Tuesday Reading: Hebrews 3 1-4
 
Key Verse: Hebrews 3 4
4  For every house is built by someone, but He who built all things is God.

Devotion:
No matter how hard each one of us try, we will always do something wrong. It’s not because we want to or because we have to but simply because we are not perfect! We like to try and uphold God’s Law but we always fall short of the mark. We like to think that we are very good at what we can do and when compared with others we may well be the best in our field, but to think that we are perfect is just not on. Moses made his mistakes, and yet he is looked at as a true man of God who led the Hebrews out of Egypt, out of slavery and into God’s hands. King David had his faults and yet is also proclaimed as a man of God in our bibles. It’s not because they were perfect but because they tried! We may not all succeed at what we do, but we can all try to succeed. God is looking for a willing heart, not a perfect heart!

We can look at it in a similar manner to the Apostle here and see that we may well be able to run a house or a family or even both, but we would probably fall far short of running a country... never mind the world! Christ came to show how important the church is, not because He needs us to help with the upkeep but because He wants us to join Him. He has already built the church because He is the Master builder. He does not need us to keep the repairs going because He is the one who does that. We are more like tenants and need to go to Him for all our needs. We would be (figuratively speaking) out in the streets if it were not for Him.

We need to remember that Jesus Christ is part of the Trinity; He is God. We need to remember that He created everything; we seem to be adept at breaking everything. We need to remember that He is in control; we seem to be good at causing chaos in His world. We may think we do a good job, but there is only One Living God and we need to worship Him.

Points to Ponder:
What are you best at?

How much has God done for you?

Monday Reading: Hebrews 1 1-4
 
Key Verse: Hebrews 1 3
3  who being the shining splendour of His glory, and the express image of His essence, and upholding all things by the word of His power, through Himself cleansing of our sins, He sat down on the right of the Majesty on high,
 
Devotion:
As I started going through the book of Hebrews I began to realise two things. First that our willingness to work with God has already been preceded by His willingness to do so much for us already, and secondly that we always seem to get side-tracked by things which we see in religion! Our willingness must surely follow on from Christ’s willingness to do all that He has done already. He led us by example through everything He did whilst on earth in human form but also laid down everything in the first place by which we could build our lives. He is the rock upon which we can safely build knowing that the truth will always stand forever. The more we read our bibles the more we will realise that Christ is part of the God-head and has always been there and will always be there. It is not like He was a prophet or an angel that was created for a specific task; He has loved us from the moment He created us and continues to supply all we need to live for Him. Think about how He provided so much for early man to live by and learn by and then remember that man has passed down that knowledge and grown in knowledge and yet God continues to supply our basic things like allowing plants to grow for our consumption!

Just like the Hebrews allowed their law to become more prevalent than God’s Law, we continue to build up our own laws in favour of God’s Laws. God created a just and whole Law by which we could live by and yet we saw it fit to change things so that they fitted more into what we wanted rather than what He planned. We cannot hold up anything else as we should hold up Christ because He is God. Just because angels are very powerful and able to do so much, does not mean that we should bow down before them. But just like us giving in to powerful people, we give in to anything with more power than us – instead we should be upholding Christ as our King of Kings!

Points to Ponder:
Who do you uphold in your life?

Is Christ your King?

Sunday Reading: Philemon 1 10-16
 
Key Verse: Philemon 1 14
14  But without your consent I was willing to do nothing, that your good should not be of necessity, but willingly.

Devotion:
Onesimus was, at one time, Philemon’s slave or servant. At some stage he ran away from Philemon; why, we are not told. But Onesimus then ended up being in the same prison as Paul and it was there that he was lead to The Lord, finding out the truth about God from Paul whilst in prison and then obviously recounting part of his life to Paul too. It is not said in what capacity Onesimus was there but soon Paul directed him to go back to Philemon as a helper and no longer as a slave.

Being a slave to someone or something means that you have to do what you do because you do not have any choice about it. You have to do whatever is required of you and you do not have any say in how or why things are done. Paul now saw a dramatic change in Onesimus and wanted him to go back to Philemon willingly with his blessing hoping that Philemon would take him back as a brother in Christ and not as a slave. The choice was obviously Philemon’s because that was the law, but Paul was quite sure that he could do so much more for Philemon now that he was a willing, eager worker for God.

When we show that sort of change to others, be it our parents or our employers, we will show them that we are willing to do what God wants us to do – be honest and work effectively. If we do have the chance to show them in some way that we do it because of our faithfulness to God then they may well be encouraged to find out what is so important to us in our lives. We don’t have to force God’s Word down anyone’s throat in order for them to want to know about God, we can simply show others how much He means to us and allow them to wonder at His love and grace that allows us to do what we do.

Points to Ponder:
Do you work for God?
 
Do others know you work for God?

Saturday Reading: John 15 14-17
 
Key Verse: John 15 15
15  No longer do I call you servants, for the servant does not know what his master does. But I have called you friends, for all things that I have heard from My Father I have made known to you.

Devotion:
When Christ was with the disciples, He made sure that they understood His love for them by telling them that He considered them as friends and not as servants. It is one thing to have to work for someone who you do not know, it is another thing to be able to work with someone that you know and respect. When Christ tells us that He wants us to work with Him, it is not as a servant, but as a friend.

When we are friends with someone we like to think that we can share in the work that has got to be done. If, however, we were to be servants, then we would expect to have to do all the work. If we show ourselves willing to be like servants, then we will be showing God that we respect Him as much as we would respect a master. He is our Heavenly Father. He is our Master. Why not treat Him as such? So our approach should be to be like servants to God even though He only expects us to be His friends.

Another major difference between friends and servants is that the servant is not told what is happening, just to do the work required. God has made sure that we know what is going on by giving us His Word in the bible; our bibles are a whole history and rule book for all Christianity. It can be seen how many people take it in so many different ways by the number of religions that are based on this book. If we want to be true to God then we have to be true to His Word – that is the standard by which He has shown us to live.

It is not an arduous task to follow God’s Word if you believe in Him. It is when you don’t believe! All God wants us to do is to take His Word and share it with others in whatever way we can. By doing this we show our love for Him and our love for others too.

Points to Ponder:
Are you working for God?
 
Or are you working with God?