Saturday 24 Oct 2009

Saturday Reading: 2 Peter 3 8-9
 
Key Verse: 2 Peter 3 9
9  The Lord is not slow concerning His promise, as some count slowness, but is long-suffering toward us, not purposing that any should perish, but that all should come to repentance.

Devotion:
How many times have you asked for patience and wondered why you have not got it yet? When we ask The Lord to provide us with things we should not expect things to happen as soon as we ask but to be given us when The Lord knows is the best time. Let that not be a discouragement but rather an encouragement to know that God will provide His best for us and not to just answer things as we ask. He does not want us to be like spoiled brats because that is what we will turn into if we get everything as soon as we ask for it – that is our way of thinking.

God is certainly not limited by time in the way that we are and so is not concerned that it may take ten years to answer a prayer because He knows the right time to answer it is in ten years time and not right now. He will even answer prayers before we ask – we will go to Him in prayer and then find out that He has actually answered it already but we did not know that. His timing is perfect and He gives us His best. He has already given us His Only Son; do you think He will withhold anything if He has done that already?

The last thing God wants is for us to get a superiority complex over our fellow beings. As soon as we think we are better than anyone else we are doing exactly what Satan did in the beginning. He wants us to be content with ourselves and our lives safe in the knowledge that He is still looking after us and that He wants us to have His best! He wants us to realise that we are the ones that get things wrong, we are the ones that make mistakes and that we are the ones that need to come to Christ for forgiveness. Once we have done that we can never be taken away from Him and our prayers will always be answered!

Points to Ponder:
How patient do you think you are?
 
Are you testing God’s patience?

Firday 23 Oct 2009

Friday Reading: Luke 5 31-32

Key Verse: Luke 5 31
31  And Jesus answered and said to them, Those who are sound do not need a physician, but those who are sick.

Devotion:
Jesus said these words during one of the many times that He was with sinners and the Scribes and Pharisees were close by murmuring and complaining that He was with outright sinners instead of with believers. Jesus answer to them all was very simple: “I did not come to call the righteous to repentance, but sinners”. He came to earth to save us from our sins. He did not come to complain to us that we were not doing what was right but to call all sinners to repentance.

If we were in His place we may well have started complaining that the very people who were supposedly on our side were not trying to get more people on our side. We would be upset by those same people not doing what we thought they should be doing. We would even turn our backs on some people just because they were working against us. Christ on the other hand did not of this. He came to show people that His love for us crosses all those boundaries and that He wants us by His side. He came to show His grace and mercy far exceeds what we can understand!

Only Christ could have come forward to the tax collectors and tell them that they had the chance of the same forgiveness as the ones who had followed His word all along. He is the one who has paid for the sins of the whole world; for murderers, tyrants, thieves and even for people who tell lies. Doesn’t sound so good when we get put into the same category as murderers does it? Christ wants us to know that He is working for us and that He will continue to uphold His laws no matter whether we are murderers or just slackers – we all face those same laws and we all have to answer to Him and Him alone. He is willing to forgive us all and we need to remember that when we face others.

Points to Ponder:
What would you say the worst thing you have ever done is?
 
Do you know Christ has paid for that?

Thursday 22 Oct 2009

Thursday Reading: Luke 15 1-7
 
Key Verse: Luke 15 7
7  I say to you that likewise joy shall be in Heaven over one sinner who repents, more than over ninety-nine just persons who need no repentance.

Devotion:
Have you ever wondered what would happen if you did get lazy and stopped doing all the things that make you look like a Christian? Have you ever wondered what it would be like to just go back to life like it was before you knew God? Well what would you do if you have a pet and one day that pet just decided to run away? Or what would you do if you decided to run away from home?

When we do stray from God we are suddenly open to so many more temptations and dangers. We may find that we enjoy the things that we do for a while until we suddenly realise what we have just done. If we run away from God He will look out for us and try to persuade us to come back. He will not force us to return but He may well allow us to be very uncomfortable with our new destination.

Each one of us has a destiny to meet with Christ and He wants each one of us to be able to come back to Him as a friend and not to have to meet Him for the first time when it is too late. None of us is going to have a perfect life because we always give in to temptations. None of us is going to always be by God’s side because we all do stray. But each time one of us does realise that we have gone astray and come back we now know that Heaven rejoices! Just as we would be happy to come back home after running away or happy to have our pet return, those in Heaven rejoice at the fact that we have realised our mistakes and returned with open hearts.

We may think that we are just one tiny speck in the whole planet but when that tiny spec turns to face God everyone in Heaven notices! We are something! We are important to God! Never forget that!

Points to Ponder:
How many people know you?

Do you realise God knows you?

Wednesday 21 Oct 2009

Wednesday Reading: Luke 7 28-35
 
Key Verse: Luke 7 34
34  The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, Behold a gluttonous man and a winebibber, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!

Devotion:
It still amazes me to see how much each of us lives a double standard life and we are all guilty of that to some extent. We say one thing and seem to do another or we take God’s word and we say that it means something else; and we do these things just to suit ourselves. I’m not saying that we do this all the time nor that we all do both but we are guilty to some extent. Don’t think that we are alone because as we read our bibles we see that man has been doing this for a very long time...

Jesus bore witness to the work that John had been doing and He wanted people to know that what John was doing was ordained by God; He also wanted people to see that all manner of people can be forgiven of their sins. Baptism is not a requirement to gain entry to heaven but rather a show of obedience towards God’s ways. It is a way of showing God and others that we are trying to turn our backs on our old ways and live a new life for God rather than for ourselves as we were. As Jesus told those around, the people who were turning to God and away from their sins would willingly go forward to be baptised and yet the Pharisees and lawyers rejected those ways.

I like the way that Christ described those actions comparing them to children sitting in a market place. One plays the flute and expects the other to dance just because he plays the flute. Each of us has a choice and it is our choice as to whether we dance to the tune or not and not the choice of the person playing the music. It is our choice as to whether we choose God’s ways or continue to follow our own. Don’t be swayed by the descriptions attributed to man by men because it is what we do for God that counts.

Points to Ponder:
Do you think you are doing OK?
 
Are you obeying Him?

Tuesday 20 Oct 2009

Tuesday Reading: Matthew 21 23-27
 
Key Verse: Matthew 21 25
25  The baptism of John, where was it from? From Heaven or from men? And they reasoned within themselves, saying, If we shall say, From Heaven, he will say to us, Why then did you not believe him?

Devotion:
Have you ever noticed how some things get rather more difficult to do when you think about them? Take walking up stairs for example; we walk up them every day but if you suddenly think about the next step you are going to take when you are half way up you will falter in your step. When we leave things down to re-actions then we get along fine but as soon as we intervene with our conscious though process then things get a bit sticky. We are very much like that in our spiritual lives as well whether we like it or not.

If we continue to allow things to pass we very quickly get into the habit of doing those things wrong. We know we are doing wrong but because we are in the habit of doing them wrong we continue to do wrong. The inverse is also true though because if we get into the habit of doing things right then we will continue to do things right without thinking. The chief priests and scribes were in the habit of doing things their own way and their own way did not agree with Gods way but they continued to do things wrong nonetheless.

When they confronted Jesus asking who had given Him permission to teach He could have simply turned round and said God had but He chose to get them to question themselves instead. When they thought about it they did not want to lie and they did not want to go against the people either so they were stuck for an answer.

We do need to stop and examine our lives and what we are doing every now and again to make sure we too are not getting ourselves into habits that are contrary to Gods teaching. We do need to just stop and think for a second.

Points to Ponder:
Do you have many habits?

Are any of them needless?