Monday Reading: 1 Peter 4 13
Key Verse: 1 Peter 4 13
13 but rejoice to the extent that you partake of Christ’s sufferings, that when His glory is revealed, you may also be glad with exceeding joy.
Devotion:
I found out that one of the hardest things to start doing was to rejoice in The Lord when things around me were collapsing or not going the way that I wanted them to go. Each one of us is going to come up against temptations, against sin, deceit, and all manner of things which will make us question God at some point.
God does not just want us to take Him for granted or just to believe without question! Now while that may sound a bit strange to some, others who have been through the trial will see where I am coming from. If we just accept things and do not question God we will grow up to be really great Christians for as long as we are not faced by trials. As soon as the trial hit then we will collapse in a heap! Think of someone building a house out of straw or some other material that will not stand firm… As soon as the trial hit, the building collapses.
When we face trials we question why and we build up a dependence on Christ as well as resilience against those trials. God is allowing us to be trained by what He allows into our lives. He is the one that knows what we can bear and He is the one who will make sure that we are trained in the field that we need to face. When we get to the end of the trial we can look back and rejoice in what we have been through, seeing how wonderful God is to have kept us going so that we are prepared to face things in the future.
God continues to work in our lives every step of the way. There are times when we fail and He has to pick up the pieces, but there are also times when we realise that we have had good training and rely on it to prepare us for the next step. There are also the times when we have to stop and listen as He tries to teach us what we need to do. Those are the times when we may well question everything because we do not understand yet.
Points to Ponder:
Do you question God?
Do you listen for the answer?
Sunday Reading: 2 Corinthians 5 16-19
Key Verse: 2 Corinthians 5 17
17 Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new.
Devotion:
The apostles learned not to trust in outward appearances or in works because we can all be fooled some of the time. God has been trying to tell us this for a whole lot longer and yet we still refuse to believe that we can be fooled so easily. We do not have the mind of Christ so we cannot know people from the inside but have to look from the outside; so what we also need to do is to rely on God for insight into what people are like.
When we get to know Christ, He get to work in our hearts and He changes us from the inside out. As He works within us, the outward person starts to change as well; people around us start to see us change from the outside as we learn from Christ how we should be on the inside. It is because of what Christ has done for each one of us that we know what He is like, His outward show of works describes what he is like on the inside, giving us a clearer view of the real God that we live with.
That same change starts to well up inside of us until it spills over and we change on the outside. Others then get to see this new creature that we become and are themselves encouraged to find out how we can change, pointing directly back to Christ and what He has done. It is pretty amazing how all things do actually work to the glory of our God!
God did not make any mistakes in setting up this whole process whereby we can help each other to be reconciled to Him through Christ. It is no small secret that God has given us His Word in this all so that we can follow His instructions. He gave us the ultimate example through what He did and through what He taught the apostles to do as well. We need to follow the example He has given us by showing what we too can do for Him every day we know Him!
Points to Ponder:
Do you know Christ?
Do you show others Christ through what you do?
Saturday Reading: James 2 18-24
Key Verse: James 2 18
18 But someone will say, “You have faith, and I have works.” Show me your faith without your works, and I will show you my faith by my works.
Devotion:
It is a difficult thing to prove your faith by works because works can deceive people into thinking that you do have faith when you do not! We can deceive people into believing that we do believe or that we do have faith by maintaining a string of works that make it look like we have faith, but what we cannot do is to live a life of sin and say that we do have faith!
We can tell people about how we believe in a single God and how God created the heavens and the earth; but even if we declare such things we would not be any different from demons because they too know these truths and believe them. But if we do say that we have faith, then we should be able to demonstrate our faith through our works; whether we are willing to do so will be a test of our faith in itself because we will have something to prove.
We have various historical events recorded in our bibles that tell of various works that have been done to demonstrate faith. None of those would have been possible without the faith they declared in the first place. If Abraham did not have faith that God would provide a sacrifice instead of Isaac then he would not have gone forward to offer his son. Without that faith he would not have been able to demonstrate his belief in God. In the same manner we need to have both our faith in God as well as our ability to work for and with God demonstrating our faith in Him.
We have enough scripture to remind us that it is our faith that is important because without it we have no hope. But if we were to do nothing about our faith when we do have ample opportunity, then are we not turning our backs on that faith and making it of no effect? The thief on the cross demonstrated his faith by telling the other thief that he believed Jesus. It may be a simple and single step that we have to accomplish for our faith to be made whole – but there will be something that we can do!
Points to Ponder:
Do you sit on your faith?
Or do you make it work?
Friday Reading: 1 Corinthians 13 8
Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 13 8
8 Love never fails. But where there are prophecies, they will cease; where there are tongues, they will be stilled; where there is knowledge, it will pass away.
Devotion:
How can we dare to say that love never fails when we see marriages breaking up and people hating each other after professing unending love earlier?
That is a very difficult question to answer even after going through many things in my life. I cannot turn round and say that I am more qualified to answer this because of what I have been through, but what I can say is that God has chosen to teach me with what He knows I can bear; and that is a whole lot more than I would have chosen to bear if I had had the choice!
If we try to keep love, we will fail, just the same as if we try to keep the law and fail! We have a choice as to whether we follow the law and we also have a choice as to whether we exercise love. But God’s law is so much more than us trying to keep law, so we should realise that love is so much more than us trying to exercise love as well! Love is not something we can choose to not keep because by doing that we are choosing to exercise hatred which is the opposite of love. We could choose to try and leave love behind; but then we are choosing to uphold something else instead of love.
God gave us love in our lives, love within our spirits and love as part of our souls so that we can exercise it. If we choose to believe a raft of lies then the feelings we exercise will be corrupted or at least tainted by those lies. We can choose to sin and that will corrupt our love or allow it to be pushed into a corner or diminished in some way; but we cannot choose to not love. Many things in our lives will eat at our souls and bring our love to a standstill; but none can stop love all together.
Everything else around us can stop, fail, come to an end or even be left behind; but love will continue on for longer than we can understand. God’s love is perfect and has been demonstrated to us for many years. Our love is imperfect and seemingly fails when we fail to exercise it as we should; but it is not love failing, just us…
Points to Ponder:
Do you try to keep love?
Do you trust in God’s love?
Thursday Reading: 1 Corinthians 13 1-7
Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 13 3
If I give all I possess to the poor and give over my body to hardship that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Devotion:
Without love, we are nothing… A simple statement to make but one that is hard to fulfil and hard to even define simply. What we have to do first is to try and grasp what this word ‘love’ entails. We can think it all through and come up with intelligent answers that can be explained by great speakers or in front of great scholars, but without that special gift of love, they are hollow words that sound good and that is all!
Yes we could be very generous and give away all that we have, but without meaning we are just doing an act. The meaning that we seek is what is going to define why we have done what we have done. Love is not something that you can just talk up, think up or buy out. Love is something that you experience from the inside. Love is something that does incredible things.
Love is the emotion that gives you the patience to wait on others, however long it takes them. Love means helping others because you want to, not because you have to. Love is not something that will raise feelings of hatred, envy or jealousy. Love is not something that that should be used to outclass anyone or anything. Love is not something that you should boast about.
We can do a multitude of things and come up with many rules and regulations and even make the world a better place, but unless we have love with every step that we take, those things are all going to be hollow and without meaning. We will know in our spirits that there is something missing; we will continue seeking something new!
God has given us this love within us so that we can know the difference between what is right and what is righteous. With love we can know the difference between what is good and what is from God. With love we can identify God’s ways. With love we can always hope for the best, and put up with the rest!
Points to Ponder:
Are you bold enough to say “I love you”?
Aren’t you glad God said “I love you” first?