Devotions

Being Wise (Proverbs 9)

Wisdom (62/365)

Do not rebuke mockers or they will hate you;
rebuke the wise and they will love you.
9 Instruct the wise and they will be wiser still;
teach the righteous and they will add to their learning.
10 The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom,
and knowledge of the Holy One is understanding.

Foolish people hate rebukes or instruction because to the fool the goal is being right. To the fool, validation comes in the form of approval from others, not in truth.

Truth applied rightly is wisdom. And the person of truth – Jesus – is the one we solely should seek to please and be approved by. To seek validation in Christ alone is true wisdom.

That is why a rebuke, instruction and correction is received by the wise person.

The wise person knows “this is keeping me in line with the truth”. The wise person knows I need others to gently show me where I am veering from the truth. The wise person knows left to my own understanding I am going to drift away from the truth – the person of Truth, Jesus Christ.

When we humbly live like this, we show our fear of the Lord and grow even more in wisdom, understanding and truth.

PRAYER: Father, today I humble myself. I need correction. I need others to reveal my failings that I might grow in you and stay close to you. I choose wisdom and truth Lord. In Jesus name, Amen.

Preparing the Way (Luke 3)

Mountain Path

Luke 3:4-6 says:

“A voice of one calling in the wilderness,
‘Prepare the way for the Lord,
make straight paths for him.
5 Every valley shall be filled in,
every mountain and hill made low.
The crooked roads shall become straight,
the rough ways smooth.
6 And all people will see God’s salvation.’”

John the Baptist is who the above passage was written about. His purpose was as one who went before the coming of Jesus, the messiah, and prepared people for His coming.

In the same way, God is preparing His people today to be forerunners like John the Baptist for the second coming of Jesus.

If you know Jesus, one of your purposes is to be used by God so that others may also know Him. Our job is to “make ready the way of the Lord”. Why do we do this? So that “all flesh will see the salvation of God”.

How do do this? We make “crooked roads straight, rough roads smooth, low valleys will be lifted and high mountains brought low”. In other words, we remove any barriers to people being brought to Jesus.

Preparing the way for the return of Jesus requires being a bridge to people, doing the heavy ground work of prayer and fasting, humbling ourselves from self-exalted mountain-tops, lifting others from deep in the valleys of darkness and despair, and lifting the name of Jesus with our “voice calling in the wilderness”.

Jesus is coming back. We need to get ready and take others with us.

Wisdom or Wealth (Proverbs 8)

Crowne-Gold-Silver-Bullion

Proverbs 8:10-11 says:

“Take my instruction and not silver,
And knowledge rather than choicest gold.
11 “For wisdom is better than jewels;
And all desirable things cannot compare with her.

How many of us if we had the choice of gold or instruction, would choose instruction?

Come on, be honest! It’s hard to make the argument for instruction, isn’t it?

Yet, the Word of God is quite clear wisdom is more precious than Gold, silver or rubies. Why is this?

It has to do with what we value. Most people just value cash. And they are on a chase to get more of it, more quickly.

Yet cash is not the solely the answer to anything on it’s own. Dollars in your bank account won’t make you feel loved, it won’t provide a reason for getting up in the morning, and it certainly can’t go with you into eternity.

To use wealth effectively – to solve problems, to empower others, to achieve things of value, to maximise it’s value – you need wisdom. Wealth by itself is not complete. It needs something to go with it for it be useful; wisdom.

Wisdom can maximise the best of any situation. Whereas dollars by themselves need to be stewarded and directed.

Wisdom can solve problems. Wealth only has the potential to solve problems. Wisdom is what is missing, not just wealth. Therefore, choose wisdom.

PRAYER: Father, let me not be blinded by wealth. I choose wisdom today. I ask for a spirit of wisdom and revelation from you Lord. In Jesus name, Amen.

The Benefits of a Wholly Devoted Heart (1 Kings 8)

1 Kings 8:61 says:

Let your heart therefore be wholly devoted to the Lord our God, to walk in His statutes and to keep His commandments, as at this day.”

God is looking for disciples whose hearts are wholly devoted to Him.

Too often in the modern church, we convert people to the name of Christ and neglect making wholly devoted disciples of Jesus.
Too often we start strong and finish poorly, as our hearts are woo-ed by other interests and desires.
Too often we find Christians sitting in church services but whose hearts are somewhere else because they are separated from their first love.

God wants people whose hearts are wholly devoted to Him.

And he tells us what you can expect IF you give your heart completely over to Him in the verses preceding this one (1 Kings 8:57-60):

1. LIVE IN GOD’S REST

56 “Blessed be the Lord, who has given rest to His people Israel

A fully committed heart to God enables you to live in the REST of God. A divided heart creates a tired, weary life. It is unnecessarily complex. Jesus said “Come to Me, all who are weary and heavy-laden, and I will give you rest.” (Matthew 11:28)

2. KNOW GOD’S PRESENCE IS WITH YOU

57 May the Lord our God be with us, as He was with our fathers; may He not leave us or forsake us

If your heart is fully committed to someone or something, you become very attentive to them / it. So it is with God. When we wholly devote our affections and desires to Him, we become acutely aware of His presence. And that He will never leave or forsake us.

3. SO THAT ALL MAY KNOW

60 so that all the peoples of the earth may know that the Lord is God; there is no one else.

The Lord desires a people in the earth that He can point to as those that reflect the character of God in creation. A people wholly devoted to God is God’s advertisement to rest of His creation – I love you and want you to call my own! Harvest happens with wholly devoted hearts.

PRAYER: Father, I recommit my heart and my way to you. I love you and ask you to take all of me for your glory. In Jesus name, Amen.

Hope vs. Lies (Exodus 5)

Exodus 5 verses 1 and 9 says:

And afterward Moses and Aaron came and said to Pharaoh, “Thus says the Lord, the God of Israel, ‘Let My people go that they may celebrate a feast to Me in the wilderness.’”…

9 Let the labor be heavier on the men, and let them work at it so that they will pay no attention to false words.”

Israel was in slavery in Egypt. But God had a plan.

God’s plan was to jailbreak Israel out from Pharaoh’s clutches and make them a free people, free to worship Him.

But Pharaoh was not going to have any part in that! He ordered the Israelites back to work, upping the ante in his brick making demands.

Pharaoh is a type of satan. We learn about the nature of our enemy by surveying the nature of Pharaoh.

Like Israel, God’s desire is to release us from bondage and slavery and make us free to serve and worship Him. That is His desire and plan for us.

What we see hear is that as the people of God gain hope, the enemy comes along just a quickly to snuff it out. Do you notice that? Have you ever experienced that?

Note how the enemy tries to do that:

1. Difficulties Escalate – when you are within arm’s reach of hope, the enemy will work over time to escalate the trying nature of your circumstances.

2. Increased Labour – the enemy will love to bump up the load your carrying to discourage from believing for breakthrough

3. Lying to you – Pharaoh calls God’s promises “lies”. The enemy would love you to doubt God. He slanders God by calling Him a liar. Ironically, satan is the “father of lies”.

Whenever you notice any of these occurrences follow a glimmer of hope, a breath of breakthrough or the sighting of the new day, tell yourself it is the enemy trying to spoil the good that God has planned!

Reject it, renounce it, call it out! And let the God of Hope flood your heart and life.

PRAYER: Father, I recognise you as the God of Hope. I choose to position myself before you to live in the freedom that Jesus bought for me. Thank you Lord, Amen.

Two Paths (Proverbs 4)

Proverbs 4:18-19 says:

But the path of the righteous is like the light of dawn,
That shines brighter and brighter until the full day.
19 The way of the wicked is like darkness;
They do not know over what they stumble.

There are two ways, two paths in life.

One is bright and gets even brighter still. As time passes, the brightness and the light shines ever more and in greater intensity. This is the way of the righteous person. This is the way of the Lord.

The other is the way of the wicked. It is shrouded in darkness and that darkness causes people to lose their bearings, and dull their senses as to what is around them. The way of darkness causes people who walk in it to become completed blinded and unaware of their true condition, and to stumble and fall.

Too often we complicate life. We love to debate various shades of grey. We love to look for loopholes and ways around what God has said. We love to justify why it can’t be “that simple”.

But God says there are two ways. The way of light – the way of the righteous. And the way of darkness – the way of the wicked.

A person of faith understands to take this simple truth, to believe it, to discern what is light and what is darkness and to choose the light.

PRAYER: Father, I choose to walk in the light, your light. Reveal darkness in my life. Show me that I may repent of it. Illuminate my way. In Jesus name, Amen