September 7: Luke 6:20-26
Key Verse: Luke 6:23
Rejoice in that day and leap for joy, because great is your reward in heaven. For that is how their ancestors treated the prophets.
Devotion:
Jesus’ words here where both an encouragement and a warning; and encouragement reminding the disciples what was in store for them in Heaven, and a warning to all who would turn their backs on God because they would not be in a good place! God wants us all to be able to receive blessings and not have to face His wrath!
It is our choice as to whether we face the blessings or the woe. If we choose to include Christ in our lives and to keep Him close, then we should expect to see and receive the blessings Jesus is talking about here. We can see this throughout history as the people of Israel received blessings when they walked with God, but we also see the opposite side of the story when they walked away from God because the world over ran them and their lives were filled with woe.
Any suffering we endure here on earth is going to be nothing in comparison to the joy we will have in Heaven. We have Jesus’ words to remind us of the things which can go wrong – the parables which foretell of disasters or hard times. We also have parables which tell of the blessings and joy of the people when they continued to walk with God.
If we aim for personal wealth or favour during our life on earth, are we not asking for earthly recognition instead of Heavenly recognition? When we strive for earthly comforts, that will be our reward – earthly comforts. But if we strive to serve God we can expect worldly opposition to what we do and hence earthly discomforts; but our Heavenly rewards will be so much more than we can imagine!
Points to Ponder:
Do you seek earthly recognition?
Will you humble yourself before God and serve Him?
September 6: Luke 6:12-19
Key Verse: Luke 6:19
and the people all tried to touch him, because power was coming from him and healing them all.
Devotion:
What an amazing experience it must have been to be close to Jesus when all this was happening. To see the people being cured of all sorts of things, spiritually and physically. Though Jesus had just picked out the 12 apostles, He did not limit His time to them but allowed everyone who was close to enjoy the healing time!
This is just one demonstration of the power of Jesus. He may have been fully man, but He was also the Son of God and He depended on God for everything He was able to do with the people around Him. We know Jesus spent time alone with God before these events – something we need to be mindful of and what we need to practice in our lives.
God wants us to draw close to Him by spending time with Him in prayer where we can pour out our hearts to Him. But we must also remember to stop and wait for answers from God. What use is a one sided conversation when we can benefit more from a two way discussion? Jesus always spent time waiting for answers from God and not just chatting away to Him.
People had come from all over the countryside to be with Jesus because they had heard of the miracles He was doing. They had enough faith to believe Jesus would be able to do something for them and so made time to be with Jesus. We need to stop in our busy lives and make time for God too!
Points to Ponder:
When do you make time for God in your life?
How much of that time do you wait for Him to answer you?
September 5: 1 Corinthians 5:6-8
Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 5:6
Your boasting is not good. Don’t you know that a little yeast leavens the whole batch of dough?
Devotion:
How many times have you boasted about what someone has done in your community – even though you have known in your heart it was wrong? We tend to get carried away when extraordinary things happen; sometimes justifying what is happening by saying it cannot be done by man or by boasting about how powerful that person must be to achieve something like that.
When someone does something wrong in a tight-knit community there will be some who support that person just because they have managed to do something nobody else has, whilst there will be a few who try to stand up and say something is wrong. The majority may well ignore that person who stand up because the ‘problem’ goes away when nobody taken notice of it.
God wants us to stand up for righteousness, to stand up for what is right and just… He does not want us to ignore the issue just so it will go away. When we stand up for what is right, we should be asking Christ for the strength to stand up against the crowd. He will give us the strength if we ask. When we ignore things we become part of the problem and we are complicit in what has been done wrong.
Rather than allowing one wrong thing to affect the whole community in this manner, if we stand up and declare the truth, the community will be able to see what is wrong and work against that. By ignoring it we are allowing the whole community to become corrupted by that evil… that makes it harder to work with Christ in amongst those people because they will all be afraid of what will happen to them!
Points to Ponder:
Do you try to ignore problems?
Will you ask Christ to allow you to stand firm with the truth?
September 4: Jeremiah 18:3-11
Key Verse: Jeremiah 18:8
and if that nation I warned repents of its evil, then I will relent and not inflict on it the disaster I had planned.
Devotion:
This passage tells us of God’s great mercy and also His holiness! No matter what we have done wrong, whether it be as a nation, community or by ourselves, God is always willing to forgive us when we admit to what we have done wrong and ask for forgiveness. When Jeremiah received these words it was to show him Judah could be forgiven if they were to come back to Him and ask forgiveness; but equally, if they were to turn away from Him, then He would turn His back on them!
God may have chosen the Israelites as His chosen race, but when they turned their backs on Him and did all manner of sins against Him, He had to show them He is Holy and cannot abide the sin. But when they turned their backs on the sin and turned back to Him, He would show them mercy beyond their understanding!
Time and time again the people of Israel turned away from God and had to face all manner of things going wrong because they were walking away from God at the time. But as soon as they turned back to Him, they prospered and were able to live with His great blessings once again.
It is not God who is changing, but us. We are the ones falling in and out of grace because of the lives we choose to live. Once we turn back to Christ, our lives change once again and we begin to live the blessed life He wants us to have.
Points to Ponder:
Do you keep changing your love for God?
Will you try to be more consistent with your love for Him?