Sunday Reading: Revelation 21 1-8

Key Verse: Revelation 21 4
4  And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain: for the former things are passed away.

Devotion:
Can you think of one thing that you have been looking forward to; not something like a nice dinner or a great present but something that goes beyond the normal? Maybe you have been looking forward to this for a long time, maybe more than a year. Maybe you are not quite sure what you are expecting but somehow you are still looking forward to it… There are going to be things that you will hear about and things that you will say a huge “WOW” to and others that will make you uneasy, but somehow you still look forward to them…

When we get to know Christ as our Lord and Saviour we get to know a bit more about heaven and a few of the things we can look forward to. Some of the things we hear may make us uneasy because we cannot grasp just what they will be like. Other things will make us shout “WOW” when you hear about them. When we read through the descriptions that God has given us of what lies ahead we begin to realise that what we have written down has just got to be the tip of the iceberg.  I am sure that no man would have been ready for the extremes of heaven and hell and so we find that the descriptions given are just tasters of what we can expect.

Heaven is going to be a place that is beyond any of our expectations and no matter how much we try to find things on earth by which we can compare or describe it by, we will always fall short of the mark. Just the fact that we shall not have to experience any pain or displeasure anymore should be enough for us to realise that it is special, very special. We can throw away the rule-book that we have by which we describe earthly things with and rewrite the book according to what we shall find.

When God got John to write these words down it would be a glimpse of what would be to come because no earthly explanation can describe the special place that God has prepared for us. God allowed John to experience a part of what he could expect and yet John was still at a loss for words. God described Himself as the Alpha and Omega to make sure John realised that He was here before this started, and He will be here right through eternity where we will be able to join Him. We can look at every good thing around us and begin to realise that if we can have such wonders whilst we live in a corrupt world, then the wonders we shall see what we join Him in eternity will be beyond our dreams. God is Wonderful!

Points to Ponder:
What do you look forward to?

Do you realise how long eternity is?

Saturday Reading: Hebrews 7 22-25

Key Verse: Hebrews 7 25
25  Wherefore he is able also to save them to the uttermost that come unto God by him, seeing he ever liveth to make intercession for them.

Devotion:
There are times when we question whether we are good enough for others or whether they are good enough for us. There are times when we wonder how men can go to war to fight for others, on their behalf. There are times when we question whether the life of one is good enough for the life of another. And then there are times when we wonder how someone could ever give their lives for us.

When we study the life that our Lord Jesus lived on this earth we find that He was so very different from anyone who had come before. If it was just to take the fact that He lived such a decent life we should never even think that He could ever give His life for us. But then we find out that He was no ordinary man; He is the Son of God and in Him there is no evil or darkness. So then we should not even harbour the thought that He should in any way give His life for us – and yet that is exactly what He did.

Some will say that He was merely a prophet, others that He was a priest, but those titles are far too evil for our Awesome God! Prophets and priests still do get things wrong and they make mistakes. God does not and never will. It was certainly no mistake that He should choose to give up His own life for us! It was no half-hearted gesture but a complete and utter sacrifice for us that came from His heart! He chose it to be so. He willingly took our place on the cross so that we would not have to pay that ultimate price for the sins that we do. What love!

But then it does not stop there because He does not die every day to cover our sins one by one; He does not come back over and over to pay for them again and again because Christ’s perfect life was the perfect sacrifice for us once and for all. That one perfect Lamb was able to pay for every sin in this world, past present and future. It was no mistake that He should have to suffer and die such a terrible death on our behalf – how else could He pay for the sins that we have done? And not only was it a once and for all payment but that payment also separates us totally from our sins and allows us to once again commune with God!

Points to Ponder:
Would you allow someone to die so you can live?

Have you accepted what Christ has done for you?

Friday Reading: Isaiah 59 1-8

Key Verse: Isaiah 59 2
2  But your iniquities have separated between you and your God, and your sins have hid his face from you, that he will not hear.

Devotion:
There are times when we think that the modern world has got so much evil in it that we will never find a way for God to be able to forgive us. It is therefore a great comfort to be able to read such words from God’s Word; not because we are not alone, nor because we can blame anyone else but rather so that we will realise that no matter what we get up to we can always be sure that someone somewhere has gone through the same. This can surely be said about the men from the time of the early bible when we see that they were pretty mean and evil back then too.

We certainly are not alone when it comes to getting things wrong in our lives as we can see from these words – man has been sinning and separating himself from God since the beginning of time. Adam and Eve started the ball rolling by committing their first sin and then having to put up with being separated from God. In the same manner we are continually separating ourselves from our God because He is Holy and we certainly are not!

But as we read on we start to see a whole new person come out into the open; we start to see the man who is not righteous because of the evil that he devises in his own heart. And then we begin to realise that that may well be describing ourselves rather than some person who got tired of waiting for God to answer his prayers back when it was written.

Never try to place a time-limit on God for our prayers to be answered because we do not know the best time for our prayers to be answered. As much as we would like to think that we do, we simply don’t. We get so caught up in the world and all its trimmings that we think that it should start working to our timescales and not us waiting on our God. Let us never forget that He alone is our creator and He alone is best placed to answer our prayers when He knows it is right and not when we think it should be right. Are you trying to jump the gun and expect God to jump to your bidding?

Points to Ponder:
Are you patient?

Will you wait for God?

Thursday Reading: Exodus 20 7

Key Verse: Exodus 20 7
7  Thou shalt not take the name of the LORD thy God in vain; for the LORD will not hold him guiltless that taketh his name in vain.

Devotion:
How many times have you really thought long and deep about the third commandment? Not the way that we would normally talk about it by saying that we should not swear using His name but a lot deeper than that. We may be doing the right things and saying the right thing by stopping others from doing exactly that, and by not going there ourselves… But are we actually taking His name in vain?

God’s name stands above all else. God is our Creator. He is God of heaven and earth, of everything and everywhere and always. That means that He is God when we stand up in front of others and tell them that He is God. He is still God when we sit down later and read our bibles. He is still God when we go out and have fun with friends. He is still God when we are tempted to do something we should not. He is still God when we do! Is that not akin to taking His name in vain? If we uphold it while others are watching but not when we are alone with Him, are we not as guilty as the people who do it openly?

I am certainly not someone who gets it right all the time. I still do do things wrong. But as long as I am willing to acknowledge that God is always with me, that fact alone is going to make me remember that He does not like sin in any form, be it the tiniest “white lie” to anything at the other end of the spectrum. God is Holy. We need to remember that if we want to have Him in our lives.

How can I do that? Well, we all have to start somewhere. Let us take that first step forward together because there is no better way of walking with God than to be with someone who also wants to walk a closer walk with God. And the time? That time is right now because for as long as we try to put things off we are just saying “no” once again in front of our Awesome and Loving and Eternal God.

Points to Ponder:
Do you watch your language?

Do you watch your walk with God?