Wednesday 15 Oct 2008

Wednesday Reading: Titus 3 1-7
 
Key Verse: Titus 3 3
3  For we ourselves also were once foolish, disobedient, deceived, slaving for various lusts and pleasures, living in malice and envy, hateful, hating one another.

Devotion:
One sure thing that you will notice when you have God in your life is that you are more willing to think good of others or to think good towards them. But just thinking about it is not going to get you very far; you have to be able to do good as well. Thinking good about someone is not going to show them that you do, you will have to do good to show them that you mean well! It’s not good turning your back on some that do not do what you think they should either – just think back in your life and see how many times you have done the wrong thing in the past... Our lives were filled with breaking rules and they may well still be; but with Christ on our side and Him in our lives, we have the propensity to do good... but we still have to do it...

Jesus showed us His love through what He did on the cross. He showed us His mercy by raising Himself up from the grave so that we would also be able to follow Him. That love and mercy stands firm throughout our lives. With that example in our minds we need to go out to others and show them love and mercy too. We may not like the fact that we should show mercy to those that wrong us, but think more about what Christ has done for every human on this planet! If He is able to show mercy to the vilest of sinners (in our minds) then we should be able to show mercy to others too. Yes, it is hard.

It was nothing that we did, nor anything that we possessed that gave Christ the idea that He should show love and mercy towards us. We just simply are not that good! He did it because of His love towards us even when we were doing wrong. He wants us to go by that example and to be able to put aside our own feelings when the time comes to show mercy to others so that they will get an idea of how merciful Christ is. Only then will we see others want to come and find out more about Christ... t is through His grace alone that we have eternal life...
 
Points to Ponder:
Do you like it when others extend mercy to you?
 
Do you know how much mercy God has already shown you?
 

Monday 13 Oct 2008

Monday Reading: Romans 14 14-17
 
Key Verse: Romans 14 17
17  for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit.
 
Devotion:
How many times have you come across something that someone says is normal but you think that it is totally strange? We all have our differences and some of those are normally inherited from our parents and from our friends; but just because we think some things are normal, it does not mean that they are normal! Just like a “”Chinese whispers” game where one person whispers to the next and they to the next, our lives change over time as we take on new ways of doing things. It may take several generations, or just a few days, but we do change over time...

But, are we changing for the good or for the bad? If we are going to answer that question, then we have to go back to basics and figure out what God would have us to do in our lives; only then can we decide what should be normal! When we go back and see how God created us and how we have changed things, we will begin to understand just how much of our lives are based on things that we like, want or desire over and above those that Christ would have us to do. We take on new ways of doing things and new ideas because we like what they are or how they make us feel... but it does not necessarily mean that they are right...

One thing that we do have to watch out for is offending people just because we do something that we think is normal... If we do not take into consideration what others think, then we are most likely to offend them in some manner before too long. It does not mean that we have to do everything to their standards and in their ways – far from it because they may be further from God’s ways than our own! What we need to be doing is building up our ways based on Christ’s teachings so that we can be sure that we are at least getting something right in our lives. Christ is the one that died for us all and we need to make sure that we do not block anyone from coming to Christ just because we have changed in some way that is no longer Christian...

Points to Ponder:
How much of your life is based on your friends lives?

How much of your life is based on Christ’s teachings?
 

Sunday 12 Oct 2008

Sunday Reading: Galatians 3 6-9
 
Key Verse: Galatians 3 9
9  So then they which be of faith are blessed with faithful Abraham.

Devotion:
When we read the first few books of the Old Testament we can see just how much the people of Israel were looked after by God and how much they too looked up to God. But we also see the evidence of the amazing promise made to Abraham; we see how the tribes of Israel expanded and were blessed just as God had promised. When we look further though our bibles we then see the promises that God has made about other people being drawn to Him and about how He would bring someone that would cover our sins once and for all. Reading further we find the proof that that is exactly what He did through Jesus Christ.

If ever we need some sort of encouragement that God carries out His promises, we need look no further than our bibles; even though the world stands as a testament to God man still seems to think that he can either do it himself or that God will not carry out His promises. What is it that puts that doubt into people’s minds? The biggest cause is a lack of knowledge in what God has done for us.

We see how much the people of Israel believed in God when He did amazing things for them. We see how they followed Him when He made their lives good... But as soon as something went wrong, their faith would dwindle. As soon as they lost a leader who continued to praise God, they too fell away from God. So much of our faith seems to come down to following a good example of faith. If we stood firm in our faith, then others would have an example to be encouraged by. If we want to stand firm in our faith, we need to stand firm in our bibles, in God’s Word. He has promised us so much and as soon as we understand that, we will continue to be encouraged by those promises. Reading His Word will help us to know Him and stand on those promises and be that faithful example to encourage others...

Points to Ponder:
Are you encouraged by others who succeed?
 
Are you building up your faith by reading?
 

Friday 10 Oct 2008

Friday Reading: Romans 11 28-33

Key Verse: Romans 11 32
32  For God has shut up all in unbelief, so that He might show mercy to all.

Devotion:
When we take God’s Word literally we find that there are people that we should avoid and keep clear of; those people being them that do not want to believe in God. We should not allow their ways of life to pollute our ways as we follow God... But that does not mean that God does not love them! How would we have got to know God if He did not love us? How would we have got past the barrier that is set up to prevent sin from getting to heaven? There is absolutely no way that we can span that barrier without Jesus Christ.

God does not look down and think about how sorry He is for giving us a way of getting to heaven even though we are sinners. He does not look back with regret because of the sinful lives that we still live – even though we proclaim ourselves to be Christian. Instead, His mercy covers our indiscretions! If we had always believed in God we would not know His mercy; we would not know the extent of His amazing love for us. Instead He has allowed us to find out just how much of a sinful bunch we are and then extended His mercy towards us.

God wants us to know just how much we have done against Him so that we will come humbly in repentance before Him. Then He will be able to show us the all-covering mercy that He has towards us. Then we will begin to understand the extent of His love towards us! Does this mean that He has caused us to sin in the first place? Far from it! We chose the sinful path we trod, but He allowed us to make our own choices. He tried to show us right from wrong, but we rejected Him. He continued to love us even when we forsook Him. When we turn back to Him, we too can find just how much He loves us and how much He has already done for us without us knowing about it... Without Him, we are eternally trapped by our own sins...

Points to Ponder:
Have you ever felt really bad about what someone else has done?
 
How must God feel about our lives?
 

Thursday 9 Oct 2008

Thursday Reading: 1 Corinthians 10 23-33
 
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:
It is very easy to be drawn into discussions or even arguments over whether things are right or wrong according to scriptures. It is also very easy to get side-tracked into reading other things when trying to find out the truth... But what we should be doing is seeking that truth and showing that truth to others. When people have a little knowledge of the bible, it can be a bad thing. Let us take an over simplified example. If we read the first part of Romans 6 23 we find the phrase “for the wages of sin is death”. If someone were just to have that in their knowledge, they may well hate God or someone else for telling them that. But if they were to also know the second phrase from that verse they would find the truth “but the gift of God is eternal life through Jesus Christ our Lord.”

Just as a little knowledge of Christianity can discourage people; it can also be used against us. In our passage today we see that the phrase "for the earth is the Lord's, and the fullness of it" could be used by non-believers to try and trip us up; but far worse a cause would be that it would trip up the unbeliever and cause them to stray further from God. For that reason, we need to try to make sure that what we do is not going to offend others to the extent where they will rebel against God’s Word rather than try to find out more about it. It is no use telling people they are going to die unless you can also tell them about God’s wonderful gift!

Whilst it is true that everything on earth is God’s and that He has given it as a place for us to live and told us to “subdue it” and “have dominion over” everything; He did not mean that it gives us free will to do anything we like. If we exercise our absolute free will we will quite quickly come to the point where we are no longer giving God the glory for everything but rejecting Him. We do need to care for what we do and we need to allow others to see we do – so that God will get the glory!

Points to Ponder:
What do you like doing best of all?

How does that give glory to God?