Daily devotions 10th Oct 2017

Rev 3: 2Wake up! Strengthen what remains and is about to die, for I have found your deeds unfinished in the sight of my God.

This was the word that God gave to the Church at Sardis through John the apostle. The Church at Sardis was a powerful spirit filled Church that had been doing great works for the Lord, in fact God said to them that they had indeed had a reputation of being alive, but now they have gone cold spiritually and are dead in the works of God. In fact they have lost their first love for God and the Holy Spirit is no longer in their midst.

There was a lot of spiritual fatigue and lethargy has crept into the Church. They have fallen into the routine and playing Church. They had no longer the zeal to do outreach and to to operate in the power of the Holy Spirit.

They have fallen into programs that are routine and mundane and they have lost the cutting edge of the Spirit. They have lost the use of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  The people are now spiritually dry and no longer spiritually alert or awake. Their spiritual senses are dull and they cannot sense the presence of the Holy Spirit and have lost their fellowship with them.

The call here is for the people of God to once again seek the empowering of the Holy Spirit and to watch and pray so that they would not fall into temptation.

They are encouraged to be alert and sober in their mind and be aware of the snares of the enemy who wants to trick and destroy us. In fact Jesus once said that the enemy is like a prowling lion going to and fro seeking for someone to devour. These are the luke warm and back slide Christians. They have lost their dedication and commitment to God and they have been ensnared by the lure of the world and are entrapped in the things that the enemy can offer them.

These are the things that appeal to the flesh like positons and power. Pleasures that cater to both the mind and the flesh. When the believers are overtaken by all the distractions that the world can give, they will soon be drifted and drawn away from God.

Judges 6: 23The Lord said to Gideon, “Peace! Do not be afraid. You are not going to die.”

In the present global scene, there is fear everywhere. People are unsure of what is happening around them. The world is buffeted by natural disasters which are unpredictable. There are earthquakes that bring large swatch of destruction to lives and properties. Then there are hurricanes and wild storms that can actually destroy whole countries like Puerto Rico and many of the Caribbean islands.

Again there are political disruptions that can also take away the peace and security in a nation. Then there are social and financial unrest that can also destroy businesses and employments. Then there are wars and political disruptions that would also cause the whole region to be disrupted and insecurity disrupting the people.

We see all these fears and worries in the world today. But in the days of Gideon, the nation of Israel had been subdued and the people have been living in fear of the oppressors and in this particular time, it was the Midianites who oppressed Israel. We read that Gideon was threshing his grain in secret because there were frequently raided by the enemies and their harvest and grain have always been robbed by the enemies.

Gideon like many of the Israelite was a timid man always in fear of the enemies. So when he saw the Angel of the Lord, he was afraid that it was another enemy who had come to raid them. However, the Angel told him that he had come to help him and Israel to defeat the enemy. In this state, Gideon was so insecure that he asked the Angel to prove to him that it was truly the will of God to bless them.

This is where we learn of the famous Gideon test of asking God for a sign to prove the will of God.  We are just like Gideon as well, when we are surrounded with all kinds of dangers and threats, even when God speaks to us, we will be uncertain.

Just like Gideon, we too need to learn to trust in God and put our fears aside because the promises of God are always true. He will surely keep us safe and His blessings will be with us and see us through the most difficult situations. Only that we need to trust Him and to look to Him at all times.

2 Kings 4: 44They ate and have some left over, according to the word of the Lord.

This is an account when God also fed a group of people with a limited amount of food. In this case, Elisha fed a hundred men with just 20 loaves and there was some left over.

God had blessed His people in the past and He has also blessed them in the present day. God is indeed the living God who is omnipotent, He is able to do all things and is able to provide. He is Jehovah Jireh our provider.

Jesus also repeated the same blessings that He did for Elisha when he taught beside the Sea of Galilee when He fed the five thousand men besides women and children. We do not know the exact number but it could have been four to five times more.

God is showing us that He can multiply the little that we can offer Him, He does not look at our abundance or our abilities, He is above all that we need and is able to supply us abundantly over and above all our needs. Our needs are never too big for God to bless us. He is the Creator of all things, He is also the provider for all things come from Him and are made by Him.

Jesus said all that we need to do is to ask God our Heavenly Father according to His will and He will hear our cries and will answer our prayers. He will surely bless us and meet our needs.

Habakkuk 1: 2How long, Lord must I call for help?

The people of Israel had suffered throughout their history, there were many good years when the Lord blessed them when they were faithful but gradually when they turned from God, then judgement came to the people and they were taken captivity by their enemies and went through long years of suffering.

It was also during such a time that Habakkuk was the anointed prophet for the people of Israel, he had the responsibility to stand and lead the people and also to pray for the people. Here we see Habakkuk crying out to the Lord,  “How long, Lord, must I call for help but you do not listen?”

We can imagine the anguish of Habakkuk when he had put all his faith and prayers in God and after many long years, nothing seem to happen and God still seem to have forgotten. This was his cry of desperation.

We too may have gone through dry days in our lives when God seemed to be far away and He does not seem to have heard us or answer us. But God has His timely and planning. His ways are not our ways, His thoughts are not ours.

The scripture tells us that as high as the heaven is above the earth so are God thoughts higher than ours. His timing is perfect and His ways are also perfect, in His time, God will surely make all things beautiful for us. We need only to trust in Him.

1 Peter 1: 3In his great mercy God has given us new birth into a living hope through the resurrection of Jesus Christ from the dead.

This scripture assures us that we are no longer under condemnation but we have received great mercy from God when we accepted Jesus Christ as our Lord and Saviour and now that Jesus had defeated spiritual death we too now no longer have to go through this judgement of eternal death.

We the children of God saved by the blood of Jesus have the eternal hope of living with Jesus and God the Father in heaven in all eternity. God has forgiven us of all our sins when Jesus paid that ultimate price on the Cross for us all. Our sins are no longer counted as Christ had redeemed us through His crucifixion on the cross.

All believers are taught that we must live our lives constantly close to Jesus. We need to develop and possess the characteristic of Jesus; we need to demonstrate His love and His character in our lives. He has removed all or burdens of our past sins and guilt. Now we live a new life and have a new hope in Him and are assured of eternal life.

This is what we live for, the eternal hope of living and inheriting the kingdom of heaven when our time is over on this earth.

We have seen many of our friends and loved ones passing on before us, some of them are old and some are young but our hope is that we will meet them again when we cross over when our time comes.

Daily Devotions 5th Oct 2017

Deut 32: 10-11He shielded him and cared for him   …like an eagle that  …hovers over its young.

Moses wrote Deuteronomy and recalled the grace and mercies of God as He led the Israelites through the wilderness. The accounts described how God had been loving and merciful to His people even when they had rejected Him and turned away from His commandments over and over.

Throughout the exodus, God never left them; He was with them day and night like a loving Father. In the day He was with them in the pillar of cloud that shaded them from the scorching sun. I have been to the Negev desert in Israel and the temperature and heat is very high and unbearable. But in these conditions, God gave them the cool breeze and the shade of the pillar of cloud.

Imagine a long caravan of 2 million people journeying through the desert; the cloud must have been very big to be able to cover all of them. None of them died of heat stroke, none of their shoes or clothes wore out even after 40 years of wandering around the desert.

In the night God was with them as a pillar of fire that gave them light and heat to keep them safe and warm. Again the desert is very harsh and the nights can be very cold but God gave them the heat. This was supernatural air conditioning and it came on without fail each night. It was just as sure as the sun rises each morning, the protection and blessings of God was with the people without fail.

God’s love is exactly the display of a loving Father who wanted to give the best to His children. Moses here reminded the people how their Father God had protected and cared for them just like the majestic eagle cared for her young. The eagle is the king of the birds and is the most majestic and feared among all the birds. In fact it is so strong that it can even carry off a full grown mountain goat or a big size calf.

Indeed God is still the same loving Father today, His eyes are still upon us His children and He is continuing to protect and save us whenever we are in danger.

This is the loving God whom we worship and who is our loving Father. Let us continue to draw close to Him.

Daily Devotions 4th Oct 2017

Luke 18: 40-41Jesus asked him, “What do you want me to do for you?” “Lord, I want to see,” he replied.

Jesus was making His final entry into Jerusalem before He would be persecuted and crucified. He knew exactly what would happen when He goes into Jerusalem and this was a mission that He had to complete. In fact it was the whole reason for Him to come to the earth which was to suffer and die for the sins of the world.

On this fateful journey, he was abruptly interrupted by a blind man shouting out to Him for help. Perhaps His mind was already thinking about the events that would be taking place in the next two days. Jesus fully knew the mission that He was to accomplish, in fact he prayed in deep agony at the Garden of Gethsemane to ask for God to give Him strength to go through with His mission.

Jesus was fully aware of the pains and sufferings that He had to go through but He was obedient being the Son of God. As a human he felt the discouragement and the dread but he was totally obedient so that the divine plan of Salvation for all men can be fulfilled and put into effect.

From the compassion that Jesus had for the blind man, we can also learn that no matter how urgent our program and activities are, there are always time for us to pause and do some good deeds which can be a blessing to those who are in great needs.

Sometimes we may be full engrossed with some Church programs and feel that we do not have time to help others, the truth is Church work can never finish and if there is something very urgent, we can easily pause and attend to such needs first.

Priorities can change depending on the weight of need and urgencies. The important thing is to know the will of God in what we do.