July 23: Exodus 33 18-23
Key Verse: Exodus 33 18
And he said, “Please, show me Your glory.”
Devotion:
When Moses had led the people of Israel out of Egypt and into the desert he was struggling a bit with following a God whom he could not see. Moses asked God straight “Please let me see you”… I wonder how many times God wants us to be able to see Him just so that we would no longer have any doubts; just one glimpse so that we would not have to question our beliefs. But that is not possible for us because we are sinners and unclean; we would not be able to survive just one glimpse of God who is perfectly Holy and clean!
And yet Christ came forward as a human so that we could see Him. Christ lowered Himself to human form so that we would be able to believe once and for all… yet so many people chose to not believe what they had seen because it would mean them having to give up their habits and follow Christ! There lies the problem we have as humans, we build up habits and certain ways of doing things and we do not want to let go of those ways. Habits are hard work to make but very very difficult to stop or break!
God knew we would have problems and He also knew that we would still have doubts if we saw the truth with our own eyes! We get to the stage where we see something and then we question it because we only get to see it once. Basically we are looking for ways in which others can show us the truth so that we don’t have to do any of the hard stuff like believing! Isn’t it so much easier to just follow what someone else has written down or said that we should do; that way we don’t have to think too hard!
But God wants each of us to think about our own ways, not the failings of others, but how we do things and why we do them. If we can come to terms with how we live and how we can move forward with Christ in our lives then we have come a long way to really trusting in God. We don’t have to have the physical proof. We don’t have to have it all written down as a script. Yes those things make it easier. But faith is not a simply journey. Faith is trusting wholly in our unseen God!
Points to Ponder:
Do you have to see something to believe it?
Do you really have to die before you believe?
July 22: 2 Corinthians 4 1-6
Key Verse: 2 Corinthians 4 4
whose minds the god of this age has blinded, who do not believe, lest the light of the gospel of the glory of Christ, who is the image of God, should shine on them.
Devotion:
Just one more reminder. Just one more try… How many times are you willing to present the Gospel to someone else? How many times do you try to show people what God has opened up in your own life before you give up? Do you show others how good God is or do you show others how good the world is?
It is sometimes a fine line we tread between the world’s ways and God’s ways that some may question whether we are following Christ. The writer reminds us here that our lives are on show all the time and not just when we want them to be. It is a bit scary to look into just how little privacy we have in this modern world of technology; all that we do and say is potentially placed on display for the world to see. Much the same as leaving your curtains open all the time for everyone to see what is going on in your home… But somehow we don’t see it because we are buried in technology!
God wants us to be shining lights for Him so that we can encourage others to seek the truth for themselves. As Christians we should not try to shine as hard as we can because that is all that the people around us will see. What we should be doing is trying to make sure that what others see is a good reflection of Christ through us! It is Christ that people should be presented with and not us; giving people us may well chase them away instead of bringing them in!
When we try to shine for ourselves we find that people can reject us simply by comparing us to the world around us. We are nothing compared with the world around us. But when they see a reflection of Christ in us then they see something far more special than the world around us giving them hope. Don’t give people the world, give them the hope of Christ which will lift them out of the world!
Points to Ponder:
Are you trying to shine too bright?
Christ can shine through you if you allow Him to!
July 21: Matthew 13 10-15
Key Verse: Matthew 13 10
And the disciples came and said to Him, “Why do You speak to them in parables?”
Devotion:
When Jesus came to us in human form it was not a the ultimate professor who would be able to teach everyone everything; He came to fulfil prophecy so that we could see how the scriptures come to life. God is the one behind all of the scriptures because He gave those words to the prophets and He continues to bring those words to life through what He has done and what He continues to do. For those who are willing to believe, the scriptures come to life but for those who refuse to believe, nothing…
When the disciples asked why Jesus seemed to make things complicated by talking in parables instead of just saying the truth, He explained in terms of the scriptures and referred back to the words given to Isaiah. God explains everything we ought to know in our bibles and yet we still choose to ignore the truths or reject them. It is not really through lack of understanding because the parables themselves are quite self-explanatory when we take time to read them; it is people who are rejecting the stories because they don’t want to have to believe it all.
We continue to take the parts that we like and leave the parts that are hard or which we do not care for. That is what mankind has always done, right from the beginning with Adam and Eve, we choose to take what we like and leave the rest for someone else to pick up. Jesus knew this was still happening and made it easy for people to choose! Jesus knew who would reject the word and who would believe so he chose His words to make the believers think about what was being said and for the others to reject easily.
Does that sound as if Christ was giving up on people? Does that sound as if Jesus was not being a good an evangelist as He should have been? I wonder what we would do if we knew who was going to reject us as friends… would we continue to try and make friends or would we walk away from them before they started to talk? Would we make the choice easy for them to reject us or would we give them a huge guilt trip to see if we could change their minds in some way? God continues to give people choices and He leave the door open. If we reject Him, is it not our own problem?
Points to Ponder:
How do you treat potential enemies?
Do you receive all that Christ gives you?
July 20: Isaiah 6 8-10
Key Verse: Isaiah 6 9
9 And He said, “Go, and tell this people: ‘Keep on hearing, but do not understand; Keep on seeing, but do not perceive.’
Devotion:
When Isaiah was first called to be a prophet it must have been unsettling for him. We see this through the words that were written down for us to understand his calling. God was quite specific that Isaiah should allow the people of Israel to sink into their own ways and see that a life without God is no life at all. A life without God in your heart is no life to speak of. Many will go about reading the bible just because they should. Many will go to church because someone said they should. Many will not hear the Gospel because they do not truly listen to the words. Isaiah was to leave mankind to find out the truth…
You may think that is unfair. You may think that the life you have to lead is unfair. You may think that others have such a good life compared to you… but unless they have Christ in their own hearts then they will never understand the love of Christ and they will never have that peace that only God can give in your soul! So many of the prophets must have felt alone as they listened to God and wondered why the people around them could not hear God…
I struggle to listen to God at times because the world is a very ‘loud’ place where all manner of things drown out the peace that we seek with God. It can be very difficult to concentrate on God and on His Word when there is a lot of distractions. I know that it is difficult to write devotions some mornings because there is so much to do in the day. I have found that shutting out the world is hard until you concentrate on God instead of the world. Trying to shut out the noise by concentrating on it does not work!
Take time out to start in prayer. Take time out to sing a song to God. Take time out to focus on Him. That is when you will draw close enough to hear what He has in store for you this day. It’s not enough just to skim through a devotion each day and think that is enough. It’s not enough to skim through a chapter or three in the bible. Taking time out to actually be with God is what counts because that is the time when you get to know Him in your own heart and know Him you will!
Points to Ponder:
How do you listen to friends?
How do you listen to God?
July 19: Proverbs 3 5-10
Key Verse: Proverbs 3 8
It will be health to your flesh, and strength to your bones.
Devotion:
How do you treat God? That may sound like a strange question but it is very valid in our modern world. We do tend to expect things to work and many would simply throw stuff away when it stops working. Gone seem to be the days when people stopped to fix things and had a go at fixing them even if they did not know how to at first. It is described as living in a throwaway society but it goes a lot further than that because we do expect the junk we surround ourselves with to work as expected.
So do we start to treat God like that as well? Do we look at what God can do for us and then discard Him when He does not live up to our expectations? For many people that is exactly how God is treated and should never be! We should be lifting Him up in reverence and glory, not treating Him like a piece of technology that we expect to work! What if God does not bring the healing when we expect it? What is God does not answer our prayers in the way we want? What if we are asking amiss?
It is not for us to try to understand the ways of God because His understanding of the universe is a lot more than our understanding of anything! We cannot hope to understand how we work if we cannot even get the physics right in the static things around us! Why do we expect God to do things our own way when we should know His ways are so much better?
That must never stop us from asking God though because He will be able to answer us better that we understand. He wants us to be blessed because He loves us and wants what is best for us. If we are going to want God to treat us the way we think we should be treated then we should be treating Him that way He knows He should be treated! That means coming humbly before Him and lifting Him up to His rightful place. We need to treat Him as God and not a piece of technology that we want to work in our own ways…
Points to Ponder:
Do you ask too much of others?
Do you want God to treat you nicely?