July 26: Psalms 7 8-10

Key Verse: Psalms 7 8
Let the Lord judge the peoples. Vindicate me, Lord, according to my righteousness, according to my integrity, O Most High.

Devotion:
This Psalms shows just how much king David relied on the justness of God’s judgement! At this stage in his life he was able to stand up and know he was accounted innocent because he knew God had forgiven him of his sins which he had done beforehand. Now let us not forget that this was before Christ had come to deliver us from our sins so any atonement for sins was done through faith after sacrifice. That may sound a bit odd, but think about it… They had to bring the correct sacrifice before God and then have faith God would accept their sacrifice for their sins. To me, that sort of faith has got to even scarier than having faith in a God we cannot see!

Can you imagine having to do something every time you did things wrong so you would be forgiven? Can you imagine the worry that would accompany any such act? Is my gift going to be good enough to cover my sins? That answer would have to come from the heart… If you had given enough through your heart to God, then He would be just and righteous to forgive you for your sins. The poor would never be able to afford a whole clean goat to offer as a sacrifice, but they could always mean just as much with a dove as a person who could afford the goat. The rich would easily be able to afford the goat, but would they take that goat forward with the same passion as a poor person would take their dove?

Yes, Christ has paid the price for our sins. But if we are not willing to bring them before Him with the passion and honesty of a poor person who could not afford a perfect sacrifice, then we are no better off than someone who just goes through the motions to be counted. Too many people today just go through the motions so they can be counted as a “church-goer” or a “peaceful person”. We need to come before Christ with open hearts and open minds so we can humble ourselves before our God and know we have nothing we can hide from Him. We need to recognise just how much He has done for us and act accordingly!

Points to Ponder:
When you ask someone to forgive you, do you mean it?

Do you come before God and confess all?

July 25: John 21 15-19

Key Verse: John 21 17
The third time he said to him, “Simon son of John, do you love me?” Peter was hurt because Jesus asked him the third time, “Do you love me?” He said, “Lord, you know all things; you know that I love you.” Jesus said, “Feed my sheep.

Devotion:
Have you ever had your intentions or even your love questioned? Why would someone question your intentions when you think they should know you better and should know your intentions? Well, the most common reason is simply because you have done something which has put into question your intentions. Christ had the foreknowledge to know what Peter was going to do and questioned Him whilst He had time with Peter. It is often when we have gone that step too far or have not done what we should have done that we then realise what is wrong. In other words, it is too late before we realise something is wrong!

If we are truly sorry, we will act upon those feelings and bring them to mind each time we do something wrong in the future. If we are truly sorry about our sins against God, then we are going to feel that prick in the heart each time we do sin against Him. Ignoring that tiny prick will lead to another sin and another after that. If we continue to ignore them, not only will we end up having a huge regret for a combination of things but we will ignore those warning signs in the future and get deeper and deeper into trouble! Peter would never have dreamt he would deny Christ once, let alone three times; but we know he did because our bibles tell us. He even confided in the other disciples because it is them who wrote about it. Such was his remorse that he did not want to end his life in the same way as Jesus because he thought himself not worthy enough.

We need to be more vigilant in looking for the signs we send out. If we start to do something and think “well, it won’t hurt to do it just once” we have already gone as far as Peter, and Christ has already had to bring our intentions into question! God knows what is in our hearts, He knows when we are weak and give in, He knows when we make our own excuses…

Points to Ponder:
How often do you do things that are out of character?

Do you force Christ to question your actions?

July 24: Psalms 116 1-2

Key Verse: Psalms 116 1
I love the Lord, for He heard my voice; He heard my cry for mercy.

Devotion:
So many times in our lives we don’t think of the obvious solutions because we are looking for complex ways of fixing our problems; we overthink issues into the biggest problems we can think of! So many people search for God in the most complicated ways whereas He has given us the most direct and uncomplicated route we can imagine. God wants us to talk to Him in prayer. Simple! He does not want us to have to jump through hoops so we can belong to a certain religion, nor does He want us to have to go through elaborate ceremonies before we can get to know Him.

This psalmist begins by declaring his love for God because he knows that his God listens! He declares this with the simplicity of stating any given fact because he knows it to be a fact. He does not have faith God will answer some of the prayers he has prayed in the past because he already knows it for a fact. That gives him the knowledge God is going to answer his prayers which he will lift up to God in the future. His faith is based on a fact! We need to take this psalmists attitude to heart and live with that same faith because we will see it become a fact in our lives too. God does answer prayers and He answers them, so we can know He is real and know about His absolute love for us.

We should not have to wait until we start to feel trapped before we lift up our prayers to Him. We should not have to wait until we feel we have reached rock bottom or wait until we have tried everything else… God’s way is simple and should be our first port of call. When we lift Him up as first in our lives we will begin to know He is watching, listening and answering our prayers. The more we get to know Him, the more we realise how much He does do for us. The more we find He does for us, the stronger our faith will be because we see that faith turn into fact each and every time.

God is here. He listens. Don’t wait for rock bottom… Call out to Him with absolute faith now because He is the one answering our prayers!

Points to Ponder:
How often do you struggle to find the right things in life?

How often do you choose to seek God first?

July 23: Luke 9 43-48

Key Verse: Luke 9 45
But they did not understand what this meant. It was hidden from them, so that they did not grasp it, and they were afraid to ask him about it.

Devotion:
We can look back on this passage and see exactly what Christ was talking about and understand it. John, when he wrote this, then understood it too; but whilst the disciples were there at the time, they did not understand what was going to happen to Christ. We can look back and think thoughts like “if only they asked the right questions, things may have been different”; but then that is thinking on our level and thinking as a human. Whilst we are way above any other creature in terms of intellect, we still have a whole lot to learn about our own lives.

Christ would continually say how we should approach Him as a child because it is a child that comes with open arms, ears and mind. When we have spent a long time in this world we can become cynical about the world and about the people who surround us, blocking out many good things simply because of the amount of garbage we have had to put up with in our lives so far. As we grow older we tend to turn things down as sounding too good to be true and put them to one side. On the other hand, a child would gladly accept things that sound good. As a child we probably grabbed everything which came our way and learned from each thing. Sometimes the learning was a good experience and others not so good, but each step gave us more of an idea about what we can expect in the future. But if we continue to be faced with bad experiences, our outlook will become decidedly one-sided!

Christ wants each of us to put aside our pre-conceived ideas that we may already hold and come to Him with open arms and an open mind. Without that we may well reject the truth before we actually hear it all. It is a wise person who is willing to pick up God’s Word and read it to find out more. God is the one who wants all of us to find out the truth. Satan is the one who wants each of us to be polluted with so much we ignore the truth when we are faced with it… The best way of finding out the truth is by asking the one who created the truth in the beginning – don’t be afraid to ask!

Points to Ponder:
How biased would you say your life is?

Do you accept God’s Word or continue to question it?