Wednesday Reading: Psalm 139:1-6
 
Key Verse: Psalms 139 2
2  You know my sitting down and my rising up; You understand my thought afar off.

Devotion:
One thing we often forget is that God is the one who does know it all! It is hard for us to think that He can know all of our thoughts and deeds because we find it hard to understand others (and even sometimes ourselves). We are the ones who like to think that we do know so much, but when we are faced with something we have not been faced with before, we find that we fall far short of many things with our lack of wisdom and understanding.

God is our Creator and He is the one who made us in the way that we are now. Yes, we have changed over time as we have learned many things and done many things, but that does not mean that God is out of touch with us! We often think that we lose touch with people and we don’t know them anymore – but God continues to take a keen interest in each one of us and knows us from the inside out. He is the one looking at us from the inside so He knows how we tick… We may think we have changed to such an extent that others do not know us, but He has watched us change and still knows us. Whether we have a personal relationship with Him so that He can guide us is going to be our choice.

If you wanted someone to be able to look after you, you would probably choose someone who knows your likes and dislikes. You would probably choose someone who you know will love you for what you are. You would choose someone if they said they would be willing to die for you! Well, who could be a better fit for that than someone who knows us from the inside out, someone who loves us and has demonstrated that love for us by giving His own life for us? That someone is Jesus Christ, our Lord and Saviour. He has demonstrated His love beyond any requirement that we could ever dream of and continues to take the keenest of interest in each one of us – let Him be your friend and Saviour.

Points to Ponder:
What quality would you look for in someone to care for you?
 
Have you thought about how much Christ does for you?

Tuesday Reading: Revelation 3 20-22
 
Key Verse: Revelation 3 20
20  Behold, I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears My voice and opens the door, I will come in to him and will dine with him and he with Me.

Devotion:
The Lord is our ever-present comforter but more importantly He is the one and only that can get us to heaven. We are the ones that continue to ignore Him and go about our lives in the ways that we think are best for us. We know virtually nothing about the dangers that await us compared to all that He knows and so we need to look to Him and His Word for guidance and strength to make sure that we can and do make the right decisions.

He has promised us right from the beginning that He will deliver us from our just punishment. He has shown us how He can achieve that by freely giving His own life for the payment of our sin debt. Because of that, and that alone, we are assured of our place in heaven... So where is the catch? We always like to think that there is a catch somewhere when we are given something that sounds too good to be true!

The only thing Christ requires of us is that we believe in Him. If we believe in Him, then we will listen to His Word and will do His Will. If we believe in Him then we are saying that what He has said is the truth and that that is what we should be doing and following. He is the one at the door, knocking, and waiting for us to simply answer the door so that He may give us our everlasting life.

There is going to come a time when we will all have to face Him as our Judge. If we have already believed in Him, then we will face Him safe in the knowledge that He already knows us and that He has already said that we are no longer guilty! What better way to face a judge than for Him to personally know that we are innocent!

Points to Ponder:
Are you listening to the door?

Are you willing to let Him in?

Monday Reading: Acts 10 34-35
 
Key Verse: Acts 10 35
35  but in every nation he who fears Him and works righteousness is accepted with Him.
 
Devotion:
What do you think makes a person? Too many times we will look at the condition, circumstances and qualities of a person in order to come up with what we think makes that person; but what actually makes that person is their substance and not their outward state. If two people are placed in exactly the same conditions and surroundings we would see them handle things in a different way because they are different people. That difference is what is inside them, their substance, and not what they look like.

We separate people because of things like wealth, race, religion and location because they are things that are immediately apparent to us. When God looks at people, He separates us because of the things that He can see easily – and that is our substance. He does not get bogged down by the things that we are limited by but looks at the inner person and works with that. Any person has the ability to come back to God and to become a true Christian despite what they look like, how they behave or what religion they say they uphold. There are many who will say they are Christians because they attend a church and do all the things that Christians should do outwardly. But unless that person believes on Christ and upholds Him as our Saviour, then they still have not taken that final step, the one God is waiting for us to take.

It does not matter where we come from. What matters is that we believe that God is God and that He is just and will not accept anyone into heaven who does not believe in Him. What matters is that we believe that there will be consequences should we choose not to believe in Christ. These consequences are more horrible than we can imagine. What matters is that we believe that Christ is the one who came forward to lay down His life to pay for our sins so that they can be forgiven and that we can be accepted into heaven. This is the promise that Christ gave to us and that we need to believe and depend on with faith. With that faith we will learn to be more like Him too.

Points to Ponder:
What do you believe makes a person?

How do you think God will see you when He looks from the inside out?

Sunday Reading: John 4 34-38
 
Key Verse: John 4 37
37  And in this is the saying true, One sows and another reaps.

Devotion:
Do you ever get caught up in just having to do the whole job yourself? How many times have you insisted on starting, doing and finishing something rather than allowing someone else to help or even take over what you have started? We all like to think that we are indispensible or that we are needed for the whole task in hand, but truth be told, we don’t always have to be there and have a hands on approach to everything.

Jesus talk with a Samaritan woman at the well; two things wrong, first that He talked to a Samaritan and second that He talk to a woman alone... or at least that was according to the politically correct rules at the time. We get caught up in trying to make sure that we are doing the right thing and that we are in control and that then makes us think that we should be the ones doing everything from start to finish. But there are going to be times when we are just a pawn in the game and we have a very minor task to do – maybe to tell someone that we believe the bible so that it will get them to think about it and not necessarily to go about preaching to them from start to finish.

Jesus was not going to allow a few “PC” rules to stop Him from making sure that this lady knew God. He took time out of a busy schedule to make sure that this lady had a chance. We do live busy lives and we do sometimes do a lot of running around. But sometimes it is about just taking a few minutes away from our lives and reaching out to someone just to let them know that there is someone out there who cares for us all the time. If we think we do not have work to do for God, then all we have to do is to look around us and see how many people there are out there who are wandering around lost, not knowing that there is a God out there who cares more than we know! We don’t necessarily have to sit with them until they have made a decision, we just have to allow them to know that there is a decision that they can make...

Points to Ponder:
Are you a control freak?
 
Are you allowing God to have a chance?