- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 882
January 9: Luke 3:15-22
Key Verse: Luke 3:16
John answered them all, ‘I baptise you with water. But one who is more powerful than I will come, the straps of whose sandals I am not worthy to untie. He will baptise you with the Holy Spirit and fire.
Devotion:
I don’t know about you, but I do get excited when I hear someone preaching who knows their stuff and almost knows what you need to hear from God. John must have been good at recounting the scriptures and explaining them too – something I like doing is trying to make the scriptures available to everyone by talking in plain English and not as if I have been to a university learning how to confuse people!
I know there are some great church leaders out there who have made it their life to study the scriptures, but when they come to tell others about what they have learned, it comes out like a lawyer recounting past cases. Jesus talked to the people using parables – some people could understand things easily, whilst others were confused. But He was trying to get people to think about what they heard.
John was very effective at teaching others and this is seen because some people were beginning to think he was the Messiah. His first reaction to this was to say their Messiah would come later commanding the scriptures better than him and baptising with the Holy Spirit and fire instead of water. As mentioned previously, our baptism is a reminder or reflection of our faith in Christ and of our new birth in Him as a Christian.
Jesus was obedient to this baptism as well. He came along to visit John and to be baptised by John; marking the beginning of His real ministry. Beforehand He would have shared the Word with others and talked about it, but we have no record of Him openly preaching to everyone. Jesus wanted to show us His faith was in God His Father and He was going to obey God in everything He did and said.
Points to Ponder:
How do you show others you are a Christian?
If you are baptised, what did your baptism mean to you?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 872
January 8: John 3:22-30
Key Verse: John 3:26
They came to John and said to him, ‘Rabbi, that man who was with you on the other side of the Jordan – the one you testified about – look, he is baptising, and everyone is going to him.’
Devotion:
How many churches have you been to where all the people in the congregation say they will never go to another church because their priest/pastor/leader is better than any other? How many churches have you been to where people complain about what is going on and yet they still go there all the time? We never seem to be pleased with what we get and we always want better!
John had learned from the beginning he was a messenger who was sent to teach, preach, baptise and continue spreading the word for as long as people would listen. He knew the Messiah was coming and he knew he had a lot of work to do before Jesus was recognised for whom He was.
John would never compete with Jesus because he knew Jesus was the Messiah everyone had been waiting for. He knew Jesus was Lord. He had no issue with stepping back and allowing Jesus to take the glory and even the disciples who followed him to learn. John also knew there was no way he could ever compete with his Lord.
We need to recognise Jesus Christ is the reason why we are here and we need Him as our Saviour above anything and everything in our lives. I don’t know if you have ever had the privilege of being able to teach others the gospel story; when things go well, people thank you and ask you when you will be back again! I can see how easy it would be for anyone to get a bit big headed about their position and take some of that glory for themselves. John turned down the glory and refocused it on Christ because He knew Christ as Lord and Saviour.
Points to Ponder:
Do you know a good preacher you have always wanted to hear?
How often do you stop and listen out for Jesus?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 798
January 7: Luke 5:12-16
Key Verse: Luke 5:13
Jesus reached out his hand and touched the man. ‘I am willing,’ he said. ‘Be clean!’ And immediately the leprosy left him.
Devotion:
Leprosy was one of the diseases everyone feared because they assumed it was much more communicable than we now know. The law was to put the lepers far away from the people in the towns and cities so they would feel a bit safer; the last thing anyone wanted to do was to get too close to a leper, never mind touching one!
Jesus knew this man was being put through an awful time by being shunned by everyone. Jesus could see in this man's heart and knew he wanted nothing more than to be healed so he could get back to normal life – which probably included going into the temple and worshipping God! The mercy of our Lord Jesus is on clear display as He reaches out and touches the leper to heal him.
What Jesus then told him to do was in accordance with the Jewish law. He would have to present himself to the priest to show he was ‘clean’ and no longer had leprosy. He would also have to offer the right sacrifices according to what was told through Moses – not because the sacrifice would make any difference to his health, but it would be a testimony to others who were seeking healing from God! He was giving them hope!
Because of the manner of this man’s rise to health, people talked and crowds began to gather to find out what had happened – so much for the man being able to quietly sneak to the priest to get it all sorted! Everyone was going to hear about this miracle and a lot of people were going to get to know a bit more about God! Sometimes it is the way we do things which makes the biggest difference and not the actual act of doing it!
Points to Ponder:
Do you seek glory for things you do?
Have you given Christ the glory for anything you were able to do today?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 684
January 6: 1 John 4:19-21
Key Verse: 1 John 4:20
Whoever claims to love God yet hates a brother or sister is a liar. For whoever does not love their brother and sister, whom they have seen, cannot love God, whom they have not seen.
Devotion:
One of the most startling things I see is how many Christians we see who indicate some sort of hatred for others. I’m not talking about saying we disagree with someone else's politics or the way they do things, but genuine hatred for another person in their lives. Yes I can see how people can hate others, but if we are not willing to put aside those feelings and allow God to guide us, then we are falling short of the life God wants us to lead.
Yes I have hated people in the past and I dislike some today. But it does not stop me from caring for them and looking out for them as Christ has asked of us all. No matter what conflict I have come up against in the past I will always try to care for them as much as I can. If we turn our backs on others, we are denying them the love of God coming through us.
Does this mean we always have to say yes when they ask something of us? No! We should be doing what is best for them and asking God’s advice along the way. We do not know their inner needs like God does. We do not know what they are lacking in their lives. If we want to be more like Jesus then we have to give people a chance to get to know God.
So how do we love someone in our lives who has done things wrong or continues to do things wrong against us? We try to follow Christ’s example. Jesus did tell others when they were doing things wrong, but He did not exclude them from His life just because of that. Instead He tried to show them how life could be different with God in it. He tried to encourage others to include God in their lives too.
Points to Ponder:
Do you have issues with someone?
Do they know Christ is in your life?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 858
January 5: Mark 6:45-52
Key Verse: Mark 6:46
After leaving them, he went up on a mountainside to pray.
Devotion:
After feeding so many people and giving them much food for thought, the spiritual kind, Jesus retired to go and pray to His Father in Heaven. This was not a sign of weakness or a sign of having worked too hard. This was a sign of love for His Father in Heaven. He wanted to give thanks for everything which had happened so the people could be fed.
But once the disciples were alone in the boat in the middle of the lake, they began to lose sight of the power of God and began to focus on the wind and the wave surrounding them. Even after we have received blessings from God, as soon as something ruffles our feathers, we begin to focus on earthly things and tend to leave God out!
Jesus stopped what He was doing and set aside time to be with God. He did not wait until things started to break down before He prayed, He set time aside to pray. Note the disciples were perfectly safe while He was praying – because God would have been keeping an eye out for them anyway. But after His time of prayer, He started to make His way back to the disciples. Unfortunately they had allowed the weather to get the better of them and they were struggling to get back to shore.
Jesus decided to meet them where they were. He did not wait for them to struggle all the way to the shore – He walked out to them, walking on the water. They were terrified at seeing something like a spirit walking out to them because they were too consumed with what was happening. But when Jesus spoke, they recognised Him and things settled down when Jesus joined them in the boat. They still did not have the foresight to see what God was doing by providing for the people. He was sharing His love!
Points to Ponder:
Do you focus too much on the world?
Will you fully accept God’s love?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 848
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?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 837
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?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 778
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?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 849
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?
- Details
- Written by: DJ Dave
- Hits: 879
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?