Sunday 6 Mar 2011

Sunday Reading: Psalms 25 20-21

Key Verse: Psalms 25 21
21  Let purity and uprightness keep me; for I wait on You.

Devotion:
Have you ever wanted to just say something to someone? I’m talking about the things that you may think but would never say out loud; those things that build up in your mind but you never say them out loud. Well, what would happen if you were to say them out loud? Now think on the words that David spoke to his son Solomon (1 Chronicles 28 9  And you, Solomon my son, know the God of your father and serve Him with a perfect heart and with a willing mind. For The Lord searches all hearts and understands all the imaginations of the thoughts. If you seek Him, He will be found by you. But if you forsake Him, He will cast you off forever.)

You see, those thoughts that we try to keep in our minds, those ones that we bury deep so that nobody else will reach them – those are the very same ones that God listens to because those are the ones that make up the real you! You can try to hide your thoughts from people so that they will think of you in a different light but you cannot hide anything from your God! David found this out on many occasions and we will find it out pretty quickly too when we start to take notice of what God is doing in our lives!

God wants our minds to be focused on the good things in life because that way we will be more willing to listen to the good things in life too. If we are soaked up in all the rotten stuff that surrounds us then that is all we are going to hear when we listen. But if we are willing to cast aside those impure things then we will be able to hear the pure Word of God! God is not going to come at you like a charging bull, nor as a screaming kamikaze pilot but rather as a silent friend who is just always there. God wants you to be honest with Him so that He can guide you properly. If you have deep thoughts on your mind then make sure that you do talk to God about them and not try and hide them anymore because they will eat at your soul more than you realise. God would rather we allow Him to work in our lives than the evil one...

Points to Ponder:
What is going through your head right now?

Are you being honest with God?

Saturday 5 Mar 2011

Saturday Reading: Psalms 116 1-6

Key Verse: Psalms 116 6
6  The LORD keeps the simple; I was brought low, and He helped me.

Devotion:
Though I may like to know more about the bible and about the intricacies of how it was put together and the sources from which it was collated, I know that God is in it and with it. Man may try desperately to usurp God’s Word and he may try all manner of things to prove that he is as good as or better than God’s Word but he will continually fail. You see, no matter how clever we think we are, we are simply nothing compared to God!

But we are not here to argue about whether we are clever or learned but rather to acknowledge that God still supports us no matter how thick we are! I learn every day from reading God’s Word. I learn every day from listening to others speak about God. I open myself to be taught by God because I acknowledge Him as master of all. Our schools and classrooms may be full of rebels that do not want to learn, but we can still learn there because there is someone willing to teach. When we reach the stage of finding that there is nobody left willing to teach, then we are in trouble!

God helps everybody. Not just those that have spent their lives learning from His Word but even the person who has just picked up the bible for the first time; God wants us all to know the truth. Early churches may have secured the bible so that the common people could not gain ready access to it, but God found a way to release His Word to the masses. Man may try to hide God by getting rid of Christians, but God will find a way of making sure that even they do get to hear the truth. We all will face Christ eventually. I would rather face Him as my friend than as an enemy! He brought me down to my knees so that I could learn from Him instead of from this corrupt world. I now know that He is holding me up and has been doing so right from the beginning. I praise God for His grace for saving me, a rebel! I praise God for His mercy for forgiving me, a sinner! I praise God for helping me, a fool!

Points to Ponder:
What do you learn from?

Are you listening to God?

Friday 4 Mar 2011

Friday Reading: Psalms 18 1-3

Key Verse: Psalms 18 1
1  I love You, O LORD, my strength.

Devotion:
Has there ever been someone in your life that you really loved? I’m not talking about the lustful feelings we have for someone that is drop dead gorgeous but those feelings you have for someone that run from the depths of your soul... When we find those feelings for someone they will not be blotted out by time, they will not be changed by circumstance, they will not be removed by death; those feelings are real and true and will always stand the test of time.

God has given us that ability to love someone without fault. That love that does not depend on hope as to whether they love you but simply ‘is’ and will always ‘be’. We do not need to hope in that love because we just know it. That love begins to show us just how much Christ loves us... If we do not yet love Christ in this manner then we have a long way to go still.

David was a man who grew up from humble beginnings to be King. He was a man who had all manner of things happen to him in his life. But throughout all of this his one thought was that he knew that God loved him and that he loved God. When push came to shove and everything started to crumble around him he always knew that God was still standing by him. He always knew Gods love because he could see the evidence of it each and every day. He always knew that he loved God because his guilt would catch up to him every time he did something against God. Just because we love someone that much does not always mean that we will get it right all the time – we are human and we make mistakes (us guys seemingly more than most). We are led astray by our desires and by the trappings of the evil one but throughout all of this Christ’s love for us will continue to remain firm. With that knowledge and the love that He gives us we can grow safe in the knowledge that the love that we show for Him will be multiplied and never ignored. Praise God for His wonderful love!

Points to Ponder:
Do you love someone?

How deep is your love for God?

Thursday 3 Mar 2011

Thursday Reading: Psalms 31 12-14

Key Verse: Psalms 31 14
14  But I trusted in You, O LORD; I said, You are my God. 

Devotion:
How often have people said something about you that you did not like? How often have people upset you through things that have said just because they did not know what was actually going on? How often have you been brought to tears through what people have said? It is so sad that we can probably all answer a number to each of these questions just because something has happened to us. Sometimes it is those close to us that have said the wrong thing and sometimes we just don’t want anyone to know what is wrong so we try to hide things. But at what cost?

People will say “sticks and stone may break my bones but words will never harm me” but when we look at the actual truth, it is the words that eat away at our souls and not the stick and stones. The physical may well hurt us and may well stop us from doing things, but it is the words that come from other peoples mouths that cut us to the quick. I am not making a plea for comfort here because I am in the fortunate position of enjoying life at the moment, but my heart goes out to those around me who I see being hurt by careless words from others.

It is easy to say that we need to get comfort from someone or something and enjoying comforting words from someone else can help but those original words are the ones who have set the rot in and that rot will not vanish overnight unless we can have someone who will comfort us more than that rot harms us. Personally I do not know anyone like that apart from Christ. I always used to go to my mother for comfort before she went to be at home with Christ but she always taught me that God was always there even when she could not be. God is God. He is all powerful and all knowing but He still cares for you. He still watches out for little old me. Our Awesome God is the one who cares more than anyone what happens to us. Allow Him to comfort you the way He wants to!

Points to Ponder:
Are you hurting?

Are you trusting Christ?

Wednesday 2 Mar 2011

Wednesday Reading: Acts 4 4

Key Verse: Acts 4 4
4  But many of those who heard the Word believed; and the number of the men was about five thousand.

Devotion:
Some of you may be wondering why I left this verse out of the reading yesterday and the answer is simple. We all do face uphill struggles and some of those do seem to be bigger than we can handle, but there is always an ‘upside’ from those ‘downsides’ and this is the ‘upside’ from all the hassle that we must face as Christians; the fact that God is glorified and that people get to hear and know the truth!

If I, as a youth worker, have to work the rest of my life so that just one more person can come to know Christ, then that is my lot that Christ has given me. For that I would be grateful because I know that what I would be doing would be for God’s glory. Who am I to think that I should know better than God? Who am I to think that I should be able to change my destiny... but that is where there is something pretty incredible in that Christ has given us the choice of free will. He has given us the choice as to whether we actually believe in Him to start with and whether we want Him in our lives or not. He has allowed us, as flawed as we are, to make that life altering choice as to whether we should follow Him or choose our own destiny.

So many people turn round and say that they would rather choose their own destiny because they think they know best. Then they slowly but surely find out that life is not all it is made out to be because people out there are not all fair and not all honest! It takes a brave person to stand up against the world, but it takes a fool to stand up against God. We do have that choice but in order to make the most informed choice we can we do need to know the truth – that means doing a bit of digging and seeing what the choices actually are because most of our choices are dressed up to be nothing like the reality they hide. Be careful but seek the truth.

Points to Ponder:
Do you like choices?

Do you know what your choices actually are?