Saturday 27 October 2007

Saturday Reading: Mark 9 14-29
 
Key Verse: Mark 9 24
24  And immediately the father of the child cried out and said with tears, Lord, I believe. Help my unbelief.
 
Devotion:
There are many times in our lives when we feel totally helpless; no matter what we try to do, nothing seems to work or go our way. We feel like there is nobody helping us or willing to help us – And yet there is... What is failing to help us is our lack of faith or our unbelief. We may think that we are strong Christians and that we have God on our side all the time, or we may feel like we are weak Christians, bending all the rules and not being very successful. Well, we kind of fall in the same boat.
 
The strong Christians may well find something that they just cannot face up to. These disciples did. No matter how much they tried to get rid of the spirit within the man's son, they could not. They had to wait upon Jesus for the final victory over the spirit. Even though they had been told that anything is possible through belief, they could not quite go all the way. They were trying to go all the way by themselves. When Jesus came to their assistance He did nothing more than turn it over to God in prayer. He demonstrated absolute faith by giving up the problem totally to God.
 
As weak Christians we may well find that all sorts of things go wrong all the time and we simply put it down to being weak. We may find that we still get into all sorts of trouble. We may find that we don't quite trust our belief. That is the issue. We don't trust... This man cried out to Jesus to help his unbelief. He knew that he did not fully believe. But seeing Jesus in front of him allowed him to realise his unbelief. We will not get a personal audience with Christ until we get to heaven, but that does not stop us from seeing everything that Christ does in our lives or everything that He has already done through passages like this. There is no reason for us not to believe other than our own pride or Satan. You see, Satan is going to continue his best to throw everything in our way. Look up to Christ to seek His grace to cover our unbelief so that we can draw on His strength and be totally prepared for everything!
 
Points to Ponder:
What is your biggest fear in life?
 
Have you ever asked God to help you with that?

Friday 26 October 2007

Friday Reading: Psalm 77:1-10
 
Key Verse: Psalms 77 7
7  Will the Lord cast off forever? And will He be favourable no more?
 
Devotion:
How many times have we reached a point in our lives when we begin to ask whether God has actually forgotten us. Maybe we get to know God at an early age and then get carried away with the world, forgetting God, going with the flow... Then one day we start to think again, thinking about what God thinks of our lives, thinking about what we are doing... When I was at that stage in my life I felt that I had abandoned God and that He in turn had abandoned me. I could not help think that I was alone even though I had my most precious people with me – my children.
 
This psalmist must have been going through troubled times to have thought in a similar way. When we go through troubled times, we will probably start to think in a similar way – we imagine that God has abandoned us in our hour of need. Most of the time we cannot understand how He could abandon us in any way – yet that is how we feel. Whether we are the ones at fault for abandoning Him, or whether we simply feel alone, the fix is the same. We need more time with Him. Time in prayer to let Him know how we feel, time in His Word to allow Him to show us what we need to know, and time to reflect upon what is going on in our lives...
 
Our weakness is not the fact that we feel this way but that we have ever thought that God would abandon us at all. Our weakness is that of lack of faith in His love for us, the lack of faith in the fact that He will look after us and the lack of faith that He does know exactly what we need in our lives. Our guilt should not be in the fact that we have abandoned Him or He us, but that we have lacked faith in His awesome power in our lives. Surely we should not forget what God has done in our past, nor what He has done throughout history – He has continued to be there and to uphold His Word continually. That is why we need to spend time in His Word so that we can be assured of our God and continue in complete faith in Him!
 
Points to Ponder:
How often do you doubt things in your life?
 
How often do you doubt God?

Thursday 25 October 2007

Thursday Reading: Psalm 62:5-8
 
Key Verse: Psalms 62 7
7  In God is my salvation and my glory; the rock of my strength; my hiding-place is in God.
 
Devotion:
These Psalms were written in an age where people were beginning to learn about the coming of Christ. They had something to hope for. They knew their salvation lay in Gods hands and maybe they were not quite sure how things would happen, but they had hope and patience to wait in that hope. They knew that they did not have to worry about things they could not understand because they knew that God was in control.
 
Nowadays after Christ's triumphant entry and exit from this world, we again wait with patience in the hope of His coming. But our hope is more than just faith. We know that Christ has already come for the first time to pay our sin debt on the cross. We know that He has promised to return. These are all facts written down in History. Why then should we be worried about when it is going to be? Why should we be anything other than encouraged?
 
Our weaknesses are our lack of patience and lack of faith. If we are able to sit down and study God's Word, we are able to see the truth. If we are able to sit and meditate on God's Word, we find the truth. If we are able to discern God's Word, we have the truth explained. Yet we are not patient enough to subject ourselves to anything longer than a few minutes of understanding, thinking that that is more than enough!
 
We need to understand that our strength is in Him, in His Word, in our faith, in our hope, in our Salvation. None of this would be possible without God first creating us and then offering us a perfect sacrifice to cover our sin debt against Him. We need to trust in Him at all times, not just a few minutes a day when we dare to look at our bibles, but wholly, always trusting in Him for everything – only then do we find perfect peace and rest!
 
Points to Ponder:
How much do you desire a perfect life?
 
How often do you stray from God each day?

Wednesday 24 October 2007

Wednesday Reading: Psalm 37:7-9
 
Key Verse: Psalms 37 7
7  Rest in Jehovah, and wait patiently for Him; do not fret yourself because of him who prospers in his way, because of him who practices wickedness.
 
Devotion:
How many times have you asked yourself “why do those wicked people prosper”? When we become Christians that alone is one of the biggest stumbling blocks that Satan uses to try and stop us from becoming Christians or to weaken our resolve. There are many passages in our bibles that say that the evil will not prosper and they are used by people who want to break down our relationship with God. The answer is right in front of us in the words that others will use against God: “they will not prosper”.
 
Part of being a successful person is being content. No matter how much money, belongings or property you have amassed over the years, it is going to count for nothing if you are not content with your lot because if you are not content, you will always be wanting more! That to me, is not prosperous. As you go through life you begin to see that no matter what  you go through to gain physical wealth, it never seems to be enough. No matter how much you desire to gain more, it never seems to be enough. King Solomon was the richest person in the world, yet he was not satisfied with what he had physically. He tried just about everything under the sun to try and find happiness through physical things – yet found all wanting.
 
1 Timothy 6 10 reminds us that the love of money is the root of all evil. It is not the riches but the want for more that brings us down. Following those lusts will lead us into all manner of evil. Why should we be foolish enough to desire to be like that? Why should we worry ourselves over being like that? Why should we worry ourselves over being in the “rat race” for more money when we know it will not satisfy? Why beat yourself up over someone in that loosing race when we can be content with our lot in Christ; for through Him we shall have everything we need!
 
Points to Ponder:
How much money do you think would make you happy?
 
Why focus on money when we can have everything through God?

Tuesday 23 October 2007

Tuesday Reading: Micah 7 2-7
 
Key Verse: Micah 7 7
7  Therefore I will look to Jehovah; I will wait for the God of my salvation. My God will hear me!
 
Devotion:
If ever there was a description of the modern world, it is here. With so many people only looking out for themselves and not taking a care for anything or anyone else – this description could be of the modern world we live in now. Yet this was written before Christ was born of a man. The prophet Micah saw no trust in anyone apart from in God. He saw no reason to trust anyone but God. How dreadful a description of people that are here to worship God!
 
It is no wonder that Jesus came to preach about brotherly love and to try to get a few good men to come together to show the world that a small amount of brotherly love can go a long way. Although Micah paints such a desperate picture of the total lack of trust between people, even in families, this should not be the way of the Christian. Christ has taught us that brotherly love will allow us to see the side of life that He would want us to. He knows that through a bit a love we can learn to trust and depend on others again. He knows that we can learn to love and trust so long as we follow the best example.
 
There is no other example to us than that of Christ that we need to take notice of. We need to learn His Word so that we can find out how He wants us to behave. We need to apply His word so that we can behave more like Him. If we want to be trusted, then we have to show that we can be trusted. If we want to be believed, then we have to show that we can be believed. Building up trust is a whole lot harder than dashing it down. We need to start off on the right foot so that we can continue in harmony with others rather than being constantly out of step with God. But what we have to careful of is that we must not fall into step with the rest of the world otherwise we will be falling into line with the world that Micah so aptly describes!
 
Points to Ponder:
Who do you follow as an example?
 
When was the last time that you asked “What would Jesus do”?