Monday Reading: Psalms 18 1-3 & Psalms 18 46
 
Key Verse: Psalms 18 46
46  The LORD liveth; and blessed be my rock; and let the God of my salvation be exalted.
 
Devotion:
When our Pastor brought these words to us yesterday it triggered all sorts of memories about a youth camp we had a few years ago where we sung a song based on Psalms 18. “I will call upon The LORD, who is worthy to be praised, so shall I be saved from my enemies. The LORD liveth; and blessed be my rock, and let the God of my salvation be exalted!” We certainly do need to remember just how much God has done for each one of us and we need to constantly lift His name up for blessing us in so many ways. It is not just the seen but the unseen that we need to remember. It is not just those scary times that He saved us from because He has other plans for us but those precious times that He has given us to help strengthen our souls.

I praise God for giving me the people I have round me today as we start a week of holiday bible club at Faith Baptist Church. We certainly do need to praise Him for giving us the opportunity to work for Him and to have the privilege of introducing these young children to Him through His Word. I know that we are but sowing the seeds this week, but without these seeds being sown we will not have a harvest tomorrow – and He has given us that privilege today!

It always seems like a rough few weeks each time we come up to camp weeks because we have to sort out so many things and people are on edge because they want everything to “happen right” but God is the one who is in control and He is the one we need to depend on. He has never let us down so far and He is certainly not going to when we are bring children His Word. Christ is the one who said the disciples must not prevent the children from coming to Him because they are the future of our church body. They need Him now so that He can prepare them for their life with Him just as we live with Him now.

Points to Ponder:
Are you ready to show other people God today?

Praise Him for these opportunities!

Sunday Reading: Psalms 31 3
 
Key Verse: Psalms 31 3
3  For You are my rock and my fortress; and for Your name's sake lead me and guide me.

Devotion:
When king David prayed he would always mention the things that he knew about God. This Psalms starts with him thanking God for all the things that God had already done for him but in this verse is summed up something that we do often forget. Not only is God our rock and our fortress but He is the one who listens to our prayers. When we do go about praying we should not be selfish with our prayers because that shows God a selfish heart and not a willing and giving heart. What David showed here was a humble heart too.

King David prayed that God would lead him in the best possible way so that God would be glorified. The Lord’s Prayer has these words too “Not my will but yours be done”. God wants us to realise that we are here because of Him and that we need to honour Him in our lives. The best way to find out how we can honour Him is to allow Him to guide us in our lives. Beating someone into submission is one way that you can get them to do your will, but God would rather lead us forward willingly so that we will be able to glorify Him in every step of our walk – that means the walk in public life as well as the walk with Him at home.

Our life should not be lead so that we can build up the best possible store of treasure but that we can glorify God through everything that we do. What use is a treasure if we are not able to show it off because we have not lifted up Christ instead of our treasure? The treasures we should be building up are those that allow others to see that we are lifting up our awesome God! When we think about all that Christ has done for us we should have no problem in dedicating our lives to Him through living for Him and with Him each and every day. We should have no problems with building Him up and knowing that us showing Him love will do more than any treasure that He can give us now or later...

Points to Ponder:
What treasure are you building up?

Are you building God up or your treasure?

Saturday Reading: John 4 10
 
Key Verse: John 4 10
10  Jesus answered and said to her, If you knew the gift of God, and who it is that says to you, Give Me to drink, you would have asked of Him, and He would have given you living water.

Devotion:
When was the last time that you had a serious talk with someone? We have chats with other people all the time and most of the time it does not boil down to much, but every now and again we need to have a serious talk with someone in order to straighten things out. That is part of having a meaningful relationship with someone... So why should our relationship with Christ be any different? We need to be able to have our regular talks with Christ because He wants us to keep in contact with Him constantly – but now and again we have to sit down and have a serious conversation with Him too.

The woman at the well did not know that her time had just come up to have that serious conversation but Christ made it possible. Our relationship with Christ must be honest and open but it must also have its serious side as well because we have to know that He is Holy and Just. It is no good just joking with someone all the time because that would never make for anything more than a ‘joke’ for a relationship. Christ is the same; we need to take Him seriously because He is trying to teach us the truth about God.

When we come to Him we must always remember that He is the Son of God. He is God. That means that He is Holy. That means that we must act in a suitable manner before Him. If you were treated as a joke in someone else’s life you would probably grow tired of that very quickly – why should God be any different? Christ wants us to bring all our prayers and requests to Him because He wants to be able to please us – but don’t make a joke out of it! Christ does not want us to hold back from talking to Him and He continues to talk to us through His Word... So are you just chatting to Him and ignoring the responses, or are you sitting down and reading through the responses to your questions in life that He has already given you?

Points to Ponder:
Do you ever act seriously?

Are you ignoring God’s Word?

Friday Reading: James 4 1-4

Key Verse: James 4 1
1  From whence come wars and fighting’s among you? Come they not hence, even of your lusts that war in your members?

Devotion:
It never seems right to have to tell someone that they are doing something wrong because we should all be able to get along and do things right. But it is because we do do things wrong that others will get upset with us. The more that we do wrong the more they get upset until we have whole countries fighting with each other because of some small thing that someone did wrong to start with! But what made it all get out of hand, what was it that stopped someone from taking a step back and saying “hold on, I think we have got it wrong here?”

You may think that that is one of the age old questions that man is still yet to learn the answer for but the answer has always been written down here in our bibles. The answer is that man is lustful. Man always wants more than what he can lay his hands on. The more he gets the more he wants. This does not just apply to money but to almost everything in life and it is because of that lust that man gets tied up and pulled down. That lust starts as something small in each one of us and grows as we feed it, the more we feed it the more it grows until it consumes us and spills out onto everyone else.

We may think of the modern world as being miles apart from the days of the disciples but if truth be told the only thing we have done is to make our lusts more prominent and more visible. The lusts have always been there and will continue to be fed by the evil one so that we will wander away from Christ. It is those things that spill over to create friction and eventually wars. Christ is the author of peace. Satan is the author of evil. We need to follow on in Christ’s example before we fall at Satan’s feet...

Points to Ponder:
How good are you?

Are you falling for the wrong one?