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Psalm 77:3 I remembered God, and was troubled; I complained, and my spirit was overwhelmed. Selah.
How much time do you spend in a relationship just being with your partner, catching up, talking, finding out and telling? How much time do you spend in your relationship with God in the same manner?
Sometimes we are so caught up in the world we look to God and ask why He is not helping us or why we seem troubled when we look to Him.
Just maybe it is because we have not spent enough quality time with Him to unload and to reload.
God wants us to be in constant communion with Him and not to treat Him like someone on the outside. Keep God in the centre of your life!
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Psalm 4:4 Be angry, and do not sin. Meditate within your heart on your bed, and be still. Selah.
One of my favourite places to write devotions and to read my Bible is on my bed where there is little to distract me from my purpose.
Taking anger or other pent up feeling to bed with you will not give you a restful night’s sleep; but giving all of your problems and unloading your anger before bed will help.
Spend time alone with God and talk things over with Him; do not keep them to yourself or think that God will do things all the time.
Yes God is here always, but He does wait for you to offer things to Him and to ask of Him.
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Matthew 23:9 Do not call anyone on earth your father; for One is your Father, He who is in heaven.
Do you look at a verse like this and say that we should not call anyone Father because God says so, or do you look at this and say Jesus told off the Scribes and Pharisees for lifting themselves up?
I think that if you don’t think about both then you may have missed the point of Christ saying what He did!
God’s word is here for us to learn from, so we need to learn from what has happened to others and see how that applies to our own lives nowadays.
Don’t look at the Bible as being a set of things that happened for the people at the time it was written about – look at it as instructions for the past, present and future.
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John 5:44 How can you believe, who receive honour from one another, and do not seek the honour that comes from the only God?
In order for us to enjoy the love, joy and peace that comes from God we do have to listen to and obey Him in the first place!
If we are going to continually seek the praise from people around us instead of looking to God all the time then the only praise we will receive is from the people around us.
That praise and honour will be hollow because it comes from mortal man; seek the everlasting and honourable praise from our God and King.
Make sure we listen to all He has to tell us from the words given to Moses through to those delivered to John for our futures!
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Proverbs 25:27 It is not good to eat much honey; So to seek one’s own glory is not glory.
What happens when you eat too much of something? I’m not talking about eating too much lunch or Christmas dinner but eating nothing but honey for a few days or something similar.
Whilst we may kid ourselves we could eat our favourite food for a week, we would get sick of eating a single thing in the end; but rich foods would not take that long!
Seeking our own glory is about as good as eating nothing but honey… the more we eat it the less we think of it until we are sick of it and despise it.
Don’t get caught up in judging yourself but take in all God gives you for it is good!
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Proverbs 26:12 Do you see a man wise in his own eyes? There is more hope for a fool than for him.
If we are going to try measure our own goodness or self-worth through our own knowledge then we will either come to the conclusion we are the best thing in the world or we are a total failure.
If we try to set our own examinations we will either set questions we already know the answer for or set impossible questions; it just does not make sense!
We need an external measurement or comparison which normally means listening to someone else’s judgement of us.
God has given us the Bible as our measuring stick but also given us the Bible as our solution finder when we see we have failed. Trust God’s Word.
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2 Corinthians 10:12 For we dare not class ourselves or compare ourselves with those who commend themselves. But they, measuring themselves by themselves, and comparing themselves among themselves, are not wise.
How would you go about checking to see if you measured up to expectations? In school we go through exams. At work we go through reviews. So where do we start in spiritual terms?
If we start by comparing ourselves to others we are going to get stuck in a rut where we are striving to lift up ourselves to be as good as others all the time.
If we start by comparing ourselves to Christ we may well get depressed and give up on ourselves.
What we should do instead is to raise our awareness of God’s commandments and direction so we can aim to be what he asks us to be – individuals trusting and believing in Him!
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1 Samuel 16:7 But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not look at his appearance or at his physical stature, because I have refused him. For the Lord does not see as man sees; for man looks at the outward appearance, but the Lord looks at the heart.”
When Samuel was called to visit the house of Jesse to anoint the next King he looked at the brothers of David and saw good strong men just like Saul.
God does not require the six-pack or the muscles popping out. God requires a heart dedicated to serving Him.
It is how we use what God has given us that counts; not how much we have exercised or managed to build up for ourselves.
God looks at our potential based on what we have inside of us. God plans for the future realm which is spiritual and not just for the physical realm of now.
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John 4:24 God is Spirit, and those who worship Him must worship in spirit and truth.
If we were to follow the Old Testament only or the New Testament only, we would miss out on so much of the truth and how God worked with the people in Spirit as well.
Worshipping God with sacrifices because of laws broken will allow us to get to know God and obey Him. But to know Him properly we have to get to know Him in spirit as well.
Trusting the unseen God to work with us in ways we cannot understand is something many people find very hard to accept simply because we cannot see Christ in work physically.
Trusting in all three persons of the Trinity allows us to grow in strength with our God in many more ways than we thought possible to start with!
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Proverbs 15:8 The sacrifice of the wicked is an abomination to the Lord, But the prayer of the upright is His delight.
What do you think of people who constantly tell lies? What do you think of someone who constantly steals things?
When we do things against other people we are also doing those things against God. Each of us is a child of God and so we need to make sure we keep our eyes focused on Him.
When we do things wrong we upset a whole lot more than just the people around us, we upset God, we upset the people watching and the people involved.
But lifting up our prayers with humble hearts is like someone singing a gentle melody to Him. God loves it!
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1 Corinthians 14:1 Pursue love, and desire spiritual gifts, but especially that you may prophesy.
Continue to look for that love which Christ has shown to us and which Christ promotes; it is truthful and leads to many things.
Is desire then so bad? Desire is another powerful emotion which allows us to focus our minds on things, but can be a distraction if we allow it to be.
Desiring the good things which Christ wants us to focus on is good because we focus more on His needs and not our own wants.
The apostle tells the people of Corinth they should focus on the spiritual gifts so they can see what Christ has in store for them and for others. Follow Christ, with everything!
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1 Corinthians 13:13 And now abide faith, hope, love, these three; but the greatest of these is love.
Love is an amazing thing which will allow you to go so much further in your life when you keep it close.
When we leave love out of it and focus on the things such as practicality or affordability, we lose sight of the things God wants us to watch out for.
Never leave out your faith either, because we need hope in our lives and our faith gives us direction toward that hope.
The hope that Christ gives us is firmly based on love, His love toward us. Unbroken. Unending. Pure.
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Romans 12:16 Be of the same mind toward one another. Do not set your mind on high things, but associate with the humble. Do not be wise in your own opinion.
How many times have you watched someone else mess things up and wondered how much better you would be able to do what they had set out to do?
How many times have you thought you could do so much more than you could actually do, finding out the hard way it was just a dream?
God wants us to be able to do the best we can guiding us and giving us strength and wisdom to do so much more than we can by ourselves, but we must know our own physical limits.
Do not limit God, but know your limits.
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Psalm 50:8 I will not rebuke you for your sacrifices or your burnt offerings, which are continually before Me.
Do you like giving presents to other people? Do you like getting presents? Do you prefer expensive presents or ones which come from the heart?
To me it is always a great pleasure to receive something small which has been chosen carefully or handmade than to receive anything expensive. Spotting the difference can be very easy!
God does not want us to go out and buy the most expensive sacrifice we can afford to give to Him; He wants us to give from the heart and willingly.
I don’t always buy things like flowers on birthdays; I prefer to wait until I really mean it and give what I can.
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Matthew 25:6 And at midnight a cry was heard: ‘Behold, the bridegroom is coming; go out to meet him!’
If you want to be prepared for an event which you know is going to happen on a specific date, you try to organise things so you are ready before or on that date.
But what happens when you do not know the exact date, like a birth of a child? You start to get ready when the date gets closer and remain prepared.
The Jews did not know when their Messiah would come. We do not know when Christ will return. We do not know the date at all.
What we can do is to get ready so no matter what date, whether during our lifespan of after it, we will be ready to enter into God’s kingdom with Christ!
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Proverbs 20:4 The lazy man will not plow because of winter; He will beg during harvest and have nothing.
What excuses do you make so you don’t have to do something that may be too much like hard work?
When hard work is knocking at our door we need to step forward and embrace it while we can because it will not be there for long.
If we open the door and find the work has moved on we will miss out on the fruit of the harvest, but if we open up on time and get to work properly we are going to find our silo is full when winter comes.
God is going to be the one who knocks on your door to see if you are awake and ready for the hard work. If we are not ready we will miss out.
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Exodus 16:27 Now it happened that some of the people went out on the seventh day to gather, but they found none.
When God wants us to do something He is going to provide for us according to what He has asked us to do. If we run off and try our own thing we may well find ourselves a bit stuck!
The people of Israel were given strict instructions to gather enough Mana on the sixth day so they would not have to gather on the seventh day.
When some ventured out on the seventh day they found nothing because that is not what God wanted them to do.
Be careful to listen properly to God to find out the instructions He has given you and not to follow your own will.
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Exodus 20:8 Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy.
Have you ever wondered why this commandment does not simply say “keep the Sabbath holy” but starts with “Remember?”
The answer stares you in the face. We know the Sabbath is holy and we know it should be a time of rest. We just need to remember it!
God wants us to keep it holy, yes, but the first step is our remembrance of that fact.
Unless we first remember this commandment, we are not going to keep it. Sweeping it under the banner of modern world or any other excuse is not remembering it in the spirit.
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Leviticus 19:11 You shall not steal, nor deal falsely, nor lie to one another.
Some of the laws in the Old Testament are difficult for us to understand and live by in our modern ways, but who can say they do not understand this verse?
I have been to job interviews in the past where it became very clear very quickly the agent who put me forward did not tell the truth about what I had done in my past. What did I gain? Nothing. The agent? Disrespect!
Dealing properly and honestly with others should allow us to gain more, not because we aim to gain more but because others will respect us more.
Dealing with youth in my job means being open and honest to show them they can be too – they need role models not lies.
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Colossians 3:9 Do not lie to one another, since you have put off the old man with his deeds
What is the easiest thing to do when things go wrong? Do you crawl up in a ball and say nothing or do you start telling lies? What do you do?
It is very easy to make up an answer here which will suit your circumstance and say that everything is OK, but this is not what God wants us to do.
When we turn to Him He wants us to turn away from those easy options and start living with the truth in our lives.
It is not always easy to live as a Christian but we need to try – ask God to help you along the way…