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July 5: Matthew 9:9-13
Key Verse: Matthew 9:11
When the Pharisees saw this, they asked his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?”
Devotion:
One of my biggest issues with church is the people! No, seriously, so many people get upset with others for seemingly small reasons or misunderstandings and they just don’t take the time to sit down and discuss things! They just to conclusions which eat at their hearts because they assume the worst, overthink things and generally go about things in what I would describe as an earthly or worldly manner!
God does not call us to be worldly people and to keep and hold grudges against each other; God calls us to be disciples who care for and love each other, people who are willing to take time to sit and talk things over and not to judge others through their own eyes.
The Pharisees were judging Jesus and the disciples here through what they thought God wanted based on their own thoughts and feelings. This is clearly not what God wanted because Jesus was the one listening to God and trying to reconcile people and their ways with God’s ways!
People ask me why I am at the church I am at if there are problems. That is exactly the reason why I think I am here, to try and bring people back together where they will love each other as Christ wants us to. Someone has to reach out to the marginal otherwise they will continue to be marginalised!
Points to Ponder:
Do you strive to bring people together?
Or do you strive to ‘do what is right’?
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July 4: Amon 7:10-17
Key Verse: Amos 7:15
But the Lord took me from tending the flock and said to me, ‘Go, prophesy to my people Israel.’
Devotion:
What would you do if God called you out to go and say something against the leaders or government? I think the first thing I would do is spend time with God to find out a bit more. By reading these words from Amos it does appear he did exactly that because he was able to tell the priest Amaziah some personal details!
Always try to make sure it is God who is prompting you to do things and make sure you are prepared for what is ahead instead of rushing forward with half an idea. The evil one also has his spies amongst us and will use them to trip us up if we go in unprepared. We don’t have to be the ones fighting the war because Christ has already done that; but we should be prepared for what the evil one could do to trip us up and make us look like the ones telling stories!
God will always make sure you are prepared for what is ahead if you are willing to stop and listen to His instruction. Today I have been wearing a T-shirt which proclaims “God does not make mistakes!” He does not! But we do and if we do not listen to the instructions carefully, we may be the ones ending up with egg on our faces...
Points to Ponder:
Do you listen for instructions?
Or do you rush in like a fool?
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July 3: John 20:24-29
Key Verse: John 20:29
Then Jesus told him, “Because you have seen me, you have believed; blessed are those who have not seen and yet have believed.”
Devotion:
One of the hardest things to do is to believe on something you have not witnessed, especially when it is by definition ‘unbelievable!’ Why else would we have the word unbelievable if it did not mean exactly what it says! Thomas was keen to believe and to follow Christ, but when they told Him Jesus had come back to life, he could not quite bring himself to believe it – after all he had witnessed the wounds Jesus had on His body!
This is where Christ calls on us to have faith in the unseen. Jesus came to us to change the world and the way we look at things. It is up to us to take on board all we have read about and to believe it in our hearts without having to witness it first hand. This is the definition of faith – believing in the unseen!
Our task is to believe in what Christ can and does do even though we know it goes against our physical thoughts and against what we think should be physically possible. Nothing is impossible for Christ and nothing should stop us from believing nothing is impossible…
We have our bibles which are full of promises from Jesus and we should stand firm on those promises knowing He has done it all before and will do the impossible once again. Yes, it does take a deep faith in Christ!
Points to Ponder:
Can you believe without seeing?
Will you trust Christ and what He has said can be done?
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July 2: Matthew 8:23-27
Key Verse: Matthew 8:27
The men were amazed and asked, “What kind of man is this? Even the winds and the waves obey him!”
Devotion:
There were a few times when Jesus made known the power of God in ways which made people stop in their tracks; this was one of them! Some of the disciples were experienced fishermen and knew how to handle themselves at sea, even in storms. None of them had ever seen a storm be quieted by a person!
Jesus did not claim this victory as His own but gave the glory to His Father in Heaven. He was willing to place His faith and trust in God and to rely on God at that very moment. When we do place our trust entirely in God’s hands, we can be sure He will answer us in ways we do not see every day. I know this because I have seen what He can do when I have placed my faith wholly in His hands.
If we claim to have done something when it was clearly God, we should not expect Him to continue supporting us when we call out to Him. But the disciples continued to see God love and support them wherever they were and what ever they were up to!
Jesus did not hesitate to give God the glory. We should do likewise and make sure we show others God is the power and He should get all the glory!
Points to Ponder:
Do you give God the glory?
Or, do you take glory for your own?
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July 1: Matthew 8:18-22
Key Verse: Matthew 8:22
But Jesus told him, “Follow me, and let the dead bury their own dead.”
Devotion:
I used to get upset by people who would say I was blindly following God because I had no direction in my life, but nowadays I know I have the direction and I know I am still following God. The difference now is I have the confidence to stand up when people say things like that.
There are always going to be people who will try to trip us up by asking us difficult questions – the sort of questions they would not be able to answer honestly: things like “would you take your children first or God first!” I know the answer to that and no matter which way I answer, someone is going to get upset with me; so instead of answering it directly I try to think of a circumstance in their life where they would have a difficult choice to make and pass it back to them. But I would also tell them I know the answer to their question but will defer my answer unless they can make an honest and informed decision to mine.
The reason why I would do that is to show them they need to qualify their question because life is never as simple as their question. There will be times where I would seemingly take one first and times when I would seemingly take the other first – but they would be bound by very different circumstances.
God would never ask us an impossible question. Instead He gives us every chance to make the right choice at the time and will support us in our choice. When we give Him honest answers and call on His name, He will always make sure we can make a good choice and give us the chance to do so!
Points to Ponder:
Do you get bothered by people trying to trick you with questions?
Will you ask God for guidance every time?
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Jun 30: Ephesians 3:16-19
Key Verse: Ephesians 3:18
may have power, together with all the Lord’s holy people, to grasp how wide and long and high and deep is the love of Christ
Devotion:
One of the things we find hard to accept is the grace and mercy Christ shows us. We get upset by people doing things wrong to us and we hold grudges against people who have done wrong against us – this is why we find it almost alien to forgive people when they say sorry, especially when they say sorry after doing something horrible!
Now, turn that into Christ’s view of what you have been doing, what you have done and the way you have come to Him to ask for mercy! Think about how He would feel if He were human like us! But we live with someone who goes far beyond our understanding and far beyond the levels of our grace and mercy!
The Apostle prays for strength for people to remember how special Christ is and how we can always be forgiven if we are willing to come to Him in honesty! The Holy Spirit wants to dwell in us all the time to guide us and to love us from the inside out. If we are willing to try and do things Christ’s way, then we can expect Him to forgive us and make us clean so the Holy Spirit will not be horrified by what we are doing against God!
Start afresh, start now, be honest.
Points to Ponder:
How honest are you with your friends?
How honest are you with Christ?
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Jun 29: Matthew 16:13-19
Key Verse: Matthew 16:13
When Jesus came to the region of Caesarea Philippi, he asked his disciples, “Who do people say the Son of Man is?”
Devotion:
How many times have you noticed how Jesus would ask loaded questions? Here He is almost teasing the disciples by asking them who people are saying the Son of Man is… they would have known full well the next question to follow would be who they think the Son of Man is!
Many times when God tries to speak to us we don’t hear the calling because either the world is too noisy or we are not focusing on Him. Jesus, I think, was trying to get the disciples to tell the difference between listening to the Lord and listening to the world around us. Sometimes God just wants us to shut the world out so we can hear what He wants from us.
As long as we can remember just who Christ is and how much He means in our lives, we stand a good chance at getting to hear Him even when the world is screaming. I have a hard time hearing people talk when I am in a crowd because the noise and voices around me are distracting my brain too much to follow a single small voice in amongst that.
The same can be said for us and Christ; it is as if we are standing in a crowded room (the world) where everyone is trying to speak loud enough for themselves to be heard above the noise of others. The louder everyone speaks the louder the din is and the less we can differentiate single voices. This is where we need to be able to listen to that one special voice – the voice of Christ!
Points to Ponder:
How well do you do in a crowd?
Are you close enough to Christ to hear Him?
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Jun 28: Philippians 4:4-9
Key Verse: Philippians 4:9
Whatever you have learned or received or heard from me, or seen in me - put it into practice. And the God of peace will be with you.
Devotion:
How often do you rejoice in God? I say this because we were talking about this last night in our home group and we all knew we could be doing more of rejoicing! The idea we came up with for “what is rejoicing” was the idea of having joy with us always, or “re-joying” always!
So where do we get this joy from and how do we go about sharing it and giving some joy to others? What use is having joy in our lives if we are not able to share it with others? We have Christ in our lives and the best thing we can do with that is to share Christ with others. We do not have to explain everything in minute detail before others will be able to know Christ. We introduce the idea of Christ and He will do the cleaning and encouraging.
Once someone else gets to know Christ, they will have the ability to have joy in their lives. It all requires a certain amount of faith in Christ knowing what He has done for us is always available and is open to all no matter what we have done. How could anyone not find joy in knowing Christ is on their side…
This is where the Apostle gives us the idea we should be taking what we know, what we feel and what Christ has given us and sharing it with others. We do this by being an example for others to see. If we are successful at showing others we know Christ, they can get to know Him just by watching us – as long as we are putting into practice all Christ is doing for us and has shown us. This is being a disciple...
Points to Ponder:
How often are you happy about something?
How often are you joyful about knowing Christ?
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Jun 27: Matthew 7:21-23
Key Verse: Matthew 7:23
Then I will tell them plainly, ‘I never knew you. Away from me, you evildoers!’
Devotion:
To me, this is one of the scariest passages in the bible where Jesus is telling people there I a difference between true disciples and those who do things for themselves. Jesus wants us to have a personal relationship with God. This means a one-to-one link with God, not through a third party or hiding behind a bunch of miracles or prayers even!
Jesus wants us to be totally open, honest and real with God. This means we should not be hiding the things we do wrong, we should not be doing things to show others we are ‘super Christians’ and we should not be lifting up our ways even if we are saying they are what God is telling us to do.
Jesus did not go round telling people God was commanding Him to do this and that; He simply spoke the truth and told people about this very personal relationship He seemingly had with God the Father in Heaven. If we can show people we too have a personal relationship with God, then what we do should be supporting that and not trying to build up our image for others to see!
Our relationship is between us and God; that alone is what counts. If we do have a good working relationship with Him, then we will listen to His instructions and do them without boasting we are doing God’s work. We are not doing God’s work but instead are obeying what God wants us to do in our lives!
Points to Ponder:
Why do you listen to God?
Why do you obey God?
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Jun 26: Matthew 7:15-20
Key Verse: Matthew 7:17
Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit.
Devotion:
How many times have you been told to not judge a book by its cover? Is this telling us otherwise? No, this is telling us a different story, one where we should judge the book by what it produces, not by what is on the cover. If you can imagine a cookery book which has flashy pictures on the cover showing you wonderful looking food; but when you open it up and read and follow the recipes, they do not produce anything like what is on the cover!
This is the false prophet which is being talked about here – not the pictures on the outside, but the difference between the pictures it says will be the product of the recipes, and the actual recipes!
Jesus wants us to be honest about who we are and what we can do. There is nothing good about telling people you can do all manner of good things if you are not going to actually do them! Jesus wants disciples who will be willing to do what they say they can!
Jesus always told the truth and made sure people could depend on what He said. This is the action we should be aiming for – to be able to tell people what we can do for them and to carry out those tasks so they know they can trust you!
Points to Ponder:
Do you talk the talk?
Do you walk the walk?