October 17: Isaiah 53:4-6
Key Verse: Isaiah 53:6
We all, like sheep, have gone astray, each of us has turned to our own way; and the Lord has laid on him the iniquity of us all.
Devotion:
How many times have you stopped to think about why Jesus went to the cross? And who made Him do it? Well, as these verses state, we sometimes think it was God who put Jesus on the cross and God who was punishing Jesus because of our sins... but that is just the way we think and is not what happened!
Despite what we think, Jesus went to the cross because He wanted to be able to be our sacrifice. He wanted to take on the burden of our sins. Before He was taken to be on the cross, He pleaded with God His Father, not to let Him off, but to see if there was any other way. Does this mean God said it had to be done? I believe Jesus was pleading with God because He knew the pain and anguish we would feel when we realised the truth!
I believe Jesus knew exactly what He was doing when He took Himself to the cross and gave up His own life for our sakes. I believe He knew what was going to happen to Him, but He also continued to step forward, knowing the pain and anguish He would go through so we would not have to! He did this so we could have peace in our hearts!
We are the ones who have done silly things. We are the ones who have sinned against God, against His people and against ourselves. We are the ones who should be facing the desperate things Jesus went through on the cross – but Jesus made the choice to take on the punishment for everything we are going to do. Because He loves us!
Points to Ponder:
Have you asked Christ to forgive you today?
Will you step forward to help someone else out today?
October 16: Proverbs 4:23-27
Key Verse: Proverbs 4:25
Let your eyes look straight ahead; fix your gaze directly before you.
Devotion:
Have you ever been told to look straight ahead in order to accomplish a difficult task? I can remember being told to not look down when I was abseiling from a high bridge in Zimbabwe as we were completing task for an outward-bound course. I have always had a fear of looking over a precipice, not so much a fear of heights because I love flying and looking out from tall buildings... but looking over the edge of something where there is no guard rail does my head in!
God knows we will not always be able to cope with life and with what the world will throw at us, so He tried to warn us through the prophets and through His word – we need to focus on what is real and not be side-tracked by the world!
Our hearts can be deceived by people who pretend to be what we want in our lives. Our mouths let out all manner of strange things when we get upset. Our eyes tend to look at things we should not be looking at because we are tempted. We often choose the wrong things in life because we don't know all the facts or we don't think of others. God wants to keep us safe and keep us sane – but we have to listen to Him in order to get it right!
Jesus came and showed us it is possible to rely on God for everything in our lives. He showed us we can depend on Him for everything and He will answer our prayers when we ask. Jesus showed us it is ok to be scared and to fear what we do not know; but placing those situations in God's hands allows us to go forward and accomplish what has to be done!
Points to Ponder:
Do you trust God?
Will you listen to His instructions?
October 15: Proverbs 4:20-22
Key Verse: Proverbs 4:22
for they are life to those who find them and health to one’s whole body.
Devotion:
Too many times we set our eyes on the things of the world instead on the things of God. We like to think we are doing the right thing because this is what the world says or because lots of other people do them... just because lots of other people do things does not make them right! We can go back just a few decades and find out many things were done which we frown at today because we now know they are wrong – but everyone did them back then...
God set about giving us a whole lot of rules to live by, rules which, at that time were looked at as being right and correct. A few generations later and mankind begins to think they are too hard to follow. A few hundred years later and we put our own rules in place so we would not have to follow those rules. A few thousand years later people are beginning to try and fix things because we seem to have lost our way.
God tried to remind us of those rules, not as things which break humanity, but as things which bring us all together as a community. Nothing has changed in those rules, but we have changed and we try to make sense of things according to how we live today. What we should be doing is trying to make sense of our lives according to what God said and not what people say God said!
Jesus came to remind us of those rules and to remind us God set them for a reason; we just got things wrong and made up our own versions of those rules. If we gave time to studying what God said and why He said things, we would understand more of how He wants us to live and we would be able to live a better life!
Points to Ponder:
Do you blindly follow the rules?
Will you spend time to understand why God gave us His rules?
October 14: Matthew 13:31-32
Key Verse: Matthew 13:32
Though it is the smallest of all seeds, yet when it grows, it is the largest of garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds come and perch in its branches.’
Devotion:
Whenever I hear these verses, my mind goes back to our home in Zimbabwe where we had a pepper-corn tree in our yard next to the house. This was one of the tallest trees in the neighbourhood, yet it produced something so small and full of flavour: red pepper corns. They were bright red to start with, but after picking them the red coating would crumble away leaving black pepper corns which you could put directly into your pepper mills and use them.
This tree was at some stage, been a single seed smaller than a pea, but bigger than mustard seeds. This seed was planted and had grown for many years to be a huge tree standing far above the house roof. I loved climbing as high as I could to look out and see the whole neighbourhood from my vantage point. Unfortunately, the higher I climbed, the less steady the branches were, so I could never actually get to the top!
Now, after studying God's Word and living my life with Jesus, I can draw parallels with many aspects of Christ. We climb as high as we can, but we can never reach the top because we are too weighed down by this world – we long to be able to reach the top; the realm of God. The tree was not nice to climb because out of the bark would seek sticky sap as you tried to climb, but after climbing you would not worry about the 'worldly sap' but would focus on the amazing view.
As we live our lives with Christ, we don't have an easy ride but meet challenges all the way. What we find after living with Christ is a life worth living and 'out of this world!' What Jesus gives us along the way is something special which gives our world a new flavour which is sought after by many, yet given abundantly to us!
Points to Ponder:
Are you beaten back by the things in this world you don't like?
What if you could rise above those things and be closer to God?