MONDAY 19th. OCTOBER
Job 42.1-6, 10-17
Repent

Last week we saw how Job came to have faith in God when he heard God speaking to him personally.  Let’s look today at the tremendous difference this made to Job’s whole life.

The first reaction he had to hearing God speaking to him was to realize how stupid he had been.  He said, “Surely I have spoken of things I do not understand, things too wonderful for me to know”.  Many of us have been like this.  We have had many doubts and questioned a lot of things that are in the Bible.  Before you actually hear God speaking or have a personal experience of His presence in your life, you don’t realize how really great He is.  Maybe you are like this now.  You may want to believe, but find it impossible.  Maybe the claims of the Bible seem ridiculous to you.  If you are like this, humbly listen to the testimonies of those who have come to faith in God.  Look at the difference God has made to their lives.  Be ready to take a leap of faith and make a decision to ask Jesus to come into your life.  Once He sees you are fair dinkum, He will speak to you and you will get to know Him and become like us, the happiest people in the world.

Job’s second reaction when he realized how fantastic God was and how silly he had been, was to repent.  He despised himself.  He admitted his mistakes and the sin of doubting God and questioning God.  He made the decision to say sorry for his sins and leave them behind him.  His pride and arrogance completely disappeared.  Soon God really made his life prosper. He was on top of the world.  As soon as you hear the Lord speaking to you; as soon as you realize how tremendous He is, repent and let Him take all your sins and doubts and fears away.  Soon He will transform your life as He did to Job.

PRAYER:  Father, thank you that you love us all so much that you want to speak to us and help us to have faith in you.  We pray for all who do not yet know you.  Inspire them to repent and trust in you to take over their lives, through Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

TUESDAY 20TH OCTOBER
Psalm 126
The joy of salvation

We Christians are truly the happiest people on earth.  We are so happy because the Lord has set us free.  The Israelites had been in captivity in Babylon for 70 years.  Imagine their joy when God worked a miracle and delivered them from slavery so that they could go home to Zion (Jerusalem).

Before we had accepted Jesus as Lord and Saviour of our lives, we were in bondage.  We may ask, “Who was our captor?  Who held us in slavery?”  The answer is ourselves and Satan.  Our own selfishness ruled our lives.  We were also under the control of Satan.  He kept on and on tempting us to be selfish and sinful.  He inspired us to hate all those who hurt us.  The good that we wanted to do we couldn’t do, and the things that we knew were bad that we didn’t want to do, we did (see Romans 7.14-20).  Another word for selfishness is sin.  Before we were saved, we were slaves to sin.

Jesus died on the cross to set us free from selfishness and sin and to get us out of the power of Satan.  When we put all our trust and faith in Jesus, we are completely set free.  This psalm expresses the utter joy of Christian freedom.  We rejoice with laughter and happiness because the Lord has worked great miracles in our lives.  Many people realize what He has done, it’s so fantastic.  We were full of tears, now we are filled with joy.  We burst into songs because we are so happy.  We dance and clap our hands.

PRAYER: Dear Jesus, thank you for delivering us from the bondage of Satan and our own selfishness and sins by dying for us.  Give us the faith to believe we have been set free and fill us with joy; greater joy than we have ever known.  Amen.

WEDNESDAY 21st. OCTOBER
Hebrews 7.21-28
Jesus saves completely

If we come to God through Jesus, we can be 100% sure that we will be saved by Him and therefore 100% certain that we are going to Heaven.  Jesus gives us the assurance of salvation.  Jesus guarantees our salvation for us. We don’t have to do anything to secure our salvation.  In fact, it’s absolutely and utterly impossible for us to save ourselves, however hard we try.  All that is necessary is for us to surrender our lives to Jesus and put all our faith and trust in Him.  Our salvation was secured when Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross for us.  He was both Priest and Victim. By this sacrifice, Jesus is able to save each one of us completely.  Jesus saves us completely because once we have surrendered our lives to Him and come to God through Him, He always lives to intercede for us.  Jesus is continually praying for us, pleading the Father to make us His for ever.

Have you noticed as you read the New Testament, that every single prayer of Jesus was answered immediately.  If Jesus is praying for us, we can be 100% sure that prayer will be answered and we will be in Heaven with Him for ever.
 
PRAYER: Jesus, thank you so much for making us, who have decided to trust in you and come to God through you, 100% certain that we have been saved by the price you paid for us on the cross, and that we will make our heavenly destination because you never stop praying for us.  Thank you so much Jesus.  Amen.

THURSDAY 22nd. OCTOBER
Hebrews 8.1-6
Founded on better promises

In the course of life, promises are very important to us.  When our parents made promises to us and kept them, it helped us to really trust them and this made us very stable.  If our parents made promises they never intended to keep and broke them, this would make us very insecure and unhappy.  As we grew up and got to know people, we found that we could trust some and not others.  We could only trust those who kept their promises to us. If a teacher or parent promises to smack a child the next time he does something naughty and then lets him off, he is breaking a promise.  There will be no discipline and therefore no happiness in that family or classroom. If rewards are promised for work done and never given out when it is completed, this leads to unhappiness and break-down in relationships.

The Priest’s job, through offering sacrifices in the Holy Place of the temple, is to bring people to God and mend all broken relationships.  Because these earthly priests are not perfect and they don’t always keep their promises, they fail to bring people to God.  That’s why God chose Jesus to be our own special High Priest.  He is perfect and it’s impossible for Him to break a promise.  God promises us that because Jesus is pleading for us in the Holy of Holies at the Father’s right hand, He will save us.  We know we are saved, that our relationships are mended, and that we are going to Heaven because God promises these things and He never breaks His promise.  This makes us extremely secure, happy and joyful.

PRAYER: Father God, you are such a wonderful Father, you never break your promises.  Thank you for promising us your forgiveness and giving us eternal life because Jesus is pleading for us in the Holy of Holies.  Amen.

FRIDAY 23rd. OCTOBER
Jeremiah 31.1-9
God’s people are filled with joy

God spoke through Jeremiah the prophet and promised a time when salvation would come to His people and when they would sing and dance because they would be so happy. God kept this promise when He sent His Son, Jesus, into the world several hundred years later.  People from everywhere came to Jesus weeping because of the result of sickness, sin and the influence of evil.  They left Him singing and dancing and filled with joy because He had set them free!
 
After He has healed us, forgiven us and set us free, Jesus protects us from all harm and He leads us to streams of living water.  In John 7.37-38 Jesus tells us the stream of living water is the Holy Spirit.  As Jesus pleads for us in Heaven, so He is pouring out the Holy Spirit. The moment Jesus sees us responding to His prayers and turning our hearts back to Him; when He sees us surrendering to Him and trusting in Him, He saves us and sets us free from sin.  As soon as we experience His saving grace transforming our lives, we experience the living presence of the Holy Spirit with us.  God pours so much love into our hearts by His Holy Spirit and we know that Jesus is dwelling in our hearts.  We feel so loved, so wonderful, so happy, so secure.  It’s absolutely heavenly.  The joy that beams out of our lives is like the flag on the King’s Palace telling everyone that King Jesus is dwelling in our hearts.

PRAYER: Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for all the joy you bring us when Jesus saves us and the Holy Spirit fills us.  Give us all the assurance of our personal salvation and keep giving the Holy Spirit to us, through Jesus our Saviour King.  Amen.

SATURDAY 24TH. OCTOBER
Mark 10.36-52
Four steps to salvation and healing

What do we need to receive healing or salvation or anything from Jesus?  Do we need to have a great deal of understanding?  Do we need to go through a complicated theological course?  No, not all!  All we need is to have a very simple faith like the blind beggar, Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus was blind and he wanted to be able to see.  He knew that Jesus was passing by.  He had heard from some of his blind friends that Jesus had made them see.  He called out to Jesus, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me”.  He looked like a no-hoper so Jesus’ disciples tried to shut him up, but no-one is a no-hoper in Jesus’ eyes.  He has power to help everyone, however good or bad.  Jesus calls him and he comes leaping up to Jesus and gets healed, dropping his cloak as he goes.  Jesus says to him, “Your faith has healed you.”  His sight is restored and he looks straight into Jesus’ eyes.

Three simple things are necessary if we want help from our Saviour.  They are three steps to healing.

• 1.  We cry out to Jesus in prayer.
• 2.  We know He is calling so we come to Him.  We move towards Him by surrendering to Him in our hearts.
• 3.  We put all our faith and trust in Him.

We could add a fourth step: praise Him and thank Him, know that He has answered our prayer and has healed us.

PRAYER: Jesus, we thank you that you love us so much you want to heal and help and save us all.  You want to make us see how wonderful you are.  As we cry out to you, we come to you and trust in you.  Thank you Jesus, you are so wonderful.  Amen.

SUNDAY 25th. OCTOBER
  This week’s Message

Bartimaeus, the blind beggar had heard all about Jesus.  He knew of several people who had been healed by Him. That made him very excited when he heard the noise of the crowds and found out that Jesus was very near. He started yelling out at the top of his voice, “Jesus, Son of David have mercy on me!” People tried to stop him but he cried out even more.  As soon as Jesus heard the cries for help, He called for the man and asked him what he wanted. When he said, “I want to see” Jesus restored his sight saying, “your faith has healed you”. Jesus is always ready to hear us and will answer our prayers when we cry out to Him. If we have the faith to believe that He will answer our prayers we can be sure they will be answered.

How can we be so certain that prayers will be answered?   We can be certain when we believe that God will keep His promises.  God has made an agreement with us. We call it the New Covenant.  Jesus guarantees that God will keep all the promises he has made in this covenant.

“Jesus is able to save completely those who come to God through Him.”(Hebrews 7:25)

He is able to save us and heal us and answer all our prayers because He never stops praying for us.

Once we surrender our whole lives to Jesus and accept Him as our Lord and Saviour our names are written in the Lambs book of life. (Revelation 21:27) This is Jesus’ prayer list.  He is constantly praying for everyone on it as well as praying for others to come to God through Him.

If we realise that Jesus is praying for us this gives us the faith to believe that He will answer our prayers, take away all our sins and drive out all evil. It give us faith to believe that Jesus will heal us. As Jesus healed physically blind people so He is longing to open up the eyes of our hearts, our spiritual eyes. When He does, we see Jesus and as soon as we see Him we are filled with faith. Wendy Hall wrote this beautiful song 

“Jesus we see you through eyes that you’ve given,
Lord how we look upon your face
We see you as light that shines all around us
Showing us the way you’d have us go”
Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life
Jesus is the Way
Jesus is the Way
Jesus is the Truth and the Life.
When this light begins to shine on us  we sing with joy  and make our praises be heard. We become the happiest people on earth. Everlasting joy fills us completely.

MONDAY 19th. OCTOBER
Job 42.1-6, 10-17
Repent

Last week we saw how Job came to have faith in God when he heard God speaking to him personally.  Let’s look today at the tremendous difference this made to Job’s whole life.

The first reaction he had to hearing God speaking to him was to realize how stupid he had been.  He said, “Surely I have spoken of things I do not understand, things too wonderful for me to know”.  Many of us have been like this.  We have had many doubts and questioned a lot of things that are in the Bible.  Before you actually hear God speaking or have a personal experience of His presence in your life, you don’t realize how really great He is.  Maybe you are like this now.  You may want to believe, but find it impossible.  Maybe the claims of the Bible seem ridiculous to you.  If you are like this, humbly listen to the testimonies of those who have come to faith in God.  Look at the difference God has made to their lives.  Be ready to take a leap of faith and make a decision to ask Jesus to come into your life.  Once He sees you are fair dinkum, He will speak to you and you will get to know Him and become like us, the happiest people in the world.

Job’s second reaction when he realized how fantastic God was and how silly he had been, was to repent.  He despised himself.  He admitted his mistakes and the sin of doubting God and questioning God.  He made the decision to say sorry for his sins and leave them behind him.  His pride and arrogance completely disappeared.  Soon God really made his life prosper. He was on top of the world.  As soon as you hear the Lord speaking to you; as soon as you realize how tremendous He is, repent and let Him take all your sins and doubts and fears away.  Soon He will transform your life as He did to Job.

PRAYER:  Father, thank you that you love us all so much that you want to speak to us and help us to have faith in you.  We pray for all who do not yet know you.  Inspire them to repent and trust in you to take over their lives, through Christ Jesus our Lord.  Amen.

TUESDAY 20TH OCTOBER
Psalm 126
The joy of salvation

We Christians are truly the happiest people on earth.  We are so happy because the Lord has set us free.  The Israelites had been in captivity in Babylon for 70 years.  Imagine their joy when God worked a miracle and delivered them from slavery so that they could go home to Zion (Jerusalem).

Before we had accepted Jesus as Lord and Saviour of our lives, we were in bondage.  We may ask, “Who was our captor?  Who held us in slavery?”  The answer is ourselves and Satan.  Our own selfishness ruled our lives.  We were also under the control of Satan.  He kept on and on tempting us to be selfish and sinful.  He inspired us to hate all those who hurt us.  The good that we wanted to do we couldn’t do, and the things that we knew were bad that we didn’t want to do, we did (see Romans 7.14-20).  Another word for selfishness is sin.  Before we were saved, we were slaves to sin.

Jesus died on the cross to set us free from selfishness and sin and to get us out of the power of Satan.  When we put all our trust and faith in Jesus, we are completely set free.  This psalm expresses the utter joy of Christian freedom.  We rejoice with laughter and happiness because the Lord has worked great miracles in our lives.  Many people realize what He has done, it’s so fantastic.  We were full of tears, now we are filled with joy.  We burst into songs because we are so happy.  We dance and clap our hands.

PRAYER: Dear Jesus, thank you for delivering us from the bondage of Satan and our own selfishness and sins by dying for us.  Give us the faith to believe we have been set free and fill us with joy; greater joy than we have ever known.  Amen.

WEDNESDAY 21st. OCTOBER
Hebrews 7.21-28
Jesus saves completely

If we come to God through Jesus, we can be 100% sure that we will be saved by Him and therefore 100% certain that we are going to Heaven.  Jesus gives us the assurance of salvation.  Jesus guarantees our salvation for us. We don’t have to do anything to secure our salvation.  In fact, it’s absolutely and utterly impossible for us to save ourselves, however hard we try.  All that is necessary is for us to surrender our lives to Jesus and put all our faith and trust in Him.  Our salvation was secured when Jesus sacrificed Himself on the cross for us.  He was both Priest and Victim. By this sacrifice, Jesus is able to save each one of us completely.  Jesus saves us completely because once we have surrendered our lives to Him and come to God through Him, He always lives to intercede for us.  Jesus is continually praying for us, pleading the Father to make us His for ever.

Have you noticed as you read the New Testament, that every single prayer of Jesus was answered immediately.  If Jesus is praying for us, we can be 100% sure that prayer will be answered and we will be in Heaven with Him for ever.
 
PRAYER: Jesus, thank you so much for making us, who have decided to trust in you and come to God through you, 100% certain that we have been saved by the price you paid for us on the cross, and that we will make our heavenly destination because you never stop praying for us.  Thank you so much Jesus.  Amen.

THURSDAY 22nd. OCTOBER
Hebrews 8.1-6
Founded on better promises

In the course of life, promises are very important to us.  When our parents made promises to us and kept them, it helped us to really trust them and this made us very stable.  If our parents made promises they never intended to keep and broke them, this would make us very insecure and unhappy.  As we grew up and got to know people, we found that we could trust some and not others.  We could only trust those who kept their promises to us. If a teacher or parent promises to smack a child the next time he does something naughty and then lets him off, he is breaking a promise.  There will be no discipline and therefore no happiness in that family or classroom. If rewards are promised for work done and never given out when it is completed, this leads to unhappiness and break-down in relationships.

The Priest’s job, through offering sacrifices in the Holy Place of the temple, is to bring people to God and mend all broken relationships.  Because these earthly priests are not perfect and they don’t always keep their promises, they fail to bring people to God.  That’s why God chose Jesus to be our own special High Priest.  He is perfect and it’s impossible for Him to break a promise.  God promises us that because Jesus is pleading for us in the Holy of Holies at the Father’s right hand, He will save us.  We know we are saved, that our relationships are mended, and that we are going to Heaven because God promises these things and He never breaks His promise.  This makes us extremely secure, happy and joyful.

PRAYER: Father God, you are such a wonderful Father, you never break your promises.  Thank you for promising us your forgiveness and giving us eternal life because Jesus is pleading for us in the Holy of Holies.  Amen.

FRIDAY 23rd. OCTOBER
Jeremiah 31.1-9
God’s people are filled with joy

God spoke through Jeremiah the prophet and promised a time when salvation would come to His people and when they would sing and dance because they would be so happy. God kept this promise when He sent His Son, Jesus, into the world several hundred years later.  People from everywhere came to Jesus weeping because of the result of sickness, sin and the influence of evil.  They left Him singing and dancing and filled with joy because He had set them free!
 
After He has healed us, forgiven us and set us free, Jesus protects us from all harm and He leads us to streams of living water.  In John 7.37-38 Jesus tells us the stream of living water is the Holy Spirit.  As Jesus pleads for us in Heaven, so He is pouring out the Holy Spirit. The moment Jesus sees us responding to His prayers and turning our hearts back to Him; when He sees us surrendering to Him and trusting in Him, He saves us and sets us free from sin.  As soon as we experience His saving grace transforming our lives, we experience the living presence of the Holy Spirit with us.  God pours so much love into our hearts by His Holy Spirit and we know that Jesus is dwelling in our hearts.  We feel so loved, so wonderful, so happy, so secure.  It’s absolutely heavenly.  The joy that beams out of our lives is like the flag on the King’s Palace telling everyone that King Jesus is dwelling in our hearts.

PRAYER: Dear Heavenly Father, thank you for all the joy you bring us when Jesus saves us and the Holy Spirit fills us.  Give us all the assurance of our personal salvation and keep giving the Holy Spirit to us, through Jesus our Saviour King.  Amen.

SATURDAY 24TH. OCTOBER
Mark 10.36-52
Four steps to salvation and healing

What do we need to receive healing or salvation or anything from Jesus?  Do we need to have a great deal of understanding?  Do we need to go through a complicated theological course?  No, not all!  All we need is to have a very simple faith like the blind beggar, Bartimaeus. Bartimaeus was blind and he wanted to be able to see.  He knew that Jesus was passing by.  He had heard from some of his blind friends that Jesus had made them see.  He called out to Jesus, “Jesus, Son of David, have mercy on me”.  He looked like a no-hoper so Jesus’ disciples tried to shut him up, but no-one is a no-hoper in Jesus’ eyes.  He has power to help everyone, however good or bad.  Jesus calls him and he comes leaping up to Jesus and gets healed, dropping his cloak as he goes.  Jesus says to him, “Your faith has healed you.”  His sight is restored and he looks straight into Jesus’ eyes.

Three simple things are necessary if we want help from our Saviour.  They are three steps to healing.

• 1.  We cry out to Jesus in prayer.
• 2.  We know He is calling so we come to Him.  We move towards Him by surrendering to Him in our hearts.
• 3.  We put all our faith and trust in Him.

We could add a fourth step: praise Him and thank Him, know that He has answered our prayer and has healed us.

PRAYER: Jesus, we thank you that you love us so much you want to heal and help and save us all.  You want to make us see how wonderful you are.  As we cry out to you, we come to you and trust in you.  Thank you Jesus, you are so wonderful.  Amen.

SUNDAY 25th. OCTOBER
  This week’s Message

Bartimaeus, the blind beggar had heard all about Jesus.  He knew of several people who had been healed by Him. That made him very excited when he heard the noise of the crowds and found out that Jesus was very near. He started yelling out at the top of his voice, “Jesus, Son of David have mercy on me!” People tried to stop him but he cried out even more.  As soon as Jesus heard the cries for help, He called for the man and asked him what he wanted. When he said, “I want to see” Jesus restored his sight saying, “your faith has healed you”. Jesus is always ready to hear us and will answer our prayers when we cry out to Him. If we have the faith to believe that He will answer our prayers we can be sure they will be answered.

How can we be so certain that prayers will be answered?   We can be certain when we believe that God will keep His promises.  God has made an agreement with us. We call it the New Covenant.  Jesus guarantees that God will keep all the promises he has made in this covenant.

“Jesus is able to save completely those who come to God through Him.”(Hebrews 7:25)

He is able to save us and heal us and answer all our prayers because He never stops praying for us.

Once we surrender our whole lives to Jesus and accept Him as our Lord and Saviour our names are written in the Lambs book of life. (Revelation 21:27) This is Jesus’ prayer list.  He is constantly praying for everyone on it as well as praying for others to come to God through Him.

If we realise that Jesus is praying for us this gives us the faith to believe that He will answer our prayers, take away all our sins and drive out all evil. It give us faith to believe that Jesus will heal us. As Jesus healed physically blind people so He is longing to open up the eyes of our hearts, our spiritual eyes. When He does, we see Jesus and as soon as we see Him we are filled with faith. Wendy Hall wrote this beautiful song 

“Jesus we see you through eyes that you’ve given,
Lord how we look upon your face
We see you as light that shines all around us
Showing us the way you’d have us go”
Jesus is the Way, the Truth and the Life
Jesus is the Way
Jesus is the Way
Jesus is the Truth and the Life.
When this light begins to shine on us  we sing with joy  and make our praises be heard. We become the happiest people on earth. Everlasting joy fills us completely.