Wednesday 25 May 2011

Wednesday Reading: Psalms 32 1-5

Key Verse: Psalms 32 5
5  I confessed my sin to You, and my iniquity I have not hidden. I said, I will confess my transgression to Jehovah; and You forgave the iniquity of my sin. Selah.

Devotion:
There are times when we just cannot seem to get out of a rut in our lives and many of those times we fall back into those ways that we did things before we met Christ – just because we think of one of two times when we may have been happy for a moment or two back then. But if we are really honest with ourselves then we will also see that none of those so called good times amounted to much and they certainly did not last. There is no way that we can hide our sins and hope that they will never come out!

When God came looking for Adam and Eve, He knew that they had sinned and He knew that they would be trying to hide from Him. When we do things wrong against God He does know exactly what we have done and He knows that we are then going to try and hide from Him or at least to try and hide the sin from Him. But that is just not going to happen! What we do have to do is to admit to those sins and to make sure that we do ask God for His forgiveness... by lifting them up to Him...

It is not just the prayers for help and praise that we should be lifting up to God but also our prayers for forgiveness for the things that we do wrong. It is no good trying to hide any of that from Him because we cannot! Once we start to be honest and up front with God then we start to move towards a more meaningful relationship with Him. If we are not honest in our relationships with others then we cannot hope that those relationships will last for very long or be robust in any way. Instead, being honest up front and open in all things we are then able to cement our relationship with Him to give it a good start. Once we then move on in that relationship we should be trying to build it up and not break it down – we do that by doing what is right and moving away from what is wrong. If we do not turn our backs on the world then we cannot hope to be able to strengthen our relationship with God. We need to be honest, up front, open and humble before our Awesome God!

Points to Ponder:
Do you like telling lies?

What do you think God thinks of those lies?

Tuesday 24 May 2011

Tuesday Reading: John 9 31

Key Verse: John 9 31
31  But we know that God does not hear sinners, but if anyone is God-fearing and does His will, He hears him.

Devotion:
We know from reading our bibles and studying God’s Word that we are all sinners – we all have done many things wrong against God and we continue to do things wrong all the time. After we get to know Christ as our personal Saviour we do then try to stick to His word and try to not sin against Him, but we still “fall off the wagon” and end up upsetting Him. Does that then mean that God is not going to hear us?

Well let’s work this one out a bit. If God did not listen to everyone then He would not be able to hear when someone is asking Him for forgiveness; so therefore God is actually listening to us. How was He able to find Adam and Eve after they had sinned? What this is saying is that He does not hear sinners. Listening and hearing are two different things; well they mean pretty much the same thing to us but then again we do seem to be able to listen to things without actually hearing them properly. God is listening but is not going to act upon those things which are said by sinners. Did that come out right?

But does that mean that we will never be heard by God? Thankfully, sinners in this context are people who have continued to reject God. The sentence, when read in full, justifies what I have said in that it continues to say that is we are God fearing and doing His will, then He hears us. In other words, even though we are actually sinners, we are heard by Him because of what Jesus Christ has already done for us. Christ gave His life on that cross so that we could be justified, forgiven of those sins and brought to God to appear as believers who are no longer under the sin debt. We need to thank our Lord Jesus daily for what He has done so that we can lift up our prayers and be heard of God! What a Saviour we have!

Points to Ponder:
Do you try to obey God?

Do you know your prayers are heard by God?

Monday 23 May 2011

Monday Reading: Luke 11 5-13

Key Verse: Luke 11 13
13  If you then, being evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more shall your heavenly Father give the Holy Spirit to those who ask Him?

Devotion:
I do like to be able to give people things; I like to be able to share in my good fortune so that others will be blessed with what I am able to get. I do this because God has given me a big heart that allows me to find all manner of good in the strangest of people – and I love it! Does this mean that I expect to be able to get bigger and better things from others? Far from it; I don’t look for anything from others and when people do offer, they know me well enough to not get hurt when I say no thanks – that’s just me...

Many of us think that we are not very good at giving gifts to others because we feel like we are never able to find the right thing for them. Maybe that is because we always want what is best for them – or maybe it is because we are just not very good at getting gifts! Whatever the reason, we do like to think that we can get the right thing at the right time for others. Even when we get a bit annoyed with what others are telling us or doing against us we still like to be able to give gifts to others.

But then it comes back to the things that we do against God. We cannot hope to be able to understand just how much we have done against God until we get to realise just how much of a sinner each one of us is. That is not a good experience to realise just how rotten we actually are – but God’s love for us is just so incredible that He was able to find the perfect gift for us in that situation – the sacrifice of His Son on the cross for our sins. But it does not stop there because God continues to find the most appropriate gifts for each one of us at the perfect time that we do need them. He is able to continue astounding us with His love and care for each one of us. How does He do it? I don’t know – but I know that I can always count on My God to do what is best for me!

Points to Ponder:
Do you like giving gifts?

Have you thought about what God has given you?

Sunday 22 May 2011

Sunday Reading: Luke 18 1-8

Key Verse: Luke 18 1
1  And He also spoke a parable to them to teach it is always right to pray, and not to faint,

Devotion:
How many times have you given in to someone because they just did not stop nagging you? I’m sure we have all given in at some stage not matter how mad we got at the time! But that is not what Jesus is telling us to do; He was not telling us to continue asking God for stupid things until we drive Him mad and then wait for Him to give us what we asked for! That will just not work...

God is Just. That means that He will not give in to things that are not just or not righteous. How can a God that knows no corruption give in and become corrupt? I am very glad for one that He is never going to fall into any traps of temptation, lust, greed or pride. God knows no sin and will never give in to it. That means that if we try and tempt Him into giving us something that is not right; we are never going to get to see that!

What is being said here by Christ is that we do need to continue on in prayer. Prayer should not be something we get to do once in a while or once a year just before Christmas. Prayers are something that we need to lift up to God constantly because it is going to be through those prayers that we are able to show our own love to God. He is the one that has already shown us all manner of love; we now get to show a part of our love back to Him by lifting up our prayers and our praise to Him – not once or twice but continually! Our prayers should be a constant conversation with God. Friends do not sit around and do nothing and then pick up the phone once a year to have a chat – friends will continue to have conversations and will continue to catch up with each other. Just because God knows what we do get up to, does not mean that He does not want to hear it from us! Hearing it from us instead of finding it all out for Himself is not going to show Him any love from our point of view! Lift up your praise and your prayers continually – it is God’s wish.

Points to Ponder:
Do you keep in contact with people?

Are you lifting up your prayers daily?

Saturday 21 May 2011

Saturday Reading: 1 Corinthians 1 21-24

Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 1 21
21  For since, in the wisdom of God, the world by wisdom did not know God, it pleased God by the foolishness of preaching to save those who believe.

Devotion:
Reading this verse for the first time may give you nothing more than a question of what is being meant by wisdom; but sitting down and thinking through the words will give you a message that is as clear as day and yet ignored by most of the world! God gave us wisdom so that we could get to know Him; but instead of using that wisdom to seek out God we used that wisdom to create foolishness that would cause the wisdom to be used to try and discern what was being meant. We have used our so called intelligence to create nothing more than foolishness that will hide the truth from the world.

So what has God done? God has given us the most foolish manner in which to try and tell others of the truth – the act of speaking! When we look at the amount of information that can be transferred around the world in the blink of an eye via all manner of telecommunication devices we may well look at talking as the most foolish thing we have; and yet God has chosen that media to communicate His Word to others. Then we have the differences in cultures and languages which renders that medium obsolete in anything other than local groups... Yet God continues to make sure that His Word reaches all parts of the world!

We tell others of the gospel and tell them of creation and Christ’s birth and death – what we get in return is people who mock us and laugh at the things we speak of because they are so tied up in the foolishness created by the world that they cannot see the wood from the trees. No matter what language we speak, the truth is the truth and there is nothing that can change that truth. Our imaginations can come up with all manner of things but would never be able to conceive of anything as elaborate as Christ’s ministry and method of Salvation for us all that could be told via the oldest medium on our planet.

Points to Ponder:
What was or is your best subject?

How will you tell others of Christ today?