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January 4: John 1:35-42
Key Verse: John 1:36
When he saw Jesus passing by, he said, ‘Look, the Lamb of God!’
Devotion:
The day before these things happened, John had already described Jesus as the Lamb of God and knowing that Jesus had been born as a human after him, he still said Jesus was before him. John understood Jesus had always existed because He was the Son of God. When John said these words, the two disciples of his who were with him at the time turned round and followed Jesus instead.
John did not cry out and ask why they turned their backs on him. He did not complain these disciples went after someone else… because He knew they were going to follow a higher calling than learning about repentance and baptism which is what He was teaching. John knew they could get more from following Jesus!
Andrew, who was one of the disciples of John who turned to follow Jesus, heard what Jesus was teaching and immediately went to find his own brother Simon to get him to come along and follow Jesus too. For anyone to do this must mean Jesus was an incredible teacher who was teaching people more in depth truths than any of the teachers they had come across yet.
When we meet someone who has such a presence and command of the scriptures, we want to follow them until we too have learned enough to go forward and teach others what we have learned. John, like Jesus, wanted his disciples to go forward and teach what they had learned; not to keep it all a big secret but to take the truth and boldly share it with others. Jesus wants us to learn and teach, learn and teach, just like his disciples.
Points to Ponder:
How much have you learned about Christ?
How much have you shared about Christ?
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January 3: Psalm 98:2-3
Key Verse: Psalm 98:3
The Lord has made his salvation known and revealed his righteousness to the nations.
Devotion:
I can remember being confused by various verses I had to learn in order to be confirmed; the wording in the Bible was a bit foreign to me so I skipped over many things at the time. I learned enough to get me through the ceremony and when to stand up, sit down and kneel; at the time it was a means to an end, a way of getting out of the confines of boarding school life and being somewhere different!
A short time after that someone could see I was still a bit confused with everything and took time to try and explain what salvation was all about. It was then I began to learn what Christ had done and why He had done it. This is the salvation of the Lord being passed on from person to person no matter where or when. You see, my boarding school was a boys only school and we were taught to be tough and take life by the horns – not what God’s salvation was about, what man was about in his pride, lust and greed.
But if the word of God can be passed around in a place like that, it can be passed around in many places. It is often places like prison and other harsh environments where God can show people the extreme contrast between man’s world and His world. It is often in places like this where God will choose people who otherwise would have no hope to receive His hope and spread the good news to others in similar situations.
I am thankful for the your men in the Christians Union club (another ploy by me to get out to prep or rest time in boarding school) who gave up their time to open God’s Word and try to explain it in simpler terms for us to understand. The more we get to understand God’s Word, the more He can use us to share it with others relating what He teaches to the world around us and into our daily lives, no matter where, when or how!
Points to Ponder:
Do you think you are in an environment where scriptures cannot be opened?
Have you tried opening them to see what will happen?
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January 2: John 1:6-8
Key Verse: John 1:8
He himself was not the light; he came only as a witness to the light.
Devotion:
God did not send the most important, richest, most powerful or most intelligent people to spread word of Jesus’ coming. He used the prophets many years before, whom many chose to ignore in the end. He chose the right people at the right time to make sure the right people got to hear the truth when they needed it most.
When God chose John, it was not a choice of a wise man who everybody looked up to, but a man who would choose to live outside the city in squalid conditions; but a man who was willing to tell the truth about the Messiah who had arrived. John was only a few months older than Jesus, so grew up at the same time as Jesus was growing up. This was a man who chose to obey God and not man.
Many well known preachers, priests and other church leaders tend to become well known for what they are doing (or, sometimes for what they do not do) When they become well known, they do what they can to become even more well known. The churches they build up grow in size and prosperity and make them even more well known.
These words remind us we should not seek to become the most well known person who can lead a church, but to simply obey God and be a witness for Christ. What do we gain is we build up a church containing hundreds of people unless we are effective at telling them about God. What does God gain is we are standing in the spotlight? Who are we getting the people to praise. John came to be a man who always pointed people to Christ and to Christ’s ways. John looked not for personal gain but for glory for God through Christ!
Points to Ponder:
How do you see yourself in the church?
How does God see you in the church?
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January 1: Numbers 6:22-27
Key Verse: Number 6:25
the Lord make his face shine on you and be gracious to you;
Devotion:
Many people will go to extraordinary lengths to get a blessing from a priest – just take the gatherings in the Vatican or other religious places where people gather. So why don’t we see the same sort of crowds in each of our churches all around the world? We don’t because many people have a very shallow belief which does not inspire them or others to worship God as He should be worshipped!
If you have not yet set a New Year’s resolution, maybe you should be willing to promise to share God’s Word with one other person (minimum!) God gave direction to Moses to do many things – here we have a simple command to tell the young priests (Aaron and his sons) to bless the people openly when they came to worship.
If you go to a church where the priest or other leader is going to ask for a blessing or to say a blessing over you, then you are going somewhere where they at least keep one commandment going! We really should be sharing God’s Word with others and showing them how much God thinks of them and how He is willing to bless them no matter what they have done in their pasts.
God made this promise to Moses a very long time ago and continues to uphold this promise for us to be His people and for us to receive a blessing from God when someone says so! God came to show us how this happens by giving us a blessing in the shape of His Son which is going to stand for as long as God says so. Since He is not bound by time, but only by when He says He will return – we can depend on these blessings every day!
Points to Ponder:
Do you long for God to bless you?
How often do you praise and worship Him?
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December 31: 1 John 2:18-21
Key Verse: 1 John 2:21
I do not write to you because you do not know the truth, but because you do know it and because no lie comes from the truth.
Devotion:
It is always disturbing to hear things like this – that many antichrists have come and more will probably still come! How do we deal with a statement like that in our lives. Well, first we have to accept this is the truth. This tells us there is evil in this world, evil which lives with us daily. It does not mean we are consumed by it, or that it controls us, or that it fills our lives. This may be hard to believe when we hear of the horrible things which go on in the world through the news we hear!
God wants us to live in the truth. This means He came to share the truth with us so we have a background of truth we can cling to. Evil does not live where the truth lives, because God lives in the truth. Jesus came to share the truth with us in a personal way. He then changed the world by giving His life for the truth He stood for.
If we ignore God and push Him out of our lives, we are leaving a void. The evil in the world will work very quickly to try and fill that void – that is how we get evil in our lives, by rejecting God and allowing anything else in instead! But here we are reminded the evil is not us and it does not belong to us. The devil works to keep the evil in our lives and will fill any gaps we have without though for us.
If we cling to the truth and make sure our lives are filled with Christ, then there is not going to be room in them for the evil. The evil flees from the truth because it does not want to be found out. Christ wants to remain with us so we don’t have room for evil.
Points to Ponder:
What is your last prayer for 2021?
Will you ask Christ to fill your life so there is no room for evil anymore?
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December 30: 1 John 2:12-17
Key Verse: 1 John 2:16
For everything in the world – the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life – comes not from the Father but from the world.
Devotion:
It is so interesting to me to find out the reasons for letters to be written. Often we try to understand what is going on in the writers head or what is going on in the life of the recipient; here we are given the clear reasons for this letter being written.
We do need to remember our sins are forgiven on account of the name of Jesus Christ. We have to remember the scriptures we have witness to and keep them in our hearts. We have to be reminded we have overcome evil by accepting Christ into our lives – that is the astonishing one to me! We have to remember God is eternal and has been here from the beginning and will be here forever – something we can struggle to get to grips with because we are bound by time here on earth.
God is our Father. He has invited us to be His children and has given us the method by which we can be His children – through Jesus Christ our Saviour! The more we remember these things, the more we will be able to read God’s Word and accept it into our hearts. The closer we get to God through His Word, the more He is able to explain the words through the Holy Spirit whom Christ sent to help us.
Our love for earthly things is hard to let go of, especially if we have many thing from this world in our lives. The more we cling to those things, the harder it is for us to draw close to God. These things are only in this world and will not be with us in heaven; our heavenly experience will be more than we can imagine. We will no longer be held back by simple earthly desires.
Points to Ponder:
What do you treasure in your life?
Have you tried to treasure Christ above all?
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December 29: 1 John 2:3-6
Key Verse: 1 John 3:6
whoever claims to live in him must live as Jesus did.
Devotion:
When I started to get to know Christ, I also started visiting various churches and seeing how people worshipped in various settings. I also started to see how different people thought things were different, to the extent some were against others because they were different! It was only when I got to study God’s Word and read what had been written down that I started to see something very different.
Christ came to show us the way to live because mankind had done all manner of things previously and had got mixed up and lost their way in many settings. We can see this in some churches or religions, or whatever you wish to call them. Each seems to have their own idea on what is important and what should be followed. We have some who insist on following the original scriptures from the Torah. We have some who follow their own re-written bibles. We have others who follow people instead of Christ.
If we genuinely want to call ourselves Christians, then we need to act like Christians and not like religious organisations! One of my pet hates is being called religious by people who do not know Christ. Jesus did follow various ways and rights of the Jewish people – after all, God chose these people and taught them what they should be doing. But He also made sure people were told they had no more reason to sacrifice on their own because He was the perfect sacrifice for all.
If we try to live as Christ lived, we will find out a whole lot of things are actually what God has wanted from us all along. We can start by loving God and our neighbours; Jesus elegantly demonstrated this throughout His life. We then need to remain in the truth – always taking God’s Word with us and making sure other people get to hear it too. God gave us commandments we should follow, not because He wanted to make life tough, but because He wanted us to be fully prepared for life with Him in Heaven.
Points to Ponder:
How many commandments do you follow?
How often do you discuss things with God?
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December 28: 1 Corinthians 1:26-29
Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 1:27
But God chose the foolish things of the world to shame the wise; God chose the weak things of the world to shame the strong.
Devotion:
When a business wants to make a good impression, they go out and hire the best people for the jobs. For their advertising, they will get the company which makes the most impressionable adverts, so long as they can afford it. For their sales, they will hire salespeople who know how to do their job so they can get revenue back… It’s all about the money and encouraging people to spend money at their stores or businesses...
When it comes down to doing something which affects your life, then you would probably want to trust people who are close to you or who are not being paid large amounts of money to say things. This is why God chose the right people to work with Him. He did not choose the big merchants to go out and sell religion to the people. He did not pay people to spread His Word. God chose people from the local communities to reach the people in those communities.
Why? Because these are the people the local community trusts. They have probably grown up with these people and know them well. This people have a certain amount of trust which others can see and know. God wanted the people who were going to pass on the real truth to others and not some made up adverts which make things look better than they are.
God wants us to know and share the truth – this means He is very likely to choose you to reach out to others; not that we are all fools, but because we are willing to tell the truth as we see it and how it affects our own lives. We are willing to give real-world examples of how God works in our lives. God doesn’t want us to boast about being the biggest or best church, but to show others they can trust what we say because we are giving them God’s Word!
Points to Ponder:
How do others see your local church?
Are you showing others they can trust local people at the local church?
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December 27: Exodus 33:7-11
Key Verse: Exodus 33:10
Whenever the people saw the pillar of cloud standing at the entrance to the tent, they all stood and worshipped, each at the entrance to their tent.
Devotion:
As I was reading through this verse I kept thinking of what it was like for the people of Israel knowing it was God who was in the cloud they could see! Then I started thinking about the other words in these verse – what were the people doing? As they saw Moses go to the tent outside of the camp, they all stood at the entrances of their own tents, watching Moses. When the pillar of cloud descended to the tent Moses was in, the people would worship God and praise Him!
Moses was the key which unlocked a readiness to worship – people waited expectantly at their tent doors. Then the worship flowed freely when they saw God communing with Moses. Then I got thinking – what sort of example am I? Do I sneak out and go to church in secret, or do I allow people to see me openly walking to church? Does the church I go to ring out with worship and praise to encourage others to worship and praise too?
We do need to set and example for others! Maybe there is someone close by who is struggling – seeing you go out to church with a skip in your step and knowing you are going to worship God openly is a great thing. Seeing you come home from church with a big smile on your face and a renewed skip is going to do more as well!
We need to allow people to know God is with us. We need to show people we do commune with God all the time. We need to encourage others to come along and join in. This is not some sort of exclusive club we go to! Praise God openly and allow people to see you enjoying your life with Christ as often as you can!
Points to Ponder:
Do you show people you have an active relationship with Christ?
Or do you act like every other person?
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December 26: Acts 7:51-53
Key Verse: Acts 7:51
You stiff-necked people! Your hearts and ears are still uncircumcised. You are just like your ancestors: you always resist the Holy Spirit!
Devotion:
How many times have you been so stubborn you have gone ahead with something without much though for the consequences, only to find out it was deem to fail no matter what? Each one of us has a stubborn streak which makes us do things even when others are warning us against it. We think we know best and we go ahead...
These words were spoken against the Sanhedrin and against the Jews who refused to accept Jesus was their Messiah. They had been told the Messiah would come, how he would come, what he would do and many more things; but they refused to believe a mere human man could be their messiah because they wanted something more!
When we think we deserve more, we turn away from the obvious and turn away from good advice – because we think we deserve more. We have a long history of this sort of thing happening throughout history, and yet we continue to follow these false paths and seek our own teaching instead of what God has been trying to show us all along.
This Jesus, this baby boy, was born of a virgin and came to set us free from our continual debt, continual stubborn ways and continual failure. He came to set us free and allow us to live a closer life with God… But we wanted more. We wanted something spectacular which would overwhelm us and fill our desires. God did not send Jesus to fill our every desire, but to fill the need we have in our lives.
Points to Ponder:
Do you always seek more physical evidence?
Will you simply accept Jesus as your Saviour?