- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 659
October 14: Luke 12:1-7
Key Verse: Luke 12:4
‘I tell you, my friends, do not be afraid of those who kill the body and after that can do no more.
Devotion:
How many times have you heard someone say something which should sound profound but you end up being confused by what they say? I’m sure the people around Jesus had many times like this, not because Jesus wanted to confuse anyone but simply because they could not relate to what He was saying!
Jesus took this opportunity to say these things when the disciples were being surrounded by a pressing crowd who were beginning to trample on each other just so they could get close to Him. Jesus wanted to be able to allow people to understand what He was saying, but He also knew there were people in the crowd who had no intention of finding out the truth.
Jesus was warning the disciples of the devil who would do anything he could to get the people to turn against God in any way he could. The crowd of people pushing to get close to Jesus could well crush others and even the disciples, but that is all they could do! The devil and his minions can go a lot further and persuade us to walk away from Jesus and give up our lives for greed and other strange reasons.
God thinks a whole lot more of us than He does of the things in nature we see Him looking after all the time. We are more important to Him than the nature around us! He know every detail about each one of us because of His deep interest in us. He warns us that what we say in private may well get out into the public and ruin us if we are not careful – we see this happening far too much in the political world at the moment because people have become lax in the way they care for others as well as themselves.
Points to Ponder:
How much do you care about Christ?
Are you willing to be careful so others can find the truth?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 672
October 13: Luke 11:52-54
Key Verse: Luke 11:52
‘Woe to you experts in the law, because you have taken away the key to knowledge. You yourselves have not entered, and you have hindered those who were entering.’
Devotion:
When Jesus was talking to the scholars and teachers of the law He berated them for their way of having a strangle-hold on the people. He wants everyone to have free access to His Word so anyone and everyone can learn the truth. The teachers of the law placed high burdens on the people by reminding them of the law as often as they could, making them feel guilty and inadequate!
God does not want us to come away from the bible with that sort of feeling because Jesus has done so much more for us than the teachers of the law were doing with the scriptures. Jesus came to fulfil the law and in doing so opened up the truth so everyone could understand. For those who struggle He brings the Holy Spirit to intervene so they can understand just how caring and merciful He can be.
This does not mean He turn a blind eye to everything we do wrong – that is the whole point of the law, so we can identify what we do wrong. But He also wants us to know He has take the burden for our sins upon His own shoulders so we do not have to be under its pressure all the time.
God wants us to know the law and to try and obey the law; but He understand we do get things wrong and that is why He allowed Jesus to come and lift the debt we owe. Those people who take control or charge over others by using the bible are doing so for their own good and not for Gods glory. They want to have some sort of control over others whereas Jesus hands us control and wants us to come to Him for help instead.
Points to Ponder:
Do you abuse the bible?
Will you allow the Holy Spirit to guide you today?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 619
October 12: Galatians 5:16-18
Key Verse: Galatians 5:18
But if you are led by the Spirit, you are not under the law.
Devotion:
This single statement must have upset the Pharisees and other teachers of the law; they had promoted the law as being everything for so long that they had forgotten the true meaning of the law. God set down the law, not as a punishment or noose around anyone’s neck, but as a guidance for people to sort their lives out by. No, I don’t mean they were given it as something they had a choice as to whether they obeyed it or not, but more of a set of rules to show their bad sides so they could aim for something better!
God wants us to live better lives than we are used to. We do not have to live according to what everyone else says we should. We don’t have to live by doing whatever we like because we only live once! God wants us to draw closer to Him by identifying what we are doing wrong and trying to do better. This way we will not be so distracted by the evil in our lives and we should be able to draw closer to Him.
If we do listen to Him through the Spirit, we will be able to strengthen our relationship with Him because we will be able to hear Him more often and better – because we are not so distracted by the sin in our lives and the temptations which surround us.
By living according to the guidance from The Spirit we will be able to continue drawing closer to Him each day. We will be able to shun the things which go against God and against His ways. We will be able to stay away from everything which is contrary to His ways. Does this mean we can ignore the law? Certainly not! But we don’t have to have that as the be all and end all in our lives – we can listen to God and live better lives instead because those lives will be lived according to the law – His law!
Points to Ponder:
Do you live according to the world or God?
Will you try to stay away from earthly ways and live a more Godly life?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 654
October 11: Luke 11:37-41
Key Verse: Luke 11:41
But now as for what is inside you – be generous to the poor, and everything will be clean for you.
Devotion:
Jesus was not afraid of going to have meals and drinks with people who were not what we call Christians nowadays. He went to a house of a Pharisee in this story and sat down at a table to have food with them. The Pharisee was surprised Jesus did not wash before the meal – but He did have ulterior motives (both of them did!)
The Pharisee was trying to trip Jesus up for not cleansing as the scriptures had taught them to do before a meal. Jesus was going to show them the true meaning of cleansing before a meal! When the Pharisee indicated their surprise, Jesus reminded them of the difference between cleansing the outside and being clean on the inside. If you wanted to clean your cup before having a cup of coffee, you would not just clean the outside of the cup but the inside too – the inside being more important than the outside because that is what will be in contact with the coffee being made!
Too many times we show people we are clean on the outside by doing the right things according to the law and showing people we are doing the right things. But we also keep on doing things wrong in private or we neglect to do things for others when we should be. What good is allowing people to think you are good when you are not really!
God wants us to not just think about ourselves when we try to follow the scriptures, but also to think of others and what we should be doing to and for them according to the scriptures. God gave us clear commands about loving our neighbours – which means making sure we love and support others and not just say we are going to!
Points to Ponder:
How many good things do you say you will do?
How many good things do you end up doing in reality?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 646
October 10: Luke 11:29-32
Key Verse: Luke 11:29
As the crowds increased, Jesus said, ‘This is a wicked generation. It asks for a sign, but none will be given it except the sign of Jonah.
Devotion:
How many times do you have to be told to not do something before you stop doing it, and how many times do you ignore advice and carry on doing what you want? If we always did everything we were told to do, we may not be able to learn from mistakes. If we always ignored advice, we would be plain stupid!
God continues to try and offer us sound advice either through His Word or via the people around us. He wants us to be able to succeed, and wants us to be able to make informed and sound choices in our lives. Not all advice we get will be good advice, so we have to have some way of being able to filter out the bad advice and listen to the good advice.
This is when second opinions come in very handy. If we get one person who offers us advice which differs from all the other advice we get, then chances are that advice was probably wrong to start with. Our bibles are made up of the words written down from many people, words which agree with each other. God has gathered all these people together to give us the advice from many angles so we can made an educated guess in many walks of life.
When it comes to advice from God, if we continue to ignore it, then we are going to fall foul and many things in life. When we then turn round and blame God, we will not be able to get any comfort because we will see all the advice He had been trying to tell us all along, and we then remember the good advice we were give but chose to ignore!
Points to Ponder:
Do you like getting good advice?
Will you listen to the best advice – that from your bible?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 646
October 9: Psalm 66:8-11
Key Verse: Psalm 66:11
You brought us into prison and laid burdens on our backs.
Devotion:
One of the things we often overlook or try not to think about is how God will always try to get us to do things His way. This does not mean He is going to act like the devil did against Job, but He will try things which may well persuade us because we don’t like them happening!
God will not directly punish us to get us to change our minds; that would mean He is going against His promises to us! Instead, God may well allow us to walk directly into trouble if we are convinced the path we are taking is the best when He knows it is only going to lead to trouble! This is like allowing your friend to taste something horrible after you have warned them many times it will not taste good! It is not like He will make sure we taste the horrible thing, but more like we have refused to listen to Him and now we are going to taste it because we think we know better than God!
When we meet together to praise and worship God, we should be reminding each other of all the good and righteous things we have learned, and also leading each other away from danger when we see another walking toward danger. God tries very hard to not let us get into trouble – but far too often we ignore His calling and step off into the deep waters of life just because we think we know best!
God tries time and time again to get us to listen and learn. The more we do not listen, the more things will probably go wrong and the more we think God is punishing us! It is not God punishing us… it is us walking into the dangers He has been trying to warn us against...
Points to Ponder:
How often do you get into trouble?
How often do you think God tried to warn you?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 724
October 8: Luke 11:27-28
Key Verse: Luke 11:28
He replied, ‘Blessed rather are those who hear the word of God and obey it.’
Devotion:
How do you count your blessings? Do you look at the physical aspects of your life and count your blessings based on the physical rewards, or do you look at it in another way? Although this woman was saying the mother of Jesus was a blessed woman, Jesus corrected her by saying it was not because of the physical aspect of having Him but the spiritual aspect of her believing He was and is the Son of God which blessed her!
Most of us do look at the physical aspects in our lives when we count our blessings, it is not always the physical reward which are the true blessings. Yes we do find we enjoy many physical rewards when we trust in Christ, we also have to look at the spiritual aspects which are the true and long-term blessings in our lives.
God promised Abraham he would be the father of a nation which would be numbered as the grains of sand on the beach, but Abraham did not end up having a multitude of children to see this promise come to pass. Instead he would have to have faith in God to produce the numerous people in the family and not have this himself.
Our faith in Christ is what counts far more than the physical rewards we see in our lives. The spiritual blessings we receive in the long run are far more numerous than the rewards we see. Many of those spiritual blessings are also going to be in our eternal lives with God afterward – some of which we will not get to see until we are with God in Heaven.
Points to Ponder:
Are you counting your earthly rewards?
Will you compare them to your promised spiritual blessings you receive through your faith?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 737
October 7: Galatians 3:7-14
Key Verse: Galatians 3:12
The law is not based on faith; on the contrary, it says, ‘The person who does these things will live by them.’
Devotion:
The people during this time in which the apostles went out to teach others were still fixated on the laws of Moses, or the scriptures as they were also known. These were the laws given to Moses for the people of Israel to live by – until they they had not had a strict code of conduct by which to try and live by. The problem being the laws were so numerous and strict nobody really had a chance of being able to live by them.
This was not a trick by God to make sure everyone was guilty, but a sign to show the people they could never compare to God and His ways. If the people wanted to be justified, they had to live up to all of the laws – a task which was impossible for mankind! But the scriptures also talked about being justified by faith, as Abraham was.
Some of the great leaders in our Old Testament were serious sinners as defined by the scriptures. Abraham and David both came to the conclusion they were sinners and had to have something more than the law to live up to otherwise they would never be able to be justified. They had faith God was going to give them a way through which they could be saved from the debt of sin they owed.
The laws were all written down so people did not have to have faith they were there – they were actual laws. This meant everyone who tried to live by them was condemned because they could never live up to them! But Christ came and allowed Himself to be cursed so we would not have to be cursed. He redeemed us so we could live up to the blessing given to Abraham; but people had to believe this was so otherwise they couldn’t live up to it – this was their faith!
Points to Ponder:
Do you believe Christ has given you a way to be forgiven?
Will you accept that way and be forgiven?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 628
October 6: Mark 13:9-13
Key Verse: Mark 13:10
And the gospel must first be preached to all nations.
Devotion:
When Jesus was warning the disciples about what lay ahead, He warned them they would be persecuted just because they knew Him and tried to tell people the truth. He warned them they would be put before governors and kings who would be accusing them of things; but throughout all of this they should also be trying to tell the truth about Jesus wherever they went – even before the governors and kings!
We are going to face all manner of people in our lives too, some of which we may not dream about having the privilege of meeting. What we do before them is going to count! If we act like any other person, then they will see us as just another person. But if we reflect the light Jesus shined for us, then they will be looking to find out what is different. This is our chance to be witnesses before them!
Jesus also told them they should rely more on the Holy Spirit to guide them in what to say. I know I used to have trouble trying to tell people about God because I would try to think of the words to say all be myself. I have never been good at English, reading or public speaking because I get myself mixed up with what to think and say. But when I give myself over to the guidance of the Holy Spirit, I seem to be able to say an do things I never thought possible for me! Indeed they are probably not possible for me, but with the Spirit, they are possible!
One of the hardest things to do was for me to stop trying to show people what I could do and to allow God to show me what they needed to hear and see. This puts a whole new slant on everything in my life and allows me to put a bit of Christ’s light into other people’s lives. This is what God wants from us all...
Points to Ponder:
Do you have trouble with telling people about God?
Will you try allowing Him to guide you as to what to say and do?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 769
October 5: Galatians 2:7-10
Key Verse: Galatians 2:8
For God, who was at work in Peter as an apostle to the circumcised, was also at work in me as an apostle to the Gentiles.
Devotion:
When you think of the apostles going out to spread the gospel, whom do you think they went to? We hear of them going out to many people and so many getting to know the truth and get into a relationship with God through their teachings; but when you look at it from the apostles point of view – who were they trying to reach?
Jesus reached out to so many people but we get to hear mostly about Him coming back to the Jews and teaching in the synagogues. We don’t always think about the other people He reached out to unless we are told specifically how he talked to Samaritans or others. The apostles where guided by the Holy Spirit to reach out to specific people. Between them they decided who would go where to cover as many people as possible.
Here we are reminded how Peter was an apostle to the circumcised – the Jews. This is the side I always think about when I hear about the apostles. But Paul was encouraged to be an apostle to the Gentiles – those uncircumcised who were rejected and shunned by the Jews because of the original words from God telling them not to mix with them when they were settling in the land. This was to stop them from giving in to the ways of the Gentiles because they seemed to be easily swayed away from God (as we know from historical records!)
God doesn’t always want us to reach out to the friends and families of the church goers… Yes some of us will need to reach out to them to encourage them to come into church and learn the truth; but some of us will be asked to go to those people who our society shuns or the people who we think least deserve to know Christ!
Points to Ponder:
Do you pick the easy task when you hear God calling?
Will you step forward and accept the difficult task if He asks?