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March 11: John 4:43-54
Key Verse: John 4:53
Then the father realised that this was the exact time at which Jesus had said to him, ‘Your son will live.’ So he and his whole household believed.
Devotion:
I love stories like this in the bible because they remind me of times in my life when God has helped me out of tight spots. I’m not just talking about the times when I have come close to death in hospital or around that time, but times when I know, looking back, someone was there making sure I came through to live another day.
God is not limited by the things of this world or time or any other constraints we impose on Him. When He says something we can be sure that will happen – just as Jesus told this royal official his child would live, it happened there and then! We should learn to rely on the things Christ has said because they are the truth and will come to pass!
Our minds cannot grasp just how that could be possible and so we impose limits and we live by those limits – because we think we know the limits of what is possible and what is not! Jesus does not live by those limits and He wants us to remember that when we bring our prayers to Him!
Don’t pray thinking God cannot answer your prayers; rather, pray knowing He is going to answer them! Allow God the time and the space to work all good things in your life and depend on those things which you ask for knowing He is listening and He will answer just as He has promised!
Points to Ponder:
How many limits do you impose on God?
What if you allowed Him to work?
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March 10: Numbers 21:4-9
Key Verse: Numbers 21:8
The Lord said to Moses, ‘Make a snake and put it up on a pole; anyone who is bitten can look at it and live.’
Devotion:
When we cry out to God in our desperation, He often answers us in ways we cannot see because we think He has to do such a difficult thing… whereas He knows He is doing something simple! When the people of Israel were being led through the desert, they grew impatient and wanted God to give them their land before they grew any more thirsty and had to face any more hardships!
When the snakes arrived on the scene the people were terrified they would all die from snake bites, never mind from thirst or heat stroke! They could not see a way out of their situation because they focused on all the bad things happening. God had promised them a land of ‘milk and honey’ and yet they had lost sight of their target.
The people cried out all the more when the snakes were biting and they begged Moses to ask God to take away the snakes so they could at least live! They realised they had been a bit harsh with their words and they asked for forgiveness. What God told Moses to do was something very different from what they expected!
Moses was told to make a statue of a snake and put it on a pole to be lifted up. This must have gone against their thoughts – why should they lift up a snake on a pole when they were trying to get rid of the snakes! But God wanted them to stop looking at the immediate issues and to look at something He was doing. When God is doing something, we should take notice and praise Him for what He does!
Points to Ponder:
Do you focus on your problems?
Or do you focus on what God can do?
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March 9: Luke 18:9-14
Key Verse: Luke 18:14
‘I tell you that this man, rather than the other, went home justified before God. For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.’
Devotion:
I cannot imagine what it would be like to be aware of what people were thinking or feeling all the time! I know we see films made about people who can sense other things or read people’s minds, but they are all science fiction and fantasy for us and for our entertainment. None of us have been given the gifts Jesus had during His life on earth!
I wonder how many times Jesus would stop and tell people a parable and the people around would get more confused instead of hearing the parable as a warning to themselves and their ways! Here Jesus is trying to get the people around Him to be humble before God instead of being overly righteous in their acting – and I say acting because we do that!
Jesus wants us to be honest and humble before Him. He does not want us to be the best and the brightest because He knows we are all broken and in need of a Saviour. He wants us to acknowledge those facts and still come to Him for love and guidance.
The tax collector in His parable here was standing at the back trying not to be noticed as he repented of his ways before God. Why should we shout out about how good or bad we are? We should be loving and supporting one another so we can feel confident in coming before Him with open and repentant hearts.
Points to Ponder:
How good do you think you are?
Will you put that aside and be honest with God?
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March 8: Psalm 81:6-10
Key Verse: Psalm 81:8
Hear me, my people, and I will warn you – if you would only listen to me, Israel!
Devotion:
Have you ever tried to sit down and count how many times God warned the people of Israel about only following Him, only worshipping Him and listening to Him? Time and time again God had to warn the people of Israel through prophets, kings and priests. They would listen for a while and then get side-tracked and go off and do strange things!
Nothing much has changed for us nowadays either. We promise to follow God, to listen to Him and to obey Him, then we get side-tracked by the world and by other people. We begin to do things according to what people say instead of listening to God and His instructions. We run off and do things we know in our hearts we should not be doing, just because we think it will be OK this time.
God does not change and His instructions will not change over time. If we cannot follow them in the beginning then we will find it difficult to follow Him at all. If we do follow Him and then go off and do other things, we are making a choice to do that. We are choosing to run off in the other direction which is what God has warned us time and time again about!
I can almost imagine God pulling His hair out and pleading “why will you not listen!” God is the one who has done so much for us from the beginning. He is the one who continues to do things for us, even when we turn our backs on Him at times. He does this because of this great love He has for us. If we can see that we should respect Him and show Him love in return!
Points to Ponder:
Did you follow God at one point?
Will you still follow Him?
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March 7: Jeremiah 7:21-26
Key Verse: Jeremiah 7:25
From the time your ancestors left Egypt until now, day after day, again and again I sent you my servants the prophets.
Devotion:
How many times do you think God has tried to get through to you? It’s not something many of us will think about because we don’t want to feel guilty for not hearing God! We are living in a world where we have many distractions, temptations and noises drowning out what we should be doing for God!
We can look back at what God went through with the people of Israel and we see the same familiar pattern – mankind not listening to God, God trying harder and harder until mankind falls into their own traps or circumstances built up with nothing more than ignorance by us!
We tend to listen to whatever noise is the loudest and we give in to things which sound more interesting or will pay us more in the end. Yes we are driven by material things and the world is full of material things – so we give in to many earthly items and ways… Not what God is trying to get through to us with :(
God will continue to knock at the door to see if we are going to be willing to open the door. He does not give up on that knocking until the end. At the end it is too late! We have to respond to that knocking too. We cannot leave the knocking and expect God to walk into our lives uninvited: we must invite Him in and open the door to allow Him in!
Points to Ponder:
Are you ignoring the knocking?
Or are you just not opening the door?
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March 6: Deuteronomy 4:5-9
Key Verse: Deuteronomy 4:9
Only be careful, and watch yourselves closely so that you do not forget the things your eyes have seen or let them fade from your heart as long as you live. Teach them to your children and to their children after them.
Devotion:
Have you thought about the wars which are happening around the world today? Have you tried to find an answer to why they are happening and where God is in all this war? It is difficult to try and find the pace and forgiveness we talk about with God when there is war going on instead; but God is everywhere!
We can read all about what God was trying to do with the people of Israel from the Old Testament and try to figure things out in this modern world, but we will come up against many things which we will still struggle to understand. Why? Because people are involved and where people are involved we get a very slanted view on things instead of the will of God like we do from the bible.
God wanted to be able to give His chosen people some good land and a place to live which they could call their own. Obviously someone is going to lose out if God is taking land away from someone to give to another – but He was doing this knowing the Israelites should be remembering why they were given the land and live in the love and mercy of God.
It is that truth of God’s love and mercy we should be remembering to find out why they got the land. Unfortunately when we look at things nowadays we find a lot of people fighting over things which are not Godly. We find a lot of pride and greed going on instead of the love and grace God was trying to teach them.
Points to Ponder:
What has God allowed you to have in your life?
Will you always remember God even when you are rich?
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March 5: Matthew 18:21-22
Key Verse: Matthew 18:22
Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Devotion:
One of the things we find hardest to do in our lives is to forgive people when they have done something wrong – especially if we think they have done said wrong on purpose! Our simple minds cannot see the good in people when all we see is wrongs. Our hearts are broken by people doing wrongs to us and it takes a lot of rights before we can fix those broken hearts!
When Peter came to Jesus to ask about forgiveness, I think he expected Jesus to give him a simple answer so he could put that into effect. What Jesus did was to give him an answer He knew would not be easy to attain. How can we keep on forgiving people over and over again when they continue to repeat bad things against us?
Jesus wants us to look past the human element and to think of things in a way similar to how He loves us and how God feels about us. Jesus wants us to be able to overcome all hatred and to overcome those personal feelings we carry around long after the fact. He wants us to be able to forgive just as He is forgiving every sin we ever do in our lives…
But it does mean we should be willing to bring those sins to Christ in the first place. We should be willing to go out and ask people for forgiveness too, just as they ask it of us. If we are then willing to take s step toward reconciliation, He will show us just how big a step He is willing to take to show us mercy beyond our thoughts!
Points to Ponder:
Do you want people to forgive you?
Are you willing to forgive others?
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March 4: Psalm 42:1-2
Key Verse: Psalm 42:2
My soul thirsts for God, for the living God. When can I go and meet with God?
Devotion:
Sometimes we reach the end of our tether and we think we cannot go on any further; God is already listening to us and all we need to do is to ask for His help and guidance. Just when we start to think we have asked enough and we expect an answer, we get to wait a little longer… This is not God testing us or God seeing how much we can withstand; this is the world messing with us!
If we are willing to wait on God we will get to see just how much He can and does do in our lives. The world will push you past what you think your breaking point is because the world does not love you or care for you. God loves you and cares for you so will be offering solutions all along the way!
Sometimes we get to the point where we just want to be with Him and forget about the world because we think we cannot take any more. God is there with us and trying to help us as we go through those struggles. If we are listening and waiting for answers we will get to hear when He talks with us in ways we cannot imagine.
We don’t have to go anywhere. We don’t have to make a special temple or place where we can meet with God. We don’t have to go through a set of instructions before we hear from Him. We simply have to talk with Him and wait on answers. He will come to us and be with us just when we need Him most of all!
Points to Ponder:
Do you really wait for God?
Or do you press the point and try to make Him rush in?
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March 3: John 2:13-22
Key Verse: John 2:22
After he was raised from the dead, his disciples recalled what he had said. Then they believed the Scripture and the words that Jesus had spoken.
Devotion:
When Jesus entered the temple on this day He was dismayed by the people who were no longer treating the temple with the respect He thought they should. This made Jesus angry and He took out His anger on the animals and people who were doing this. Was He right to be angry?
If we look at our modern society we see many people using church buildings for many things, and many are not doing this for the right reasons. We may say we are doing these things to raise money for the church and for the support of things in the church, but there will always be some who are doing it purely for selfish reasons and plain monetary gain.
God knows we have to have money to continue using our church buildings because we live in a world which is largely controlled by money. He knows we will have to go out and earn money in different ways because we may not be rich enough to pay for the expenses of the church buildings. But He also knows when some people are taking advantage of the situation and working for their own good!
We may have our own ideas of how Jesus should be portrayed, what He looked like and what we should expect from Him: but we did not live in those days when He walked amongst the people of Israel. We should not be trying to put Jesus in a box defined by us but rather allowing Him to work His miracles in our lives with the freedom He needs to work. We need to stop putting barriers up which stop Him working in our lives!
Points to Ponder:
Do you think you do work for Jesus?
How many barriers do you put up when He really tries to do things?
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March 2: Luke 15:21-27
Key Verse: Luke 15:24
For this son of mine was dead and is alive again; he was lost and is found.” So they began to celebrate.
Devotion:
I have chosen the words often left out by people because they mean the most to me in this situation. This is the parable of the lost son, the son who ran away and squandered everything only to come back thinking he could work for his father because he knew his father was a good person who paid a fair wage. The son had lost everything and came back penniless and expecting nothing from the father other than, hopefully, an offer of a job!
The father’s reaction was one quite unexpected as he set about making preparations for a party to celebrate his son’s return! In our modern world we think “how could this man receive his son back after the son had ran off with the inheritance before it was due and had lost it all!” In our modern world we lose sight of the relationship between a parent and child just because there is money involved!
God does not care about the money or the way the world breaks the rules all the time. He cares about what the person has in their heart and how He can come forward to love and support us. The love God has for us goes beyond any earthly rules and norms and, instead, embraces love which can conquer everything!
Jesus was trying to show the disciples how much love He has for us and how He is willing to forgive and forget everything bad we do if we are willing to come forward with honest and humble hearts… that is the key...
Points to Ponder:
Do you come to God with an honest heart?
Will you allow God to forgive you?