Friday 26 Oct 2012

Friday Reading: Hebrews 11 8-13

Key Verse: Hebrews 11 13
13  These all died in faith, not having received the promises, but having seen them afar off, and were persuaded of them, and embraced them, and confessed that they were strangers and pilgrims on the earth.

Devotion:
In so many ways I count myself lucky to be able to pick up a bible and just ready God’s Word, or even to pick up my mobile phone and open up a bible on the phone and even get it to read the words to me! But nothing compares to actually sitting down and meditating on what you have just read because it is then that God will be able to share more of His word with you. Just by reading the words we are able to learn, but by allowing God to explain those words we then get a far better understanding. Much the same as going to church and allowing the preacher to explain certain things to you, God will bring to your mind the things that He wants you to understand about Him.

We can look through Hebrews 11 and see just how awesome the faith of many people was; we see how they stuck to the scriptures, depended on God, allowed Him to guide them, waited patiently upon Him… and yet they did not have the same level of knowledge that we have today about Christ having been born, living, being beaten, dying, buried and rising up again. They knew it was going to happen in a fashion but they did not have explicit descriptions of what actually did happen.

How can we then not have faith in God’s Word when we have so much more of a description of all that has happened? I tell you that it is because of all the other things in this world that have also happened that we have a blurred understanding. We allow all manner of things to come into our lives because we listen to things we should not, hear then we ask not of, and have even more junk pushed down our throats than we know what to do with. Is it any wonder then that we get side-tracked?

That is where our faith must come in. We must remain faithful in the knowledge that God’s Word is the single truth and that that is what we need to focus on in our lives. It is not all the other trimmings that we need to seek, but God’s Word instead. Sarah and Abraham were able to focus on God because they heard directly from angels; but still they had their doubts. We now have this all written down so that we can draw strength from the truth that we now know. Let us focus on God’s Truth and have faith that all that He has said is all that we need to know.

Points to Ponder:
How much do you let into your life?

Are you crowding Christ out of your life?

Thursday 25 Oct 2012

Thursday Reading: Luke 10 21-24

Key Verse: Luke 10 21
21  In that hour Jesus rejoiced in spirit, and said, I thank thee, O Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that thou hast hid these things from the wise and prudent, and hast revealed them unto babes: even so, Father; for so it seemed good in thy sight.

Devotion:
One of the things I find amazing about God’s Word is that all of those believers who do read it will be given understanding about what they read. It does not take someone who has the brain of a learned scholar to be able to read God’s Word and understand what God wants them to understand because He will give the knowledge to each person as they seek and give them what they need to know.

Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to go to a lecture and to get your own personal message from that lecture instead of having to learn exactly the same as everyone else? That is one of the things that I found hard at University was that I was just repeating things that others had learned and somehow I felt that I was not reaching out to new things. Maybe that is why I spent quite a bit of my time trying new things, such as computers and computer languages; trying to learn what I wanted to know.

People may say that I spend far too much of my time in front of computers but this is what I know that I can do best in life and I must apply myself in that way. Over the last decade I have also realised that I am able to help others to be able to understand God’s Word; so I have combined my skills and now reach out to many more people than I can do than by standing up in front of a class. I thank my Lord that He was the one that allowed me to learn about computers and learn His Word so that I could combine these skills for His glory.

When I go and listen to men of God preach I realise that my knowledge of the bible is still quite limited compared to them, but I also realise that each one of us is going to continue learning up until we go to be with our Lord. Those people who reject Christ may be able to learn about so many things, filling their lives with what is essentially a whole load of junk in many cases; but those people who choose to live with Christ are each given understanding as they require it. I have a long way to go and I continue to share my journey with people as I go to show others just how much they too can get from being called a friend of God.

Points to Ponder:
What do you study?

How much time do you give to study about God?

Wednesday 24 Oct 2012

Wednesday Reading: Matthew 16 13-20

Key Verse: Matthew 16 17
17  And Jesus answered and said unto him, Blessed art thou, Simon Barjona: for flesh and blood hath not revealed it unto thee, but my Father which is in heaven.

Devotion:
We could read any book and decide that what we have read is the truth and believe about all the things we have read. We could then go on to study more about that subject and find many more books that support what we have read and that would then strengthen our belief. But as soon as we are faced with the real truth then we fall apart unless it is that truth that we have found in the first place!

I continue to be dismayed about the many things that children are being taught in some schools where they are not being given a choice as to what they should choose to believe but are being told that certain things are the truth and that is that! I am truly thankful that I was given the chance to hear the Gospel and that I was shown that truth by God. Yes it was a few people that showed me the words that I now write about to you, but it was The Holy Spirit who opened up my heart to believe in that truth.

We are faced with so much in our lives as the evil one tries to do his best to trip us up before we get to know Christ; we are faced with so many temptations that it is a wonder that we even get to hear the gospel nowadays. That is why it is so very important that when we do hear the truth we uphold that truth so that others will get the opportunity to hear – so that others will then have the truth opened up to them by The Holy Spirit too.

God does want us to know the truth, but we have to be willing to listen in the first place. As long as the Satan is giving us reason to listen to all manner of strange stories that will entertain us and prevent us from listening to the truth, we will continue to wonder in the wilderness. Christ was showing the disciples the truth knowing that they each had to make that choice to believe in their hearts that it was the truth – and that is where our Awesome God comes in because once we do hear the gospel He can then work in our hearts to make sure that we do understand that truth so we can invite Him into our lives.

Points to Ponder:
When did you first hear the gospel?

How often do you remind others about the gospel?

Tuesday 23 Oct 2012

Tuesday Reading: Matthew 16 21-23

Key Verse: Matthew 16 23
23  But he turned, and said unto Peter, Get thee behind me, Satan: thou art an offence unto me: for thou savourest not the things that be of God, but those that be of men.

Devotion:
The first reaction of the disciples when Jesus told them about what He would have to go through was of anger. They were angry that Christ would even think of things like that happening to Himself when they now knew Him as the Son of God. But what they did not grasp at this time was that there was a very good reason why this all had to happen and the fact that God does actually know what is best for each one of us; this was something that He was doing for the whole world!

One thing that always struck me was the wording that Jesus used here in using the name of Satan in His rebuke of Peter. Was He calling Peter Satan? I don’t think so. I believe that because the disciples were not yet full of the Spirit and they had not yet had Christ die for them on the cross, they were still open to the many things that Satan could do in their lives. Before each of us comes to know Christ as our Saviour, we are still open to the evil one using us in ways that we don’t understand either. I believe that Satan was probably responsible for the reaction that came from Peter and hence Christ was rebuking Satan for doing so.

I am so very thankful that Christ has done what He said He would do and that we now are no longer under the control of the evil one; yes we do still get into trouble because we give in to sin, but we don’t have to, we are making a choice. Before we have that personal bond with Christ we are open to being used of Satan and we can see so much evidence of people being used of Satan in our bibles – why should it be any different nowadays?

Christ did what had to be done so that we would have a choice in our lives again. He laid His life down so that we would be able to choose to have Him as our Saviour so that we may forever be safe in His arms. So many people we meet in our lives do not know Christ and when we see how susceptible they are to the evil ways of this world we are reminded of what Christ has done for us. Let us never forget the pit that Christ has lifted us up from – just because we chose to ask Him to forgive us of our sins.

Points to Ponder:
How do you look upon evil?

Do you realise how much Christ has done for you?

Monday 22 Oct 2012

Monday Reading: Matthew 12 22-30

Key Verse: Matthew 12 25
25  And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand:

Devotion:
This has probably got to be one of the best passages for encouraging someone to do the right thing; doing it right will have positive rewards whereas encouraging bad things into your life will only produce bad things. It sounds so obvious when you say it out loud, but how many people ignore this fantastic truth and go off and test the evil or bad ways to see if they can get something good out of them?

One thing that you have to see quite plainly is that if there is division, things will fall apart. That is the basic premise of so many things in life that we cannot ignore such a simple rule. People will quote utterly barbaric examples like having a tornado sweep through a junk yard to produce a Jumbo Jet, but let us try to keep this real. If you are using a sledge hammer you are not going to be able to tap out some minute engraving on a silver plate; the fact that you have a somewhat uncontrollable weight being used for fine movements just does not marry up.

Our lives are not unlike a silver platter in this instance in that we are special to our Lord and He wants us to have good support so that He can mould us into something even more special. If we then try to use the quick and dirty approach of bad or evil ways in our life then it is going to be just like using a sledge hammer approach. Yes we may well strike it lucky in very few instances, but the majority of time we will end up ruining things instead of fixing things.

God wants us to use His ways and His rules in getting the best out of our lives. He does know what is best for us and He is trying to encourage us to use His ways in order to promote His will in our lives. Trying to take the short cut by blundering on is just not going to work. God is all powerful and He is not going to sit back and ignore things as they collapse around us. When we lift our prayers up to Him to ask for help, He does not ignore those requests – so if we then go ahead and try to short-cut things, we should not expect them to work! God is good and His ways are perfect; don’t try and spoil those ways because it will not work!

Points to Ponder:
Do you want to hurry God up?

Do you really think you have a chance?