February 12: Romans 1 18-23
Key Verse: Romans 1 22
Although they claimed to be wise, they became fools
Devotion:
No matter what walk of life we are from, be it the most humble servant to the highest king or president, we all need God's gospel because it is the only way we will learn of His Salvation. There is no other way that we can be saved – these are not just the words of Christ but have been seen throughout our history time and again as people tried to buy their way through life only to fall short of the mark. Nobody can escape the wrath of God through anything that they do. No matter how good we think we are, none of us can ever think or claim we are good enough to make it to heaven without Christ's forgiveness before us.
What better way to describe hell than it being the wrath of God. For if we are not for Him, then we are against Him and then we have to face His wrath. He is our Creator and His creation is on show all around us for all of us to see. We know it is His creation, but many refuse to accept it because it would then mean they too have to give in to God's will in their lives. They too would have to give up their ways and follow Christ. There is no excuse by which we can say, “but I did not know”, because we are born with knowledge of certain things and through that we are able to know that we do have a God. Finding out just who He is, is part of our destiny.
When people do not acknowledge God, they are darkening their hearts and turning themselves into fools. They will continue to fight against the truth and all things righteous because they want to do what is right in their own eyes instead. They will continue to try to prove themselves correct against all odds. One day they will realise they can no longer hide the truth... I only hope that day is not the day they die and find out as they face Christ! God cannot be corrupted because there is no guile in Him. He cannot lie because He is the truth. We must either face up to His truth or put up with the consequences of our own lies.
Points to Ponder:
Do you always try to prove you are right?
How many times have you faced God in a speaking contest?
February 11: Proverbs 29 19
Key Verse: Proverbs 29 19
Servants cannot be corrected by mere words; though they understand, they will not respond.
Devotion:
It is difficult to explain to someone who has never known a servant that there is a difference between a slave and a servant. A servant is a willing helper who is being paid for the work they do whereas a slave is one who is not working willingly whether they are being paid or not. A servant (in the above context) is someone who has willingly come forward to fill the job vacancy. A servant can be anything from a home help to a qualified nurse – they may have a raft of different experience and expertise though. But how that servant conducts themselves is of the greatest importance.
If you were to take on a position at a company and work with a willing heart and work honestly as you were told what to do, your employers will continue to want you to work for them. But if you were to be dishonest and never completed you work, you would not last long. A servant is expected to do a certain amount of work for which they were taken on to do; they should be willing to do it honestly and willingly. It is when they start refusing to do that work the employer or master may become upset and start to rule with a rod instead of words – it may be the only thing that servant understands.
It is not right to think a servant will know more about what the master wants than the master themselves – nobody can know that unless they are inside the master’s head! It will not be long on before the servant does know the type of thing the master prefers or likes, but not their desires every day. The servant soon knows how to do the work but not what is required every day. We need to remember we are servants of God and not His slaves. We need to remember we should be willing workers in His camp. We have been given instruction manuals for the position (our bibles) but we do still need to go to the master every day and ask for guidance for that day. Listening to the answers of our prayers is most important because God may not be best pleased when we start acting like we know what God needs every day! When He asks, we should reply in words as well as in will and work. We can live a wonderful life as Christ's servants – so long as we are willing to prayer and obey!
Points to Ponder:
Would you take on a position as a servant?
Are you willing to be Christ's servant?
February 10: Isaiah 43 2-4
Key Verse: Isaiah 43 2
When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and when you pass through the rivers, they will not sweep over you. When you walk through the fire, you will not be burned; the flames will not set you ablaze.
Devotion:
It is difficult for us to understand how God could be in heaven and on earth, away from us and yet still with us. Christ's words in the New Testament show He is still God, He had always been God and He was able to descend from heaven and then ascend to heaven at the time He chose. This must have been a bit of a brain strain on the disciples until they learned why Jesus died and then remembered the words He had spoken to them previously. They had remembrance of the scriptures such as these from Isaiah which told them of how God was always going to look after them and how much he loved them.
We now have the written word from the past showing us the image the prophets had foreseen from God and the image the disciples saw as Jesus walked amongst them. They make a pretty convincing image of a God who really does care for Israel, but not just them, for us gentiles too! We now have the choice as to whether we believe these words from the prophets and the words which followed from the disciples and from Christ Himself. Christ has been lifted up onto the cross to die for us. The price has been paid. God may have shown His love by allowing whole nations to be used as sacrifice before, but He sent His Son to be the final sacrifice for all!
God has done what has been done out of His love for us. He has showed us that He loved us so much that He was willing to allow His Son to die for us, to take on our sentence so we would be allowed to be set free from our sins. His love was shown to all people of the world, no matter how good or evil. It was not just shown to the angels who were expected to follow Him no matter what. We, on the other hand do have the choice that we can turn back from our evil ways and turn to Him once more. Once we have made that simple choice, we will be safe forever. Once we have accepted God back into our lives, we are with Him forever more. What a wonderful, wonderful gift!
Points to Ponder:
Do you like getting presents?
Why do so many people refuse to open His free gift to us all?
February 9: Isaiah 45 20-25
Key Verse: Isaiah 45 22
Turn to me and be saved, all you ends of the earth; for I am God, and there is no other.
Devotion:
How simple are these words of the prophet Isaiah. Yet how often they are ignored! The instruction is so simple: “Draw near together”, “take counsel together”, “Turn to Me, and be saved”. God has been promising from the beginning that He would do certain things, all of which do come to pass. In other words, He has always told the truth – so when He says that He is God and we need to turn to Him to be saved, that is the absolute truth. It does not take too much reading to figure out just how true His Word is, yet people are not willing to pick it up and read it!
If we would just be willing to pick up our bibles and read them, we would find out a wonderful truth. Not only that, but if we are willing to be obedient before God, then we will find all the things of a normal Christian life just become part of our lives: the reading, the praying, the church attendance... and we will find we are happy to do them because it does fulfil our lives. Every being will bow before Him when the time comes – there is no escaping He is God and He alone is all powerful. We will all face Him at one stage or another – I just hope that you will be able to face Him with a clean heart, not because we can hope to achieve a clean heart by ourselves, but one which has been cleaned by Christ.
There is no way that we can gain righteousness other than through Christ. There is no better way to gain strength than through Christ. There is no better place to be than in His arms. There is no way God will turn His back on any of us who are willing to turn towards Him and accept Him back into our lives. He created us in the beginning. We have consistently shown we cannot figure out where we came from. He has shown how He can control our world we live in. We have shown Him we can break almost everything that we touch. But just like a loving parent, He is there to pick up the pieces – let Him be back in control of your life, don't try to run His life!
Points to Ponder:
Do you like telling people what to do?
Do you really think you can tell God what to do?
February 8: Romans 14 7-13
Key Verse: Romans 14 13
Therefore let us stop passing judgment on one another. Instead, make up your mind not to put any stumbling block or obstacle in the way of a brother or sister.
Devotion:
How easy it is to follow on from what someone else is doing – just to go with it rather than take a step back and so “no”. No matter what station in life we are from, we all need to agree not to live for ourselves and to rather live for Christ. Christians cannot be people who are “self-seeking”, that just does not compute with God; you are either for Him or against Him. Our business is not to please ourselves in as many ways as we can, but to please God – we need to keep Him in everything that we do!
But then, on the other side of the coin, we start to judge others because they do things wrong. It is certainly not our place to judge them! We can help them to see what they are doing wrong by applying the right things in our lives and encouraging them, but we have no place in telling them how bad they are... show them what God says about it, not what you think about it. God's word has been given to us so we can learn from it and pass on that knowledge – not so we can have ammunition to judge others by!
No matter whether we are Christian or non-Christian, God is still the same God. He is God of all and we must remember that one day every knee will bow, and every tongue confess that He is Lord. The last thing we want to do is to put someone off because they don't want to be “uptight” or “self-righteous” like us. Can you imagine having to confess to God how you have prevented people from coming to heaven just because you have thought you were in some way better than them and that put them off! If we remembered this single thing, we would probably not do half of the things that we do!
Points to Ponder:
Do you like pointing out others’ mistakes?
How many mistakes of yours do you hear God pointing out?