Sunday Reading: Deuteronomy 4 29-32
 
Key Verse: Deuteronomy 4 32
32  For ask now of the days past which were before you, since the day that God created man upon the earth, and from the one end of the heavens to the other end of the heavens, where there has been a thing as great as this, or has been heard any like it.

Devotion:
What an amazing fact... that God has so much mercy that He is willing to forgive anyone who comes to seek Him with a truthful heart. No matter how much we have done, no matter how much we have strayed, no matter what we get up to we will always have a place by God’s side if that is where we want to be. He is the merciful one who is willing to forgive us of our sins if we bring them to Him. He is the loving one who is patiently waiting for us to return to Him. He is the just one who will accept us in any condition when we put our faith and trust in Him. Christ alone has promised that He will be our advocate to present us blameless before God; I say Christ alone because nobody else can make that promise for all others are false.

Even when the Children of Israel continued sinning and drawing away from God as they brought in the gods of the people around them God continued to promise that He would always be there when they were ready to admit to those sins. No matter how much He had to put them through to try and get them to turn back to Him, He would never forsake them. No matter how far around the world they would be spread, He would always be calling them back. Do you know anyone in this world who would always accept you back no matter what you did to them?

God is one of a kind. He is the only true God and He alone is the one who created us (I talk of God the Father, God the Son and God the Holy Spirit as one here) and He is the only one who can destroy us. Yes we can die, yes we can have horrible things happen to us, but nothing can separate us from God, nothing can stop us from seeking God other than our own choice! If you seek God, He will make sure that you find Him. If you want to know more, He will supply you the means by which you can receive more. If you need Him, He is always there. If you ask Him, He will always answer. What an AWESOME God we have!

Points to Ponder:
Who do you seek when things go wrong?

Do you really know God?

Saturday Reading: 1 Corinthians 11 14-19
 
Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 11 19
19  For there must also be heresies among you, that the approved ones may be revealed among you.

Devotion:
There are always parts of the bible that some people are not going to like and this chapter is one where some ladies will always get upset. But, as always, when you take the words in the context in which they are written there is no need for offence to be taken and none is meant other than by reminding the people of Corinth that there were people amongst them that would be the ones causing waves. We are going to get that in all walks of life and those waves created will not always going to be from the people we expect them to be from.

There are people amongst us who we know will always cause waves but there are also those amongst us that will sit back quietly until something does not agree with them and then suddenly they will fly off the handle and upset anyone who happens to be close by. If truth be told most of us fall into this category because when we do get upset we take it out on anyone who happens to be close by. It’s not always a big physical outburst but may be something that is said plainly that riles others.

Society is not the same the world over. There are many different traditions and many different societies that make up our planet. If we take a single city we will see all manner of different people that make up that city and there will also be some very different things they get up to. If they were to mix then they may well upset each other simply because of the things that they consider to be normal in their own lives. When we come together as a church we have to be prepared for these differences but we also need to remember that there is only one Word of God that we all need to uphold. We need to remember that the bible is the inspired word of God and in that we must trust, not in single sentences but as a whole. Don’t be upset by others actions unless it goes against God’s Word. Let God’s Word be the judge and not we ourselves.

Points to Ponder:
Do you mix with others?
 
Are you upholding God’s Word?

Friday Reading: Luke 12 54-59

Key Verse: Luke 12 56
56  Hypocrites! You know to discern the face of the heaven and the earth, but how is it that you do not discern this time?

Devotion:
You have heard sayings such as “red sky at night is a shepherd’s delight” and you will get to know that many such saying do have truth in them. When you can see a dark cloud coming close then you know that there is a chance of some rain coming in that cloud. We look around us and we can pretty much tell what is going to happen through the things that surround us and yet there are still so many things in our lives where we cannot tell what is about to happen. Yet if we were to read and believe God’s Word then we may well be able to see things that are coming and be prepared for them – yet we don’t.

Why should our physical world that we can see be any different from the promises of God that we cannot see? Well, they are actually different... God’s promises will stand, they will come to pass, our bibles tell us the truth. When we survey the earth around us we jump to conclusions and those conclusions are not always correct. Take the dinosaurs for example. There are many places in our bibles where large beasts are described that have no resemblance to anything alive today but could well be what scientists believe are our lost past. So why do we believe scientists as they continue to guess rather than God’s Word?

Our main problem is that we still have a lot to learn from God’s Word. When we see things around us we jump to conclusions. When we read things we jump to conclusions. Many of those conclusions are not correct simply because we have not though things through. I can remember learned one thing in school and now knowing the truth rather than the guesses that people were making back then. Each generation continues to learn more and more but equally they continue to be deluded by the guesses of people who come to invalid conclusions through them not knowing the truth to start with. God’s Word is the truth and that is where we need to start!

Points to Ponder:
Are you a good scholar?

How much of God’s Word have you learned?

Thursday Reading: Job 11 13-16
 
Key Verse: Job 11 13
13  If you prepare your heart and stretch out your hands toward Him;

Devotion:
How many times have you tried to do the right thing and fallen flat on your face? We have a tendency to do that most of our lives; we try so hard to do what we think is the right thing and we end up making a mess of things... Whether it is telling someone something else just to smooth the waters over instead of telling the truth or whether it is doing something because you believe that that will help you to move on in life; if we do not have God involved in what we do then we are doing it for ourselves and not for Him!

If you take these verses from Job and read them through, you may think that they are quite encouraging and would help anyone in time of need. But then if you take them in the context that they are spoken their meaning is not so clear and can even be seen as being religious rather than in Christ’s love. When Christ tells us to come to Him it in is faith and in belief and not physically trying to do so yourself. There is no way that we can lift ourselves up to such a position as help by Christ! God confounded the people as they build their tower in Babel because they were the ones who had it in their hearts that they would lift themselves up. That’s just not going to happen, ever!

God wants us to come to Him but we need to make sure that we do that in the right manner. We need to come to Him through Christ because it is what Christ alone has done that will redeem us from the sin debt that we carry. We need to come to Christ in faith and in pure belief and not through works of our own. We need to make sure that God is getting the glory for lifting us up and not we ourselves for climbing up to be with Him! The line is very fine between lifting our own selves up and lifting up Christ but it is a very definite line that we need to make sure we never cross. “To God be the Glory, great things He has done” not “wayhey I can do anything”!

Points to Ponder:
Do you think you are quite capable?

Do you keep God with you whatever you do?