Monday Reading: Proverbs 27 14
 
Key Verse: Proverbs 27 14
14  He who blesses his friend with a loud voice, rising early in the morning, it shall be counted a curse to him.
 
Devotion:
Its one thing to praise a friend, but doing it for your own reasons is not right! We all like to receive praise when it is due to us; it gives us renewed energy and even a new commitment to do things right. Yet there are times when we feel a bit left out because we are not getting the praise that we think we should do. When we get to that stage, it is a very simple step to go too far and do things in front of people just to gain praise. Where do you think that is going to get you? Pride is going to take over your life if you are willing to allow that sort of thing to take hold!

 

God wants us to be willing to do things for others and not to seek praise or reward for it. He wants us to show kindness and dedication to the people that need or deserve it without seeking our own praise or reward. If you are going to expect praise whenever you perform in front of others, then you will be doing exactly that... you will be performing in front of others. You will no longer be doing things for God but doing them for yourself. The focus would have totally shifted to a selfish look at yourself rather than praising God.

 

From the other side of the fence, we can all see when someone is doing something just so that they can get attention. We can all see when someone is doing something just to get praise. So what makes us any different? Do you not think that everyone is going to be able to see that we are doing it just for the praise? Besides deceit, we are spreading anything but good will! The only thing we are going to succeed in is gaining a bit of praise that is not really due to us and winding other people up because they can see we are doing things out of spite and selfishness rather than out of love.

 

Christ did not give His life up to seek praise. He gave it up so that we can have everlasting life. He gave it up out of love...

 

Points to Ponder:
How often do you seek out praise?
 
How often do you give God the praise He deserves?

Sunday Reading: Psalm 51:16-19
 
Key Verse: Psalms 51 17
17  The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and a contrite heart, O God, You will not despise.

 

Devotion:
Some may like to say that they have had the biggest sin in their lives and hence they have the biggest reward for having that forgiven... but forgiveness of the greatest sin is not what is required. The requirement is that you, no matter what you have done, have an honest and complete admission of your sin through guilt and have made an honest request for that to be forgiven. It is not the size of the sin that counts, it is how you personally have handled it with God.

 

A contrite heart is one that has changed from the hard and unchanging mass to a soft and pliable one that is more willing to be moulded by our Saviour into one that is more pleasing to Him. One that will show that through the changes, He has been glorified. It is not, again, our own glory about how we have been forgiven, but the glory of God that He is able, willing and just to forgive us of any sin that we are willing to bring to Him in the right manner.

 

The burnt offerings and blood offerings of the past were a sign of giving up something totally to God. Once it had been sacrificed, there was no going back. The sacrifice was a total sacrifice. Why then should we think that our admission of sin should be anything less that a totally admission of that sin? Christ was the one who made a full and total commitment on the cross so that our sins could be forgiven; but if we are not willing to bring forward those sins so that He can be glorified for what He has done, then should we expect anything in return?

 

Christ wants us to glorify His works, to glorify Him through what we do and how we do it. He wants to see us willing to put our own pride aside and let Him shine through each one of us. He wants us to admit that everything that has been done in the past for Israel had a purpose and is real. He wants us to admit that He is our One True God!

 

Points to Ponder:
Do you admit to things half-heartedly?
 
What would you do if God said that you may or may not go to heaven?

Saturday Reading: Psalm 51:1-6
 
Key Verse: Psalms 51 1-6
6  Behold, You desire truth in the inward parts; and in the hidden part You shall make me to know wisdom.
 
Devotion:
When we do do things wrong, we know it. When we do things wrong, we know who we have done them wrong against. When we do things wrong, we don't always know how to get out of the hole we have just jumped into. One things we have to do is to try and avoid getting into those situations... but there are going to be times when we just can't avoid getting into trouble. We are born into this world and we live in it. We get tempted and we give in. Those are the times when we have fallen into the hole and need to get back on track again before it gets us down and consumes us.

 

David was a man who gave into the sin of lust. He did so many things that people around him would have seen as being wrong. I'm sure God would have given him a few reminders along the way as well, but his lust had taken over his heart and taken him all the way to commit adultery. It was only afterwards that he knew what he had done was wrong. I'm sure he knew what he was doing was wrong, but only after doing the act did it suddenly dawn on him just how wrong he had been. In our lives we do things wrong and far too often it is only after we have sunk to the lowest position do we realise just how wrong we have been.

 

What we do then is up to us. We can ignore what has happened and try to brush over it, or we can get ourselves right with God again. We need to know what we have done is wrong. We then need to make sure that we admit to what we have done – fully, not half heartedly! Then we need to ask for forgiveness for what we have done. Read these verses again and see just how much king David admits and who he admits it to. See how he knows that it is against God that he has committed the worst sin. God laid down the rules and he broke them. He is the one that had to admit to them; nobody else could have done that on his behalf. He had to bring it directly to God, not through sacrifies, but directly to God.

 

Points to Ponder:
Do you always admit to doing things wrong?
 
How many things have you swept under the carpet whilst God has been watching you?

Friday Reading: 1 Corinthians 10 1-6

 

Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 10 5
5  But with many of them God was not well pleased, for they were scattered in the wilderness.

 

Devotion:
We may not be Jews, but there is no reason why we cannot learn from their past. We may not be from various races around the world, but we sure can learn from their mistakes. Yet, like so many people, we tend to ignore what other people go through because we all to often think that it cannot and does not apply to us because we are not them!

 

We don't only have to look at all the troubled times that people have been through to learn from them. We can look back at the good things that have happened and be encouraged and learn from them too. We can look back at the miracles that God has done for many to see that He is a loving God. We can look back at the people who were great men and women of God to find out how they lived their lives. It is not their physical lives that we should be searching, but their spiritual lives. It is not how they made or lost money, but how they communed with God that we need to find out more about.

 

We can look back at the people from the bible and learn just how much trouble they got into and think that we will never go there. But we can look at their spiritual side and know what we should be doing in ours. All too often in our lives we will loose sight of the spiritual and focus on the physical, only to be tripped up by that physical because it is all self centred or centred about evil instead of being centred around God.

 

We need to read our bibles to find out what people have done so that we can learn from those things that are recorded. It is no secret that people did things wrong. Those things are recorded so that we will not have to go through the same things in our lives... but we still think that it will never happen to us and ignore the warnings... to our peril...

 

Points to Ponder:
Do you look at people and say “that will never be me”?
 
What difference does God see between them and you?