Wednesday 16 Mar 2011

Wednesday Reading: Acts 26 27-29

Key Verse: Acts 26 29
29  And Paul said, I would pray to God, both in a little and in much, that not only you, but also all hearing me today to become as I also am, except for these bonds.

Devotion:
At what stage do you stop witnessing to others? At what stage do you say that enough is enough and go your own way? Well, if we ever start to think that we should be giving up our work for Christ then we need to take a leaf out of Paul’s book because he did not give up in God’s Work once he had started. He was as earnest and dedicated in his work for God as he was in his work against God before he got to know God and one of the things that he reminds us of is that God loved him whilst he was even working against God!

Our aim should be to spread God’s Word to as many people as possible but to do it in a manner in which Christ would be glorified and not condemned. I cringe at some of the ways in which people try to witness to others thinking that the way they are going about things should surely paint a dim view of our God rather than glorifying Him. We do this work for God and not for ourselves. We do this work because God would have us to do it and not because we need to build ourselves up in any manner.

Paul was earnest in his spreading of God’s Word. He did not rub people up the wrong way just to get a reaction from them. He did not break people down so they had nowhere else to turn. It is not our job to judge people in any way but to introduce the Word of God to them. It is the Holy Spirit who will do the convincing and not ourselves; we must but open up the truth and let it be known. We must give the whole truth so that no doubt can be left. We must show people that we believe this truth to the uttermost and that that is the reason why we bring it to them. How can people not believe the truth when it is given in its own light? We can deliver The Word to their ears but God will deliver it to their hearts because that is what He requires from them and us.

Points to Ponder:
What makes you stop witnessing?

Have you been encouraged by God lately?

Tuesday 15 Mar 2011

Tuesday Reading: John 5 39-42

Key Verse: John 5 42
42  But I know you, that you do not have the love of God in you.

Devotion:
There is a big difference between being a Christian and being religious. I fear that many people will hide behind the bible or their own variant of the bible and say that they believe in a God but do not believe the truth in their own hearts. When Christ described how we must love God it is with our whole heart and soul and mind. That means that we have to make sure that we believe in God’s Word, Jesus Christ and everything that we are taught from our bibles. The Old Testament does not record a different religion to the New Testament; as Jesus describes later in this chapter, the writings of Moses proclaim the truth about Jesus – they are one and the same Word of God.

Just because someone knows the bible inside out does not make them a Christian. Just because they know what to say and when to say it does not mean that they believe those words in their own hearts. We need to make sure that we do believe in God’s Word because it is the solid rock upon which we build our faith. It is no use building our faith on someone else’s say-so or building our faith on what others tell us. Unless we are willing to go back and read God’s Word and make sure that what we are being told is the truth – then should we even believe it?

Jesus Himself made sure that all that He did was perfectly in line with God’s Word because He knew that He was the fulfilment of that Word. We have all of this recorded in scripture so that we can have proof – but in order to prove anything we have to compare it against that proof. I always try to make sure that what I say can be upheld by God’s Word because I never want to cast doubt into anyone’s mind. I know God’s Word as the truth and I believe it as the truth in my heart. I read through it and conclude that it must be the truth because it fills all the gaps that religion and man leave out. My hope is that you all will get to know God’s Word as your truth as well.

Points to Ponder:
What do you base your faith on?

Is your heart set on the truth?

Monday 14 Mar 2011


Monday Reading: John 6 25-29

Key Verse: John 6 29
29  Jesus answered and said to them, This is the work of God, that you believe on Him whom He has sent.

Devotion:
What is it that you do for the Lord? Maybe you spend most of your time doing things for God or maybe you live such a busy life that you hardly have a moment to spare for yourself, never mind God. Well just maybe you are looking at things from the wrong perspective; the world will look very different if you look at it in another way. We spend so much of our time trying to work out how we are going to make ends meet that we tend to leave the important things out of our lives more and more.

When Jesus went to visit Mary and Martha they both looked on their lives in different ways and because of that they acted in very different ways. When we try to do what is best in this world then we are not trying to do what is best for God. Sometimes they do measure up and doing our best in this world will be doing our best for God but that is still looking at it backwards. Our focus needs to be that we do our best for God first because He knows what is best for us in this world and He will make sure that we are then guided toward that task.

I have been thinking about this for a while and came up with the only logical conclusion – just maybe I am not focusing on God enough in my life. Oh I can see all the things that God does for me and I acknowledge that others think that I do so much for Him, but in reality there is still more that we can do. It does not have to be that we stop work and go out and live as a missionary for God – that may not be what He wants us to do. It may be that He just wants more personal time with us when we can then allow our love to grow. Loving God is central to our being, central to our existence. If we being to lose sight of that love then we begin to get a hazy view of our Awesome God. Look God in the face and show Him that you love Him!

Points to Ponder:
How do you express your love?

Do you let God know how much you love Him?


Sunday 13 Mar 2011

Sunday Reading: Colossians 3 1-7

Key Verse: Colossians 3 2
2  Be mindful of things above, not on things on the earth.

Devotion:
One thing that we fight against daily are the trappings of this world; we are surrounded by temptations, sin, immoral acts, strife, vain glory, the list is endless. Unless we are willing to take a step back from these things we will be trapped by them and we will give in to them. It is not just the obvious ones that we think we can ignore but those things around us that trap us into doing things we don’t want to before we can even think about what we have done – those are the ones that we should fear the most because those are the ones that bring us down without our knowledge.

You may turn round and blame so much on other people because you think that they should not have given in or should not have done what they have done but if truth be told we are just as guilty as they are because we have also been there and done things contrary to them before now. That is the world and all its trimmings trapping us before we can think about it; but not just the world but the evil one as well. When we leave God out of our lives then Satan is going to fill that void before we can think of anything to go into that void. Just when we then begin to think that maybe we have found something to fill that void we find that it is already full of junk that should not be there and the task of trying to clean up the mess begins once again.

We need to separate ourselves from these things in the world so that we can fill our lives with God and with Christ. If we already have the Holy Spirit do you not think that He should have some room to work in our lives? If we do want to be raised with Christ in glory then we do have to make sure that we know Christ as our Lord and Saviour before it is too late. Allowing the junk to build up and fill our lives means that we have little or no room for Christ; that means we immediately have a problem – how do we get Christ back in our lives? There is no way that we can empty our lives of all the junk without Christ’s help because we are always surrounded by junk. Ask Christ for His help now and fill your life with Him!

Points to Ponder:
What fills your life?

Does God play any part in your life?

Saturday 12 Mar 2011

Saturday Reading: Romans 5 1

Key Verse: Romans 5 1
1  Therefore being justified by faith, we have peace with God through our Lord Jesus Christ.

Devotion:
It is not the very fact that we have faith that justifies us but rather that we have faith in Jesus Christ our Lord that will then lead to being Justified because we firmly believe that Christ is Just and will carry out His promise to justify us if we believe in Him from our hearts. Did I say that right? Our bibles are full of verses like this that have to be taken in context with what is being said and also to be taken as part of the whole and not as singular self-important sayings.

Many people get carried away with quoting single verses and base so much on them when in fact what we have to do is to take the Word of God and apply the whole of it in order to find the truth of it. And that, to me, is the most special thing about God’s Word; the fact that we can take the whole of it and be convinced that it is all the truth because it is so coherent when taken as a whole. God’s Word is very special and we need to take it in day by day, remembering what we read and studying what we read. It is no use taking a verse and living that day by that verse and then moving on to another verse the next day.

I try to open up the scriptures in these devotions so that each of us can continue to receive the truth and apply it in our own lives. I try to say what God puts in my heart through what He does in my life. I received a postcard today with this verse on it and because it was slightly different wording to what I was used to I read up more on it and began to realise that we do need to study God’s Word as a whole and not just in part. When we do study God’s Word we then do find that He gives us an extraordinary peace with knowing the truth – that peace that nothing else in this world can ever give us. Thank you for my postcard!

Points to Ponder:
What does your faith mean to you?

Do you know what your faith means to God?