Tuesday Reading: Deuteronomy 13 1-5
Key Verse: Deuteronomy 13 3
3 Thou shalt not hearken unto the words of that prophet, or that dreamer of dreams: for the LORD your God proveth you, to know whether ye love the LORD your God with all your heart and with all your soul.
Devotion:
One of the things that many people struggle with is that evil and horrible things happen in our lives. They will ask things like “if we have a God that is jealous then how is He going to allow anyone else to love us?” or “if He loved us that much how can He allow anything bad to happen to us?” It is a difficult one to answer without upsetting people because they want to hear their own ideas rather than the simple truth much of the time. They have already made up their minds that God should not be allowed to allow bad things into our lives and anything that says He can, will get shot down in flames in their minds!
God does not want us all to act like robots or automatons that automatically and faithfully do His bidding without choice. God wants us to choose to follow Him and to choose to do what He is asking of us. He loves us enough to allow us to make our own choices rather than being forced into doing what we do not want to do. If we choose to follow after other gods and other things then He is going to allow that. But that does not mean that He is going to turn His back on us and forget us. Because of that same love for us He is going to turn toward us and do many things to try and get us to turn back to Him. If the only way that we will turn back to Him is by finding things out the hard way, then He will allow us to find out the hard way!
God has not let us run off in every direction to go and test every circumstance before coming to Him. He has not given us to evil and bad things just so that we come crying to Him for comfort and peace. He has firstly given us the truth, Word and love so that we can know the truth before we get involved with things we don’t need in our lives. He has given us every opportunity to follow Him first. He continues to uphold the truth and to make sure that we do get to hear about it… we are the ones who choose to run off and test other things out. He has even given us warnings like this (over many years as well) that we should not just take other peoples words but rather prove those words that others tell us by comparing it to His Word. God’s Word does not change. It has never changed. It will remain the same today as it was in the beginning so we can know the truth when we hear it!
Points to Ponder:
What do you trust as the truth?
Do you compare other things to that or just believe?
Monday Reading: 2 Thessalonians 2 1-5
Key Verse: 2 Thessalonians 2 4
4 Who opposeth and exalteth himself above all that is called God, or that is worshipped; so that he as God sitteth in the temple of God, shewing himself that he is God.
Devotion:
Do you think that you have got a good memory or one that fails you regularly? How is it toward the things that God has been trying to teach you over the years? Most of us like to think that we do remember the important things in life and that when it comes to the things of God we bury them deep in our hearts and are able to stick with them; but if we are honest about things we will also admit that when we do bury them we do tend to forget them too! Well, if you are struggling then you are not alone!
From the beginning of time people have been forgetting about the things that God has told and shown them; but that does not give us an excuse to put things aside and to ignore our God. For as soon as we do put God aside, there is going to be one that will jump into that place and lift himself up above God. The devil is not about to give up and go home because he knows that as soon as we let our guard down we will also start looking around for something else to do and that is exactly where he will be.
The devil continues to lift himself up in place of God and continues to try to get us to lift him and other things up just so that God will not get the glory and praise that is due Him. This is not a game but reality; this is how he works. God has given us His Word so that we will be prepared for what is going to happen. That same Word has been proven over time by showing us exactly what was foretold and what did happen giving us every reason to believe it and trust that it is the truth. God continues to make sure that His Word is going to be given to everyone so that we all have the chance of taking it and believing it.
The test then becomes: what are we going to do with that Word? Are we going to bury it and forget about it? Are we going to read it once and continue on with something else? Are we going to argue with it because it does not agree with what we want to happen in our lives? Or are we going to believe it as the truth lifting it up as the truth and live by it? God wants us to live with His Word every day so that we remember it and live by it. He wants us to know Him and keep Him in that position of Glory that He requires. Lift God up and glorify Him and Him alone!
Points to Ponder:
How many time do you have to try to remember something?
Are you treating God’s Word as “important to remember”?
Sunday Reading: Acts 17 22-23
Key Verse: Acts 17 23
23 For as I passed by, and beheld your devotions, I found an altar with this inscription, TO THE UNKNOWN GOD. Whom therefore ye ignorantly worship, him declare I unto you.
Devotion:
How many times have you found yourself getting so involved with something that you forget to do the task that you should have been doing or that you first set out to do; whether it is simply getting side-tracked from the task in hand or whether you set out to do something you should not be, the result is broadly the same – you don’t do what you should be doing! When Paul looked at the people around him he saw a whole lot of action but none of it happening in the right ways or in the right direction. The same can be said about modern society – we are all willing to get involved with something but not always in the right thing!
God continues to make sure that we have ready access to His Word so that we will have a better chance at understanding what it is that He wants us to be doing in our lives. It is not a guessing game that we have to find out by trial and error but rather it should be us listening to His instructions so that we will do it right in the beginning.
Our biggest problem is not going to be the fact that nobody is telling us the right way but that we are listening to everything but the right way. We bring so much into our lives that the righteous ways are squeezed out and our lives are filled with the garbage that we do not need. It is not just going to be bad things or naughty things but those things that God knows will take us away from a life with Him. It is not a small thing that God has given us a commandment that says we should keep Him as our only God, because as soon as we lift up something or someone else in stead of Him, we are demoting God from being God.
Paul was dismayed that the people of Athens were lifting up all manner of things as gods and were not recognising God as God. Instead they had inscriptions to “The Unknown God” just in case they had missed out something or someone. They were trying to cover all bases rather than seeking the truth. If we were given a task of filling a cup with water we would not use a sprinkler system to spray everything in sight but rather place the cup under a tap or other source of water where we could fill it directly. We need to make sure that we are close to God so that we can get a ready and direct supply from Him.
Points to Ponder:
Do you try to cover all bases or direct your efforts?
Are you directing your worship to God?
Saturday Reading: Acts 24 14-16
Key Verse: Acts 24 16
16 And herein do I exercise myself, to have always a conscience void of offence toward God, and toward men.
Devotion:
When Paul was called forward to speak for himself against the accusations that the people had brought against him, he chose his words for the glory of God and not for any glory of man. Paul was in no doubt that he was following the will of God and that he continued to do so throughout his ministry. He also strove to make sure that he did not break the laws of the land insomuch as they allowed him to continue worshipping God and following His will.
Our task is not to cause strife in the land but to promote the will of God. Yes they will be at opposite ends of the spectrum at times, but much of the time people will agree that God’s Law is actually good for all and will want to be able to follow it. But when it comes time to change their ways so that they fall in line with God’s Law, many people call out for justice to be had according to man’s law rather than God’s Law because it may just be a little easier to live with in their sinful lives.
If we live lives that are righteous, then we will have no problem sticking with the righteous laws of God. But as soon as we go off in our own wilful ways we have issues with sticking to God’s law because they are no longer in line with each other. Man’s laws are made by people, people like us who make mistakes; it is only God who is perfect and only His law is righteous in all its ways! If we are forced to make choices in our lives then we should be striving to make choices that agree with God and His Law.
God has given us our consciences so that we should be able to choose the righteous ways. So how do some people manage to always choose the opposite ways? The longer we live apart from God’s Law the longer we get accustomed to going with man’s law and not God’s Law. The more we do things wrong and accept wrong things the more we will be apt to choose those wrong ways instead of God’s ways. God has given us the choice and left us to that choice. He does encourage us all along the way so that we will be able to make an informed decision – but that has got to come from knowing God’s position and that comes from knowing God’s Law… and that comes from reading His Word.
Points to Ponder:
Are you offending others?
Will you allow God to show you the right choices to make?
Friday Reading: Romans 13 1-8
Key Verse: Romans 13 5
5 Wherefore ye must needs be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience sake.
Devotion:
One of the biggest things that we will fight with is not principalities or powers but our very own consciences. We have laws of the land to try and allow us to live together peaceably in the land in which we live. We have laws from God to try and make sure that we work toward living in peace with everyone. And then God has given us our consciences so that we will be able to tell right from wrong without having to find out the hard way by going against the law. Yes we could try everything until we find out if things are right or wrong, but imagine just how wearisome we would become when we have to face punishment over and over again because we have chosen the wrong way to do things in the beginning!
God’s laws are here for guidance as well as for upholding what is righteous. The law is used to berate people who go against it but it should also be used as a guide to point us in the right direction before we go wrong. God appoints people in the land to take on the task of looking after things. He allows people in positions of power so that we can all learn from what is going on. Sometimes people get into power that we think ought not to be there because they do not do the things that we expect Christians to do; and just maybe God is trying to show us a thing or two during those times. We may well be the ones who have allowed those very people to get into power so we are the ones who have to be shown what we have done wrong.
Can you imagine how good things would be if we actually did follow the rules before breaking them? Could you imagine how peaceful and right things would be just because we were listening to the rules? Well there is no real surprise in learning that God has been trying to show us a thing or two for thousands of years. We are the ones who have consistently turned our minds away from His law and tried to make our own laws – only to find that living by them is not as easy as it sounds.
What we need to be able to do is to live toward keeping God’s laws from the beginning, allowing them to be our constant guide and not just the rules that show us how we have to accept punishment when we have done things wrong. God did not send His Son into the world to punish us all but rather to seek us out and to save us from our sinful ways. Walk with God and listen to His ways before going against them!
Points to Ponder:
Do you keep to the rules?
Are you actually trying to follow God’s Law?