Saturday 20 Mar 2021

March 20: John 7:37-44
 
Key Verse: John 7:43
Thus the people were divided because of Jesus.
 
Devotion:
Have you noticed how you always get opposition from people who don’t want to believe in what you believe in? No matter how much we expect things, we always seem to be surprised when we get opposition from people who say they believe or are part of a church or even say they are Christians. And there is nothing new about these conflicts!
 
What Jesus wants for us is to come to Him with an open heart, to listen to His teaching and to obey it. Only when we start to reflect our Saviour can we pass on this teaching to the people around us. If we try to do things our own way, we will falter and stumble because we cannot see the pitfalls like Christ can. God has seen it all before as mankind has tried and failed so many times before. So why do we insist on giving it another go by ourselves if we have failed so many times before?
 
The answer to that is probably because we do not listen to Christ enough, and we certainly do not listen to the Holy Spirit enough! Jesus tried to tell people how much better things would be if they listened to the Holy Spirit because they would be able to share so much more with others. And this is where we seem to differ from others – some want a quiet life just doing what the old church did, others want to just be good people whilst some want to jump up and down and shout to the world about God!
 
We are going to have differing opinions as we move forward because not all people have been taught by the same teachers. God saw this and knew people would always be in conflict because of the differences in what has gone before. This is why He wanted people to listen more to the Holy Spirit because that teaching is coming straight from God!
 
Points to Ponder:
Do you have arguments with others in church?
 
Will you try to listen to the Holy Spirit more today?