How much effort do you exert to be close to Jesus?
18 Feb 26
Today's devotional: taken from YouVersion, Devotions on F.I.R.E. Year One
Readings:
Leviticus 26
Leviticus 27
Mark 2
He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him (Hebrews 11:6).
How much effort do you exert to be close to Jesus?
Jesus would not be deterred from His mission to preach (Mark 1:38), so He continues proclaiming God’s Word from a crowded home (Mark 2:2). The four friends of a paralyzed man are determined to reach Jesus to the extent that they peel back the roof of the owner’s house and let the man down to Jesus. Jesus forgives the man’s sins and miraculously heals him. The four friends live out Hebrews 11:6: “But without faith, it is impossible to please Him, for he who comes to God must believe that He is and that He is a rewarder of those who diligently seek Him.” The verb “diligently” derives from the root meaning to seek and also has an intensifier. That is how these men approach Jesus!
Employment Point: Diligently seek Jesus by faith and you’ll be rewarded for your effort.
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Reflections
Like what the devotional is saying. How much exactly are we seeking Jesus? Are we only seeking Him out of our own convenience? Do we treat Him like an ATM, only going to Him when we have needs but forgot about Him when we celebrate? How much do we really want to know Jesus? What kind of relationship do we want to have with Jesus and for how long? What active steps are we taking if we say we want this or that? Are there action plans and how confident are we, that we will be able to fulfil our goals in mind?
To be close to Jesus and know requires a lot of intentional efforts. Not just a one-off thing but one that calls for our perseverance, trust and obedience in His calling. We need to first have faith, even without seeing the outcome. He asked us to trust that He knows.
““ ‘If you remain hostile toward me and refuse to listen to me, I will multiply your afflictions seven times over, as your sins deserve. I will send wild animals against you, and they will rob you of your children, destroy your cattle and make you so few in number that your roads will be deserted. “ ‘If in spite of these things you do not accept my correction but continue to be hostile toward me, I myself will be hostile toward you and will afflict you for your sins seven times over.”
Leviticus 26:21-24 NIV
- here we saw how the Lord gave grace to people who sin against Him. There are consequences to bear but they will not be cut off for He is gracious. He gives chances after chances.
- I just felt he that our Lord is a really understanding God. He knows us humans. We are born with sin in our blood and yet He is willing to give us multiple chances to repent and to come to Him, even though we may be hard-hearted. He continues to pursue us. How great a Father is He..
“Since they could not get him to Jesus because of the crowd, they made an opening in the roof above Jesus by digging through it and then lowered the mat the man was lying on.”
Mark 2:4 NIV
- this verse is a reminder that when we are one who does not have great faith, it is important to surround ourselves with those who do. Which is also why it is important to have a community who is always there for you and supporting you.
- His friends go to great lengths to try to reach Jesus because they believe He can heal. Sometimes, it is we ourselves who lack that faith. Which is why things do not happen. Lord, help us with our unbelief.
““No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. Otherwise, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.””
Mark 2:21-22 NIV
- these two verses are kind of hard to understand. So what Jesus is saying, is that one cannot fit a new life in the old form. It is beyond stretching.
- The new wine in a new wineskin will cause it to stretch due to fermentation. Thus, the skin along with the old wine will become thinner. So if you were to pour new skin into old wineskin, the skin will not be able to hold the wine and it will burst.
- Thus, there is frequent need to look for new wineskins for fresh wine (fresh blood). Jesus came to introduce something new, not to patch up something old. This is what salvation is all about. In doing this, Jesus doesn’t destroy the old (the law), but He fulfills it.
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The Initiative against Despair
BY OSWALD CHAMBERS
February 18
Rise! Let us go! — Matthew 26:46
In the garden of Gethsemane, Jesus’s disciples fell asleep when they were supposed to be keeping watch. When they awoke and realized that Jesus was about to be taken, they were filled with despair.
We might imagine that this kind of despair is unusual; in fact, it’s a very common human experience. Whenever we realize that we’ve done something we can’t undo, whenever we let a magnificent opportunity pass us by, despair is the natural response. Sometimes, our feeling of despair is so deep we can’t lift ourselves out of it. At these moments, we need Jesus Christ to come to us and say, “Rise! Let us go!”
When our Lord comes to us in this way, he tells us to accept the reality of our situation. “That opportunity is lost forever,” he says. “You can’t change what has happened. But rise now, and go on.” In Gethsemane, the disciples had done something they felt was unforgivable. Jesus came with his spiritual initiative against despair, telling them to move on to the next thing. What is the next thing? If we are inspired by God, the next thing is always to trust him absolutely and to pray on the ground of his redemption.
Never let a sense of failure alter your new plans and actions. Let the past sleep, but let it sleep with Christ. Step out into the irresistible future with him.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
We are apt to think that everything that happens to us is to be turned into useful teaching; it is to be turned into something better than teaching, viz. into character. We shall find that the spheres God brings us into are not meant to teach us something but to make us something.
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Reflections
One of the enemy’s tactic is to guilt-trip us. We ought to do something but we didn’t. We ought to obey and trust in Jesus, but we didn’t. We are supposed to read the bible but we didn’t. The enemy makes use of every such opportunity to make us feel unworthy, undeserving and make us let go of God’s hands. However, we ought to know that it is not us that is holding on to Him. It is He, who holds on to us. It will be wrong to think that we control this relationship with Him. That it is us to chooses Jesus. No, it is the Lord that chose use first. He chose to reach out first, always there, never left.
What is more important for us, is to recognise failures are not the end. It is meant to be a lesson point, to help us to readjust and to move forward to our destiny.
“Brothers and sisters, I do not consider myself yet to have taken hold of it. But one thing I do: Forgetting what is behind and straining toward what is ahead, I press on toward the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”
Philippians 3:13-14 NIV
- this verse puts it nicely. To forget what is behind and strain toward the goal to win the prize which God has set for us heavenward in Christ Jesus. We are not meant to dwell in the past. Let the past remain there and turn our focus forward.
- Indeed what is ahead may be unknown, but we know who is in charge and who is holding our hands. We need to remain focus and persevere to what is ahead. We ought to train and be prepared for this race that set before us.
Let’s pray:
Father Lord, thank You for holding our hands and guiding our paths. In the times we fall short, Lord, just thank You that You did not give up on us. Thank You Father for the reminder that we are Your beloved child and You love us all the same despite our failures. We know You have the ability to turn wrongs into good as well and transform us more and more like You each day. Father may You help us to focus on You and Your word. To seek You daily and put You first. Help us when we are weak and remind or inspire us on how we can move forward with Your help, not based on our own understanding. Just want to say thank You Father. For every blessing and every challenge. Thank You that You always stand with us, regardless. All thanks be to God.
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Today marks the start of Lent.
I am following the Lent devotion Day 1/53
taken from YouVersion, Lent for Everyone
Lent for Everyone is a devotional created and written by N.T. (Tom) Wright. For each day of Lent, there is a reading chosen from the Gospel of Matthew, plus a reflection by Wright. These readings have grown out of a project encouraging Lent reading in Northern England. This is the second in a three-volume series based on the Revised Common Lectionary of the Church of England.
Today’s reading:
Matthew 1
Matthew 2
ASH WEDNESDAY
We know very, very little about Joseph. Some legends make him an old man who died while Jesus was growing up, but we don't know that for sure. We know he worked in the building trade, including what we call carpentry. We know he could trace his ancestry back to the ancient royal house of David and Solomon (many first-century Jews knew their family history as well as many today know the story of their favourite soap opera, or the fortunes of their football team). And we know that Joseph faced a unique personal and moral challenge, and came through it with integrity and humility. Joseph, in this passage, provides a sharply personal angle for us to approach Matthew's gospel.
Think how it was for him. Marriage beckons, quite likely arranged by the two families but none the less an exciting prospect. A home. Children. A new status in the community — in a small town where everyone knows everyone else and where, without television, everybody else's life is part of a complex daily soap opera.
And then the shock. Mary has news for him, news to send a chill down the spine of any prospective husband. How can he possibly believe her strange story? What will people say? So he plans, with a heavy heart, to call the whole thing off.
Then, the dream. Mary's story is true. What's more, she and her child are caught up, not just in a personal challenge, but in a much older, stranger purpose. God's purpose. God's rescue operation, long expected and at last coming true. The child to be born will be 'Emmanuel', God-with-us. God with us to save us: hence the name 'Jesus', the same word as 'Joshua', the great leader who brought the people of Israel across the Jordan into the promised land. The name means 'Yahweh saves'. God with us; God to the rescue.
Whenever God does something new, he involves people — often unlikely people, frequently surprised and alarmed people. He asks them to trust him in a new way, to put aside their natural reactions, to listen humbly for a fresh word and to act on it without knowing exactly how it's going to work out. That's what he's asking all of us to do this Lent. Reading the Bible without knowing in advance what God is going to say takes humility. Like Joseph, we may have to put our initial reactions on hold and be prepared to hear new words, to think new thoughts, and to live them out. We all come with our own questions, our own sorrows and frustrations, our own longings. God will deal with them in his own way, but he will do so as part of his own much larger and deeper purposes. Who knows what might happen, this year, if even a few of us were prepared to listen to God's word in scripture in a new way, to share the humility of Joseph, and to find ourselves caught up in God's rescue operation?
TODAY
Speak to us, Father, in a new way as we read your word. Help us to hear your voice and follow where you lead.
Amen
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