Wednesday 9 Apr 2008

Wednesday Reading: Romans 6 1-2
 
Key Verse: Romans 6 1
1  What shall we say then? Shall we continue in sin, that grace may abound?
 
Devotion:
Do you have to put your hand into a fire to show that it is hot? When you have found out that it is hot, do you then have to keep putting your hand in every now and again to make sure? We need only to stand close enough to feel the heat rather than placing our hand into the flames to know that the fire is hot and that it continues to be hot. Once we know that fires are hot, we only have to see flames from a distance to know then where the heat is; we know then to avoid places where we see flames.
 
Why then should our lives be any different towards sin? Once we find out from God’s Word what sin is and what the penalty is for sin, why should we then go back there? We do not have to continually try a bit of sin out to find out if it is still sin. We do not have to get involved with it just to make sure. Just like a fire, the longer that we play with it, the more that we may think we have confidence in it and the more we then get involved with it… only to find out that it bites us when we are least expecting it!
 
We do not have to go for a bit of sin to make sure that we still will find forgiveness in Christ! We have His promise! Is that not good enough? Once we have found out how sin will affect our relationship with God, that alone should be enough to make sure that we steer clear of it for the rest of our lives. Yet we continue to break God’s laws in our lives because we are used to doing it. We have built up habits from the things that we have thought of in the past, that we then got involved with and now continue to do. We are not bound by these sins. We do have the choice to stop them… but do we have the will-power to stop?
 
God has given us the way that we can defeat sin so that we can spend our lives with Him. It does not mean that we can continue breaking the laws right up until we die, knowing that we are saved… we still have to answer to what we have not done!
 
Points to Ponder:
How often does something have to happen to you before you believe it?
 
How often do you have to break God’s laws before you see they are wrong?

Tuesday 8 Apr 2008

Tuesday Reading: Genesis 2 18-25
 
Key Verse: Genesis 2 23
23  And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
 
Devotion:
No matter how much man tries to be like God and tries to create life, he will never achieve that which God alone has done. God quite simply took one of Adams ribs and created a woman so that Adam could have a partner. God created Adam as a very intelligent person; coming up with names for all the animals was probably quite a long task and one that we may well struggle to understand, but it was done. He even came up with the name for woman! I wonder how he felt about doing that :-)
 
But notice that Adams charge was that of every animal that God had created. He was given the post of ‘Lord of the creatures’. He was not given the post of creator… He was given his lordship from The Creator! When God created everything, there was still one thing missing; the perfect partner for Adam. That is why He created Eve, a partner for Adam; anything other than a woman would not have been the perfect partner… God created Eve from Adam before Adam had time to sin, before he had time to be tempted; so Eve was that perfect partner for Adam, the perfect man. Oh how wonderful things must have been for that time before they were tempted by the serpent!
 
Adam and Eve were given a place close to God where they could commune with Him on a daily basis… that is before they knew sin in their lives. Whilst they had no sin, God was still able to walk by their sides. The law was given to them verbally and was quite simple; don’t eat of the fruit of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil. That may seem a bit harsh to us now, but then it was simple… ‘You don’t need to know evil’!
 
If we were able to be born and to stay away from evil, we would live a very wholesome life! Unfortunately, because of the sin that is in this world, we have absolutely no chance of getting away from it! Thankfully we have Christ who is willing to cover our sins with His own blood so that we can once again be with God after we die. What a wonderful Lord and God we have!
 
Points to Ponder:
How often do you think of or about ‘bad things’?
 
How long would you last by God’s side without Christ?

Monday 7 Apr 2008

Monday Reading: Proverbs 31 29-31
 
Key Verse: Proverbs 31 29
29  Many daughters have done well, but you excel them all.
 
Devotion:
If you have time today, read through verses 10 to 28; they describe the virtues of a good woman. If anyone could ever keep up to this description, then they would truly be one to look up to, but when we read these last three verses of the chapter a new light is shed on the preceding verses. Is this not talking about the virtues of the church rather than a single person? Many daughters have done well, or many daughters have gathered riches as some bibles will put it. When we look at the churches around the world, we see a very varied mix. We see the super rich churches that will make sure that they are seen as the biggest and best – but are they true to God in their hearts?
 
We have looked at us being true to God in our own hearts, carrying those true feelings through to the whole church would then make a group of Christians that are true to God. Being true to God would by necessity mean that we uphold God above any riches, above any places, above any person. If they are not doing that, then you should be asking whether they are a virtuous church…
 
The church of Christ, the group of people that believe in Jesus Christ and uphold Him as part of the Godhead, excels in all virtuous points making sure that God is held above everything in life. Making sure that favours are done for others to gain their trust, making sure that pomp and ceremony go before worshipping God, making sure that glamour and glitz are shown instead of God’s word all make for a deceitful church; one that is surely deceiving themselves before they realise what is happening. A church that fears God will be blessed in God’s eyes; they may not necessarily prove profitable nor give a “good show”, but they certainly know who to worship!
 
If we want to make sure that God is the one that is impressed, we have to bow down before Him with reverence and fear. As a society, church, group or individual, we all need to lift Christ up as head of our church and give Him all the praise and glory that is due to Him…
 
Points to Ponder:
What sort of things do you do in preference to meeting with other Christians?
 
What sort of message are you giving to God?

Sunday 6 Apr 2008

Sunday Reading: 1 John 3 16-21
 
Key Verse: 1 John 3 20
20  that if our heart accuses us, God is greater than our heart and knows all things.
 
Devotion:
We know that God loves us because of what He has done for us. He has allowed His Son to die on the cross so that we may be forgiven of our sins. But if we are not taking notice of what He has done and why, then what use is it to us? If He has seen fit t do this for us, then should we not be taking this as an example and helping others and showing our love for others? If God is able to love, then we should be able to love too. It does not mean that we have to do everything that other people say – far from it. It would not be out of love that we do things that are wrong…
 
Saying we are going to do something and actually getting round to doing it are quite different. One is a promise of something to come; the other is the result of carrying out that promise. God gave us a promise that He would send us a redeemer. He carried out that promise. He demonstrated His love for us rather than just telling us about it. He did it because of His love for us, a love that is far deeper than we know. He wants us to show that absolute love to others, a love that will last and that will overcome.
 
Can you imagine being able to hear someone else’s thoughts? Would you be petrified to venture out in case you heard people thinking about you? What would others be thinking about whilst they were talking to you? More to the point, what goes through your mind when you talk to others? We may well be able to hide our thoughts from others, but we certainly cannot hide them from God. No matter how much we try to talk our way out of things, He is the one listening to your mind and heart…
 
If we know our thoughts are not what they should be, then just what is God going to think about them? We need to put our hearts back into our relationships with others to make sure that we are true to our Christian love and not just “talkers”…
 
Points to Ponder:
Do you ever think one thing and say another?
 
Which do you know that God will believe?

Saturday 5 April 2008

Saturday Reading: Psalms 66 16
 
Key Verse: Psalms 66 16
16  Come and hear, all you who fear God, and I will declare what He has done for my soul.
 
Devotion:
One of the most important things about being a Christian is being there for others. We are not all spiritual giants and I’m sure we can all admit to points in our life where we have struggled to walk as a Christian. But when we are not struggling ourselves, we can be there for others to lean on. When we continue to see the blessings that God gives us, we can praise Him for everything and allow others to see what He does to us.
 
I am not talking about the physical things that God does for us, but the spiritual things. I’m not talking about boasting about how He helped with getting rid of a disease or things like that because that is not what counts. I am talking about the things that He has done for your soul. When He healed you it was not the physical that was important at the time but the fact that He lifted your faith to new heights. The ways that Christ encourages us from the inside are what will count when we are faced with adversity in the future.
 
Things do not have to happen to us directly for us to see the blessings and the inner strength we gain from God. It can be seeing a friend that welcomes Christ for the first time or someone who praises Him for strengthening them; those things may be what encourage us. That is why it is important to allow others to see what He does for us; it may well be that strengthening that they need to see to build up their own faith.
 
There are going to be times where we try to encourage others by telling them all that God has done for us only to get rejected. There will be times that we think everything is going well and try to tell our non-Christian friends, only to see it build up a further stumbling block or barrier between them and God. We need to encourage our non-Christian friends in physical and earthly ways because they do not yet understand what Christ can do for them; but our Christian friends need to know what Christ does for us as much as we need to know what He does for them. And through everything, God gets all the glory!
 
Points to Ponder:
Do you share your encouragement with others?
 
How much has God encouraged you?