February 26: Psalm 141:1-4
Key Verse: Psalm 141:1
I call to you, Lord, come quickly to me; hear me when I call to you.
Devotion:
Have you ever had an open fire in your house? Did you do the right thing and put a wire guard in front of it to make sure the popping embers did not set your house on fire? Well, just like an open fire with the wood popping and embers jumping out making a mess, our mouths will make a mess of just about any situation if they are not guarded!
We may think we have to have an open mouth to make sure God will hear us – we may think we have to shout out our prayers from the roof-tops just to ensure God hears us… Well, the greatest thing is God will hear us even if we whisper our prayers from our hearts. We don’t have to make sure we have the best sound system to get the message across – we just have to give people the truth…
A few days ago we talked about the mess we can get ourselves into by saying the wrong thing at the wrong time; this is what we need help with and we should be asking God to help us on that front. If we ask Him for the guidance, and we listen to that guidance, we will come out with some good things to say and we will not be berating our fellow Christians – or anyone else for that matter!
We also have to make sure we are not drawn in by the ‘too good to be true’ stories which lead us away from God and His ways. If we can stick close to God and make sure we have space for Him to live with us in our lives, we are going to make a whole lot less mess than if we rush off with the crowd. Having an open fire without a guard is like having a ‘too good to be true’ story as our goal instead of having God as our leader.
Points to Ponder:
How easy is it for you to rush off and say things you shouldn’t?
Will you allow God to be your guide and your guard as well as your God?
February 25: James 5:9-12
Key Verse: James 5:9
Don’t grumble against one another, brothers and sisters, or you will be judged. The Judge is standing at the door!
Devotion:
I wonder if you have ever said something to a friend about another person only to find they are standing right behind you! I know I have put my foot in it many times, so nowadays I try to not say things about others – but still we get caught up in gossip...
Jesus did not go round talking about people behind their backs – if there was something to be said, He would say it to their faces because they needed to hear it. Unfortunately for us, our minds play havoc with us and we start imagining stuff which is not true, ending up believing the untruths and falling into the trap of gossiping about others because of what we have heard and not because it is true!
One of the earliest passages in our bibles is believed to be the book of Job. In that book we hear of the jealous workings of the evil one who wants to trip someone up. The evil one says God is looking after Job too much and protecting him from everything; he surmises that if he were able to hurt Job, he would turn against God. This did not happen. Job was willing to put up with terrible things which happened to him and continued trusting in God even though he lost so much.
God rewarded him later with blessing which far outweighed the blessings he had before and took away the angst he had because of the things which happened. God wants to be able to protect us all the time and comfort us in every part of our lives. Unfortunately, we live in a world filled with evil and we are influenced by the world. We cannot help but be caught up in some of the terrors of this world, like dictators and tyrants who rule with fear and deceit instead of with honesty and truth.
Points to Ponder:
Do you allow the world to unduly influence you?
Will you ask God to influence you more than the world can?
February 24: Mark 9:42-48
Key Verse: Mark 9:43
If your hand causes you to stumble, cut it off. It is better for you to enter life maimed than with two hands to go into hell, where the fire never goes out.
Devotion:
For the longest time I used to think these verses were horrible and unloving in some way; but they show us true love in a way instead! When we are tempted, we give in and go off to do something else wrong in our lives. The more we do things wrong, the more easily we seem to be turned away from righteousness and the more we give in to the things we should not.
When Jesus was teaching the disciples, His words may have seemed harsh at the time, but they were there to lead the disciples into the best path forward; sometimes that path is not the nice easy path we think of in our lives, but the hardest way we think forward. Jesus wanted the disciples to know we have a choice and the choice is what will set us free. We can choose to continue following the things which get us into trouble, or we can choose to turn away from them.
If it is something dear in our lives (illustrated here by body parts) which is causing us to stumble and turn away from God, then should we continue to depend on that or should we turn away from it? Sometimes, cutting it out of our lives all together is the only way forward because we are so dependant on our old ways. God wants to set us free, but we do have to make the choice to want freedom from our sins.
Some religions have taken these words too literally and they will cut off your hand when you use it to commit a sin. God does not want us to chop all our body parts off which are getting us into trouble – He wants us to see the issue we have and turn away from those sins to live a better life with Him. It is our choice!
Points to Ponder:
Do you get into trouble a lot?
Are you willing to turn away from that part of your life?
February 23: Mark 9:38-40
Key Verse: Mark 9:40
‘Teacher,’ said John, ‘we saw someone driving out demons in your name and we told him to stop, because he was not one of us.’
Devotion:
I wonder, have you ever been told to stop doing something just because you were not the right person to do it, or the wrong sex or even race? Too many times in our lives we see all manner of discrimination and we put up with much of it because it has always been so! Well, things have not changed much for thousands of years, and I doubt they will change much until people start accepting each other for what we are: God’s Family!
The disciples tried to stop someone from driving out demons just because the person doing so was not one of them! We may think of this as arrogant or belittling in some way, but the truth is much simpler than that – the disciples thought they had some sort of monopoly because they were the one Jesus was teaching directly!
We cannot be like this as Christians! Just because we are not the ones who were initially chosen by Jesus to be His disciples, does not mean we cannot do what they were told to do. If we stand up and try to do things like that just because we want to be recognised as a healer or speaker or whatever, does not give us the right to do things… what does give us the right is if we are willing to ask God to do these things because we are asking in the name of Jesus!
If we are sincere and we are asking in Jesus’ name… and we are willing to give all the glory to God, then we can expect to be able to do things like the disciples were able to. Don’t forget that God can see right through any pretence we may put up; He sees inside our hearts to see if we are genuinely trying to heal someone and give the glory to God! The same can be said for the person sitting next to you!
Points to Ponder:
Do you acknowledge God for whom He is?
Will you give God a chance to do something with you?