- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 814
January 23: Mark 3:31-34
Key Verse: Mark 3:34
Whoever does God’s will is my brother and sister and mother.
Devotion:
This is an interesting one which worries many people but shouldn’t. Jesus was inside talking with His disciples and others when someone came in to tell Him His birth mother and brothers were outside looking for Him. His response will make some people feel ecstatic whilst others will feel distraught; and, I may say, both side may well be Christians.
As we grow as Christians we begin to understand more about Jesus and the ways of God. As we learn more our understanding of the ways of man and the ways of God expand as well. Sometimes some things are very hard to accept in our lives because we have lived with many ways all of our lives. The older we get the more resistant we are to change in any form!
This must not be taken out of context and in any form be taken as Jesus turning His back on His mother, Mary, or His brothers. But it is a statement from Him to show something more important. Once we become Christians we have a much wider family to take care of and to share things with.
Our birth families remain just that, our birth families. And depending on your own feeling you birth family may be the most important thing in your life. I am now at the age where I no longer have a birth mother or father because both have passed on; but I have a step mother who is as important to me as a birth mother. I also have an extended family who are all as important. But I also have a wider church family who are important as well. God is the one who gives me the love and strength to take on such a family!
Points to Ponder:
What does family mean to you?
What does God’s family mean to you?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 818
January 22: Mark 3:22-30
Key Verse: Mark 3:24
If a kingdom is divided against itself, that kingdom cannot stand.
Devotion:
One of the things Jesus was very good at was remaining calm when under pressure from the teachers of the law or Scribes or Pharisees. Nothing they said could phase Jesus, just like nothing the demons He faced could say could phase Him either. I’m afraid I do get quite upset when people talk me down or say things against me: I may not show it at the time but my insides are turning over!
When the teachers of the law said Jesus was possessed by Beelzebul, the prince of demons, He calmly went into a discussion with them. If you have an enemy, then how can you enemy fight against you enemy to accomplish something for you? That just does not make any sense. Jesus used this argument against His accusers knowing full well that if your enemy is no longer fighting as one, they are divided and are falling apart already!
Just as you would probably not go up against someone whom you knew could beat you up. Jesus knew they were in the wrong and He was not going to allow them to gain and advantage or followers by saying what they wanted.
We know the truth comes out and Jesus was and always will stand for the truth. God wants us to continue standing for the truth too, keeping Jesus as our example and our guide. We have His words written down for us by the disciples and people at that time. All we need do is to believe in what Jesus said and He will continue to back us up with the truth.
Points to Ponder:
How often have you been persuaded by someone doing wrong?
How often have you believed Jesus instead of the people living lies?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 799
January 21: Genesis 14:17-20
Key Verse: Genesis 14:20
And praise be to God Most High, who delivered your enemies into your hand.’ Then Abram gave him a tenth of everything.
Devotion:
When Abram returned from defeating the four kings who had dared to steal good and kidnap his relative Lot, Melchizedek, the priest of God Most High came out to celebrate the successful return. He blessed Abram with the name of the God Most High. Abram’s response was to give the priest a tenth of everything!
Abram knew it was God who was responsible for him getting to catch up with the kings and defeat them so he could return with all the goods and his relative Lot. When offered all the goods to keep, Abram rejected the offer saying he had already made a promise to God to not accept anything from the king of Sodom, only the food given to him.
When you make promises to God, how well do you keep those promises? Do you get swayed by the things offered you after things have gone your way? Do you accept all the praise and continue to demand praise? Or are you ready to humble yourself before God and allow God to get all of the praise for allowing things to go your way?
We must always remember God, the Creator of everything, the most Holy, the One who deserves all of the praise for everything He allows into our lives and for the guidance He continues to give us all the time. When we succeed because we listened to God, we must surely praise Him for the guidance, strength and stamina given to us in the first place!
Points to Ponder:
Do you always give praise where it is due?
Or do you accept praise for things done by others?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 842
January 20: 2 Samuel 1:1-15
Key Verse: 2 Samuel 1:14
David asked him, ‘Why weren’t you afraid to lift your hand to destroy the Lord’s anointed?’
Devotion:
The Lord had previously led Saul alone into a cave where David and his men were hiding. The Lord had said to David to do whatever he pleased with Saul; David could not harm him because he knew that Saul was chosen by God to lead Israel. Here we see what happened when David learned of the death of Saul and Jonathan; his first reaction was to mourn for them.
The next step was to confront the man who brought the news of Saul’s death to find out what had happened. When the Amalekite admitted he had killed Saul, David asked him what gave him the right to kill one of God’s anointed? David then called on one of the guards to lay hands on the Amalekite, and the man died!
David knew he had been chosen to be the next king, just as this Amalekite seemed to know as well, but he certainly was not going to be responsible for going against God’s wishes – for it was God who had send Samuel to anoint Saul to lead the people of Israel. Saul had done many things right and a few things wrong, but David knew it was up to God when Saul’s life would be taken – so not any human should have done this deed in his eyes.
When we come up against people we know have been chosen by God, we should not come up against them. If we see they have turned their backs on God we should remind them they are God’s chosen and leave it up to God to convict or judge them. We do not know how we will act if we are placed in their position, so we have no right to judge!
Points to Ponder:
How do you look at you priest or pastor?
Will you allow God to be the judge instead?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 808
January 19: Mark 3:13-19
Key Verse: Mark 3:15
and to have authority to drive out demons.
Devotion:
Jesus chose those twelve disciples carefully so they would do what was required for the kingdom of heaven. He gave these twelve disciples the task to preach to others and the authority to drive out demons! The more the disciples learned from Jesus, the more prepared they were to go out and do what Jesus wanted them to do.
It is that learning we should all be aware of. We could just stick to ourselves and children of God and live a life and get to heaven when we die on earth, or we could change the world we live in by learning more about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit so we can pass on that knowledge to others. The more we guide people to Christ, the greater the kingdom of heaven will be!
Jesus gave others the change to go out and teach others and even to drive our demons. This authority came from Jesus – so we know when we ask God to do something in Jesus name it is not a small thing. This is our God who gave the twelve disciples the authority to drive out demon!
The key here is to learn as much as we can so we can give that knowledge and love to others just as it was given to us. Allow God to clean them and Jesus to take away their sin debt. We just have to bring them to Christ through what we have learned!
Thank you Dad for teaching me how to behave with others as well!
Points to Ponder:
Have you learned how your sins can be forgiven?
Will you pass on that knowledge to others?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 827
January 18: Mark 3:7-12
Key Verse: Mark 3:12
But he gave them strict orders not to tell others about him.
Devotion:
One of the things which still gets me worried about people is when they start to brag about what they are doing, what they have done and the monetary value of their achievements! I gave up on doing that as much as I could when I saw how it affected other people – we don’t often stop to think how others would feel when we tell them about everything we have achieved!
When Jesus was at the lake He told the disciples to get a boat ready so He would be able to separate Himself from the crowd when things got too much. The more people were healed, the more people came. They were not just local people now but people from surrounding areas; the news of what He was doing got around quickly.
Now imagine, someone gets healed of some terrible illness and another person cannot get close enough to ask Jesus for healing… how are those two people going to feel. The person who gets healed sees the other person not being able to get healed – do they feel terrible for the person who cannot get healed? The person who cannot get healed – do they feel jealous about the person who is healed?
Jesus did not want the people around Him to start fighting because of what was happening. He wanted to be able to do as much good as possible in the time He had. Sometimes we get carried away and start publicising what we do – how do the people around us feel about this happening to us and not them? We really do need to stop and consider the people around us!
Points to Ponder:
Do you get carried away with telling people what you can do?
How do you feel when you hear others telling what they can do?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 740
January 17: 1 Samuel 17:32-50
Key Verse: 1 Samuel 17:39
David fastened on his sword over the tunic and tried walking around, because he was not used to them. ‘I cannot go in these,’ he said to Saul, ‘because I am not used to them.’ So he took them off.
Devotion:
Many times in our lives we will face people who will say we should not trust in God but trust in them or some other physical thing. Sometimes God will give you the strength to do something physical against an adversary and you will be surprised. Here David was led to the battlefield, not to join the army but to deliver food for his brothers; but he ended up fighting for the army!
David was not a warrior in the physical sense, but he was a warrior for God. His faith was firmly planted in God’s hands and he trusted God for everything. When he saw and heard what the Philistine was doing to the army of God, he was angry and wanted things to change so God could be praised. This was not something he wanted to do to show how strong he was or to show anyone up, he simply wanted God to get the glory instead of the philistines!
When Saul allowed David to go up against Goliath he gave David his armour and weapons. Saul was a big man so nothing would fit and all would be cumbersome; besides this would give glory to the weapons instead of to God.
David asserted his position as a child of God, without swords, spears or javelins, just God and God’s holy name! David gave this battle over to God and stepped forward to fight a foe for whom he was no match physically – but he was going forward with God as his guide and protector! David used a simple sling with a stone to defeat in God’s hands to defeat what nobody in the army was willing to go up against!
Points to Ponder:
How often do you really rely on God?
Will you give God more credit for things in your life?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 789
January 16: 1 Samuel 16:1-13
Key Verse: 1 Samuel 16:7
But the Lord said to Samuel, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height, for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things people look at. People look at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.’
Devotion:
One of the most important things we learn from the bible is to not judge people by their outward appearance – or as we say in the West don’t judge a book by it’s cover. Samuel was now facing worrying times because Saul had fallen out of favour with God and a new king was being sought after. Samuel was worried for his own life in case Saul found out and wanted to kill him, but God had other plans.
God knew what might happen if Samuel declared he was going to anoint a new king, so he sent Samuel out with a heifer as if he was going to make a sacrifice to God. When Samuel got to Bethlehem the people there were worried in case Samuel had come to prophesy against them; they had that guilty feeling knowing they had each done something wrong…
Samuel called on Jesse to be consecrated along with all of his sons. Each of them came out to meet Samuel and Samuel looked at the outward appearance of the first son just as he looked at the outward appearance of Saul: he was impressed with what he saw.
But, as we said earlier, God had other plans. Each of the sons came forward and God said no. After enquiring if there were any other sons, they called for the youngest son who was tending to the sheep. A son who had not gone to join the army but stayed at home to care for their father’s sheep. This is the man God had chosen!
Points to Ponder:
Do you judge people when you first look at them?
How many people have you given a chance and been surprised by?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 794
January 15: Mark 2:18-22
Key Verse: Mark 2:22
And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.
Devotion:
I wonder how many readers are old enough to know about the canvas bags which used to hang on the front of jeeps a few decades ago. The canvas would obviously leak a little bit, but the water coming out would evaporate and keep the contents cool even in the brightest sunshine. But if the canvas bag dried out too much it would crack and the whole content of the bag would gush out making it useless! That is what I always think about when I hear these verses.
Back in those days the skin of an animal would be used to keep the liquids in; much the same as the canvas bag, but it would dry out much quicker when empty so when used again after drying out, it would split and be useless.
Jesus was trying to teach those listening that if we let our lives dry out without constant input of the gospel, we may well become like an empty vessel which has dried out and becomes useless once again. The initial comparison was between the disciples of some groups fasting and the disciples of Jesus not fasting. Jesus was trying to say they were constantly being filled with the gospel because He was with them.
If they were not constantly receiving the gospel they may well have dried out and become like useless vessels. The Pharisees were too consumed with recounting the scriptures word for word and making sure other people kept the myriad of laws which had been drawn up! Their ability to keep the scriptures was fine, but their ability to share it was not going so well because they were alienating themselves from the people...
Points to Ponder:
Do you keep up with receiving the gospel?
Do you share the gospel as well?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 766
January 14: 1 Samuel 3:1-10
Key Verse: 1 Samuel 3:10
The Lord came and stood there, calling as at the other times, ‘Samuel! Samuel!’ Then Samuel said, ‘Speak, for your servant is listening.’
Devotion:
Samuel was serving under Eli at this time. One night when they were in their beds someone called out to Samuel and he assumed this was Eli because there was no-one else within earshot. When Samuel rushed to Eli’s side and said Here I am Eli woke up an insisted he had not called out. After a couple of times Eli worked out it must have been God calling out and told Samuel to stay where he was and simply say to the Lord that he was listening!
The Lord then spoke to Samuel and told him what was about to happen, but what he heard was not good news for Eli and his family.
Sometimes we find it hard to listen to God because we are so caught up in the world we loose grip of what He says to us and He tries to commune with us. This is nothing new because we have a whole history of people doing this in our bibles. The world is a place full of temptations and trappings to lead us away from God – the evil one has made sure of that!
God wants us to be able to stop in our lives and spend time trying to listen carefully to Him. Don’t be tricked into thinking other people are calling you or guiding you. They may well be being used by the evil one to disrupt our lives so we don’t get to listen to Go. It is hard to differentiate things at times and that is why God would like us to spend time alone with Him so we can get used to listening to Him...
Points to Ponder:
How often are you distracted by something in your life?
How often do you stop and give God time in your life?