Friday Reading: Psalm 19:7-10

Key Verse: Psalms 19 9
9  The fear of The LORD is clean, enduring forever; the judgements of The LORD are true and righteous altogether,

Devotion:
We live in a world where the basic necessities are day and night, the air that 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 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 that 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 very way that we live more than God’s Word. Nothing else will give us so much enlightenment. We can read His Word and know that He is our God, that He continues to watch over us and that 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 that 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 that 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 that He requires of us written in our bibles. He has made sure that we have sufficient 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?

Thursday Reading: Luke 12 1-5
 
Key Verse: Luke 12 5
5  But I will warn you of whom you shall fear: Fear Him who, after He has killed, has authority to cast into hell. Yea, I say to 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 that they could be blessed/healed/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 that is 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 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 that is 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?

Wednesday Reading: Psalm 76:7-12
 
Key Verse: Psalms 76 12
12  He shall cut off the spirit in princes; 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 that when we call out to God that 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 – 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 that we ought to be meek and humble before Him knowing that He will continue to care for us.

That, unfortunately, is not always easy because we live in a world that is anything but quiet! Many things that surround 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 that 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 mans wrath in ways that we do not know. God is the one that is in control of our planet and is able to control anything.

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?

Tuesday Reading: Genesis 22 11-14
 
Key Verse: Genesis 22 12
12  And He said, Do not lay your hand on the lad, nor do anything to him. For now I know that you fear God, since you have not withheld your son, your only one, from Me.

Devotion:
I am sure that we have all read or heard the story of Abraham taking Isaac up to be sacrificed; the test that God put before Abraham so that all may know about Abrahams fear and reverence to God. It was not God’s intention that Isaac should ever be actually sacrificed because He had already lined up a perfect sacrifice for all. There is and was never a need for anyone to offer up a human sacrifice because God already knew that He would send Jesus Christ as that sacrifice for us all.

There are probably times in each of our lives when we start to think that God is asking a bit much of us or when we wonder whether God is watching. It is at times like that that we need to bring this recount 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 fact that 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 for 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 that 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?