Monday 15 Dec 2008

Monday Reading: Isaiah 7 10-16
 
Key Verse: Isaiah 7 14
14  So, the Lord Himself shall give you a sign. Behold, the virgin will conceive and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call His name Immanuel.
 
Devotion:
Ahaz was a king who was not intent in keeping Israel walking with God; instead he commanded that idols be made to be worshipped. Isaiah had word from God and confronted him on more than one occasion, this being one of them. The simple words from Isaiah would be that Ahaz would have nothing to fear from the nations surrounding him if he would trust God again, but even though Ahaz openly said that he would not tempt God, he instead was doing exactly that behind the scenes. Nothing can be hid from God.

This was happening almost 750 years before Christ was born and yet the word was quite explicit from God. Jesus (Immanuel) would be born of a virgin and would be King of the Jews (...before both kings). God was telling Ahaz that another king (as well as the king of the land) would be born but both kings would not like the land. Herod certainly did not like Israel because of how he treated it. Jesus would flee from the land because He would be sought after even before He could understand what was happening. In other words, Jesus was born as a human child and that child would have to be brought up just like any other child – but that child would be like no other child!

Ahaz was a pretender. He was pretending to support God in front of Isaiah and yet behind the scenes was readying himself to worship idols. He did not have faith in God. He did not fear God. Isaiah must have thought that he was alone in standing up and giving Ahaz certain warnings of what was to come (certain as in they certainly would come to pass). That is how we may feel sometimes when we stand up and proclaim Christ as our Saviour when all around us people are instead using His name in vain. But just like Isaiah, we have to remain true and faithful to God and He will then support and protect us just as He was willing to support and protect the king Ahaz who was rebelling against Him. Christ wants to support us. He has proven that to us. We just need to have faith in Him...

Points to Ponder:
How are you rewarded when you trust others?

Are you wholly trusting God?

Sunday 14 Dec 2008

Sunday Reading: Luke 1 26-38 
Key Verse: Luke 1 38
38  And Mary said, Behold the servant of the Lord. Let it be to me according to your word. And the angel departed from her.

Devotion:
What a glorious event that we need to praise God for! Christ was to come into this world miraculously as a human; His Father being God. Mary was worried by the words used by the angel to greet her... The angel’s words to her were to signify just how important her position was to be as the earthly mother of our Saviour and how much she would have to care for her son. God has chosen Mary because she was a virgin, proof that He can and does work miracles, giving Mary a Son without her knowing a man. The angel wanted her to know that God had ordained this and that she had no need to worry about anything; indeed her sister would also be having a child some six months before her – another miracle.

We all do worry to some extent about what we are going to call our children sometimes reading through books of names to pick one out; the angel told Mary what her child would be called because this child is someone special. His name is Jesus! He is our Saviour. He is the head of our church. He is our Creator. His name is above all names. He is the Son of God. What a stir this name causes. His name brings people to their knees. His name brings comfort and joy.

But all this is only true for those who know Him... Too many people do not know the true story of Christmas. Too many people do not know the true love that God showed us by allowing His Son to come to earth as a human being, to be lowered to our earth after being in heaven. Too many people do not know the things that they do against God. Too many people do not know the price Christ had to pay so that we would be able to be redeemed.

The Christmas story has to be told. The Christmas story has to be heard. We need people to know just how much God loves us and how much He was willing to do to show us that love. We need to know what we have to do in order to get God back into our lives. What better time to start telling the story than now?

Points to Ponder:
What are you doing this year?
 
Are you celebrating the birth of Christ?

Saturday 13 Dec 2008

Saturday Reading: Proverbs 2 1-9
 
Key Verse: Proverbs 2 6
6  For The LORD gives wisdom; out of His mouth come knowledge and understanding.

Devotion:
How many times have you worked really hard for something and found that you could not quite do enough to get it, or that when you did get it, it was not as good as you thought? How many times have you returned saying “well that was a waste of time”? We do tend to judge things by how much we have to do in order to gain them. We also give more honour to things that we have had to work harder for. When we get caught up in the way of the world we then lose sight of the true worth of things but rather give them worth according to how much other people want them...

Sometimes it takes a big change in your life to start to allow you to realise just what things are actually important in your life. After a big change you begin to see things as they really are and not from the tainted view of the world... It is because we have begun to see their true worth. We can then look back and wonder how we ever got caught up in things to such an extent that we forgot about the true meaning of so many things.

We need to earnestly and honestly seek heavenly wisdom because in doing so we will find true worth and true meaning. When we find that sort of truth, we can look back and see that the work that we have done was totally worth it. Just because God gave us a free gift does not mean that we can sit back and do nothing about it after receiving that gift; we still have to be diligent about what we do with that gift. We need to seek, we need to ask, and we need to come forward, because Christ has already promised us that He will answer. It is the ones that do come forward that will receive the blessing. It is the ones that are diligent that will know the true worth. It does not take us long to look for money when we lose it; why should it take so long for us to look for heavenly wisdom when we are in need of that too? Walking with God means that we do have to keep up... we cannot expect Him to drag us forward as if we are in a trailer or cart; we need to be exerting effort to keep walking with Him!

Points to Ponder:
What work lead to your biggest disappointment?
 
Are you making sure you keep walking with Christ?

Friday 12 Dec 2008

Friday Reading: Galatians 3 19-24

Key Verse: Galatians 3 22
22  But the Scripture shut up all under sin, so that the promise by faith of Jesus Christ might be given to those who believe.

Devotion:
If God’s promise was good enough for salvation, why then do we have the law (the Old Testament)? If Christ’s gift of salvation to us is perfect, why should we have all the laws written in our bibles? The answer is surprisingly simple... By reading our Old Testaments we can find out that even God’s chosen people (the Israelites) were sinners, and yet His promise to send a Saviour for us stood from the beginning. How did the Israelites know they were doing things wrong? They knew they did wrong because they had the law given to them from God via Moses. That is the one thing that allowed them to know what they were supposed to do and allowed them to see what they did wrong in God’s sight.

The law was not intended as a means by which the Israelites could discover a way to be justified but rather as a means by which they could discover they were sinners. It is not until we understand that we are sinners that we can turn to God and ask for His forgiveness. The bible gives us all of that knowledge and even pointed the Israelites towards the truth that Christ would come to be their Saviour. Moses was the mediator at that time, being the person in the middle hearing the woes from each side and trying to find a way forward for both sides. He had to explain God’s rules to the people and also to take the peoples worries back to God.

The fantastic truth is that the law promised that by the faith of Jesus Christ we would all be able to receive salvation. It was a promise that spanned time, a promise that would stand true for all those before and all those to come; a promise that whosoever believes on His name should receive everlasting life. But before that faith came, man was kept under the law so that the faith that was to come could be understood by all. What a perfect gift God gave to us. What a perfect explanation before the gift. What a perfect end and His gift...

Points to Ponder:
How do you know when you have done something wrong?
 
Have you read your bible to understand God’s law?

Thursday 11 Dec 2008

Thursday Reading: Psalm 120:1-7
 
Key Verse: Psalms 120 2
2  Deliver my soul, O LORD, from lying lips, from a deceitful tongue.

Devotion:
Isn’t it amazing just how much people tend to lie in our society nowadays? We look at politicians as people who find it hard to tell the truth; we look at layers as people who have to find ways to bend the truth... And we think of this as normal living! Telling lies has become part of our culture and children are learning it from the very beginning of life because of the example that we are to them. But God made sure that that was one that made it into the “top ten”: Exodus 20 16 tells us “You shall not bear false witness against your neighbour.”

If we are honest with ourselves we will all admit to having told lies in the past, be those huge whoppers or tiny white lies, and have had to live with the consequences of those lies. Again if we are honest we will admit to thinking that our lies are a direct consequence of the lies that others have said or to get us away from some situation. We use them as a tool in everyday life! Oh how God must look upon us with despair as we live our lies...

We may be surrounded by people who tell lies and many who are deceitful too; but that does not mean that we have to follow on in the same manner. Whilst we do have a choice as to whether we want to follow a path of lies or follow God’s Commandments, the choice is more along the lines of we can choose to follow a path of safety or a path to destruction!

God is a just God. He has quite clearly given us the instructions that we should follow. He has very clearly given us the punishment that will face us when we break His laws. So the path of what we should follow should be quite clear – we should follow His laws to avoid the punishment... He is just and will allow us to receive the punishment unless we come to Him and repent! When we do cry out to Him, He will hear us. Unlike us, God cannot lie and hence we must trust everything that He has given to us and trust that if we do disobey Him, we have to face up to the consequences!

Points to Ponder:
How often do you tell white lies?

Do you think God would believe your white lies too?