Friday Reading: Romans 8 10-12

Key Verse: Romans 8 11
11  But if the Spirit of the One who raised up Jesus from the dead dwells in you, the One who raised up Christ from the dead shall also make your mortal bodies alive by His Spirit who dwells in you.

Devotion:
There are many things that we do not fully understand about Christ, about God and about the Holy Spirit but these things we can continue to seek out whilst we can. There is no harm in trying to further understand the ways of God because in learning such things we will learn more about Him and see more about our sinful ways. The more that we can identify about ourselves, the more likely we are to be able to steer clear of those ways because we will find out that they are the ways of the world and not God’s ways. When we accept Christ into our lives we accept His ways too and in doing so we should strive to walk in His ways.

When Christ died for us He gave us freedom from being compelled to walk in the ways of the world. In effect He allows us to die from this world as well so that we can be raised up by Him to walk in His ways. Yes we are still going to be here waiting for our time to go and be with Him but all that time can be spent doing things in a manner that Christ would approve of instead on earthly ways. Just like Christ was raised up, we too will be raised up because of what He has done for us in paying for our sin debt. When we live for Him we live with Him with the Spirit dwelling in our bodies. Our bodies are His temple and we no longer have to put up with our sinful ways.

We do have a choice and we can choose to do away with earthly ways. Yes it is going to be hard; impossible if we do not have Christ with us. But with Christ we no longer have to give in to sin because He has made us free from that sin. The more we live for Him and with Him, the more that we will frown upon the ways of the world and see the wickedness for what it is. Then we can look back and know that He has saved us from that life on sin – just because He loves us so!

Points to Ponder:
Are you tempted?

Do you have Christ on your side?

Thursday Reading: Ephesians 3 13-19
 
Key Verse: Ephesians 3 17
17  that Christ may dwell in your hearts by faith; that you, being rooted and grounded in love,

Devotion:
Being able to put in writing what is in your heart is a very special gift, one that I continue to seek with each day. The apostle was more anxious that the Ephesians should not be discouraged by the trials and tribulations that he had to suffer rather than what he actually had to bear and to emphasise this point he wrote these words. The first thing he does is to praise God and to lift his name up high – an example that we need to be proud to follow – but he also makes sure that they know that we can get more support through the Holy Spirit than we realise! Christ Himself told us that He would send back the Holy Spirit to indwell and strengthen us; the apostle reminds us.

It is through our faith that we can depend on The Holy Spirit because we cannot see Him. It is because of that faith that He will strengthen us. If we truly love Christ our King with all our heart and all our mind then we will surely know that He is with us always. Thankfully it is not based on our ability to continue to love Him in a righteous manner that He chooses to stay with us otherwise we would be alone after the first few minutes! God chose to make things possible in this manner because He knew of our weaknesses and He knew that we would not have the strength or the faith to bring Him into our lives. He chooses to come in because He knows we are lacking!

If our relationship with Christ was based on our abilities we would be in a big hole! Thankfully our relationship is based on Christ, our Solid Rock! We may not be able to understand the love that Christ has for us because we are fickle compared to Him, but we can depend on that love. The more that we walk with Christ, the more that we will continue to see the enormity of His love for us. The more that we see that, the more our faith will grow. You see, God had this all planned before we broke things. We need not worry about the things that face us but rather that we chose to encourage others in finding out this same saving grace that we know!

Points to Ponder:
How do you encourage others?

Do you fully rely on God?

Wednesday Reading: Titus 1 1-4
 
Key Verse: Titus 1 2
2  on hope of eternal life, which God, who cannot lie, promised before the eternal times,

Devotion:
Paul had a wonderful way of addressing the people that he was writing to and this is just one of them. Paul allowed his love for Christ to shine through not just after knowing someone for a while but rather as a first impression. Yes he had to know these people that he was writing to but the first impression they got from starting to read their letter from him was that he loved God and wanted the world to know it! Nowadays many a Christian will hide their love for Christ from others until they have got to know them first; this is done for various reasons but probably the main reason is to avoid persecution.

When Christ told the disciples that they would have to face persecution it was not just a casual warning that might or might not happen but rather a stark warning for all of us in our walk with Christ. We live in a world that is against Christ, a world that works against Him because they do not want to have to admit that they are breaking His Law. Paul, on the other hand, wanted to remind everyone that they did break the law but that Christ had already done everything to allow them to be forgiven as well. He wanted everyone to know the truth, the live in the truth and to be encouraged by the truth; the world simply wants to hide from the truth.

God has given us the commandment through Christ that we need to be more like Paul and to go out proudly proclaiming the Gospel wherever we go. Why would He give us that commandment unless He really did mean it? Why would He promise us such things unless He wanted us to keep that promise too? Through our common faith we are all God’s children which means that He is going to be looking out for us whatever we do. If we are going to be bold enough to take His name before us then I’m sure that He is going to be watching us more carefully – how many parents would ignore their child if they saw them doing something that they were proud of? I believe Christ lifts us up even more when we go forward in His name!

Points to Ponder:
What sort of thing makes you proud?
 
Do you think Christ would be proud of you?

Tuesday Reading: 1 Kings 8 22-24
 
Key Verse: 1 Kings 8 23,24
23  And he said, Jehovah, the God of Israel, there is no God like You, in Heaven above or on earth beneath, who keeps covenant and mercy with Your servants who walk before You with all their heart,
24  who have kept with Your servant David my father what You promised him. You also spoke with Your mouth, and have fulfilled with Your hand, as it is today.

Devotion:
As you read through the first few chapters of 1 Kings you get a good picture of all that Solomon continued to do after his father David died. We see how God blessed Him and how He continued to praise God but when it came to dedicating the temple for God Solomon seemed to leave no stone unturned. The amount of animals offered up for sacrifice is simply staggering when you try and add things up but all of that counted for little when he let his prayers come from his heart.

When we lift up our prayers to God it must not be because we have to but because we want to. It must not be words that are simply repeated but words that come from the heart. God wants us to be in a relationship with Him and not with words. Solomon’s words summed up what he had learned over the first years of his life and his reign; the summed up the relationship between God and the people of Israel. The words were a stark reminder that God knew that the Israelites would turn their backs on Him and that they knew that fact too. None of us like to believe that we should ever turn our backs on Christ but we will at some stage or another because we all have our weaknesses.

What God wants us to remember most of all though is not that we will be weak and give in to temptation, nor that we will give up and seek other things but the fact that whilst we remain firm in His grip, nothing and nobody can ever take us away from Him. Whilst we uphold His ways and His laws we remain strong and encouraged in His Word. Whilst we remain strong in His Word we don’t give in to other things. Be strong and be wise, uphold God’s Word so that you will not give in to the world around you...

Points to Ponder:
What makes you give in?

Are you relying on God’s strength through His Word?