Saturday Reading: Hebrews 10 38

Key Verse: Hebrews 10 38

38  Now, "the Just shall live by faith. But if he draws back, My soul shall have no pleasure in him."

Devotion:

One thing that we often do forget is that faith is not a one-time event but a continual development of our belief. Faith is something that must start with belief and continue with continued belief. If we draw back from that belief then our faith will dwindle. This does not mean that God will forsake us, nor that He will withdraw from us; just that we will withdraw from Him because our hearts will change over time. Once again it comes back to the fact that we must believe these facts in our hearts.

For as long as we continue in our belief in Christ and to follow God’s Word and His ways we can continue to grow in our faith; or to put it another way the more that we find out about God the more we are able to accept the truth for what it is. But just as we can grow in that faith, we can also destroy that faith through things that we do in our own lives. It is little wonder that we fall out with people because of the things that we do to them so should we be surprised that when we do things against God that we find that we fall out with Him.

This does not mean that God rejects us. Yes He does not like what we do and He will allow us to know that but He does not reject us. When we find that what we are doing is working against God, we often draw away from God because we do not want Him to reject us or to punish us in any way; in doing that we open up ourselves to almost anything because we are excluding Him from our lives. It is our faith that should hold us close to God because it is that strength through faith that will carry us through the trials that we will face.

Points to Ponder:

Do you pull back when you do something wrong?

How often do you reject God in some way?

Friday Reading: Habakkuk 2 4

Key Verse: Habakkuk 2 4

4  Behold, the soul of him is lifted up, and is not upright; but the just shall live by his faith.

Devotion:

Yesterday we were reminded that ‘the just shall live by faith’. One reference to this was written hundreds of years before Christ actually came down to earth as a human. For that to be so and for the record to list what has happened must surely mean that we have records in agreement with each other. But let’s not get tied up in records that agree because if we based our faith on that fact alone we should be able to prove just about anything and indeed it is that sort of thing that has spurned many people to write books proving all manner of diverse theories based on those so called agreements in facts or events.

It is not the mere fact that certain events, dates or stories agree with each other that we should build our faith on. It is the fact that it was Christ that we should build our faith on. Was Jesus a fake? I don’t think that would ever stand up because of the amount of data that has been collected. Was He a legend who’s stories have been exaggerated? Again we have too much proof. If we tried to change the life and times of someone in recent history we would be proven wrong by many people who could stand up and say so from personal eye-witnesses to stories passed down a single generations or two. The Apostles stories were written within a generation of the actual events – any differences in the actual and the stories would have been raised as differences a long time ago.

Does it take faith still? Yes. We still do have to accept what is by all accounts the actual truth as the truth and we have to believe that in our hearts and not just say so. Christ has done this all so that ancient history will agree with recent history which will agree with God’s Word.

Points to Ponder:

How do you look at history?

Do you agree with God’s historical account?

Thursday Reading: Romans 1 16-17

Key Verse: Romans 1 17

17  For in it the righteousness of God is revealed from faith to faith, as it is written, "The just shall live by faith."

Devotion:

God’s Word, our bibles, contains as much information as God would have us to have in order to know Him, His Law, His Love, His righteousness but also His wrath. We often focus on one things at a time because it is easier to think things through in that way, but God’s Word continues to give us the truth no matter how much we are able to find out. That truth should spurn us on to find out more and to discover what God would have us to know further than just the space around us.

But possibly the most important aspect of God’s Word is that it will show us God’s ways no matter how we look at it. We can look at it as a record of His love and find out how He loves us. We can look at it from the point of view of His wrath and find out how He corrects man time and time again. It is a complete record of God’s knowledge that we need in order to know Him and to love Him. It may have everything written down but what it does not do is place everything into a test-tube so that we can empirically prove what God wants us to know or even prove that He exists. Instead it gives us knowledge that we must believe in order to know Him.

It is all about faith – believing in the unseen – and not about scientific proof. If we look at our so called scientific theories about the beginning of the world, they all have a large element of faith in them, believing that a set of events that cannot be proven is set in place in order for the current world to come into existence. No matter which way we look at the beginning of the world, it is by faith we must accept what we believe to be the truth. I would rather believe God’s Word which is written down with a complete explanation than man’s suppositions about what may have happened based on a random initial event which in itself must still depend on an intelligent start!

Points to Ponder:

How do you see faith?

Do you have faith in God’s truth?

Wednesday Reading: Galatians 2 19-21

Key Verse: Galatians 2 19

19  For through the Law I died to the law, that I might live to God.

Devotion:

Once we have identified that we are the ones that are wrong, the sinners in need of forgiveness, and once we believe that Christ is the one who can forgive us, our lives can change from living for ourselves to living for God. This does not mean that we have to give up doing anything that does not relate to God for if we were to stop living in this world we would not be much use to those who do not yet know Christ. Instead what God would have us do is to turn our backs on the ways of the world and live our lives in a way that is more acceptable to Him.

Does this mean that we are slaves and have no choice in what we do anymore? Far from it. God created us with freedom of choice. He has demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt that He loves us beyond our comprehension. The only logical conclusion must therefore be that we can use that free choice to live our lives returning that love.

For as long as we continue to live our lives for the world, we live in lust, greed and generally bad choices – choices made because we have had the truth covered by all manner of corruption following on from the lust, greed and bad choices of others. The only way that we can then escape from this spiral of conflicts is to turn our backs on those ways that will suck us into those spirals of conflict. That change is our choice. We can choose to ignore the bad choices and consequences or we can choose to change our ways and live for God; whether people will understand why we have changed is another thing – but that will give us opportunity to tell them of our new lives in Christ!

Points to Ponder:

Do you want to change?

Are you relying on God for that change yet?