Friday 25 January 2008

Friday Reading: 1 Peter 4 1-6
 
Key Verse: 1 Peter 4 3
3  For the time of life which is past is enough for us to have worked out the will of the nations, having gone on in lasciviousness, lusts, excess of wine, parties, carousings, and abominable idolatries.
 
Devotion:
There is absolutely no point trying to ever justify sin, because all sin works against God and against Christ and what He has done for us. If you want to try and justify it, then you need to relate that to how much suffering it caused Christ. He died for our sin. That may sound a bit extreme when we first hear it, but the plain truth is that the penalty for sin is death and that is exactly what Christ had to pay to cover our sin debt.
 
A true Christian will make the will of God their aim and not their own will, feelings, wants, desires or lack in will power. We are not hear to rule our own lives or others, but to submit to the will of God. He wants us to willingly submit and not to have to be like robots doing exactly what we have been told. When we are saved, Christ changes our heart so that we can see His will more clearly and be able to do His will when asked to. He gives us the ability to be able to turn away from sin and towards Him. That change is a marked change from before we submitted to His authority – it alters our ways of thinking and gives us the ability to see what we do for others or against them.
 
It is little wonder that we see many people who are not believers in God having all manner of lascivious tendencies in their lives. Indeed many of us may well think back on the days when we may well have been in that category; the lusts of the flesh cover more than just sexual activity. People who still live like that consider us the old ones out because we dare to be different, we dare to stand up against their immoral lifestyles. Some will even say that we are prejudice because we think they are wrong... It is not us that judge them, but Christ, the one who paid for their sins that judges them...
 
Points to Ponder:
Do you do some pretty wild things?
 
How much do you hurt Christ with the things you continue to do?

Thursday 24 January 2008

Thursday Reading: 1 John 2 15-17
 
Key Verse: 1 John 2 15
15  Do not love the world, nor the things in the world. If anyone loves the world, the love of the Father is not in him,
 
Devotion:
Does this mean that we have to give everything up, go out into the desert and live off locusts and honey like John did? No. What needs to be done is our outlook on the world and things of the world has to change. We need look upon the things of the world as being exactly that, things of this world. We currently live in this world, so there is nothing wrong with desiring things from this world and having things from this world... so long as they are used as God intends us to use them. As long as we use things with the aim of giving God the glory and not seeking to abuse things or value then in sinful ways, then there should not be anything wrong with having things.
 
I say should... because we are most often the weakest link and we are the ones that break the rules. Worldly things draw our hearts away from God. They take our time and effort away from doing God's will. They focus our attention on ungodly things. The ways that we will see ourselves fall short can be summarised in three points raise here. The lust of the flesh – our wrongful desires of our hearts, our appetite to overindulge in all things that excite us. Secondly, the lust of the eyes – when we see things we are lead to covert them. Thirdly, the pride of life – self pride takes us closer to thinking that we can be like God. Our thirst for honour and glory drives us to do things that are not giving God the glory, but ourselves.
 
Everything in this world will die away. Some of the things we seek die away so quickly that we begin to wonder why we crave them. When we loose things we become despondent. Our emotions go up and down like roller coasters seemingly without end. We loose control of our own lives and simply go with the flow... then we have the cheek to turn around and ask why God has left us! We need to leave our worldly lusts and seek God's truth above all... He will always be waiting for us...
 
Points to Ponder:
Do you get carried away easily?
 
How much of your life do you dedicate to Christ?

Wednesday 23 January 2008

Wednesday Reading: Psalm 19:7-10
 
Key Verse: Psalms 19 9
9  The fear of the LORD is clean, enduring forever: the judgements of the LORD are true and righteous altogether.
 
Devotion:
The more that society grows, the more people become aware of each other... Well, that's what we would like to think happens. In reality, the more that society grows in number, the less we think of others unless we are told to do so. We rely more on what other people say about others than we do about going and finding out the truth. But no matter where we are in society, we all have access to the truth – God's truth.
 
We can have life through the sun, moon, air, water, plants and animals. They sustain us and we are able to live a good number of years. But that is all they can do. If we want more, then we have to find something that goes beyond the physical world we live in, something that is dependable and true. But just like our physical world, we have to take everything into account in order to get it right. We cannot ignore things like some foods are not good for us. We cannot ignore the fact the we will get burned if we stay in the sun too long. Simple things,  we may think, but necessary things. Just like that, we have to take everything into account in our spiritual lives too. That is why we need something that will cover everything, something that is complete.
 
God's Word is nothing short of that. He has made sure that what we have in our bible is sufficient to ensure that we know the truth and that we know what we have to do to ensure that we can have a life with Him. It shows us what we think and do in error. It explains what we should do about it and it tells us what is still to come. God's Word is a sure foundation upon which we can build our lives, both physical and spiritual, so that we can know that what we do is right. We may not get it right all the time – indeed, we make mistakes all the time – but through what it gives us, we can know what God has in mind for us. We simply need to trust it...
 
Points to Ponder:
Do you wish people would always tell you the truth?
 
How much do you really trust God's Word?

Tuesday 22 January 2008

Tuesday Reading: Psalm 51:10-13
 
Key Verse: Psalms 51 10
10  Create in me a clean heart, O God, and renew a right spirit within me.
 
Devotion:
King David saw in himself a sinner. He knew the things that he had done wrong and he knew that they broke the law. That is why the law is there – for us to compare our lives against to see the sin within. David also knew that it was not in his power to cleanse that sin from within; that had to come from a higher authority. Back in those days the cleansing water would dutifully be applied with a hyssop plant. Nowadays Christ's cleansing blood can only be applied through faith.
 
David knew that because of his sin, he was not worthy to be in God's presence. In other words he was not worthy to have the Holy Spirit with him. He pleads with God to forgive and hide his sins so that he may continue to have the Holy Spirit with him. He knew that it was his sin separating him from God and he did not like it.
 
In today's society we tend to grow up in families where God is hardly mentioned and where the Holy Spirit can only watch from the outside. We don't like to be told that we are sinners because that make us look terrible when we actually don't feel that bad. We may help others and make others happy. We may spend much of our wealth on helping others rather than ourselves. But unless we are willing to give our lives back to God, we will continue to fall very short of God's standards for us.
 
God wants to be able to forgive us – He would not have sent His Son to die for us if it were not so. He wants to have the Holy Spirit live with us permanently – Christ would not have promised it if it were not so. Our sin is the only thing between us and God. Christ has already bridged that gap – as long as we believe it, He will fill that gap for us so that we can again commune with God as Adam did in the beginning. With God covering our sin, we can then show others how we have done it and help them to see their way to God too.
 
Points to Ponder:
How would you rate your life?
 
Breaking just one sin means you are still guilty...

Monday 21 January 2008

Monday Reading: Proverbs 28 13
 
Key Verse: Proverbs 28 13
13  He who covers his sins shall not be blessed; but whoever confesses and leaves them shall have mercy.
 
Devotion:
We all know that stealing is wrong. We all know that if someone else has paid for something, then taking that without consent is wrong. Even the law of the land will tell you that it is wrong. So let us think about something that has been paid for and that everyone steals a bit of every day. God sent His Son Jesus Christ to come to earth and pay for our sin debt. He paid for it in full by laying down His own life when He Himself had not sinned. So each time we sin without acknowledging that Christ has died for that sin, we are stealing some of what Christ paid for. Not so nice when we think of it that way...
 
Each time we sin and cover it up, ignore it or falsely justify it through our own thoughts, we continue to steal from Christ's debt. If you want to be able to help yourself to not sin, then you have to think about how much you are doing to Christ every time you sin. That does not mean that every time we sin that we should shout out to the world about what we have done wrong so everyone can see that we are sorry – that would not be right. We do need to make sure that we apologise for our sins and keep in mind how much Christ has paid for our sins so that we will be encouraged not to do so again. By openly admitting to all of our sins, we may well discourage others or even encourage them to sin as well.
 
Our conscience will not allow us to cover our sins for too long without allowing us to feel just how wrong we have been. Covering that feeling will build up pride and lust within your spirit and stop you from being close to God. The more we feel bad, the less we want to be seen by God and the more we try to hide. It's silly, but it's true... We need to be open with God because He can already see right through us. Be open about sin and ask Him to help us to defeat it. That way we can live with Him close to our hearts and reap the rewards that that will bring.
 
Points to Ponder:
How often do you try to cover things up?
 
How often do you try to hide things from God?