Friday Reading: 1 Peter 1 3-5
Key Verse: 1 Peter 1 4
4 To an inheritance incorruptible, and undefiled, and that fadeth not away, reserved in heaven for you,
Devotion:
There have been and continue to be many people who would say that we can lose our faith or lose our position in heaven. Once God has given us a position in heaven it is secure and eternal; it is incorruptible. If it were not so that Christ’s persecution, death, burial and resurrection would be to no effect! How can we ever even think that is so!
Instead we have an eternal position that awaits us if we chose to follow Christ. That place that we call heaven is not ever going to fade away and is not ever going to be corrupted by anything that we do or say here on earth! Yes we can reject it in the beginning as we will never get to see it – so we may well think of it as not being real. But if I were to take that same logic then I can say that Australia is not real because I have not been there or seen it… You and I both know that that is not the case because many of you actually live there! So how can we then say that heaven is not real?
The fact that Australia is real is not because I believe it or even because it was ‘discovered’ by some great explorer. God was the one who created this world and He knew exactly what should be there in the beginning and what will be there in the end. God is the one who has allowed men to explore and to evangelise. People all over the world continue to choose to forget about this Creator God and choose instead to believe in various fantasies about how things come into being. We are not here because of some strange happenings be them random or by some strange gods; instead we are here because God has ordained it.
God created this world and He continues to make sure that this world exists in the way that it does. We may well be hell bent on destroying much of it and many of the people that currently occupy it, but it continues to be made available to us because that is God’s choice! In the same manner heaven is a place that will continue to be and will continue to be made available to those who choose to follow Christ, to believe that he is the Son of God and that He chose to die for us, to be buried and to raise Himself up so that He can pay for our debt to God the Father. Is that not great love?
Points to Ponder:
Do you have doubts?
What would you do if God doubted you?
Thursday Reading: Malachi 3 16-17
Key Verse: Malachi 3 16
16 Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name.
Devotion:
Our God is all-knowing, omniscient. He does not have to write things down as we do to remember them; but in this passage we see those words written so that we can relate to the remembrance that should be imposed on people who are willing to fear God, to live by Him, with Him and have the uttermost respect and reverence for Him. We write things down so that we can remember them and recall them at a later date. We have or bibles which have been written by many inspired men over many a year so that we can bring to memory all that God has done for us and all that we need to know about Him.
That is what we do – write things down so we will not forget them. God takes note of every single thing that goes on and He remembers them. Those things that we think He does not see do not go unnoticed. Those things that we wish He would see and acknowledge have been seen and will be acknowledged by Him! Our lot is not to wish that God would act in the appropriate ways but to trust Him knowing that that is exactly what he will do – to uphold His righteous ways!
These words have been written so that we may realise that even though we are surrounded by evil and even engulfed by its effects, we should neither have to give in to it nor to think that God has not seen it. God continues to make His ways known through many people and many methods that we cannot think of. God continues to remember all those things that we do in His name so that He can faithfully reward us when the time comes. God continues to remember every person that chooses to do something for Him, that chooses to turn away from sin and believe in Him. He will not forget us and He will not forsake us because He has and always will remember it!
We can stand assured that when our day comes, Christ will be the one standing up and saying “This person believed in me. I know them. I have paid their sin debt. Let them therefore come and live with us forever more”
Points to Ponder:
How do you remember things?
Are you trusting God’s omniscience?
Wednesday Reading: 1 Peter 2 21-25
Key Verse: 1 Peter 2 24
24 Who his own self bare our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, being dead to sins, should live unto righteousness: by whose stripes ye were healed.
Devotion:
The example that Christ has shown us by coming to earth as a human being and living amongst us must surly speak volumes to us. He was able to come and live amongst the same evil that we face every day and yet He continued to do no evil. He was able to come and live in front of the same temptations that we face and yet He committed no sin. There was not an ounce of deceit in His body – because He is God!
When Christ was faced with people mocking Him, spitting in His face, calling Him names, despising Him and even falsely accusing Him He did not retaliate against them. It was quite within His power to do so and by our standards even right for Him to respond in some manner; yet Christ chose to be still and silent and allow the world to use Him as a sacrifice for our sins. Christ chose to lay His own life down so that we would not have to pay the awful price of eternal death because of the sin that we have committed!
It is because of the stripes that He received that we are able to accept what he has done on our behalf. He took on the punishment that we deserve. He has not done anything wrong. We have.
The love that Christ has demonstrated to us must surly speak volumes to us, not just as Jews or Christians, but to every human being. How can a man who did not seem to know us turn and do something like that for us. How can a God who we deny daily turn round and show us such consistent and persistent love? How can a God lower Himself to our position in life just so that we can relate to Him and know what He has done for us? How can we then reject all that this Man, this Prophet and King, this God, our God, has done for each one of us? He has done all of this even before we got to know Him because He has known us and loved us from before we knew and loved Him. He has set into motion all that we need just so that we can accept His love, live within it and trust wholly in Him! That is my God and He can be yours too if only you will accept all that He has done – let us therefore not hide this secret but take it with us and show the rest of the world how awesome He is!
Points to Ponder:
Have you accepted His love?
Are you taking His love with you every day?
Tuesday Reading: 1 Peter 2 9-10
Key Verse: 1 Peter 2 10
10 Which in time past were not a people, but are now the people of God: which had not obtained mercy, but now have obtained mercy.
Devotion:
It is amazing to read through God’s Word and be reminded in so many places about How God chose the Israelites to be His people so that He could show the whole world that He is indeed God and that His promises will remain throughout time. It is not just in the writing at the time that they were chosen nor just in the latter times but rather throughout history that we see this promise being mentioned, upheld and promised. This is because we worship a God that does not change!
Our God is the same today as He was when He created the world. He continues to show us all His love and He has chosen to do this in a variety of ways so that we shall be able to understand that love. Through the creation of the world, through the punishment of sin, through the choosing of His people, through the saving all mankind who choose to believe to the creation of an eternal place for us to be with Him! God is great!
God has shown us a consistent love and support that He wants us not just to know, believe in and trust in, but that we can take with us and share with others. What good is the best gift in the world if we are not able to share it with others? God has shown us that He is willing to take the lowest and most defiled and raise them up to a position where they can be free from sin and free from that debt of sin. God has shown us that He is willing to forgive the most wicked people as long as they are willing to believe that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and came to earth to die for our sin, be raised up again to defeat that sin and to then join our Father in Heaven for eternity.
God chose the people of Israel for an example. They chose to ignore Him at times and had to pay for that offense. They chose to come back to Him at times and rejoiced in the happiness and love that they had during those times. He gave them the choice of following Him or rejecting Him. That same choice is what He lays down before us now as well. That choice that He gave us to even try ad provoke the Jews into jealousy so they would turn back to Him. God continues to use whatever circumstance He can to make us realise just how much He does love us and how that love has remained constant throughout time.
Points to Ponder:
Do you know what it is to love?
Do you know how much more God loves you?
Monday Reading: Romans 11 22-25
Key Verse: Romans 11 22
22 Behold therefore the goodness and severity of God: on them which fell, severity; but toward thee, goodness, if thou continue in his goodness: otherwise thou also shalt be cut off.
Devotion:
The more that we do study all that God has done with men from around the world the more we should realise that God deals with people in a very Just and Holy manner; after all God is Holy. The more that we are able to study God’s Word the more we will see the contrasting ways in which He deals with people who follow Him and those who reject Him. It cannot be said that God has not given us enough warning that He would deal harshly with us if we reject Him because He has upheld that from the very beginning. Adam and Eve had to face the music after they had chosen to reject God’s laws. Why should we be any different?
God has given us a choice as to whether we want to follow His law or whether we want to flout the law by choosing to go against it whenever we want. God has given us the rules so that we do know where we stand with Him. Just as a good parent will give their children good and firm boundaries for them to understand and follow, so does God give us good and firm boundaries to stick to; we are then the ones who have the choice as to what we do with those boundaries.
If we take the analogy back to the analogy of us being branches within a vine then we can expect to face what a branch would face if they rejected the nutrients. A branch should not reject anything that is given to it, but if it were able to then it would simply die because it would not have any source of goodness. When we cut off our supply of goodness from God then we are cutting of the very bread that we need to survive in this world. Yes we could live a while on earthly things but when that comes to an end we are left with nothing.
God wants us to have a long and eternal supply of goodness that He is supplying to us all the time; all we need do is choose to actively take in that goodness so that we can grow with Him. But that supply of goodness was first focused on the Jews as being God’s chosen people. When they come back to Him they are coming back as the chosen people. When we come to Christ we are being grafted in as outsiders. Once we are in and enjoying our relationship with Christ, nothing will take us out of that relationship other than us rejecting what He gives us.
Points to Ponder:
What do you seek from your relationship with Christ?
Are you rejecting His ways or His Word?