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MONDAY 1st. MARCH
Exodus 3.1-15
The Burning Bush
God’s plan to set His people free

The Israelites had gone down to Egypt when Joseph was in charge. The Pharaoh of the time was very pleased to let Joseph’s family stay in Egypt.

Several generations had passed. The Israelite family had grown into a nation in size. The new Pharaoh who came along was unhappy with such a large band of foreigners in his country. He tried hard to stop their population growing and treated the people very cruelly. He ordered that all male Hebrew children be slaughtered at birth. By being found by Pharaoh’s daughter, Moses escaped death and grew up in the royal household.

Because his own mother was called in to look after him, he learnt how badly treated his people were. When he grew up he left the luxury of Pharaoh’s palace and tried hard to right some of these wrongs. He started by killing an Egyptian who was being cruel to a fellow Israelite.

However, he didn’t get the support he wanted and fled the country, fearful that he would be arrested for what he had done. His attempt to save his people in his own strength had failed. He became a shepherd and was away from his people for many years. Then he had the fantastic experiences we read about in our Bible passage today. When he saw the bush burning and not being consumed, he knew he was in God’s presence. Then God spoke to him and told him His magnificent plan to set His people free and how Moses was to go back and, with God’s almighty power with him, to bring his people out of Egypt. When we try to do something in our own strength, it will fail. If, however, we wait for God and let Him take over our lives, He will speak to us and empower us. When we do what He wants us to do in His strength, it will always succeed.

PRAYER: Lord God, we see so much wrong with the world. Instead of rushing in to change things in our own strength, help us to have the patience to wait for you to do all that you want us to do, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.

TUESDAY 2nd. MARCH
Isaiah 55.1-9
Doing everything God’s way

Whether we believe it or not, everyone needs God. We were all made for God and without God, there is an emptiness in our lives. We cannot live without water. We get thirsty very quickly if we stop drinking. After a few days without water we will die. In the same way, we need God. If we live a life without Him, we will die eternally.

Everyone is thirsty for God. Lots of people try to quench their thirst by looking for satisfaction in the things of this world, but they can never satisfy. If we open our hearts to Jesus and let Him in, if we trust Him as Saviour to cleanse us of our sin and faults, if we trust Him as Lord to take over our lives, then He will come into our hearts and that thirst for God will be quenched. We will be so satisfied.

We don’t have to wait any longer to do this. The Lord is near to us all. He has made Himself available to us all the time. He’s longing to come into our hearts because He made us and we are so very special to Him.

It is important to understand one thing: we have to be willing to let God change our lives. Much of our life lived apart from God is influenced by the world and is not pleasing to Him because the world is contaminated by Satan. Therefore, we have to be willing to repent, which means willing to change our ways to do God’s will and obey all His commands. God is always more than ready to forgive and set our lives right.

God leads us into a completely new way of thinking when He comes into our lives because his thoughts are so different from ours and His ways are so much better.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, we are thirsty for you. We need you. Thank you for showing us this. Come into our hearts right now. We accept you as Saviour, to clean out all our sin and to take over and run our lives. We want your thoughts to be our thoughts and your ways our ways. Come into my heart Lord Jesus, there is room in my heart for you. Amen.

WEDNESDAY 3rd. MARCH
Psalm 63.1-9
Total satisfaction in Jesus

If we have followed the advice of God’s Word in yesterday’s notes, we will have begun to realise how marvellously satisfying God is.

If we seek satisfaction from God, we will always be satisfied. We will never be let down! But, if we seek satisfaction from material things, the satisfaction wont last. Even if we don’t love these things, we get bored with them. If we seek all our satisfaction in our relationships with other people, we are shattered when they reject us or die.

God will never reject us. He will never leave us and it’s impossible to get bored with God. Why? This psalm answers this question. It is because the loving-kindness of God is better than life itself. You really have to experience it before you see how satisfying God’s love is.

Our total satisfaction in Jesus and the whole Trinity turns to joy. We have a very strong desire to express to God how wonderful it is, how fantastic it is to be recipients of His loving-kindness, that we find ourselves wanting to praise Him all day long. We lift our hands up to express this love as we glorify God in song.

The more we glorify God the more of His totally satisfying love filters deeper and deeper into our beings. It’s so wonderful.

When our total satisfaction is in Jesus, whatever happens to us cannot shake us or destroy us. If we lose everything, we are still just as satisfied and happy. If everyone around us dies or deserts us we don’t feel alone and rejected because of the satisfying love of God in our hearts.

PRAYER: Father God, thank you for sending your Son, Jesus, to enable us to experience the fullness of your loving kindness by dying to purify ourhearts. Help us to reach absolutely total satisfaction in you and your fantastic Son, Jesus. Amen.

THURSDAY 4TH MARCH
1 Corinthians 10.1-14
If you think you stand, be careful lest you fall (v12)

We dealt yesterday with the need of every Christian to be totally satisfied with Jesus and His wonderful Father. When we do get into the experience of the loving-kindness of God intoxicating us with his love, we have to be careful. We become the number one target for the devil. He will do everything he can to knock us down. The weapon he loves to use on new Christians is spiritual pride. He makes us think we are better than anyone else and tries to switch our attention away from God onto ourselves.

The children of Israel had had the fantastic experience of being recipients of God’s loving-kindness. He had not only fed them with food and quenched their thirst with water from a rock, but had given them that totally satisfying spiritual nourishment. They experienced the living presence of Jesus, for the Bible says the rock was a spiritual rock and that rock was Christ. There the devil entered. They thought they were so good. Their spiritual pride opened the door to a whole multitude of sins and many were destroyed.

Paul tells us today to be ever on our guard. If we think we stand, take heed lest we fall. In other words, don’t let the devil in, always remembering our total satisfaction comes only from Jesus, not our own egos being boosted up. Because we have the experience of God’s love in our hearts, it doesn’t mean we are better than anyone else. God wants everyone to have his love because He loves everyone equally.

PRAYER: Dear Lord Jesus, keep us on guard all the time. When the devil tries to trip us with spiritual pride, help us to resist him so he flees from us. We thank you that you are in our hearts always, preventing us from falling. Amen.

FRIDAY 5TH MARCH
Luke 22.54-71
I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail

After Jesus ascended back into heaven, we are told that He is always interceding for us (Romans 8.34). When we are baptised and/or when we become born-again believers, we are brothers and sisters of Jesus. He loves us so much He can’t get us out of His mind. He is always pleading the Father on our behalf.

The night before Jesus was arrested, He told Peter that the devil was going to attack him and lead him into denying Jesus. Peter was adamant that this wouldn’t happen, but Jesus predicted that before the cock crowed again, Peter would deny Jesus three times. Jesus said, “I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail and when you have turned back, strengthen your brothers” (Luke 22.32).

If we find that we have fallen, we do not need to despair and give up. The devil will try to get us to do this. He will tell us we are no good and that God doesn’t want us. But the devil is a liar.

The Word of God never lies. It says Jesus has been praying for us. If Jesus is praying for us, we will never fail as long as we keep turning back to Him. If we decide to turn away, then Jesus will honour our decision and withdraw His help from us. It’s important to realise these wonderful truths. Also, stop judging and condemning others who have fallen. Join with Jesus in praying for them and show them God’s love.

PRAYER: Lord Jesus, we thank you that you are seated at the right hand of Almighty God and you are always praying for us that our faith may not fail. May we always remember this. Inspire us to always turn back to you after we have fallen. Amen.

SATURDAY 6TH MARCH
Luke 13.31-35
Jesus longs to gather His children

There is a story told of a mother hen who was sitting on a nest in dry long grass when a bushfire came. Her chicks had only just hatched. When she saw the flames she gathered them all under her wings and kept them safe. The fire killed the hen, but all her chicks were saved.

This is a wonderful parable of Jesus. He is the mother hen who gathers us all under the protection of His power. He died on the cross so that we may live. The power of Jesus’ love was released on the cross! It is power to draw us to God. It is power to save us and it is power to protect us and power to rescue us when we have gone astray.

When the Pharisees warned Jesus that He would have to get out because Herod was trying to kill Him, He assured them He would keep up His ministry as He travelled to his goal. His goal was Jerusalem where He was to achieve the goal of his life - to be our Saviour. As He drew near to Jerusalem, He prayed for the people. If only they knew that He had come from God. If only they knew how much He loved them. His heart was longing for them so much, the chief priests, Pontius Pilate, the Roman soldiers, all of them. He wanted them all to be saved. He wanted them under His wings. But with a sigh of disappointment He says, “But you were not willing”.

PRAYER: Jesus, we know how much you thirst for us and long for us to come to you. Make us ever willing to satisfy your very, very strong desire for each one of us. Help us to show people who are not willing to come to you that they must turn to you if they are to have life. Amen.

JESUS LONGS FOR US SO MUCH

If only we could see into the heart of Jesus we would see just how much He is longing for all of us. By ‘us’ I mean all the people God created in His own image through Jesus!

Words cannot describe how enormous His love for us is. Each one of us is so very, very, very special to Jesus! The most wonderful truth is that He loves us Just as we are, for the Bible says: ‘While we were still sinners Christ died for us’ (Romans 5:8)

One way of looking into the heart of Jesus is to Read through all the accounts of His Passion in the New Testament as well as Isaiah 53 in the Old Testament. Mel Gibson did this and then produced the film ‘The Passion of Christ’ What we find in our search is the enormous price Jesus paid for us. As I watched all the suffering Jesus went through, in Gibson’s motion picture, with tears running down my face, all I could see was Huge amount of Love Jesus has for US. We can see how much we are worth to Jesus because of the exorbitant price He payed for us.

The Apostle Peter wrote: “He Himself bore our sins in His body on the tree, so that we might die to sins and live for righteousness” and “By his wounds we have been healed” (1Petert 2:24) He was referring to Isaiah 53:4&5 which says, “ Surely He took our infirmities and carried our sorrows, yet we considered Him stricken by God, smitten by Him ands afflicted. But He was pierced for our transgressions, He was crushed for our iniquities; the punishment that brought us peace was upon Him, and by His wounds we are healed”

The word for ‘heal’ and the word for ‘save’ are the same in the language of the Bible. That means that By His death and Passion, Jesus saved us from all the consequences of our sins. He took away all the punishment we deserve. The Bible says “The wages of sin is death” (Romans 6:23)

Because of Jesus Enormous love for us He saved us from dying and gave us the free gift of eternal life.

Only those who RESPOND to His love and surrender their Lives to Him as their Lord and Saviour receive this FREE GIFT Jesus Wept over Jerusalem because He knew that many there would reject His love. Let’s make sure we satisfy Jesus’ longings for us by responding to Him. Jesus is longing for everyone we know to come to him. He is weeping for them, He loves them so much. Let’s do all we can to show everyone how much Jesus loves them and how much He is longing for them. Try to get across to all your friends and the people you meet that they are very special to God and try to encourage them to respond to His Love.