devotionals

by

Praying In The Armour Of God: Day 3

25th July

“Put on all of God’s armour so that you will be able to stand firm against all the strategies of the devil. For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.”

Ephesians 6:11-12

What is really going on behind the scenes..? Friends, we are in a spiritual battle. Yet just as Paul said, often our enemy does not come in the form of flesh and blood, but is found in the unseen spiritual world. Yet we are not left as helpless sheep against our wolf-like enemy. We are fully protected by the blood of Jesus and have been equipped with the tools and armoury to withstand the enemy’s strategies. For the next week we will be structuring our devotionals as prayers so that we can guard ourselves against the enemy and his divisive tactics. As you pray the armour of God over your lives, we pray that you will begin to find victory in Him. That fear is swept away and the truth of who you are in Christ we lead you forwards…..

“….and the body armour of God’s righteousness…..”

Lord, this day I choose to reject shame, guilt and condemnation. Guard my heart with Your truth. I thank You that through the power of Your grace I am forgiven and empowered to live righteously before You. I thank You that Jesus became my righteousness for me. Thank You that I do not need to tirelessly live a lifestyle of trying to be righteous because You have done it for me. Protect me, in Jesus’ Name from believing in anything less than what you think of me.

by

Praying In The Armour Of God

23rd & 24th July

Weekend Edition

“Put on all of God’s armour so that you will be able to stand firm against all the strategies of the devil. For we are not fighting against flesh-and-blood enemies, but against evil rulers and authorities of the unseen world, against mighty powers in this dark world, and against evil spirits in the heavenly places.”

Ephesians 6:11-12

What is really going on behind the scenes..? Friends, we are in a spiritual battle. Yet just as Paul said, often our enemy does not come in the form of flesh and blood, but is found in the unseen spiritual world. Yet we are not left as helpless sheep against our wolf-like enemy. We are fully protected by the blood of Jesus and have been equipped with the tools and armoury to withstand the enemy’s strategies. For the next week we will be structuring our devotionals as prayers so that we can guard ourselves against the enemy and his divisive tactics. As you pray the armour of God over your lives, we pray that you will begin to find victory in Him. That fear is swept away and the truth of who you are in Christ we lead you forwards…..

“….Stand your ground, putting on the belt of truth…..”

Lord, this day I recognise the lies of the enemy. I recognise that what he tells me about myself, about You and about my circumstances are all lies. I understand his native language is lies. So I choose to reject the lies in the Name of Jesus and stand in the truth of all God says about me. May I be filled with the promises found in Your word. I am a beloved child of God, part of the bride and army of Christ. I am part of a royal priesthood. I am the head and not the tail. God so loved me that He gave His Only Son for me. I am His!

by

One-ness

22nd July

“I am pray that they will all be one, just as You and I are One….”

John 17:21a

Jesus, when He walked on this earth, often declared that He and the Father were One; a statement which caused great offence to those listening. It was so hard for people to understand. They saw a man, the Son of Joseph, a carpenter, proclaiming that He and the Father were One. If this were true, it would have surely meant that Jesus was God; and for those listening, that would have been understood as blasphemy. Yet, what the people failed to recognise, is that Jesus’ birth as a human on earth, was long foretold though the very scriptures they read and were familiar with. They just chose to reject the truth, reject the prophetic signs and reject Jesus’ very own words. It was that disunity that Jesus indirectly prayed against. Unity is at the very heart of who God is, and it is the same unity found between the Trinity, that Jesus prayed for for His followers (that includes us too).

Moreover, it is, as Jesus said, “perfect unity” by through which “the world will know that You (the Father) sent Me and that You love them (US) as much as You love Me” (verse 23). It is by perfect unity lived out and shown through the Body of Christ, that the world will know the Father and His perfect love. It is from our actions, words and deeds, lived and breathed out in the spirit of unity, joined and connected by Christ, that the world will know more of who Jesus is and more about the Father’s heart for them. Jesus prayed that for His disciples and for us. Let us live in the truth and answer of Jesus’ prayer. Let us be ONE. Let us live in perfect unity with each other. Let us reject disharmony, disunity and discord and replace it with ONE-NESS in Christ.

by

Jesus Prayed For YOU

21st July

“I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in Me through their message.”

John 17:20

Did you know that Jesus prayed for you specifically? If you believe in Jesus, then you are included in Jesus’ prayer found in today’s key verse. You are included in the blessings that He spoke over His disciples and you are included in the covering that Jesus prayed over them. Isn’t that an incredible thought. To know Jesus prayed for you personally. It takes further value when we realise that Jesus and God are the same. Yet Jesus was and is not finished praying for you. Romans 8:34 says that Jesus, the One who died but was raised again, sits at the right hand of God, “interceding for us”. He is constantly presenting Himself as our sacrifice, as our payment and as our ransom, so we don’t have to pay for the sins we commit. His intercession on our behalf, when we confess our wrong doings lead us to salvation and liberty.

Jesus Himself again, showed us another example of His prayers towards man, when He told Peter that He had prayed for Him, in Luke 22:31-32, “satan demanded to have you (Peter), that he might sift you (Peter) like wheat, but I have prayed for you that you faith may not fail.” It was Jesus’ prayer for Peter that helped renew his faith after he had denied Jesus. And what a great influence Peter had in proclaiming the message of the Gospel!

Friends, Jesus prayed and prays for you. He wants you to succeed and is your best supporter.

by

Make Them Holy By Your Truth

20th July

“Make them holy by Your truth; teach them Your word, which is truth.”

John 17:17

Jesus often talked about the importance of knowing the truth. Yet what is the truth? Well, in John 8 verses 31 to 59, Jesus has an encounter with some over zealous Pharisees and Jews in the temple. During His encounter Jesus explained the ‘truth’ about our spiritual status before being adopted into His family. He said that the truth is that ‘everyone who sins is a slave of sin’, yet once we become a member of God’s family our status changes from being a slave, to a son and daughter of God. The power of this truth sets you free, and ‘if the Son sets your free, you are truly free’. We become Jesus’ disciples and His children if ‘we remain faithful’ to His teachings. His teachings are the truth about what God says about US and what God says about HIMSELF. His teachings remind us of our status as sons and daughters, liberated from the chains of the slavery of sin. Again Jesus said, ‘you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free’.

Friends, let us today be set free by the truth of God’s word! We are loved, we are forgiven, we are accepted, we are not worthless but have worth, we are His, and we are chosen! God chose us to pour out His love. He knows us by name, and loves us despite our sin and shame. That is His truth! May that truth set you free.

by

The Way To Eternal Life

19th July

“And this is the way to have eternal life – to know You, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, the one You sent to earth”

John 17:3

Jesus, in Matthew 6, taught us how to pray by giving us ‘the Lord’s prayer’. In His model prayer, we are given guidelines to help us structure our prayers and to give us a basis on what we should be praying for. Here, in John 17, Jesus prays another prayer, which we can also use to help us pray. Furthermore, Jesus’ prayer in John 17, gives us a deeper understanding of Jesus’ heart for the nations, His disciples, His role, and His relationship with the Father. There are many key gems contained in His prayer and today’s verse is one of them.

A question that is often asked is, ‘how do I get eternal life?’ or ‘how can I be saved?’ Jesus in His prayer, gives the answer by outlining a very simple truth. The way to eternal life is ‘to know God and Jesus Christ’. So the next question is ‘how do we know God?’. Well, that answer is found in verse 6, “I have revealed You to the ones you gave me from this world”. How do we know God? Through Jesus. Jesus was both 100% fully God and 100% fully man. All the ideas of who God is, what His character was like, who His heart was for, was found in Jesus. How Jesus acted was like God acts! How He talked was like God talks! What He did was what God does! They are the same. Jesus was God on earth. Jesus revealed God’s nature, character and heart because He was God!

How can we get eternal life? By knowing God! How can we know God? By knowing Jesus!

by

Jesus’ Prayer

18th July

“I am not asking You to take them out of the world, but I ask you to protect them from the evil one.”

John 17:15

We live in a sinful world. It is a fact. However, living in a sinful world doesn’t automatically qualify us to live sinfully. Sometimes when we pray, we pray prayers that ask God to remove us from being surrounded by sin or even to remove us from this world completely. Yet when Jesus came to this earth, did He ask for those things? No! Jesus came for the sake of the fallen world. He came directly to live in a sinful world and to surround Himself with sinful people. Yet He was not content in just mingling with ‘sinners’ to enjoy their lifestyles. On the contrary Jesus came to bring life and light into the darkness. He came to make a difference in the world by laying down His life for ‘sinners’. So just like Jesus, we too are in this world to make a difference and to bring life and light into the darkness.

When we pray, let us not ask God to remove us from this sinful world, but rather pray for the strength to withstand the evil one and his fiery arrows. Let’s pray for strength to make a change as we carry our lanterns into the darkness. We are in this world to make Jesus known!!

by

Knowing What To Rejoice In

16th & 17th July

Weekend Edition

 

“When the seventy-two disciples returned, they joyfully reported to Him,”Lord even the demons obey us when we use Your Name!”….“But don’t rejoice because evil spirits obey you; rejoice because your names are registered in Heaven.”

Luke 10:17, 20

Jesus sent out seventy-two of His disciples on a mission trip with the aim to heal the sick, spread the message of the kingdom of God and to make more workers for His kingdom. He anointed His disciples with power and encouraged them to bring peace wherever they went, if they were accepted.

When they came back they were over joyed at experiencing victory in the spiritual realms and realising how powerful the Name of Jesus was in casting out demons. Yet Jesus reminded them that true joy was found not in spiritual victories but in knowing their position in Heaven.

Today we can know the fullness of what Jesus did for us on the cross and the victory that was won. There is no greater victory than that won at the cross. It is because of that victory that we should rejoice. We should rejoice that we are called Children of God, that we can abide in His love and that whatever comes against us, we can remain secure and unshaken because our names are written in the Book of Life. It is the knowledge of how much we are loved and valued by Jesus that helps us to rejoice in-spite of our circumstances and in the midst of storms. Gaining victories through Jesus’ Name is great, yet the greatest miracle was when your name was written in the Book of Life because and through the Blood of the Lamb.

by

Loved By Him

15th July

“God showed how much He loved us by sending His one and only Son into this world so that we might have eternal life. This is real love – not that we loved God, but that He loved us and sent His Son as a sacrifice to take away our sins.””

1 John 4:9-10

There are verses in the Bible that are so powerful, and so edifying that they almost don’t need any commentary added to them. Today’s verse is one of them. It almost feels like the author has purposefully made it so simple to explain the kind of love God has for us. ‘He sent His only Son, a sacrifice for our sins, so we can have eternal life. This is the love of God.’ This is the true gospel.

Sometime we over confuse it. Yet the truth is so simple. We are loved. We are forgiven. We can have eternal life. And our sins are taken away. There is nothing complicated about it. The complication comes from our own ability to accept this truth when we try and reason and fit the gospel into our lifestyles. Rather than try and change our lifestyles to fit in with the gospel, let’s let the gospel change our lifestyles. Let us be driven by the love He has for us and start accepting what He did for us.

by

Mountains Melt Like Wax

14th July

“The mountains melt like wax before the LORD, before the Lord of all the earth.”

Psalm 97:5

What are mountains before God? If you try to imagine that God is out of our idea of time and out of our scale of thinking, mountains are like nothing to Him. Yet to us, His created children, they are huge. It is almost like our view from the top of a very tall mountain. Everything below seems so small. Yet it is only from the top of the mountain that we get that perspective. When we are at the bottom, the scale of sizes switch perspective. For from the bottom of the mountain, everything looks so big.

Sometimes we really need to re-align our image and perspective of how big God is, to the truth and not the lies that society and problems decrease Him to. If God is that big, imagine how small (yet not insignificant) our needs and problems are. Furthermore, considering the sheer greatness of God and the minuteness of us, isn’t it amazing that He calls us by name and knows the very hairs on our head. Isn’t incredible that He hears our cries and captures our tears in a bottle. Isn’t unfathomable that He would send His only Son for our sakes. That is the God we serve. No matter how big your worries or problems are, know that God is always bigger.