May 9: Hosea 3 1-5
Key Verse: Hosea 3 5
Afterward the children of Israel shall return and seek the Lord their God and David their king. They shall fear the Lord and His goodness in the latter days.
Devotion:
I’m not sure what Hosea must have thought when he heard this word from God, but he listened and he obeyed. This was to be an example for the rest of Israel to look to and to realise that God is faithful, forgiving and always there. We may find it hard to be as forgiving as He is, especially when it comes to relationships and the like; but that is exactly what God wants us to think about.
It really is amazing that God is willing to tell us up front that He will forgive us, then watch us go astray in such terrible and unthankful ways, and then to turn round and stand up to His promise to forgive us! But that is exactly what it is, a promise to forgive, and one that He will keep if we are willing to come back to Him.
The woman had to turn round and come back with a willing heart, trusting the forgiveness to be total and forever so they could live out the lives together. We have to trust God that His forgiveness is forever and absolute as well, but we have to have faith in that promise. If we come back with doubts and fears then we are not fully trusting God. If this woman had come back without full trust then I’m sure the relationship would have broken down again – but it did not.
God is not looking to be a judge who will come in to pronounce us guilty and have us sent down, He comes forward to try and turn us around before we condemn ourselves to the pit. God wants us to stop what we are doing and turn back to His ways and His instruction. That way we will be able to live in forgiveness as He has promised it to us.
It may be hard for us to come back and admit to all we have done or are doing wrong, but that is what is required of us – to take that first step and come forward. He has promised us already, we just need to accept that promise!
Points to Ponder:
Do you think you have gone too far?
Have you asked for forgiveness?
May 8: Jonah 1 6-9
Key Verse: Jonah 1 9
So he said to them, “I am a Hebrew; and I fear the Lord, the God of heaven, who made the sea and the dry land.”
Devotion:
I like the words that Jonah uses here because I can relate to them! Jonah states that he does fear God, in other words he knows there is a God, he knows it is our Lord God and he knows He is creator God… and yet he still gives it a go to see if he can get away with things! I know I have done that before as well, just pushed a bit further to see if God would let me do things my own way instead of following His direction!
When will we learn that God is in control and He has order of all things? He knows what is best for us and He knows when we need things; He still wants us to ask to remind ourselves that we do need Him in our lives. When He asks us to do something it is because it is the best thing for us to do and not just some idle chatter He is using to pass the time of day (as we might do). God asks us to do things when we need to do them and He expects us to listen to Him if we say that we do fear Him.
Jonah realised that he had messed up this time and he was willing to leave the punishment up to God. He knew that he should not inflict any more on the fellow sailors and now gets ready to ask them to throw him overboard to God’s mercy. When we do go against God it is His own choice as to what is going to happen and not our choice; we have broken our commitment to Him and He has every right to set us right once again. That is when the fear of the Lord kicks in again, when we realise that God is still in control and we have tried to take that control away from Him!
But God has incredible mercy and compassion toward us. He has demonstrated this through allowing Jesus to come and lay down is life for us. He has demonstrated this through stories like Jonah by showing us that Jonah did survive and was convinced that God was the one to be listened to. He has demonstrated it by making sure that all His promises so far have come true so we can know that the remaining promises will come true as well – even if we choose to have our own way for a while!
Points to Ponder:
Do you question God’s ways?
Or do you bow down to His ways?
May 7: Psalms 128 1-6
Key Verse: Psalms 128 2
When you eat the labour of your hands, you shall be happy, and it shall be well with you.
Devotion:
When people take the bible out of context they get themselves into deeper water than not following the bible because they are twisting the truth and believing that twisted lie instead of the truth. This verse should not be taken as the words by themselves; we should not think that we can work our way into God’s favour and be happy because of all the work that we are doing. Taking the previous verse as well gives us the fuller meaning and the meaning that God intends for us to have.
When we believe in our hearts that God’s Word is the truth and we change our ways to follow the ways that God gives us in the Scriptures, we then get to work according to God’s will and not according to our own will. That is where the blessing comes in and where we can then be happy in the work that we do. Working for ourselves will give us earthly rewards which will fade and die just as the rest of the world fades away. Working for God allows us to build up rewards that will last for all eternity because that is where God will build them up.
This does not stop at our own rewards but also reaches down through the generations to our children and grandchildren. God wants to be able to give us substantial rewards that are going to last, not rewards that will wither and die just as plants do. God wants us to have rewards that will last the full length. Gold lasts because it does not corrode like other metals, but it is soft and wears down faster than other metals; it does not last forever like some people would like to think it does.
Look to what God can give you and not to what the world offers. When Satan offered the worldly rewards to Jesus He refused them and reminded Satan that God is God alone; true rewards come from God and not from man or any other source. Yes it is nice to have all manner of things in our lives that we can enjoy, but don’t make them your be all and end all because they too will fade away before God will.
Points to Ponder:
What rewards do you seek in life?
Would you trust God to reward you properly?
May 6: Luke 11 27-28
Key Verse: Luke 11 28
But He said, “More than that, blessed are those who hear the word of God and keep it!”
Devotion:
One thing I like hearing is when parents get praised for bringing up their children because of the child’s behaviour and temperament. But one little thing that is not acknowledged as much as it should be; the child has been listening to the parents! Just as God continues to give us the best possible advice and continues to show us exactly what we should and should not do, we can be good or bad because we choose to do so. Jesus reminded the lady who remarked at how good Mary had been to bring up such a good man as He that it is up to each of us to listen to and obey God.
We have the same choice open to us to obey God to the uttermost just as Christ did. Our problem is that we have already gone astray and tainted our lives with sin so we are fighting a battle against what we have done already. Christ laid down His life for us so that our slate can be wiped clean, but we still have to make the active choice to follow Him and leave our sin behind. That is not as easy as it seems.
We are surrounded by sin and because we have already gone down that path, going down that path a second time does not sound as bad anymore. What should be happening is that we should be realising just how much worse it is for us to go down that path a second time because we know the price Christ paid already!
One thing we must not do is continually beat ourselves up for falling into the sin path because the more we worry about it the more we are not actually giving it all to Jesus. He requires that we lay down everything at His feet so that we can leave it all behind, but as long as we continue to carry the burden with us we continue to not lay down everything for Him to carry. For as long as we try to do it ourselves we continue to fall into the same traps as we give in to sin once again. Christ has paid for our sin debt fully, we do not have to continue to try and pick it up and carry it; leave it behind at the feet of our Saviour.
Points to Ponder:
Do you try to work out your sins?
Are you fully trusting Jesus?
May 5: Romans 10 16-17
Key Verse: Romans 10 17
So then faith comes by hearing, and hearing by the word of God.
Devotion:
We like to think that the only way that people will get to hear the Word of God is through someone going out and preaching; but if that were so then I fear that the whole world would never be able to hear the Gospel! It is not up to us to make sure that everyone hears the Gospel because Christ has said that everyone will. He is the one who is in charge and He is the one that will make it happen whether it is through the things of this world or through men and women going forward and preaching; God is in control.
God does not leave things up to chance to see what happens but has set order behind the scenes. Satan is working constantly against this to try and disrupt things. If we focus on what he does instead of what God does then we see the chaos and we see things breaking down. But if we focus on the things of God then we will be able to see order and we will be able to glorify God in all things. Nothing happens by chance.
I have just had the privilege of being able to help teach young people these two basic things: God is in control and nothing happens by chance. It is not until you stop and think about those points that you do realise just how much God is in control! When we see His awesome power and might at work in the world, putting things in place for man to get it right, we see how much He does love mankind and how much we mess things up because we are simply not listening.
Today I would like to think that each of us can make a conscious decision to do more reading from God’s Word. To pick up the bible and read more of it each day. To spend a short time alone with God and allow Him to open your eyes to what is in the bible. Don’t read it like a novel but read it as if your life depended on it – because it does! God is in control and we are the ones who are out of control because we have lost sight of the direction and means by which we can live for God!
Points to Ponder:
Do you feel out of control?
When was the last time you spent good time in the bible?