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April 24: Philippians 4:4-7
Key Verse: Philippians 4:5
Let your gentleness be evident to all. The Lord is near.
Devotion:
One of the most important things as a Christian is to allow other people to see how happy you are to be a Christian. There is no greater witness than a person who is happy with what they have and how they are – so accepting the way you are, what God has given you and being content with everything God has given you is the first step forward!
God wants us to be able to love Him and to love others too – but in order to do that we have to be able to love; the first step being loving yourself or accepting yourself and being content. When we are able to do that, we then can expand that toward God and toward others. The more other people see we are happy with things, the more they will want to hear about what makes you happy and content!
God wants us to be happy and so will give us things when we ask through prayers and worship. When we begin to see how God listens to us and answers our prayers, we begin to shine in a new way where others will want to know why we are happy all the time. What better witness than being happy all the time with everything God gives you!
No, it does not come naturally to most people – we have to work at being content with things because we are surrounded by a greedy world which wants more things all the time. But when we are able to separate ourselves from the greed of the world and those around us, we begin to see how much God does give us through Christ and we begin to shine as a happy people!
Points to Ponder:
Are you happy with yourself?
Have you thanked God for you happiness lately?
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April 23: 1 Peter 2:13-17
Key Verse: 1 Peter 2:13
Submit yourselves for the Lord’s sake to every human authority: whether to the emperor, as the supreme authority,
Devotion:
Yes we do live in a world which seems to be based on corruption, pride and greed in so many ways and at so many levels throughout society. This does not mean we should ignore governmental authority! God wants us to follow the law of the land. If we go about breaking laws all the time, people will not be likely to listen to us when we tell them about Christ – they will assume we are going to break the rules or lie like any other person...
God wants us to be different so people take notice of us. He wants us to live lives others will strive to copy, with the ultimate task being to give glory to God like we strive to do. We should not assume we are not going to get punished if we break the law – whether that is God’s laws or man’s laws. We should all be treated the same and should all expect to receive the same treatment.
We are seeing many different things happening in the Western world where people are becoming more aware of the racism in society and are trying to change to make sure people all get treated the same no matter what race or standing they have in society. We should not expect to have preferential treatment just because we are Christians – that may not be seen as being fair!
Each of us are free because Christ has paid for our sin debt – we should live as if we know that and want to show it to others. Why should we hide our freedom? Instead, we should live according to God’s will in our lives and show all people the same dues respect as we are all God’s children!
Points to Ponder:
Do you treat everyone the same or do you have favourites?
Will you try to give everyone the same chance in your life?
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April 22: Philippians 3:4-9
Key Verse: Philippians 3:7
But whatever were gains to me I now consider loss for the sake of Christ.
Devotion:
When Paul wrote letters to the church in Philippi, he knew he was writing to people who thought they were good people. His writing, however, hints at people thinking more of themselves than they should be. He saw this problem with many who had been brought up as he was – to be Hebrew people whose lives were based on the law handed down from Moses!
What they may have been doing is probably what he was doing before he got to know Christ. They were holding the law above everything and judging everyone according to these very strict laws. This would exclude Christians because Christ had shown people they no longer had to live under the weight of those very strict rules. Christ was telling people they could be forgiven for the worst sins because He had taken their sin debt to the cross and had paid for it with His own life!
Paul was raised in a very strict environment and he persecuted some of the earliest Christians because they would not agree to the sacrifices and way of old. But once he got to know Christ, his life changed and he began to realise just how much Jesus did for him and how that love continues to flow through all of us now.
Paul was now focusing on getting to know Christ more because it was that knowledge and growing faith which was allowing him to better understand what God was asking for and not blindly following rules which mankind had changed over the years to suit themselves. God wants us to follow His example of true love and not to be caught up in earthly rules and regulations which prevent us from getting to live with this love...
Points to Ponder:
Do you use excuses not to share love with others?
Will you allow Christ’s love to grow in you so you can truly share His love with others?
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April 21: Philippians 2:1-11
Key Verse: Philippians 2:7
rather, he made himself nothing by taking the very nature of a servant, being made in human likeness.
Devotion:
How many of your friends are friends because they like or do the same things as you? How many of those people were almost guaranteed to be friends just because they had a similar background upbringing to you? You will probably be amazed at how many of your friends are friends because they have done things like you in the past. How many friends do you have who are totally different to you? How many friends do you have who do things totally differently to you? Not so many of them...
Unfortunately, we do tend to judge people because of their outward appearance and their backgrounds rather than who they are on the inside! This is a constant theme in the Bible as people tend to stick with like-minded people and even change their own ways so they can fit in better at times! Not what Christ did and not what He teaches!
Jesus was born from parents who started off not even being married when He was conceived. He was on the run from the authorities right from the beginning. He came to teach the teachers and lift up the poor and unknown – very different from the way the teachers at the time behaved!
God looks at people from a very different perspective than we do and that is why He knows us better than our friends and better than our enemies. He looks at us how we are now and how we choose to behave, not what we have done, where we have lived or who our parents were. Christ looks at us! If we can be more like Christ, we can get along much better with all people and hope to love them like Christ loves us – from the inside out!
Points to Ponder:
How do you meet friends?
Will you step out of your comfort zone to make a friend today?
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April 20: Luke 15:28-32
Key Verse: Luke 15:31
“My son,” the father said, “you are always with me, and everything I have is yours.
Devotion:
How often do you think God is not looking out for you? How often do you think Christ has forgotten about you? If we are all honest, we do have feelings like this, but, like this parable, I want to remind you of how much God continues to watch over you and be with you every step of your life.
When things are going well and we are living a good life, we often forget God is with us. When we are having a rough time, we often think God has forgotten about us and has allowed horrible things to come close to us! This is quite normal and has been like this for us much of our lives. Don’t feel despondent and think God has forgotten about you!
God sent His only Son, Jesus Christ, to come to earth in human form and live amongst us to show us how much He knows us and how much He thinks of us. Many people who do not know Christ think Jesus was forgotten, forsaken and allowed to die because God was somehow not watching over Him. The truth is God was watching every step of the way and was crying just as much as Jesus and the disciples were. Let us rather ask why we had to put God through so much just because we had too much pride or greed to stop and listen!
God continues to be with us every step of the way, but we often lose sight of Him as we are far too busy with our lives and how much we think of ourselves! If we are too focused on ourselves and our own well-being, then we may not see how much God is trying to straighten things out for us. But the more we open our eyes to the truth, the more we see how much God continue to do for and with us every second of every day!
Points to Ponder:
How focused are you on your own life?
How focused are you on God?
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April 19: John 21:1-6
Key Verse: John 21:5
He called out to them, ‘Friends, haven’t you any fish?’ ‘No,’ they answered.
Devotion:
How many things have frustrated you during these pandemic times? How many things have you been stopped from doing or have not been able to succeed because of Covid-19? I know I have felt very frustrated by not being able to do things with the young people, not being able to meet up and just talk things through or to have fun... But there are always going to be times during our lives when the harvest seems to be non-existent!
Over the years I have seen the ebb and flow of youth work and even adult church work. I have seen the lean times and have experienced the abundant times. This is the way of the world – nothing is permanent, and nothing lasts forever. But we do have a Saviour who has promised us many good times and continues to look out for us all the time. Our issue seems to be listening when we need to listen!
One of the biggest parts of youth work is listening to the youth and finding out where they are both mentally and spiritually. Without that listening we do not have much hope of being able to reach them with the gospel. God wants us to listen to others all the time and to be willing to change what we are doing in order to gain the most from every situation.
In this story Jesus was waiting on the shore and shouting instructions to the disciples on the boat. They did not think it would be Jesus and so were not prepared... but something made them stop and listen. Because of that step, they found a whole different approach to their fishing – not just because it was the other side of the boat but because it was a haul which could have sunk their boat if they were not careful!
Points to Ponder:
Do you listen to the world?
Do you listen to God?
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April 18: Luke 24:44-49
Key Verse: Luke 24:45
Then he opened their minds so they could understand the Scriptures.
Devotion:
One of the great things about our bibles is how they span such a vast time range and allow us to come to terms with what has already happened and what Jesus did for us. They also have explanations by Jesus of what the Old Testament meant, expanded history of His own life and a whole lot of promises of things to come!
For us to be able to understand half of what is written down, we need a special person to give us the insight we need and comprehension which would otherwise be impossible! God allowed Jesus to come and show us many things, but it is not Jesus who gives us a full understanding of what has happened and what is still to come – it is the Holy Spirit who God promised would come to support us when Jesus went back to Heaven!
Far too often we ignore the words the Holy Spirit tries to give us because we don’t like to listen to anything we can’t see! Jesus had to plainly tell the disciples what was going t happen to prepare them, and us, for what was going to come. This has all been written down for us to study, but because we like to see things to believe them we struggle with our own understanding.
God saw this in us and has given us so much to lay the foundation for what is to happen, what is to come. It is words like these from Jesus which help us now to be prepared to listen to the unseen – to listen to the Holy Spirit. This is something the world will always struggle with because they do not yet know these simple words from Christ. It takes time and it takes faith.
Points to Ponder:
How much faith do you have in the bible?
Will you try to listen to the Holy Spirit more?
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April 17: 1 John 3:1-6
Key Verse: 1 John 3:1
See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are! The reason the world does not know us is that it did not know him.
Devotion:
The more you work and live as a Christian, the more you begin to realise there is a large gap between people who know Christ and those who don’t. I used to think there was a very large gap between the religious people and everyone else, but it goes a lot deeper than just religion!
To be able to be called a child of God is pretty amazing and something which I treasure deeply – but also something the world does not seem to comprehend! We may as well be talking a different language when we say things like this! This gap is the understanding Christ gives to us when we get to know Him. It is not something magical which we gain because of all the religious things we do or say, it is an understanding we get to know through knowing Christ personally.
There are some questions we get asked to which we don’t know the answers, questions for which the answers are known by God and not yet by mankind. When we get to be with Jesus on His return, we will get to know the answers. Until then, we should be content with knowing Christ and having faith He knows what is best for us. This is part of our faith in Christ – we don’t know the answers, but because we know He does, we can depend on Him!
For as long as we have this hope in Christ, and depend on it, we can live as forgiven children of God. We don’t have to wait until we get to heaven or until we die, we are now Children of God because of our faith in Him. We live with sin and we continue to sin, but because of our relationship with Christ, we can know we are forgiven and redeemed already!
Points to Ponder:
Do you know you are a child of God?
Will you depend on Him for your parental guidance?
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April 16: Isaiah 59:9-11
Key Verse: Isaiah 59:11
We all growl like bears; we moan mournfully like doves. We look for justice, but find none; for deliverance, but it is far away.
Devotion:
Sometimes, when things go wrong we lose sight of the real things in life and all we see is what has, is and can go wrong! We assume there is no way out because we did something wrong and have to face up to what we think is the punishment. But, as is the case in so many things in life, there is always a life-line which can be reached out to.
These words describe the hopelessness we feel when we think the world around us is closing in on us. We are like blind people in a surrounding we don’t know. We have to feel our way round because we ‘see’ nothing; like we are lost in the world when others seem to be doing fine and we are not. In the middle of the day, when everyone else is seeing things just fine, we still cannot see anything – the hopelessness of it all!
We groan and moan because we are stuck in a position where we see no way out; we cannot keep quiet because it is overwhelming in every way. This is the hopelessness of the world! Christ has seen this and knows what we face. He came to change this for us so, despite everything we think is blocking us from a life of peace and joy, He opened the door so we can find our way to Him.
God send Jesus to make a difference, to switch on the lights, to open the locked doors, to remove the scales from our eyes which blind us. Christ took on the debt for all we have done wrong and frees us... but we must make the choice to open our eyes and see the truth He brings. To do this we only have to repent of our sins and Christ has promised to forgive us and give us a peace only He can give!
Points to Ponder:
Do you feel lost and bound up?
Will you turn to the truth and allow Christ to free you?
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April 15: 1 Corinthians 4:1-5
Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 4:4
My conscience is clear, but that does not make me innocent. It is the Lord who judges me.
Devotion:
The more Paul went round teaching people about Jesus, the more he would have been exposed to the pride and deceit which was running through the religious organisations at the time. I hesitate to call it the church because Paul was trying to open their eyes to what was going on without judging them – they had become puffed up in their ways instead of the ways God had declared.
The more we get caught up in what we think God wants, the more we try to build it up and the more puffed up we will become. This takes us away from God’s word because we are now focusing on what we think God needs instead of what He has actually asked us to do, both through His word and through what He tells us.
Paul was very quick to respond to questions about judging others because he knew he was not innocent even though people may have looked at him as being innocent because of the work he was doing. Let us never forget that! We are just as guilty doing God’s Work as doing our earthly work. We are only forgiven by Christ because He has chosen to forgive us after we admit the truth...
Paul’s conscience was clear because he knew Christ had promised to forgive him for the things he had done wrong. He knew he could stand on those promises no matter how bad things had been in the past. He knew the only one who had the right to judge him was the One who stepped forward and took his debt!
Points to Ponder:
Do you still worry about what you have done wrong?
Will you remember Christ stepped forward and took on your debt?