Sunday Reading: Lamentations 3 21-26
Key Verse: Lamentations 3 22
22 It is of the LORD'S mercies that we are not consumed, because his compassions fail not.
Devotion:
The prophet Jeremiah wrote these verses (the whole book of Lamentations) as poetry following on from his prophetical words given to the Jews earlier. The Jews at this stage were in a terrible mess and they surely deserved to have been wiped off the face of the earth because of their sins committed. But because of God’s mercies and compassion that never fail, they continued to survive and be under His ultimate protection.
Even though so much had happened that had all but broken the Jews, Jeremiah saw God’s providence and saw just how much God was still doing for them. He saw God’s love over and above everything that happened and knew that God would keep His promises to keep the Jews as His chosen people. Jeremiah knew that the things of earth would fade away but that God’s Word would continue to stand forever!
Jeremiah saw how God lifted him up above the strife and worry and allowed him to continue seeing and believing and trusting in His Word. Jeremiah knew that this strength could not come from anything earthly but must be from God. He learned that he would have to wait patiently upon God to deliver on His promises according to His own timetable and not to the tune of the Jews and their wants and desires. Jeremiah saw that they would have to put up with the afflictions that would come their way just as others had had to many years before. He saw the pain and suffering they had been through in captivity time and time again but he knew that God had lifted up His people time and time again.
Let us not look at the sufferings and the afflictions as things to discourage us but rather as events that herald a new beginning in our lives as we get weaned off the ways of the world and look forward to the ways of God every step of the way. It is hard for us to let go of the world at times but it is also hard for God to stand by and watch us wallow in the ways of the world as they corrupt us. He is not punishing us for our sins but trying to wean us off of those sinful ways so that we ca walk closer every day with Him!
Points to Ponder:
What sin do you still carry round with you?
Are you ready to put them aside and take on God’s ways?
Saturday Reading: Ezra 9 10-15
Key Verse: Ezra 9 13
13 And after all that is come upon us for our evil deeds, and for our great trespass, seeing that thou our God hast punished us less than our iniquities deserve, and hast given us such deliverance as this;
Devotion:
No matter how we try to hide our sins they will always be seen by God unless they are covered by the blood of our Lord Jesus Christ. God is just and hence must carry out judgement against our sins unless they are covered and already paid for. The sacrifices of the early church were to appease God as the people came with a penitent heart to Him to ask for forgiveness, sacrificing a sinless, guiltless lamb in their stead. Christ came forward on our behalf and offered Himself up as the perfect, sinless, guiltless Lamb in our stead knowing that that would be the only way to cover our sins completely.
If God had levelled the just punishment on the people of Israel for the sins that they did then they would have been wiped out before they got across the river Jordan in the first place. But it was because of the great mercy of our God that He waited until the sinless Lamb was sacrificed for our sins. But that does not mean that we all automatically get a free pass because we still do have to come to Him with that penitent heart to ask for that forgiveness. Christ may have died for everyone, but until we come and lay our sins down before Him He is not able to say that He has paid for those sins.
There is no sin that His blood cannot cover as long as it is brought to Him. If we try to sweep our sins under the carpet instead of bringing them to Him then it is the carpet that we are offering to pay for our sins. Nothing other than Christ is the perfect sacrifice and we need to remember that continually. We deserve to pay for what we have done wrong, but Christ has already taken the punishment on our behalf. Trusting and believing in Him shows that we acknowledge His sacrifice and we trust Him to cover those sins with His grace and mercy.
We do not have to continually go back and break the commandments just so that we can say that Christ has forgiven us! We do not have to sin just so that we can have something to cover. We have done enough wrong in our lives already – we don’t have to continue sinning. It is hard to not give in when we see others doing what they will, but we can rise above that and know that we love Christ and show Him we do by not sinning in the first place.
Points to Ponder:
Do you bring your sins to Christ?
Are you trying to have to bring less to Him day by day?
Friday Reading: Psalms 103 6-14
Key Verse: Psalms 103 8
8 The LORD is merciful and gracious, slow to anger, and plenteous in mercy.
Devotion:
One of the most amazing truths that was hard for me to accept in the beginning was that Christ was merciful to all! The more that I have read the Old Testament the more I have realised that God continues to show His mercy far and beyond the point that we would stop and hit back at others. God’s love toward us goes further than our love toward others and hence His mercy continues on far beyond our breaking points!
The people of Israel turned against Him many a time and yet He still kept His promise to keep that as His children, as His chosen race. The more that they sinned against Him the angrier He would get, allowing many things to happen to them which were not pleasant! But throughout all of that His mercy endured and was always extended to them when they were willing to come to Him in repentance. And that is the key for us all, so long as we are willing to come to Him with a repentant heart (and not just say the words) then He is willing and able to forgive us once again.
When we do sin He does not immediately condemn us to the pit or into the hands of some sinful stranger; instead He lovingly stretches out His hands to us to bring us home to Him. When we do not look up and go to Him He starts to call us. When we do not answer Him He starts to try to get our attention in other ways. When He knows that we are ignoring Him then He is justified in pouring our His wrath upon us!
But it is God that created us and He is our keeper. He knows how far we can go. He knows how much we can endure. He knows our hearts and our minds. There is nothing that He cannot do and nothing that He will not forgive when we turn to Him in honesty and repentance. If He were to deal with us according to our sins then we would very quickly join the endangered species list, jumping up the ladder to first place! But because of His love and mercy, He continues to try to get our attention and turn us away from our sinful lives first of all. Let us listen in the first place and learn from what He has given us right now!
Points to Ponder:
Do you think you can get away with murder?
So why do you chance your arm with God?
Thursday Reading: Psalms 36 1-4
Key Verse: Psalms 36 4
4 He deviseth mischief upon his bed; he setteth himself in a way that is not good; he abhorreth not evil.
Devotion:
If we declare ourselves to be Christian but we do not turn away from sin then we are fooling nobody but ourselves. Besides God being able to see straight through our false profession we will also find that many people will be able to see through it as well and will not see us as the true Christian we like to think we are! When our bibles talk of the fear of the Lord it is that admission and knowledge that God knows our innermost deeds and thoughts; if God should know our thoughts and desires then we should be trying to change them to fall in line with His teaching instead of our own wanton lusts!
We will be labelled as the fool if we continue to sin because we are in effect saying that there is no God because we declare that we can get away with the sin in the first place. God is the one who declared His love for us and has demonstrated that love time and time again. As Christian we should be striving to return that love and reverence toward Him as our one true God. As long as we continue to go in our sinful ways we continue to say that we enjoy the sin more than the company of God – or at least that is what is in our hearts.
We may not think of it in that way because we think we love God. But true love means that we will not strive to hurt our partner in a daily walk; as long as we continue to sin then we are continuing to hurt Him in our daily walk. If we simply fear Him as being a wrathful God then we are giving ourselves as slaves to Him which again is not all that He desires. Yes He does want our undivided attention, but He has given us free choice so that we are not slaves but willing and able servants. Servants work for a living. Slaves work for fear.
The more we get trapped in our sinful state the more we find that we design and devise sins whilst in our state of rest. If we sin whilst in a state of panic, we may well be forgiven, but devising and plotting sin whilst in a state of peace and rest shows that we are more willing to sin than to love our God. We are fooling nobody but ourselves in this case! The more we go in that direction the deeper the trap and the harder to come out of that state because it becomes our way of living. I know that it is difficult to come out of a state of perpetual sin because I have been there myself. Fortunately God is merciful and has shown this to me in the past to give me the chance to bring it all to Him: that we must!
Points to Ponder:
Do you enjoy certain sins?
Are you willing to stop them for Christ?
Wednesday Reading: Micah 2 1-5
Key Verse: Micah 2 1
1 Woe to them that devise iniquity, and work evil upon their beds! when the morning is light, they practise it, because it is in the power of their hand.
Devotion:
God is the one who divided up the land and gave it as an inheritance to Israel. He is the one who designed the earth and how the people should be spread over it. He is the one who designed the plants and animals and all we have access to for food. And yet we come along and think that we somehow have the right to redesign things because we are the ones living here and now today! If we look at the length of our lives and then at the age of the earth we are living for an insignificant amount of time in God’s design of things; yet He chooses to love each one of us as individuals and promise us a place in heaven if we believe in Him!
What do you do when you go to bed at night? and what do you do when you first wake up? Do you plot what you can do for the next day and then jump up in the morning and immediately set to that task? If we look at many people today that is exactly what they are doing, planning their attack at night and then bouncing into life in the morning and attacking their task list! But where is God?
God would rather that we wound the day down by being with Him and looking over the day, praising Him for what He has allowed our way, lifting up our burdens to Him, our wants and needs and contemplating what we have not done for Him. It is a good time to bring those sins to Him before we forget about them over night. And then God would rather that we start the morning by drawing close to Him and starting our walk with Him. It is in those early morning times when our minds are weak and more open that we must protect our minds from corruption.
If we start our day by aiming to be with God, then we can finish our day by thanking Him for protecting us and keeping us close to Him. If we start our day by asking direction then we can finish it by thanking Him for direction. If we start our day asking for His food then we can finish it by thanking Him for our daily bread. But if we start our day by running off in the opposite direction then we may have to finish our day by apologising for everything we have corrupted that day. If we start our day without Him we are going to have to finish our day trying to seek Him once again.
Points to Ponder:
Do you start your day with God?
Do you finish your day with God?