:
How far do you go to please others?

Do you think about God’s laws or people’s laws?

January 11: John 18 28-38

Key Verse: John 18 31
Then Pilate said to them, “You take Him and judge Him according to your law.” Therefore the Jews said to him, “It is not lawful for us to put anyone to death,”

Devotion:
What do we have standards for? Why do we have laws? Why are we taught rules from the time we are born? We would not get very far if there were no laws because everyone would do what they wanted all the time. If we have no standards to live up to, then we would all accept whatever happened and would not try to better ourselves. And if we are not taught rules, we grow up without a concern for the law or rules.

The Bible has many laws and rules within it and we must strive to uphold God's rules but we must also strive to uphold the rules of the land in which we live. If we were to ignore either we are working against God's wishes. We must always uphold God's laws above everything for the laws within the land may not always be just. One that springs to mind was an old English law stating that it is lawful to kill a man with a bow and arrow whilst standing on the opposite bank of a certain river in the north of England! A law that was introduced during a conflict and never changed... But just because that law says it is ok, that does not mean that it is alright to murder someone going for a stroll along the river!

What happened to Jesus was planned; He intended for things to happen in this manner so people would see what was written in the scriptures could and would be fulfilled. He was willing to law down His life for our sins, even when our sins were involved in sending Him to His death. The Jews knew they could not kill any man for no reason, so they decided to try and use the law of the land to their advantage. They took the local law literally and tried to get Jesus hung as quickly as possible, knowing that the Romans took no time in carrying out the sentence.

We often find ourselves bending rules and regulations just so they suit us. What we can never change is the truth. No matter how much we try and hide it, it remains the truth. No matter who we try and hide behind, no matter how much good we try to cover it with, it will always be there. Embrace the truth of God’s Word and tell it to others.

Points to Ponder:
How many rules will you break today?

Will you ask God to help you keep the laws today?

January 10: Proverbs 12 4-7

Key Verse: Proverbs 12 5
The thoughts of the righteous are right, But the counsels of the wicked are deceitful.

Devotion:
Once again these few verses highlight different aspects between good and evil. The words do not pick on women, but rather use a lady as an example of how good things can be; a good person, one who is always striving for virtue or even strong enough to keep their virtue (as opposed to just chastity) is a joy to others around them. We can easily relate to things such as a crown which normally symbolises kingly power, riches or great joy.

We can normally tell what others are like by the language they use and the words which come out of their mouths. We can normally tell what sort of home they are from. We can normally tell what sort of people they mix with. This all comes out through their mouths. But if they were to be silent, we would find it a lot more difficult to identify where they are from unless we had a long time to study their movements. Even if a person does not speak, they will eventually show the same sort of detail through the actions they do.

Christ, on the other hand, looks deep inside each one of our hearts to find out the truth. He knows that our thoughts are where things start. He knows that if we are going to do something wrong, we will first start thinking about it! Those thoughts then start to show in our actions. If we are to keep up with ourselves in the same way as we can with others, then we must start to think about the things we allow into our heads; after all, this is the starting point of our future actions.

We need to be observers of our thoughts and intentions. We need to study and judge ourselves at the first point of any action, not to wait until the action has been done, not to wait until it is too late, but to change things when they are in their infancy. We may see people doing things that are very wrong, and even getting praise and glory from those actions, but that praise and glory will end very abruptly at some stage in their life, or even at their death. But righteousness will continue to live on through eternity!

Points to Ponder:
Do you judge others by the way they talk and act?

Would you stop before following them?