June 17: 1 John 3 21-24
Key Verse: 1 John 3 23
And this is his command: to believe in the name of his Son, Jesus Christ, and to love one another as he commanded us.
Devotion:
Would you normally go up to some random person in the street and ask them for something, or would you go up to people who you knew? Personally, I would prefer to go to someone I knew to ask for any sort of help. The closer we are in a relationship with a person, the more we can ask them and the more likely they will be able to fulfil our asking as well. This is not any different to our relationship with Christ. If we are only going to see or speak to Him once a week when we go to church, then how should we expect to be received? If someone only ever came to visit me when something was wrong, then I would begin to think they are only visiting me because something is wrong and they need help.
God wants us to depend on Him for things; but He does not want us to go out there and think we can do it all, wait until we find we can’t and only then come running for help… God wants us to be in a constant relationship with Him so we can see His power, strength and might through His constant supporting us not only in our hour of need, but in our hours of comfort too. His promise is that He will hear our prayers and He will answer them as well. We need to be able to be close to Him to make sure that when He asks something of us, or tells us something, we are close enough to hear Him and then to do His will willingly.
He has given us the great commandments to love Him and to love one another. Those commandments are not to be adhered to just when we feel we should, but always. We can show Him how much we love Him by doing His will. We can show Him how much we love Him by keeping close to Him. But He shows us how much He loves us by answering our prayers – something He has done from before we started to ask, and something He will continue to do even when we do not ask. My only wish would be to be able to walk constantly by His side and not to be distracted by the temptations passing by each and every day.
Points to Ponder:
Which people can you go to and ask anything of?
How much do you take to the LORD?
June 16: Philemon 1 1-7
Key Verse: Philemon 1 4
I always thank my God as I remember you in my prayers
Devotion:
One of our problems in life is that when things get us down, we tend to retract into a safe place or shell, becoming very quiet about things. We can learn a lot from Paul’s example here when he was in prison (just one of the times!) His thoughts and prayers were not for himself or his fellow prisoners, but for those people out there in the open world. He knew he was in God’s safe hands because he knew he was going to get persecuted for doing God’s will, but any desperation in his circumstances does not come out in his letter at all. He is being held in prison, probably under very bad conditions (prisons back then were nothing like the humane places there are now where some people seem to dictate people get treated like they are on holiday rather than in prison) but that is not what the letter is about.
Paul’s letter is about people making amends after they have done wrong. It is about accepting someone who is willing to ask for forgiveness. It is about accepting fellow Christians when they have repented. It is about accepting people in the same manner as Christ would accept them – with open arms, forgetting about what has happened in the past. If Christ is able to forgive us and to forget about our sins in the past, should we then not be willing to at least try and do that for others who are willing to try again?
You see, being a Christians is about thinking about others. We do get very involved with our own circumstances and often forget about other people in our lives. We often forget about family life too which is so important. God gave us into families for a reason. He wants us to be safe, secure and loved in our families. He wants us to build up our churches like families. He wants us to be able to turn to others and treat them like brothers and sisters too. Getting involved with Christ means we must continue to uphold our relationship with Him, our relationship with our families and our relationship with others in the church too – and in that order. If we cannot be with family, prayer can. If we cannot be with friends, prayer can. Show God you do care by placing your prayers in His grip.
Points to Ponder:
How often do you lift up your family life in prayer?
How often do you uphold your life with Christ?
June 15: 1 John 4 13-18
Key Verse: 1 John 4 16
And so we know and rely on the love God has for us. God is love. Whoever lives in love lives in God, and God in them.
Devotion:
It was God’s choice to come into this world. How do we know? Because we have the written proof from the Apostles who were eye witnesses to the fact! What better proof can we have than the written testament of an eye witness? And yet so many still refuse to believe because they think it will make them do things they don’t want to do. Well, if truth be told, we live in a world where we are being coaxed into doing things we don’t want to do all our lives. From the advertising to peer pressure, we are always being persuaded by one thing or another to do someone else’s will. What God gives us is a choice as to whether we want to do our will or His will. He lays out the truth in no uncertain terms but leaves the final choice up to us. That is what I call love…
Being brought up to do certain things just because someone else wants you to do them is not love; that is self-indulgence by the person doing the persuading. Giving someone all the details they need to make an informed choice and allowing them to make a choice is. Making sure a person does get to know the truth so they can make that choice is our goal. But there is a fine line between giving someone the truth and thrusting information on them. We have evolution thrust down our throats at school without certain proof that it is real. It has been taught for so long people now believe it, just because it is written down by someone, but they have not seen it happen. They are not eye witnesses! The scientists all agree that it is based on assumptions and yet they do not openly tell us it is all just a guess. Other Christians will tell us of the creation of the world and God’s love; they back it up with written proof by eye witnesses living at the time, the Apostles. Why do we turn our backs on that sort of proof?
Jesus told us we only have to believe these facts written down many years ago are true; but really believe them, not just say we do. We need only to agree in our hearts that Jesus is the Son of God. Once we do, we will know we have His love and we know nothing can ever take it away from us. We will no longer have to fear for the safety of our eternal souls.
Points to Ponder:
How do you persuade others to do something?
How much more proof must God give for people to believe?
June 14: John 3 16-21
Key Verse: John 3 20
Everyone who does evil hates the light, and will not come into the light for fear that their deeds will be exposed.
Devotion:
How do you go about knowing just who you can trust? Well, that normally takes time. We start to trust people who seem to tell us the truth. We then place more trust in them the longer they continue to tell us the truth. That trust gets eroded quite quickly every time that person comes up with something which is not the truth, much more quickly than the time it takes to build up the trust in the first place! The disciples did not have too much time to learn all about Jesus as they followed Him as His disciples. But in everything they did, they found truth through Him and built up a trust that would stand the test of time and persecution!
A perfect record of His love towards us is written in our Bibles so we can know that same truth. All we need do is to read about it and we begin to see the truth laid down before our time and will continue until time is no more. Within that truth we find Christ Jesus. He came to this earth so He could willingly go to the cross and pay for our sins; sins which we may continue to do, but sins that are forgiven through what He did for us. I know of no other person who can show so much love. I know of no other records of any other gods that show so much love as Christ has shown us. For me, that fact alone sets Him apart from any other god. The fact that all other gods can be traced back to things which people have created for themselves also means there are no other true gods than God our Father.
The truth is plain for us to see. He continues to watch over us. He continues to love us. He continues to answer our prayers. He continues to uphold His law. He continues to make sure His promises stand for eternity. We need to realise this and make sure we do recognise Him for the Very God He is. He shows us the light, giving us the choice to follow it in truth, or hide from it because of our shameful deeds. The choice is ours. The destination is far too often forgotten about until it is too late…
Points to Ponder:
How often do you try to find things in the dark?
Do you wait for God’s instruction where you would not expect Him to be?
June 13: Matthew 10 26-31
Key Verse: Matthew 10 28
Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul. Rather, be afraid of the One who can destroy both soul and body in hell.
Devotion:
There are always going to be people who will call us names, mock us, revile us, persecute us… Christian life suddenly doesn’t sound a good life anymore… But what we find is that we always have those people who would be against us no matter what life we lead. The sad part is when we do become Christians and lead a Christian life, many people do respect us but those who are against us often become more aggressive or more blatant. If we are going to uphold the name of Christ above those persecutions, then we are demonstrating to one and all that Christ is our Saviour, our King.
There are still places that will put Christians to death just because they are Christians, but chances are that if you are able to read this, then you are able to worship in relative safety. Any act against us is just another attempt by Satan to stop us from doing what we do best – worshipping God and giving Him all the glory! No matter what Satan tries to do, he is never going to be able to take us away from Christ. Jesus paid for our sins and He gave us the choice to believe in Him. By believing in Him we have accepted His most wonderful gift – eternal salvation. Because God will never go back on His word, Satan cannot take us away. He may well be able to make our life uncomfortable to see if we will ever denounce God, but because we know we are eternally saved, that will not happen.
So, when Jesus was telling the disciples not to fear anyone who could kill them, He meant it quite literally. They would face death because of what they did in amongst God’s people! But that death is nothing compared to what will face our persecutors when they face hell for their rejection of God. Nobody will be able to take our souls away from God unless we never give them back to God. By believing in God we are giving our souls back into God’s eternal protection. By rejecting God, man is accepting the fact he does not care about his own soul being permanently destroyed in hell.
Points to Ponder:
Do you like being burned?
Is your soul safely in God’s hands?