July 30: Matthew 25:31-40
Key Verse: Matthew 25:40
The King will reply, “Truly I tell you, whatever you did for one of the least of these brothers and sisters of mine, you did for me.”
Devotion:
Some of us will look back on our lives and wonder when we did anything for God, or we may even feel guilty we have not participated in events organised by other Christians... But God looks a whole lot deeper into your life than you realise. Here we are reminded God is watching us in our lives with other people – not because He has to keep an eye on us to make sure we don’t do anything wrong, but because His people are all around us!
We often forget how much of the population belongs to God because many people just don’t act like we think they should if they were Christians! We have our ways of seeing the world and others have their own way of looking at the world. God sees it for what it is – something we often overlook.
As you walk down the road today, think what you would do if the people you walk past were known to you to be Christians... would you be acting differently to how you are now? What if they are closet Christians, hiding from the world because they are scared to own up? What if they were greater prayer warriors than you? We don’t actually know people from the inside like God does – we pick up on how they act!
God wants us to go out there and treat every person as if they were His child; He wants us to go out and love the people around us as if they were our brothers and sisters. God knows their heart just as He knows your heart. If we treated each other as if they were our actual brothers and sisters, then maybe the world would be a better place!
Points to Ponder:
Is the first person you see today a Christian?
Will you treat them as a fellow Christian even if they are not?
July 29: Psalms 10:12-15
Key Verse: Psalms 10:15
Break the arm of the wicked man; call the evildoer to account for his wickedness that would not otherwise be found out.
Devotion:
As Christians we all like to say how much God helps the helpless and the needy, but how much do we do to help them? As humans we all like to wish bad things happen to bad people – but what would Jesus do if He were here living as your neighbour.
Our daily prayers should be to praise God for everything He is doing in our lives and to worship Him for the same! Then we should be asking Him to look out for the people who need Him most; those who are needy, those who have nobody else to help them and those who have been left behind. As Christians we can go a long way to help these same people out – Christ will use us to help them if we allow Him to guide us and show us how.
Wicked people tend to shy away from God because they are either hiding stuff or they don’t want to mix with good people because they will be shown up for who they really are. I’m not saying Christians are righteous or without the need for help, but if you are like me, you accept all that God has given you and you try to help others out when you know they are in need. I still get things wrong and I know I have issues – but God allows me to work even with those issues!
Let us not ask God to bring bad things on the evil people but rather to shine light around them so they will either be encouraged to go toward the light or at the least leave the dark and shadows behind for a season. Let us not wish bad things on people we perceive as bad, but to bring God’s light into their lives so they can see what good can do in their lives too...
Points to Ponder:
Have you helped anyone out today?
Will you pray for someone you think has issues today?
July 28: Psalm 7:14-17
Key Verse: Psalm 7:16
The trouble they cause recoils on them; their violence comes down on their own heads.
Devotion:
Whilst we can all tell of a time or times when someone evil has got good rewards, we can probably all tell of the time soon afterward when that person or people got into trouble for doing what they were doing! We may think of the world as being a place where the bad people get their just deserts at some stage or another, but the truth is the world does not level itself out but tends toward chaos instead.
It is God who is the great leveller. God is righteous and just. This means He will take account of the bad things which people do because they do these things to His children and He will allow them to face the consequences of their actions. He will also take notice of the good people do to His children and give us a reward which He deems appropriate for out actions.
When we harbour bad people or unjust ways, we must expect bad things to follow at some stage; not because God will head bad things on us, but because the bad we have been collecting will spill into our lives and into the lives of the people around us. If we try to bury those bad things by hiding them from others, we are only fooling ourselves because God knows exactly what we have been up to and He never forgets!
But, the most amazing thing is God’s love which covers all manner of things in our lives. Because we know God is righteous and just, we should sing of His praises and allow others to know of His righteousness and justice. The more we allow others to see the truth, the more likely they will be to do things which fall in line with that justice...
Points to Ponder:
Do you praise God for the just things He does?
Do you praise God for keeping justice in this world?
July 27: Psalm 7:3-5
Key Verse: Psalm 7:5
then let my enemy pursue and overtake me; let him trample my life to the ground and make me sleep in the dust.
Devotion:
What happens when things go against you and you don’t like what is happening to you? Typically we call out for help or we shut down – just two of the extremes we take when things go bad! But, when you know you have done wrong, are you willing to accept the consequences for what you have done wrong? I think the answer here is going to depend on what you think you have done wrong and also on what you think you are entitled to!
We do tend to have this puffed-up idea of what we are entitled to, and we expand on those entitlements when things start to go wrong – in other words, we expand on what we think we should be able to do without getting the blame... or, if we look at it another way, we blame others!
One of the easiest things to do is to blame someone when you see something going wrong in their life – why else would things go wrong unless they have done something wrong?!? Well, God doesn’t work like that. His love for us goes far and beyond what we have done wrong or what we are going to do wrong. He allowed Jesus to come to our aid before we did anything wrong – before we were even born!
But when we do things wrong, and we sin against God – what do we do about it. It takes a whole lot of courage to admit to your mistakes and a large dose of strength to accept you are at the centre of the problem! It takes a larger amount of strength to accept the consequences of our actions. God wants to be able to help us out whenever things go wrong – but He also wants us to be real and accept the fact we do get it wrong at times!
Points to Ponder:
Are you always right?
Who do you blame when you do something wrong?