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March 11: Luke 11:14-23
Key Verse: Luke 11:21
When a strong man, fully armed, guards his own house, his possessions are safe.
Devotion:
We all like to think our home is the safest place we have and, indeed, there are many laws which support this for us in most countries of the world. Our home is supposed to be the place where, by law, people should not be allowed to get to us. But there are people in the world who do not have any respect for the law and they will try to break into your home to steal your belongings.
Just like our physical homes, our bodies are our spiritual home where we like to think we are safe – but there are those spirits in the world who would like to break in and disrupt your spiritual life. Jesus disrupted the evil spirits lives whenever He came across them; He would not allow them to continue living in other people!
It is not often thieves will work together to rob a place because their greed takes over and they want it all for themselves. In the same manner the evil spirits of this world would like your spiritual life to belong to them, and them alone. Jesus has promised to protect us from such entities when we ask Him into our lives because He knows how important our safety is.
The local police would love to have enough support and power to be able to protect our homes from thieves, but sadly they do not always have the power or funding to be able to do so. Fortunately for us, Christ has all the funding and power He needs to be able to protect our spiritual homes from anything and everyone; so long as we ask Him in to protect us and not try and do it ourselves – or worse still, ask some other spiritual entity to come in and try to protect us!
Points to Ponder:
Do you rely on Christ for His promised protection?
Will you make sure your spiritual life is safe and secure in Christ’s hands?
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March 10: Matthew 5:17-20
Key Verse: Matthew 5:20
For I tell you that unless your righteousness surpasses that of the Pharisees and the teachers of the law, you will certainly not enter the kingdom of heaven.
Devotion:
If we set rigorous rules to follow, we have to live by those rules and keep them to the best of our ability otherwise we will look like law breakers instead of law keepers. When Jesus stood up to the Scribes and Pharisees, it was because their laws kept on growing and changing according to what they though should be good enough for God, not what God wanted them to keep!
When we live in a land which has laws, it is our job to keep those laws and not re-invent them as we go along. When Jesus came to live amongst us, it was no to set aside all the laws God had given to Moses, but to uphold them and to set the laws of the land right once again. Jesus came to make sure God’s Word was brought back to being the ultimate law and not what mankind had though should be best.
No matter how hard we try to make laws we think are good enough for God, we will always fall short of the mark. The more complex the laws we come up with, the more difficult it is for us to keep them and to be righteous according to them. Jesus came to be the ultimate sacrifice for our sins so we would not have to try and give bigger and better sacrifices all the time as we got deeper and deeper into our pits of sin we dig!
God wants us to remember all of the laws and do our best to keep them; but Jesus came to cover all those laws we are not able to keep and protect. God knew we would not be able to keep them all, just as man sinned in the very beginning, so too do we continue to break the rules – because we just are not righteous enough to keep them all. This is why Jesus came – to cover those we cannot keep. We try and try, yet we do falter, trips up and sin... it is our nature. But that does not make it ok...
Points to Ponder:
How well do you keep God’s commandments?
Will you allow Jesus to take on your sin debt which you cannot hope to keep?
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March 9: Matthew 18:21-22
Key Verse: Matthew 18:22
Jesus answered, ‘I tell you, not seven times, but seventy-seven times.
Devotion:
I find it difficult to really forgive someone when they have done something horrible to me – it doesn’t seem to make sense we should forgive them when they have willingly done something which has hurt us and maybe continues to hurt us... But stop for a while and think of some of the things we have done against Christ; and yet He continue to offer us true forgiveness for those things!
When we do something wrong against someone else, we then have to come to them and ask them for forgiveness so we can start to patch things up with them. It is those times when we begin to realise what it is that makes for a true confession! As a child we may have been told to “say sorry” on multiple occasions and we probably said the words without meaning it at the time – but Jesus wants us to mean the words and then say them.
When we come to Him and ask for His forgiveness, it should be a full and honest admission of our guilt. He has then promised us He will forgive us instead of us wondering whether what we have done was just a little too much this time!
When we begin to understand how difficult it is to ask for forgiveness, we should then begin to realise why some people find it hard to say sorry to us. Jesus made a promise to forgive us, no matter what! If we can at least try to forgive those who do things which hurt us, then just maybe we will think twice before we do something to hurt God!
Points to Ponder:
How often do you have to say sorry?
Have you tried thinking about what you do before doing it?
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March 8: Luke 4:23-30
Key Verse: Luke 4:26
Yet Elijah was not sent to any of them, but to a widow in Zarephath in the region of Sidon.
Devotion:
Can you remember when I said the other day how God does not always call you to go to the other side of the world to be a missionary, but to stay local and serve your own communities – well, sometimes that calling is to start with a single person who will become a pillar in the community themselves... a person of peace...
Elijah was sent to meet with a widow in Zarephath... Now we can relate to this directly because they had a big issue with leprosy at the time just as we have a big issue with Covid-19. We have to be very careful where and how we move around as well as who we meet with – yet Elijah was called to go directly to a person who no one else would mix with at the time!
God knows the right people you need to meet at the right time so the right work can be started in the right place for a growth of His work in your community! What we need to do is to listen more intently to Him just as Elijah was; and that can be difficult when we first start because we find out where the difficult places are very quickly!
When we start to step up and accept the work God has set before us, we are going to find quite a few people who will complain immediately. Not because they don’t want God’s work to be done, but because the just don’t want to change things – they like the way things are and it's much easier to just keep going rather than stepping up and doing the real work! Listen to God and be prepared for a whole lot of bother!
Points to Ponder:
Do you think God’s Work is easy?
How much are you prepared to do out of your comfort zone?
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March 7: 1 Corinthians 1:18-25
Key Verse: 1 Corinthians 1:25
For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
Devotion:
As Christians we talk about what God and Christ has done for us and we accept it as the truth, a blessing and a free gift from God... But for those who are caught up in the world, the pride, greed and other traps we fall into, this talk may seem like silliness! This is how God works – those who accept the truth are granted an understanding.
God has said this from very early on in our lives and made sure Jesus reminded us of these facts when He came to be amongst us. The people who were caught up in rituals and habits could not accept the simple truth about Jesus being the Messiah who had come to save them from their own folly. They were too caught up in the world and everything around them to see the light Jesus was bringing.
We still have this choice in our lives – to either follow what Jesus has taught us, or to turn away from this truth and embrace the trappings of the world where we will never be able to find peace and comfort. Yes, the world can give us temporary reprieves from the hurt and pain, but when we try to seek the truth in those worldly ways, we get lost and find nothing more of comfort.
Jesus wants us to be able to continue in our faith finding the peace He gives us and being able to rely on it replenishing our souls every day – just as He has promised us. The wisdom we seek in the world is not true wisdom but knowledge alone. Following this knowledge and philosophers teachings will lead us to the end of that knowledge and not to the peace and understanding Christ wants us to have.
Points to Ponder:
What do you strive to learn in this world?
Will you try to accept Christ’s teaching fully?
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March 6: Luke 15:11-16
Key Verse: Luke 15:13
Not long after that, the younger son got together all he had, set off for a distant country and there squandered his wealth in wild living.
Devotion:
If God loves us so much, why doesn’t He give us everything we want. This is a statement I hear a lot from people who have not yet accepted Christ into their lives and are seeking for answers; this seems to be the simplest one to start off from because we each have very different experiences in our lives but a common theme in life is the giving of gifts to those we care about.
Sometimes giving gifts can be counter-productive because it gives a false sense of worth. The parable of the lost son is one of those which highlights human behaviour and one which we can relate to. God does love us, and He does try to allow us to have everything we need; but there is a big difference between what we want and what we need.
A common human saying is to teach a person to fish instead of giving them all the fish they need (or farming etc.) God wants what is best for us. Just giving us the food we need without us having to work for it or pay for it does not help in the long run. If we learn to totally rely on hand-outs from God, then we lose the value of what we have and lose the urgency of what we need in our lives.
Just like this teaching, if we are given everything we could ever hope for, we may well squander it because it loses its value. But if we have to balance what we can get with hardships in our lives, we add more value to those things we need. It teaches us to be more aware of the things we need in life. God wants us to assign greater value to the things we need and less value to things such as money even though it can be used to supply our needs.
Points to Ponder:
How often do you ask God for things in your life?
How often do you do things for others?
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March 5: Mark 11:15-17
Key Verse: Mark 11:17
And as he taught them, he said, “Is it not written: ‘My house will be called a house of prayer for all nations’? But you have made it ‘a den of robbers.’”
Devotion:
What do you treat your local church building like? What does your local church group treat the building like? It is a loaded question because there are so many things we can do as a church group with the buildings we have and we should do as much as we can to support our communities through what we can do.
God wants us to do as much as we can, but He also wants us to listen to His instruction as to how we go about that work. We have a duty to uphold the name of Christ and part of the perception of Christ’s name comes from our local church buildings. This is not to say we should exclude anyone who does not follow Christ from our buildings – far from it.
God gives us so many things with which we should be encouraging people to know Christ, but some of those things can be used for our own purposes instead of Christ’s will. This is what the people in the temple courts were doing – they had turned over the area to those who were seeking their own profits and not anything to do with God. This is abusing what God gives us...
This goes much further than just church buildings and church grounds... God supplies us with the tools and the people we need to further the gospel message. We need to take care of everything He gives us and use them for the purposes He has charged us with. When we abuse this privilege and seek our own profit rather than Christ’s, we fall short of the charge God has given us and we then face His wrath or judgement alone!
Points to Ponder:
Have you thought about reaching out more with your church?
Will you support anything God asks of you?
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March 4: Luke 16:19-31
Key Verse: Luke 16:31
“He said to him, ‘If they do not listen to Moses and the Prophets, they will not be convinced even if someone rises from the dead.’”
Devotion:
What does it take for you to believe something someone else says? Do you believe them because they are a friend, or maybe you believe them because they are an enemy! It takes all sorts of situations to change our minds about the things we have thought to be true or beyond doubt.
Do you think your task as a disciple of Jesus is to try and persuade others the Word of God is the truth and what they have held on about the earth is simply that – of the earth? I put it to you the answer to this is NO. Your task is not to persuade others the bible is true, but to open the bible up to others so they can make their own decision based on what God is trying to get them to believe in!
We often look to the evangelists to bolster our faith because they make it all sound so good – but we are set the task of basing our faith on what God has said and what He impresses upon us when we meet with Him in prayer. He will take, and has taken, steps to make sure we always have someone who will help us to believe the Word, but also always makes sure we are the ones who make the decision about our own faith. This is important because God wants us to not just believe Him but also to know our own beliefs.
We will probably not get a personal evangelist to visit us and keep us going. We will probably not get the ideal church leader in our local church to keep us going. It is our task to delve into God’s Word and come to our own conclusions – this is our faith!
Points to Ponder:
How often do you delve into God’s Word?
Will you make a point of convening closer with God today?
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March 3: Matthew 20:17-19
Key Verse: Matthew 20:19
and will hand him over to the Gentiles to be mocked and flogged and crucified. On the third day he will be raised to life!”
Devotion:
Jesus knew what was in store for Him and He still went ahead with following God’s will and obeying God in every step of His life on earth. What an example for us to follow! It is very hard to go ahead with something when you are sure you will get persecuted or hurt. We learn to be afraid of some things in life and we avoid them in our life to live a bit longer... but what happens when that clashes with God’s will?
We are going to face some horrible things in life just because we live with some horrible people on earth. People abuse their power and their positions in society and often make other people’s lives a misery! Jesus warns us against this because it is working against or hurting people who He created! We are all His creation, and He loves us all – when we work against someone, we are working against God’s child!
Jesus showed just how hard it was to stick with it, but He showed us so we could be encouraged to not just follow God but to do what he asks. Sometimes what we do is skewed by our own desires instead of listening to what God wants. This is because of our own wants and needs and even fears. Sometimes we have to stop what we are doing and face up to those fears so we can do more for God in the future!
Jesus was getting closer to facing that time when He would be beaten and killed, but he knew this was the only way He could be there for us all and pave the way for us to join Him later in Heaven. Jesus did this because His love for us was greater than His fear and He knew it was what God wanted.
Points to Ponder:
Do you know what God wants in your life?
Are you willing to listen to God and Obey?
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March 2: Matthew 23-1-12
Key Verse: Matthew 23:3
So you must be careful to do everything they tell you. But do not do what they do, for they do not practice what they preach.
Devotion:
One of the things I try to be careful of is to not give out advice if I am not going to be able to follow it myself! I have faced too many people who have said one thing and done another to be very wary of those who do like to shout about all the good things we should be doing!
As a young person searching to find out what faith was all about, I visited some churches in which I was disillusioned by the people saying one thing and doing another. Fortunately, I was able to be encouraged by some elder boys in my school who opened up God’s Word and explained how we are each given free choice to do what we want – even if the bible is saying one thing. This allowed me to move on from being disillusioned and find my own faith with God.
Things like that tend to stick with you for a very long time and make a very big impact in your life. This is why Jesus was warning the crowds they had to make their own choices to follow God’s Word and not to follow the few teachers who were not doing as they said!
Getting caught up in the power of God is something we need to watch for. If we begin to think we can do more than what God is telling us to do, we end up giving out our own advice instead of God’s truth. When we do that, we may well be taking people away from what God wants in their lives and pushing them to what we want in our lives. That sort of power can be appealing, but ultimately very destructive in the church!
Points to Ponder:
Do you like telling others about God’s ways?
Do you practice what you preach?