April 18: Luke 24:44-49
Key Verse: Luke 24:45
Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.
Devotion:
One of the great things about our bibles is how they span such a vast time range and allow us to come to terms with what has already happened and what Jesus did for us. They also have explanations by Jesus of what the Old Testament meant, expanded history of His own life and a whole lot of promises of things to come!
For us to be able to understand half of what is written down, we need a special person to give us the insight we need and comprehension which would otherwise be impossible! God allowed Jesus to come and show us many things, but it is not Jesus who gives us a full understanding of what has happened and what is still to come – it is the Holy Spirit who God promised would come to support us when Jesus went back to Heaven!
Far too often we ignore the words the Holy Spirit tries to give us because we don’t like to listen to anything we can’t see! Jesus had to plainly tell the disciples what was going t happen to prepare them, and us, for what was going to come. This has all been written down for us to study, but because we like to see things to believe them we struggle with our own understanding.
God saw this in us and has given us so much to lay the foundation for what is to happen, what is to come. It is words like these from Jesus which help us now to be prepared to listen to the unseen – to listen to the Holy Spirit. This is something the world will always struggle with because they do not yet know these simple words from Christ. It takes time and it takes faith.
Points to Ponder:
How much faith do you have in the bible?
Will you try to listen to the Holy Spirit more?
April 17: 1 John 3:1-6
Key Verse: 1 John 3:1
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
Devotion:
The more you work and live as a Christian, the more you begin to realise there is a large gap between people who know Christ and those who don’t. I used to think there was a very large gap between the religious people and everyone else, but it goes a lot deeper than just religion!
To be able to be called a child of God is pretty amazing and something which I treasure deeply – but also something the world does not seem to comprehend! We may as well be talking a different language when we say things like this! This gap is the understanding Christ gives to us when we get to know Him. It is not something magical which we gain because of all the religious things we do or say, it is an understanding we get to know through knowing Christ personally.
There are some questions we get asked to which we don’t know the answers, questions for which the answers are known by God and not yet by mankind. When we get to be with Jesus on His return, we will get to know the answers. Until then, we should be content with knowing Christ and having faith He knows what is best for us. This is part of our faith in Christ – we don’t know the answers, but because we know He does, we can depend on Him!
For as long as we have this hope in Christ, and depend on it, we can live as forgiven children of God. We don’t have to wait until we get to heaven or until we die, we are now Children of God because of our faith in Him. We live with sin and we continue to sin, but because of our relationship with Christ, we can know we are forgiven and redeemed already!
Points to Ponder:
Do you know you are a child of God?
Will you depend on Him for your parental guidance?
April 16: Isaiah 59:9-11
Key Verse: Isaiah 59:11
We all growl like bears; we moan mournfully like doves. We look for justice, but find none; for deliverance, but it is far away.
Devotion:
Sometimes, when things go wrong we lose sight of the real things in life and all we see is what has, is and can go wrong! We assume there is no way out because we did something wrong and have to face up to what we think is the punishment. But, as is the case in so many things in life, there is always a life-line which can be reached out to.
These words describe the hopelessness we feel when we think the world around us is closing in on us. We are like blind people in a surrounding we don’t know. We have to feel our way round because we ‘see’ nothing; like we are lost in the world when others seem to be doing fine and we are not. In the middle of the day, when everyone else is seeing things just fine, we still cannot see anything – the hopelessness of it all!
We groan and moan because we are stuck in a position where we see no way out; we cannot keep quiet because it is overwhelming in every way. This is the hopelessness of the world! Christ has seen this and knows what we face. He came to change this for us so, despite everything we think is blocking us from a life of peace and joy, He opened the door so we can find our way to Him.
God send Jesus to make a difference, to switch on the lights, to open the locked doors, to remove the scales from our eyes which blind us. Christ took on the debt for all we have done wrong and frees us... but we must make the choice to open our eyes and see the truth He brings. To do this we only have to repent of our sins and Christ has promised to forgive us and give us a peace only He can give!
Points to Ponder:
Do you feel lost and bound up?
Will you turn to the truth and allow Christ to free you?
April 15: 1 Corinthians 4:1-5
Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 4:4
My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.
Devotion:
The more Paul went round teaching people about Jesus, the more he would have been exposed to the pride and deceit which was running through the religious organisations at the time. I hesitate to call it the church because Paul was trying to open their eyes to what was going on without judging them – they had become puffed up in their ways instead of the ways God had declared.
The more we get caught up in what we think God wants, the more we try to build it up and the more puffed up we will become. This takes us away from God’s word because we are now focusing on what we think God needs instead of what He has actually asked us to do, both through His word and through what He tells us.
Paul was very quick to respond to questions about judging others because he knew he was not innocent even though people may have looked at him as being innocent because of the work he was doing. Let us never forget that! We are just as guilty doing God’s Work as doing our earthly work. We are only forgiven by Christ because He has chosen to forgive us after we admit the truth...
Paul’s conscience was clear because he knew Christ had promised to forgive him for the things he had done wrong. He knew he could stand on those promises no matter how bad things had been in the past. He knew the only one who had the right to judge him was the One who stepped forward and took his debt!
Points to Ponder:
Do you still worry about what you have done wrong?
Will you remember Christ stepped forward and took on your debt?