January 13: 1 Samuel 9:15-20

Key Verse: 1 Samuel 9:17
When Samuel caught sight of Saul, the Lord said to him, ‘This is the man I spoke to you about; he will govern my people.’

Devotion:
One of the things I love reading about is the things we talk about as being fate or coincidences! Here is a man called Saul who has been sent out to look for his father’s donkeys and had travelled a fair way. He was now on a quest to find the seer who would hopefully be able to tell him where the donkeys had gone off to. Instead, God had planned something quite different for Saul.

Now Saul was a handsome man and very tall too so he would not be mistaken amongst a crowd of people. God chose Saul because of his qualities and because he stood out amongst men. But God also knew what Saul would be like in the end; though in the beginning he would be everything the people had asked for.

You see, God listen to the cry of his people. He listens when we call out to Him and hears every prayer. He wants to be able to answer every prayer, but sometime we are so caught up in life we forget what is going to be best for us. In these cases God does answer our prayers but will be standing by in case we forget about what we should be doing too!

God doesn’t want us to just accept the answered prayers and move on to new thing. He wants us to acknowledge the answered prayers and share them with other to encourage everyone. We are all in one church and we need to support each other because we are all God’s children!

Points to Ponder:
How often do you pray for things?

How often do you praise God for answered prayers?

January 12: 1 Samuel 8:4-7

Key Verse: 1 Samuel 8:7
And the Lord told him: ‘Listen to all that the people are saying to you; it is not you they have rejected, but they have rejected me as their king.

Devotion:
What do you do when people start questioning your faith or your relationship with God? Do you get discouraged and try to find a way out of the situation? Sometimes we have to accept what people are saying and leave them to it. Those are also the times when we need to make sure we are listening to God because He is going to have something to say to us!

Here Samuel is getting on in age and the people no longer want to listen to him. They see the countries around them who have kings and ministers who lead them; they now look to see why they can’t have a king! This is the dangerous age where people will rather follow a human being than follow God.

The difference between a king and a prophet is the king does not necessarily follow what God is telling them to do; they may well be doing things for their own good rather than the glory of God! God knew this would come and so He tells Samuel to listen to what the people say and tell them what their futures would be like living under a king instead of a prophet.

When humans gain power, they want more and with that power they demand respect in ways which are not Godly and not righteous. These are the ways which often lead to tyrants being made because the kings or queens get too greedy… This is typical human behaviour when they turn their back on God!

Points to Ponder:
Do you get discouraged by people not trusting God?

Will you continue to trust and listen to God no matter what?

January 11: Matthew 10:40-42

Key Verse: Matthew 10:40
Anyone who welcomes you welcomes me, and anyone who welcomes me welcomes the one who sent me.

Devotion:
One of the things we often forget is someone who is close to God will always tell God when good or bad things happen to them. So no matter how far you think you are away from God, He always gets to hear what you are up to. As Jesus says in these verses, if you do anything as little as giving a cup of water to one who is close to God, He will make sure you get your reward for doing something for them.

We don’t know how close other people are to God if they are strangers to us; we can have a good guess if we observe them long enough, but not just by looking at them! So what Jesus is also saying is we have to treat each person we meet as if they are in communion with God so we always treat them properly.

So many situation in our modern world suggest we should be treating many people with the same mannerisms as they treat us and others. This causes a bit of a snowball effect because once someone starts treating others badly, more people join in to treat them and others affected badly too; and so it continues until everyone is getting hurt by others!

God wants us to try and turn this on its head by treating people right. If we can break the chain of treating people badly, we stop the spread of evil and invite righteousness into their lives. As disciples of God we should be willing to treat others well so they can be encouraged to do the same.

Points to Ponder:
How many people did you treat badly today?

How many people did you treat well today?