MONDAY 5TH OCTOBER
Amos 5.6-7; 10-15
Seek the Lord and live
God is speaking very powerfully through the prophet, Amos, to the people of Israel. They had failed to stay close to the Lord. They had stopped worshipping Him and were going their own way. They were disobeying God’s commands. Because of this they were in great danger of losing their lives and were in for a lot of suffering. When people turn away from the Lord they lose His mighty protection. God does not want His people to suffer so He gives them a clear warning. They must seek Him to live.
We all need to seek the Lord daily. Have you not noticed that when you stay close to the Lord, pray every day, read the Bible every day and worship with other Christians at least every Sunday, your life turns out so much better? God promises that when we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us and will help and protect us.
A Christian family drew near to God in the midst of the 1974 Darwin cyclone. As they saw the roof of the house lifting off, they cried out to the Lord in faith and it came back on. A branch of a tree between the wall and the roof was proof that the roof had lifted!
When we truly draw near to God, we will be motivated to hate evil and sin and to do good. God fills us with so much love. “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith”. Then we will experience His mighty protection.
PRAYER: Father, thank you for loving us so much and promising to protect us when we stay close to you. Keep us very close and enfold us with your love, through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Amen.
TUESDAY 6TH OCTOBER
Psalm 90.12-17
Teach us to number our days
Time is so precious! We only have a comparatively short life and God wants us to make the most of it! How can we get the most out of everyday, every week, every month, and every year? We begin by taking a day at a time. It’s very important to start each day with prayer. If we do, God will make us wise so that we can make the best use of our time and not waste it away. We can pray this prayer written by Moses, a great man of God (v.14): “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.” Because God makes us glad, He helps us to get more out of our time. When we are happy and joyful we can tackle the day so much better. It’s when we are depressed and joyless that we tend to waste our time.
God encourages us and gives us a good image of ourselves. This also helps us to be more efficient and stops us dwindling time away. We get the best out of our time when we are doing what God wants us to do. We need to let God establish what work He wants us to do each day and let Him help us plan our weeks, months and years. Then His favour will be upon us. If you look back and see so much time seems to have been wasted when everything went wrong, do not lose heart; turn to God and He promises to make up for all the time that has been lost. Today is the first day of the rest of our lives. Let’s co-operate with God to make it the best day!
PRAYER: Father, satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Establish what work you want us to do each day that your favour may rest upon us. Help us to use all our time in the best possible way, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
WEDNESDAY 7TH OCTOBER
Hebrews 4.12-16
Purified by the Word of God
God’s Word is God speaking to us. He loves His children and He loves speaking to us. He wants to guide us and put us right. He wants to save us from all that will harm us. He wants to get rid of everything in us that could cause us to be separated from Him for ever. This is why He is longing for each of us to listen to His Word.
God speaks to us in several ways. Sometimes He speaks through His Word in the Bible. The Bible is His Word because He inspired each of its authors by the power of His Holy Spirit to write down everything in it!
At other times God speaks to our hearts directly by His Holy Spirit.
When God speaks to us, His Word is very powerful, alive, and active. It is likened here to a very sharp double-edged sword. It penetrates right into the depths of our beings where it can separate the soul and the spirit. The soul stands for the fleshly, wordly part of us that wants to indulge itself. When it is gratified and given in to, it leads to separation from God. The spirit is the life of God within us. As we read the Bible and pray, God’s Word works in us like a knife. It cuts away the soul life from the spirit life. As the cut-away soul life dies, it gives place for Jesus to come and live in us. This causes us to be born again or be made into new people. This is a wonderful purified life.
PRAYER: Father, thank you so very much for your Word that separates our fleshly soul life from our spirit life. Help us to listen attentively to it. May we follow your Word and all you say to us so that we may be purified from all that separates us from you. May the works of your Word in us enable you to come alive in our spirits that we may be yours for ever. Amen.
THURSDAY 8TH OCTOBER
Job 23.1-9; 16-17
Psalm 22.1-15
When God seems far away, some people find it hard to come to faith in God. They look for God but don’t seem to be able to find Him. Job was like that. He had been through terrible tragedies in his life, losing his livelihood and his family. He could not understand why he’d been put through so much suffering. His three friends tried to tell him it was because he had sinned and was being punished for the wrongs he had done. Job, however, knew that he had led a good life and he felt he did not deserve such suffering. For a long time he cried out to God and tried to find an answer to his problem of why he had suffered so much. In our reading today he is at the stage where God seems unacceptable to him. He feels frightened and very unhappy. Later, a young man came to his rescue. He pointed out that the Holy Spirit, “the breath of the Almighty”, would help Job to find God. Shortly after this Job had a wonderful experience of God who spoke to him directly. When he came into a relationship with God, all his questions and problems melted away. He became happy at last and his faith built up and after an act of repentance, all his sufferings ceased. At last his prayers were answered.
Jesus has made the Holy Spirit available to us all. He enables us to find God and experience God’s presence and gets our prayers answered.
PRAYER: Father, when we feel cut off from you and we don’t seem to be able to find you, please send us your Holy Spirit to make yourself known. May He show us where we have gone wrong and help us to repent and open our hearts to receive Jesus as Lord and Saviour. Amen.
FRIDAY 9TH OCTOBER
Mark 10.17-22
One thing you lack
Jesus loves us all so much and it’s His strong desire to give us eternal life. Sometimes, however, there may be something in our lives that stops us receiving the life Jesus wants us to have. This was the case of the rich, young man who came to see Jesus. He wanted eternal life and tried to lead a good life, being religious and following all God’s commandments. He felt deep down there was something lacking in his life. That’s why he came to see Jesus! Jesus had tremendous insight and could see exactly where his problems lay. He loved his money and his possessions much more than he loved God and his fellow human beings. Jesus challenged him. He asked him to sell all his wealth and give the money to the poor. This would remove his spiritual block. It would build up for him treasures in heaven and assure him of eternal life. It would qualify him to be a follower of Jesus.
Jesus must have been heartbroken when the rich, young man didn’t take up his challenge. The Bible says, “He looked at him and loved him”. This reminds me of the story of the monkey trap. A hollowed out coconut is tied to a tree. A small hole is made in it, large enough for a monkey’s fist to go through. Peanuts are placed in the nut shell. The monkey comes along, puts its hand through the hole and grabs some peanuts. The hole is too small for the monkey to get its fist out. He refuses to let go of the peanuts and so gets caught.
If we love our money and possessions more than God and more than others, and don’t give them away when God wants us to, we, too, will get caught by the devil and miss out on eternal life. How sad!
PRAYER: Jesus thank you that you love us so much and want to give us all eternal life. Help us to love you and the people all around us more than our money and possessions. Give us the desire to give and give and give, so that treasure will be stored up for us in heaven. Amen.
SATURDAY 10TH OCTOBER
Mark 10.23-31
The eye of the needle
The Jews believed that riches were a reward from God. If people became rich, it was because God was rewarding them for being so good. This is why the disciples were amazed when Jesus said, “How hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven”. This was revolutionary teaching. Prosperity and wealth were no longer to be seen as signs of God’s blessing. They could be real stumbling blocks, stopping people from receiving eternal life and entering heaven. Jesus said that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven! This really and truly blew the apostles’ minds and they said, “Is there hope for anyone? Who can be saved?” Jesus reassured them that what’s impossible for man is made possible by God.
We are all very attached to our money and possessions, especially in our western culture. It’s hard for us to let go of them. It’s hard for us to give. Before we can give we have to go through the eye of the needle. That takes a huge miracle, only God can do it. What is the miracle? It is surrendering all we own to God. When we do this, God makes it easy for us to give His money away. Does this mean we will go without? No, no, no! God promises to give us back 100 times what we give (v30).
PRAYER: Father, help each of us to go through the eye of the needle. Help us all to give 100% of all we own to you and show us how to spend your money, through Jesus who emptied Himself to make us rich in heaven. Amen.
SUNDAY 11TH. OCTOBER
THIS WEEK’S MESSAGE
Eternal life is a free gift. It is not earned or deserved. The Bible says in this familiar passage;“For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through Him. (John 3:16-17) It also says, “God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”(Romans 5:8)
Again the Bible says, “It is by grace you have been saved through faith-and this is not from yourselves, it is a gift from God.” (Ephesians2:8)
When the rich young man who had kept all the commandments approached Jesus with the Question, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus looked at Him and loved him and then gave him the shock of his life by saying, “One thing you lack, go sell everything you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me.”
If heaven is a free gift why did the rich young man have to get rid of his riches first?
The answer is very simple. In order to give us the free gift Jesus had to totally surrender his life for us and die on the cross. By shedding His blood, He payed for our sins. He took the penalty our sins deserve He gave up His life to give us eternal life. For us to receive this free gift we have to follow His example. We have to totally surrender our livers to Him.
This means we have to put Jesus FIRST, we must love Him more than anything else. The rich young man missed out because he loved his riches more than Jesus!
Let’s ask ourselves the question, ‘Do we love anything or anyone more than Jesus?’
If the answer is ‘yes’ then make the decision now to put Jesus before anything or anyone and Put Him FIRST in our lives When we do this He takes over our lives and enables us love everyone else more than we ever have before and to get more enjoyment from life.
We never lose if we surrender all to Jesus.
The losers are those who refuse to surrender.
MONDAY 5TH OCTOBER
Amos 5.6-7; 10-15
Seek the Lord and live
God is speaking very powerfully through the prophet, Amos, to the people of Israel. They had failed to stay close to the Lord. They had stopped worshipping Him and were going their own way. They were disobeying God’s commands. Because of this they were in great danger of losing their lives and were in for a lot of suffering. When people turn away from the Lord they lose His mighty protection. God does not want His people to suffer so He gives them a clear warning. They must seek Him to live.
We all need to seek the Lord daily. Have you not noticed that when you stay close to the Lord, pray every day, read the Bible every day and worship with other Christians at least every Sunday, your life turns out so much better? God promises that when we draw near to Him, He will draw near to us and will help and protect us.
A Christian family drew near to God in the midst of the 1974 Darwin cyclone. As they saw the roof of the house lifting off, they cried out to the Lord in faith and it came back on. A branch of a tree between the wall and the roof was proof that the roof had lifted!
When we truly draw near to God, we will be motivated to hate evil and sin and to do good. God fills us with so much love. “Let us draw near to God with a sincere heart in full assurance of faith”. Then we will experience His mighty protection.
PRAYER: Father, thank you for loving us so much and promising to protect us when we stay close to you. Keep us very close and enfold us with your love, through Jesus Christ our Lord and Saviour. Amen.
TUESDAY 6TH OCTOBER
Psalm 90.12-17
Teach us to number our days
Time is so precious! We only have a comparatively short life and God wants us to make the most of it! How can we get the most out of everyday, every week, every month, and every year? We begin by taking a day at a time. It’s very important to start each day with prayer. If we do, God will make us wise so that we can make the best use of our time and not waste it away. We can pray this prayer written by Moses, a great man of God (v.14): “Satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days.” Because God makes us glad, He helps us to get more out of our time. When we are happy and joyful we can tackle the day so much better. It’s when we are depressed and joyless that we tend to waste our time.
God encourages us and gives us a good image of ourselves. This also helps us to be more efficient and stops us dwindling time away. We get the best out of our time when we are doing what God wants us to do. We need to let God establish what work He wants us to do each day and let Him help us plan our weeks, months and years. Then His favour will be upon us. If you look back and see so much time seems to have been wasted when everything went wrong, do not lose heart; turn to God and He promises to make up for all the time that has been lost. Today is the first day of the rest of our lives. Let’s co-operate with God to make it the best day!
PRAYER: Father, satisfy us in the morning with your unfailing love that we may sing for joy and be glad all our days. Establish what work you want us to do each day that your favour may rest upon us. Help us to use all our time in the best possible way, through Jesus our Lord. Amen.
WEDNESDAY 7TH OCTOBER
Hebrews 4.12-16
Purified by the Word of God
God’s Word is God speaking to us. He loves His children and He loves speaking to us. He wants to guide us and put us right. He wants to save us from all that will harm us. He wants to get rid of everything in us that could cause us to be separated from Him for ever. This is why He is longing for each of us to listen to His Word.
God speaks to us in several ways. Sometimes He speaks through His Word in the Bible. The Bible is His Word because He inspired each of its authors by the power of His Holy Spirit to write down everything in it!
At other times God speaks to our hearts directly by His Holy Spirit.
When God speaks to us, His Word is very powerful, alive, and active. It is likened here to a very sharp double-edged sword. It penetrates right into the depths of our beings where it can separate the soul and the spirit. The soul stands for the fleshly, wordly part of us that wants to indulge itself. When it is gratified and given in to, it leads to separation from God. The spirit is the life of God within us. As we read the Bible and pray, God’s Word works in us like a knife. It cuts away the soul life from the spirit life. As the cut-away soul life dies, it gives place for Jesus to come and live in us. This causes us to be born again or be made into new people. This is a wonderful purified life.
PRAYER: Father, thank you so very much for your Word that separates our fleshly soul life from our spirit life. Help us to listen attentively to it. May we follow your Word and all you say to us so that we may be purified from all that separates us from you. May the works of your Word in us enable you to come alive in our spirits that we may be yours for ever. Amen.
THURSDAY 8TH OCTOBER
Job 23.1-9; 16-17
Psalm 22.1-15
When God seems far away, some people find it hard to come to faith in God. They look for God but don’t seem to be able to find Him. Job was like that. He had been through terrible tragedies in his life, losing his livelihood and his family. He could not understand why he’d been put through so much suffering. His three friends tried to tell him it was because he had sinned and was being punished for the wrongs he had done. Job, however, knew that he had led a good life and he felt he did not deserve such suffering. For a long time he cried out to God and tried to find an answer to his problem of why he had suffered so much. In our reading today he is at the stage where God seems unacceptable to him. He feels frightened and very unhappy. Later, a young man came to his rescue. He pointed out that the Holy Spirit, “the breath of the Almighty”, would help Job to find God. Shortly after this Job had a wonderful experience of God who spoke to him directly. When he came into a relationship with God, all his questions and problems melted away. He became happy at last and his faith built up and after an act of repentance, all his sufferings ceased. At last his prayers were answered.
Jesus has made the Holy Spirit available to us all. He enables us to find God and experience God’s presence and gets our prayers answered.
PRAYER: Father, when we feel cut off from you and we don’t seem to be able to find you, please send us your Holy Spirit to make yourself known. May He show us where we have gone wrong and help us to repent and open our hearts to receive Jesus as Lord and Saviour. Amen.
FRIDAY 9TH OCTOBER
Mark 10.17-22
One thing you lack
Jesus loves us all so much and it’s His strong desire to give us eternal life. Sometimes, however, there may be something in our lives that stops us receiving the life Jesus wants us to have. This was the case of the rich, young man who came to see Jesus. He wanted eternal life and tried to lead a good life, being religious and following all God’s commandments. He felt deep down there was something lacking in his life. That’s why he came to see Jesus! Jesus had tremendous insight and could see exactly where his problems lay. He loved his money and his possessions much more than he loved God and his fellow human beings. Jesus challenged him. He asked him to sell all his wealth and give the money to the poor. This would remove his spiritual block. It would build up for him treasures in heaven and assure him of eternal life. It would qualify him to be a follower of Jesus.
Jesus must have been heartbroken when the rich, young man didn’t take up his challenge. The Bible says, “He looked at him and loved him”. This reminds me of the story of the monkey trap. A hollowed out coconut is tied to a tree. A small hole is made in it, large enough for a monkey’s fist to go through. Peanuts are placed in the nut shell. The monkey comes along, puts its hand through the hole and grabs some peanuts. The hole is too small for the monkey to get its fist out. He refuses to let go of the peanuts and so gets caught.
If we love our money and possessions more than God and more than others, and don’t give them away when God wants us to, we, too, will get caught by the devil and miss out on eternal life. How sad!
PRAYER: Jesus thank you that you love us so much and want to give us all eternal life. Help us to love you and the people all around us more than our money and possessions. Give us the desire to give and give and give, so that treasure will be stored up for us in heaven. Amen.
SATURDAY 10TH OCTOBER
Mark 10.23-31
The eye of the needle
The Jews believed that riches were a reward from God. If people became rich, it was because God was rewarding them for being so good. This is why the disciples were amazed when Jesus said, “How hard it is for a rich man to enter the kingdom of heaven”. This was revolutionary teaching. Prosperity and wealth were no longer to be seen as signs of God’s blessing. They could be real stumbling blocks, stopping people from receiving eternal life and entering heaven. Jesus said that it’s easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter heaven! This really and truly blew the apostles’ minds and they said, “Is there hope for anyone? Who can be saved?” Jesus reassured them that what’s impossible for man is made possible by God.
We are all very attached to our money and possessions, especially in our western culture. It’s hard for us to let go of them. It’s hard for us to give. Before we can give we have to go through the eye of the needle. That takes a huge miracle, only God can do it. What is the miracle? It is surrendering all we own to God. When we do this, God makes it easy for us to give His money away. Does this mean we will go without? No, no, no! God promises to give us back 100 times what we give (v30).
PRAYER: Father, help each of us to go through the eye of the needle. Help us all to give 100% of all we own to you and show us how to spend your money, through Jesus who emptied Himself to make us rich in heaven. Amen.
SUNDAY 11TH. OCTOBER
THIS WEEK’S MESSAGE
Eternal life is a free gift. It is not earned or deserved. The Bible says in this familiar passage;“For God so loved the world that he gave His one and only Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life. For God did not send His Son into the world to condemn the world but to save the world through Him. (John 3:16-17) It also says, “God demonstrates His own love for us in this: while we were still sinners, Christ died for us.”(Romans 5:8)
Again the Bible says, “It is by grace you have been saved through faith-and this is not from yourselves, it is a gift from God.” (Ephesians2:8)
When the rich young man who had kept all the commandments approached Jesus with the Question, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?” Jesus looked at Him and loved him and then gave him the shock of his life by saying, “One thing you lack, go sell everything you have and give to the poor and you will have treasure in heaven. Then come follow me.”
If heaven is a free gift why did the rich young man have to get rid of his riches first?
The answer is very simple. In order to give us the free gift Jesus had to totally surrender his life for us and die on the cross. By shedding His blood, He payed for our sins. He took the penalty our sins deserve He gave up His life to give us eternal life. For us to receive this free gift we have to follow His example. We have to totally surrender our livers to Him.
This means we have to put Jesus FIRST, we must love Him more than anything else. The rich young man missed out because he loved his riches more than Jesus!
Let’s ask ourselves the question, ‘Do we love anything or anyone more than Jesus?’
If the answer is ‘yes’ then make the decision now to put Jesus before anything or anyone and Put Him FIRST in our lives When we do this He takes over our lives and enables us love everyone else more than we ever have before and to get more enjoyment from life.
We never lose if we surrender all to Jesus.
The losers are those who refuse to surrender.