Wednesday Reading: Psalms 89 34-35
 
Key Verse: Psalms 89 35
35  Once I have sworn by My holiness that I will not lie to David.

Devotion:
If there is one thing that man will always break it is promises. The more society moves away from God the more we accept lies and broken promises as the normal and the more we find the concept of keeping promises alien. What better way for the evil one to break down our belief in God than to break down the foundation that Christ stands for! God is holy and God will not change and will not lie.

I could stop there and hope that you realise just how important a statement that is but I fear that it would be lost in the lies that swim round in our minds all the time. It may not be our lies but the people around us that are affecting us with their lies. It may be that we try to tell the truth and find it hard when people lie to us. It may be that we actually are hurt by people who do lie to us. So imagine how God must feel when we lie to Him always. Every time we bend the truth or tell a lie we are doing so to God’s people because we are all His people. When we lie it is like we are asking God to ignore our sin.

God only has to say it once. He said that He would not lie to David once. That is all it should take. We should not have to say that we swear that we will not tell a lie and that we swear on whatever... We should simply be telling the truth, up front and out in the open. That is all that God requires of us. Once we start to bury a lie we have to dig a bigger hole to have stuff to cover that lie with. Once we dig the hole we have to dig another to have something to cover that hole with. It is much like a rubbish tip. We may be able to cover the rubbish with a lot of soil and plant grass or other things on top of it but the fact still remains that there is a whole lot of rubbish there and if we treat that area as anything else than a rubbish tip we are asking for trouble... Our lives have to be based on the truth so that people will be able to trust us. If we live our lives like the people around us then how are we going to stand out from the crowd and show others that we are Christians? We need to stand up for Christ and show that we are willing to live up to His ways and His name.

Points to Ponder:
Do you lie?
 
How often do you lie to God?

Tuesday Reading: John 6 28-35
 
Key Verse: John 6 35
35  And Jesus said to them, I am the bread of life. He who comes to Me shall never hunger, and he who believes on Me shall never thirst.

Devotion:
When someone tells us of something we always look for proof that they are telling us the truth. I can remember the day when I was rung and told that an aeroplane had flown into one of the twin towers; I had to look for proof on the internet because I did not want to believe it. We are just like that. When we are given news that will change our lives or news that we don’t want to believe or find it hard to believe, then we need proof. If we were taught one thing all of our lives and then someone came along and disputed what we had been taught, we would want proof.

It is a sad thing that so many people will not get to be told the truth about the Word of God because the people that teach them do not know the truth themselves. We have teachers being assigned to teach about Christianity as if it were just another religion in schools whereas if the teachers just knew the truth they would be able to pass on that truth. Governments are not allowing teachers to teach from their hearts when they do know the truth but instead bend over backwards to accommodate other religions in favour of Christianity – after all, why should they be held back from doing wrong when the rest of the world wants to do wrong?

It is a sad attitude that we find the world has today about God’s Word. It is more so because people are no longer getting to hear the truth and so when someone does bear the truth they ask for physical proof because they cannot believe it. Jesus knows about all these problems that we face today and He is willing and able to stand by us to allow us to tell that truth as soon as we can. He wants His Word to go out to everyone and we are the ones that have to stand up and tell others. We are the ones that have to spread the truth and He is the one that will convict them. We are His spokesmen and we need to speak up!

Points to Ponder:
What were you taught about God in school?

Do you seek the truth through the bible?

Monday Reading: 2 Thessalonians 3 3-5
 
Key Verse: 2 Thessalonians 3 5
5  And may the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God, and into the patience of Christ.
 
Devotion:
No matter how close you get to nature and no matter how much you can say that you are one with nature, you will not get any closer to God unless you follow His will in your life. God commands us to have Him as first and foremost in our lives and He does that for a very good reason. As soon as we start to look at other things in our life then our lives start to move in that direction and away from God. The only way to be God centred in our lives is to have Him at the centre of our lives; which means putting aside all manner of things that we take for granted and things that we look for.

It may not seem like the evil one is doing anything in your life because you may be leading a life that is about as far as you could imagine from being evil. But the fact is that he is going to use just about anything and everything to detract you from God and from doing God’s will in your life. All those ‘good’ and enjoyable things may be the very things that weaken your resolve with God because they may be the things that take you mind off of God.

We need to examine our lives closely and make sure that what we let in is not centred around enjoyment and self fulfilment but more around God. We need to make sure that we do follow His Word constantly so that we can have Him direct our hearts towards God and towards His love. Too many times in our lives we look upon enjoyment rather than upon God’s love and His ways. If we genuinely follow God’s ways and focus on Him them He will bring enjoyment into our lives, but that enjoyment that He brings will not detract us in any way from Him and from His Word. If anything it will focus us more on Him. Those will be the things that we can focus on and keep forever because those are the things that He has given us rather than the things we seek instead of Him.

Points to Ponder:
What do you seek?

Is your search God centred?

Sunday Reading: James 5 7-8
 
Key Verse: James 5 8
8  You also be patient, establish your hearts, for the coming of your Lord draws near.

Devotion:
I don’t know if you have ever tried to grown anything but whatever you try to grow it’s not going to happen instantly. I can remember growing a bean as a small child and marvelling that such a huge plant could come from such a small seed and to be able to see the difference each day as well. But in order for that bean to be able to grow you had to water it because without that water it would very soon shrivel up and die. As you get through school and study plants under the microscope you begin to see just how much of a plant is actually water and then realise why it depends on that water so much.

Besides the water, patience is something you need when you try to grow anything. When we are growing up we long to be ‘big’ when we are small and the older you get the more you want to be small again. But you also learn that time does not stop or shift for any of us. We live within time and we must put up with the fact that time will continue passing and will eventually run out. But just as we think that we have plenty of time to do anything we also find out that we do run out of time for many things in life. When we have run out there is no going back and grabbing that time again because it is simply too late.

God wants us to be sure that we do understand time and then to realise that we are running out of time as each second passes by. We do not know when Christ is going to return but we can be sure that it will happen. And when that moment passes we would either have been ready or we would not have. God wants us to establish our hearts within His love so that we can be sure that we are ready for His return and that we will not find out in one heart-stopping moment that it is suddenly too late! We need patience to wait until that time but we also need to make sure that we nourish our souls constantly so that when that time does come be will be good to go as well!

Points to Ponder:
How long do you have to live?

What is Christ came in two minutes time?