March 9: Romans 10 6-13
Key Verse: Romans 10 10
For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved.
Devotion:
How often do you get frustrated with trying to get people to believe in God and to trust Christ as their Saviour? We may not have the task of looking after a whole congregation, but God still wants us to be able to share the gospel with the people He has given us in our lives – how we go about that may well do the exact opposite of what we are trying to do!
Paul was stuck between the rock (which was the Roman way) and a hard place (which was the Jewish way) and must have found it most frustrating trying to tell them the gospel, that is, both sides! That is why I find these words so fascinating and to me gives me hope that the Holy Spirit can give me the words to tell my friends and families which will make the biggest difference in their lives. If you are like me, you may well struggle with that sometimes…
The Romans wanted a clear set of rules which would show them who is going to Heaven and who is going to hell – their way of life was based around rules and everyone was expected to stick to those rules. The Jews were entrenched in their rules from the Torah which gave them an impossible task to live up to and one which they would have to continue sacrificing in order to hope that God would forgive them!
What Christ did was to bridge that gap by giving up His own sinless life in our stead. He was the ultimate sacrifice and covered all of our sins in a single act on our behalf. We don’t have to have Him go through all of that again, just in case! We don’t have to argue about who is getting to Heaven and who has failed to follow the right rules. It is a personal thing between each one of us and God where we step forward and ask Him, personally, for forgiveness for the things we have done wrong… Our belief (our trust or the faith we have) gives us the answer based on His promise to us all. We believe in our hearts and profess with our mouths. We have one God who has done this for us all!
Points to Ponder:
Do you find it hard to not judge people?
Will you give someone the gospel and allow them to come to Christ by themselves?
March 8: Psalms 45 6-7
Key Verse: Psalms 45 7
You love righteousness and hate wickedness; therefore God, your God, has set you above your companions by anointing you with the oil of joy.
Devotion:
When Jesus came to earth to be our King of Kings, He did not come to be a temporary king who would be forgotten once his life was over. Jesus came to be King over us all forever and accomplished this through what He did for us on that cross in the name of God, His Father in Heaven. There is no end to Heaven and there is no time limit on it; this comes down to Jesus being our King without end and without limit.
What is meant by the sceptre of the kingdom could be debated – but lets imagine a king or queen on a throne. They have some sort of sceptre which is a symbol of the power they have and is therefore of great importance. What could be of more importance to us than the Gospel, or have more power than the gospel? Jesus wanted to make sure people knew just how important the gospel is and how powerful it can be when it is used to introduce others to the kingdom of God.
We know God loves righteousness and hates wickedness of any kind; the love for us goes beyond our understanding of righteousness and wickedness because of the mercy He shows to us and the grace we are given to be able to live in this world. He has anointed each of us with this love so we can share that love with those around us. But imagine the amount of love God the Father shared with Jesus so He could accept the way we are and help us toward a loving and lasting relationship with Him.
God set Jesus above everyone and everything to show us what can be achieved when we place our faith firmly and totally in His hands. We still struggle with this and we struggle to keep our heads when everything seems to be in chaos; we see so many things we cannot cope with or cannot hope for. In doing so we sink into a pit of despair and that traps us into worrying more about the things we have no control over. What we should be doing is lifting up our situations to God before we fall into that pit so He can show us how to avoid it in the beginning.
Points to Ponder:
How much do you actually trust God?
Are you willing to entrust more to God today?
March 8: Acts 2 36-39
Key Verse: Acts 2 38
Peter replied, “Repent and be baptized, every one of you, in the name of Jesus Christ for the forgiveness of your sins. And you will receive the gift of the Holy Spirit.
Devotion:
How many times have you got yourself into trouble? How many of those times was the punishment for you actions harsh in your eyes? … and yet you still did it … We have laws and rules about how we should behave and when we break those rules and laws, we have to face the punishment which has been described for breaking them.
We have a problem in how we live and how we behave; it is not according to God’s ways and His wishes. He has also given us rules about how we should live our lives and has laid down the punishment we should face if we choose to break those rules! Just the same as we have our rules and regulations in our earthly lives, we have rules and regulation about our lives with God. The problem being we don’t really have a hope of not breaking God’s rules and regulations; not because they are too strict but because we have a nature which is against those rules and regulations!
Now imagine being a person who has to face a judge who declares how you have been an accomplice to a murder and we have to face the punishment for that murder. We may not have been the ones who killed the person in question, we may have just stood by while it happened because we were too scared to do anything else – but the fact remains, we are still accomplices!
The Jews were faced with this decision with Peter telling them how they were accomplices to the murder of Jesus and now they were being faced with the punishment which was written down for that. The punishment was death! When they realised what they had done, they thought there was no way out and wanted to know what they could do to try and get out of paying the due punishment. Peter’s answer may well have surprised them – all they would have to do was to admit to what they had done, say they were sorry and show others how sorry they were by being baptised. The same is open for us as well – we just have to say we are sorry and mean it. We don’t have to be baptised, but it can be seen as a public acknowledgement of our admission of guilt.
Points to Ponder:
Do you know what punishment you face?
Are you willing to go public and say sorry to God?
March 7: Zechariah 9 9-11
Key Verse: Zechariah 9 9
Rejoice greatly, Daughter Zion! Shout, Daughter Jerusalem! See, your king comes to you, righteous and victorious, lowly and riding on a donkey, on a colt, the foal of a donkey.
Devotion:
It really is amazing to look back at the things which were written down for/by the prophets hundreds of years before Jesus came to live amongst us; each one of them ringing true and surprisingly detailed in cases! This is because these prophets really did listen to God and tried to make sure what they heard was given out to the people as accurately as they could remember. We all do have our limits on what we can remember and this is why some of the stories in the bible seem to be different…
First and foremost Jesus came to be King! This was going to upset all the kings and people in authority because a mere man was going to come forward as the new King without all the celebrations and things society was used to. He was going to ride into Jerusalem on a donkey instead of a white stallion as royalty was used to. But what was setting Him apart from the rest of the kings was the fact He was going to be righteous and nothing was going to stop Him!
He was not going to come in with a great army to overthrow the local forces because He is coming in as a Priest who is going to speak the truth and remind people about God. He was going to give hope to those who had no hope at the time; the poor underclass who had no say in what happened in society. They were the ones who would get the greatest gift of all, and the ones for whom Jesus was going to pay the price with His own blood!
This all happened and yet people still do not want to believe this could be true. They do not want to believe God could come down to our level, offer Himself up as a servant for all, and ensure He was our Saviour and our King! They probably wanted a grander instance, one where a great army of angels came in to beat up the rulers, one where a new king would arrive in a huge golden carriage pulled by white horses and riches beyond measure on display. God chose a human form to show us how much is possible through Him!
Points to Ponder:
Do you wonder why God chooses the little things in life to make a difference?
Are you watching for the small changes God makes in your life?
March 6: Acts 3 11-16
Key Verse: Acts 3 14
You disowned the Holy and Righteous One and asked that a murderer be released to you.
Devotion:
People often ask what the difference is between being religious, going to church and this relationship we say we have with Christ. This was prophesied before Jesus came to live amongst man as a human, was lived out when He did come and continues to be a reminder of how mankind turned their back on Him despite seeing what happened in front of their eyes! Jesus wanted people to focus more on having a healthy relationship with God through Him rather than continuing to focus on the religious acts they were used to doing.
Once again the disciples honed in on the fact the people of Israel were more concerned with following the Torah than following the will of God. They had focused too much on doing the acts rather than maintaining their relationship with God. Once Jesus paid the ultimate price on the cross, all the sacrificing and acts of man became useless in comparison to what Christ did! Why then did they continue to focus on their acts? The answer is surprisingly simple in my view – we like to keep things the same and not introduce too much change into our lives… and something like this is a big change for us to cater with!
Imagine being reminded about how you, as a society or personally, contributed to the horrible death faced by Jesus on the cross! Imagine being blamed for someone else’s death in such a terrible way! That is exactly what Peter and John were reminding the people about – how their acts had contributed to the death of an innocent man on the cross!
But the amazing thing they closed off this bit of the passage with was the fact Jesus is willing to give us eternal life after forgiving us – even though we contributed to that death on the cross! It is because of His faith this is possible. It is through your faith you can depend on this being so. It is no longer a requirement to do all the religious acts people have done in the past because Jesus paid for everything with His death on the cross. Have faith He will deliver you from the punishment you deserve...
Points to Ponder:
Do you go to church to prove something?
Or do you go to church to expand your relationship with God?