Thursday Reading: Acts 10 34-35
 
Key Verse: Acts 10 34
34  Then Peter opened his mouth, and said, Of a truth I perceive that God is no respecter of persons:
 
Devotion:
What a wonderful thing that Christ is not a respecter of persons... Don't get me wrong, He does have respect for us, what He does not have respect for is who we think we are. We always seem to have these grandiose schemes whereby we elevate ourselves to greater positions that we actually are, or we get so pumped up with the things that we can do we forget about who we actually are. If you want someone to bring you down to earth, ask God... On second thoughts, don't, because you will not like how low He will let you go.

You see, we are just humans. Nothing more, nothing less. We were created by God and we continue to live on this planet exercising our free will that God has given us. He allows us to continue doing things because He loves us. He, like a loving parent, wants us to learn things in ways that we will remember them. He is not going to hide us from the truth, nor hide us from the evil. He will offer protection that we can ask for. He will offer strength that we can ask for. He will offer guidance that we can ask for. But it is our free will as to what we do ask for and what we do accept.

As long as we are willing to fear Him as our one true God, then we will not have anything to worry about. To fear God is not to tremble at the sound of His name but to give Him the utmost respect and acknowledge Him as God. When we start doing that, we will be more than willing to get in a do His work. We will be more than willing to listen to His guidance. And He will be more than willing to show you respect for what you are doing as well. So it does not matter whether we are the best doctor in the world or the lowest street-worker in the smallest backwater, God will respect us for what is inside and not what we are. We are His...

Points to Ponder:
What about you do you think God will not like?

Have you tried to be more willing to do things His way?

Wednesday Reading: Colossians 1 11
 
Key Verse: Colossians 1 11
11  Strengthened with all might, according to his glorious power, unto all patience and longsuffering with joyfulness;
 
Devotion:
What a wonderful thing it is to know that God is all-powerful and that His strength alone is sufficient for all of us. But how much do we actually remember that when we get into troubled times or when things fall apart around us... You will have noticed that the daily devotions have been off-line for a few days and all down to the fact that I rely on a computer for distribution of these emails. For us to be able to get any sort of reliability from things in our lives, we always have to have a backup plan. I had assumed that when the supplier said the server would be up 99.9% of the time that I could take their word for it... they always have get-out clauses and excuses!

God does not have any get-out clauses with His support for us. He does not use excuses for not helping us. We are the ones that get things wrong and we are the ones that walk away from Him – He is constantly trying to give us the strength to be able to get through everything in our lives... but are we really willing to accept that strength? There are so many references to how God is willing to strengthen us and how we are able to do anything through Him – yet we still try to go it alone because we think we can do it...

So many things around us say things like “just do it” or “get on with it” to try and make us do things – yet every one of them leaves out the real strength behind us, God. They all try to convince us that we can do things and that we are the power behind us... But the truth be know, we are strengthened by His might and according to His power – as long as we are willing to ask for it and accept it! When we do ask, He will give us the strength, He will give us the endurance, the patience and leave us with the joy of knowing that He alone is our Awesome God!

Points to Ponder:
Who do you get strength from on earth?
 
How much do you depend on God in your life?

Tuesday Reading: Psalm 31:19-24
 
Key Verse: Psalms 31 24
24 Be of good courage, and he shall strengthen your heart, all ye that hope in the LORD.
 
Devotion:
Wouldn't it be great to have something in our lives that we could never have too much of. Something that would not make us sick or hyper when we had too much! Well, there is something, but it is not immediately apparent to all. God's grace and goodness...

For those of us who are willing to believe on Him as our One True God, we can accept His goodness. A Goodness that shows no end, that has no end and that will never corrupt us.  God's goodness is so perfect that we never need fear of having too much. But in this sinful world that we live in, there is always a way of spoiling a good thing! We may well start to take God's goodness for granted and expect it when we no longer show Him our love. We may get too proud of having His goodness and make it look like we are better than we are – those most simple of mistakes can lead to our downfall because we don't look where we are going.

But thank goodness that God's grace also knows no end. For without His grace we would never get to know His goodness to begin with. If we were not willing to admit to our mistakes, we would never see His grace exercise to the extent where His goodness is showered upon us. If we are not willing to acknowledge Him as our God, then we will not get to know His goodness other than seeing it being given to others. It is through His never-ending grace that we too can get to know His goodness. But once again we have to not let pride get in our way!

If we ever find ourselves cut off from God, it is going to be because of our haste, greed and pride that we are cutting ourselves off and not He that cuts us off. His grace is sufficient. His goodness covers all. His strength knows no end. All we need do is draw on that strength to give strength to our hearts to walk closer to Him and He will continue to be close to us.

Points to Ponder:
Can you think of anything you would like to have all the time?
 
How much do you really depend on God?

Monday Reading: Proverbs 25 16
 
Key Verse: Proverbs 25 16
16  Hast thou found honey? eat so much as is sufficient for thee, lest thou be filled therewith, and vomit it.
 
Devotion:
I'm sure that one thing we all face is eating too much food at some stage or another. Too much of a good thing can actually end up being bad for you, never mind the pounds that we may find being added around our waists. Our most common mistake is to eat too much of those things that are the sweetest tasting – too much sugar, chocolate and sweets in general. There are so many physical reasons why we should not eat too much of those things, never mind the spiritual weakness we are giving in to.

Once we start to accept the excesses into our lives, we continue to break down our resistance to overeating in these areas. Once we give in, we find eating too much far to easy and often end up feeling bloated or even ill from eating excessive quantities of those foods. Our bodies are simply not built to handle excessive quantities of these foodstuffs – yet we still give in because of the taste.

Imagine now, if you will, something that we do not eat, but do instead. Imagine we find something that is very good to do once or twice, but because we have no longer god a will to resist those temptations, we give in to that physical as well. Suddenly we find that our physical beings are being put in danger because of our weakness against those temptations. Once we found that they were good, but now we find that they may even be damaging our health. We have let the pleasures of our senses overcome us to the extent that what used to be pleasurable may no longer be so.

Greed and lust are two things that we will always find in our way when we face up to the pleasures of our senses. We always want more than we can or should have; and that always leads to some downfall from our side! Learning to live within our needs instead of our wants is a very important part of learning to be more like Christ...

Points to Ponder:
What do you always give in to?
 
Have you tried asking Christ for help in avoiding your weakest temptations?