Wednesday Reading: Philippians 2 14-16

Key Verse: Philippians 2 16
16  Holding forth the word of life; that I may rejoice in the day of Christ, that I have not run in vain, neither laboured in vain.

Devotion:
What sort of attitude do you have when someone asks you to do something that yu enjoy doing? And what sort of attitude does that turn into when you are asked to do something that you do not like doing? Most of us will have to admit that we do have issues with being asked to do things that we do not like – after all why should we do them if we do not like doing them!

But no matter how close a walk we have with Christ there is always going to be a time when He does ask us to do something that we do not look forward to doing. How we handle that situation will be down to our attitude that we have for accomplishing God’s Work in our lives. There is nothing that He is going to ask of us that He does not already know that we are capable of doing or bearing. He has, after all, promised us that He will not make us do things that He knows we cannot do (1 Corinthians 10 13). But He also reminds us that there are going to be things ahead of us that are more than what we have to take care of now (1 Corinthians 3 2).

God is Just. He is honest. He is perfect. He knows what we can and cannot do, but He is also very aware of the things that we like and do not like doing. There are going to be times when we have to face up to doing things that we do not want to just because someone has to do them. Jesus did not relish the idea of having to go to the cross for us. Can you imagine what He actually would think of us if we never turn round to thank Him or to acknowledge Him in any way? Can you imagine what it must be like to continually face up to people who are sinning right in front of Him?

But just as we do have to face up to things we do not like, we also are given many blessings and rewards as we do live our lives with Him. But the best rewards are going to be those that we can look forward to after we are released from this world and all the trapping held herein. When we have done the hard work and have completed what we have set out to do, then we can expect the rewards for all that we have done to be given to us. If we want to earn money we have to work for it. The jobs that we do are not always what we like but we do them so that we can earn a living. Christ is saying to us that we may well face things we do not enjoy, but the reward has already been laid out for us – we just have to complete the course.

Points to Ponder:
Are you getting weary of your work?

Are you remembering all that God has promised us?

Tuesday Reading: Matthew 5 3-12

Key Verse: Matthew 5 9
9  Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called the children of God.

Devotion:
When we are willing to continue listening to God as we allow our personal relationship to grow with Him then we can and should expect Him to bless us – just like our parents bless us in so many ways as we grow up and behave ourselves. When we misbehave with our own parents we can expect them to get mad at us or to reprove or punish us in some manner so that we can be taught the difference between right and wrong. That we accept as part of life and as part of growing up. But when God ‘dares’ to reprove us we then turn round and blame Him for things that go wrong and complain bitterly that He is not blessing us!

We do need to aim to have a correct relationship with God and that does mean that we are going to have to watch quite a few things in our lives. Reading through the Beatitudes will help us to understand the things that will please God even though we may read it as though these are the weaknesses that God will support us through.

God wants us to be pure in spirit which means that we need to put aside that prideful spirit that we may harbour and instead accept that we are nothing in comparison to Him. God wants us to comfort those who are in need of comfort and just to demand comfort when we are feeling down. He wants us to accept the fact that He does own the world and that all that we have does come from Him and not through what we have achieved. He wants us to continually seek out all that is right and to leave behind the things which He does not accept. He wants us to be merciful towards others when they do make mistakes. He wants us to be honest and pure in all that we do in His sight (which means always). He wants us to try to keep the peace rather than winding people up otherwise we do not reflect His ways through what we do. And then He reminds us that when we do all of these things we can expect some people to have issues with the way we are living – mostly because we will be showing them up for the wicked things that they do and try to get away with.

But as long as we are willing to continue try to follow Gods ways and to show the rest of the world that we are willing to do that, He reminds us that He does notice what we do and He will bless us for what we are doing. But it is not that we can attain eternal life through anything we can do; that remains a gift He will give to His children – those of us who accept Him as Lord or Lords and King of Kings believing on all that He accomplished for us on that cross at Calvary!

Points to Ponder:
Do you seek blessings rather than giving them?

Do you think you deserve what God has already given you?

Monday Reading: Matthew 5 43-48

Key Verse: Matthew 5 45
45  That ye may be the children of your Father which is in heaven: for he maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.

Devotion:
whilst we would all like to think that we could become children of God by following His commandments or by obeying Him through doing what we can for Him; that is not going to cut it! Yes we are to obey our Lord and God. Yes we are to keep His commandments. Yes we are to continue doing what is righteous. But no, that is not all we must be doing. Just because we have been able to find out some sort of truth and maybe we even look forward to keeping to that truth and to His Word, does not mean that He has to do likewise. If we are able to forge a bank note such that it looks identical to the original, it is still a forgery and worth absolutely nothing!

God wants us to come to Him in honesty and in purity. He wants us to live our lives for Him and with Him. He wants us to know Him and not just to know all about Him. A person can know a awful lot about God and about Jesus just be reading the bible, but unless that person is going to accept all that they are reading as the truth as told by God, then they are still just another person who is living in this world. God did not say that He would only look after the people that obey Him and stick to His Word and His Commandments. God continues to keep this whole planet full and people going!

God does, however, want us to stop from ‘playing on the merry-go-round of life’ and think about what it all entails. He is our Creator and our God so He wants us to be able to recognise that fact and to recognise Him. We do this by learning about Him and accepting our bibles as the truth. He is the one who is actively doing so much in each one of our lives to bring us to the point where we believe on the truth and accept that He is our Creator God. Once we do that He is willing to change our lives so that we come into a right and everlasting relationship with Him.

Personally I don’t know of any religion that asks its flock to come into a personal relationship with their God. All religions will lift up something or someone as their god but will never require a pure, honest, open and everlasting personal relationship with that god. Jesus came to this world to demonstrate just how we need to have that personal relationship with God our Father. To do that effectively we need to come to Him as children, willing to obey their parent and learn the right ways from the source. God is our Source of all we need to know.

Points to Ponder:
Are you always asking things of God?

Do you actually depend on Him for everything?

Sunday Reading: Ephesians 5 1-2

Key Verse: Ephesians 5 2
2  And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour.

Devotion:
When the Apostle Paul wrote these letters to the church at Ephesus he wanted them (and us) to realise that we need to have the right approach to listening to and following our God. It is not just a case of us listening and doing what we think He says because as we ourselves grow we get to have our own ideas about what is right and what is wrong. The more that we make our own minds up the harder it is for us to change and be moulded by our God. God would rather that we listen to Him as if we were children with open minds to take in everything that He wants to teach us.

Young children are more apt to listen to the whole truth before they accept things and then try to emulate; whereas adults would rather dictate what they do and get others to follow them instead. So the obvious choice for God is to choose those who are more willing to learn and that would be the children. That must not exclude adults otherwise it would be a bit too late for most of the population of the world! Instead God would like us to be like those children – willing to learn!

This brings to mind one of the verses that our Pastor’s wife so enjoys (Proverbs 22 6  Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.) If we are willing to learn as children then when we have ‘grown up’ in God’s Word we will be more apt to stick with His ways and do His will – ultimately bringing glory to Him. But if we try to act all ‘grown up’ and try to teach others to do things our own way, we are actually working against Him Will and rather proclaiming our own ways.

Christ showed us His amazing love in the way that He did so that we would take notice and know that He has shown us the right way. He did not hold anything back but rather gave it all with absolute love so that we would then take notice and learn that what we are hearing is the truth. But if we listen as adults would, we would tend to doubt the sincerity because we know that we would hold something back or we would change the rules so that we could get out of having to pay the ultimate price – whereas if we approach as children, we accept the truth as it is. Little wonder then that we are encouraged to approach Christ as children.

Points to Ponder:
Do you seek your own ways?

Are you willing to come to Christ as a child?