devotionals

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Hallelujah – No Greater Word

13th September

“Then I heard what sounded like a great multitude, like the roar of rushing waters and like loud peals of thunder, shouting: “Hallelujah! For our Lord God Almighty reigns. Let us rejoice and be glad and give Him glory….!!””

Revelations 19:6-7a

Hallelujah is such a fantastic word. It is one of the few words that cannot be translated into another language. Wherever you go in this world, it is most likely if you visit a Christian brother or sister and say Hallelujah, they will understand you and praise God with you. It’s meaning derives from the word Hallel (which means praise) and Jah (which come from the word Yahweh, the highest name given to God). In other words, every time we say Hallelujah, we are declaring that God is great and worthy of praise. We elevate His Name, we praise Him above our situations and we declare that He is to be praised.

Moreover, we speak a ‘Heavenly’ language when we say Hallelujah. The writer of Revelation, writing about the vast crowds of believers in Heaven, so dramatically sums up the power of such an honorific word and likens it to a roar of rushing water and loud peals of thunder. What a wonderful imagery of what it must sound like in Heaven when we declare ‘Hallelujah’ over our lives in worship of our Heavenly and Majestic Father. Today, be filled with joy and excitement as you rediscover the joy of ‘praising the Lord’ with a Heavenly declaration. Declare His Lordship over your lives. Hallelujah! Praise the Lord Almighty.

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The Privilege Of Praise

12th September

“Let them all praise the name of the Lord. For His name is very great; His glory towers over the earth and heaven!”

Psalm 148:13

Did you know that even the sun and moon praise God! Everything that God created is a vessel for giving praise back to Him. The Psalmist in Psalm 148 creates an extensive list of all things that praise God. However, why did he choose to write such a long list? Maybe he was trying to show us that actually, everything that we can see around us, and even the things that we can’t see, all were made by God’s mighty hands and all sing in praise and rejoice in obedience to His commands.

See it is a joy to join in with all of creation in praising our Creator God. We are in included in the things created. Isn’t it incredible that we can join with the sun and moon, the vapours high above the clouds, the wild animals in the fields and the fish that swim in the deepest oceans, in praising our great God. Moreover, we are God’s finest creations. We are the ones whom He sacrificed His only Son for. We are the ones whom God chose to have a relationship with. We are the ones whose hearts Jesus has made His home. We are God’s chosen people. His bride. His church. His body. If the wind and waves rejoice in praise, then how much more such we praise our God.

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We Are Free

10th & 11th September

Weekend Edition

“For everyone has sinned; we all fall short of God’s glorious standard. Yet God freely and graciously declared that we are righteous. He did this through Christ Jesus when He freed us from the penalty for our sins. For God presented Jesus as the sacrifice for our sins…..”

Romans 3:23-25a

Praise the Lord. We are free from the penalty of sin. We are are not condemned but declared righteous by the gift of grace and by the gift of Jesus’ own sacrifice for us. Isn’t that great news to start your weekend with? In fact, isn’t that great news to start the rest of your life with?

The writer of Romans explains, that everyone of us has fallen short of God’s glorious standards. These standards are ‘God’s laws’ or ‘The Ten Commandments’. Although these are guidelines for our living, quite often we fall short of obeying them. Yet God in His grace is like a boxing referee. We may get knocked down (the feeling when we sin) and not be able to get up after the ‘Ten count’, yet God still keeps counting, 11, 12, 13 and so on…. He wills us on. ‘Get up’, ‘Get up’, He shouts to us. ‘My grace is sufficient for you’, ‘You are declared righteous’, ‘Jesus paid for your sins’!!

The enemy’s lie is to beat us down, tell us we are not worthy and declare us ‘sinners’ not fit for the presence of God. BUT God the Judge, God the Righteous, and God our Saviour thinks otherwise and tells us so. We, are declared righteous, free and safe from the penalty of sin. If you don’t believe in Jesus’ saving power, then maybe today is the day to start the beginning of the rest of your life by accepting this great news of grace and love. We are free……!!!!

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The Grey Areas

9th September

“But if you have doubts about whether or not you should eat something, you are sinning if you go ahead and do it. For you are not following your convictions. If you do anything you believe is not right, you are sinning.”

Romans 14:23

Romans 14 is a wonderful passage that deals with conflict in the church over various doctrinal and spiritual disciplinary issues. Above all, Paul calls for peace. He calls for all people to be accountable for their own convictions whilst honouring others convictions too, so as not to cause conflict between fellow believers. Yet how do we discern or decipher our own convictions? How did the Christians in the New Testament discover what was acceptable and what was not? Which day was the ‘Holy Day’? Which ‘foods’ were permissible to eat and which foods should they not eat? Well, Paul’s answer is this, ‘do what you think is right, and don’t do what you think is wrong’.

As Christians, our moral and holy standards are set for us in the Bible. We have been given the Ten Commandments as guidelines for our lives, often echoed by Jesus in His teachings. Yet what about the grey areas? What about the things we are not sure of, that could be right or could be wrong? Things that are not specifically written in the ‘rules’? Well, Paul’s answer in Romans 14:23 is simple, “if you do anything you believe is not right, you are sinning”. Yet where does this surety of what is right or wrong come from? Answer: The Holy Spirit living in you. It is the Holy Spirit’s convictions in us, that help us to know what is wrong or right. His voice in our hearts is like a spiritual alarm bell that alerts us to the dangers of sin. The challenge is, to then accept His prompting and not suppress His voice.

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Love God Love People: The Greatest Commandment

love-god-people

 

8th September

 

“Teacher. Which is the most important commandment in the law of Moses? Jesus replied, “‘You must the Lord your God with all you heart, all your soul, and all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. A second equally important: ‘Love your neighbour as you love yourself.’”

Matthew 22:36-39

Jesus, in discussion with the Sadducees and Pharisees, was asked a faith defining question by an expert in religious law. He was trying to trick Jesus into saying something controversial or ‘heretical’ yet Jesus’ answer not only silenced His critics, but set a moral foundation for what our faith and ‘religion’ should look like forever. Jesus’ answer highlighted two basic human guidelines: Our need to love God and our need to love each other.

Loving God, encompasses and includes every part of our lives. ‘Our hearts, our souls and our minds’ is a holistic imagery or loving God with every part of you. Whatever you think about, whatever is going on in your hearts, with every ounce of our lives, we are commanded to love God. Jesus didn’t say these words because He was being egotistic. He said these words, because out of our loving bond with Jesus and our relationship with God, is birthed love for others. The root of love is God. It started with Him and continues in Him. Without our relationship with God we cannot love others. Our relationship with God is the perfect example of acceptance, grace and mercy.

Loving God is not only us putting Him first in our lives or even including Him in all we do, think and say. It is also receiving and accepting His love too. In fact, we cannot love God, if we first don’t accept His love. After all, the root of love, starts from God. When we learn to accept God’s love, we can love Him with everything in us, and in turn love others too. Our image of ourselves increases as we discover how much God truly loves us too.

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The Ten Commandments: Number Eight & Ten

7th September

Appreciate what you have

“You must not steal… you must not covet your neighbour’s house. You must not covet your neighbour’s wife, male or female servant, ox or donkey, or anything else that belongs to your neighbour.”

Exodus 20:15, 17

Don’t steal, Don’t be jealous

Today, as we take on the last two commandments given to Moses, we again address a heart issue in the topic of stealing, and ultimately of jealousy. Stealing is the consequence of coveting, lusting after or being jealous of what you don’t have and of what someone else does have. Coveting insinuates that you lack what others have. Yet what stealing and coveting really are, is a lie from the enemy. The enemy says ‘you don’t have’ or that ‘you lack’, but that is a clear contradiction from what the Bible says about us. Did not Jesus promise to look after us? Did He not say that we are more valuable than the birds of the air that He feeds? Did He not say that He already knows what we need before we even ask? Did He not promise to protect and provide for us? These are God’s promises!!

Stealing and coveting is in direct conflict with the truth; the truth that we are sons and daughters of the Most High God. That means that our Heavenly Father is God; Yes, the same God who created the world and everything in it, is our Heavenly Father. He has promised to never leave or forsake us. He has promised to shower us with every good blessing. He is a good God. We lack for nothing. That is not to say that God will give us whatever we want even, if it is not good for us. No, He gives us what we need. It is from His unlimited storehouse of goodness that He satisfies and meets all of our needs. All that we have is from God. That is where our contentment and thanksgiving should be found. That leads us in the opposite spirit of stealing and coveting.

Friends, as you try to work out these guidelines in your lives, know that God is your supporter. He wrote these to prosper you, to protect you and to share His heart with you, not to condemn you. Moreover, it is His grace and Holy Spirit in you, that will give you the strength to follow His guidelines into righteous and holy living.

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The Ten Commandments: Number Nine

6th September

Calling to uplift and not knock down

“You must not testify falsely against you neighbour.”

Exodus 20:16

Don’t lie

Lies are cruel and nasty things. They are, as Jesus said, the ‘native language of the enemy’. They’re destructive, can ruin people’s lives and breed so much hatred and bitterness. The root of this commandment was falsely accusing someone of something in a legal context, so as to condemn an innocent person for gain. Sadly the same things are happening thousands of years after God first gave this commandment to Moses. It even happened when Jesus was on trial. The Pharisees tried to “find witnesses to lie about Jesus, so they could put Him to death” (Matthew 26:59), which of course was their aim all along.

As believers, as brothers and sisters in Christ, we are called to act and live in the opposite spirit. Instead of falsely accusing someone, or breeding lies about something, we are instead called to speak life and truth. We are called to “encourage each other and build each other up” (1 Thessalonians 5:11a). Paul again challenges the New Testament believers in Romans 14:19 to live in “harmony in the church and try to build each other up.” Living in the opposite spirit of lies, means that we practically and actively live to thwart the work of lies and replace the lies with truth. We live to extinguish the consequences of lies by showering people with truth. encouragement, grace and love. We live to BUILD EACH OTHER UP not to destroy people and crush them with lies.

Today, as you got about your day, find someone and tell them something encouraging about them. Build them up in truth and grace. Let us act in the opposite spirit of lies and falsehood. Let us practically and actively live to build each other up.

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The Ten Commandments: Number Six and Seven

5th September

The problem starts in your mind

“You must not murder. You must not commit adultery.”

Exodus 20:13-14

Jesus said the following words in His sermon on the Mount to His disciples. He said, “you have heard the commandment that says, ‘you must not commit adultery’. But I say, anyone who even looks at a woman with lust had already committed adultery with her in his heart.” Although these are deep and challenging words for a Monday morning and the start of a new week, they are also a timely reminder to first of all, guard our eyes but also our hearts and our minds. Just like committing adultery with our thoughts, murder too has a starting point, which Jesus refers to as anger just a few verses before in His sermon on the Mount.

You see, all sin has a starting point. Very rarely do you just sin without a premeditated course of action before hand. Look at David for example, when he committed adultery with Bathsheba. He saw her bathing from his throne room, allowed his thoughts to get carried away and took action. It is the same with murder. It you don’t deal with the anger you have towards someone, it can eventually escalate to so much more. This is why Jesus highlighted that guarding our thought life is essential in our journey in purity and holiness.

As we start a new week, let us ask God once more to purify our hearts, clean our minds and lead us away from temptation. Let us put on the helmet of Salvation and the belt of truth to recognise the enemy’s lies and walk in the truth of Jesus.

Lord, would you help us to set our minds on Heavenly things.

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The Ten Commandments: Number Five

3rd – 4th September

Weekend Edition

The blessings of parents

“Honour your father and mother. The you will live a long, full life in the land the Lord your God is giving you.”

Exodus 20:12

Honour you father and mother

For some, commandment number five makes hard reading. Perhaps your parents have been abusive, exasperating or even not around in your life. Maybe you ask yourself the question ‘how can I honour my parents when…..’. Well firstly, there is hope. If you are a child of God, then know that your heavenly Father only has good for you, only has plans to prosper you and not to harm you (Jeremiah 29:11). The Psalmist also says of God, that He is the Father to the fatherless (Psalm 68:5). He is a good Father and He loves us, His children unconditionally. If you have had a bad or painful experience with your earthly parents, know that your Heavenly Father, is going to restore your hurts and pains. He only has good for you and will lovingly and gently restore and heal you.

Parenting is a hard job. The responsibility to bring someone into this world, raise them, care for them, teach them moral values, provide for them, give them an education, food on their table and a roof over their head, is an enormous task. It is for this reason that God saw it fit to include ‘honouring your parents’ in the guidelines for healthy and spiritual living. Honouring your parents, although it may be hard to do sometimes, is a healthy and spiritual discipline. Paul, in Ephesians 6:1 also alludes to this and says, “Children, obey your parents because you belong to the Lord, for this is the right thing to do.” In addition, this is the only commandment with a promise of blessing attached to it. Even Jesus, hanging on the cross, made sure that when He had died, His mother would be taken care of. Moreover, it is God that gives us the grace to honour our parents, accept them for who they are (faults and all), and love them with the same love that God loves us with.

There is a huge blessing in honouring our parents. As you work out how this looks in your own life, may you find God’s strength, healing, grace and empowerment to honour them as part of your daily spiritual disciplines.

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The Ten Commandments: Number Four

2nd September

Sabbath Day Principle

“Remember to observe the Sabbath day by keeping it holy. You have six days each week for your ordinary work; but the seventh day is a Sabbath day of rest dedicated to the Lord your God. . . . ”

Exodus 20:8-10a

Keep the Sabbath day holy

What is the ‘Sabbath day’ and how can we keep it holy? Well, Biblically or according to Jewish law, the Sabbath was and is commonly know to be held on a Saturday. It literally implies, as per the law given to Moses, that no-one should do any work or labour on the Sabbath, including livestock, servants and even foreigners living among Jewish people (read the rest of verse 10). This principle originated when God created the world. He made the world in six days and on the seventh day He rested. Of course God in His supreme nature does not need rest, but rather He was demonstrating the spiritual discipline of setting time aside for rest and communion with God.

Yet how can we make time in such a busy world to take a Sabbath day? Did Jesus? Jesus often had many conflicts with the over-zealous and religious Pharisees as to what a ‘Sabbath’ looked like. Jesus was often condemned for doing miracles on the Sabbath day, which would have been classed as ‘work’. Yet Jesus’ actions were demonstrating a principle rather than a black and white rule. Of course Jesus did not come to break or change the law but to fulfil it; in other words, show us how we can practically live out God’s guidelines in our lives. What Jesus did do, was to regularly separate Himself from His disciples and from the crowds and carve out time that He and the Father could commune and He could rest in the Spirit.

Friends, if Jesus knew that taking time out to be still and rest in God was important and necessary, then how much more should we make it a discipline in our lives. A challenge for us all is to implement a ‘Sabbath day principle’ into our daily lives, to carve out time to rest and refresh in God and to make it regular. Let’s not get so caught up in our daily lives that we forget to make time for Jesus.