MONDAY 22ND. FEBRUARY
Genesis 15.1-18
Trust in God to do what He promises
We have such a fantastic God. He is so fantastic because He makes promises to us and then He keeps them. When God sees us trusting His word and really believing that He will keep it, this makes Him very happy with us. He accepts us and bonds us into a very strong relationship with Him. This bond is so strong - stronger than super glue; nothing can break it. This happened first to Abraham. God promised Abraham that he would have lots of descendants through his wife, Sarah. She just couldn’t fall pregnant, and when Abraham was praying he told God that he was concerned as he had no heir. God spoke to him and made a promise to him that he would have as many descendants as the stars in the sky. This was a hard promise to believe as Sarah had gone through the change of life. However, Abraham knew that God had spoken to him and told him that Sarah was going to have a child, so he believed God. Because of Abraham’s faith, he was accepted by God. God credited it to him as righteousness. He brought Abraham into this right, unbreakable relationship with Himself.
In His word, God promises us that we will inherit eternal life if we believe His promises. Let’s read Romans 4.21-25 CEV). “Abraham was certain that God could do what He had promised. So God accepted him just as we read in the scriptures. But these words were not written only for Abraham. They were written for us, since we will also be accepted because of our faith in God who raised our Lord Jesus Christ to life. God gave Christ to die for our sins and He raised Him to life, so that we would be made acceptable to God”, bonded to Him for ever in eternal life.
PRAYER: Father God, fantastic Promise Keeper, we thank you for keeping your promise to Abraham and accepting him into an indissoluble bond of love. Thank you for letting Jesus die for our sins and raising Him to life so we can put our faith in you to accept us into an eternal relationship to be yours for ever. Amen.
TUESDAY 23rd. FEBRUARY
Psalm 27
Be strong, take heart, wait for the Lord
All God’s children can be 100% secure. God wants to make us feel so strong and so protected by Him. He can make every bit of fear and all anxiety and worry disappear from our lives!
God is our light and the One who always saves us. How can we possibly be afraid. He is stronger than our enemies. His power is so much stronger than anyone or anything that can make us anxious or afraid!
We can read these words in the Bible, but how can we actually experience such a sense of security? How can we get rid of the fear in our lives and stop all that worry and anxiety? The secret is to get close to God, to get into His presence; “To gaze upon the beauty of the Lord” (v4). The best way we can experience the presence of the Lord is to praise and worship Him. The best way to do this is to sing and make music to the Lord for God dwells in the praises of His people (Ps22.3). As we sing to Him, as we seek His face and come into His presence, it’s so wonderful. Our faith in God grows stronger and stronger.
Just before a praise and worship service, a lady said to me, “I want you to pray for my arthritic hands after the service”. Her hands were all stiff and bent up. Anxiety and fear and worry had brought on her arthritis. I didn’t have to pray for her. As she entered into the living presence of God in the praise and worship, her fear and anxiety faded away and her hands were completely healed!
I suggest you do some singing to the Lord in your quiet time. Get a CD or tape of some Scripture songs, sing along with these, and soon you will experience the living presence of God. You will see the goodness of the Lord in your life. Isn’t God fantastic!
PRAYER: Lord, as I praise and worship you, as I seek your face, help me to see and experience your beautiful presence. I want more than anything to see you working in my life, to take away all my fear and anxiety. Then I will be strong and take heart as I wait for you, through Jesus my Saviour. Amen.
WEDNESDAY 24TH FEBRUARY
Philippians 3.17-4.1
Our citizenship is in heaven
We often sing, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace”. Once we become born-again Christians in baptism, we change our citizenship: our homeland is in heaven. God gives us a passport so that we can be sure we will be received through the gates of heaven.
Because we have heavenly citizenship, it’s important that we live holy lives. When we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, this is easy. He fills our hearts with love for His Father and love and compassion for each other. We must not, therefore, let ourselves lose sight of Jesus our Saviour, otherwise we will revert to letting our minds be filled with earthly things. This will make us enemies of the cross of Christ. It will cause our destruction!
Jesus really loves us so much that we are His joy and His crown. He is so pleased when we stay close to Him and let Him transform us into His likeness each day!
He takes us into His control and directs our lives the way He wants us to go.
It’s so wonderful experiencing the power of Jesus changing us to be more and more like Him every day. It’s even more wonderful that we have something better to look forward to. Before we go through those gates of heaven, He will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body. Allelujah!
PRAYER: Jesus, we never want to take our eyes off of you. We completely surrender our lives to you. Take us and change us to be like you because we are citizens of heaven. We look forward to the time when we will be changed into your glorious likeness and be with you for ever and ever. Amen.
THURSDAY 25TH.FEBRUARY
Exodus 11.1-10
The distinction between Egypt and Israel
There is a very common false teaching in the world. It has been around for a long time. It is called universalism. It teaches that everyone who dies goes to heaven. This is not what God says. His word is very clear that there will be a distinction between the good and the bad; between God’s people (Israel) and the people of the world (Egypt).
As, in our story in today’s reading, the Egyptians suffered the loss of their first-born and the Israelites were all saved, so, all those who live worldly lives will perish, and all those who live a life of trust in God will be taken into heaven.
The Bible says in John 17.3, “Now this is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent”. To know God and His Son, Jesus, means to have a close personal relationship with Him. It is to be Jesus’ close friend. The Bible also says in 1 John 5.11-12, “God has given us eternal life and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life!”
I once spoke with a man who has been to heaven and back. He died and came back to life in a mortuary. He told me that only those who knew Jesus on earth were with Him in heaven! (This man is Edmund Wilborne, once head of the Church Army in England.)
PRAYER: Father, because there is a distinction between earthly people and your people and only your people will make it to heaven, give us power to tell everyone the good news that all those who know Jesus will get to heaven. Give us the power of your Spirit to witness to these people and convince them of their need to surrender their lives to Jesus so that they can be in heaven with all God’s people, through Jesus our Saviour. Amen.
FRIDAY 26TH. FEBRUARY
Luke 22.39-53
Jesus prays
We saw yesterday that there will be a separation between those who know God and those who do not. Only those who know God will be accepted into heaven!
Today we meditate on Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. At first He prayed, “Father, take this cup from me”. By the cup He meant all the suffering He was about to go through in His arrest, trials and crucifixion. This was the price Jesus had to pay to enable anyone to be put right with God. It was the punishment we all deserve for our sins that Jesus took in our place. Jesus became sin so that we would have no sin. On the cross He experienced all the pain and horror of broken relationships and sin. Jesus couldn’t stand the thought of this terrible suffering. He would have to experience what it is like to be cut off from His Father. It seemed too much for Him. That’s why He prayed, “Take this suffering from me”.
Then, as Jesus prayed on, He saw that His bearing our suffering was the only hope for us. Jesus loved us so much. He couldn’t bear the thought of all of us being lost for ever. He knew God wanted us all to be in heaven so He submitted to His will and went forward boldly to be arrested. He wouldn’t let the disciples defend Him. He would let nothing stop Him experiencing all that suffering to get us to heaven.
PRAYER: Jesus, we can’t find words to express how much we love you and how grateful we are to God. You suffered so very, very much for us. Help us to hate the sin you bore and with repentant hearts, surrender our lives to you. Make us willing to suffer to enable others to come to have faith in you and live. Amen.
SATURDAY 27TH. FEBRUARY
Luke 13.1-9
Repent or Perish
So far this week we have seen that God promises eternal life to all those who trust in Him. We have also been reminded of the costly price Jesus had to pay to make it possible for us to get to Heaven. Today we look at one thing that is absolutely necessary for us to do if we want to share in this life eternal: that is, we have to repent. If we don’t we will perish. This is exactly what Jesus said (verses 3 and 5). What does repentance mean? The Kings English Dictionary says to repent means “to feel pain, sorrow and regret for what one has done or omitted to do, to change the mind.
The most important part of repentance is the decision we make when we repent. We make a decision to turn away from what we have done wrong. We make this decision with our minds. We tell God that we do not want to do it again. Once Jesus sees that we have made the decision with our minds, He honours it. He pours into us the power He generated when He died on the cross for us. Then our sin is done away with - God blots it out. He remembers it no more (Hebrews 10.17). It often takes a while for our feelings to catch up with the decision we have made. So often, even after making a decision to repent, we don’t feel as sorry as we ought to so we find it hard to regret what we have done or left out. We must not worry about that! Listen to what God says. Do not listen to your feelings.
Feelings can so often deceive you. Listen, instead, to what God says. He says that if you make a decision to repent, He will honour it and remove your sin.
Once you have accepted what God says, your feelings will change as God pours His love into your hearts.
The story of the unfruitful fig tree tells us that God will always give us another chance to repent and make a decision to change our ways. God wants us to be set free. He wants us to bear lots of fruit, so let’s all take the advice He gives us.
PRAYER: Father God, show us how all the sins we have committed have affected our relationship with you. Help us to hate our sins and make the decision to repent and turn away from them. Cleanse our consciences by the power of the cross. Make our feelings coincide with the decision we have made, through Jesus our Saviour. Amen.
SUNDAY 28TH. FEBRUARY
THIS WEEK’S MESSAGE
Repent or perish
The Good News of the Bible tells us all that God has done for us in Christ Jesus! He loves us all so much that He gave us His only Son, Jesus to be the Sacrifice that takes away all our sins and enables us to have the free gift of eternal life. Jesus died in our place and took the punishment our sins deserve. As Saint Paul puts it, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Although Jesus died for everyone and gave eternal life as a free gift for everyone, not everyone will receive what He offers. Two things are necessary before we can receive these wonderful blessings from the Lord: We have to repent and we have to have Faith. Repentance means a willingness to change our minds. It means a willingness to make a decision to change our minds about the way we live. We have to stop living our lives our way and start living them God’s way. The natural tendency is for us to put ourselves first in our lives and make decisions which please ourselves.
We are all born with a strong selfish streak in us. When we repent we make a decision to stop being selfish and to put God first in our lives and to live the way He wants us to live. Repentance means hating the sins we commit and really wanting to stop committing them. Repentance means letting God have control of our lives. To put it very simply: Good can’t save us unless we let Him.
Faith means trusting in the power of God to enable us to change. Jesus released this power for us when He died on the cross. We receive faith when we believe what God says to us. God told Abraham that His wife who was over ninety was going to have a baby. He believed God’s word and she became pregnant and Isaac was born. The Bible is God’s Word to us. If we believe the Bible we are soon filled with faith.
Today’s gospel tells us that if we don’t repent we will perish. Let’s look not on the negative but on the positive. Read about all the wonderful things God has done for us in Jesus. This will very soon inspire us repent and put all our faith in all that Jesus has done for us. When we repent and put all our faith and trust in Jesus a huge miracle takes place in our lives. Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, changes us and makes us into new people. We are born again!
The Holy Spirit shapes us to be more like Jesus every day. He will indeed transform our bodies to be like His glorious body. We will live with Him for EVER.
MONDAY 22ND. FEBRUARY
Genesis 15.1-18
Trust in God to do what He promises
We have such a fantastic God. He is so fantastic because He makes promises to us and then He keeps them. When God sees us trusting His word and really believing that He will keep it, this makes Him very happy with us. He accepts us and bonds us into a very strong relationship with Him. This bond is so strong - stronger than super glue; nothing can break it. This happened first to Abraham. God promised Abraham that he would have lots of descendants through his wife, Sarah. She just couldn’t fall pregnant, and when Abraham was praying he told God that he was concerned as he had no heir. God spoke to him and made a promise to him that he would have as many descendants as the stars in the sky. This was a hard promise to believe as Sarah had gone through the change of life. However, Abraham knew that God had spoken to him and told him that Sarah was going to have a child, so he believed God. Because of Abraham’s faith, he was accepted by God. God credited it to him as righteousness. He brought Abraham into this right, unbreakable relationship with Himself.
In His word, God promises us that we will inherit eternal life if we believe His promises. Let’s read Romans 4.21-25 CEV). “Abraham was certain that God could do what He had promised. So God accepted him just as we read in the scriptures. But these words were not written only for Abraham. They were written for us, since we will also be accepted because of our faith in God who raised our Lord Jesus Christ to life. God gave Christ to die for our sins and He raised Him to life, so that we would be made acceptable to God”, bonded to Him for ever in eternal life.
PRAYER: Father God, fantastic Promise Keeper, we thank you for keeping your promise to Abraham and accepting him into an indissoluble bond of love. Thank you for letting Jesus die for our sins and raising Him to life so we can put our faith in you to accept us into an eternal relationship to be yours for ever. Amen.
TUESDAY 23rd. FEBRUARY
Psalm 27
Be strong, take heart, wait for the Lord
All God’s children can be 100% secure. God wants to make us feel so strong and so protected by Him. He can make every bit of fear and all anxiety and worry disappear from our lives!
God is our light and the One who always saves us. How can we possibly be afraid. He is stronger than our enemies. His power is so much stronger than anyone or anything that can make us anxious or afraid!
We can read these words in the Bible, but how can we actually experience such a sense of security? How can we get rid of the fear in our lives and stop all that worry and anxiety? The secret is to get close to God, to get into His presence; “To gaze upon the beauty of the Lord” (v4). The best way we can experience the presence of the Lord is to praise and worship Him. The best way to do this is to sing and make music to the Lord for God dwells in the praises of His people (Ps22.3). As we sing to Him, as we seek His face and come into His presence, it’s so wonderful. Our faith in God grows stronger and stronger.
Just before a praise and worship service, a lady said to me, “I want you to pray for my arthritic hands after the service”. Her hands were all stiff and bent up. Anxiety and fear and worry had brought on her arthritis. I didn’t have to pray for her. As she entered into the living presence of God in the praise and worship, her fear and anxiety faded away and her hands were completely healed!
I suggest you do some singing to the Lord in your quiet time. Get a CD or tape of some Scripture songs, sing along with these, and soon you will experience the living presence of God. You will see the goodness of the Lord in your life. Isn’t God fantastic!
PRAYER: Lord, as I praise and worship you, as I seek your face, help me to see and experience your beautiful presence. I want more than anything to see you working in my life, to take away all my fear and anxiety. Then I will be strong and take heart as I wait for you, through Jesus my Saviour. Amen.
WEDNESDAY 24TH FEBRUARY
Philippians 3.17-4.1
Our citizenship is in heaven
We often sing, “Turn your eyes upon Jesus, look full in His wonderful face, and the things of earth will grow strangely dim, in the light of His glory and grace”. Once we become born-again Christians in baptism, we change our citizenship: our homeland is in heaven. God gives us a passport so that we can be sure we will be received through the gates of heaven.
Because we have heavenly citizenship, it’s important that we live holy lives. When we keep our eyes fixed on Jesus, this is easy. He fills our hearts with love for His Father and love and compassion for each other. We must not, therefore, let ourselves lose sight of Jesus our Saviour, otherwise we will revert to letting our minds be filled with earthly things. This will make us enemies of the cross of Christ. It will cause our destruction!
Jesus really loves us so much that we are His joy and His crown. He is so pleased when we stay close to Him and let Him transform us into His likeness each day!
He takes us into His control and directs our lives the way He wants us to go.
It’s so wonderful experiencing the power of Jesus changing us to be more and more like Him every day. It’s even more wonderful that we have something better to look forward to. Before we go through those gates of heaven, He will transform our lowly bodies so that they will be like His glorious body. Allelujah!
PRAYER: Jesus, we never want to take our eyes off of you. We completely surrender our lives to you. Take us and change us to be like you because we are citizens of heaven. We look forward to the time when we will be changed into your glorious likeness and be with you for ever and ever. Amen.
THURSDAY 25TH.FEBRUARY
Exodus 11.1-10
The distinction between Egypt and Israel
There is a very common false teaching in the world. It has been around for a long time. It is called universalism. It teaches that everyone who dies goes to heaven. This is not what God says. His word is very clear that there will be a distinction between the good and the bad; between God’s people (Israel) and the people of the world (Egypt).
As, in our story in today’s reading, the Egyptians suffered the loss of their first-born and the Israelites were all saved, so, all those who live worldly lives will perish, and all those who live a life of trust in God will be taken into heaven.
The Bible says in John 17.3, “Now this is eternal life, that they may know you the only true God and Jesus Christ whom He has sent”. To know God and His Son, Jesus, means to have a close personal relationship with Him. It is to be Jesus’ close friend. The Bible also says in 1 John 5.11-12, “God has given us eternal life and this life is in His Son. He who has the Son has life. He who does not have the Son of God does not have life!”
I once spoke with a man who has been to heaven and back. He died and came back to life in a mortuary. He told me that only those who knew Jesus on earth were with Him in heaven! (This man is Edmund Wilborne, once head of the Church Army in England.)
PRAYER: Father, because there is a distinction between earthly people and your people and only your people will make it to heaven, give us power to tell everyone the good news that all those who know Jesus will get to heaven. Give us the power of your Spirit to witness to these people and convince them of their need to surrender their lives to Jesus so that they can be in heaven with all God’s people, through Jesus our Saviour. Amen.
FRIDAY 26TH. FEBRUARY
Luke 22.39-53
Jesus prays
We saw yesterday that there will be a separation between those who know God and those who do not. Only those who know God will be accepted into heaven!
Today we meditate on Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane. At first He prayed, “Father, take this cup from me”. By the cup He meant all the suffering He was about to go through in His arrest, trials and crucifixion. This was the price Jesus had to pay to enable anyone to be put right with God. It was the punishment we all deserve for our sins that Jesus took in our place. Jesus became sin so that we would have no sin. On the cross He experienced all the pain and horror of broken relationships and sin. Jesus couldn’t stand the thought of this terrible suffering. He would have to experience what it is like to be cut off from His Father. It seemed too much for Him. That’s why He prayed, “Take this suffering from me”.
Then, as Jesus prayed on, He saw that His bearing our suffering was the only hope for us. Jesus loved us so much. He couldn’t bear the thought of all of us being lost for ever. He knew God wanted us all to be in heaven so He submitted to His will and went forward boldly to be arrested. He wouldn’t let the disciples defend Him. He would let nothing stop Him experiencing all that suffering to get us to heaven.
PRAYER: Jesus, we can’t find words to express how much we love you and how grateful we are to God. You suffered so very, very much for us. Help us to hate the sin you bore and with repentant hearts, surrender our lives to you. Make us willing to suffer to enable others to come to have faith in you and live. Amen.
SATURDAY 27TH. FEBRUARY
Luke 13.1-9
Repent or Perish
So far this week we have seen that God promises eternal life to all those who trust in Him. We have also been reminded of the costly price Jesus had to pay to make it possible for us to get to Heaven. Today we look at one thing that is absolutely necessary for us to do if we want to share in this life eternal: that is, we have to repent. If we don’t we will perish. This is exactly what Jesus said (verses 3 and 5). What does repentance mean? The Kings English Dictionary says to repent means “to feel pain, sorrow and regret for what one has done or omitted to do, to change the mind.
The most important part of repentance is the decision we make when we repent. We make a decision to turn away from what we have done wrong. We make this decision with our minds. We tell God that we do not want to do it again. Once Jesus sees that we have made the decision with our minds, He honours it. He pours into us the power He generated when He died on the cross for us. Then our sin is done away with - God blots it out. He remembers it no more (Hebrews 10.17). It often takes a while for our feelings to catch up with the decision we have made. So often, even after making a decision to repent, we don’t feel as sorry as we ought to so we find it hard to regret what we have done or left out. We must not worry about that! Listen to what God says. Do not listen to your feelings.
Feelings can so often deceive you. Listen, instead, to what God says. He says that if you make a decision to repent, He will honour it and remove your sin.
Once you have accepted what God says, your feelings will change as God pours His love into your hearts.
The story of the unfruitful fig tree tells us that God will always give us another chance to repent and make a decision to change our ways. God wants us to be set free. He wants us to bear lots of fruit, so let’s all take the advice He gives us.
PRAYER: Father God, show us how all the sins we have committed have affected our relationship with you. Help us to hate our sins and make the decision to repent and turn away from them. Cleanse our consciences by the power of the cross. Make our feelings coincide with the decision we have made, through Jesus our Saviour. Amen.
SUNDAY 28TH. FEBRUARY
THIS WEEK’S MESSAGE
Repent or perish
The Good News of the Bible tells us all that God has done for us in Christ Jesus! He loves us all so much that He gave us His only Son, Jesus to be the Sacrifice that takes away all our sins and enables us to have the free gift of eternal life. Jesus died in our place and took the punishment our sins deserve. As Saint Paul puts it, “God made Him who had no sin to be sin for us, so that in Him we might become the righteousness of God.” (2 Corinthians 5:21)
Although Jesus died for everyone and gave eternal life as a free gift for everyone, not everyone will receive what He offers. Two things are necessary before we can receive these wonderful blessings from the Lord: We have to repent and we have to have Faith. Repentance means a willingness to change our minds. It means a willingness to make a decision to change our minds about the way we live. We have to stop living our lives our way and start living them God’s way. The natural tendency is for us to put ourselves first in our lives and make decisions which please ourselves.
We are all born with a strong selfish streak in us. When we repent we make a decision to stop being selfish and to put God first in our lives and to live the way He wants us to live. Repentance means hating the sins we commit and really wanting to stop committing them. Repentance means letting God have control of our lives. To put it very simply: Good can’t save us unless we let Him.
Faith means trusting in the power of God to enable us to change. Jesus released this power for us when He died on the cross. We receive faith when we believe what God says to us. God told Abraham that His wife who was over ninety was going to have a baby. He believed God’s word and she became pregnant and Isaac was born. The Bible is God’s Word to us. If we believe the Bible we are soon filled with faith.
Today’s gospel tells us that if we don’t repent we will perish. Let’s look not on the negative but on the positive. Read about all the wonderful things God has done for us in Jesus. This will very soon inspire us repent and put all our faith in all that Jesus has done for us. When we repent and put all our faith and trust in Jesus a huge miracle takes place in our lives. Jesus, through the power of the Holy Spirit, changes us and makes us into new people. We are born again!
The Holy Spirit shapes us to be more like Jesus every day. He will indeed transform our bodies to be like His glorious body. We will live with Him for EVER.