May 23: Psalms 138 6-8
Key Verse: Psalms 138 8
The Lord will vindicate me; your love, Lord, endures forever - do not abandon the works of your hands.
Devotion:
One of the most wonderful things about our God is that He thinks of the little people! There are so many religions which encourage you to believe you have to be a giant in society before you can feel their god’s presence or how you have to work so hard at things before you can know that their god or gods will be watching. Our God continues to watch over each one of us that wish to have Him close to us. If we turn our backs on Him and walk away, He waits patiently for us to return.
When we find ourselves walking through tough times, He is the one who is willing to lead us through those times. When we find the going tough, He is tough enough to ease our path… so long as we are willing to depend on Him. When we find things getting us down too much and can’t see the wood from the trees, He is the one who reminds us of all the life around us. When we are up against others who seek to put Him down, He is the strength that can keep us going to make sure He will continue to get the glory only He deserves. He will continue to fight for us as well as carry us through because He is the only one capable of doing it all!
God is the one who will help us to show others He is our God. He is the one who can use all of us to His glory. He could use the unbeliever for His glory but instead He chooses us. We are the ones He wants to be examples for Him. We are the ones He wants to strengthen and guide. It is amazing just how much mercy He does display when you consider the amount of things we have done wrong or against Him in the past; all those things which He has forgiven us for. We look back in history and wonder at the mercy He continues to display for all of us. Let us never confuse what God continues to do for us and what we think we can do for ourselves. It is He who is able; it must be us who are willing.
Points to Ponder:
Do you find it hard upholding Christ?
How much do you really depend on Him?
May 22: Job 28 20-28
Key Verse: Job 28 28
And he said to the human race, “The fear of the Lord—that is wisdom, and to shun evil is understanding.”
Devotion:
The difference between God’s wisdom and our wisdom is much more than anything we can think of. We may like to think of it as being the difference between a toy car and a real car, but in reality, it cannot be described by us because we simply do not know the depth of it. Job began to see the vast difference between earthly wisdom and Godly wisdom when his friends tried to explain what God was allowing into his life. To put it quite simply, they could not explain anything because they lacked the understanding!
When we try to explain things from God’s view, or try to explain things that God has done, we will always fall short of the mark. But, having said that, God has given us a source of wisdom which is enough for us. The scriptures have been written so we will be able to understand as much as we need to. He has given us enough instruction so we will be able to understand that He is our God and we need to depend on Him because of His infinite wisdom. Adam and Eve were tempted to eat of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil; they were thrown out of the garden to ensure they did not disobey God and try the fruit from the tree of knowledge. God does not want us to have to cope with that sort of wisdom nor to want it.
To fear the Lord is to recognise His wisdom and that He alone has the capacity for such wisdom. When we understand that part, then we may seek the wisdom He gives to us; the scriptures holding all we require. The true wisdom is hidden in Christ, revealed by the scriptures, and received by us through our faith and through the Holy Spirit. That wisdom will not feed pride, greed, vanity nor lust because it is there to exercise our faith. It teaches and instructs us to fear God, depart from evil and to depend on Him. That is the beginning of wisdom that we can know.
Points to Ponder:
Where do you go to learn things?
How much do you depend on your bible for instruction?
May 21: Proverbs 1 7-9
Key Verse: Proverbs 1 8
Listen, my son, to your father’s instruction and do not forsake your mother’s teaching.
Devotion:
You know, one thing that I am not good at is keeping in constant contact with my parents. Whenever I do ring them or talk to them, they are so happy to hear from me. Whenever I do visit, they do like to fuss over me and make me feel like the prodigal son coming home. They do this because of their love towards me, not the fact that I am so good to them, because I never feel like I can do enough for them.
Love is like that. Love makes you give 110%. Love makes you go further than is required. Love makes you do unexpected things! God's love to us has been shown in an extraordinary way. He allowed His son to give us His life for us on the cross, to pay for our sins. And He can only have done that for us because of His love for us. But how much do we actually give back to Him to show our love in return?
God wants us to be in constant contact with Him. He wants us to be with Him so He can shower us with blessings. He wants to give us loads of things in our lives to make them better. But in order for us to accept those gifts, we have to go to Him in the beginning! If we are not going to go to Him, then how is He supposed to continue showing us His love?
Our parents showed us so much love in the beginning by being there for us without us asking. They continue to look out for us even without us continuing to ask… But in order for them to know that we appreciate what they are doing for us, we have to thank them, and we have to show them we care what they do for us and think of us.
If we are to be wise, we have to live our lives according to Gods word. We have to make sure we do have Him in our lives so He can work in our lives. He does this all for love. We should be doing this all for love too.
Points to Ponder:
What was the last unexpected thing that your parents gave to you?
God wants to be your Father, are you willing to let Him?
May 20: Revelations 4 9-11
Key Verse: Revelations 4 11
“You are worthy, our Lord and God, to receive glory and honour and power, for you created all things, and by your will they were created and have their being.”
Devotion:
When was the last time you were really thankful for something going the right way? When did you last have something happen, look back and think, wow, I am really glad it turned out this way after all? We all try to control our own lives and think we do a pretty good job most of the time, but we always seem to make mistakes and lose faith in what we can do because of those mistakes. We may look back on our accomplishments and think we have done ok, but there will always be times when we think we could have done better. The accomplishments build up our faith, but the failures break down our faith!
It is at those times that we think we could have done with fore-sight because looking back we can see the pitfalls now we did not see then. If only we could have had someone guiding us through our lives who knew exactly what was going to happen! But we have! Christ has promised us He will be with us and that He will be willing to guide us and to keep us if we are willing to trust in Him. With that trust will come all manner of things we would not have otherwise thought through.
Can you imagine the joy we will have knowing we have been able to make it through to the end and done things right; but just that, because we will be living out our eternal lives in joy and happiness! Can you imagine the sorrow we will face if we make it through to the end only to find that we face the rest of our eternal lives living in sorrow? We all do have the choice as to which way we see our lives working out. We all do have the choice as to whether we want to honour and obey our Living, Eternal, Loving, Caring and Awesome God! Once we do bring God back into our lives we do find that not only do we have joy and peace whilst we live on earth, but we have the secure knowledge we will have even more joy and peace living eternally by His side!
Points to Ponder:
How often do you think about the long term rather than the short term?
How often do you let God be your guide?
May 19: Matthew 7 7-11
Key Verse: Matthew 7 7
Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you.
Devotion:
If you need it and you don’t have it, then you either have to work for it or ask for it! There is always going to be things that you can never work for. Love and kindness are things which you work at, not for. Presents are things given without asking (normally). There are many ways in which we can achieve things in our lives.
As a child, one needs to make sure your parents know where you are at, so they know what your needs are. When you are very small, they have to do much of the thinking for you. But as you grow up, that thinking process becomes more and more your own task until it gets times when you are faced with leaving home. At that stage it is expected that you should have picked up enough knowledge and common sense to go out and fend for yourself. But still, there may well be things which you have to ask of your parents from time to time… There are also many times when you may well wish you were still a child and you could go back to your parents and have them to do the minding once again.
When we start our lives with Christ, we start as babies and we depend on Him for everything. The wide differential between Him and us means we never truly grow up from being a child. If we think we have grown up and try to leave, we will very quickly find out we are still children and we cannot cope without Him. We try to go out alone and find out the world is actually too much to deal with – that is when we realise we are still children and children need their parent’s protection and help.
What we also need to remember is that despite us being the naughty children that we are, He continues to love us and protect us; He continues to want us to ask of Him always. That is when we need to go to Him in humble and frequent prayer.
Points to Ponder:
Do or did you like living at home with your parents?
How much more can you love living with Christ?