June 22: Hebrews 10 23-25
Key Verse: Hebrews 10 23
Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.
Devotion:
We have Jesus Christ who came to earth before us to deliver us from our sins. God promised from the days of old to return triumphant and that is exactly what He did. He promised we should have a way of getting to heaven, not through what we have to do, but through what He did; that is exactly what He did. Through the Father, Son and Holy Ghost we have a certainty that our souls will be around for eternity. Where they will be, though, is our choice. We have His promises, His Word and He Himself to guide us so we can find the truth and follow Him to heaven. All we need do is to trust in His promises. The promises He has kept and those still to come.
It is not a journey we need to take alone, and it is not one we should take alone. Some religions will tell you the only way to find the truth is to cut yourself off from everything else until you can see the truth; but when you are cut off from everyone else, I would say that is where you are at your weakest because you will not have any truths to fall back on if you get tempted by any small distraction. There is so much encouragement we can get from being with each other and upholding God’s law and will together. The stronger we can become, the more we will see how our faith can be trusted and how many promises God has already made and kept.
One of the best places for this is in a church. When we gather together with one thought (that of being with God and He with us) we are closing out any tempter who will try to take us away from God. When we are together in church, be it in a huge church or a tiny chapel, we have Him in our midst to protect us and to allow us to focus on finding out more so we can build on our faith. The more we can see His strength and His righteousness, the more we will be able to block out those who try to tempt us away.
Points to Ponder:
How often do you mix with Christians?
How often do you gather as Christians to praise God?
June 21: Mark 14 32-38
Key Verse: Mark 14 38
Watch and pray so that you will not fall into temptation. The spirit is willing, but the flesh is weak.”
Devotion:
If ever there were a place a time we should take notice of, it is this place and time given to us in our bibles. Jesus took the disciples to the garden of Gethsemane so He could pray about what was about to happen. But one of the most important things we forget when we think of this time is the simple fact that Christ had to face up to the terrors which faced Him as a human. For a short time, He had to face up to the terrors waiting for Him being separated from God eternally. It was enough for His souls to feel “exceeding sorrowful unto death”. It was at that time He was taking the weight of our sins onto His shoulders so we would not have to face that same weight on our souls when we die.
So bad was it that He asked God the Father if He could take away the pain, but ultimately made sure it was God’s will which would be done and not his own desires, no matter how bad. I know we could never imagine just how much He took on His shoulders at this time, but He was able to see at first hand just how weak we are as humans. Yes, we like to think we can stand up to all manner of things, but in the end there is always a point after which we can take no more. Jesus realised just how easy it was to reach that point as a human and warned the disciples of this fact.
The way that He took care of His worries was our ultimate example which we should always follow. He took His problems to God. He opened up in prayer and placed them squarely in God’s hands. He knew as a human He could not change His position, but He knew His human self was safe in God’s hands. That is where He got the strength to face up to more than we could imagine. That is where He got His comfort. That is where we need to seek and find ours too. And what did He ask His disciples to do – to pray for Him too.
Points to Ponder:
Where do you turn for comfort when things go wrong?
Do you place your faith squarely in God’s hands?
June 20: 1 Corinthians 16 13-14
Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 16 13
Be on your guard; stand firm in the faith; be courageous; be strong.
Devotion:
How do you protect yourself? Well, normally, you have to watch out for any dangers or situations which may cause you harm and then act accordingly. In order for us to remain safe, we have to be pro-active in doing something so our safety can be assured. This is true is all walks of life both physically and spiritually. We have to watch, not only for those things around us which may harm us in any way, but also to those things within us that may lead us to any harm. Outwardly we may be able to see danger. Inwardly we need to watch out for things that will let us down. Our hearts, thoughts, affections, words, actions, in fact the whole way we are and the whole way we interact with others…
It is so easy to allow some things to pass, to allow some things to go untreated or unfixed; but by allowing them to pass by, we are weakening ourselves for the next time round. That is Satan’s aim, to make us so weak against any temptations, we will give in to anything that comes our way. It is only through standing up against things we will become stronger to fight them. Recognising we have weaknesses is our first step but working against them is not going to be easy. If you can imagine a branch growing in a tree; in the beginning the branch is still subtle because it is still growing. We can bend the branch back and forward until we make it weak; but that does not necessarily mean the branch is broken because if we can steady it with something the healing of the tree will make the branch stronger again. That does pre-suppose we have something to shore up our branch to stop it bending in any wind which comes along!
That is where God will help each and every one of us. If we are willing to allow Him to be the splint which will bind us firm until He can heal us from the inside, then we will come out the other end being a whole lot stronger than when we went it. But we need to have faith He will do that. We need to trust Him to do that. And we need to be patient so He can do that. Nothing is going to be an instant fix because the evil one will be there trying to bend us backwards and forwards all the time…
Points to Ponder:
Do you feel like a branch bent in the wind?
How much do you rely on your faithful relationship with God?
June 19: Ephesians 5 8-14
Key Verse: Ephesians 5 11
Have nothing to do with the fruitless deeds of darkness, but rather expose them.
Devotion:
There are so many things in life which will let us down, but the one thing which will probably let us down the most is simply ourselves. Unless we are going to be careful about things, then we are going to find we will let ourselves down just because we give in to things around us. If we are going to allow ourselves to walk and talk like a fool, should we wonder then why we should not be treated like a fool? If we are not going to worry about what we let into our lives, then why should other people worry about what they do to us? If we do not worry about how we act, why should others treat us the way that we want them to? If we wear the hat, then we should expect to be called by that hat.
God has given us time as something for us to use. He has given us a time on earth for us to use and not abuse. We have all the instructions for us to use that time in the best possible way; hence we should be aiming at achieving the best in our lives. Far too often, though, we ignore those instructions and carry on regardless – without giving thought to the consequences! Looking back, we can see that is not wise, but at the time we did not give thought to whether our actions were wise or not.
When we feel down we often seek the fastest fix that will lift our spirits without giving regard to either those around us or to what will happen in the longer term. We run for the quick fix and then wonder why we feel even more down in the dumps after our quick fix wears off and leaves us in the same trouble we were in in the first place; but this time we know our quick fix has changed nothing and that gets us down even more! If we do want to be lifted up, then we have to go about things in the right way. Ignore the quick fix scenario and aim for something which goes beyond our time on earth. If we aim to our eternal future with God, then we can expect more things to fall into place here on earth while we work in God’s care. It is not going to be a life where everything is perfect because we live in a troubled world; but we should be able to make more sense od things when we see them through God’s eyes rather than our own.
Points to Ponder:
Does your life go more smoothly when you listen to authority
Do you submit to God’s authority?
June 18: Psalms 66 16-20
Key Verse: Psalms 66 19
but God has surely listened and has heard my prayer.
Devotion:
We are very lucky that God listens to our prayers. Right from an early time the Jews have pushed the idea God would not hear people if they were sinners; which causes a very big issue that nobody in this world is without sin, ergo, God would not hear us!
In the Gospel of John we have a story of a blind man being made to see through Jesus’ miracle… I wonder what it would have been like for this man to have been blind from birth and then suddenly being able to see again after Jesus gave him his sight. It is not something any of us could probably be able to imagine because we would either have continued with our sight, maybe have lost it after an accident, or would have never had our sight. And yet, even though everyone knew this man was blind from birth and could quite clearly see now, they refused to accept the truth about Jesus.
You see, mankind has made up their own rules right from the start and has tried to justify everything we do by changing the rules slightly from time to time. Our wants and desires should not be the things making up the rules. The truth as it came from God should be what the rules are based on – and we try to do that because many of our earliest laws all include God in them, but the more we change stuff, the more we leave God out of it. Just like the people looking at impossible situations in the bible, when we see something that we cannot explain, we try to look for a logical or scientific reason for it to happen rather than accepting that it is the will of God. When things happen in our lives we assume that there must be some shallow reason because we are human. We close off our minds to the depth and wisdom of our Very God!
The Psalmist lays it out quite clearly here – they had been taught God would not hear them if they were sinners, but God did hear him even though he was a sinner. What glorious news! God listens to us all! We have a way of asking Him to forgive us! Kinda makes complete sense after you look at it like that… But we get caught up in our lives and our rules and allow them to block God out of our lives far too easily. Try and remember God can and does listen to all our prayers and even all of our thoughts and doings. We need to pray that we can have our eyes opened to God’s will in our lives even though we seem to work against it all the time…
Points to Ponder:
What would you do if you could suddenly hear everyone’s thoughts?
How would you react if you could verbally hear God speaking?