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July 4: Psalm 26:4-7
Key Verse: Psalm 26:5
I abhor the assembly of evildoers and refuse to sit with the wicked.
Devotion:
Where do you spend most of your time? Is it with friends and family or maybe at your place of work… How much do you think your life is influenced by the people around you? How often do you give in to temptations? Do you see where I am going with this? The more time we spend with people the more likely we are going to get into the same things they do...
We can read many stories in our bibles where people gave in to the temptations around them, but not before God had warned people they would fall into temptation. This is why we should be listening closer to our God than to the world around us. God knows which deeds will tempt you the most and will try to warn you away from them – as long as you are willing to listen to Him!
Here the psalmist is pleading with God to continue to protect him from the evil around him. His mind is set on God but he is honest and knows the temptations will be great and this is what he is afraid of. If you are not afraid of temptations then you are probably fooling yourself because they are not called temptations for nothing!
To be close to God means keeping God close to you. This is where He would rather be and this is where He can give you the most protection, not because He is going to do everything for you but because you are less likely to run in the opposite direction than if you are surrounded by temptations.
Points to Ponder:
Where do your temptations come from?
How much time do you spend with them?
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July 3: Habakkuk 2:1-4
Key Verse: Habakkuk 2:4
‘See, the enemy is puffed up; his desires are not upright – but the righteous person will live by his faithfulness –
Devotion:
How many times have you given in to someone who is causing you grief just so you can try and put things behind you… only to find that person causes you more and more grief because they thought they would get away with it just like the first time? This is what is happening with the evil one in our lives. The more we give in and allow him to have his way around us the more he is going to continue coming at us!
Habakkuk thought he and his people were being persecuted by continued wrongdoings by others. He took that out on God and asked God why He was not protecting them from this evil. He thought it was as if the law could not touch these bad actors so he called out to God.
The Lord’s answer to Habakkuk was probably not one he was expecting because he was warned of the Babylonians overcoming the people of Israel, not to allow evil to win, but because the hearts of the people had become cold and they were ignoring God in their lives.
We look at the world around us and we wonder why so many bad things happen and even ask God where He is in all this. The answer would be similar to Habakkuk’s; god is not ignoring the people, the people are ignoring God. The longer people ignore God the more the evil will be allowed to proliferate and the more we will get caught up in what happens in the world around us. God has promised things and they will happen; we need to have patience and wait on God while encouraging others to rely on Him too.
Points to Ponder:
How often do you complain to God?
How often do you encourage others to seek God?
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July 2: Romans 6:15-18
Key Verse: Romans 6:15
What then? Shall we sin because we are not under the law but under grace? By no means!
Devotion:
What is all this talk about being a slave – didn’t we outlaw the slave trade? You may look at verses like this and think they are archaic and irrelevant nowadays, but it is not the human tyrant vs human slave we are talking here; rather this is the way of life which we lead because of the company we keep. Does this mean if we just stick with church people we will be ok? No, unfortunately not because we can all get trapped into certain ways of life...
When we do certain thing in our lives we get used to doing things that way and the more we do them the more we plan to do them in the future until it becomes a way of life because we don’t think of anything different. This is being a slave to that way of life and this is the slavery being talked about here. This could be what we call temptation to do sins if they are sinful things we are practising.
When I was young I ventured into a very short time at selling encyclopedias. They promised great rewards and on paper it looked like I could earn a reasonable wage. The people trying to teach us the way of selling these books was very good at doing what they said and tried to convince me it was the right way of doing things. But the first visit into an actual home and I had to give that up before I sold anything. They were not being honest with customers and they were trying to get them to take loans for something which would ultimately sit on the shelf most of the time; and they were targetting people in low income areas! This was their way of life and I could not support it!
When we get used to doing the wrong things, we don’t see it as wrong any more. This is being a slave to the wrong thing! We should be aiming at doing what God wants of us so we become a slave of doing the right thing all the time...
Points to Ponder:
What do you do most of the time?
Is it what God would want you to do?
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July 1: Matthew 8:5-17
Key Verse: Matthew 8:13
Then Jesus said to the centurion, ‘Go! Let it be done just as you believed it would.’ And his servant was healed at that moment.
Devotion:
One of the ‘excuses’ I hear all the time is of how people struggle with their faith because they cannot see Jesus face to face, or they hear about someone who has heard the Lord’s voice and they wonder why it cannot happen to them! Faith is believing in the Lord even though you cannot see Him face to face and as long as you can believe without having to see Him face to face, your faith is strong!
We have heard it said how faith the size of a mustard seed can make all the difference in the world, and that is how it really is. Just a little faith will keep you believing no matter what you face in life. I have not heard the Lord’s voice, I have not seen amazing images or visions, but I know I can and always will trust God because I have that grain of faith in my life!
I used to think I gained that grain of faith after God answered my prayers in my hour of need: I literally got on my knees in my lounge and begged God to help me, and a few days later I heard how He had answered my prayers… But my faith actually started when I got on my knees and prayed. That was the moment I placed my whole life in God’s hands and that is where my faith blossomed. Yes it was given a growth spurt when I heard about how the prayers were answered, but it started by me praying first.
God knowns when we are in need, but unless we ask for help we are not really displaying any faith in Him. The moment we give control to God is the moment our faith takes root in our lives. The centurions faith started when he left his servants side to seek out Jesus and it grew leaps and bounds with each step he took...
Points to Ponder:
Are you going to take a step toward faith?
Are you ready to give control to Christ?
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June 30: Matthew 8:1-4
Key Verse: Matthew 8:4
Then Jesus said to him, ‘See that you don’t tell anyone. But go, show yourself to the priest and offer the gift Moses commanded, as a testimony to them.’
Devotion:
No matter who came to Jesus He was always willing to listen and serve, but how He served was dependant on what He could see in their hearts and what God in Heaven was telling Him. Here a man approached who had leprosy and wanted to be rid of it. The man knew in his heart that Jesus could heal him because that is what he believed in his heart. Jesus saw this love for God and opened His own heart to this man, cleansed him and sent him on his way to the priests (because they were the ones who could declare a person free from leprosy and allow them back into the fold after the appropriate sacrifice.)
This is where we see the ulterior motive Jesus had; to reach out to the priests and allow them to know He is their Messiah come to heal and forgive. The Messiah should come for all the people of Israel and not just those who would approach Him without questioning . Jesus knows what goes on in our heads and knows we have doubts; He tries to open things in our lives whereby we can have those doubts removed, as long as we listen!
Jesus’ ministry was to the people of Israel, but He chose disciples to continue His work and Apostles to go out into all the world and spread the Good News of what He had done for us all. We don’t have to wait until He returns before we can ask Him for forgiveness, or ask Him for healing and comfort, He is willing to help each and every one of us who come to Him in spirit. We can simply reach out to Him in prayers and He will show He is willing to answer those prayers!
Points to Ponder:
Are you waiting for something before you believe?
Will you believe and then wait instead?
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June 29: Psalm 125:1-5
Key Verse: Psalm 125:3
The sceptre of the wicked will not remain over the land allotted to the righteous, for then the righteous might use their hands to do evil.
Devotion:
One of the things I learned through my relationship with Christ is we will always be able to rely on God no matter what is going on in our lives. No matter what is going on in the world around us, God never changes! So why do people complain about God not helping them at times?
The psalmist gives us a clue here, one which we do not often think about and one which is easy to miss! Bad people seem to get the upper hand at times and they disrupt all sorts of things in our lives. When this happens our focus goes from relying on God to the world around us and all the things which are going wrong. This is the time when the evil one steps up and makes bad things available to us – the temptation to pick up those bad things and use them for ourselves is great, but doing so will take us away from God.
Here we are reminded this evil and the bad people and their things they carry and do will not last forever. Yes it seems like they will at times, but God has got things; we have to learn to trust Him more and to not give in to the things of the world around us. This seems to be the lessons this psalmist learned before writing these words for us to learn from.
When the time comes Christ is going to make sure we are safe with Him in Heaven; not so for the people who have gone after evil and have sought peril for those around them. These are the same people who will be left behind and have to content with the ways of the evil one instead of the ways of God in Heaven!
Points to Ponder:
Do you feel hard done by?
Are you giving God time to work in your life?
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June 28: Matthew 7:15-20
Key Verse: Matthew 7:18
A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit.
Devotion:
One of the things I always try to look out for is this warning about false prophets… This seems to follow on from yesterdays reading about not feeding pearls to swine, but if you look back further it also links in to many reading and the one which prompted me to go in the direction we go today is about discerning the good from the bad especially if we have issues of our own – you know the plank in your eye reading…
Sometimes it is hard to spot the false prophets because they may well be able to say all the right things which you want to hear rather than what they should be saying. That pulls you into their web of deceit quicker than you realise and you swayed by their words.
God wants us to be wary of such people because of their cunning ways and because they sound so compelling. This to me is the definition of bad fruit, those ones which look so good but as soon as you bite into them you realise they are either rotten or sour! After you bite into them is a bit too late because you have already bitten and now you will have to put up with that bad taste!
God does not want us to be trapped into taking bad fruit and that is why He has made sure we have the bible and can always compare what people are saying to what we have in our bibles. God has told us His word will not change, but not all people who tell you about this word are actually giving you the full story. It is probably worse for someone to use a phrase or two to convince you rather than opening up the whole word of God. Trust in God’s Word, not in part, but in whole!
Points to Ponder:
Do you get easily swayed by fast talkers?
Will you take time to compare what people say with the whole Word of God?
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June 27: Matthew 7:6-14
Key Verse: Matthew 7:6
‘Do not give dogs what is sacred; do not throw your pearls to pigs. If you do, they may trample them under their feet, and turn and tear you to pieces.
Devotion:
This is one of the places in our bibles where people get confused because they think they are being told to do one thing and then do the opposite – but all it takes is a bit of careful reading to find out this is not true. When people face me with arguments about the bible contradicting itself I fear they have not read it properly.
This passage is just after Jesus told the disciples they should not try to find a speck in someone else’s eye when they have a plank in their own eye – obviously metaphorical because I don’t think I can fit a match-stick in my eye, never mind a plank! The idea is we should make sure we are following God’s will before we try to tell other people they are not following His will!
But, on the flip side of that, we should and must be discerning about things. If we see someone seems to have a fault, then we must consider our own lives to make sure we are not falling into the same temptations albeit in a slightly different guise! We must deal with our own issues before we try to deal with other’s issues… Once we have dealt with the issue in our own lives we can both see the problem more clearly and, hopefully, suggest a solution based on what we have done.
But what if they are clearly not going to be willing to do what you have done in order to sort things out yourself? Well, this is where this verse comes in – if it is clear the other person is not going to accept they are wrong or be willing to change things, then should we waste our time and effort trying to change things? Yes we should suggest changes, but not dwell on it when those suggestions continue to fall on deaf ears!
Points to Ponder:
Do you try to help others?
Obeying God means you are qualified to help others!
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June 26: Genesis 12:1-9
Key Verse: Genesis 12:4
So Abram went, as the Lord had told him; and Lot went with him. Abram was seventy-five years old when he set out from Harran.
Devotion:
I wonder, how many times have you obeyed the wishes of someone you know, not because what they are asking makes sense, but because they are your friend and you trust them… When we do have faith and trust in someone else we go the extra mile and do things which do not always make sense at the time but we see the value after the event.
I know I have done some things for friends which I kept quiet about because others around me, including family, would have baulked at the idea of me doing what I was doing but I knew that was the right thing to do. It has even got me in trouble with the church I was attending at the time. The right thing to do is to always listen to what God is asking you to do and not to be swayed by what others say or by your personal preferences!
Yes, it is hard to listen to God and obey Him at times. He may well ask you to do something which just does not seem to make sense at the time. Abram was being asked to go and do things at the age of 75! The journey he was embarking on must have taken a bit of planning because he took all his possessions, his wife and his nephew. It would not have been as simply as getting everything into a big truck and driving off in the sunset – this would have been a train of animals helpers and all sorts!
But he obeyed God. It did not make sense they would have children at that age, but he obeyed. He went into the land occupied by the Canaanites and set up an altar to God before continuing on where God was guiding him. We have so much written down in our bibles where we can see that listening to God is a good idea, but still be hesitate when He asks us something, either because we cannot believe it, or because we don’t like the way it fits into our lives!
Points to Ponder:
Is God asking you to do something?
Are you going to set aside your pride and follow God’s request?
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June 25: Romans 6:1-11
Key Verse: Romans 6:4
We were therefore buried with him through baptism into death in order that, just as Christ was raised from the dead through the glory of the Father, we too may live a new life.
Devotion:
One of the things which surprised me when I became a Christian was how I changed; not so much in a physical way but my attitude to many things changed over night. I was in boarding school at the time, an all boys boarding school, so the less said about what goes on in a boys only environment the better. But my attitude toward everything changed and people began to recognise that and to respect me for the change!
This did not mean I was no longer exposed to the things boys get up to, and does not mean I did not still do some things wrong, but I would always be able to see the right way of doing things after they had gone wrong and that gave me encouragement to try and live a different life.
That all seemed to go to pot when I was introduced to a mixed system after moving to England during my final years of school. I did not have the small group of Christians I could turn to for advice and no longer had the prayer group who met behind the cricket pavilion to gain strength from.
But all through my varied life I continued to know I was different from the world because I was a Christian. This has played a very big part of my life in the last few decades as I have become more and more active in church and general Christian life. We do need to try and avoid the sin in our lives because it is those sins which take us away from God and lessen our resilience to the temptations which surround us. Grace gains strength when in a good place!
Points to Ponder:
Do you find it hard to live as a Christian?
How close are you to a church where you can mix with other Christians?