November 14: Psalms 19 7-10
Key Verse: Psalms 19 9
The fear of the Lord is pure, enduring forever. The decrees of the Lord are firm, and all of them are righteous.
Devotion:
We live in a world where we could say the necessities are day and night, the air we breathe, the sun and the water. Everything else stems from those things; the food we eat grows because of them and we live on that food. But as this Psalms reminds us, the Holy Scripture is of much greater benefit than any of these. Our food can only keep us alive as long as it exists. Our life is limited because of our surroundings. Once we die, our bodies return to the earth. If we should fall ill, we often need external help in order to get better again; nothing, it seems, is sure...
But when we take note of God’s Word, we begin to see something that is sure, something which remains as sure as it was in the beginning as it is now and as it will be in the future. Nothing can change the way we live more than God’s Word. Nothing else will give us so much enlightenment. We can read His Word and know He is our God, He continues to watch over us and He is the Rock upon which we can build more than what the earth can supply. If we need to find the truth, we can look into God’s Word because once we do so we realise it is the truth and that we can trust it. Nothing in God’s Word works against itself; all God’s Word points to once thing – that He is our God.
There are many things which we desire in our lives, money and nice food being right up there at or near the top. But what use are those things going to be if they are not going to last forever; what use are those things going to be when our body expires? We need to build for the future, our future beyond our mortal lives when we will have to face our Immortal God. The only thing that is going to be with us then is His Word, our Faith and His faithfulness. We have all we require written in our bibles. He has made sure we have all we need to make a complete and correct decision. In the words of Matthew Henry “The fear of the Lord, that is, true religion and godliness, is clean, it will cleanse our way; and it endureth forever.”
Points to Ponder:
What things do you desire here on earth?
What are you aiming for in heaven?
November 13: Luke 12 1-5
Key Verse: Luke 12 5
But I will show you whom you should fear: Fear him who, after your body has been killed, has authority to throw you into hell. Yes, I tell you, fear him.
Devotion:
At this stage Jesus was in front of a huge crowd. The original Greek text describes it as a myriad which itself meant ten thousand – or in other words, this was a huge crowd of people gathered together trying to get to Jesus so they could be blessed, healed or saved; they were falling over each other trying to get close to Him. Have you ever been in a huge crowd before? When you are surrounded by such a huge number of people it is very difficult to do your own thing. Most of the time you just have to go along with what the ‘crowd’ wants. Jesus sensed this and turned towards His disciples to issue them a warning that was supported by what was going on right in front of them.
His warning was to beware of the leaven of the Pharisees. Leaven is a rising agent used to make dough rise up. It may start out small but as long as it is warm it starts to puff up the dough, larger and larger. If left too long it will then go off. But in this case Christ was comparing the religion of the Pharisees with the leaven. They had made an art of religion and with it they were ruling the country. Their religion was no longer a relationship with God but a set of rules and regulations that would govern the people, or to put it another way, they left God out of their religion and based it on the requirements of man!
Christ brought it up at this point to show the disciples that people get carried away with things when they build them up themselves. Just like being in a crowd of people, if we are surrounded by something big and growing we will tend to go along with it just because it is big. He was trying to warn them from getting caught up in religion instead of pursuing their own relationship with God. He ended up by reminding them that the worst any man could do to us was to physically kill us – after that nobody can do anything to us! But God can! That is why we need to fear Him...
Points to Ponder:
Are you scared of people saying things to you?
Do you respect the One who can judge whether you go to heaven or hell?
November 12: Psalms 76 7-12
Key Verse: Psalms 76 12
He breaks the spirit of rulers; he is feared by the kings of the earth.
Devotion:
We always seem to be in a big rush to get our things done and because of that we assume when we call out to God He will answer immediately! What happens when He does not answer immediately? Many of us become discouraged when we think God is delaying His answer to our prayers or not even listening anymore – but truth be told, He knows our needs better than we do and He knows the timing of those needs more than us. When we weigh this up, we need to remember to be meek and humble before Him knowing He will continue to care for us.
That, unfortunately, is not always easy because we live in a world which is anything but quiet! Many things surrounding us can be described as being angry and provoking making it hard for us to be meek and humble because of our inherent fear of the wrath of man. What we need to remember though is the wrath of man is nothing in comparison to that of God! We can talk about how angry someone or some country can get, and we can put limits on what they would actually do through what we know about them. Those limits are actually set by God. He is the one that is ultimately in control and is able to limit man’s wrath in ways we do not know. God is the one who is in control of our planet and is able to control anything. But the people continue to make choices working against God each and every day!
Our continued warning from God’s Word is that we need to submit to Him and His ways rather than being provoked or giving in to man’s ways. Our prayers and praises need to be directed to God, especially from our hearts. It is no good saying one thing and feeling and thinking something else because that sort of thing will not wash with God. When we get caught up in our own worldly ways, we are apt to forget about God’s ways and to leave Him out of our lives. Our focus therefore needs to be on Him in our lives and our ways need to be directed towards Him. He has the power over all of us, He has the power over kings and queens; He is our God and we need to submit to Him in works and in spirit.
Points to Ponder:
How do you react when people get you mad?
How much do you argue with God?
November 11: Genesis 22 11-14
Key Verse: Genesis 22 12
“Do not lay a hand on the boy,” he said. “Do not do anything to him. Now I know that you fear God, because you have not withheld from me your son, your only son.”
Devotion:
This is one story which has stuck with me from reading through the bible - the story of Abraham taking Isaac up to be sacrificed; the test which God put before Abraham so all may know about Abrahams fear and reverence to God. It was not God’s intention that Isaac should ever be really sacrificed because He had already planned a perfect sacrifice for all. There is no need, and never was a need, for anyone to offer up a human sacrifice because God already knew He would allow Jesus Christ to be that sacrifice for us all.
There are probably times in each of our lives when we start to think God is asking a bit much of us or when we wonder whether God is watching at all. It is at times like that we need to bring this story of Abraham’s faith to the front of our thoughts. Not only is it encouraging seeing such an act of faith from Abraham’s point of view, but it is equally encouraging to see God’s faithfulness demonstrated by the Angel of the Lord was watching over him. We need to remember these demonstrations of faith and faithfulness and try ourselves to follow in Abraham’s footsteps.
It is not a requirement that we must demonstrate our faith before God will show His faithfulness through His promises to us. He has already shown His faithfulness by giving us a perfect sacrifice almost two thousand years ago. He has shown us His love right from when He created heaven and earth and continues to show us all manner of blessings. Like Abraham, it may only be when we do show our faith and dependence on God that we will see just how much He does care for us. If we depend on ourselves and not God, then how are we going to see how much He is actually doing for us? By depending on God like He has said we should, we will be able to see how much He does for us and when He does it for us, just like Abraham and Isaac were able to see God’s faithfulness.
Points to Ponder:
Do you depend on other people (like your parents)?
Are you depending on God?
November 10: Job 28 20-28
Key Verse: Job 28 28
And he said to the human race, “The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.”
Devotion:
When Satan was able to pour out his evil on Job, Job continued in what he knew to be the truth. As much as Satan could hurl at him, he would not give in to the temptation to renounce God just to satisfy His human body. It is true that he could not get his head round why this should all happen to him, but his faith in God remained because of one thing – his fear of God. Whilst his friends were trying to convince him that either he or his family had done wrong in order for God to be angry with him, he knew he had not knowingly wronged God. He objected others would think him or his family had sinned against God; he objected people would even think that of his family.
We are like that in our lives too; when we think we are doing ok, we reject other people’s ideas maybe we are doing something wrong. But it’s not just a simple rejection but a response to their accusations which may go a bit far. Whether we have the right to that rejection or not does not really lie with us but with God. We can know when we do things wrong and we can learn how to spot those times, but we should never count on our own righteousness to get us through.
True wisdom can be defined as being what God possesses which allows Him to do all He does in heaven and earth. Nobody else can lay claim to the wisdom He has in order to keep the universe in motion. All that wisdom is hidden from us. We cannot hope to attain it through learning. It has taken man many years to work out what atoms are made of and we still are theorising about unseen particles – we are only scratching at the tip of the iceberg of God’s wisdom! What we have learned is man’s wisdom. But there is also spiritual wisdom which only God can reveal to us and we have a whole lot of that still to pick up too! The only way we will learn it is through respect for God’s Word and walking with Him every day.
Points to Ponder:
How much have you learned in your life?
How much wisdom has God to create even a single human cell?