August 12: Acts 18 18-23
Key Verse: Acts 18 23
After he had spent some time there, he departed and went over the region of Galatia and Phrygia in order, strengthening all the disciples.
Devotion:
How many times have you said that you would do something for someone and forgotten about it? I know that I have done that far too many times! I know I have even said I would do something for someone knowing I did not have any chance of doing it! Can you imagine being a travelling sales person, going round to places all over the world to show them the latest goodies and knowing that no matter what, you have to be back home to go to church every Sunday?
When we make a promise to do something that is exactly what it should be. A Promise. Not just a casual “I'll think about it” or “yeah, OK, maybe tomorrow” but a Promise! Now one of those promises God would like us to make is to go round telling people about Him and showing them how He has changed our own lives. This can be very daunting or we can make sure we take Him with us everywhere and make it a part of our lives.
Just as God wanted the stuttering/stammering Moses to go and talk to Pharaoh, God can use any one of us to go forward and take His word to others. We don't have to be the best speaker in town, we don't have to know everything there is to know about everything; all we need is to put our trust in Him and believe that He will lead us forward, and He will!
Our promise to God should not be something we are scared of doing or something we are not sure we can do but something we are confident He can do! God has already promised to be with us so all we should have to do is to agree for Him to keep that promise and invite Him along every step in our lives!
Points to Ponder:
Have you ever been asked to stand up in front of thousands of people to talk?
Will you trust God to talk for you?
August 11: Romans 3 21-26
Key Verse: Romans 3 22
even the righteousness of God, through faith in Jesus Christ, to all and on all who believe. For there is no difference;
Devotion:
Why do we have the Old Testament and the New Testament? Why not just one Bible? The simplest way I look at it is we have the Old Testament which lays down the foundation of our existence, of the history of followers of God and His rules and regulations. These all help us to see the New Testament in a totally different light as we begin to see how much Christ has done for us already.
I believe it is an oversimplification to say it is the scriptures before and after Christ because they have to be taken together in order to make sense of each other. The Old Testament points to the New Testament and the New Testament builds itself on the Old Testament! The Old Testament builds on the righteousness of God and the New Testament builds on the righteousness of Christ. Together they present the righteousness of our God in all His glory.
Just as man first sinned in the Garden of Eden, so man continues to sin in this world and in this age. We know it as sin because the Old Testament shows it to us as sin, and the New Testament gives us the knowledge we are saved by God’s grace through His Son Jesus Christ. But we need to believe in God’s Word, whether it be the words from the Old or the New Testaments we need to build our faith on the truth held in our Bibles.
Christ gave us the gift of salvation once and for all. It is a gift from Him and one He is not going to come back for to ask for it back again! Jesus gave His own life on the cross as proof the Old Testament is the truth straight from God. Jesus came to fulfil the Old Testament and got the right people to write down their own accounts of all Jesus did for us whilst He was here on earth. Lift up your praise to our Awesome God!
Points to Ponder:
Do you like history?
Do you know God’s history of the earth?
August 10: Matthew 26 36-44
Key Verse: Matthew 26 40
Then He came to the disciples and found them sleeping, and said to Peter, “What! Could you not watch with Me one hour?
Devotion:
If we were ever to live our lives with a single purpose, we could go so much further than anyone else before. We use so little of our brains to actually focus on the things that we should! Much of the time our brains are used in idle thought, random meanderings through thought! Jesus came to the Earth for a single purpose... to seek and save us! He was thus focused because of His great love for us and the knowledge we could never save ourselves. He knew what had to be done. He knew He had to give His perfect life up for our imperfect lives.
So many times we tend to forget the good things that people have done for us. So many times we never acknowledge the good that others have done for us. So many times we simply let it pass because it is easier to do so than to admit that someone else has interceded in your life! God's perfect life was given as a sacrifice to cover our imperfect bodies so that we would not have to pay the same price as He did. Death.
Note that last phrase in verse 39 “... not as I will, but as thou wilt.” Jesus in His human form could have given in to His human body and admitted defeat like so many of us do, but He was not willing to give it up. His love for us followed through and He carried out God's will. He carried out God's will to the letter to make sure He was entirely blameless and a perfect sacrifice for our sins so that nobody could argue!
Much of our lives is spent asleep as we allow the world to walk on by and also allow the moments Christ has set aside for us to walk on by. Christ gave the apostles this time apart in a quiet part of the city to pray. He took them aside and gave them this special moment to join Him in prayer; but their bodies were weak and they gave in to sleep. Before you go to sleep today, think about what Christ has done for you and think about what you can do for Him. Prayer is powerful.
Points to Ponder:
Given a choice, do you choose the first or the best?
Are you choosing your best for Christ?
August 9: Nehemiah 8 8-12
Key Verse: Nehemiah 8 12
And all the people went their way to eat and drink, to send portions and rejoice greatly, because they understood the words that were declared to them.
Devotion:
How much of the Bible did you understand the first time you read it, or part of it? I know I struggled to understand what all these words were about when I read it and my God parents gave me a Bible to make that job easier. It was a translation which would allow me to read it more easily. Now I know many people jump up and down about various translations but if this is the way we can get people to read about God and give them a thirst for God’s Word, then what is wrong with a translation?
What is wrong is when people treat the easy read versions as their study Bibles. This is not what they have been translated to do! If you want to find out about the things NASA does then you can go about it in a few different ways. You could watch a few dramatized movies about things they have done which may encourage you to find out more, or you could sit down and get straight into the history books which detail everything step by step. I know I would struggle with the history book way until my interest had been pricked, then I would want to find out more.
God wants us to open people’s hearts to His Word. We can do this in various ways and the way Jesus chose was to tell parables or stories that would get people interested so they would want to find out more. I vote to doing the same thing by going out and dramatizing the works of Christ so people want to find out more about Him. We can then get into the history books and into our study Bibles to tell them in more detail about what happened.
But telling them something which did not actually happen is where it goes wrong because when they find out the truth they question everything we have told them in the past. Yes it is difficult telling people about God sometimes, so using God’s own word to tell them is going to be so much easier and safer than making up our own stories. Trust God to do what we think we can do…
Points to Ponder:
Do you like telling stories?
Are they God’s stories or your own?
August 8: Haggai 1 12-15
Key Verse: Haggai 1 13
Then Haggai, the Lord’s messenger, spoke the Lord’s message to the people, saying, “I am with you, says the Lord.”
Devotion:
As with many other prophets Haggai had to deliver the word from God directly to the people; they had to be told they were living a life which was not giving God the glory but rather focusing it on themselves. We can see so many people throughout our Christian history who give in to the ways of the world and lift up their own ways and their own profits instead of lifting up the prophets of old who gave out the real word of God.
As Christians we need to step forward and make sure God is being given the glory by making sure people get to hear what He has to say and not the interpretation we think the world need to hear. I do have to stop myself from time to time to make sure I do not tell people about my ways instead of telling them about God’s ways; and it is difficult when you think the people around you are not understanding God’s word. It is not our task to re-invent God or His words, but to deliver them to people and allow people to understand what God says.
The prophets had to deliver the word in different ways as God directed them. They did not all stand up and talk in proper accents and sound like great orators of the time. As far as I can tell the prophets were chosen because of their differences and not because they all looked the same. The only trait that continued through all of their lives was their obedience to God!
God is with us and as long as we allow Him to guide us we can continue to be profitable to all people around us. God wants to use us in our own special ways to reach out to more people. We don’t have to talk like kings and queens or statesmen, all we have to do is to obey God and allow people to see God through us. That means acting the way God wants us to act and not the way we think we should act!
Points to Ponder:
How closely do you listen to God?
How closely do you obey God?