Thursday Reading: Habakkuk 2 12-14
Key Verse: Habakkuk 2 12
12 Woe to him that buildeth a town with blood, and stablisheth a city by iniquity!
Devotion:
When we look back in man’s history we find some terrible deeds that the church has done; or rather the people did in the name of the church. God’s plan was never to oppress others and beat them into submission so that they would follow His rules. That is the way that man has changed the rules and has abused authority to get his own way. Man is prideful, greedy and full of lust; these traits lead him to do some pretty disgusting things that go against God’s Word. He then has the gall to turn round and say that it came from God so that he can have some sort of justification for doing what he did.
Just because we say something comes from God does not automatically mean that it has. God is a Just God and will not abuse His authority like man will. The early church of Rome has a lot to answer for because they built up their church through oppression and bloody wars. Much blood was shed in order for the church people to get their own way, to be able to stay in a position of power and tyranny.
That may sound horrible to us now but we continue to hear of things going on in religious establishments that clearly is not of God; but people are hiding in places where they think the world will not touch them. Satan has his hands in so many places that we think should be safe from him – but the truth is that he can get in anywhere where people let God down. If we do not stand firm in the Word of God then we are opening the door for the evil one to come in and ply his trade.
Even though these words were written so many years ago we can see them echo again and again throughout history. Each time that man takes on the task of trying to clean things up by himself he falls flat on his face and breaks things once again. The temptation is too great for man to come in and clean things up because once he gets a taste of power he abuses that position given to him and heads toward tyranny instead of a stable state. So many countries have fallen due to the leadership trying to take over the world instead of building up the state. God wants us to help to build up His church and not to try and take it over – He is Just. He will not allow it!
Points to Ponder:
What bad things do you see others do?
Do you blame God for some things?
Wednesday Reading: James 1 12-18
Key Verse: James 1 17
17 Every good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning.
Devotion:
We do not have to suffer in order to be blessed. We do not have to lose everything before we can gain blessings from God. I thank my God that we do not have to be like Job who had to endure so much before being blessed by God once again – and it was once again because Job was very blessed in the beginning. We know this because God was telling Satan how dedicated Job was before Satan showed his evil ways.
None of the attrition that came to Job came from God; it was all directly from Satan as he wielded his evil ways and tried to get Job to turn his back on God! How can we turn our backs on God when we know that He has done so much for us already? Right from the beginning of creation through to now and beyond into the future we see how much God has done and is willing to do for us. If we do not see this as a blessing then surely we have our eyes closed to reality!
But when we do have to face hardships and when we do have to put up with what evil people bring into our lives, we need to remember that none of this comes from God. It is those perfect gifts that come from God. It is all that is good and righteous that comes from God. Man and Satan work their evil ways and bring all manner of trials and horror into our lives and it is those things that will turn us away from God if we are not careful. Job was very careful to remember that God does not dish out dirt and does not trap us into horrible situations. Job lifted his praise up to God continually. Yes he also asked God why things happen, but he continued to trust God and allow God to fix what went wrong.
If God only supplies the perfect gifts then we should place our faith and trust in Him wholly so that everything that we do get will be perfect. But we falter, we doubt, we hold back and we refuse; giving the evil one room to manoeuvre and to bring havoc into our lives. If we are the ones that allow the horrible things into our lives because of our doubt and lack of faith, then why should we ever think that we have the right to be upset? Are we not inviting this upon ourselves through our own doubts? Have faith in God and trust in Him to deliver the perfect goods direct to our doors!
Points to Ponder:
What doubts do you have?
Have you tried giving them to God?
Tuesday Reading: Ecclesiastes 3 11-15
Key Verse: Ecclesiastes 3 14
14 I know that, whatsoever God doeth, it shall be for ever: nothing can be put to it, nor any thing taken from it: and God doeth it, that men should fear before him.
Devotion:
When Jesus said that He was the Alpha and the Omega it was not a challenge but a statement of fact. Christ has been there from the very beginning as He created the heavens and the earth and He will continue to be there after all of the recognisable things we see are destroyed and made new. Everything, be it seen and understood by us, or unseen and unimaginable by us, has been created by God – there is nothing that has not been made by our awesome God!
We are actually quite caught up in this little world that we call life that we do not see the bigger picture and recognise all that God has done for us. Instead we focus on our immediate surroundings and hope that that is going to be enough to see us through! God made all of this for a reason. We may not fully understand how and why He should make this all but we can be certain that He continues to support us and guide us in everything that we do.
We, speaking as a human, then get to think of ourselves as gods because of all that we have been able to achieve; but nothing can be further than the truth. As some religions get all excited about the things of the world and how men can achieve so much by themselves, we recognise how great our God is and how much we need Him in everything in life. Without God we are nothing and would never come into existence!
We do need to remember that everything does work together for good to them that love Him. It is because of God’s love toward us in the beginning that this all still exists. If we had created things or controlled things without God’s help then why do we see so many things fall apart and break down? God has given or deigned a plan for each of us that we should try to stick to. But in order to stick to that plan we first have to find out what that plan is and how God wants us to live it out. Our lives are short and pretty uncertain, so living them as close to God as we can will ensure that we do get the best out of every minute. God has done this all as an example to us that we may know that He is God! Believe it as you see it!
Points to Ponder:
How much do you focus on in this world?
Have you lost sight of God?
Monday Reading: John 5 45-47
Key Verse: John 5 45
45 Do not think that I will accuse you to the Father: there is one that accuseth you, even Moses, in whom ye trust.
Devotion:
How many times have you come across people who are more willing to uphold what other people say than to do what is actually right? I call them “jobs worth” people because they tend to do things because they think that keeping their job is worth more than doing the right thing. There are many people like that nowadays but there were also many people like that in the days of Jesus where they would uphold what they had been taught about the Law instead of actually studying what was right and upholding the truth!
Jesus always wants us to study things through and to do what is right. When He cleaned out the temple of all the rogue traders and other merchants He did so in what some may think of as a contentious way; He kicked them all out of the temple because they were no longer treating the temple like God’s house! But that was the right thing to do – not to ignore it like everyone else but to stop and do what is right!
God has given us the law and we need to stick to it. That does not mean that we have leverage to be able to change it until it suits us, but to believe the actual law as it is written down in the original scripts. It is that same law that teaches us that Jesus was going to come hundreds of years before He actually arrived as a human being. It is that same law that teaches us that God is our Creator and that we are the sinners who got things wrong. Just because we don’t like what the bible says about ourselves does not mean that we can ignore the truth and make up our own stories!
If we are not going to believe in the original writings then how are we ever going to believe the truth when it slaps us in the face? God wants us to know the truth, but that means that we have to accept the whole truth and not just the parts that we are comfortable with. Moses may have been the one that God gave the Ten Commandments to, but it has been a whole succession of prophets that have brought us God’s law over the years. Each one reinforcing what has been told before and bringing us more understanding. If we do not accept God’s Word as the truth from the beginning to the end, then we are facing Jesus and saying that we do not fully trust in Him either!
Points to Ponder:
Are you a “jobs worth” person?
Or are you upholding God’s laws?
Sunday Reading: John 3 14-18
Key Verse: John 3 17
17 For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
Devotion:
God has shown his love for us in some pretty remarkable or strange ways over the years; do you think He has been trying to demonstrate to us that His love is beyond our imaginations? Back in the desert the Children of Israel were being exposed to the deadly threat of poisonous snakes and God wanted to show them that simply by believing in Him they could all be saved. They did not have to make any special anti-serums, nor to rid themselves of the snake, but instead to believe that by looking at a bronze copy of the snake they could live… not because it was some sort of god but because that would show that they had just a tiny bit of faith!
Our faith may well come into question when we face dangers in our lives, but not by God. He knows what is inside our hearts but wants us to show what is in our hearts openly. If we continue to hide our love for Him then we are not spreading the good news that Christ has risen. If we continue to hide our love then we are effectively saying that we are ashamed of God in some way.
God showed His love to us openly by allowing His only Son to come to earth, be born as a human, live as a man, die as a criminal and then to be raised up from the dead so that He could defeat death on our behalf once and for all. He did that without hiding behind anything or disguising Himself in any way. God told us what would happen in the beginning. Prophets foretold what would happen throughout history. Jesus told the disciples what would happen just before it did. Christ carried out everything according to God’s plan every step of the way.
We now have all we need to know about God’s love toward us; we have all we need to know about God’s plan for our salvation. All we need do is to look and live in exactly the same way as the Children of Israel had to look at the bronze serpents and to live. As Christ reminds us here, He came to save the world and not to condemn the world. He already knows our guilt and now He wants us to acknowledge it, admit it to Him and leave it behind to show that we believe Him in everything He has done for it. It is that tiny bit of faith that God is looking for; He does not require us to have truckloads of faith in the beginning, just to look and live.
Points to Ponder:
How do you show trust?
Are you showing God you trust Him?