October 1: Psalms 98 1-9
Key Verse: Psalms 98 6
With trumpets and the sound of a horn; Shout joyfully before the Lord, the King.
Devotion:
When was the last time you really told the Lord just how much He means to you? How did you do that? We all like to be able to show our love for God in different ways, some by shouting from the rooftops and some by singing within our hearts. But when we do praise the Lord, how do other people react? Well, if we are going to quietly praise God inside our own hearts then the only one to hear that will be God. But if we are willing to praise God with a loud voice or in public, then many more people are going to hear how we feel about God.
Drawing the line between shouting out so that we can gain attention and shouting out because we love God seems to be a grey area for many people. Some of us may have been brought up in households where we were taught that children should be seen and not heard and that attitude may come out in our grown up lives where we believe it is better to be quiet than to raise the roof. Yes it is difficult to find out where we should be on this; many people may look on an outward burst of affection as showing off or raising attention… so what do we do?
If we take the bible literally then we should be singing out loud to God, but not in a voice giving glory to ourselves but rather in such a manner where we bring glory to God. Going to church to be entertained is not what God is about, that is bringing glory to the entertainers and not to God. Going to church to be bored to death is not where it is at either because that is not glorifying Christ in any way but feeling sorry for yourself in some way.
God wants us to be happy in our relationship with Him, praising Him, singing about our love for Him and joining in with others with a similar attitude. Bringing joy to one another through lifting up God is something very special and what God wants for us. It is encouraging. It is uplifting and it brings praise and glory to God through being together and not through separation. Bring people in to your church today by showing them how great God is!
Points to Ponder:
How do you praise God?
Do other people know you are praising Him?
September 30: Daniel 2 20-23
Key Verse: Daniel 2 20
Daniel answered and said: “Blessed be the name of God forever and ever, For wisdom and might are His.
Devotion:
God allows some very special things to happen in our lives and the lives of those around us to make sure we do understand that nothing is impossible through God! When Nebuchadnezzar started killing all the wise men in the land just because they could not tell him what his dreams were and what they meant, Daniel was called in to open up Nebuchadnezzar’s dream and its meaning.
Now trying to guess what is inside someone else’s head is a task that I do not want to be confronted with, but Daniel showed great strength and faith in God by coming forward and putting his life on the line. There is no way that any human could come up with the dream and the interpretation of it at the same time. That is why the Chaldeans asked for the dream up front, so they could use their own wisdom to figure things out. What God wants us to do is to depend on Him and allow His own wisdom to come out instead of ours.
Daniel placed his life in God’s hands and went back to his house to seek partners who would lift up prayers in earnest to God. When we come face to face with problems in our lives we would do better to share the knowledge of the problem so that people could lift up that issue to God with us. We would probably see this is a success because the more people asking for the issue the better God will hear us. This is certainly not the case – He hears our every prayer!
What it is doing, though, is strengthening ourselves because we perceive this is better in our own way. When we are strengthened we depend more on our faith and God is going to be drawn closer into our lives. God does not need our prayers or our petitions; but He will allow our faith to grow when we see just how much He does for us in our lives. Give it to God and allow Him to make the difference!
Points to Ponder:
Do you give things to God?
Or do you keep one hand on them just in case?
September 29: Psalms 104 5-9
Key Verse: Psalms 104 7
At Your rebuke they fled; At the voice of Your thunder they hastened away.
Devotion:
To me this is one of those Psalms which is a personal account of what the writer thinks of God along with a personal relationship they have with God. If you want to try to understand a bit more of the love of Christ, then I think we should all take a leaf out of the writers book and compare what others say about Him with what you know about Him.
We can read so much about what God has done for us, what Christ has done for us and what the Holy Spirit has done; but until we bring that into the present instead of the past we will not understand just how important our relationship with God is. Looking back on things we can see what has happened and surmise what could happen. But when we look at the here and now we see a picture which is living and so much more meaningful. We see a God that is active in the world today and not just a God that did things for Israel.
God is not dead! God is alive and living and continues to pour out His love, grace and mercy upon us no matter where we are. His love does cover everything just as the waters of the flood covered everything. His power is way above what we can imagine just as the power of a flood disturbs us beyond what we expect. God is real and wants us to know just how much He does and can do for us. He does not want us to be left alone and does not want us to fear death and destruction when He has so much more planned for us that we realise.
God continues to open our eyes and hearts through all that He does each and every minute of every day. We can rejoice in all He is willing to do and all He does do for us. But we need to open our eyes and hearts to this good news before we can see how special it all is. Don’t just invite Christ into your life, invite His ways of life into your life and live with Him.
Points to Ponder:
Do you have to look back in history to see how special friends are?
Why look back in history to see how special God is?
September 28: Ephesians 1 3-12
Key Verse: Ephesians 1 8
which He made to abound toward us in all wisdom and prudence,
Devotion:
One thing I do love to do is to forgive people. Sounds a bit strange, but to me it is a great fulfilling of my heart to be able to forgive people. Do they have to know? Well it is a whole lot better if they do know that you forgive them and that can be very hard sometimes, confronting someone when all you want to do is run away! But can you imagine what God must feel like knowing that we have wronged Him and that we are asking for forgiveness now. But His hand of forgiveness is not just limited to us who ask; His hand of forgiveness is offered to every person!
Does that mean that we are all forgiven? I don’t think so. If I were to try and gain forgiveness from a friend by bullying them into feeling guilty so they would feel like they have to forgive me, I would certainly not deserve anything from them! But there is the strange thing; they may want to forgive me even though I am acting like a prize idiot! They may want to forgive me because they know it is right and they know that through that forgiveness we may question what we have done and turn away from it eventually.
And that is one of the beauties about forgiving others. No matter how bad they are, they are being exposed to goodness through our forgiving them. They are being opened up just a little bit to the wonders of forgiveness and the love that goes with that. So if you want to share a bit of love today in a slightly different way, step forward and forgive someone who is not expecting it!
We cannot hope to fathom the depths of Christ’s love for us, but by taking a step forward and using what He has taught us, we can begin to see just how special life can be when we live it in the arms of our Saviour. We can begin to see how amazing our God is and how full of grace His way of life can be. Sharing His love with others prepares us for a fuller life with Him, just as He planned it.
Points to Ponder:
Do you carry grudges?
What is God carried grudges?
September 27: Genesis 45 1-7
Key Verse: Genesis 45 5
And now, do not be distressed and do not be angry with yourselves for selling me here, because it was to save lives that God sent me ahead of you.
Devotion:
Joseph must have had a really difficult time trying to hide his feelings as his brothers came before him; but somehow he did manage it right up until this point. Now he tells all of his servants and helpers to leave the room while he talks to his brothers to find out if the rest of his family are still alive and well. His brothers are shocked to find out that this man in charge of everything is their brother and fear for their lives wondering if Joseph is going to get his own back on them now. Joseph’s reaction takes them by surprise as he tries to persuade them he is not going to harm them but wants to take care of them instead.
How do you think you would have reacted in those circumstances? Would you have wanted to get your own back and at least make them suffer a bit? Did Joseph do that through allowing them to get blamed for the items he had placed into their bags? We are not told the exact reasons for everything here but we do get to know that Joseph still loved his family. He may have thought very little of them when he was sold and when he was placed in the well; but when he came face to face with them again, the love that he had in the beginning flowed as strong as it was back them.
If we are willing to put aside the little things in our lives and allow love to grow and be preserved, then we too will be more like Joseph and more able to find that same love in Christ too. We may look at this and say that being put in a well or sold as a slave were not little things; but compared to the famine and what was going on now, those were actually small fry. And that is how we need to move forward in our lives. We need to take a look at the trials and other things that go wrong and see them for the small fry that they are when compared with the grand scheme of things in our lives.
God allows many things to happen in our lives and we must not allow every single things to get us down otherwise we will be dwelling on those things rather than seeing how God is moving in our lives. Joseph saw the big picture and he wanted his brothers to see it as well; only then would they be able to let go of the past and move forward with God in their lives.
Points to Ponder:
Do you get caught up in your past?
What if God got caught in your past?