Tuesday Reading: Romans 16 17-20
 
Key Verse: Romans 16 18
18  For they who are such do not serve our Lord Jesus Christ, but their own belly; and by good words and fair speeches they deceive the hearts of the simple.

 

Devotion:
Just when you though that you were good enough to avoid getting into those sticky situations when you have to decide between good and “not so good”, along comes a friend doing the “not do good” and you fall into line with them! We love to think that we would always be able to avoid falling into those traps, but when push comes to shove,  we give in more times than we like to think we do.

 

Why should we have to continue putting up with that sort of nonsense when we can walk away from it and avoid it all together? We know that they are not serving God when they do things like that and we know that it is wrong. We know that we should not be going there. We know that they corrupt people that come close to them – so why do we go there? Sometimes we need a more simplistic view of the good and bad things in life – good is good and bad is bad; no in-betweens!

 

Serving worldly expectations, lusts and desires is only going to get people as far as the world. Serving God will allow us to be closer to Him. Worldly things will always persuade us away from spiritual things unless we are willing to ask Christ for help to strengthen us. We may know that things will get us into trouble, but there are times when we just can't seem to help it and we go with the flow. Those are the times when we are not depending on Christ in our lives – we are going it alone because it seems safe at that time.

 

If we are willing to stand firm in God's Word and follow His example, then we will be able to persuade others that His way is the only right way. Through His Word others will be able to see their own mistakes, their own faults and come to terms with that fact that they are living against God. It is simple – we're either for God or against God.

 

Points to Ponder:
Do you live to party of live for Christ?

 

Are you for God or against God?

Monday Reading: Proverbs 28 19-22
 
Key Verse: Proverbs 28 21
21  To have respect of persons is not good; yea, for a piece of bread a man will transgress.
 
Devotion:
Have you ever noticed how a hard and honest working person will always seem content with what they have. There is often no greater example than a labourer who works diligently knowing that his honest work will not only bring in a reasonable wage, but also go to helping others. It is no use simply working hard for the money otherwise you will very quickly get caught up in a working life where God is left out and where money takes over.

 

True happiness can only come from good and honest work. That does not mean doing a job with the best of your ability excluding all else... We always have to consider just Who is in charge and what we should be doing. Taking off and focusing on exactly what you want and leaving God is is again putting God in second place. No matter how good a job we may think we are doing, our judgement is always going to be jaded by our lusts in life. We no longer have the right to judge fairly after what we do in our lives – judgement must be left to God alone. That does not exclude us from learning what is right and wrong and teaching others what we learn. That does not exclude helping others to see their mistakes – just never forget that you probably made bigger mistakes!

 

Going after a “quick buck” or “easy money” will always rub someone up the wrong way. Quite often we do that without thinking about what we are doing. Back when I was first looking for work, one of the jobs I tried was door to door sales. I could not bring myself to convince others that they needed something that I was quite sure that they did not need – despite the ranting and raving of the salesman trying to teach me to “sell”. Being honest must come before money. Being true must come before vanity. Being diligent must come before chasing shadows. Keeping your relationship with Christ must come before all of our lusts and desires.

 

Points to Ponder:
Do you have a go at anything?

 

Do you think about others in your quest for “life”?

Sunday Reading: James 5 19-20
 
Key Verse: James 5 20
20  know that he who turns back the sinner from the error of his way shall save a soul from death, and shall hide a multitude of sins.

 

Devotion:
If anyone is bold enough to say that they are without error, then they are misleading themselves before anyone else. No wise or holy man can say that they are without error or and they certainly cannot refuse to acknowledge anybody when an error is exposed. We do tend to build up bad principles upon our mistakes – when we think we are correct in something, we continue thinking so until someone is bold enough to point out our mistake. At that stage we need to admit to the underlying mistake or sin and change our ways or principles.

 

Being a Christian is not just about changing from following your own ideas (or someone else's) to changing to following God's ideas. Being a Christian is about changing your way of looking at things and admitting to your faults. There is no way we can ever hide sin; so the only way of ridding ourselves from it is to expose it to Christ. Once we do that and we turn our backs on that sin, we are then heading in the right direction! Most of the time we will see our own mistakes but we will try to cover them up. It is only when someone else points them out that we start to take notice of it!

 

Likewise, when we see someone else walking in the path of sin, we need to be bold enough to try and persuade them from walking in that path. Most people will get angry with you if you try and tell them that they are doing things wrong – but most of those people will accept you trying to show them the right way of doing things especially if you are able to tell them that you once did things the way they did. Directing just one soul away from a life without God to a life with God is a most rewarding thing – not only do we rejoice, but the heavenly host does too!

 

Points to Ponder:
Do you ever think you are doing things right even though everyone else does it differently?
 
Which way would Christ have done it?

Saturday Reading: 1 Peter 4 7-11
 
Key Verse: 1 Peter 4 8
8  And above all things have fervent love to yourselves, for love will cover a multitude of sins.

 

Devotion:
The destruction of the Jewish church and nation had been foretold and was close at hand. Even though these words are targeted at that stage, we need to take earnest advice from them now – being careful not to read into it what you want, but what is actually there!

 

Too many times in our lives we like to think one way and if any rule or warning comes along, we change it so that it will fit into our way of thinking – into our own little world. We change just about anything just enough to make it look like the original, but so that it will seemingly cover our sins – so we can bend the rules and entertain sin with some sort of backing.

 

Too many times we take a brief phrase from God's Word and we twist it's intended meaning so that we can entertain something new in our lives. We may take the phrase “love will cover a multitude of sins” and say that it is OK to do some small sins because Christ has shown His extraordinary love for us and that they are covered. We may do things like think that a traffic warden will not give us a ticket because we will only be a couple of minutes – the law states that they can give us the ticket... it is only their own compassion that will prevent it. This phrase is dealing with compassion between people of a community, not between Christ and us.

 

Christ's love is not under discussion, ours is! We are the ones that need to show more love. We don't show love by breaking the rules that Christ has set. We do show it by following them. We don't show love by disowning others as soon as they do wrong. We do show love by saying that we are willing to forgive, setting an example by which they can be encourage to do what is right... Speak God's Truth. Don't twist His Words...

 

Points to Ponder:
Do you often take other peoples words out of context to win an argument?
 
Do you bend God's rules to suit yourself?