Thursday Reading: Psalm 78:9-18
 
Key Verse: Psalms 78 18
18  And they tempted God in their heart by asking food for their lust.
 
Devotion:
Oh how easy people forget. It does not take too much to make a man look the other way, to ignore something or to put it behind him. It does not take too much to make man forget about the troubles he has been through, about the trials he has had to face. But let there be a bit more trouble and pretty soon he will start to recall the things of the past and remember just who has done what for him.

 

We are so easily distracted from our walk with God. It can be the smallest of things that turns our head for a moment, that moment when we should have been communing with God. It does not take too much of a distraction to get us thinking about what could have been or what could be... if only... Yet none of those distractions will come from the One who loves you. None of them will come from the One who cares. None will come from the One who wants to protect you. God will not tempt you!

 

Those distraction will come thick and fast just when we don't need them. They will come flooding in when we are at our weakest point. They will come to trip us up when we walk, push us down when we stagger and kick us when we are down. That is because they come from one who hates us because we know God's truth. We know that compared to God, Satan is weak, but he knows our weaknesses. We know he does not care for us like God, but he will pretend to care when we need to hear it. We will be easily persuaded, because we lust after more than we need. Our weakness will be our downfall unless we use our weakness to find our strength. When we know we are tempted, we need to turn to God. When we know we are lusting, we need to turn to Him. When we are feeling down, we know He will be there. He will not pretend, nor leave us to fend for ourselves. God is our refuge. God is our strength. He has already proven it. Remember His Word, lest we forget His love.

 

Points to Ponder:
What do your friends have to do for you before you trust them?

 

How much more does God have to do for you before you see the truth?

Wednesday Reading: Numbers 21 4-9
 
Key Verse: Numbers 21 5
5  And the people spoke against God and against Moses, Why have you brought us up out of Egypt to die in the wilderness? For there is no bread, neither is there any water. And our soul hates this light bread.
 
Devotion:
Can you imagine only having one source of food for most of your life. Lets pick potatoes for an example. Pretty soon we would be a bit sick of potatoes even though they can be cooked in so many different ways and make so many different things. We would also find that we would become deficient in many vitamins and minerals so would not last beyond several weeks. But what God was giving to the children of Israel as they journey round Edom was totally sustaining in every way. How else could they survive for so many years... But still they grew weary of having the same food day in day out. We would look at that now and say, but that's only human...

 

That is the problem, it's the human way of looking at it. If we looked at it from God's point of view, He was providing a perfect meal, every meal, without charge for years! God just wanted them to realise that they could and should rely on Him for everything, always. But Israel showed that they were “human” and spoke out against the very hand that was sustaining them because of their desire to have other things in their lives.

 

The serpents that came into the camp are a perfect picture of how we let sin into our lives. We let it destroy us. We try to fight it ourselves and find we cannot because of our own weaknesses. We need God to help us defeat our own weaknesses. The bronze serpent held up on a pole was a perfect example of what Jesus would become many years later. All they had to do was to look up at the serpent... just look at it! We have an equally simple solution in our lives. All we have to do is believe on one simple thing, that Jesus is the Son of God, and we will be saved from our sins. Yet so many of us just don't make that choice.

 

What do we have to loose? Nothing... But, we do have everything to gain!

 

Points to Ponder:
What “serpents” do you allow into your life?
 
How often do you turn to God for help?

Tuesday Reading: Proverbs 27 7
 
Key Verse: Proverbs 27 7
7  The full soul despises a honeycomb; but to the hungry soul every bitter thing is sweet.
 
Devotion:
Have you noticed how the more you have of a good thing the more you get used to it. Pretty soon that good thing becomes the norm for you and you expect more. When you then get something less that that you wonder what has gone wrong... But give a thought to those who would actually love to get the least of which you get because that is more than they normally get. Just like the poor will hunger and thirst after food and drink, we need to hunger and thirst after the gospel.

 

We like to think that we will never get sick of having our favourite food day in and day out, but if we were pressed to eat it for every meal, we may well get sick of it after a while. This is going to be true for almost every food that we have, but not for the gospel. God has given us a desire to learn more. He has given us a desire to seek out the truth. That desire to find the truth may well be partially satisfied when we give our lives back to God, but the hunger for more knowledge will never cease. The more that we learn, the more we want to find out...

 

If only it was that simple! We have so many distractions and temptations in our lives that we find that time to spend in God's Word seems to be short at hand! We think that we don't have time to spend looking into the gospel and finding out a bit more. Pretty soon we get used to not having His Word with us all the time and we start to turn away seeking out earthly pleasures rather than the truth. The more earthly pleasures we have, the fuller we become with them and the less we seek after God. If we were to spend our whole life eating take-away food, we would not live for more than a few months because of the excess fats. We need to make sure we get good food as well so that we can survive. Why then should we starve our souls of the good food that it requires! We need a regular and steady supply of the gospel to keep ourselves close to Christ!

 

Points to Ponder:
How much junk food do you eat?
 
How much junk do you let into your life?

Monday Reading: Proverbs 27 5-6
 
Key Verse: Proverbs 27 6
6  Faithful are the wounds of a friend; but the kisses of an enemy are deceitful.
 
Devotion:
If we are going to be bold enough to be able to face up to friends and neighbours, then we have to be bold enough to accept criticism from them and even face up to being told off by them. How else are we going to learn other than through having our errors corrected. Can you imagine what it would be like if none of our errors were corrected – we would simply continue in sin... Equally, we should be able to tell our friends when they are doing something wrong and expect them to be able to accept the truth as well.

 

If we do not get the small things off of our chests then they will build up and corrupt our spirits. Secretly hating what others are doing is not only going to cause us grief, but will ultimately cause us to lash out at our friends when we get to the point that we cannot take any more. If we are to say that we love our friends and neighbours, then we must show them that we do by standing up and telling them when things are not right. Ignoring things and trying to brush over them is just going to cause grief in the long run. When we ourselves get told of our wrong-doings, we need to remember that our friends will be doing this out of love and not out of spite... Just as a doctor is there to help a patient by doing what is required and not to simply say nice things to make them happy, we need to be there for others.

 

But just as we accept things from our friends, we do have to watch out what we accept from our enemies. Our enemies may well be the ones that tell us the nice things to try and make us happy whilst not doing the right things. We may find our friends tell us off whilst our enemies don't. We need to know what is wrong so that we can identify who is telling the truth. Most of the time we will already know what is right and wrong and we will already know who is telling the truth – but we will not always accept it because we may just want to “feel nice”! Being able to stand on God's Word and allow Him to help and direct us through His word will help us to know who our true friends are – the ones that are telling us the truth...

 

Points to Ponder:
Do you help to cover up friends wrong-doings?
 
Would you openly help Satan to get his own way?