Monday Reading: John 18 1-9
 
Key Verse: John 18 4
4  Then Jesus, knowing all things that were coming upon Him, went out and said to them, Whom do you seek?
 
Devotion:
How many times have you been asked by someone (like your parents) “What are you doing?” when they know exactly what you are doing? The reason why they ask the question is not to find out what you are doing, because they already know, but to get you to admit to what you are doing! When people are searching for the truth, the best way of actually engaging them in conversation is most likely going to be to ask them what they are looking for; find out what they are searching for or at least why they are searching.

 

All throughout the New Testament we have times where Jesus would approach someone and ask them a simple question to get them to admit that they wanted to know God. By doing this He was getting them to admit to wanting to know Him before He introduced Himself properly. This was not a ploy to check and see if they believed before going any further but a simple task of getting that person to admit to wanting or needing a Saviour. Christ did not come to the world to take over people’s minds, lives or ways; He came to save people by giving them a Saviour when they knew that they needed one. There was no coercing or trickery involved because Christ can know no sin.

 

The fact was that Christ did know what was in those people’s minds just as He knows what is in our minds. He wants us to openly admit that He is our Saviour – we don’t have to do it to the whole world, just to Him. When we openly admit our need for a Saviour, He will step forward and show us exactly who our Saviour is and give us our forgiveness from our sins that we seek. From that moment on we are His and He will never leave us nor forsake us. It is not that He has taken us, but that we willingly gave our lives back into His eternal care. He is our God. He is our Saviour. We have to make that choice as to whether to allow Him to guide us through eternity or to try and “go it alone”…

 

Points to Ponder:
How often are you asked to explain yourself?

 

How many times do you ignore God’s questions?

Sunday Reading: John 1 37-42
 
Key Verse: John 1 38a
38  Then Jesus turned and saw them following and said to them, What do you seek? …

 

Devotion:
What would you answer if Jesus asked you “What do you seek”? Would your answer be like the two disciples or would you ask Him something about your life? I think the first thing that may well pop into our heads is something to do with ourselves, the trouble we face or some illness that He could heal… but what came into the disciples head first is missed by so many because they answered with a single word that means so much: “Rabbi” (or as is translated, Teacher).

 

Our lives are often based on the selfishness of our own hearts. We seek to find things that will in some manner fulfil our desires. We look for ways in which we can better ourselves. We look for self profit! What the disciples realised was the same as Solomon realised – God can teach us so much that if He should ask us to name anything it should be that He teach us His ways.

 

We fall so short when it comes to doing God’s will in our lives because of our lack of wisdom as well as our sin natures. The more that we know about God’s ways, the more we will be able to change our own ways to forget about our old ways and move forward to Christ’s new ways. The more we have knowledge about God, the more we can live our lives the way that we should. If we want to avoid the pitfalls in life then we must know the way forward, the safe way, the only way. It is no good testing the way forward in every possible direction before taking a step forward because, like going through a maze, we may well choose the wrong ways more times that the right ways. Let’s take a mine field for instance. Would you use the “one foot forward” test to try and find a way through a mine field, or would you rather someone show you the safe way forward?

 

Whether we believe it or not, we do not have the knowledge or wisdom to take on life. We need His guidance and we need His ways. We have so much to learn and we have so many temptations that will lead us astray. What better way than to have a personal teacher who is willing and able to lead us through our own personal mine fields?

 

Points to Ponder:
Do you just take life as it goes without asking for help?
 
Are you ready to trust Christ to lead you forward?

Saturday Reading: John 1 15-18
 
Key Verse: John 1 17
17  For the Law came through Moses, but grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.

 

Devotion:
If you have ever sat through a court case or watched a film where lawyers argued a case, you will have noticed just how important time is and the order of things happening. Why is this so? Because we live in a dimension that is governed by time. Our history books recount things based on time lines, our geography books show countries based in time periods and our whole lives depend on time. But God is the one that lives outside of time – that is one of the main reasons why we continue to get confused about how He can do things or when He did things…

 

He made sure that Moses was given all of the law so that the Jews would be able to see how impossible it was for them to keep that law by themselves. He made sure the prophets foretold of the coming of Christ. He made sure that John the Baptist came before Him so that there would be people ready to receive Him. Everything had it’s time and place. When He was here as the man Jesus, He continued to live within the constraints of time as we do. He continued to have to work around things in the same manner as we have to. He showed us that it is just not possible for us to live a life without sin; but in doing so He showed us His amazing grace so that we could begin to understand just how much He loves us.

 

Everything has had a time and place that is perfect to show us God’s love, power, truth, righteousness, wrath, support and grace. We now wait for the perfect time and place for His return to once and for all get rid of sin for us. How could anyone plan such a perfect time and place for everything that has come to pass? The only way can be that He is, He has always been and He always will be. He may have only showed Himself as man a few thousand years ago, but He has been there from before He created time and continues to be here. He is the one that created everything for us. He is the one that will come back to destroy things and re-create things. Through the history that He has created we can see just what an Awesome God He is and how we can totally depend on Him!

 

Points to Ponder:
How many times have people surprised you?
 
How much does God have to tell us to be ready before we start to get ready?

Friday Reading: 2 Corinthians 8 7-9

 

Key Verse: 2 Corinthians 8 8
8  I do not speak according to command, but through the eagerness of others, and testing the trueness of your love.

 

Devotion:
You could read a book and then just put it aside, forgetting about what you have read; but God’s Word is a book that will encourage you to continue reading because it gives you a special insight into life with God that goes beyond any other book. The first book that I read cover to cover with eagerness was a book about fatigue in an aeroplane – a bit of a strange book to be enthralled by you may think… But I read it through because that was a subject that I found very interesting. It was little wonder then that when I found that I could go to university and continue on to learn about things like that, I did! After being interested in aeroplanes for a while, I wanted to know more about how to get junk of metal weighing almost 200 tonnes to carry over 200 tonnes a fly almost half way round the world! Staggering when you think of the numbers without mentioning the Boeing 747…

 

It does not take too much faith to step into a 747 and fly off on holiday… But would you have wanted to be the first to step into the plane before they actually flew it for the first time? Faith is something that needs encouragement to continue. If we started to see a lot of planes fall out of the sky, we would all stop flying! But because we see planes flying all round the world all the time, we have faith that the next one we get on will continue to do exactly that.

 

Our faith needs encouragement; encouragement that we can get readily through reading God’s Word and what we can build upon by doing God’s Will. When we exercise our faith by depending on God as He wants us to, we gain more and more confidence that He will continue to look after us as He does do exactly that. The more we depend, the more He does, the more our faith grows. We do this through our own eagerness to continue finding more that our God can do for us. We do this because we continue to find out just how awesome His love is for us! He is the one that came down from heaven to be as a mortal man so that He could pay for my sins. I know I can depend on Him. I know He loves me. My faith makes me whole…

 

Points to Ponder:
Do you check out each chair before you sit on it?
 
Do you continue to test God before depending on Him?