Friday 13 Jun 2008

Friday Reading: Matthew 10 28
 
Key Verse: Matthew 10 28
28  And do not fear those who kill the body, but are not able to kill the soul. But rather fear Him who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
 
Devotion:
There are always going to be people who will call us names, mock us, revile us, persecute us… Christian life suddenly doesn’t sound a good life anymore… But what we find is that we always have those people that would be against us no matter what life we lead. The sad part is that when we do become Christians and lead a Christian life, many people do respect us but those that are against us often become more aggressive or more blatant. If we are going to uphold the name of Christ above those persecutions, then we are demonstrating to one and all that Christ is our Saviour, our King.
 
There are still places that will put Christians to death just because they are Christians, but chances are that if you are able to read this, then you are able to worship in relative safety. Any act against us is just another attempt by Satan to stop us from doing what we do best – worshipping God and giving Him all the glory! No matter what Satan tries to do, he is never going to be able to take us away from Christ. Jesus paid for our sins and He gave us the choice to believe in Him. By believing in Him we have accepted His most wonderful gift – eternal salvation. Because He will never go back on His word, Satan cannot take us away. He may well be able to make our life uncomfortable to see if we will ever denounce God, but because we know we are eternally saved, that will not happen.
 
So when Jesus was telling the disciples not to fear anyone who could kill them, He meant it quite literally. They would face death because of what they did in amongst God’s people! But that death is nothing compared to what will face our persecutors when they face hell for their unbelief. Nobody will be able to take our souls away from God unless we never give them back to God. By believing in God we are giving our souls back into God’s eternal protection. By rejecting God, man is accepting the fact that he does not care about his own soul being permanently destroyed in hell.
 
Points to Ponder:
Do you like being burned?
 
Is your soul safely in God’s hands?

Thursday 12 Jun 2008

Thursday Reading: John 8 12-16
 
Key Verse: John 8 16
16  And yet if I do judge, My judgment is true; for I am not alone, but I and the Father who sent Me.
 
Devotion:
I find it remarkable that Christ was willing to stand up and talk to all these scribes and Pharisees even though they were actually trying to get Him cornered so that they could discredit Him. Can you imagine going into a room and being grilled by people who do not like you; having to answer questions fired at you designed to trip you up. If we were in that circumstance, most of us would turn to a few “white lies” to help us along the way, or at least turn away from the truth so that we could get off the hook. But Jesus continued to answer each question posed to Him with the truth.
 
But more than that… He stated that He did not judge people in that way that we do. Verse 15 states “You judge after the flesh, I judge no one.” This is immediately followed by the statement that if He did judge, it would be just. In other words, He was willing to stand there and answer questions without judging them for the way they asked, what they asked or why they asked. He was willing to be totally open and honest whilst they continued to hide behind their veils of deceit!
 
As long as we are willing to admit that Christ is our Saviour and that He alone is the light of the world, then we are walking towards the light. No longer should we fight amongst ourselves in the dark because He has given us the light, has shown us the light and continues to let it shine for all to see. Whilst He was on earth as a human, He continued to spread the Gospel. Now that He is in heaven, He continues to spread the Gospel through the Holy Spirit and through us. There is no way that we will ever understand His ways fully because we are not capable of thinking that far! There is no way that we will ever stop judging others, because we live in a world where we are all taught to judge one another. Is it any wonder then that we loose sight of our God?
 
We need to stop and realise just what we are doing before it is too late. He continues to wait for us to do exactly that…
 
Points to Ponder:
Have you thought about the things that people may dislike about you?
 
Have you thought about the things that God would dislike in your life?

Wednesday 11 Jun 2008

Wednesday Reading: John 8 1-11
 
Key Verse: John 8 11
11  And she said, No one, Lord. And Jesus said to her, neither do I give judgment. Go, and sin no more.
 
Devotion:
Personally, I think that our biggest problem with out double standards is the way that we then treat others because of those standards. We like to think that the law is laid out specifically and that all should follow it; but when we get caught out transgressing that same law we want it to bend to give us leniency. The sad fact is that when we see someone else breaking those same laws, we tend to blame them square and fair for what they have done.
 
Right from the beginning God has told us that we do not have the right to judge one another because of this very fact. We break the laws so we should not be the ones that judge others for breaking those laws. However, if nobody upheld the laws, we would all be in great trouble because we would have chaos in everything. We therefore have to follow the standards as laid down by God in the beginning. The basic law that He gave to Moses still stands today. The reason for it is not to throw everyone in jail that breaks the law, but for us to see that we are breaking the law and encourage us to stop breaking it. If there were no punishments for breaking the law, we would simply go out and break them. But because there are punishments, we shy away from getting caught breaking the law.
 
One thing we always forget… God is watching us break every law that we do break. There is nothing that can be hidden from Him because He can see it all. There is no sin that can be hidden from Him and there is no sin that He has done. That fact alone gives Him the right to judge us righteously. If we want someone to be able to show us when we go wrong, the only one that can do that justly is Christ. That does not mean that we should ignore people who are breaking the law because they may not know that they are breaking the law. If they are then able to see that they have broken God’s law, God will be the one to judge them accordingly. Thank goodness we have a loving God who is willing to forgive us when we admit to our faults!
 
Points to Ponder:
Do you like people telling you that you have done wrong?
 
Can you stand up to God and say that you have done nothing wrong?

Tuesday 10 Jun 2008

Tuesday Reading: Matthew 15 17-20
 
Key Verse: Matthew 15 18
18  But the things which come out of the mouth come from the heart, and they defile the man.
 
Devotion:
Let us continue to talk about double standards, but this time let us look at the standard that we have for our physical life and the standard that we have for our spiritual life. Far too often we think of them as entirely different standards and hold them apart whereas in reality we should be looking at our life with Christ and making sure that that is right – everything else will then fall into place. Christ was quick to point out that what we do physically is not what will keep us from going to heaven; it is what we do against Christ that will keep us from His side.
 
Some religions have strict rules about what you can and cannot eat or drink, but Christ is clearly stating that what we eat or drink will go down our throats, be munched up by our stomachs and leave our bodies as waste. The only thing that can go wrong is if any of that which we eat is in excess or works against our bodies (such as poison). How can any of that keep us away from Christ if we are still focused on God whilst we partake of it? On the other hand, what comes out of the mouth is entirely different…
 
What is going to come out of our mouths is what we have learned (whether it be intentionally or otherwise) and what we have heard and what we have built up. We are not always taught things correctly because man wants to be able to prove himself in some way. We do not always hear the right stuff because we are not always amongst Christians who are always saying the right things! In fact, the more that we are exposed to things, the more we think about them and the more we start to introduce them into our lives – the more they start to come out of our mouths!
 
Once those evil thoughts get into our minds, it is very difficult to get them out because they always seem to surface at the most inopportune times! We have essentially become polluted with things… That is why we need Christ to cleanse us. Only through His help and guidance can we be “deep-cleansed”!
 
Points to Ponder:
What “standards” do you keep for the things you listen to?
 
What Would Jesus Listen To?

Monday 9 Jun 2008

Monday Reading: Matthew 23 25-26
 
Key Verse: Matthew 23 26
26  Blind Pharisee! First cleanse the inside of the cup and of the dish, so that the outside of them may be clean also.
 
Devotion:
This is just one of the crimes of the Pharisees listed here, but it is one that to me needs a bit of thought and draws parallels with our modern lives. So many people like to display a different image to the outside world from what they are like on the inside. It has almost become an art form where you have a public image and a private image. This used to be the art of the actor where they would portray a person on stage or film that was not themselves. Now, however, more and more people are doing this in their normal lives. How then are we supposed to work out if they are genuine or not?
 
Our lives seem to be surrounded by people who have “double standards”, even companies that have them too. People can no longer be described by how they are at home and business because they seem to be two different people. But, to me, Jesus was pointing out the fact that we are all guilty of either living double lives, or guilty of living with double standards. He could see what the people were like on the inside and could also see the public image that they were portraying. Other people would only see the public image that was meant to be seen and would not know what the person was actually like. Is that not living a lie? Is that not the same as telling a constant stream of lies to everyone around you?
 
If we think we may be guilty of that in our lives, then how much of that has crept into our spiritual lives? How much of our double lives has begun to soak into our spiritual lives? Are we now the equal of the Pharisees, showing others that we live a life for Christ but secretly work against Him. Or worse still, only love Jesus in secret and live a life against Him. If we want to be honest with Christ, then we have to start by making sure that that honesty starts on the inside, just as you would make sure that you cleaned a vessel on the inside first.
 
Points to Ponder:
Do you portray the same image as you really are?
 
Christ never relayed a false image!