August 11: John 18 1-9
Key Verse: John 18 4
Jesus, knowing all that was going to happen to him, went out and asked them, “Who is it you want?”
Devotion:
How many times have you been asked by someone (like your parents) “What are you doing?” when they know exactly what you are doing? The reason why they ask the question is not to find out what you are doing, because they already have some idea, but to get you to admit to what you are doing! When people are searching for the truth, the best way of engaging them in conversation is most likely going to be to ask them what they are looking for; find out what they are searching for or at least why they are searching.
All throughout the New Testament we have times where Jesus would approach someone and ask them a simple question to get them to admit they wanted to know God. By doing this He was getting them to admit to wanting to know Him before He introduced Himself properly. This was not a ploy to check and see if they believed before going any further but a simple task of getting each person to admit to wanting or needing a Saviour. Christ did not come to the world to take over people’s minds, lives or ways; He came to save people by giving them a Saviour when they knew they needed one. There was no coercing or trickery involved because Christ can know no sin.
The fact was that Christ did know what was in those people’s minds just as He knows what is in our minds. He wants us to openly admit He is our Saviour – we don’t have to do it to the whole world, just to Him. When we openly admit our need for a Saviour, He will step forward and show us exactly who our Saviour is and give us our forgiveness from our sins that we seek. From that moment on we are His and He will never leave us nor forsake us. It is not that He has taken us, but we who willingly gave our lives back into His eternal care. He is our God. He is our Saviour. We have to make that choice as to whether to allow Him to guide us through eternity or to try and “go it alone.”
Points to Ponder:
How often are you asked to explain yourself?
How many times do you ignore God’s questions?
August 10: John 1 37-42
Key Verse: John 1 38
Turning around, Jesus saw them following and asked, “What do you want?” They said, “Rabbi” (which means “Teacher”), “where are you staying?”
Devotion:
What would you answer if Jesus asked you “What do you seek”? Would your answer be like the two disciples or would you ask Him something about your life? I think the first thing that may well pop into our heads is something to do with ourselves, some trouble we face or some illness He could heal… but what came into the disciples head first is missed by so many because they answered with a single word that means so much: “Rabbi” (or as is translated, Teacher).
Our lives are often based on the selfishness of our own hearts. We seek to find things that will in some manner fulfil our desires. We look for ways in which we can better ourselves. We look for self-profit! What the disciples realised was the same as Solomon realised – God can teach us so much that if He should ask us to name anything it should be that He teach us His ways.
We fall so short when it comes to doing God’s will in our lives because of our lack of wisdom as well as our sin natures. The more we know about God’s ways, the more we will be able to change our own ways to forget about our old ways and move forward to Christ’s new ways. The more we have knowledge about God, the more we can live our lives the way we should. If we want to avoid the pitfalls in life then we must know the way forward, the safe way, the best way. It is no good testing the way forward in every possible direction before taking a step forward because, like going through a maze, we may well choose the wrong ways more times that the right ways. Let’s take a mine field for instance. Would you use the “one foot forward” test to try and find a way through a mine field or would you rather someone show you the safe way forward?
Whether we believe it or not, we do not have the knowledge or wisdom to take on life. We need His guidance and we need His ways. We have so much to learn and we have so many temptations which will lead us astray. What better way than to have a personal teacher who is willing and able to lead us through our own personal mine fields?
Points to Ponder:
Do you just take life as it goes without asking for help?
Are you ready to trust Christ to lead you forward?
August 9: John 1 15-18
Key Verse: John 1 17
For the law was given through Moses; grace and truth came through Jesus Christ.
Devotion:
If you have ever sat through a court case or watched a film where lawyers argued a case, you will have noticed just how important time is and the order of things happening. Why is this so? Because we live in a dimension governed by time. Our history books recount things based on time lines, our geography books show countries based in time periods and our whole lives depend on time. But God is the one who lives outside of time – that is one of the main reasons why we continue to get confused about how He can do things or when He did things…
He made sure Moses was given all of the law so that the Jews would be able to see how impossible it was for them to keep that law by themselves. He made sure the prophets foretold of the coming of Christ. He made sure John the Baptist came before Him so there would be people ready to receive Him. Everything had its time and place. When He was here as the man Jesus, He continued to live within the constraints of time as we do. He continued to have to work around things in the same manner as we have to. He showed us that it is just not possible for us to live a life without sin like He did; but in doing so He showed us His amazing grace so we could begin to understand just how much He loves us.
Everything has had a time and place that is perfect to show us God’s love, power, truth, righteousness, wrath, support and grace. We now wait for the perfect time and place for His return so He can, once and for all, get rid of sin for us. How could anyone plan such a perfect time and place for everything that has come to pass? The only way possible is that He is, He has always been, and He always will be God. He may have only showed Himself as man a few thousand years ago, but He has been there from before He created time and continues to be here. He is the one who created everything for us. He is the one who will come back to destroy things and re-create things. Through the history that He has created we can see just what an Awesome God He is and how we can totally depend on Him!
Points to Ponder:
How many times have people surprised you?
How much does God have to tell us to be ready before we start to get ready?
August 8: 2 Corinthians 8 7-9
Key Verse: 2 Corinthians 8 8
I am not commanding you, but I want to test the sincerity of your love by comparing it with the earnestness of others
Devotion:
You could read a book and then just put it aside, forgetting about what you have read; but God’s Word is a book that will encourage you to continue reading because it gives you a special insight into life with God which goes beyond any other book. The first book that I read cover to cover with eagerness was a book about how the first passenger aeroplanes to fly very high literally fell apart after a while in service – a bit of a strange book to be enthralled by you may think… But I read it through because that was a subject that I found very interesting. It was little wonder then when I found that I could go to university and continue on to learn about things like that, I did! After being interested in aeroplanes for a while, I wanted to know more about how to get a hunk of metal weighing almost 200 tonnes to carry another 200 tonnes and fly almost half way round the world! Staggering when you think of the numbers without mentioning the Boeing 747, an aeroplane which has been around almost 50 years now!
It does not take too much faith to step into a 747 and fly off on holiday… But would you have wanted to be the first to step into the plane before they actually flew it for the first time? Faith is something that needs encouragement to continue. If we started to see a lot of planes fall out of the sky, we would all stop flying! But because we see planes flying all round the world all the time, we have faith the next one we get on will continue to do fly safely.
Our faith needs encouragement; encouragement we can get readily through reading God’s Word and what we can build upon by doing God’s Will. When we exercise our faith by depending on God as He wants us to, we gain more and more confidence He will continue to look after us as He does do this. The more we depend, the more He does, the more our faith grows. We do this through our own eagerness to continue finding more that our God can do for us. We do this because we continue to find out just how awesome His love is for us! He is the one who came down from heaven to be as a mortal man so He could pay for my sins. I know I can depend on Him. I know He loves me. My faith makes me whole…
Points to Ponder:
Do you check out each chair before you sit on it?
Do you continue to test God before depending on Him?
August 7: 1 John 1 5-10
Key Verse: 1 John 1 7
But if we walk in the light, as he is in the light, we have fellowship with one another, and the blood of Jesus, his Son, purifies us from all sin.
Devotion:
“How do we get a message from The LORD?”
“Simple! We accept it!”
“What do you mean we accept it?”
“Well, have you read your bible lately?”
A message from our Lord Jesus Christ is waiting for each one of us in His Word. He has been trying to get us to read our bibles for so long, and yet we continue to forget, put aside, refuse, can’t be bothered… Each time we are missing out on a special message from Him. For those of you who do read your bibles regularly will know what I am talking about – you read a passage one day and the Lord gives you understanding. You the same passage another day and He gives you further understanding. You read it another and He may well give you understanding in something related to that… As long as we are willing to accept His Word daily, we will be fed on a daily basis. It is like turning on a light in your dark life – you begin to see things that you never knew were there; the more you look, the more you see! (For the more astute you will realise I have re-used verses for the past week or two)
If we are going to ignore His Word, then we are turning off that light and we will not be able to see anything. We may know things are there because we saw them once, but as long as that light remains off, you tend to forget about what was there and where it was. We forget the details more and more until it fades to such an extent that we would describe it in a way that is incorrect – and yet that is what we think it looks like…
We need to constantly go over God’s Word so we can understand Him more but also so we can share a bit of light in other people’s lives. If we pretend we have a photographic mind and that we can remember everything we have been taught, then we deceive ourselves. But if we then try to teach others from what we remember, we may begin to deceive them without knowing it. Let us all make sure we do keep up to date with God’s Word so we can share our knowledge and know what is real!
Points to Ponder:
How many things have you lost in the dark?
Have you lost God’s Word in the darkness of life?