Friday Reading: Romans 15 1-7

Key Verse: Romans 15 6
6  so that with one mind and one mouth you may glorify God, even the Father of our Lord Jesus Christ.

Devotion:
Have you ever thought why we were given a free will? I mean, why would a jealous God give us the free will to disobey or even ignore Him? The answer, quite surprisingly, is very simple. We were given liberty, not for our own pleasure, but for the glory of God... He did not give us freedom of choice so that we can have the time of our lives; He wants to give us the time of our lives because He loves us. He wants us to show others just how much He means to us. This is most convincingly done through us showing good will towards others; be it anything from saying hello through to supplying the needs of others.

It is not an accident that some are strong and others weak... How else would the strong be able to encourage the weak if they were not strong? We have made so many choices in our lives by the time we come to think about choices that we take them mostly for granted. Choices like whether we should believe in God are too often put off until we are so set in our ways that we do not want to change. We are not confronted with choices like that because our society is at such a point where we no longer find people doing things out of Christian love – hence we don’t get to hear about God’s love...

If we want to show love and kindness to another, we must not give in to their ways so that we can humour them; we need to expound to them the gospel way showing them how Christ’s love goes far and beyond that which is required of us. Christ did not live His life for His own enjoyment but rather to please His heavenly Father. Through doing that He was given a good life and was able to shed light into many people’s lives. We need to give a thought as to why Jesus would give His life over to God and appear to us as His servant. He did it because He wanted to show His love for us and to glorify God. He did it out of choice even though He had all power to do anything...

Points to Ponder:
Do you like doing things for friends?
 
How much do you glorify God with your life?
 

Thursday Reading: 1 Corinthians 10 31-33
 
Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 10 31
31  Therefore whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God.

Devotion:
How many people have you heard saying that they have to go and do something or cannot do something because of their religion? I’m not talking about not drinking alcohol because of their religion; I’m talking about someone turning you down when you ask for help or something like that. In this politically correct age that we live in, far too many people are resting on their religion as an excuse to get out of doing things, or even using the religion as an excuse whereby they can break the laws of the land. This is not what Christ taught!

Paul used to use his religion as the excuse to get rid of Christians before he became one himself. He actually thought that he was doing things the right way by killing and persecuting Christians. The religious laws clearly stated that no man should ever say that he was God and yet this “person” Jesus of Nazareth had come along and said exactly that. So, according to the religious laws, he was correct in punishing anyone who supported this man. But, as is often the case, the religious laws had been taken too far. Man had taken on the mantle of upholding the religious laws without keeping God in the equation. They had ignored the fact that those same scriptures foretold of the fact that a Saviour would come.

And that is exactly what we do when we get caught up in religion... We take on the law as if we are the ones that invented it. We use what parts of the laws that we like and choose to ignore others. We do not do things according to God’s glory, but for our own glory! Paul was able to see that in the end and turned to follow Christ when Christ confronted him. Is it going to take something like that to happen before we give up our religious ways and turn to glorify God instead of ourselves? I hope not...

Points to Ponder:
How often do you bend the rules?

How often do you bend God’s rules?
 

Wednesday Reading: 2 Corinthians 5 13-15
 
Key Verse: 2 Corinthians 5 15
15  and He died for all, that the living ones may live no more to themselves, but to Him who died for them and having been raised.

Devotion:
There are times when some people will think that we must be out of our minds to believe in the things that we do as Christians... During those ties we need to make sure that we do stay focused on God’s Word because it is not for other people’s glory that we continue to believe in God, it is for His glory. But we do also need to be able to make ourselves understood to those that do not believe – how else will we be able to convince them that what we are saying is the truth? There seems to be a fine line between living for God and living for ourselves when we look at it in our minds; yet from God’s point of view it is crystal clear!

When we go over the top and start to try and show others that they are sinners and that they need to repent, they are going to think of us as a bit weird until they too understand God. So what should we be doing? Well, we need to show them that we behave modestly and lowly before God. When we show others just how much God means in our lives, then they will start to think that there may well be something to this “Christianity thing” that we are involved in. It’s not about how we can show people where they have gone wrong – because we too have done all they have, and probably more. We need to show them which direction we are aiming in and encourage them to follow us.

We cannot decide who is right and who is wrong because we do not know all the facts. What God has given us is a bible that will allow us to find out what we have done in our lives and which way we should be going. He has not given it to us as a weapon to use against others, but as a weapon that they can use to find out the truth for themselves. Jesus came to die once. He did that. His death and resurrection does not have to be repeated nor was it half-baked. He went to die for every one of us, both Christians and non-Christians so that we will be able to find out the truth and turn to Him. It is because of His display of love for us that we can begin to understand that He is our one and only God.

Points to Ponder:
How often do you tell others off?
 
How often do you listen to God’s instructions?
 

Tuesday Reading: Deuteronomy 6 4-7
 
Key Verse: Deuteronomy 6 5
5  And you shall love Jehovah your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your might.

Devotion:
When Moses had been with Israel for 40 years before the river Jordan just as God had commanded him, he went over all the commandments and the laws before they would be allowed to cross over the Jordan to the Land of Milk and Honey. The first few chapters of Deuteronomy were a brief history of just how much God had looked after them since leaving Egypt, how much Israel had disobeyed and had to face hard times and also how good times were when they obeyed God. Now Moses gave them the law starting with the most important fact of all... There is only one True God.

We need to remember this fact as we worship God. He is not a God that has exposed Himself to us because the first thing we would do is to make images of Him and worship them instead. Our desire must be to worship Him alone and not to get side-tracked by our own ways. The first and greatest commandment is that we love our God, that we posses Him within our hearts so that we will not stray from His teachings. To do that means loving Him with all our heart, soul and might, burying His words deep in our hearts so that we will be more inclined to do His will than our own. That love needs to be sincere, true, strong, and intelligent and above all, complete.

What we do with that love and understanding is of great importance too; for what is our love for God unless we are able to pass it on to the next generation? By meditating on His Word, by thinking about it, we are able to pass on our understanding that God can give us to our children or friends. Each day we should be making sure that we keep up with His Word so that we do not get left behind in the worlds thinking. Teaching the truth as given us by God and not the ways of the world will allow the people we teach to know God’s truth too. We need to do that with the same sincerity, strength, intelligence and completeness that we allow for our love for God.

Points to Ponder:
How often do you do things you like?

How often do you read God’s Word?