Tuesday 3 Jun 2008

Tuesday Reading: 2 Timothy 1 7
 
Key Verse: 2 Timothy 1 7
7  For God has not given us the spirit of fear, but of power and of love and of a sound mind.

Devotion:
God has not given us the spirit of timidity or cowardly fear. That is something that we got from doing things wrong, from doing things against God’s rules. He did not put in us a spirit of fear because we were to rule over all the beasts of the earth. He did not put in us a spirit of rebellion; that came from someone who had already rebelled against God. He did not put in us the spirit of judgement, false teaching, nor many other parts of our lives. But that sort of spirit has with it a trap, a snare.

He has instead given us the Holy Spirit as our power and might. A power that is above all and that alone can fight the evil of the devil. It is that power that will guide us from those evil places and duties. It is that power that will guide us to do His will rather than Satan’s. It is that power that will give us the strength to resist the temptations. It is that power that will give us the strength to endure the hardships that we may have to face because we dare to follow Christ.

He has given us the spirit of love. A love that transcends all others. A pure love. A gentle love. That love will bear fruit in ways that we can only imagine. That love does not seek it’s own through pride nor vanity but seeks to help others in every need. That love works towards the glory of God alone. When we are fired up with that love, it seems so easy to resist so much and work for God without ceasing.

And finally He has given us a sound mind. A mind that can distinguish between good and bad. A mind that can identify what is God’s will and what is not. An honest mind that works toward making us glorify God.

We are the ones that have invited all manner of things into our lives that continue to erode at the spirit that God gave us in the beginning. We are the ones that work against God. We are the ones trapped in a word that needs people to stand up and proclaim God so that they can find their true spirit again.

Points to Ponder:
Who do you look up to in life?

How much do you work with God’s Spirit?

Monday 2 Jun 2008

Monday Reading: 2 Timothy 2 1-7
 
Key Verse: 2 Timothy 2 1
1  Therefore, my son, be strong in the grace that is in Christ Jesus.
 
Devotion:
There is nothing in our bibles that tells us that we do not have to work for a living; in fact our bibles will tell us exactly the opposite. We do have to work so that we can survive be it for obtaining money to buy supplies or from actually farming those supplies. Without due diligence, our work may not be to any effect either. We have to set out minds to the work and do the work so that we can expect some reward afterwards. So why should we expect anything different from our spiritual lives in Christ?
 
Should we expect to have everything given to us without having to lift a finger? Should we really act like a spoiled child and expect everything to be given to us on a plate? Whilst God would love to give us everything on a plate, we are expected to do things as well, neither for the sake of being saved nor for keeping us alive. God will make sure that we live as long as He would have us to live. We are expected to do things for Him so that we will strengthen ourselves. He does not want us to be lazy but to be prepared. If someone would ask us of Christ when we ourselves have not learned about Him, how are we expected to answer? But if we have spent our time learning about Him, then answering questions will become easier.
 
If we are going to train to be a soldier, then we have to take on that mantle and become a soldier. We have to listen to the people in charge and act according to their commands. Without doing that, we would not be an effectual soldier since and army has to work together towards a single goal. If we are a farmer, then we have to work towards making the next crop a better crop. If we simply sow the seeds and stand back and watch, we may well have a complete failure. Working throughout the year to make sure that harvest time is plentiful will give us our final rewards.
 
Being a Christian means that we need to work at being that Christian all the time. We cannot expect to understand things and to move forward if we are a part-time Christian. God requires a full time commitment from us because He has already given us an eternal commitment!
 
Points to Ponder:
Would you expect to get paid if you did not work?
 
How much more can we expect if we commit our lives to Christ?

Sunday 1 Jun 2008

Sunday Reading: Isaiah 35 1-4
 
Key Verse: Isaiah 35 1
1  The wilderness and the desert shall be glad for them; and the desert shall rejoice and blossom as the crocus.
 
Devotion:
Although this passage was actually foretelling of the state of the kingdom when Hezekiah was king, it does look far beyond simply saying how much the kingdom was to flourish at that time. This is typical of the kingdom of Christ and the kingdom of heaven. We will be given to rejoicing about everything because we will have Christ in our midst. We will no longer have to face such hardship and evil as we have to face today. We have seen kingdoms flourish as they obey Christ, our king. We have seen kingdoms brought to their knees as they take it away from Christ. When will man learn that this is God’s world and that we have to come to Him?
 
We do not have to look too far to see people living a good life with Christ nowadays, even though we are reminded every day about the horrors of life that can await us because of the evil that is amongst us. We can see how people’s greed, lust and pride have continued to erode society away to such a point that many people have given up on society and simply try to look out for themselves. Bringing God back into a community will bring His love back into the community. With that love things will turn around for that community. But, as we were reminded yesterday, evil is always lurking around the corner, waiting to trip us up.
 
If God can take a desert and turn it into a wonderful place to live for His people, then He can take a backslidden community and turn it around so that He will once again get the glory. Man may be able to make a garden in the desert, but He cannot change the hearts of other men as God and His Word can. We need to show people that we care so much that we are willing to make sure God is in charge. We need to bring Him back into our communities so that He can love us the way He wants to and so we can love Him back.
 
Points to Ponder:

How much do you do in your community?

 

How much does God feature in your community?

Saturday 31 May 2008

Saturday Reading: John 10 19-21
 
Key Verse: John 10 21
21  Others said, These are not words of one who has been possessed by a demon. A demon is not able to open the eyes of blind ones.
 
Devotion:
The one thing that we can count on in our lives (besides God) is Satan. Wherever God is trying to get people to follow Him, Satan is around the corner trying to trip people up. He is going to use whomever he wants to to try and trip those who are seeking Christ. He is going to be the one that allows things into your life so that you will forget about God. He is going to be the one acting like God. How then are we supposed to spot the difference between what God is doing in our lives to what Satan is doing in our lives? How do we know who we can trust? How do we know who we can believe?
 
Well, lets take it from an earthly view… Would you allow someone to talk you out of your food when you are hungry? Would you allow someone to sit down opposite you in a restaurant and tell you about how they should have you food that you have paid for? That may well sound like an over-simplification of the issue but on closer analysis that is what is going on. We need our food to survive and because of that, we will not allow other people to take it away from us. But when it comes down to spiritual matters we do not tend to think of them as necessities in our lives. We would rather think about our spiritual food as something that we can take or leave…
 
That is where Satan is the winner because he is the one putting that sort of idea into our heads and allowing us to become lazy. He tries everything up his sleeve to try and make us think that we do not need God’s instruction in our lives. His very first attempt of that we read about in our bibles is with Adam and Eve when he convinced them to try and ignore God’s instruction and follow his own instructions. He makes things sound good. He makes things sound attractive and makes us think we need his ideas in our lives.
 
So how do we spot the difference? If he puts an idea in our heads that does not agree with God’s instructions in our bibles, then we know it is him and not God. We have our bibles, we have the truth. Trust it. Obey it. Turn you back on Satan.
 
Points to Ponder:
Are you easily convinced?
 
How often do you compare things with God’s Word?

Friday 30 May 2008

Friday Reading: John 10 10-15
 
Key Verse: John 10 14
14  I am the Good Shepherd, and I know those that are Mine, and I am known by those who are Mine.
 
Devotion:
Have you ever been asked to describe God; maybe because you love Him? It’s easy to describe Him in terms of a loving, caring, just God, but describing Him in terms of what He looks like would be quite difficult. It would be the same sort of thing if you were asked to describe what wind looks like. You know it is there because you see the effects of it, but you cannot see wind itself. Thankfully we can compare so many things with God because He is so wonderful. Jesus compared Himself with a Good Shepherd as in this instance.
 
It is one thing to look after a flock of sheep, but if a lion or other predator comes along to sniff out your sheep, would you be willing to stand between it and them? Would you be willing to die just to protect your sheep? The answer would most likely be no. But if what you were looking out for was someone in your family, the answer may well change to yes. Jesus promised here that He would be willing to lay down His own life for us, His sheep. We know it is a promise because that is exactly what He did.
 
When we have a relationship with God, we know that He is real and we know that He is there. We may not see Him nor be able to describe Him, but we know He is there. We may get frightened when we see bad things approaching and we may well run the other way. That does not mean that God is not standing there protecting us; it just means that we did not think about His protection and we ran the other way! If we stopped to think about it and we stood on our faith we would not be running away because we would be depending on that protection because of our faith. Alas, so many of us would run and then think afterwards or wait until we think all hope is lost before yelling out for help. What we need to do is to remain close to our God where He can then protect, guide and love us in the best possible ways.
 
Points to Ponder:
Who would you trust with your life?
 
How often do you run before thinking?