Sunday Reading: Genesis 3 16-19
 
Key Verse: Genesis 3 17
17  And to Adam He said, Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree, of which I commanded you, saying, You shall not eat of it! The ground is cursed for your sake. In pain shall you eat of it all the days of your life.

 

Devotion:
When was the last time that you were caught out doing something you really should not have been doing? I’m not talking about something like talking in class, but something a bit more drastic, something you would rather not have to tell other people about… How did you feel at that moment of being caught? Can you remember how the blood felt like it drained totally out of your head? Can you remember the dry feeling in your mouth? How about how your brain seemed to suddenly go into neutral and there was just nothing you could do? I can remember a few moments like that in my life…

 

What sort of punishment did you have to face for what you did? Adam and Eve had to face up to the ultimate authority, an authority that they had been able to commune with, been able to walk with and talk with. And yet now they had to face up to admitting that the one thing that they had been told not to do had not been done!

 

When we are placed into a position of trust, the last thing we would want to do is to break that trust. Unfortunately, there is one who is more than willing to encourage us into breaking that trust at every conceivable time. We always have to be on our guard against him and always have to try and make sure that what we are doing is God’s will on not his will. We do not always think of the consequences of doing things and we most certainly do not think of them when we are having fun – that is going to be our weakest point, the point at which we will be tempted by the greatest tempter of all…

 

Because of our sins (and no, you cannot blame it all on Eve because we are the ones that continue to sin) we have been condemned to a life that is nothing like that which Adam first knew. For all intents and purposes it is like we are in prison! It does not take much to turn your life around so you can at least get out on parole!

 

Points to Ponder:
When did you last get caught out?
 
Do you think you have got away with it just because no human saw you?

Saturday Reading: 2 Corinthians 2 1-2
 
Key Verse: 2 Corinthians 2 2
2  For if I make you sorry, who then is he who makes me glad, but the same who has been made sorry by me?

 

Devotion:
If you want to be happy, then the best place to be is around happy people. It is very hard to be happy when you are surrounded by people sunk deep in depression. If you do have any feelings for others, then you too will be deep in sorrow. If you are a true friend to someone, then when they are down, that is the time to go to them and say that you feel for them. Until you know why they are feeling down it is probably not a good idea to burst in all happy and gay. Sometimes just being there for someone is the best that you can do for them.

 

God is there for us all the time. He is waiting for us every day, every night, every minute in every day. We do not know when Jesus is going to come back and end this time of grace that we are living in so we do not know how long we have to live. What we need to do is to make the most of the time we may or may not have!

 

How can we do that? Well, we could help others showing them that we care care. For if we are willing to do that, then we are showing them that there is someone who cares. That is when we can tell them that it is because we have someone special who cares far more for us and is always there for and with us. That is when we can tell them that God is ever present. He is the one that has given each one of us our lives, and He is the one that we should be going back to when things are not what we expected.

 

Consider this. If you made something for someone and they used that item in the way it was meant, would you feel good? How about if they totally ignored that item? How about if they used that item as a murder weapon? God has given us our bodies to do the right stuff. Let us therefore obey His requests and show brotherly love one towards another. Show someone that there is always someone who really does care! That also means that when we are feeling down, we should be able to get support from those around us simply by asking. The people that care the most are most often the people you see most often…

 

Points to Ponder:
Have you given someone a hug of comfort recently?
 
When we mess things up in our lives, there is only one place that we can turn to get real help... back to our Maker!

Friday Reading: 1 Peter 2 13-17

 

Key Verse: 1 Peter 2 16
16  as free, and not having freedom as a cover of evil, but as servants of God.

 

Devotion:
A Christian must be honest. There is no other way to serve a just and honest God other than to be totally honest oneself. That honest has to be throughout you life and not just in what other people see of you. It is all well and good to be an honest person on the outside so that others will trust you with everything and even come to believe you, but if you are not being honest with God as well, then you have a problem that is eating at you from the inside and will eventually make itself known. Once again we can take our wonderful members of parliament to see this. They seem honest on the outside, but eventually their back-hand deals are exposed and we see them for what they are – mostly honest but willing to break the rules when it suits them!

 

If we fall into that trap as a Christian, then we are not any better than someone who is openly doing evil things – we are doing evil within our hearts! That is the place that Christ looks! It is no good our going round trying to be an example to others when we cannot be honest with God. Once we are open and honest we can then be that example to others – hiding things behind the scenes is nothing more than being a thief, taking peoples trust without asking them.

 

When we start our honesty with God, we will find that being honest with everyone else becomes second nature. That is when others will be able to see that we are honest, trustworthy and someone that they could listen to. That is when we can then give them the truth about God and allow them to get to know Him too.

 

We have to make sure that we do honour those to whom honour is due, but we have to make sure that we do fear God above others because He is our rightful King having created us and paid for our sin debt.

 

Points to Ponder:
How often are you forced to lie?
 
Would you have had to lie if you had been honest up front?

Thursday Reading: 1 Peter 2 9-10
 
Key Verse: 1 Peter 2 9
9  But you are a chosen generation, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people for possession, so that you might speak of the praises of Him who has called you out of darkness into His marvellous light;

 

Devotion:
Of all of the people, from all of the planets, God chose us! He chose us to be the best of the best. He chose us to be in His image, to be like Him. If that does not set us apart from anything else then nothing can! But more than that… He gave us the ability to know who He is and He gave us a choice to make; that choice being either to believe the truth about what happened, or to try and think up some fantastical story about how we came to be. When we look at the astronomical odds against the random chance of life evolving we can only come to the conclusion that it is easier for me to win the lottery every week for a few months than it is for life to evolve in a world where it is breaking down (and I don’t even buy lottery tickets!)

 

He has chosen us to be the ones that have the intelligence to work out that He is God. He has chosen us to be the ones that will carry His name forward so that we may tell one another of our Great and Awesome God. He allowed us to be born into a dark and helpless world but gave us the foreknowledge to be able to seek out the truth. He has not forced this truth on us, but has given every one of us the choice as to what we want to believe. When we are born into this world, we think that we are a people, we think we are of various races, we think we are countrymen… and yet we do not act like it!

 

Should not men help men? Should they not be free to help one another? Should we not have the choice to be able to give help when and where it is needed? Why then do people hold us back and force us to make choices about whether we should follow them or do God’s will? The answer is simple – lust of the eyes, lust of the heart and lust of the spirit. When we do not see God’s Light, we come up with all manner of things. We create an artificial light because we see the need for a light. That light can never compare to God’s light, but it may be the only light some are ever introduced to – spread the true light today, allow people to see the real light, the Gospel Light…

 

Points to Ponder:
How often do you try and tell the truth?

 

How often do you show others the Gospel Light?