Thursday Reading: Isaiah 40 18-26
 
Key Verse: Isaiah 40 21
21  Have you not known? Have you not heard? Has it not been told you from the beginning? Have you not understood from the foundations of the earth?

 

Devotion:
We may well think that it is strange for anyone to sit down and carve a little image of a god and then worship it, but what do we do in our lives? We may not spend the time to go and buy metal and cast it into a statue, nor spend money to get someone else to do that for us… but how much time do we spend doing our favourite thing? How much time do we devote to doing things that we are not proud of? How much time do we spend doing things that we aught not to?

 

Each time we lift up something in our lives to make it our number one favourite thing to do, we are making that the most important thing in our lives. Each time we do that, we are knocking Christ off of that number one position. Each time, we are manufacturing an idol, albeit not made up of stone/iron/gold/silver/whatever. You see, God has given us everything for us to realise that He is our Creator, our one true God, yet we always try to see what scandals or conspiracies we can come up with just so that we can be the inventor of things. We all inwardly aspire to being God until we come to the realisation that we are not!

 

Even the poorest of people will aspire to be something that they cannot, just so that they can lift up their spirits – or at least that is what they try. But when each of us hit a stumbling block, we try to level the blame on to someone else so that we do not look bad. The best times of our lives are probably when we have done things with other people, not done things by ourselves. God has created us to be with people, befriend them, love them and care for them. He has created us because of His love for us. There is no other conclusion that we can come to other than that God created us when we look hard enough.

 

Points to Ponder:
What are some of your number one things in your life?

 

Are you willing to try and find out that God is our Creator?

Wednesday Reading: Isaiah 40 12-17
 
Key Verse: Isaiah 40 17
17  All nations before Him are as nothing; and to Him they are thought to be less than nothing, and vanity.

 

Devotion:
If we try to compare anything that God has created to our Creator we always come to the same conclusion. God is greatest! There is no one or things that can compare to God because through Him everything was created. No matter how brilliant we may think that our scientists are, their combined knowledge over thousands of years does not even add up to a drop in the ocean compared to God. We may like to theorize at the amount of stars in the sky, but that number seems to increase every time we are enabled to see further with better telescopes – there is no limit that we can understand to the universe.

 

When God created the heavens and the earth, nobody was there to direct Him in which way things should be or to give advice about what should be done first or even how it should all hang together. Nobody can take in the enormity of the task that was done during creation because we continue to see new things each day we are alive. Throughout our lives we will continue to try and grasp the basic understanding of what happened. This knowledge will continue to be passed down from generation to generation, but none will get close to understanding how… unless they accept the basic truth that God in fact created everything!

 

When we start to accept just how much God has created and look into what creation involves, we begin to understand just how much He really does love us. When we look out at the beauty of a sunset, the harmony of a quiet forest, the silence of a desert or the thunderous roar of a huge waterfall, we can begin to see the beauty of His creation. Understanding what is involved with that beauty then gives us some understanding of His endless love for us. What a wonderful God we have!

 

Points to Ponder:
Do you like watching nature programs?
 
Have you ever thought of the creation behind nature?

Tuesday Reading: Job 38 1-41
 
Key Verse: Job 38 4
4  Where were you when I laid the foundations of the earth? Tell if you have understanding!

 

Devotion:
If you have the time, read through this chapter and think about each of the things that God raises for Job to think about. We tend to think that we do know a lot, more than we actually do. That is probably based on the fact that we have the ability to reason, to be able to think beyond the things that we know so that we can understand more. An animal has to learn from repetition of certain things; unless it learns that humans are something to be afraid of, it will not run away from a hunter. We have the ability to see things and deduce whether we should be afraid or not. Some of us tend to overlook some dangers whilst others look at most things as dangerous – but we have the ability to figure things out… so we tend to believe that we know more than we actually do.

 

We know the wave will stop when it hits the shore. We know that the earth revolves on it’s own axis to produce day and night. We know the earth revolves around the sun to produce summer and winter. We know the moon revolves around the earth to produce tides… but how did it all start? Scientists will tell you how the distance between various planets is changing yet the figures do not agree with a catastrophic explosion that they think created things. The plain fact is, we can figure out why things are the way they are now, but we cannot figure out how they got that way in the beginning – unless we believe our bibles.

 

No matter what we do, we will not change the seasons. No matter what we do, we will not change day and night. No matter what we do, light will always be there penetrating into the darkness without end. Birds will continue to know how to gather food; lions will continue to know how to hunt; bears will continue to know how to fish… because God has set things up the way that they are! Take a look around and marvel at just how great a God we have!

 

Points to Ponder:
Do you tell others why the earth is the way it is?

 

Do you listen to God’s account of why things are?

Monday Reading: Proverbs 30 1-6
 
Key Verse: Proverbs 30 4
4  Who has gone up to Heaven and has come down? Who has gathered the wind in His fists? Who has bound the waters in His garments? Who has established all the ends of the earth? What is His name, and what is His Son's name? Surely you know.
 
Devotion:
Agur’s words may have seemed strange at the time that they were written, but now that we know what Jesus has done for us, we know exactly what his words mean. Agur compares himself to an animal in his understanding of both life and the scriptures, but he knows that what he is writing is of great importance. He obviously was beginning to have an understanding of the scriptures and what was to come before his revelation of just Who was to come!

 

The more we come to know about the scriptures, the more that we find out that we do not know and the more that we wish that we were able to understand more! As long as we continue to know that there is more and that we are simply students, then we will continue to grow. We must never grow weary of learning about God and never give up trying to find out more; because with that knowledge we are able to give others some understanding and to encourage others. Agur thought nothing of his own position, yet we read his words with awe.

 

Every word that comes from God and that has been recorded over time is for our benefit. Every word is the truth and will give us wisdom and understanding. Every word is for our guidance. Why should we ever think that we can add to it by inventing our own rules and regulations? Why should we ever think that we can do anything better than the God who is the knowledge of everything? We need to read His Word and accept it as the truth that it is, accept it for what it is – God’s Word!

 

Points to Ponder:
How often do you read or listen to things to find out more information?

 

How much of that time is for learning more about God?