Saturday Reading: Luke 11 27-28
 
Key Verse: Luke 11 28
28  But He said, No; rather, blessed are they who hear the Word of God and keep it.
 
Devotion:
There are so many small things in the bible that we often read straight over without giving them another thought, but I want you to give this one some thought. When Jesus was here as a human He had to face all manner of people from the people who loved and worshipped Him, through to the people who despised Him for what He stood for and for what they did not. On this occasion He was faced with the scribes and Pharisees as they tried to say that He was of the devil. His reaction was not to rain fire down from heaven but to point out why they were wrong in the simplest of ways.

 

This one woman lifted up her voice from the crowd and shouted out “Blessed is the womb that bore You, and the breasts which You sucked.” Ordinarily each of us may be pleased to accept this sort of praise. We would be happy for anyone who would stand up and shout our praises or praise our parents. But Christ turned it back on the very people who were around Him. He said that those who hear His Word and keep it would be the ones that are blessed. Christ was not one to “pump himself up” in front of the crowd or to do so about His earthly mother. He wants us to know that He will bless us when we are willing to read His Word and to keep it!

 

There is a big difference between reading the bible and keeping it. Many people have bibles and I would guess that most of the people who do have them do not read them regularly. Many simply use them to bring to church because that is where they think they should read them. But God wants us to be able to access His Word at all times. He wants us to be able to rely on it at all times. He wants us to carry it with us so that we can be prepared. If we are willing to read our bibles, we will learn more. The more we learn, the more we carry round with us. The more we are able to carry round, the more we can be used by Him to help others! Keeping His Word is just one of those ways...

 

Points to Ponder:
How many bibles are in your household?
 
How often do you sit down and read any one of them?

Friday Reading: Matthew 5 1-12
 
Key Verse: Matthew 5 12
12  Rejoice, and be exceeding glad: for great is your reward in heaven: for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you.

 

Devotion:
The one thing that everyone is after is happiness. Everyone who has lived has sought happiness, but, sadly, not everyone will find it. Our view of happiness may not agree with what everyone else's view and it will probably not agree with what others think our happiness should be! But Christ has promised us that we will find happiness so long as we seek it from Him... If we are willing to live our lives for Christ, then He will be willing to bring happiness into our lives – but that happiness will not necessarily be a worldly happiness that everyone else will be after. That happiness that Christ gives us is a happiness that no other can give us!

 

If we are willing to put the world behind us and follow Christ's will, then we will certainly find a great peace and comfort that will be better than any worldly example we can seek for! If we are willing to lay aside our need and greed for worldly comforts, we will find spiritual comforts that will far outweigh worldly comforts. Christ gives eight perfect characteristics that should be in our lives in our walk with Him.

 

We don't have to be rich in worldly items to be happy because true happiness is spiritual. We will find greater happiness when we comfort others and love others so that we miss them when they are gone. We don't have to seek popularity and notoriety because God has already promised us the earth! We need to seek out good things because it is that that will fill our souls. Showing mercy to others will allow them to show mercy to us. Being content with what God gives us will stop us from focusing on earthly things all the time. Keeping the peace instead of causing arguments will help us to be more like Him. And when we get mocked for being Christians, we need to stand proud because others have finally recognised us as being God's Children! Then we know our happiness is secure!

 

Points to Ponder:
What sort of person would you like to have in charge of your country?
 
Are you heading for a worldly slump or a Godly blessing?

Thursday Reading: Luke 9 51-56
 
Key Verse: Luke 9 56
56  For the Son of Man has not come to destroy men's lives, but to save. And they went to another village.
 
Devotion:
It is refreshing to see the humanity of the disciples as they followed Christ. They took in the gospel as spoken by Christ and continued to make of it what they would, just as we make up our own minds when we hear God's word. Some of them were convinced that Christ was within His right to destroy any place that would not accept Him. In this passage as they started to work their way back to Jerusalem, they would send out messengers ahead of them to sound out the villages to see if there was anyone who would give them board and lodging for the night. Most places rejected Christ and the disciples and would not give them space.

 

Our human reaction to someone who rejects us to to reject them back. We often reject them in a more certain way than they reject us, exaggerating the rejection in some manner. This passage recalls how they asked Christ if they should pray for fire to come down from heaven and consume the unbelievers just as Elijah had done in the past. But the difference between these people and those that Elijah faced are so many.

 

The big difference is that these people may have been rejecting Christ the human this time round, but they were not working against God. They may not have had the chance to hear the gospel and so may have not been rejecting Christ the Son of God. Jesus knew this difference and knew that some may yet come to believe as the apostles went out to preach later on. He reminds them that He did not come to destroy all unbelievers, but to save those that would want to listen and repent. Destroying your own people just because they have done something wrong is not the way to create a community. God wants us to have the chance of repentance right up until it is too late, but He would rather that we made a choice now and showed others than to leave it and trip others up!

 

Points to Ponder:
Do you lead by example or just tell everyone off all the time?

 

Do you work for God or against Him in your actions?

Wednesday Reading: John 3 14-18
 
Key Verse: John 3 17
17  For God sent not his Son into the world to condemn the world; but that the world through him might be saved.
 
Devotion:
I would guess that the most common reason for people not believing in God is that they know nothing about Him, but there are those that know a little and use that against Him. Maybe they realise that there is a God, yet blame Him for everything that goes wrong. Maybe they think that He does not care about them because they are insignificant. Maybe they just don't want to believe that it can all be so easy and they want to find the most unbelievable story to explain things. Maybe they think it is all a conspiracy...

 

But the plain and simple truth is that God created us and He loves us. He loves us so much that He was willing to send His Son to die for us. How could He demonstrate His love in any better way in human eyes? Many people start to blame Christ for things or to say that Christ was a blasphemer, but the truth is that He is the Son of God and He came to give us all the chance to be saved from our sins.

 

Despite our best intentions, our lives very quickly get overtaken by our sinful deeds and minds and we jump straight into the fire. We don't see it coming and by the time we jump, it is too late. It is nobody else's fault other than our own – we are the ones that took that first leap! That is why we have to come to the realisation of exactly what Christ has done for us. He is the one that has made it possible to be rescued. He is the one that has given us the choice. He is the one that came to earth so that we could be saved from ourselves. He did not come down to set blame on anyone, nor to condemn us all because of the sinful lives we live. He came so that we could be saved and it is through Him that we are saved. The only thing that He requires is that we believe it to be so. We cannot not make a choice because we have already chosen sin. We still have a choice to come back to Him. If we don't believe, then we go down like the rest because we are the ones that jumped. It is our choice.

 

Points to Ponder:
Do you like putting off choices?
 
Does God know you choice?