Wednesday Reading: Psalms 91 11-16
 
Key Verse: Psalms 91 11
11  For He shall give His angels charge over You, to keep You in all Your ways.

Devotion:
It is a fallacy to say that if we are Christians that nothing will hurt us because the first thing that you will find when you become a Christians is that the world is against you and it will seem like it is out to hurt you. But when you do become a Christian you are filled with a new hope, a hope that is much better than anything that the earth can throw at you. That hope is Christ Jesus and that hope is our eternal Salvation. So when you suddenly find that things are not going as planned, do not despair because it is happening for a good reason.

We will not understand why some things happen in our lives. We will not understand why we have to put up with so many things when we know that Christ could lift us up over everything and not allow us to be hurt at all – but what use would that be? What use would we be is we never had to face any danger or temptation? We would probably start to wonder what it is all about and lose track of where we should be heading. We would probably become lazy and not worry about what we let into our lives – what would people on the outside think of us then as we let all manner of garbage into our lives?

No, God allows us to face adversities. He allows us to face temptations. He allows us to face what we may think are terrible times... But each thing that comes our way is for a reason unbeknownst to us. Each thing that God allows into our lives is coming our way to build us up into a better Christian, one more suited for working for Him, one more suited to face worldly things with a strength that only He can give us. We will live as long as Christ wants us to work for Him. As long as we have a purpose to serve Christ in some way, He will continue to lift us up. Even in death we may be used to encourage others and to let others know just how awesome our God really is!

Points to Ponder:
Do you think life is rough?
 
Have you thought about what Christ went through lately?

Tuesday Reading: 2 Kings 6 14-17
 
Key Verse: 2 Kings 6 17
17  And Elisha prayed and said, I pray You, Jehovah, open his eyes so that he may see. And Jehovah opened the eyes of the young man, and he saw. And behold, the mountain was full of horses and chariots of fire round about Elisha.

Devotion:
How often have you felt that you had nowhere to go or that you were cornered with no way out? How many times have you felt as though you had come to the end of the line? So many times we do feel like we have done all we can and we just don’t know where to turn or what to do. I would ask you to put one more question to yourself... Have you got this far because you have tried to do things by yourself?

When we find that we have reached the end we are normally there because we have tried. We often think that we have the means and the wisdom to do all manner of things only to be tripped up when we find that someone else has thought of a lot more than we have and has beaten us to the post. We like to think that we have covered all the bases but too many things distract us and take us off the bases only for them to be stolen from before us. Life is not as easy as you think... Man has set computers to try and solve the world’s scientific enigmas and intricacies only to find that there is just not enough computing power and knowledge to be able to do the task. Man has set himself the task of trying to solve many things that God has simply spoken into existence – we are certainly not gods!

When we are faced with spiritual or physical dangers we get scared because we do not know the outcome. When we get scared our bodies are designed to produce more chemicals which will allow us to think a bit quicker and even act quicker – what an awesome design! But God has given us so much more than just our physical bodies because He has given us the wisdom to find the truth – it is only our own desires that keep us away from seeking Him all the time. Elisha showed his servant just how much God cares for each one of us by asking God to allow him to see just how much protection He does offer us all the time. Depend on it. Depend on God!

Points to Ponder:
What do you do when nothing else works?

Are you keeping God in the loop?

Monday Reading: Job 19 22-27
 
Key Verse: Job 19 25
25  For I know that my Redeemer lives, and He shall rise on the earth at the last;
 
Devotion:
When we get to hear about other people’s troubles and woes we do tend to feel sorry for them; even when they are our enemy we do not like to see bad things happen to them. (And if we don’t think like that then we should be!) When Job faced so many trials he continued to wonder why these things were happening to him. He knew that nothing had changed from his side in his relationship with God because he continued to know that God was the one in charge and that he would one day get to see Him face to face. What a wonderful outlook to have – I don’t care what happens to me along the way because I know that I will see Christ face to face one day!

Job may have sounded like he was complaining about his own life and about everything that was going wrong with him – and his friends picked up on that and pushed him to the edge saying that he was the one that was wrong and nothing else. But Job knew that something else had changed. Job also wanted others to see that His faith was not in question; he wanted others to know that he still loved God, no matter what! He wanted those thoughts to be written down on stone so that others would remember that too – and how God answered those thoughts by making sure that they were included in our bibles nowadays!

Job’s outlook was bleak from his point of view. He could not see anything on the horizon that would change his earthly position – but he always knew that his heavenly outlook continued to be perfect in God. He knew it was about faith and not about works. He knew that what he had done was good works but also that he had been dealt a bitter blow that God had allowed into his life. That was the part that he could not come to grips with... but he never turned his back on God and wanted everyone to continue in God’s grip too.

Points to Ponder:
Do you feel down?

Are you looking towards heaven or down at earthly things?

Sunday Reading: Matthew 26 49-53
 
Key Verse: Matthew 26 53
53  Do you think that I cannot now pray to My Father, and He shall presently give Me more than twelve legions of angels?

Devotion:
When things do not go our own way around us we tend to start doing some strange things to try and get order back into our disorder. When something comes along that changes your life it is hard to get things back into order because your life has now changed. But one thing that has not changed and that will never change is God; He has always been there, will always be there and is there right now. He continues to love us no matter what happens in our lives and no matter what we do get up to – yes we do upset Him with some of the strange things we get up to but His love for us never fails.

When all we can see around us is the treachery of the world then we need to focus on something that will bring us “back to earth” and allow us to get normality back into our lives. God is the only constant and therefore should be what we turn and focus on because we can know that He will always be the same. When we do focus on the unchanging we can then think about how much the world around us has changed and how we can get order back into disorder.

Christ continued to focus on God The Father throughout His life. He continued to obey God and continued to make sure that everyone knew that too. He tried to bring order into the disorder of the lives around Him by bringing a constant into their lives that they could focus on. Just because Christ is back in heaven does not mean that we cannot focus on God anymore. We now have a more sure prophecy that we can focus on and that is what we need. Christ stopped His disciples from doing stupid things and made them focus on God by turning to God Himself. With Him as our example we can move forward and onward.

Points to Ponder:
What is the constant in your life?

Are you focusing on God?