February 2: Luke 9 1-6

Key Verse: Luke 9 5
And whoever will not receive you, when you go out of that city, shake off the very dust from your feet as a testimony against them.

Devotion:
When Jesus sent out the disciples He equipped them for the work they would be called to do but He also directed them to now dwell on lost causes. Ouch! That just sounds so harsh. You could say that Jesus was calling His disciples to be realists in their ministries in that they were not to hang around if people did not want them there. The same is still very true today.

Does this mean that we walk away from the people that need to hear the Gospel the most? Does this mean we walk away from people just because they swear at us or call us names? Does this mean we turn our backs on people just because they say OMG? No. This passage does not say that! What Jesus said was we should stick to our plan or stick to our guns for a while. Don’t skip from church to church, house to house, group to group just because you think they are not right. Don’t judge others!

What Jesus is saying is that we need to be consistent in our approach but that we must realise when we are not going to make a difference. There should come a point where we do realise that no matter how much more we try, things are not going to change. Maybe the fact that we have sown the seeds is what was required of us. Maybe God just wanted the door to be opened a little to make a change. We cannot hope to understand God’s ways, but as long as we are willing to listen to Him and go where He calls us, then we do know we are making the right difference!

The disciples each had their own way of reaching out to people and their own ways of getting to know people. We are all different too so what one person does will not always work for us. God wants us to be ourselves – being honest and open about who we are and about who God is in our lives. Once we show people God’s love is real and honest, they will be the ones who make the choice to follow Him. But we do need to show people first of all!

Points to Ponder:
Do you feel inadequate?

Did God not make you different?

February 1: Mark 1 21-28

Key Verse: Mark 1 27
Then they were all amazed, so that they questioned among themselves, saying, “What is this? What new doctrine is this? For with authority He commands even the unclean spirits, and they obey Him.”

Devotion:
When Jesus preached in the synagogues there was a big difference between how He preached and how others before Him were preaching. Jesus taught them with authority because He knew the word as opposed to having learned the word. Jesus did not hold back on His teaching but made sure people heard the truth! So what about the parables? It is all about teaching at the right level for the people you are teaching. When Jesus was in the synagogues He was addressing people who should know the scriptures so He taught them with straight talking. When He was talking to people who were still learning, He would give encouragement to learn more by opening doors for them to seek more.

God wants us to seek Him, not to be bashed around the head until we don’t know anything else! By laying down the foundations and then inviting you in to seek more He is encouraging you to find the truth out for yourselves and not to just accept what He says (even though it is the truth!)

Sometimes it will take more than just a word before we listen, sometimes it takes an action for us to see that the word is true. Sometimes we have to be persuaded by more than words. God is willing to use whatever it will take and that may well be a whole lot more than we expected. The people in the synagogues were not expecting Jesus to be able to command evil spirits to get out of people. That is what was needed at that time for at least one person present to take on board the truth.

We are all so very different and we all respond in very different ways to the truth. It is difficult for us to figure out what has to be said at the right time for people to believe us – so we should be making sure that the Holy Spirit is the one guiding us in those times. He can know what is needed when we are reduced to nothing by the people around us. Trust in Him and believe in Him.

Points to Ponder:
Do you get worried about teaching?

Are you depending on the Holy Spirit?

January 31: Matthew 28 16-20

Key Verse: Matthew 28 20
teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded you; and lo, I am with you always, even to the end of the age.” Amen.

Devotion:
“If I was there I would have no problem believing Jesus” is something we hear from many people and probably many times too; but the disciples themselves were here with Jesus and some of them would not believe what Jesus was saying! Is it so unbelievable to realise they were human and they also have faults like the rest of us?

We have doubts. Not because we don’t believe that Jesus is the Son of God but because we cannot comprehend how He is able to be everything to everyone or how He does listen to all of us when He is human too. Because we live in a physical world we often look for physical proof for everything rather than taking some things in faith. Jesus did not call us to believe because we have seen it happen, but to believe in what has not yet happened and without seeing it.

Even though the disciples had seen Jesus die on the cross, get buried and now see Him come back to life… but they still doubted some things. Whilst we do not know what they doubted, the seeds of doubt are put on display. Should we gain confidence or comfort in knowing that other people as important as the disciples had doubts? I think not! We should be looking for comfort in seeing how much faith people have so we can aim to emulate their faith.

Jesus, in amongst this doubt, gives the disciples the ultimate commission; to go out and to teach other people all about what they have learned and what they believe. So you see, we are giving the task of going out to teach other people even when we have our own doubts. We don’t have to know everything and have absolute faith in order to go out and share the good news about Jesus Christ! So let us step forward with our doubts and trust God to give us the words to say.

Points to Ponder:
Do you have doubts?

Will you share your true feelings with others?

January 30: Judges 13 8-14

Key Verse: Judges 13 14
She may not eat anything that comes from the vine, nor may she drink wine or similar drink, nor eat anything unclean. All that I commanded her let her observe.

Devotion:
Do you think life is easier when you are being told exactly what to do? Do you like to be led? Or do you think life is much easier when you can do your own thing and don’t have to listen? Whichever way we look at life we will always find that it is not as easy as we thought when the time comes for us to do the work. Hearing about the work to be done or thinking up the work which has to be done ends up being the easy part; actually doing what is required is the hard part.

But we do like to know what has to be done, whether we are doing the inventing or other people are laying down the law for us to follow… God has given us the law and we have failed. I talk not as a person to judge anyone or even myself but as a people who have tried to follow God in our own ways and have failed. Is it because we have not followed the law and have fallen short of the mark? No, that is the easy route for us to take… blame it on something we have done wrong so we can say sorry and move on again!

Here in the story of how Samson was to be born we are told of two people who were given explicit instruction on what to do before they would have a child. God wanted to make sure that when the child was born there was nothing in the way to trip him or his parents up. The Angel of the Lord came and told them what to do to get ready for the birth. The hard part was yet to come. The instructions had been given and now the work had to start.

The hard part of following God is not the hearing about it, the realising what we do wrong, the saying sorry… all these are necessary steps… the hard part is following Christ and doing what He says we need to do next. If it is to wait, then wait. If it is to speak, then speak. If it is to teach, then teach. Whatever we are being asked to do we need to do and do it humbly, obediently and we need to do it with love.

Points to Ponder:
Are you listening?

Are you doing?