June 8: Acts 2 1-4
Key Verse: Acts 2 1
When the Day of Pentecost had fully come, they were all with one accord in one place.
Devotion:
The apostles were gathered together on this day of Pentecost, though it would not be known as any special day other than a day set aside for Christ until these events unfolded. The important part being that they gathered together to seek God’s blessing as they got ready to preach God’s word to all who would come to listen. When everybody heard the noise the filled the house where they met, they all came to see what was going on; to their surprise they found the apostles talking in various languages and accents such that they could all hear clearly and understand easily.
None of these men had gone through formal education to learn the languages and dialects. None of the men had gone to theological college to learn all about the scriptures. None of the men had anything special about them other than God giving them the Holy Spirit there and then! If we think that we are not good enough to fulfil a role for Christ then we need to study and remember what happened here! With God, nothing is impossible!
If we are willing to come to Christ and ask Him into our lives, He will make sure that we are filled with the Holy Spirit as well. It is then our task to listen to Him so that we can do our best for Him. This may be where many of us fall down because we are far too busy getting involved with worldly things, listening to the world and being distracted to actually hear what God is trying to teach us through the Holy Spirit. The apostles came together and surrendered fully to God. Their gift was to hear clearly and to be empowered remarkably!
If we want to be empowered by God then we have to submit to His will in our lives. That may well make us very uncomfortable with what we think should be a reasonable life. It may put us into very tight spots. It may open up doors far beyond our imaginations. We do not know what God has in store for us in the beginning, but by trusting and believing fully in Him, we have a sure and useful future that nobody can take away from us.
Points to Ponder:
Do you obey people in charge?
Do you submit to God?
June 7: Psalms 36 1-6
Key Verse: Psalms 36 6
Your righteousness is like the great mountains; Your judgments are a great deep; O Lord, You preserve man and beast.
Devotion:
When we look at some of the people around us all we can see is evil thoughts and evil deeds to the extent that we don’t want to even be close to them. We see them as deceiving themselves and others because we can see the truth and yet they just refuse to do so, spreading lies and gossip instead. We wonder how they can live with what they do and say; but somehow they do. And yet God continues to be God, despite their insistence that He is not and despite the things they do against Him. God is above all of this and continues on in the truth and we can know that.
No evil in this world can ever cover God because He is God over everything, just as the clouds seem to be able to cover anything on earth. And the best part of this is that God does not change even when those evil people say all manner of things to deceive, discourage and destroy everything God has built up. It is man who breaks down and falls, man who trips up and stumbles, not our God!
God’s faithfulness toward us continues on despite what we do against Him in all ways. If you have ever been lucky enough to fly high above the clouds and see mountain tops poking up above those clouds then you can begin to imagine the majesty of those mountains. They are unmoving and stand firm despite the clouds, wind, rain and storms. God’s faithfulness is like those mountains, firm, solid and unmoving despite all that is thrown against them.
Christ came to give His life so that He could demonstrate how faithful God is concerning His promises to us all. He came to show that to all mankind and continues to demonstrate it every day to all creation around us. Nature continues around us despite what we do. The rain will fall even if we declare that it will not; we cannot stop it just because we say so. Man cannot make God disappear just because he says so or just because he can do evil things against God. That is just man. God is faithful!
Points to Ponder:
Do people tell you there is no God?
Do you remind them God is still faithful?
June 6: Psalms 136 1-3
Key Verse: Psalms 136 1
Oh, give thanks to the Lord, for He is good! For His mercy endures forever.
Devotion:
How often do you say thank you when you receive a gift from someone? How often do you say thank you when people do things for you? How often do you say thank you when people say nice things about you? So why then do we not say thank you to God for each of the blessings He gives to us? I know I am guilty of not saying thank you for everything, but I do try and remember as often as I can because I know how important it is to say thank you – not just to others but to God as well!
God may not stop us from tripping over, falling off our bike, bumping our heads, and all the other things that happen in our lives, but He is good! He may not stop us from doing something really stupid and getting into trouble, but He is good! You see, it is us that invite trouble and strife into our own lives and we go off and break things all by ourselves. God does try to keep us headed in the right direction and tries to keep us from doing bad things, but we do get into trouble, just like the rest of the world as well!
We no longer live in a perfect world because mankind broke it a long time ago. Because it is broken and corrupt we have to put up with the things that do go wrong and we have to fix what we can at the time. God continues to show us the right ways and continues to bless us and continues to pour out mercy and grace toward us, but we still get things wrong. Don’t blame God for the lack or organisation, the lack of good things or the lack of anything in your life because you may have broken things to start with.
Yes God is here to help and He will guide when we listen, save when we call and show mercy when we break things; but he will not stop the world from happening until He deems the time to be right. No matter how long we continue to mess things up, God continues to show us mercy so we need to bless Him for what he does do for us. Bless God because He is God. Bless God because He is merciful. Bless God because He created you. Bless God because he loves you. Thank Him for all that He does!
Points to Ponder:
Do like it when people thank you?
Do you always thank God?
June 5: 2 John 1 7-11
Key Verse: 2 John 1 9
Whoever transgresses and does not abide in the doctrine of Christ does not have God. He who abides in the doctrine of Christ has both the Father and the Son.
Devotion:
Every now and again we have to be reminded that God is in charge and that His Word is what we all need to read, trust and obey. That does not mean that we have to stop living in this world and shut ourselves away in monasteries where we will have nothing but the word of God to read (though that may not be too bad for some of us!) What it does mean is taking God’s Word seriously and treating it as His Word and not a novel we read part of now and again.
The whole idea of devotionals is that they should encourage you to get into your bible and read more to see what you have missed or to see where God is going to be guiding you today. I know some devotions just make you stop and think, others make you want to run the other direction, others leave you hanging; but it is the consistency with which you take on looking into the bible that will allow you to grow daily.
It is said that you can put on weight quickly but taking it off again is hard work. The same can be said about reading your bibles. The more you put it down and leave it alone the harder it gets to pick it back up again and when you do you struggle to get to grips with it; almost like your heart and mind are out of tune with God and need kick-starting to get back into the swing of things. If you have not done exercise for a long time, starting it slowly is the best course otherwise you will end up flat on your back before long. God will feed you as much as you can take, but you may struggle to take it all in in the beginning, so take it slowly to start with.
God is patient and He will give you the understanding that you need, but you have to be the one to start the ball rolling again, He keeps the momentum going for as long as you keep going. So next time someone comes along just as you want to sit down and get into your bible, tell them to come back later unless they are going to join in! Being able to study God’s Word with someone is always a lot easier because you will be encouraging each other just as God wants us to.
Points to Ponder:
When was the last time you read a whole book?
When was the last time you read the whole bible?
June 4: 2 Corinthians 11 22-29
Key Verse: 2 Corinthians 11 28
besides the other things, what comes upon me daily: my deep concern for all the churches.
Devotion:
Some of us look at the lives we live and we wonder if anything else could go wrong. Some of us look at our lives and marvel at all that goes right and all that is good. Some look back and think about how they should have done things whilst others continue to see more. It is not what we have in our lives but how we look at what we have that makes the big difference.
We may look at what the apostle had to go through and say that we could never cope with having to face all of that; thank goodness we don’t have to! God is not going to bring all those sufferings into all of our lives just because we believe in Him. Christ wants us to live a blessed life that is full of joy and peace and not suffering and pain; but we live in the real world and we have to face these things because they exist in this world. It is the world that brings these sufferings to us and not God. How we deal with it will show others how we see God in our lives.
We could blame God for allowing stuff into our lives but what is that going to achieve? When we complain and blame God, others get to hear about our blame game and they then may believe that God is unfair and unjust. The apostle did not blame God but lifted His name up instead. He did not dwell on all the things that went wrong other than to show us that they did happen.
When we are able to take what happens in our lives and still find ways of lifting up God, of bringing glory to Him, then we have moved on to a place where God can use us. If that is going to be in a very tight spot as we wrestle with difficulties, then we should be able to say that we are still protected by God even in these cases. God is just and will not bring hardships just to see what happens. He will allow things that He knows we can cope with; we may need to constantly call on His name for the strength to cope, but we shall be able to cope.
Points to Ponder:
Do you blame God?
Are you still willing to work with Him?