Wednesday Reading: Isaiah 53 10
 
Key Verse: Isaiah 53 10
10  Yet it pleased The LORD to crush Him; to grieve Him; that He should put forth His soul as a guilt-offering. He shall see His seed, He shall prolong His days, and the will of The LORD shall prosper in His hand.

Devotion:
When I first read this verse I read it as ‘Yet it pleased the Lord to bruise him,...’ because that is how I know the verse from my King James bible. But after reading it again from the Modern King James version I thought that I needed to stick with this chapter for another day. The impact of Christ’s death on the cross is not something that we will understand fully until we get to see what happens when we do die. Yes we can read all about what death and hell are like but they are just words and somehow they don’t seem real enough for our modern society.

Today we see very graphic illustrations of what things are like with films using all manner of stunts and special effects to give us a very graphic view of death and destruction! Not much is left to the imagination anymore! But after seeing the difference between the wording in the two bible versions I started to think about what Christ has actually done for us. There is no way that anything will ever actually crush Christ because He is God, but that word more aptly describes what He had to endure in going to that cross. Genesis says that His heel would be bruised signifying that in effect that is all the damage that could ever be done – not even death could constrain our Lord and Saviour!

Christ went through all of that because of His love for us. That must speak volumes to us. The fact that He was willing to put up with so much just so that we would not have to face up to the terrible fate that stands at the end of the line for us all until we accept Him as Lord and Saviour. No special effects or stunts could ever aptly describe what hell is going to be like. God does not give us such a terrible and graphic view of it because that would in effect be unfair on us, frightening us into a single choice. He still wants us to love Him, but He wants us to love Him because we want to, not because we have to – that is why He gave it all, so that we could still have our freedom to choose Him!

Points to Ponder:
Would you like to take the blame for what you have done wrong?
 
Are you willing to accept that Christ has done that for you?

Tuesday Reading: Isaiah 53 6
 
Key Verse: Isaiah 53 6
6  All we like sheep have gone astray; we have turned, each one to his own way; and Jehovah has laid on Him the iniquity of us all.

Devotion:
In order to gain peace there has always got to be something that changes or someone that gets the rough end of the deal. We make deals with others in order to keep the peace with some people gaining and some people losing out. But how many people are willing to give up absolutely everything just so that someone else can have peace? It would be a tough decision to be able to make to give up everything that you have just so that someone else can have what you used to have. It would be a tough call to make especially if we knew that the person who was going to gain from this was one of the people that were doing wrong to us.

But that is exactly what Christ has done for us. He, the very one who has done nothing wrong, took the blame for every single thing that we have done wrong. He took the blame for those lies that we told, for those indiscretions, for those evil deeds, for that hurt we have caused... all of that was taken off of our shoulders by Christ Himself. He was the one that willingly said to the world “here I am, take me instead”.

That is always a hard thing to come to terms with, that someone would willingly take the blame when they knew that we were to blame. He did not lie to the world and say that He had done it all – that is our way of taking the blame. Instead He said blame me because I don’t want you to have to take the blame. Each day we turn aside from God. Each day we make another mistake. Each day God is willing to forgive and forget. Each day is a new beginning, one where we can start afresh and aim to live for Him. Each day we can put aside what we did wrong yesterday and aim to do it right today. Each day His absolute love for us shines through. Each day, all we need do is accept that love into our lives...

Points to Ponder:
Do you start afresh each day?

Do you keep Him first each day?

Monday Reading: Psalms 119 161-168
 
Key Verse: Psalms 119 165
165  Great peace is to those who love Your Law, and there is no stumbling block for them.
 
Devotion:
Have you ever been into someone’s home or place of work and felt immediately on edge, or maybe the exact opposite and felt totally at ease and wanted to stay on? The world if full of different types of people and each person is probably going to make you feel very different; whether it is you just not liking what they do or whether there is something more working in the background, we do tend to make up our minds pretty quickly about others. And sometimes we do get things wrong where we think one thing and then refuse to believe anything else until it slaps us in the face – not always literally but it has been known to happen!

One thing I know that you will notice is that when you are amongst other Christians you will always feel at ease. You may well feel nervous about meeting some people because you think of them as giants in comparison to you but God is the great leveller. If we are willing to trust in Him and His guidance then we should be able to face anyone without fear because God alone is the one that we need to fear. As long as you recognise that the people you are with fear God then you will feel at ease with them knowing that their focus is on your King too.

The one thing that I have learned over the years is that the people who I feel most at ease with are the people who hold up God’s Word above all. The more that I learn from His Word the more that I realise that there are too many people giving in to worldly ways rather than sticking to God’s Laws; that immediately puts me on edge.

I thank God that He is the one who has surrounded me with people who want to lift up Christ instead of the world. I thank Him every day that the wonderful people that He has allowed me to meet can remain my precious friends. What peace He gives me each day with the loving people He surrounds me with.

Points to Ponder:
Who do you like being with?

Do you take God with you too?

Sunday Reading: Isaiah 48 17-19
 
Key Verse: Isaiah 48 18
18  Oh that you had paid attention to My commandments! Then your peace would have been like a river, and your righteousness like the waves of the sea.

Devotion:
How many times have you done something wrong only to think or say out loud “if only I had listened”? Well, you certainly would not be alone because I’m pretty sure that we have all been there because that is our very nature. Right from when we are young through to a good age we are always going off and doing things because we think that should be the way things are done, not because it is right but because we think so. Those are the times when we often fall flat on our faces because we have left God out of our lives. We don’t see it as that in the beginning because we think of it as a learning curve and put it down to experience – but if only we had listened in the beginning things would have been a whole lot better.

Isaiah describes it like a peaceful river – there is nothing more peaceful to me that a stretch of water that is calm or flowing gently in natural surroundings. Imagine if your life would be as peaceful as a river? You may say “but that would be no fun” and that is where you would be wrong. We don’t have to fall off the edge of a cliff to make things fun. We don’t have to plunge into the deep to see what will happen because there are so many thing in our lives that we could have fun with without getting into trouble – we just chose not to go there.

God is the one who does know best in our lives. He is the one that has designed each one of us the way that we are. So long as we are then willing to listen to Him and to try and be used for the purpose that He has made us for, then we are going to have all the fun that we have been designed for. Trying to find your way back towards that fun after you have jumped off a cliff is not going to be easy – making your way towards that when God say the time is right will be straight forward. But with His help we can get back on track by simply listening and learning...

Points to Ponder:
Are you living your own life?

How much are you willing to learn from God each day?