May 6: Acts 9:1-9
Key Verse: Acts 9:5
‘Who are you, Lord?’ Saul asked. ‘I am Jesus, whom you are persecuting,’ he replied.
Devotion:
Saul was making quite a name for himself by actively going after people who belong to “the Way” This was one of the earlier names for the Christian movement; nowadays we get called all sorts of things! Jesus was watching everything Saul did and wanted him to see the error of his ways.
Sometimes people can mistake us for some sort of a cult when we go out and actively try to get people to follow God. This is because we are stepping out and doing something which seems alien to many people; we should be living a very different life to the average person on the street. We should be seen as being different, but we should also be seen as being people who are willing to do everything to show others the truth.
This is where people may confuse us with cults if they do not know about Christianity. Saul was one of those people because he really did think he was following God’s laws by throwing people of “the Way” in jail! The early Christians were doing something very different to what the teachers of the law were teaching. They were following the truth as Jesus told it. We can look back on these times and see how much the disciples were willing to put on the line to follow Christ…
We need to stand up and be seen as people willing to change our lives so we can draw closer to Christ – not just any religion or cult, but the truth as given to us by Jesus Himself. Jesus came to uphold the law and everything He did was upholding God’s law, unlike mankind who was uplifting himself rather than Christ!
Points to Ponder:
Are you willing to stand up as a Christian?
Will you show others what you know to be the truth?
May 5: Psalm 66:16-20
Key Verse: Psalm 66:18
If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened;
Devotion:
Do you worry God is not going to listen because you have sin in your life, or because you have done things wrong before? This section of the psalm starts off with encouraging all who fear God to come and listen to what God has done for the psalmist… it does not say only people who have not sinned can come to listen; nor does it say only sinless people can talk to God!
What it does say, though, is the psalmist had a certain reverence toward God. In other words, they believed in God and they knew what God was capable of. When we know what God is capable, then we have a certain respect for God. We may still have sin in our lives, but we don’t hold on to that sin in our hearts… or, at least, we should not be!
God wants us to try and turn our lives away from sin because we want to and because we know this is God we are obeying! God, like Jesus, hears the cry of the believer or the one who wants to believe. When we cry out for the first time, we probably don’t think of ourselves as believers, but we are taking that first step as a believer when we call out to God! He listens!
The psalmist learned through repeated prayers that God was listening and He also answered those prayers. It may take us a while to realise God is answering our own prayers because we often find ourselves caught up in the world. But when we look back on our prayers and how they were answered, we will realise just how awesome our God is!
Points to Ponder:
Do you fear God is not listening?
Do you fear God?
May 4: Psalm 66:1-6
Key Verse: Psalm 66:5
Come and see what God has done, his awesome deeds for mankind!
Devotion:
When the psalmist cries out for everyone to shout for joy to God, it is not because they need to shout for God to hear! It is because we all should be praising God for all He has done and is doing. Too often we look at what God has done in the far distant past and we think it is all but over because we don’t see anything like that nowadays.
What we need to do is to open our eyes and hearts to see and know what God is constantly doing all of the time. God continues to do miracles today. He continues to heal people and protect people. He continues to guide people and above all His love for all of us has not dwindled!
When the psalmist says we should come and see what God has done, his referral is to God parting the sea so the tribes of Israel could walk across on dry land to escape the Egyptians; so we stop looking for anything more! But if we do watch and listen we will see how much more God continue to do in our modern world. We can see the people who find love when they have none to give. We can see the hope in communities where there is none. God continues doing things today but we don’t go looking – that is why we don’t see them!
So when the psalmist says we need to come and see, we still do. Come out of the shadows and see what God is doing in the light. Come out of the despair and see the hope we have just because we believe in God. He is doing this all because He loves us!
Points to Ponder:
Do you go searching for things God has done?
Why not?
May 3: Acts 7:51-53
Key Verse: Acts 7:51
You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: You always resist the Holy Spirit!
Devotion:
Stephen was a man on a mission to make sure everyone heard about Jesus, not the version the Sanhedrin wanted people to know, but the truth! When he was confronted by the Sanhedrin, he did not hold back on his views of them! His retort here was to tell them they may have physically been circumcised, but they were not spiritually circumcised!
He said this as a warning to them to show they were following the letter of the law instead of following what God was trying to impress in their hearts. We also have to be very careful in our modern lives to not get carried away with doing things because other Christians are doing it, or because it is the way others are acting! Jesus wants us to be individuals who are willing to listen to what He has to say to us and act accordingly!
We can see from the Gospels in our bibles that each of the Apostles had a slightly different view of what was happening; this is largely due to the Holy Spirit talking to each of the Apostles in their own way. We do not have to all be the same, we are individuals!
When we follow what others are doing, we are following them and not necessarily Christ. This may sound harsh and we could all say we are being taught by good Christian people and so we should be doing what they say, but there is always the human element involved and humans do get things wrong now and again. I will always freely admit I do make mistakes and this is why I always try to show you the passage in the bible where I am getting my devotions from – because God may have a unique message for you through the words in the bible!
Points to Ponder:
How often do you think about the words in the bible?
Will you take a bit of time to listen to what God wants to say to you?