Saturday Reading: Psalm 62:8-12
 
Key Verse: Psalms 62 11
11  God has spoken once; twice I have heard this, that power belongs to God.

Devotion:
Placing your faith and trust in something that eventually lets you down is very demoralising and when that happens you don’t want to go back to that place. We do learn to avoid situations that we think will eventually let us down, but there will always be some that get our hopes up only to be dashed later on – all of those ways and times are earthly ways. It seems that no matter how hard we search for something on earth that is not going to let us down we never seem to find it. We face times when we even feel our closest friends let us down in some manner...

But we have a very special friend in our lives who is as constant as the earth revolving (as seen from our eyes). We have a friend who sticks closer than a brother. We have a friend that was willing to lay down His life for us so that we may live. That is the most unselfish thing we could possibly do, to lay our lives down for someone else – but when we do that, that is the end of what we can do. Christ, on the other hand, knew that He would be raised up from the death and live forever more. He knew that what He was doing was more than the best that we could do because He knew that He would still be there for us afterwards!

We often have to learn the hard way that we cannot ultimately trust in king and governments because they can always be lead astray. We have to learn that we are all living in a world of sin that will eventually trip us up in some way or another. But we also need to remember that we have a God who is impervious to our sin and our world and the temptations that lie within. He has told us so. He only has to say it once and many will hear. We then hear from others who heard and yet from more. God only has to speak once because He only ever speaks the truth. We need to then repeat that truth to others so that they too can hear His Word. He is watching over us and wants each of us to be encouraged by His Word and to lean on it because we know we can trust it – always!

Points to Ponder:
Who do you look to for the truth?
 
Are you trusting God’s Word instead of your own?

Friday Reading: Nahum 1 2-7

Key Verse: Nahum 1 3
3  The Lord is slow to anger, and great in power. And He does not by any means acquit the guilty. The Lord has His way in the tempest and in the storm, and the clouds are the dust of His feet.

Devotion:
About 100 years before Nahum wrote these words, Jonah had been sent to Nineveh to make them see the error of their ways and to get the Ninevites to repent; and that they did. But, 100 years on, they were again worse than ever. It does sometimes seem hard to pass on your love for Christ to the next generation and hope that they will pass on that knowledge and wisdom to their next generation, but we need to stick at it and continue showing our faith in order that they will see faith in action. I wonder whether the next generation was not looking to God because the previous generation did not look to God...

We like to remember the wonders of God and the love of God but we don’t like to remember His wrath or Justice; much like we like to remember the good times from our lives and not to remember the times when we were told off or had a rough time. Nahum’s reminder to the people and to us was sincere and hard hitting – we must never forget God’s power and ‘justness’. We need to remember that God does not bend the rules nor break them. He upholds the rules even when it will hurt us because He cannot and will not lie to us. We like to bend the rules with our children in order to keep them happy but God will not. He would rather that we learned the right way and followed on in the truth than learned how to lie. We need to know that if we do go astray, we will have to pay for our actions. We need to know that if we turn our backs on God, He will accept that as us rejecting Him. We have to know that our rejection of Him does mean we will not join Him in heaven.

But what we also do need to remember is that He is a good God, a stronghold, a fortress and a Saviour who shows us more comfort and support than we need when we turn to Him in our need. He knows those who trust Him and those who just pretend to trust Him...

Points to Ponder:
Do you like to remember the good times or the bad times?
 
Do you remember the wrath of God as well as the love of God?

Thursday Reading: Micah 6 6-8
 
Key Verse: Micah 6 8
8  He has shown you, O man, what is good. And what does Jehovah require of you but to do justice and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God?

Devotion:
The more that we try to find things that we can do to please God, the more we should come to realise that there is nothing physical that we can achieve that will please Him; instead He is after one thing and one thing alone – our love. If we are given a set of rules that we should obey or a set of instructions to follow, we will always seem to find a different way of interpreting things so that we can do as little as possible to achieve the goal we have been set.

God is the one who has created us and the universe we live in. He is the one who gave us a perfect place to live within and asked only one thing – that we show our love to Him by obeying simple rules. What have we done in return? Have we not changed the rules so that we can live our lives in the manner we see fit rather than how God wants us to live? Have we not changed the meaning of His Word so that we like it? Have we not made our own rules to follow that sound like His rules so we can be happy...? Well, the sad truth is that no matter how hard we try to do things our own ways; we will never achieve the same goal as God has set for us.

Man, over time, has tried just about everything possible to try and make himself happy whilst not having to follow God’s simple rule – love ME! Is it little wonder that the first of the Ten Commandments tells us to love Him? So how are we supposed to show our love for Him? Well, we could just say that we love Him but that is not going to get very far... When we really do love someone we show it in many more ways than just telling them we love them. We listen to what they want, we are honest with them, we trust them, we help them, we support them, and we make our lives with them as transparent as possible so that we see each other for what we are. If we think something is wrong, we need to start with ourselves to make sure we are still right. God loves us for what we are not for what we think we are. Let’s be honest and love Him openly.

Points to Ponder:
Do you show your love or hide it?

Are you open with God or trying to hide things?

Wednesday Reading: Matthew 18 15-20
 
Key Verse: Matthew 18 15
15  But if your brother shall trespass against you, go and tell him his fault between you and him alone. If he hears you, you have gained your brother.

Devotion:
How many times have you had someone do something wrong against you and the first thing that you do is to go and tell everyone else what they have done to you rather than try and confront them first? It is something that we do tend to do and in doing so we are driving a wedge between us and them as soon as we start spreading the bad news… We do not like it when it happens against us, so why should we be the ones doing this to others?

If you did something wrong against someone by mistake and they went and told all of your friends what you did, how would you feel about it thinking that all of your friends may well think that you did that on purpose rather than by mistake? We do have to give people the benefit of the doubt otherwise we are assuming they are guilty before seeing the proof! God does not accuse us of being guilty until He can prove to us that we have been guilty. He gives us the chance to come forward and to admit to that guilt and to sort things out before it is too late – we are the ones that choose not to come forward and accept that guilt before Him.

Being able to be more open about issues between us and others will allow us to live closer and with greater harmony than before. As long as we are not wiling to allow people to see what they have done wrong before we accuse them in front of the world, we alienate them from our possible friendship. If Jesus Himself told us to love our neighbours, then should we not be doing exactly that and giving people the chance to admit to doing things wrong before we accuse them?

Christ has shown us the ultimate example by submitting Himself as a perfect sacrifice before us and for us so that we can freely come to Him knowing that He will forgive us for the things that we do wrong. He is the one that has made the first move so that we can feel more at ease. We need to follow on in His example and make that first move so that people around us can know that we are willing to talk before we accuse, that we are willing to forgive when they are willing to come forward. It is not easy when we know they are in the wrong, but it is what Christ would have us to do.

Points to Ponder:
Do you jump to conclusions?
 
Are you coming to Christ?