May 27: Matthew 17 1-9

Key Verse: Matthew 17 5
While he was still speaking, a bright cloud covered them, and a voice from the cloud said, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased. Listen to him!”

Devotion:
This is one of those moments when the disciples would have been in no doubt about just who Jesus was! And yet, when Christ actually went to the cross, they had their doubts again. Satan is there in the background just waiting for each of us to show a chink in our armour so he can trip us up! What we need to focus on is our Faith in Christ. How do we do that? By hearing His word.

To “hear” His Word does not just mean that we should simply go to church and listen and go home and forget about it. Hearing God's word means we need to take in what we hear and try and apply what we hear in our lives. If we are going to be hearers of the Word and not doers of the Word, then we are not going to get any closer to heaven than the unbeliever who may be next door... Applying God's Word in our lives means we are willing to live our lives according to His rules and to His will. It means we firmly believe that HE IS GOD and we do owe everything to Him. It confirms our love to Christ after He Himself gave it all on the cross for our sakes.

If we are willing to take things into our own hands and do things we think Christ ought to have us do, we had better make sure it is what He desires and not what we want. It is very easy to get carried away with things in our lives thinking we are doing it for Christ when we are simply fulfilling our own desires. That then shows us we are not really “hearing” God's Word, but trying to re-invent it. Yes, it is a very fine line between doing our own thing and working for Christ – the difference being the hearing of His Word, the real hearing.

Points to Ponder:
How often do you switch off when people are speaking to you?

How often do you sit up and listen to Gods Word being preached?

May 26: Psalms 62 1-7

Key Verse: Psalms 62 7
My salvation and my honour depend on God; he is my mighty rock, my refuge.

Devotion:
It is not that hard to forget just who we need to be looking up to all the time. But, it only takes a few seconds of seeing something or hearing something which will then tempt us away to do things. Giving in to those temptations then weakens us spiritually. We then are more susceptible to those same or similar temptations, which means we give in just a little more, and so we weaken ourselves to the point where we fall down...

King David was one who knew The Lord was his strength. He knew God was the one who could give him the strength to continue and to set examples. But, just like any of us, he too had times when he would give in and fall into temptations. He too would be weakened by what he was doing. But when he started to show signs of weakness, he would remember just who was his strength. Each one of us can draw strength from these words, knowing that God is going to be standing by all the time, knowing that we can depend on Him 100% of the time, even if we cannot depend on ourselves!

So long as we focus on Him in our lives, we will head in the right direction; so long as we focus on Him, we will not be drawn into so many temptations. When Satan sees that we are weakening, he does not sit around and wait for us to fall, he is going to be there trying to trip us up! Christ is the one who will be there waiting for us to put our hands out so we can find strength and support in Him. Christ does not want to wait until we fall. He wants us to reach out whilst we are still strong. He wants to give us an impenetrable shield! He is our Salvations. He is our shield. All we have to do is use Him!

Points to Ponder:
Can you always stand up and say no to friends asking you to do things wrong?

Do you strengthen yourself through Christ each day?

May 25: Hebrews 4 1-10

Key Verse: Hebrews 4 9
There remains, then, a Sabbath-rest for the people of God;

Devotion:
Sometimes with a cursory glance, the gospel can seem a daunting place where people can see all sorts of contradictions. But if you are willing to sit down and let God explain it to you as you read, then you will learn so much more than just reading a book. In a few verses we are taken from the beginning of time through to the present day as a reminder of God's promises. The privileges that we have living under the gospel are many and yet so many overlook them all the time.

Taking the simple fact of having a day of rest, how God elected to have the seventh day as a day of rest and ended up getting so cross with man for ignoring the few simple rules that He had imposed a ban of man from entering into rest with Him. That, to us, would have spelt our doom if it were not for His promises. By looking at His promises we can then understand to whom He was saying these words. Those who refuse to believe in Him will not enter into His rest. That promise has stood from the beginning of time and will continue to stand for as long as it takes for all of His promises to be carried out.

In the old testament days they did not have the history of Christ going to the cross. They had to base their faith on nothing more than what the prophets were telling them had come from God. You may think that the miracles would go a long way to persuading people; just look at the miracles which continue to happen around us and the way they are ignored! I'm sure many were ignored in the same way back then. Yet throughout time God has continued to stand by His promise that as long as we are willing to believe in Him, we will find a prefect rest with Him. No matter what man can do, he will never be able to live up to those sort of promises by himself; we always fall short of the mark. We simply have to open our eyes and see the truth and know that God is our one true God. The rest is therefore history...

Points to Ponder:
Do you try to stand by your promises?

Are you living in God's promises?

May 24: 2 Corinthians 6 1-3

Key Verse: 2 Corinthians 6 2
For he says, “In the time of my favour I heard you, and in the day of salvation I helped you. “I tell you, now is the time of God’s favour, now is the day of salvation.

Devotion:
Being reminded about the promises of God is a way by which we can strengthen each other’s resolve to make sure we live our lives according to God's Word and will. Hundreds of years before Christ gave His life on the cross, the prophet Isaiah wrote these words from God: “In an acceptable time have I heard thee, and in a day of salvation have I helped thee: and I will preserve thee, and give thee for a covenant of the people, to establish the earth, to cause to inherit the desolate heritages;” which are reflected or remembered here by Paul's letter to the church at Corinth.

God promised to make sure we have a means of Salvation and that it would be soon; not forgetting God is not actually bound by time, who are we to argue about a few hundred years? God promised and He delivered. He went further than anyone had expected by giving us His Son. He made sure we would no longer have to continue to try to live up to His standards and making sacrifices all the time.

Paul's reminder to us is that “now is the accepted time”. We live now in God’s time of grace. We do not know when this period of grace will end. We do not know how soon or how far in the future... but what we do know is when that time passes, it will be gone permanently! We need to be able to encourage people to come forward to find out about God so they can join us in Salvation. We need to encourage others by living our life in a way which they can see we are Christians and we live for Christ. We know He has already lived for us, we know He has already died for us, we know He has already risen for us... we also know that His promise to return will be done just as each of His promises have already been done. We just have to make sure we are ready!

Points to Ponder:
Are you always ready on time in the mornings?

God's timing is always perfect, we just have to be ready...