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August 1: Luke 5:27-31
Key Verse: Luke 5:31
Jesus answered them, ‘It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but those who are ill.’
Devotion:
I could just imagine the faces of the Pharisees and teachers as they watched Jesus go to the tax collector’s house and have a banquet with them instead of a humble occasion with a few of the people they thought should deserve it… What would you think if your vicar went to have a meal with a local drug dealer instead of coming round to your house and having a light salad!
OK, that may not be a good comparison, but it has got you thinking… Just what do we expect in our lives and how much do we judge others according to our own rules and our own wants? If we are honest we will admit to having some jealous thoughts in our lives which are not really justifiable!
Jesus quite clearly stated He was not here to appease the people who thought they made up the best synagogues or supported the best temples… He came to reach out to the people who needed God most in their lives. He came to allow the people who were shunned from the temples to meet with God and see a new hope in their own lives. God calls us to do similar things – and it can be very scary!
I cannot compare my life to that of Christ, but I can see so many places where God has placed me in a difficult situation to allow me o be used in a way which reaches out to people who can’t face coming to church for one reason or another. God uses us in ways which we cannot or do not perceive. He uses us where we just don’t know how to reach people – because He is God and He can do these things! Trust and obey is ringing in my head as I write this down...
Points to Ponder:
Where do you aim your “God Work?”
Will you stop and allow Him to do work through you?
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July 31: Luke 5:22-26
Key Verse: Luke 5:23
Which is easier: to say, “Your sins are forgiven,” or to say, “Get up and walk”?
Devotion:
Firstly yesterday things went a bit awry! I have been receiving continued check-ups as I have recovered from my bout of necrotising pancreatitis, cystitis and a whole lot of other complications and big medical words! I had a scan a few weeks back and a call from the surgeon to say the cystitis had finally cleared and I should get booked in to have the stents removed at some stage. The next day I got a call asking if I could come in the following day (yesterday) to have “endoscopic stent removal!” So I was under the influence of the sedation drugs yesterday and did not get round to this devotion – so today you get two for one!
In our verses today, the Pharisees and teachers were not impressed anyone could come into their “territory” and do things which they could not do. It made them look like they were not as good as they had made things out to be… the truth was being told!
Sometimes in our lives we get used to doing the same old thing over and over again and we get used to taking short-cuts and even telling people how we are doing more than we actually do! We are all guilty of this at some stage in our lives and we should all take note of how Jesus handled this. The first thing He did was to pick out the people who were living in their own pride. He stopped and made them think about what they were doing. God is going to do the same to us if we continue to walk off in opposition to His will in our lives.
But it is going to be up to us as to whether we act like these Pharisees and make even more excuses playing the blame game, or whether we stop and make a U-turn to follow God’s will in our lives. I am always amazed at how He is able to do so much in our lives when we do follow His will and that includes placing some incredible surgeons and consultants in your path who are able to do some pretty amazing things to keep us alive! I know it was God who was behind this all because my life has not fallen apart as I thought it must do when it all went belly up in hospital back in February last year! God is good! Listen and obey!
Points to Ponder:
Do you keep on making excuses?
Will you put aside your pride and try to do what God wants you to do?
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July 30: Romans 8:31-33
Key Verse: Romans 8:32
He who did not spare his own Son, but gave him up for us all - how will he not also, along with him, graciously give us all things?
Devotion:
I have heard the first verse said many times before and quoted so much on social media: “If God is for us, who can be against us?” To me this can sound a bit hollow unless it is followed up with an explanation as to why this should be so. I know in my early journey with God I used to pick holes in so many things Christians said because I saw them living a different life to what they were saying; this is not God’s way and certainly not what God has done!
I God was willing to allow His only Son to come to us and die in our stead, just because He loves us, then we should grasp this saying with both hands and live with it, not just say it! What does this mean in real terms? Does it not mean we should be trusting God and going out to do things in His name and knowing He is going to support us? So what is stopping you from listening to what God is saying to you?
Sometimes we hear things and immediately ignore them just because they sound like it could be difficult. Sometimes we try to change what we hear to support our own wants instead of the true need God knows we should be filling. I am proud to be a part of the Eden group (@joineden on must social media) and a few years back we stepped forward to do what God was asking us to do. This meant being totally outside my comfort zone, which changed very quickly when I realised God was actually doing what He said!
Living on an estate where we can help and support local people, not through giving money and covering expenses, but by social and spiritual help gives a whole new meaning to life. This is what God has asked of us and we do so willingly, knowing it will be hard work, knowing we will get backlashes, knowing we will face opposition, but knowing God is with us every step of the way!
Points to Ponder:
How often you wonder if you are listening to God?
Will you place your faith and trust in Him wholly?
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July 29: Romans 8:26-27
Key Verse: Romans 8:26
In the same way, the Spirit helps us in our weakness. We do not know what we ought to pray for, but the Spirit himself intercedes for us through wordless groans.
Devotion:
How do you know what to pray when things are going wrong, when all you can feel is the whole world collapsing on your shoulders or something like that? What words come to mind? Are they going to be good enough for God? These are the sorts of things we all worry about when things are going badly in our lives and it is a very real worry too.
What God wants during times like this is not an academic answer the church will be proud of, but an honest and heartfelt plea for help. You don’t have to try and explain the situation in delicate details because God knows what you need before you even open up your mouth. All you need to do is try to rest in His embrace and allow whatever you feel to come out of your mouth as honest pleas or emotions.
God wants you to be real with Him and not to try and make it like you are a scholar who has read all of the bible enough times to be able to quote from passages here and there. God just wants you to love Him and trust Him to provide what you need. He will do this through the Holy Spirit if you are willing to listen.
The holy spirit may well put words in your mouth which you never though you’d ever say. He may well just open up your heart and allow you to cry because that emotion will speak more than words. He may well make the prayers to God whilst you remain silent wishing you knew what to say. The Holy Spirit knows our hearts and minds and will make sure God hears the right prayers to answer your needs right now!
Points to Ponder:
Do you get tongue tied when you try to pray?
Will you rest in the Holy Spirit’s arms and allow Him to direct you?
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July 28: Psalm 119:145-148
Key Verse: Psalm 119:148
My eyes stay open through the watches of the night, that I may meditate on your promises.
Devotion:
When things get desperate, we start to get desperate – but how desperate do you have to be before you call out to God and ask Him to help, no matter what! Many times we lift up prayers with pre-conditions. We ask God to help us in a way we can deal with it, but not put ourselves out! What are we thinking!
When we ask God to help us, we should be willing to accept whatever God gives us with the full knowledge He knows what is best for us and will continue to help us in ways we cannot understand. When this Psalm was written down, the author calls out to God in desperation but tries to bolster his chances of the prayers being answered by promising things to God… if you help me I will obey your scriptures! If you help me I will keep to your rules and regulations!
Things start to change when he says he continues to think about what God is doing in his life and continues to wonder why… If we accept God is doing things in our lives and accept He does know what is best for us, then when we sit down and really understand what He does and try to figure out why He does, then we will begin to understand true grace and forgiveness.
God wants us to know Him and His ways, not just to follow them blindly, but to really think about why God is helping us out. The more we understand why God is helping us, the more we will realise how much more God wants to do. What we also need to accept is God is also going to help out those people around us, some of whom we may not feel like they deserve help – but God knows best!
Points to Ponder:
Do you put conditions on your prayers?
Will you do what God asks even if your prayers are not answered your way?
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July 27: Psalm 106:6-8
Key Verse: Psalm 106:7
When our ancestors were in Egypt, they gave no thought to your miracles; they did not remember your many kindnesses, and they rebelled by the sea, the Red Sea.
Devotion:
God remains the same, the same as He was in the beginning and the same as He will be in our futures. We need to remember what God has done in our pasts and in the pasts of our ancestors so we can know His power, might, love and forgiveness. Just as God showed love to the people when they were trapped and enslaved in Egypt, so He continues to show love every day of our lives.
The people cried out to God to save them from being slaves. They called on His might and power to free them. And He did. But soon after they were freed, they forgot the miracles God did because they were free and able to think for themselves… therein lies one of our downfalls – the more we try and think things through, the more we think we are in control and the less we rely on God for things. That is where things go wrong.
Not because God wants to punish us for the things we are doing, not because He wants to pull us back in line, but because we lose control when we think we are in control. We do not have the will or the power to release ourselves from the corruption and entrapments of this world; we give in too easily and we forget who has the ultimate power!
But, no matter how much we ignore God, reject Him or generally mess things up, He continues to try and give us a way of coming back to Him and enjoying the strength we gain from being with Him. God will use mere human beings to show us His power and His might – we just have to identify who is in control and who is allowing great things to happen in our midst!
Points to Ponder:
Do you see God’s work around you?
Are you willing to allow God to use you?
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July 26: Psalm 105:1-4
Key Verse: Psalm 105:4
Look to the Lord and his strength; seek his face always.
Devotion:
How do you re-connect with God after a bad experience? How do you try to get over what has happened and move forward? Well, it is God alone who will be able to allow you to do this because no matter how strong you think you are as a human, the only thing you can achieve is human sized and getting back to God is a whole new matter. I thank God He continues to allow me to remember this and allows me to grow stronger with Him every day.
I’ve lived in the world, lost my way with God, gone off on a long walk without Him and never gave it much of a thought. That’s the thing, when you do walk off on your own, you look for things to occupy your mind and try to fill your heart with all manner of earthly distractions. When you hit another wall you realise it was all a bit much and forget about all which has gone before and all you see is the wall!
God wants to lift you up over the wall and allow you to see what is on the other side. When you do get a glimpse of the other side, you can then lift up a word of praise to God – that will lead to another word and maybe even a song. The song will lift up your heart and allow you to remember all the wonderful things God has done for you in the past; things to look forward to once again.
Look to the Lord, not in your own strength, but for the strength to be able to hold your head up so you can praise Him and continue to lift up your head to look at Him face to face. God wants to continue His personal relationship with you every day and allow you to have many reasons to praise Him, sing to Him and give Him the glory!
Points to Ponder:
Whose strength do you rely on day by day?
Will you start depending more on God’s strength today?
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July 25: Psalm 51:10-12
Key Verse: Psalm 51:11
Do not cast me from your presence or take your Holy Spirit from me.
Devotion:
So, you’re feeling down. You don’t feel like you can connect with God. You know you have done something wrong. You can’t see a way out. What do you do? People tell you to “get right with God!” How?!?!
God does not expect you to have the answers. He does not expect you to know exactly what to do. He knows you are in a state and He knows you cannot connect with Him just by reading the bible like other Christians do. God has the answers and He knows what to do.
How hard do you find it waiting for a bus which is already late because traffic is really bad? How do you find waiting when you don’t know the answers? None of us find it easy and none of us knows an easy way out of the problem… we all face very different situations in our walk with God and there is no “one size fits all” answer to everyone’s problems because God made us all very different, unique.
I find this part of the Psalm very helpful when things get on top of me because it seems to give me a platform from which I can move forward with God; not because I have the strength to do much about it, but because God has the strength to do something I cannot do. It starts off by asking God to help straighten things out because I know I cannot do it. It asks God to renew those feelings I had before. It asks God to do what I cannot do.
There is always the fear God will cut us loose because we have done things wrong, but we should know this is not true. He has promised us He will never let us go and nothing in this world will be able to take us away from God; that includes our feelings. God can restore those feelings and can bring back that joy which brings back the willing spirit and sustains us once again.
Points to Ponder:
How bad do things have to get before you ask for help?
Will you ask for help whilst things are still OK?
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July 24: Psalm 51:1-6
Key Verse: Psalm 51:5
Surely I was sinful at birth, sinful from the time my mother conceived me.
Devotion:
The more honest we are with God, the more we will be able to see just how precious the reconciliation He has prepared for us! This Psalm was written some time after King David had committed adultery with Bathsheba and had her husband sent to his certain death on the front line. We may have questioned whether God should forgive such a deed from a person who is supposed to be an example to others, but ours is not to question God’s judgement or love!
David does not demand anything from God but humbly submits to God’s judgement and offers a plea for God’s great compassion to cover his sins and allow forgiveness to be the outcome instead. If we had followed the rule of the land or the rules God laid down, David should have been put to death; instead we see a Loving and Forgiving God who is willing to listen to David’s prayer because He knows what is on David’s heart.
So it is not dependant on us being good enough to get forgiven for the little sins, but fully dependant on God’s grace to cover our sins, no matter what they are. If we are sincere and open our hearts with honesty to have a relationship with God, we can be assured of His willingness to forgive us of our sins!
We could argue we have been born full of sin and the only way we can escape the punishment for our sin is if someone who has no sin in them is able to stand and take on our sin debt instead of us having to pay for it. Jesus Christ alone is that person who has no sin in Him and is able to stand in our stead. He alone is able to forgive us because He took on our sin debt. God implanted the knowledge of good and bad in our hearts before we were born – we choose which path to follow...
Points to Ponder:
Do you admit to your problems in your heart?
Will you honestly and humbly talk to God about your sins?
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July 23: 2 Corinthians 5:16-21
Key Verse: 2 Corinthians 5:19
that God was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people’s sins against them. And he has committed to us the message of reconciliation.
Devotion:
Have you ever had someone say you have lost your mind or lost the plot because you choose to be a Christian? I have had my fair share of people saying this and learned these are only words said by people who do not know God yet. Those people are judging you by earthly means and according to earthly standards; they cannot conceive the limitlessness of the world according to God and all He has done for us.
Christ came to live amongst us as a human being so we could try to understand there is hope for human beings. He put aside the heavenly ways so He could demonstrate how we could have a loving relationship with God even though we think we are limited by earthly limits. The truth is we are not limited by anything other than what is in our minds and hearts. God has promised this to us…
When Jesus came to earth, people judged Him as a human being because that is exactly what He was. What they did not look for was the Heavenly relationship He had and the unbound love God continued to show Him whilst He was but a mere human being! Jesus showed us the new way to belong to God, in spirit instead of bound by earthly rules and regulations.
He committed His life to demonstrating the reconciliation offered to every human being through His actions. Each one of us is, therefore, just like Jesus in being an ambassador for Christ. It is our job to show people the way to God through Jesus. It is not something we may be called to do once in a while but a way of living we need to pick up and run with! This way we can share the joy of being reconciled to God!
Points to Ponder:
Are you mad on Jesus?
Will you demonstrate a loving relationship to others?