Saturday Reading: 1 Corinthians 10 23-24
 
Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 10 23
23  All things are lawful to me, but not all things profit. All things are lawful to me, but not all things build up.

Devotion:
How many times have you thought that you were doing the right thing only to find out later that it was not actually beneficial for the people you thought were going to benefit from what you were doing? Many times we try to do what is right in our own eyes only to upset someone else through what we do. We may ever try to follow the rules and find out that when we do that we upset other people. You could say that that is just part of life but then you would be doing what too many of us do – try to bypass the responsibility that The Lord is trying to show us...

These verses were specifically written about the meats that were being offered for sale in the market by priests after they had been offered to various gods. Though it was certainly not against the law to buy the meat because Christ had already said that it was lawful to eat such meat because it should mean nothing – but when others see us doing what we do we may then be placing doubts in their minds about what we do and the reasons why we do things. When we do things we have to think about others and we have to try and make sure that what we do will always glorify God and not anything else.

Yes, it is very hard to think of others all the time but unless we do we will continue to place doubts in other people’s minds rather than to show them that we uphold our God above all else. When we start to think of ourselves and how we can look good and how we can be good in our own eyes, then we lose track on which direction God would like us to go in. We lose track of how we should be treating others and then we end up treating God in the same manner. Christ was the one who said that if we do anything to any of His brethren then we do it to Him (Matthew 25 40). If we don’t think of others, then are we thinking of God? Keeping within the law is one thing, upholding God’s commandments is something entirely different!

Points to Ponder:
Do you think you do things right?
 
Do you know if God is pleased with what you do?

Friday Reading: Colossians 2 18-23

Key Verse: Colossians 2 21
21  touch not, taste not, handle not;

Devotion:
There are those who will tell us that we need to pray to various other people, saints and angels in order for our prayers to be answered and whilst many would not see a problem with this it goes against what Christ tries to teach us in our bibles. There is only one mediator and that is Christ. There is only one path to heaven and that is through Christ. There is only one place where we should lift up our prayers and that is to Christ. If we are doing anything else then we are taking away from Christ what is due to Him as given to Him by God the Father! If we pray to anyone else then we are telling Christ that He is not good enough!

There are many rules and regulations listed in our bibles, none more so than in the writings of Moses in which are listed the hundreds of laws that had to be followed to ensure that men could try to minimise their sin debt in the sight of God. Even the few that were allowed into the tabernacle had to make sure that they offered sacrifices before entering to atone for their sins and the sins of the people. But when Christ gave us His life on the cross it was so that we no longer were required to offer those sacrifices – because that is what He was, our perfect sacrifice. If we trust in any other sacrifice then we are telling Christ that He was not good enough!

We then have a perfect sacrifice and a channel to God in Christ Jesus. So why then should we continue to follow rules and regulations? Each time you go against God’s will you are taking Christ’s sacrifice for granted. Each time you go against His Word you are saying that you don’t mind that Christ paid for your sins in such a way. We certainly would not like it if we were punished for everything that someone else did wrong because we would get hurt instead of them. Our bibles teach us how we should be living for Christ. If we are not, then we are continually saying that Christ was not quite good enough! God would not have allowed that to happen if He knew it would not be good enough! We are in His hands and we need to remember that we live our lives with Him each and every day.

Points to Ponder:
How do you live your life?

Do you think Christ is happy with your life?

Thursday Reading: Romans 5 20-21
 
Key Verse: Romans 5 20
20  But the Law entered so that the offense might abound. But where sin abounded, grace did much more abound,

Devotion:
In the beginning man had the experience of being able to walk with God through the Garden of Eden. Adam and Eve were able to talk with God as they lived there and to be able to do so each and every day. When sin entered into their hearts they were then separated from God, just as we are now. But what God had planned was not for us to be eternally separated but to be able to have a much better relationship with Him in the future. That is God’s grace!

How often do we have arguments or fights in which we hurt those that are closest to us or dearest to us? How often do we wish we could turn back the clock so that we would not have to go through that pain to start with? Think back and look forwards; we may well have had an argument but have moved on further after that argument. We may well have hurt each other but now grow in strength from learning from that hurt. If we do not learn from that hurt then we do not go on further. If we allow that hurt to consume us, we drown in its sorrows.

God has shown us just how things can be. He gave His Son so that we may be able to find out more about Him. He willingly paid the ultimate price so that He could show us His grace and His love. Without that show of grace we would never know the depth of His love or the magnitude of His grace. Yes, we are still going to get things wrong in the future and we will still manage to upset others from time to time, but as we grow and learn from those experiences we become better and stronger people. We need to make sure that we grow and learn from our mistakes before God. He continues to show His grace and mercy – we need to continue to learn from what we do so that we can strengthen our relationship with Him each and every step of the way.

Points to Ponder:
Do you like arguments?

Have you realised how God treats you yet?

Wednesday Reading: Numbers 14 11-20
 
Key Verse: Numbers 14 18
18  Jehovah is long-suffering, and of great mercy, forgiving iniquity and transgression, and by no means clearing the guilty, visiting the iniquity of the fathers upon the sons to the third and fourth generation.

Devotion:
Oh how quickly we forget things, how quickly we cast aside the things we don’t like, how quickly we place blame on others we are too impatient to wait for... As humans we have many shortcomings and all of them can be brought down to the single fact that we are weak and give in to temptation. Right from Adam and Eve we have so many witnessing events in our bibles showing us over and over again that we are weak and that we really do need to depend on God for our strength – why then do we always turn round and say that we can do it by ourselves? Why, because we are not patiently waiting on God!

When God was leading the Children of Israel through the desert He made sure that they knew how powerful He was through the things that He did. He made sure that they were safe and that they were kept in all their needs. But still He knew that they would cave in and seek after their own ways; and yet He continued to show mercy because there was at least one person who lifted up their prayers to God. God continues to listen to our prayers each and every day. He continues to set about answering them each and every day. We are the ones who give up waiting on Him and think we can do things our own way; we are the ones in error!

God wants us to be proud to be called Christians. He wants us to lift His name up above all else and say that we are His. He wants us to tell the world that He is God and that He alone is the one that deserves our worship. How can we not see this simple fact when we look back over the history of the world and see just how much He has done for us over the ages? The deeper we look into history, the more we find out about how man has failed and God has succeeded! Lift His name up and glorify Him alone because He is our God who listens to our prayers and loves us more than we know!

Points to Ponder:
Have you ever succeeded in doing God’s Work?
 
Are you depending on Him fully?