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December 19: 1 Thessalonians 5:12-15
Key Verse: 1 Thessalonians 5:13
Hold them in the highest regard in love because of their work. Live in peace with each other.
Devotion:
Wouldn’t the world be so much better if we were all able to live in peace with each other! Well, there is nothing stopping us from making a start because peace does have to start with someone making the first move after arguments, fighting, wars and such... But far too often we allow our pride to get in the way of things and we stop trying to make the peaceful move in the first place!
How about stopping to think about who does what, where and when... I know lockdowns are hard on everyone and we all try to just get on and do something, but we do need to acknowledge those people who are already trying. We have some fantastic church leaders who are striving to share God’s peace and faithfulness with a peace and faithfulness of their own...
How about stepping forward and asking if you can help with something or asking a neighbour if they need a hand with anything. Someone must make the first move to start the ball rolling. Jesus came into this world to not just make the first move but to start an avalanche which would shake the core of the church!
One way of starting to share peace is to mobilise people who have sat on the outskirts watching what others do. Getting people involved with what God is trying to do in your communities will make for a community which think about others. Yes, there will always be those who do not embrace the peace, but this should not stop us from making the peace grow in the first place!
Points to Ponder:
What are you doing to show others some of God’s peace?
Will you stop and help someone today?
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December 18: Luke 7:31-35
Key Verse: Luke 7:34
The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, “Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”
Devotion:
What do you really think Jesus was like? Did He stand out from the crowd? Well, obviously He did at times when He was surrounded by people trying to get healed or blessed, but what happened early in His ministry? We don’t get to hear about all His days of growing up learning carpentry or what He used to do in His home town at the time...
To me, Jesus would not have stood out from the crowd as we think of it nowadays – but He would have stood out because of the way He acted toward others. Too many times in our lives we do things because it seems like that is what is expected, or we do something because someone else has done it. We copy and emulate others. Jesus did not. He did things because that is what was required! He was purposeful!
In His brief comparison to His life and that of John the Baptist, He shows the meanness of human ways. When we see someone acting differently, we have got to find a cause... we blame them or their lives for what they are doing because it is different to the normal. I like being different. I like to show people they can be different. I don’t stand up and shout about it, but try to be persistent in my ways to bring attention to God and not to me...
People talked badly about John because he lived outside the city and dressed and ate very differently from others. People spoke badly of Jesus because He dared to reach out to the marginalised in society – something we should be proud of doing, not shying away from doing just because it may look odd.
Points to Ponder:
How do you treat people around you?
Are you willing to try to treat all people as equal?
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December 17: Luke 7:18-23
Key Verse: Luke 7:22
So he replied to the messengers, ‘Go back and report to John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive sight, the lame walk, those who have leprosy are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is proclaimed to the poor.
Devotion:
Yesterday we had this passage at the beginning of our estates meeting. What is the first thing you get out of this passage? Is it the importance of John and Jesus getting introduced? Is it the miracles Jesus was performing: healing the sick, releasing people from evil spirits, giving the blind sight, allowing the lame to walk, giving hearing to the deaf, even raising the dead! Or is it the giving of the good news to the poor?
Jesus was doing so many things which were catching the attention of the priests, the scribe and the pharisees. It wasn’t as if He was going out of His way to upset them, but what He was doing was certainly getting their attention. The people were getting used to a hierarchy of religion which was becoming more important than the telling of the gospel. It seemed like people did not want to upset others and keeping to this hierarchical structure helped them to do that!
But, in amongst all the miracles Jesus was listing for the two disciples to go back to John with, was the giving of the good news to the poor. Those people who maybe did not feel worthy to be able to enter the temple. Those people who had been marginalised and missed out of the religious circles. These are the people Jesus was reaching out to because they were the people who needed to hear the gospel most of all!
We have seen people rebelling against hierarchical structures in society lately, what with the Black Lives Matter movement, equal rights and pay structures between sexes and races – we are beginning to see people take notice of the age-old structures in society which were placed there by the privileged few. Let us take the gospel, the good news, and tell it to the people who have been left out of society just because they don’t fit the normal!
Points to Ponder:
Who did you get to hear the gospel from?
Why did they pick you to give the good news to?
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December 16: Luke 1:26-38
Key Verse: Luke 1:35
The angel answered, ‘The Holy Spirit will come on you, and the power of the Most High will overshadow you. So the holy one to be born will be called the Son of God.
Devotion:
Here we have a young Mary who is probably just getting used to the idea she is going to be married soon, when the angel Gabriel appears to her and tells her she is going to have a baby! Before she has even been with Joseph! And Joseph is not even going to be the father! Let's start to get that round our heads...
But Mary accepts what Gabriel says and starts to prepare herself for the road ahead. What are the people going to say? What is Joseph going to say? We can’t really begin to wonder what she was getting ready to face – other than she knew God was in it and God was going to take care of her!
Gabriel did not say everything was going to be fine and dandy, he did not say it would be smooth sailing from here on in. He did not say they would be placed in danger as soon as Jesus was born. And I don’t think Mary would have foreseen that either. But she was willing to say ‘yes!’ and to go with whatever God deemed necessary.
Her faith was going to make it all ok in the end – that is what she was clinging to and what we should be focusing on in our lives. We need to have faith God is going to tell us where and when we need to be in order to fulfil His will in our lives. We need to listen to that will and say, “here am I, send me!”
Points to Ponder:
Are you ready to listen to God?
Will you say “here I am, send me” today?
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December 15: Luke 1:11-20
Key Verse: Luke 1:17
And he will go on before the Lord, in the spirit and power of Elijah, to turn the hearts of the parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous – to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.’
Devotion:
You’ve got to feel sorry for Zechariah! Here is a man doing what any one of us would do – questioning someone when they say God is going to do something great in your life! We all have doubts and because we are accustomed to those doubts controlling much of our lives, we give in to them all the time and don’t quite believe things people tell us anymore...
But Gabriel was quite strict on Zechariah because he held a position of great respect in the church at the time. Zechariah had probably given up hope in having a son because both he and Elizabeth were getting on in age (I know the feeling.) God does not give up on us, no matter how long it has been since we asked for His help and no matter how much we grow weary of our prayers being answered.
We must never give up hope in God. We must always trust in His faithfulness and in His power over everything. Jesus came to earth and demonstrated just a little bit of what God can do when we have absolute faith and trust in Him for everything. God wants us to be more like Jesus and have that faith. He wants us to remember all the things which happened because Jesus asked them of God. He wants us to remember and have hope in what He can continue to do in our lives.
Points to Ponder:
How is your hope holding up this year?
Will you give God a bit more time to answer your prayers?
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December 14: Isaiah 61:1-3
Key Verse: Isaiah 61:1
The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is on me, because the Lord has anointed me to proclaim good news to the poor. He has sent me to bind up the broken-hearted, to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners
Devotion:
When you read verses like these, you know the author was sent by God to do His will; it is little wonder then Jesus used these same words, read from the scriptures, to apply to His own life – He was sent by God!
God wants people to know the truth in all things. Some of it is hard to hear because we want to be able to go and do our own things which sometimes clash with God’s ways. Sometimes the words are encouraging and make us want to go and do more for God – but in all of this, we should never forget we must do what God bids us to do. We are His messengers who are being sent out into the world to tell the world about a God who brings hope to them.
We are sent. We do not run off and start something new to try and get as many followers as possible and hope they will get to know God through what we do... we must take what God is giving us and share it with others to allow them to see God is with us and God is for us.
God wants us all to be set free from the trappings of the world – to be set free from the pits of despair we dig for ourselves and our friends. God wants to share the hope we have, not because we can do great things, but because He has accomplished it all already and is waiting for us to pick up the banner and allow others to se what He has done.
Points to Ponder:
Do you like telling others about God?
Do you do it for your own pride or for God’s glory?
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December 13: Hebrews 5:7-10
Key Verse: Hebrews 5:8
Son though he was, he learned obedience from what he suffered
Devotion:
When God calls you to a position, it should be accepted with humility and reverence; those who has been called before as high priests before Jesus was born on earth, did so with all their wits – not only did they have to offer up the sacrifices for the people, but they would first have to offer sacrifices for themselves to make sure they were worthy!
Jesus did take on the position of high priest for himself, even though He had every right to, but instead waited for God to call Him His Son and a priest of the order of Melchizedek. Jesus continually offered up prayers and petitions to God the Father to see if He could find another way to pay the sacrifice instead of with His own life, but knew He must be obedient to God, no matter what!
By earthly standards, children have special preference and meaning to parent; we don’t like to see our children hurt or suffer in any way – whatever we can do to avoid that, we often do. But God knew there was no other way in which Jesus could pay for our sin debt, so He had to watch Jesus suffer and die for us; something we don’t often think too deeply about.
Because Jesus was willing to do this all for us, we have become as children of God, obtaining that special position where God does not like to see us suffer either. Jesus began to realise what He had to do at an early age, but still He was willing to go through everything and be the ultimate sacrifice for us.
Points to Ponder:
Do you protect those you love?
Are you willing to step up and fulfil the position God is calling you into?
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December 12: 1 John 5:13-15
Key Verse: 1 John 5:15
And if we know that he hears us – whatever we ask – we know that we have what we asked of him.
Devotion:
How is your confidence faring during these times? Are you growing weary of all the things going wrong, the businesses closing, the people not working, the governments failing? We all get disgruntled when things around us are not going our way or as we expect them to – but there is a foundation which remains strong and firm.
When we show others we have hope in Christ, they look up to us and wonder where the hope is coming from. We can then introduce them to the truth of Christ and His kingdom. We can show them how we pray with a confidence which is real! We need to keep record of answered prayers so we can encourage others to ask for things as well.
The confidence we have in asking for help from God and expecting that help is what will build others up and allow them to have confidence in Jesus as well. When our faith wains, the faith of those around us tends to wain as well because they begin to believe in our failings. But when we grow in faith because of answered prayers, then those around us are encouraged to ask and receive, growing in their faith too!
God listens to us as we lift our prayers to Him. He is faithful and just to answer our prayers just as He has promised us. What we need to do is to ask with greater confidence, believing God is going to answer and waiting for those answers and not just hoping some of them will get answered. I thank God He continues to answer my prayers in way which build up my faith, daily!
Points to Ponder:
What is your attitude to prayer?
Will you pray with confidence today?
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December 11: Galatians 4:1-7
Key Verse: Galatians 4:7
So you are no longer a slave, but God’s child; and since you are his child, God has made you also an heir.
Devotion:
Have you ever wondered why others are called by God and you don’t seem to have a calling to do anything special like them? Have you ever wondered what it is like to be called by God to do something for Him? Well, don’t panic because we have all got our time to shine – just like Jesus had His time to shine and to do something very special for everyone!
Jesus was born as a baby, just like us all. He did not sit up immediately and start telling people all the things God wanted us to know, He spent time doing things babies do! I’m pretty sure that included all the things we see and hear from other babies! Yes, it was a very special birth and was at an appointed time by God, but it was still like other births.
Jesus had to be looked after by Joseph and Mary. He had to be fed and changed; because that is what it is like to be born into this world as a human being. He was constrained by the world just as we are and lived just as we do. God made sure everything fell into place by telling His earthly parents what and when to do things as well as teaching them how to care for Jesus.
We are born as humans, live and humans and die as humans – just like Jesus did. What we do when God calls us out to do something is going to shape our lives just as Jesus’ life was shaped by what He did when God told Him to. Jesus was born just like that so He could cover all our sins. Jesus became the perfect sacrifice for us all. We are no longer slaves to this world but have been set free!
Points to Ponder:
Do you feel constrained by this world?
Do you know God sees you as His child!
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December 10: Isaiah 11:1-5
Key Verse: Isaiah 11:5
Righteousness will be his belt and faithfulness the sash round his waist.
Devotion:
I stiff find it amazing how the prophets wrote about the coming of Jesus hundreds of years before He did come to live amongst us as a human man. God spoke to the prophets and told them a Saviour was going to be born from the ancestral line of Jesse, King David’s father. I wonder what the other sons of Jesse thought about when they heard these words!
David, the youngest son of Jesse, was to be picked as the next King to lead the Israelites with wisdom and justice; something which he was able to do to a large extent. But, being human, he did sin and fell from grace because of that. When confronted, David lifted his sin to God and asked for forgiveness – something God would grant him. But this came at a price for David’s sin.
It is during the late autumn months or winter months when trees are trimmed or pruned. These are the words which describe what would happen here. But, like any pruning, new growth would sprout up and grow anew. God knew there was still hope and wanted people to see the hope even after David’s sin was exposed.
No matter how far we go in our sinful lives, we can still turn back to God and ask for forgiveness. God is faithful and willing to forgive us if we are honest and open about what we have done wrong. If we turn away from our sins and embrace God’s ways, we will see new growth and blessing come our way. If we are in need, we will see how Gd can help us directly and through others.
Points to Ponder:
Do you try and help others in their times of need?
Will you follow God’s example and faithfully help those who need it most?