daily readings

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Are You Not More Valuable Than The Sparrow?

16th March

“What is the price of five sparrows – two copper coins? Yet God does not forget a single one of them. And the very hairs on your head are all numbered. So don’t be afraid; you are more valuable to God than a whole flock of sparrows.”

Luke 12:6-7 

What determines your value? Is it monetary wealth? Material possessions? Man’s affirmation? Or is it your career status?

If you look at a 5 or 10 pound note you will see that it is just a piece of paper. Yet what determines its monetary value? One of the reasons is the Queen’s stamp on the note. This says that the Bank of England promises to pay the value of the figure stated on the note. The Queen’s stamp is almost like an affirmation of this promise. Yet without it, it’s just a piece of paper. What is written on it, gives it its value.

Jesus, in today’s passage encourages His disciples that God values us so dearly. It is interesting to note, that Jesus had the authority to say these things as complete truth, because He was God. If so, then we should take great encouragement also, knowing that what Jesus is saying is true for us today. We are valued more than the sparrows that fly about who neither labour nor toil for their food, yet are provided for by the hand of God (Matthew 6:26). Jesus takes this picture a step further and exclaims that even though the sparrows are used for trading purposes, he still values each one and DOESN’T FORGET EVEN ONE OF THEM!! If God remembers a sparrow, how much does he know us?

Jesus finishes this passage with an astounding fact. God even knows the hairs on our head. It may seem an irrelevant piece of information, however it is so important in knowing Gods character. God knows us so deeply and intimately. Even more than we know ourselves. If He knows how many hairs are on our head, then surely He knows your worries, struggles and hardships. The greatest thing of all is that He has stamped His promise on you and that is what gives us value!

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No One Can Pray And Worry At The Same Time (Max Lucado)

14th – 15th March

Weekend Edition

“Worry weighs a person down; an encouraging word cheers a person up”

Proverbs 12:25 

Life is so short, so unpredictable and so fragile. Worrying doesn’t add anything to your life. Rather it probably reduces your lifespan (not a scientific fact). If life is so short, then we shouldn’t waste time worrying. Yet the truth is that we do worry. We do let worry take over our lives and let it become like an unassailable mountain.

Yet if we are praying, as mentioned in yesterdays post, we gain victory by trusting in God and making Him priority in our lives. Prayer gives our problems to Jesus. The responsibility becomes His. We exchange our heavy, burdened hearts for joyful, free and living hearts. Worry focuses on ME but praying focuses on Jesus.

We also have a greater responsibility to encourage and cheer up our friends. Today’s proverb says exactly that, “an encouraging word cheers a person up”. Good words bring life. It has the opposite effect to worry. Worry weighs you down, but a good word lifts us up. It is so true that when you are down and burdened, an uplifting encouraging word can make all the difference and put your worries into perspective. Our challenge is to find someone to encourage and to give a good word to. Not only will it help them but will help you too.

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Tell God Your Needs And Thank Him For His Deeds

13th March

“Don’t worry about anything: Instead, pray about everything. Tell God what you need and thank Him for all He has done. Then you will experience God’s peace… ”

Philippians 4:6-7a 

Part of trusting God for all your needs is thanking Him for all He has already done. It is in the moments of getting caught up in your needs that we can often forget who God is and what He has been doing in our lives.

Yet it seems so hard that when we are in our darkest moments, when we feel like all hope is gone, that we should trust God and start thanking. However this attitude of gratitude is the key to living a worry and stress free life.

Paul encourages the church in Philippi to also trust in God and thank Him whilst bringing their requests to Him. He then states that it is only when you are exercising a thankful heart that you can really know the peace of God. The great thing is that that peace of God is a supernatural peace. A peace that says there is a storm raging around me, but because I know God is at hand, because I am thankful for all He has done and is going to do, there is a stillness in my heart that anchors me and gives me the strength to carry on. It gives a whole new dimension to the ‘Keep Calm and Carry On’ slogan. In truth that keeping calm and carrying on, only comes when we are fully grounded, fully submitted and fully thankful to the will and desires of our Loving and Caring Heavenly Father.

Do you trust God with your worries enough to be thankful for everything?

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Do Not Worry: Just Pray

12th March

“So don’t worry about these things, saying, ‘What will we eat? What will we drink? What we will wear?’ These things dominate the thoughts of unbelievers, BUT YOUR HEAVENLY FATHER ALREADY KNOWS ABOUT YOUR NEEDS. Seek the kingdom of God above all else and live righteously, and He will give you everything you need. ”

Matthew 6:30-33

I was recently telling someone I was anxious about my future plans. They stopped me and encouraged me with these words, ‘Do Not Worry: Just Pray’. It took a couple of seconds and then the reality of what she actually said struck me. When we pray, we immediately take the burden from our own hearts and give it to Jesus. It is like we are supernaturally giving Him the weights that hold us down. When we pray, when we give our worries and anxieties to the One we know will deal with them, it can be so liberating and peaceful. Again this does not negate our responsibilities, but cements our hope and trust in the fact that Jesus is at hand.

Why can we be so confident that He will help us? The answer, because of the phrase Jesus repeated. ‘Your Father knows what you need already.’(Biblical repetition is always an indicator that we need to pay attention to what is being said.) If God already knows what we need, then why worry. He is already working on the situation or circumstance. Jesus, in the preceding verses has already talked about how the Father clothes the lilies of the fields and feeds the birds of the air. If so, then why worry? How much more do we mean to the Father than these things?

Our responsibility is to not worry. It is to seek the kingdom of God. It is to not let our burdens and worries, make us loose sight of Jesus. It is to live righteously by the power of the Holy Spirit working in and through our lives. It to have faith that all things are in God’s hand and that He will give us everything we need. Why worry then?

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Give Your Burdens To Jesus

11th March

“Then Jesus said, “Come to Me, all you who are weary and carry heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon. Let Me teach you, because I am humble and gentle at heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy to bear, and the burden I give you is light.” ”

Matthew 11:28-30 

So often, our burdens can hinder our walk with Jesus, our intimacy with the Father and our ability to listen to the Holy Spirit. Our burdens can become so burdensome that we even find it hard to even talk to God. It is only when you remove the burdens away from you eyes and heart that you can see and listen clearly.

Jesus encouraged His listeners to not hold onto their burdens, worries and struggles but rather lay them at His feet. He uses the imagery of a yoke to explain what carrying burdens are like. In Jesus’ time, a yoke was a hand carved piece of wood that would go around an oxen to ease the burden of pulling a plough or other heavy apparatus. It also helped the farmer control the direction of the oxen. Without the yoke there could be no submission or guidance.

The reality for us today is that we often try to lead ourselves and by doing so, create a weight that we cannot bear. We try to sort out our problems, plough our “own fields” and carry our own burdens when in truth, that is not what God intended for our lives. This is not to negate our responsibilities; moreover, it is to trust God instead of trying to do everything in our strength.

When we take on Jesus’ yoke, it’s like we are taking off our own burdensome chains and shackles and exchanging it for a new lightweight upgrade. We are no longer slaves in bondage but in childlike submission to a loving Father who wants to take our worries and stresses from us, we are set free. It is only when we stop carrying our own yokes that we will find rest for our souls and know true intimacy with the Father.

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God Knows What You Need!!

10th March

 “When you pray, don’t babble on and on as people of other religions do. They think their prayers are answered merely by repeating their words again and again. Don’t be like them, FOR YOUR FATHER KNOWS EXACTLY WHAT YOU NEED EVEN BEFORE YOU ASK HIM! ”

Matthew 6:7-8

How wonderful it is to know, that the creator of the whole world, not only cares for us but knows exactly what our needs and desires are before we even ask. God could be so busy sorting out the needs and problems of the other 7 billion people in this world when you ask Him for something. Yet He purposefully chooses to want to know our personal needs, desires and prayers. God has named YOU, called YOU by name, and will personally provide for all YOUR needs. He is not some busy executive chairman in a highflying company who gets his PA to sort out his employees’ affairs. He personally attends to each one of His children’s needs.

When we come before our Maker and Creator, our standpoint should be this; God knows what we need before we ask Him. Simple. This is not to say that we should not ask Him if He already knows our needs. This is simply to say, that there is no fear, shame, embarrassment in asking God for what we want. Don’t mince your words and don’t babble on. Get to the point. God wants to know that you trust Him enough with your needs that you are willing to ask Him.

Notice that Jesus doesn’t use a far off, impersonal name for God. He uses Father. Why? Because God is our Father and wants to provide personally for us, His children.

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Intimate Moments With The Father

9th March

 “But when you pray, go away by yourself, shut the door behind you, and pray to you Father in private. Then your Father, who sees everything, will reward you.”

Matthew 6:6

Some of the most wonderful, intimate times in the presence of the Father are spent alone with Him. No distractions, no one to perform to, just you and God.

Isn’t such a privilege and honour that we can spend time alone with the creator of the universe? God is never too busy for us. God is never engaged. We all can have a personal, private audience with our Father at exactly the same time. A profound statement yet it is so true. Yet the exciting thing is, is that God want a personal audience with you too. Jesus, (who was and is God) encouraged His disciples to go away, shut out any distractions and have personal and private time with the Father.

This wasn’t a far-fetched ideology. Jesus Himself did this when He first started His ministry. He went away into the desert for 40 days and 40 nights, fasting and praying. Paul had 2 years of intimacy and study time with the Father before he started his ministry. Why? Because intimacy with God is essential for spiritual growth. If we are to be effective in our mission on earth, then we must first learn what it means to be intimate with the Father in private. Any relationship we have here on earth needs a measure of time invested into it. We can’t just expect to have an intimate relationship with someone we don’t spend time with. So it is with Jesus. Spend time with Him and your intimacy with Christ will grow.

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Empty Words – A Hypocrite’s Language

7-8th March Weekend Edition

“When you pray don’t be like the hypocrites who love to pray publicly on street corners and in the synagogues where everyone can see them. I tell you the truth, that is all the reward they will ever get.”

Matthew 6:5

Corporate prayer, when done in the right way, can be so edifying, encouraging and uplifting. Yet there is a stark difference to praying as a united body and praying so everyone can hear your eloquent long speeches to God. The key to an effective prayer, as we talked about yesterday, is asking in faith, believing that you will be answered and be thankful for the response you will receive. An ineffective prayer, is a prayer that is prayed so others can hear what you are saying to make yourself look good and sound clever. This is exactly what Jesus was addressing here in today’s passage. The Pharisees and Scribes, often named as the hypocrites, tended to pray loud, long and wordy prayers, not to enhance their relationship with God but to show off their superior spirituality to others around them. However Jesus directly challenged this attitude and corruption of what prayer really is. He even adds that the only reward for their prayer would be the response they received from the people listening. It may seem harsh but praying in this manner is completely missing what prayer is. There is no use in praying, if you are praying so other people can enjoy your churchy jargon. Prayer is a heart to heart communication with God. Period. Again, that is not to say that praying out loud or corporately is wrong. On the contrary; when in the right context and in purity, honesty and sincerity, corporate prayer can be so powerful and strategic. The issue Jesus challenges is that of an insincere and self-edifying prayer. When you pray, whether corporately or privately, imagine that you are sitting at the very feet of Jesus and having a real conversation with Him and that He is the only one listening.

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Ask, Believe and Receive

6th March

 “Keep on asking, and you will receive what you ask for. Keep on seeking, and you will find. Keep on knocking, and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks, receives. Everyone who seeks, finds. And to everyone who knocks, the door will be opened.”

Matthew 7:7

Part of praying is believing that what you pray for will happen. That is called faith. Faith is not found in prayers of eloquent words or in prayers that have been prayed for long periods of times. Faith is quite simply knowing who it is I am praying too, and knowing that if I ask in His Name and in accordance with His will, it will be done.

Jesus reminds His disciples that an effective prayer is one that believes and receives. If you ask, receive what you are asking. If you are seeking, then you will find and if you are knocking, the right door will open for you. The key is simply believing and receiving in faith. God knows what you need even before you ask. That is why He has already prepared your answer, even before you pray. Yes there are sometimes, when God allows us to make our own decisions based on common sense and God living in us. Yet, when we need divine inspiration, healing, break through, guidance and wisdom, Jesus is at hand to answer our prayers of faith.

The good news is that no prayer is too big or small for our loving Heavenly Father to deal with. He wants what is best for us every time. All we need to do is believe and receive. Don’t lack because you haven’t asked for it. Trust God and He will provide. Trust God and He will guide you.

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Speak Lord, Your Servant Is Listening

5th March

“Suddenly the Lord called out, “Samuel”.” Yes?” Samuel replied. “What is it?” He got up and ran to Eli. “Here I am. Did you call me?” “I didn’t call you”, Eli replied. “Go back to bed.””

1 Samuel 3:4-10

When God speaks do you listen? Can you recognise His voice?

We can rest assured that not everyone gets it the first time. Samuel eventually became one of the Old Testaments most prolific priests, honoured by men and by God. It was his anointing and commission that gave King David his priestly role. Yet if we rewind time to when he was just a boy, we see that it was not always like that.

Hannah, his mother, finally gave birth to a son after many years of tears and agony. She promised God that when she finally had a child she would dedicate him to God and for God’s service. This is where we pick up the story in 1 Samuel 3. Samuel was now living in the temple with Eli the priest. One night, the Lord spoke out to Samuel. Yet Samuel thought Eli was calling him. Again the Lord called Samuel, yet “Samuel did not yet know the Lord because he had never had a message from the Lord before.”

It is so difficult to discern something you do not know or have not heard before. Samuel couldn’t recognise the voice of God because he had never heard it before. Do you sometimes feel like that? Yet just as much as God wanted to talk to Samuel, so He wants to talk to us. Our response should be the same as Samuels. “Speak, Your servant is listening!!” Part of listening to God, is practicing discerning His voice. Our response when we think we can hear God’s voice should be “I am listening”. God wants to talk to us. Our challenge is whether we take the time to listen and discern what He has to say.