April 13: Psalms 18 30-36
Key Verse: Psalms 18 31
For who is God besides the Lord? And who is the Rock except our God?
Devotion:
Have you ever considered just how valuable the bible is to us? It may well be the best sold book in the world, but it is certainly not treated like the most valuable book by many people; simply because they do not know the value of what is held within. It is not valuable because of how it is printed or how it is presented, but because it carries God’s Word. It is therefore more important than anything on earth; more important that night or day, air or water.
God’s Word is there so we can learn about who He is. It is there to show us He is our One True God. It is there to teach us what we do wrong so we can learn how we break His laws. Once we learn how we break His laws, we then know what we are doing wrong against Him. That gives us grounds to come forward, apologise and ask for His forgiveness. That gives Him the opportunity to save us from our sins just as He promised and hence we gain eternal life. That is the light we should be seeking. That is the light which allows us to see what is in our shadows.
When we get to know God, we get to learn just how valuable His Word is. Now is the time we need to treat His Word with the respect that we now know it deserves. Now is the time when we need to get down and read more about what God has done in others’ lives so that we can be encouraged ourselves and to then encourage others. There is no way we can force God’s Word on to others because they will never see its value until they see the truth. That truth is something they have to see in God’s Word, not something we have to force on them. We, who have sin in our lives, cannot hope to demonstrate a sinless life for others to see, but we sure can demonstrate just how important God’s Word is to us – that alone will bring people in to find out why we hold our bibles with such regard!
Points to Ponder:
Was the most expensive book you bought worth every penny?
How much do you continue to get out of God’s Word each day?
April 12: Isaiah 8 19-22
Key Verse: Isaiah 8 20
Consult God’s instruction and the testimony of warning. If anyone does not speak according to this word, they have no light of dawn.
Devotion:
When things start to get tough, where do you start looking? We all have ideals and we all say that if things were to get tough we would go and do such and such. But when push comes to shove, we very often break down and run off in another direction. When things get tough, our ideas we had seem to fade away as if they are full of holes and would never carry water; we run scared to whatever everyone else seems to be clinging to at the time. Where we run to is going to depend largely on our faith – be it faith in God or faith in others.
You will find many people turn to the occult to find answers; out come the tarot cards, the horoscopes, the old wives tales and people start to clutch at straws to try and find an answer to their woes! We find people that have never been to church suddenly start turning up at church to see if they can somehow pacify God by being there… But that is not what God is looking for. God is looking for people that will rely on Him throughout their lives, not just when things are good and not just when things are bad, but throughout everything!
We see so many examples in the bible of how people have turned their faith into various circus acts (for want of a better description) when they have wanted to find strength or riches. The warning is the same each time – unless you are willing to put your faith and trust in God alone, then don’t expect Him to support you like you think He should be! Israel went through this so many times that you would have thought that they would have learned things by the time Jesus came to earth… But as so often is the case, we stumble as soon as we hit a minor flaw in the path we tread! Unless the bible supports your path you wish to walk on, it is not of God… Don’t go there!
Points to Ponder:
Who is your rock?
Do you trust Him fully?
April 11: Luke 11 33-36
Key Verse: Luke 11 35
See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness.
Devotion:
Would you think it a bit strange to put a light underneath a chair? Whilst it may look aesthetically pleasing at the time, it is not going to shed much useable light; try sitting in the chair and reading a book! But still people do this sort of thing and they call it progress, art or design! It is amazing what people will actually design just so something looks good and not put much thought into the usefulness or safety, until it is too late! An architect, on the other hand, should be thinking of both beauty and safety.
We do not tend to treat our lives too much like architects, we put design in front of usefulness, obedience, charity and simply what is right. We like to look good and many times we also go further than we should in making sure we do look good at the expense of others. I know I have been guilty of that in the past and I’m sure at some stage I will probably make a stupid decision again in the future… because we open our eyes to the temptations.
The danger first starts when we start to open our eyes to those things. Much like a small leak in a dam wall, if it is not stopped, it will continue to erode until you have a whacking great hole which will ultimately collapse the whole dam! Not because we wanted to bring down the dam in the beginning, but because we saw no harm in a tiny leak in the beginning. As days went by, we continued to see the leak grow bigger but because it was growing so slowly we did not think there was an issue. As the leak got bigger, we started to think there could be a problem but continued to ignore it… When it got too big, we then knew there was no way we could fix it! That is when we had to call in the experts to fix it and it cost a whole bunch more than we had!
If we make sure we fix things when we see there may be issues, we will move forward as stronger Christians. Our strength comes from looking for things that are right and going with them in the beginning! This is the will of God.
Points to Ponder:
Do you do things just to look good?
Everything God does has a purpose!
April 10: John 9 35-41
Key Verse: John 9 41
Jesus said, “If you were blind, you would not be guilty of sin; but now that you claim you can see, your guilt remains.
Devotion:
This is one of those passages where non-believers may well try to say how the bible contradicts itself. Here we have Jesus saying He comes to judge the world, and in John 3 17 He says that He does not come to judge the world but to save it. But as soon as you read the context in which the words are said, then it all becomes clear. In John 3 Christ is telling us of the love of God and His will was to come to save the world by giving us a way out of our sins. Here He expresses how He must allow us to see our sins and to be able to henceforth stay clear of them. Christ being the final judge!
If we continue to look at things around us, we will continue to be tempted by those things. Satan is the one who thinks he controls the majority simply because people are more willing to give in to temptations than to find out the truth. We are surrounded by such people all of our lives and must learn to deal with it. Christ expresses this as being made spiritually blind so we no longer see the sinful ways. Yes, they will still be there, but we have the choice to not go there; giving us “selective eyesight” in a similar way as we have “selective hearing” when we don’t want to hear something!
But first, we start out by being blind to the gospel. We cannot get to grips with verses such as John 3 17 and John 9 39 simply because the plain English does not seem to agree. But when we have a bit of patience and read a few verses around those verses, God (through the Holy Spirit) will allow us to see the truth for what it is. We do not have to be masters of language to figure things out – I certainly did not do too well in my English throughout my schooling; but we can still have spiritual discernment given to us by the Holy Spirit – when we listen!
Too many people close off their minds, eyes and ears to everything religious just because they can. It allows them to continue living a life of sin without them feeling bad about what they are doing. Let God guide you! He is seeking you to take away your blindness.
Points to Ponder:
Do you ever think your parents contradict themselves?
How can God contradict Himself if He cannot lie?
April 9: Romans 6 1-4
Key Verse: Romans 6 1
What shall we say, then? Shall we go on sinning so that grace may increase?
Devotion:
Do you have to put your hand into a fire to show it is hot? Well, maybe, but when you have found out it is hot, do you then have to keep putting your hand in every now and again to make sure? We need only to stand close enough to feel the heat rather than placing our hand into the flames to know the fire is hot and that it continues to be hot. Once we know fires are hot, we only have to see flames from a distance to know then where the heat is; we know then to avoid places where we see flames.
Why then should our lives be any different towards sin? Once we find out from God’s Word what sin is and what the penalty is for sin, why should we then go back there? We do not have to continually try a bit of sin out to find out if it is still sin. We do not have to get involved with it just to make sure. Just like a fire, the longer we play with it, the more we may think we have confidence in it and the more we then get involved with it… only to find out that it bites us when we are least expecting it!
We do not have to go for a ‘sin dip’ to make sure we still will find forgiveness in Christ! We have His promise! He has died for our sin already! Is that not good enough? Once we have found out how sin will affect our relationship with God, that alone should be enough to make sure we steer clear of it for the rest of our lives. Yet we continue to break God’s laws in our lives because we are used to doing it. We have built up habits from the things we have thought of in the past which we got involved with and now continue to do. We are not bound by these sins. We do have the choice to stop them; but do we have the will-power to stop?
God has given us the way we can defeat sin so we can spend our lives with Him. It does not mean we can continue breaking the laws right up until we die, knowing that we are saved… we still have to answer to what we have or have not done! Christ saved us from our sin and gave us a new life; let us try to live that life to the full with Him.
Points to Ponder:
How often does something have to happen to you before you believe it?
How often do you have to break God’s laws before you see they are wrong?