Sunday Reading: John 13 34-35
 
Key Verse: John 13 34
35  By this all shall know that you are My disciples, if you have love toward one another.

Devotion:
I can remember singing this song soon after I was saved and then wondering why the world would simply not just accept the words and live by them. It is easy to love one another, but when Christ gave us this commandment He made sure that He said “As I have loved you, you should also love one another”. That is the big difference between what Christ would have us to do and what we may be willing to do. There may well be someone that upsets you all the time and those are the people that we need to extent a special love towards.

It is very easy to love people when they are special in your eyes. It is very easy to love people when they look like they do things right and treat you right. But when people start treating you in ways that you do not expect or ways that you do not want them to then we do tend to get upset with them. But getting upset with people and loving them is actually different. There is no reason why we should not get upset with others when they do rub us up the wrong way, but extending love towards them should never stop.

The love that I am talking about here is the love that Christ wants us to show towards others. True Christian love. Mans earthly ‘love’ is most often confused with plain lust because man has not known the love that Christ has shown towards us. When we get to know Christ’s love towards us then we can start to see true love in a whole new light. Man’s love is finite because it seems to have a rather short end in sight. Christ’s love is eternal and will never change. That should be our goal; to love people with the same love for as long as we live. When you start to do that you will find that your love for others grows with each day. The world cannot understand that, but when we know Christ’s love, we can begin to see how this is possible and we can ask Him to help us to love others in the same way as He loves us – without end. I am always scared that people will ask me ‘do you love me?’ because my honest answer has to be yes – but will they understand it?

Points to Ponder:
How would you describe love?

Do you know Christ’s true love?

Saturday Reading: 1 John 3 11-13
 
Key Verse: 1 John 3 13
13  Do not marvel, my brothers, if the world hates you.

Devotion:
Have you come across people that don’t like you just because you are a Christian? Have you come across anyone who did not like you because you did what was right? When we are faced with the choice of pleasing the world around us or pleasing God, the answer should be straightforward – put the world behind you and walk with God! But that is where we quite often have a problem as we grow in Christ. The evil one is going to try to trip you up as many times as possible so that you cannot build your house upon the Rock that is Christ. He will try to put temptations in your way. He will try to use your friends to work against you so that we will turn our backs on Christ rather than on Satan’s world.

Christ continued to remind us through His earthly ministry that we have to love one another and to make sure that we do not follow in Cain’s footsteps. Cain tried to lift up his works to God instead of giving back to God what God has given us first. If we want to do that then we should not lift up Christ... But if we do that, then we should expect the same treatment from God that Cain got. No. What God wants us to do is to lift up His Son whom He gave to us so that our sins should be forgiven. God wants us to praise Him in righteousness knowing that He is our true God.

Don’t be surprised when people around you turn their backs on you just because they don’t like what you have done. There are many people around us who are so focused on worldly goods and experiences that they will do almost anything to continue to have those things in their hands. If we come along and turn the light on exposing what they are doing wrong, don’t expect them to always be thankful for what you have done! We cannot love both God and the world. We need to make sure that God comes first in our lives and first in our ways. Loving others irrespective of what they do to us is one of Christ’s wishes for us. In those rules we must abide because He has already done so much for us. Christ has come to turn the light on in our dim world and He does not want us to hate Him because He has shown us up for the sinners that we are. He has done that because He loves us so!

Points to Ponder:
Have you been caught out lately?
 
Has Christ exposed your life?

Friday Reading: 1 John 3 1-2

Key Verse: 1 John 3 2
2  Beloved, now are we the sons of God, and it doth not yet appear what we shall be: but we know that, when he shall appear, we shall be like him; for we shall see him as he is.

Devotion:
Before you got to know Christ did you ever wonder why Christians always looked happy? I know that is not true for all people because there are some that seem to refuse to smile but when you know Christ as your Saviour and know what that actually means to you, it is very hard not to smile. That is something that the world just does not get. Yes everyone has their moments of happiness and sadness, but when you compare those fleeting moments to the eternal happiness that we have in Christ then they do pale into insignificance.  Being a Christian is something that separates us from the rest of the world; the world will judge people from their appearances whereas God will look at us from the inside.

We may well look like a “nobody” in the sight of the world but that is not how God views us. He is the one who has chosen us to be called sons of God and that is something that the world cannot understand. The world continues to fight with itself to try and better itself so that it may be elevated into a higher position; and by the world I mean the people within. You can go just about anywhere and find all manner of people willing to teach you how to express yourself in a better way so that the world will elevate you but all that that is going to gain you is a bit of stature on earth...


Christ has promised us that we will be given perfect bodies so that we will be able to be in eternity with Him. Why should we worry about not having everything perfect here on earth when we know what is ahead? I am not saying that we should all let our bodies go because Christ has also told us that our bodies are a living temple for the Holy Spirit. If we want to show Him the honour that He deserves then we need to make sure that that temple is as good a place as we can make it whilst we live on earth. Make it a happy place because you have everything to look forward to!

Points to Ponder:
What makes you happy?

Are you living for Christ?

Thursday Reading: Psalms 73 21-28
 
Key Verse: Psalms 73 25
25  Whom have I in Heaven? And besides You I desire none on earth.

Devotion:
One thing we have to be certain of is that God is the one who looks after us. He is not the one who is going to tempt us. He is not the one who is going to lead us astray. He is not the one who is going to abandon us. He is the one who laid the foundations of the earth just for us. He is the one who allowed His only Son to die on the cross just for us. We really do need to sit down and decide just who we are going to believe and after whom we will follow. If we try to stand up for ourselves we will quickly see just how little we really are. It is an amazing thing to try to compare the size of our planet against the size of one or two are the larger stars that we see in the universe, much like trying to find a single pea in a huge football stadium!

And yet, even though we are so insignificant in size and impact in the universe, Christ died for us; not the huge planet, but the tiny people that live on this planet, you and I. How can we not see that as the ultimate statement of His love for us? How can we not give Him everything after He has given us so much to start with? He is the one who has promised to take us back to be with Him when our earthly lives come to an end – and that they will because of our sin. There are only two who have escaped death as recorded in our bibles and they were both men who walked with God. I’m not talking about going to church once a year or praying when things get tough, I’m talking about men who committed their lives and their lifestyles to God.

Who can we possibly look up to other than God? Who can we possibly ever get to replace God when we know that He is not replaceable? We try to get round His rules by inventing our own rules but when push comes to shove there is only one person we need to trust and obey and that is Christ. There is only one God and we desperately need Him to be central in our lives! Lift God up and show others just how much He is worth to us! Lift God up and show others how much He means to us!

Points to Ponder:
How big do you think you are?

Do you know God is everywhere?