2020-10-09
Proverbs 15:18 NIV
In the book of Proverbs, we’re often advised to be patient, or slow to get angry (take a look at Proverbs 14:29; 15:18; 16:32). That doesn’t mean that being angry is always wrong. There are only a few times in Scripture when Jesus showed anger. He got angry with the money changers and merchants in the temple, who weren’t charging fair prices and were treating the holy place as a market. (You can read about this in Matthew 21:12-13, Mark 11:15-18 and John 2:13-22.) He was also angry with the Pharisees in Mark 3:4-5 when they wouldn’t answer His question about whether it was right to heal someone on the Sabbath. Jesus got angry with unfairness, corruption, and hypocrisy, especially when those involved should have known better. But He never became angry about what someone did to Him, and never retaliated or lashed out at people who wronged Him. Even as His executioners nailed Him to the cross, He prayed, ‘Father, forgive them, for they don’t know what they are doing’ (Luke 23:34 NLT).
We should follow His example. Proverbs 15:1 says: ‘A gentle answer deflects anger, but harsh words make tempers flare’ (NLT). During an argument, what usually happens is the people involved tend to match their tones of voice, so when one shouts, the other shouts back. But if someone takes a moment to check their tone, and replies to a shouted, angry comment with a calm, gentle reply, it can take some of the heat out of the situation, and avoid it becoming a furious confrontation where the people involved achieve very little beyond upsetting each other.
So let’s follow Jesus’ example, and try to be patient, calm and gentle, even when we’re dealing with angry, hurtful people.
1 Sam 27-31; John 1:43-51; Ps 23; Prov 23:4-5
2020-10-08
1 Thessalonians 5:16 ESV
When you’re going through a difficult time, do you ever find yourself asking, ‘Why me, God? Why don’t you answer my prayers? Why doesn’t Your Word encourage me like it seems to encourage others?’ Maybe your friends have tried to help by saying things like ‘stay positive’, ‘it’s all for the best’, or quoting Bible verses like ‘For I know the plans I have for you’ (Jeremiah 29:11 NIV) or ‘Rejoice always’ (1 Thessalonians 5:16 ESV).
While all these things might be true, they often just make us feel worse. We might feel like failures as Christians because we’re not full of joy and we’re not feeling positive. When life overwhelms us, the last thing we feel like doing is giving thanks. So how can we cultivate an attitude like Paul’s, who sang hymns and worshipped God while in prison? Here are a few ideas:
1) Acknowledge how we’re feeling. We can think that we have to hide our feelings, because Christians are supposed to ‘rejoice always’. But we should admit how we’re feeling to God, then He can help us begin to heal and regain our joy.
2) Refuse to retaliate. When something bad happens to us, often our first reaction is to retaliate, get angry, or even to blame God. But as we saw in yesterday’s reading, there are still reasons to be thankful even in the bad times. Which leads us to:
3) Choose to give thanks. This might not come naturally at first, so we may have to make a conscious effort to be thankful.
We need to remember that God hasn’t let us down before, and hold on to the fact that He wants the best for us. When we do that, we’ll feel more able to rejoice and give thanks.
1 Sam 24-26; John 1:29-42; Ps 131; Prov 23:1-3
2020-10-07
1 Thessalonians 5:18 ESV
Giving thanks infuses joy and resilience into our daily lives. When we leave out gratitude, our faith becomes hollow and empty, and we end up just going through the motions rather than following God from our hearts. Being grateful might not always seem logical to us. But when Paul said, ‘Give thanks in all circumstances; for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you,’ he wasn’t saying that every circumstance we encounter is necessarily God’s will. He also wasn’t saying that we have to give thanks for the bad circumstances we’re going through. Instead, we need to learn to thank God through them and in spite of them.
Here are two reasons that might lead to us facing difficult times:
1) We’ve strayed from God’s path and allowed ourselves to get caught up in ungodly or harmful things.
2) God might guide us to face something challenging because it’s part of the fulfilment of His plan or He needs us to learn something.
But whatever the reason, there’s always something we can thank Him for. If it’s the first, we know that ‘in all things God works for the good of those who love him’ (Romans 8:28 NIV). God might not have designed the circumstances, but He can bring something good out of them when we choose to turn back to Him. We can thank Him for the positive things that He’ll bring out of the situation. If it’s the second, we can be thankful for His teaching and for walking with us through the things we’re facing. We don’t need to be thankful for the circumstances we’re in, but we should learn to thank God for what He’s doing in us because of them.
1 Sam 20:30-23:29;
John 1:14-28;
Ps 29;
Prov 22:26-29
2020-10-06
Ecclesiastes 11:4 NIV
When we think about the word ‘investing’, we often think of something like the TV programme Dragons’ Den – rich people giving large amounts of money to help businesses, in the hope that they’ll receive even more money back in the future. We may never have those levels of money to invest, but we can use our money, time, or skills to help others.
The Bible has lots of advice about investing, which we can apply to time, money, or something else. Ecclesiastes 11 begins: ‘Ship your grain across the sea; after many days you may receive a return’ (v.1 NIV). We shouldn’t hoard our money, time, or skills; instead we should share them and use them to help others who are lacking in what we have plenty of.
We need to pray and seek God’s wisdom about any investment we make, so we can patiently hope to get back what we gave up, and maybe more, either through other people paying us back, or through God blessing us for our faithfulness. But even if we don’t get our investment back, if we’ve asked for God’s advice first, we can be happy knowing that we’re following His will and using our resources for His kingdom.
Later on in Ecclesiastes, we read: ‘Whoever watches the wind will not plant; whoever looks at the clouds will not reap.’ If we’re looking for external signs that it’s ‘the perfect time’ to invest, or looking for ‘the perfect situation’ to invest and help others, we’ll never do anything – there’ll always be challenges to face. But we don’t have to understand or predict what’s going to happen – we just need to seek God, ask for His wisdom on using our God-given resources, then act on what He says.
1 Sam 18:1-20:29; John 1:1-13; Ps 92; Prov 22:24-25
2020-10-05
Philippians 2:16 NLT
We must be prepared to give up instant gratification for long-term achievements.
Paul wrote: ‘Hold firmly to the word of life; then, on the day of Christ’s return, I will be proud that I did not run the race in vain and that my work was not useless.’
Nothing is more important in life than the choices we make. The Bible says, ‘Abram settled in the land of Canaan, and Lot moved his tents to a place near Sodom and settled among the cities of the plain’ (Genesis 13:12 NLT). Lot prospered for a while, but in the end, everything he worked for was destroyed. Then, ‘the LORD said to Abram after Lot had parted from him: “Look around from where you are…all the land that you see I will give to you and your offspring forever”‘ (vv. 14-15 NIV). Lot chose to settle in the wrong place and lost everything, but Abraham chose the right direction and gained everything.
When we’re faced with a choice, it’s a good idea to get into the habit of asking ourselves a few questions: ‘How will this choice affect my character and my self-respect? How will this choice affect my family and people who might look to me for a role-model? How will I feel when I tell God about my choice?’
The Bible says: ‘We are surrounded by a great cloud of people whose lives tell us what faith means. So let us run the race before us and never give up. We should remove from our live anything that would get in the way and the sin that so easily holds us back. Let us look only to Jesus, the One who began our faith and who makes it perfect’ (Hebrews 12:1-2 NCV).
1 Sam 16-17; Luke 24:45-53; Ps 63; Prov 22:17-23
2020-10-04
Hebrews 12:1 NLT
Here are two more things we need to be aware of:
1) The wrong people will hurt us. We shouldn’t allow people who could drag us away from God’s path to influence us. People who are very negative, draining, distracting, or try to belittle us can wear us down and turn us away from God’s call. We should love these types of people, and try to help them if we can, but we mustn’t allow them to influence us or lead us. It’s right to try to encourage them, but if we feel their attitudes begin to pull us down instead of lifting us up, we should kindly and graciously disconnect from them and hand them to God.
2) The right people will help you. When God has a job to be done, He calls someone to do it. But He rarely calls them alone. He’ll often call others to stand with them and support them. When we reach for help, it isn’t a sign of weakness, but of strength, and acceptance of God’s plan. Paul spent an entire chapter in the New Testament acknowledging the people who helped him fulfil his vision. Here’s what he said to the Philippians: ‘Every time I think of you, I give thanks…Whenever I pray, I make my requests for all of you with joy, for you have been my partners in spreading the Good News about Christ from the time you first heard it until now’ (Philippians 1:3-5 NLT).
We need to have the humility to acknowledge that God hasn’t given us the skills to do some things, hand them over to others who do have those skills, and focus on using our own skills and strengths to play our unique part in God’s plan.
Est 4:9-5:3; Heb 4:7-16
