Daily Devotions

1 John 3: 1See what great love the Father has lavished on us, that we should be called children of God! And that is what we are!

Those of us who have the honor and privilege to look after grandchildren would understand and feel the great love that we have for our grandchildren. Whenever the do anything or make any sound or movement it touches our hearts and makes us joyful.

There is a special kind of love that grand parents have for grandchildren. This is quite different from the love that we have for our children. It is a higher level of love and compassion. If we can understand and feel this then we can have an understanding of the great, great love that God has for us. The moment we call or cry out to Him, His ears are inclined and intently listening to our voices.

He delights in hearing us call Him ABBA Father as well as Yahweh the Almighty. If we can have this understanding and feeling then we would be able to appreciate the love that god has for us.

As children of God, we have the birth right to become brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ and we are then joint and co-heirs with Jesus to the Kingdom of heaven. Knowing this we must press on in our faith and as Paul said, we must work out our salvation through doing God’s work and good works.

This is the privilege that was not our own doing but through the divine sacrifice of Jesus who died on the cross and suffered the torments on the cross for our sakes. We must never take our salvation lightly as it caused the pain, the torn body and the blood of Jesus Christ. He died so that we might live, He died so that He could defeat death and the devil and now we have victory over both and we have the promise of eternal life. Praise the Lord.

Daily Devotions

2 Cor 8:7See that you also excel in this grace of giving.

Paul was writing to the church in Corinth and he quoted and narrated about the example of the generosity of the believers in Macedonia who though they were needy but yet they were giving sacrificially towards the mission work.

Paul used this example to bring out the teaching on the love of Jesus who was rich in all things but He step down to reach out to all of us who are spiritually poor in order that we may receive of this spiritual riches from Him.

Interestingly we learn that giving is in fact a major thrust and aspect of the Kingdom of God. In the beginning God gave us Jesus Christ because He loves the world; Jesus came and emptied himself for all the sinners of the world.

Throughout the New and Old Testaments, the scriptures taught on the need for the believers to give. This is one aspect that God wants the believers to inculcate especially during the old days where there was abject poverty. In fact in many parts of the world, there are also many poor and under privileged believers who truly need financial support.

We can see that among all Churches a major thrust of missions is in social work in reaching out and supporting the poor. Global Christian organizations are very dedicated and committed in this aspect. In fact many global Christian organizations are full time in managing and funding the work of outreach work.

This giving ministry needs to be encouraged and build upon as in the coming days, there would be famine and lack globally and we will have many who are needy at the door of the Church. In fact every Church must look at setting up a Joseph ministry of storing and sharing.

Daily Devotions 12th Nov 2017

2 Chron 2: 5The temple I am going to build will be great, because our God is greater than all other gods.

We can learn from the love that King Solomon had for God, when after God had blessed him with great wisdom and all the rest of goodness of wealth and fame now Solomon wants to demonstrate his love towards God by building a magnificent temple for Him.

With all his means and influence, Solomon began to plan and recruit craftsmen for the demanding project. Solomon declared that his desire to do so was ‘because our God is greater than all other gods.’ He declared that God greatness and goodness far exceed what human hands can build for Him. However, still he determined to go on with the building of the temple.

Solomon knew that no matter what he could do for God, he could never match the bigness of God and no man can out give our God. Our Father God is sovereign over all creation and the scriptures tell us that even the whole universe cannot contain Him. God is bigger and is far beyond the expanse of the universe.

He is the infinite God who created the whole universe and everything that is in it. When we understand this, we are at awe as to what we can actually give back to God, what we are and what we have is so minute in the sight of God. What can we give back to Him just as Solomon realized? In fact all things come from God; there is only one thing that God wants and that is our love and obedience for Him and to Him.

Knowing this, we must consciously make every effort to draw nearer to Him and ensure that our relationship with Him is never severed.

Daily Devotions

Gen 1: 9-10God said, ‘Let the water under the sky be gathered to one place, and let dry ground appear.’ And it was so… And God saw that it was good.

The first chapters of the first book of the bible narrate to us the creative work of God and what took place was clearly recorded so that we would be able to understand the creative works of God.

In the first chapter it is recorded that when God saw the finished work of creation He said that it was good. This reference was made particularly to the creation of the earth as we know that the whole universe belong to God and the earth He gave to man. The Earth is the only place that God had created in the shadow of what we can expect to inherit in heaven. Everything that was created was a show of the type in heaven.

Of course the heaven is a much greater and magnificent place than earth. There have been many revelations in the bible giving us the descriptions about heaven. The apostle John was taken up in the spirit and was given the task to write what he saw for the benefits of the church. Paul and also others have received such revelations and in recent times we have also heard and met people who have actually been caught up to heaven.

Their lives are not the same after they have seen and experienced heaven. There have also been many books written by these people who have had the opportunity to visit heaven. Mary Baxter was one of these authors who have been there and back and she is zealously preaching about heaven everywhere she goes.

We the believers are the privileged people in the world, we know and are assured that we will surely inherit our heavenly home when we leave this earth. Having received this gift, we need to hold firm on to it and to secure it with our dedication and commitment to God.

Let us rise up and build. Let us continue to be steadfast in our walk with God. Jesus Christ came and prepared the way for us, He came to pay the price for our salvation. Let us not make His sacrifice to be in vain. Let us value this gift of salvation.

Daily Devotions

2 Cor 1: 3-4Praise be to the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who comforts us in all our troubles.

Paul reminded us that it is our Lord Jesus Christ who comforts us in all our troubles. Jesus demonstrated and gave us the example of a good shepherd who looks after the sheep. He came and taught us that He cares and love us as the shepherd cares for and love the sheep.

He also demonstrated that He would feed and nurse those who are hurt and wounded. In life many of us will suffer hurt and disappointment every now and then. Life is never smooth sailing there will be times when we will suffer attacks from the enemy who would use people close to us to attack us and to hurt us.

In church environment, there have been countless incidents where trusted people who are even high on the leadership have turned around and attacked and hurt the leaders.

I have seen too many of such incidents and I have even had the experience of being hurt by my co-leaders. What about in the home context, there are also very often cases of love ones who turn around and hurt each other in the family.

This is the work of the enemy who uses the weak ones to turn against us. Therefore when such a thing happens to us, do not take it too personally as even Jesus Christ and the apostles and early Church fathers experienced the same. Moses had his share of being hurt and betrayed by his own siblings. He was also hurt by the people he led for forty years and that made him to lose his temper and as a result missed out from the Promise Land.

Rev 22: 3-4The throne of God and of the Lamb will be in the city, and his servants will serve him. They will see his face.

Only the Christians are privileged to be shown the end from the beginning, God had not meant us to be ignorant of what is prepared for us. He had revealed this to the apostle John who had been instructed by Jesus to record down all that he saw. Of course many of the things that John saw was beyond his time, John could not understand what he saw of the futuristic life and vehicles.

John could only use the limited language skills and vocabulary of his time to describe things like helicopters, armoured vehicles, jet planes etc. Imagine in his simple mind he was overawed and could not find words to describe what he saw. The only way was to draw illustrations to what he knew at that time.

John also saw the glory of the throne of God, it is too magnificent and majestic for him to narrate, anyway John tried his best and today when we are able to see the present day inventions and the awesome vehicles that the developed countries have, we can further understand what John had tried to describe.

The important thing that we need to know is that in heaven, John is dwelling in the midt of the city and all living beings in heaven are worshipping God. There are multitudes who have been assigned to serve Him and to worship Him. The saints who have gone ahead too are there worshipping God.

We also read of the saints of the Old Testament who are also there and are serving God and doing what God had assigned them to do. The angels are ministering spirits and they were created to serve God and man. They are tireless as they serve 24/7 non-stop.

In today’s verse, John said that all of God’s servants are to serve Him and they would be able to see His face in heaven. We are also told that on this side of eternity, no man can see the face of God because of His holiness and glory. In fact God told Moses that if he had seen God’s face he would have died but God had only permitted that Moses is able to see his back as He walked pass.

This is the promise to all of us, let us keep our eyes on Jesus and let us continue to do His work until we are called to go back to him.

Psalm 141: 3Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips.

The apostle James had written about the sin of the untameable member of the body which is the tongue. It is only a small member but it is also a most dangerous member. It can cause great damage and destruction.

By it man uses it to praise and worship Him, and by it men also use it to ignite big fire of destruction. By the tongue many countries have been destroyed and brought down.  Throughout history we have read of many accounts of the destruction of dynasties and kingdoms because of evil words carelessly spoken.

James wrote in James 3: 1-13 about the evil of the tongue. In verse 5-6 “Even so the tongue is a little member and boasts great things. See how great a forest a little fire kindles! And the tongue is a fire, a world of iniquity. The tongue is so set among our members that it defiles the whole body and sets on fire the course of nature; and it is set on fire by hell.”

James clearly explains the evil that this small little member can create. It can bring down destructions of leaders, churches, families etc.

The psalmist also knew about this evil of the tongue and he wrote, ‘Set a guard over my mouth, Lord; keep watch over the door of my lips.’  This reminds us that we must also guard our tongue and not allow it to go wild and to bring destruction and hurt to those around us.

It is a timely reminder for all believers that we should not allow our tongues to elad us into unruly lifestyles as liers, gossipers and slanderers. Jesus said that such would not enter into the kingdom of heaven.