2021-04-01
Malachi 2:6 NKJV
From the very first chapter of Genesis, it’s clear that a relationship with God is the foundation that we must build everything in our lives on. If we try to build on anything else, we’re building on quicksand, because sooner or later, the other things we put our trust in will fail us. We were created with an intense hunger for a relationship with God, and if we don’t hold on to that relationship, we’ll feel an inner void and loneliness. And if we don’t turn back to God to fill it, we’ll try (unsuccessfully) to fill it with these things:
1) People. Having the right people in our lives can help fulfil our need for love and emotional intimacy, but no one other than God can fill the spiritual emptiness within us.
2) Things. Having material things can give us comfort and convenience. Having money can give us options to do good. But we can have material things and still be lonely and unhappy.
3) Religion. God’s not interested in religion; He’s interested in having a relationship with us. Religion only becomes significant when it enhances that relationship, which it doesn’t always do. We can often find that religious rules and regulations become a deterrent to a relationship with God. The Bible is filled with religious people who were so focused on rule-keeping that they missed connecting with God altogether. We need to be careful that we don’t become so preoccupied with other people, chasing material things, or following religious ideologies, that we forget that what really matters most is a personal, intimate, daily, talking-and-listening relationship with God.
Lev 1-4; Matt 26:47-68; Ps 31; Prov 8:34-36
2021-03-31
James 1:2 MSG
The Message version of the Bible paraphrases what James writes like this: ‘Consider it a sheer gift, friends, when tests and challenges come at you from all sides. You know that under pressure, your faith-life is forced into the open and shows its true colours. So don’t try to get out of anything prematurely. Let it do its work so you become mature and well developed, not deficient in any way’ (James 1:2-4 MSG).
The truth is, we all go through trials. One of Jesus’ less popular promises is in John 16:33. He says ‘In this world you will have trouble’ (NIV). We’ve all gone through trouble. Chances are we’ll encounter more pressure in the future, too.
Our following God’s plan can sometimes clash with the ‘fallen’ nature of this world, and that creates tension. The upside, though, is that God can highlight the positive in anything. He uses all pressure to refine us. When Paul says that our ‘faith-life is forced into the open’ when we’re under pressure, that means that our strengths, weakness, and flaws become more apparent through our response to difficulty. It’s a chance for self-reflection, and for God to draw our attention to things that He wants us to work on, to allow Him to change.
The second half of Jesus’ guarantee of trouble in John 16:33 sees Him say ‘take heart! I have overcome the world’ (NIV). No matter how much pressure we find ourselves under, and how many flaws we see in our own response to that, God can change us because He’s already won the battle over all difficulties. Thanks to His victory, we’re on a journey to reflect Him more and more every day.
2 Thes 1-3; Matt 26:30-46; Ps 6; Prov 8:32-33
2021-03-30
Job 23:10 NIV
Job lost his family and his fortune in a single day. But looking back he wrote, ‘When he has tested me, I will come forth as gold.’ It takes much more heat to refine gold than it does to refine a lot of less valuable metals. Which would you prefer to be? To enjoy the blessing God has in mind for us, we have to face life’s tests.
In some buildings and workplaces, a routine fire alarm test happens. For a minute or so, the place is interrupted by the noisy alarm. And those tests are like the ones that come into our lives – unwelcome, uncomfortable, disruptive – and they always seem to come at the worst possible time.
But unlike a fire alarm test, life’s tests don’t last for a very short time and then go away. They can last for weeks, years, and in some cases, for a lifetime. And the reason why may never become completely clear. However, there’s an aspect of life’s tests that we can control – how we respond to it. The truth is, tests are an invaluable, integral, and indispensable part of our spiritual growth. Without them we’ll never grow and mature as much as we need to. And it’s how we handle our ‘tests’ that decides our ‘testimony’.
Paul wrote: ‘Every detail works to your advantage and to God’s glory: more and more grace…more and more praise! So we’re not giving up. How could we! Even though on the outside it often looks like things are falling apart on us, on the inside…not a day goes by without his unfolding grace’ (2 Corinthians 4:15-16 MSG).
Whenever we face tests, God will give us the grace and strength to handle them.
Est 5-10; Matt 26:1-17; Ps 18:1-29; Prov 26:24-27
2021-03-29
John 15:3 NKJV
When we accept Jesus as our Saviour, our new natures are programmed to want to obey God in the same way a calculator is programmed to compute numbers. When you put in the right information, you get the right response. And when we feed our new natures with God’s Word, they’re designed to give us the right response. That’s why Satan tries to keep us so busy doing other things we don’t spend time reading the Bible. His goal is to keep us weak and ineffective.
Paul wrote, ‘We all…beholding as in a mirror the glory of the Lord, are being transformed into the same image’ (2 Corinthians 3:18 NKJV). A mirror is simply a reflector. And the more time we spend in God’s Word, the more we begin to reflect His likeness. But it won’t happen by just grabbing a verse here and there or skimming through a passage. It calls for renewing our minds every day with God’s Word, to the extent that the Holy Spirit connects with our spirits and produces a Christlike lifestyle.
Jesus said: ‘You are already clean because of the word which I have spoken to you. Abide in Me, and I in you. As the branch cannot bear fruit of itself, unless it abides in the vine, neither can you, unless you abide in Me’ (John 15:3-4 NKJV). When food dries on a plate, that plate needs to ‘abide’ in some hot, soapy water so that all the mess can be removed. That’s why we need to soak our minds in God’s Word. It removes not only sin, but hardened, stubborn attitudes that prevent us growing in grace.
Est 1-4; Matt 25:41-46; Ps 69:19-36; Prov 8:30-31
2021-03-28
James 1:22 NCV
James wrote: ‘Do what God’s teaching says; when you only listen and do nothing, you are fooling yourselves. Those who hear God’s teaching and do nothing are like people who look at themselves in a mirror. They see their faces and then go away and quickly forget what they looked like. But the truly happy people are those who carefully study God’s perfect law that makes people free, and they continue to study it. They do not forget what they heard, but they obey what God’s teaching says. Those who do this will be made happy’ (James 1:22-25 NCV).
If we really want to follow God’s will and enjoy the blessings and plans he has for us, we can’t just be passive listeners or readers of God’s Word, forgetting what we’ve learned as soon as our Bibles are closed. We need to let God’s Word into our hearts and allow it to change us. It’s the difference between spending a few hurried moments in the Scripture before rushing into the day, instead of meditating on it until it renews our minds and shapes our characters into the likeness of Jesus.
As we read the Scriptures, the Holy Spirit holds a mirror up in front of us so that we can see the truth and make whatever adjustments are necessary. Pay attention to the words, ‘truly happy people are those who carefully study God’s perfect law…and they continue to study it.’
To really walk in God’s blessing, we need to keep going back to God Word, keep digging into it, and keep allowing it to change us from within, then He’ll take care of the ‘blessing’ part.
Ps 118:19-29; Matt 21:1-16
2021-03-27
Job 22:21 NIV
We are all so connected these days. Anything that can cause us stress is probably in our pocket. Our phones are filled with emails reminding us of work to do, impossible standards to compare our lives to via constant updates on social media, bank apps that won’t let us forget about our money situation. It becomes virtually impossible for us to shut down when our whole world is always powered up in our palm.
The good news? God has a solution. He is the solution. Jesus often disconnected from the world around Him, and went away by Himself to spend time with His Father. John 5:16 tells us that ‘Jesus often withdrew to lonely places and prayed’ (NIV). Have a read of Matthew 14:23, Mark 1:3, Mark 6:46, and Luke 6:12, too.
We know that in our hyper-connected society, and the constant noise that we surround ourselves with, the idea of disconnecting really can feel lonely. We can become more in tune to the world around us than we are to God’s ‘still, small voice’ that’s been trying to get our attention (1 Kings 19:12 NIV).
Silence becomes scary when our default is constant information. We’re intimidated by the idea of being left alone with our own thoughts. But with God, we’re never alone. He’s waiting in the stillness and silence for us to give Him enough space to become the only thing on our minds. Those moments, when it’s just us and God, are when our spirit comes to rest and we can find true, Heavenly peace.
Exo 12:1-14; Matt 26:17-29; 1 Cor 11:20-34; Ps 49
