Saturday Reading: Psalms 4 6-8
 
Key Verse: Psalms 4 8
8  I will lie down, both in peace and in sleep. For You alone, LORD, make me dwell in safety.

Devotion:
We all go out with the outlook of being able to find good things and good people but most of the time we return in the knowledge that what we have found is just more people, people who are sinners, just like all the others we know, just like us. That is when you begin to realise just how much God has to put up with each and every day. We then start to search for good things and search in all manner of ways and in all areas once again coming up short because we do not find that good – that is until we seek out God and His ways.

Nothings will ever match God’s ways and God’s goodness towards us. Nothing will ever match the love that God has for us and nothing can prepare us for the realisation when we first realise how much God loves us. We can get so discouraged by what happens to other people or what happens to us that we often forget just who is in charge of this earth. We get so side tracked by the things around us that we forget that God is still in charge. He is the goodness behind everything and He alone will always show you the best. If we are seeking peace and rest then we will not find it in anything other than in God’s hands.

Sometimes we think that He does not answer us in time. Sometimes we are just in too much of a rush to get things done and we go ahead without God breaking things whilst He is trying to fix them. No matter how much we gain on earth we will never gain lasting happiness until we find God or more to the point until we accept Him into our lives because He has already found us. Nothing on earth will ever replace the love of God. With that in mind we need to remember that we should never seek to replace God with anything because nothing and nobody can replace Him. God is our strength and our future – the only future worth seeking.

Points to Ponder:
What do you seek in life?

Are you happy with God?

Friday Reading: Psalms 39 11

Key Verse: Psalms 39 11
11  You correct a man for iniquity with rebukes, and you make his desires vanish away like a moth. Surely every man is vanity. Selah.

Devotion:
The more that we think about God and all that He is able to do the more insignificant we begin to realise that we are. But the more that we realise that the more we have to think about why Christ willingly laid down His life for us. Why would such an awesome and incredible God lay down His life just for little old insignificant me? That is the enormity of His love for us!

But love is not going to be a bed of roses because with love comes correction. Christ will make sure that when we do do things wrong we will get to know that we are doing things wrong and He will encourage us to get those things right again. This may well be in the form of a rebuke or even something we think is just going wrong – but when we step back and look at what has happened we see why He has allowed things to happen to us. Those are the time we need to remember just how much God loves us because He is doing this so that we can correct ourselves before we fall deep in a pit that we may not be able to get out of. He will often do that when we have got the people around us that we love the most so that we can always find comfort...

When we have desires and wants that He thinks are not right for us then He is the one who will steer us away from those desires and wants. He is the one who will show us where we should be headed instead of us running blind and hoping for the best. He is the one who is constantly trying to talk to us and we are the ones who need to listen to Him. When we compare our world with what God wants in our world we see a whole different picture. When we begin to realise just what He wants of us then we need to move towards that goal because the longer we put it off the longer He will send things our way to try and remind us of what we should be doing. God is not bound by time so He will never give up!

Points to Ponder:
What do you want to do with your future?

What does God want you to do?

Thursday Reading: 1 Timothy 1 12-17
 
Key Verse: 1 Timothy 1 15
15  Faithful is the Word and worthy of all acceptance, that Christ Jesus came into the world to save sinners, of whom I am chief.

Devotion:
I thank God daily that He alone is the one that strengthens me from the inside. I thank Him that He is the one that is able to lift me up from any doldrums that I may jump into and that He is the one who saw it fit to allow His Son to pay for my sins. You know, we don’t have to look too far back in our lives to realise that what we do sin so much in our lives and we do have a real big debt that we should be paying for. I’m not talking about the so called ‘big’ sins that some have committed such as murder but those equally bad (in God’s eyes) sins that we commit in our minds, in our thoughts and even in our hearts.

There is nothing that is hid from God because He knows exactly what we are doing. There is nothing that we can hide from our creator because He does know everything. So the fact that He does know everything about us and what we are up to should make us very weary of the fact that He knows every one of our sins – and yet we continue in our sins even after getting to know Him. That is just one of our weaknesses. We give in to some sins because we think that they are not so bad or we try to justify them in some way so that we can sin – but sinning is exactly what we are doing...

But we have a totally awesome God who has given us a way that we can bring our sins to Him and ask Him to forgive us. In that same manner He has promised us to forgive us of those sins if we are sincere, honest and humble. For that fact we should and must lift Him up above everything in our lives and proclaim Him our eternal King and God. The fact that He sees everything we do should not worry us. The fact that He forgives us when we ask should not make us complacent. The fact that He has seen fit to do this all before we even knew Him must make us stand in awe of our wonderful, merciful God who we can approach through Jesus Christ His Son!

Points to Ponder:
What are you up to?

Do you stand in awe of God?

Wednesday Reading: John 10 9

Key Verse: John 10 9
9  I am the door. If anyone enters in by Me, he shall be saved and shall go in and out and find pasture.

Devotion:
How many times have you been told to use a certain door to enter a house or building and found that that was the door that was locked! I’m sure quite a few of us have even locked ourselves out of our house or car at some stage as well – what a horrible feeling that is, being locked out of your own property! What would you think it would be like if you saw someone else going in through a door but when you tried it it was locked? That would probably get you down more than if you knew that you had locked the door by accident!

We can be really thankful that we have an open door through which we can gain eternal life. Not only is that door always open but it is open to anyone who is willing to call upon Christ as their Lord and Saviour! That door is the door to eternal life with God, with Jesus and with the Holy Spirit. That door is but one door. When we go to a cinema or other large building we normally find that we can enter in through a few doors and can exit through many more doors in case of an emergency. So imagine the largest building that you can and imagine that it only has one door... and every time you tried that door it was locked just because they knew that you had taken a pencil without asking...

God does not want you to be the only one who is locked out just because you have broken one of His commandments. God does not want anyone to be excluded just because they think they are bad people. That is why Jesus Christ came to earth, so that we may find a door that is always open, one that we will always be able to use to enter into a life with Him. Once we do enter into that life we can know that it is safe and secure and that no matter what we do we are always in His safe hands. That is not to say that we will never have any accidents any more... rather our souls are eternally safe with Him because He has promised to keep them from that moment that we trust Him as our Lord and Saviour. That open door is an eternal door. That open door is Jesus Christ.

Points to Ponder:
What is the worst lock-out you have had?
 
What would you do if you found out that the building was going to be locked down forever and you had not made it in?