June 1: Numbers 11:24-30
Key Verse: Numbers 11:29
But Moses replied, “Are you jealous for my sake? I wish that all the Lord’s people were prophets and that the Lord would put his Spirit on them!”
Devotion:
How do you feel when other people prophesy over you? I must admit that I am sometimes a bit scared of what people are going to say about me… I was born in Zimbabwe and grew up in a wonderful hot climate where we spent most of our time outdoors; I still long for the time when I can spend longer periods outdoors and in the bush. When I came to England I spent a while travelling around and finally settled in Suffolk where I enjoyed being close to nature again and far from cities. So when someone told me I should be thinking about going to London to work for God, I was a bit stumped! Why!!!
But the longer I am here the more I realise why God has put me here in them middle of an estate in London – because this is where He wants me to be, this is where the need is. As we live through this lock-down and start to come out the other side of it I know so many people here on the estate are fearful of what is ahead for us and fearful of what will happen because so many people live in close proximity to each other. But I also know we were brought here to share the hope we have and allow people to see the greatness of our God!
It is wonderful to see so many people engaging with God on this estate; I must add I am a late addition to the team here because our vicar has been here for over a decade already. I love seeing the local people rise up out of their entrapped lifestyles and blossom as they receive gifts from the Holy Spirit, all unique and all so desperately needed here. God knows exactly what he is doing but we don’t always see it!
We really do need to encourage people to live with the Holy Spirit and accept Him as part of their lives. Through this we will see God’s kingdom grow and more people start their wonderful and eternal relationships with Christ!
Points to Ponder:
Do you get jealous when others hear from God?
How often do you stop and listen?
May 31: 1 Corinthians 12:7-11
Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 12:7
Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.
Devotion:
This is the day we celebrate the culmination of Jesus’ love for us when we see the promise He gave of someone to be with us forever come true! This is the day we celebrate the Holy Spirit filling the disciples and we see the differences of how the spirit worked in each of their lives. The Holy Spirit will fill us with different strengths so we can all work for the common good, so we can fulfil God’s hope for a loving Christian society.
To see how the Spirit worked in each of the disciples lives, we have to try and read between the lines; even though we see how each of them worked for God’s glory and continued to share the gospel wherever they were, we don’t tend to get a running commentary about what the Spirit was doing in each of their lives, they just got on with doing what God was asking of them!
As long as we remember the words that the Spirit is given for the common good, then we can listen to all He is teaching us and work to give God the glory He deserves. We don’t have to have it in writing or have a contract in place before we do anything – God gives us the power and strength to do things by His guidance through the Holy Spirit. As long as we are willing to listen to God, we are on the road to living in His will.
Each of us are going to receive different words, different instructions, different strengths and different tasks to achieve in our lifetimes. Don’t panic about not being able to do enough for God because He is working in your life to prepare you for the task He has for you to do. This may be ask simple as telling your next door neighbour about Jesus or it may be as complicated as taking the gospel into a country where worshipping God is banned! Just listen and trust God knows best!
Points to Ponder:
How often do you stop and listen to God?
How often do you act on what God tells you?
May 30: 1 Kings 18:11-14
Key Verse: 1 Kings 19:12
After the earthquake came a fire, but the Lord was not in the fire. And after the fire came a gentle whisper.
Devotion:
Most people want some sort of ‘big bang’ to happen when God talks to them or when they ask for something from God. In reality God is going to silently and covertly answer so many more prayers than the ones we notice because they are big events! I love these verses which depict Elijah standing on the mountain waiting for God; there are all sorts of big events which people would otherwise claim to come from a god: wind, earthquake and fire. But none of those were God’s presence even though we expect God to show Himself in awesome physical ways!
God does not have to boast about His love for us and does not have to make the whole world notice when He wants to speak to us – but He does want us to stop and listen for Him and wait for His instruction. How did Elijah know it was God when the other forces of nature looked even more powerful than the whisper which got to him? Elijah waited for something unique from God, a personal touch which the world cannot give us.
We may think of such things like the pandemic s being a judgement from God, but in reality it is simply a mistake made by mankind and one for which the whole world is paying for! This has nothing to do with God other than us lifting up our prayers for mercy and an end to this all. But if it suddenly stopped tomorrow, got wiped off the face of the earth by a single word from God, how many people would go back to doing exactly what they were doing before the pandemic?
We do need to stop and listen, not just to the world as we begin to realise how much we have polluted and broken it, but to God who has been trying to get this message to us for a long time! To listen properly we have to stop all the fuss and just sit with God until we hear Him. How can we hear Him when we have so many other things distracting us? How can we focus on the still small voice when we have a country shouting at us from all angles?
Points to Ponder:
How often do you stop and listen?
Will you set aside a small amount of time every day to stop and listen to God?
May 29: Luke 15:25-32
Key Verse: Luke 15:29
But he answered his father, ‘Look! All these years I’ve been slaving for you and never disobeyed your orders. Yet you never gave me even a young goat so I could celebrate with my friends.
Devotion:
How do you feel when other people get all the attention and you don’t get any? How much worse is it when you have been doing all the work and someone who has done nothing right comes in and they get all the attention! We all have a sense of self-importance which tends to rule our emotions much of the time, but this is not what God has asked for!
Jesus did not come into the world as a major celebrity to entice people to join the gang or to be part of the latest social craze; instead He came as a servant to us, someone who was willing to do so much for us and end up by giving His life for us. He did this all with the minimum of fuss and tried to keep the peace except when telling people about His Father in Heaven.
But if we look at it from the point of view of the ‘lost sheep’ who had wondered off, we see a Saviour who is willing to go out into the worst places to find the lost and bring them home. The celebration for seeing that one lost person come to have a relationship with Jesus as we know Him is a celebration for all of us and not just the people concerned! In fact, we should be concerned because they were lost!
Some of us may have known Christ almost all of our lives and we just keep going, doing what God asks and keeping things in order day after day… then along comes some drug-addicted lost person and they get all the attention as God turns their life around. This is time for us to celebrate, not be jealous! God has done what we could not. He has broken the chains which bound that person and set them free from their old lives. Just because we have not been tied up with anything stronger than a piece of thread does not mean we should not celebrate with our new brother or sister; they have a whole lot more pulling them back to their old ways than we do – give them the help they need to keep going for Christ!
Points to Ponder:
Do you get upset when others get more attention from church than you?
Do you know God has been working with you to make that possible?