February 18: James 2:14-17
Key Verse: James 2:16
If one of you says to them, ‘Go in peace; keep warm and well fed,’ but does nothing about their physical needs, what good is it?
Devotion:
What sort of person are you? Are you the type who will step forward and help out without thinking about yourself? Are you the type who will trust others and believe what they say? Do you keep to yourself so as not to get hurt by people who don’t stick to their word? We are all very different people and yet we all are required in order for society to exist in a balanced manner.
Just as we all need each other to live with others, we also have to have lots of different parts to ourselves in order to live with ourselves. If we focus everything on studies, we lose track of real life and we end up going into a world unprepared for reality. If we focus everything on the world, we may well miss out on finding out enough to succeed in life.
Just as we are physically, so are we spiritually. We each have our different needs and desires in our spiritual lives. If we focus everything on the laws given to the people of Israel through Moses, we may end up living a life full of laws and devoid of the real love God wants us to know and share. If we focus everything on Christ we will miss out on the relevance of the law written in the ancient scriptures and wonder why Jesus did what he did.
God wants us to live a balanced life with Him, not just believing what Christ did, what God did in our past or what the Holy Spirit does now. We need to exercise our faith and live out the law given to us. This means reaching out to others and allowing the love Christ shared with us to overflow in our lives for others to see. This means not just believing but obeying and stepping forward as disciples, willing to do what Christ commands and not just hear it and tell it...
Points to Ponder:
Do you read and believe your bible?
Do you do what the bible says?
February 17: James 2:1-4
Key Verse: James 2:1
My brothers and sisters, believers in our glorious Lord Jesus Christ must not show favouritism.
Devotion:
If you are like me, then you struggle with these verses on a regular occasion! We all are swayed at some stage by riches of this world and we tend to judge people according to those riches whether we like it or not. We know it is not right, yet we do still treat people differently just by the way they look or by their family backgrounds! The sooner we recognise the faults we have, the sooner we can work with them instead of allowing them to dictate your life without you thinking about it.
Jesus came into this world as King of Kings, Lord of Lords; yet He chose to be born into a family where controversy was there to start with and where He would have to start His life as a carpenter to make ends meet for the family. He chose this because this is how God planned things and needed things to happen.
We do not know God’s plans, but we do know what He has asked of us and we should be taking special note of those commands. We have many examples of the way people have acted in our bibles and the things which have gone wrong because of the way they acted. We have been told about the amazing things Jesus was able to do because of His open love to all of us, a love which did not show favouritism!
This does not mean it is easy to follow that example set by Him. It is hard and we are warned by the apostles we need to take care not to be swayed by our favouritism toward people who do not match up with our ideals in life. Jesus was able to show His love toward us even though we have done so many things wrong and worked against Him. He has shown us the way to love openly!
Points to Ponder:
Do you find it hard to be friends with people you don’t like?
Is Jesus asking you to be friends, or just to love them?
February 16: James 1:19-27
Key Verse: James 1:22
Do not merely listen to the word, and so deceive yourselves. Do what it says.
Devotion:
One of the biggest problems many of us seem to have is to speak before thinking about what we are going to say! Whether it is out of anger, distress, or some other feeling, we tend to say things we know we ought not to because we are not thinking about it first! Jesus warned the disciples many times to not gossip and say things which will upset others just because we want to say something or in retaliation to something said by someone else.
We should try to follow the example set by Jesus who did not make a habit of getting angry about what others did or said. Yes, it can be very hard when we are upset by what others do or say, but if we take the time to form a proper response we are going to get a lot further with our response than shouting out of turn! This does not mean Jesus never got angry! He did. But He got angry for the right reasons and the response was always righteous.
All these things are written down and given to us in our bibles. These are the words and sayings of God and of Jesus and of the righteous people God chose to write them down. They are there so we can take notice of them – not just to listen to them and go off to do what we like, but to listen and obey them… to do what the bible says!
Sometimes it is easy to forget words, but much harder to forget things we see. God wants us to take notice of the words He has given us. God wants us to learn them and not to forget them. He wants us to live by them and to follow what He has commanded and said. These are the words we should think about before we go off to gossip or retaliate. Allow God to guide your responses.
Points to Ponder:
How often do you keep God in your response?
Will you try to include Him more in your life?
February 15: Mark 8:14-21
Key Verse: Mark 8:18
Do you have eyes but fail to see, and ears but fail to hear? And don’t you remember?
Devotion:
Sometimes we go through life and we pick things up quickly, often having great success with things. Other times we seem to struggle at every step along the way, never getting anything right! That’s just life! But, the more we are willing to listen and learn, the more we will be able to pick up and the more we may be able to succeed.
Jesus had fed huge crowds of people with what would normally pass as one meal for a person or two; we can be forgiven for thinking they had not learned anything because they only had a single loaf of bread with them in the boat here. What were they going to eat? Shouldn’t they had been more prepared for the journey?
Or you could think along the lines of complacency and say the disciples should have totally relied on Jesus to feed them on this journey… But Jesus was preparing them for what lay ahead, not the amount of food they had or did not have, but where their food came from and what it was. But Jesus was not talking about physical food here – Jesus wanted to prepare them for their spiritual journey more than anything!
We can go through life watching others and copying what they do. We can pick up how others live their spiritual lives and do the same as them… but whom do we put our trust in? Jesus wanted them to see the religious leaders at the time were not spreading the gospel truth but were telling people how they wanted them to behave instead of how God wanted them to behave!
Jesus wants us to be aware of the people who will spread false stories which sound good and look good on paper, but take us away from the spiritual lives God wants us to lead...
Points to Ponder:
Where do you get your spiritual input from?
Are you willing to spend more time in our bible learning what God wants you to know?