What is the consequence of not honoring God’s authority?
1 Feb 26
Today's devotional: taken from YouVersion, Devotions on F.I.R.E. Year One
Readings:
Exodus 27
Exodus 28
Matthew 21:23-46
Therefore submit to God. Resist the devil and he will flee from you (James 4:7).
What is the consequence of not honoring God’s authority?
Jesus is asked by the religious leaders, “By what authority are You doing these things?” (Matthew 21:23). Jesus has just cleansed the Temple and is being asked by whose authorization He acts. In traditional Jewish form, Jesus answers a question with a question. He points the religious hypocrites back to John. The Lord questions, “The baptism of John—where was it from? From heaven or from men?” (Matthew 21:25). Jesus imparts a profound truth: We need to direct rebels back to God’s authority. Essentially, He shows that if they didn’t listen to John who spoke for God, He would not answer their question. We learn that if someone disregards God’s authority, spiritual blindness follows.
Employment Point: Get under God’s authority and you’ll receive further illumination.
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Reflections
Was reading the ODB and it says that when you abide in God, you will see God in your daily lives and His every hand in all situations. How apt it is. This is a reminder to me that in every situation, to always look to the Lord in prayers. A lot of things I tend to jump in and tackle whenever something was brought up to me. However, the Lord has taught me that this should not be the case. When we jumped too fast, we lose focus. We cannot see how and what should be our priority and will begin to take things into our own hands.
The learning of abiding in the Lord, allows us to slow down, be at peace and be still. This stillness that comes from the Lord can anchor our thoughts, our mind and our heart and guide our actions, speech and thoughts by the Holy Spirit. When the focus is on Him, we learn that things are not as hard as it looked to be because in Him, even the impossible can become possible.
Help us Lord, to be still, to wait for Your guidance to move and take the next steps. Help us to submit to You and abide in You so that You may use us as willing vessels to do Your good works.
“Tell all the skilled workers to whom I have given wisdom in such matters that they are to make garments for Aaron, for his consecration, so he may serve me as priest.”Exodus 28:3 NIV
- here, we do see how the Lord has grant special gifts to us for a specific purpose and each one of us do have a unique gift so we may all use it to serve the Lord and His people.
- I hear people telling me they do not have gifts but I don’t think that is true. The Lord loves His people and will give gifts to every one of us. Maybe the gift that you have is so part of you that you don’t even realise it is your gift. Which is why each and every one of us is different and unique.
““What do you think? There was a man who had two sons. He went to the first and said, ‘Son, go and work today in the vineyard.’ “ ‘I will not,’ he answered, but later he changed his mind and went. “Which of the two did what his father wanted?” “The first,” they answered. Jesus said to them, “Truly I tell you, the tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you.”Matthew 21:28-29, 31 NIV
- the heart of it is taking action. Not mere words or saying that we will do it but doing it in compliance and obedience to what we had promised the Lord and He does open doors if He wills it. Unless it is not something that should be done according to His purpose, whatever plans there is will not succeed.
- A reminder to myself too that when I promise the Lord I will do something, that I ought to make sure I follow through. Otherwise I would be no different from a hypocrite, just no action, talk only (NATO).
- Father may You help us place this prompting in our hearts, learning to take action out of obedience. Help us to have courage to step out of our comfort zones into Your calling.
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The Call of God
BY OSWALD CHAMBERS
February 01
Christ did not send me to baptize, but to preach the gospel. —1 Corinthians 1:17
If we are going to preach the gospel, we need to be clear about what the gospel is. In his letters to the Corinthians, Paul says that the gospel—the message God has called on him to deliver—is the reality of redemption in our Lord Jesus Christ. The gospel isn’t Paul’s personal transformation or experience; it isn’t his salvation or sanctification. Paul shares his personal story, but only as an illustration: certain things happened to Paul because of the redemption, but they were not the ultimate reason for it. The ultimate reason Jesus suffered in redemption was to redeem the whole world and place it unimpaired and rehabilitated before the throne of God. This is the gospel, and the only thing we are commissioned to preach.
The difference between Jesus’s act of redemption and our personal holiness is stark: one is cause and the other effect. When we preach, we must be careful where we place the emphasis. Are we placing it on Jesus, or on ourselves? Are we lifting up his holiness, or our own?
When we truly understand the reality of the gospel, we will stop bothering God with questions about ourselves. Imagine, if God were human, how heartsick and tired he would be, listening to the constant requests for our salvation and sanctification! We trouble him day and night, when we should be thanking him. Paul welcomed heartbreak, disillusionment, and tribulation for one reason only: they kept him in unmoved devotion to the gospel of God.
WISDOM FROM OSWALD
We have no right to judge where we should be put, or to have preconceived notions as to what God is fitting us for. God engineers everything; wherever He puts us, our one great aim is to pour out a whole-hearted devotion to Him in that particular work. “Whatsoever thy hand findeth to do, do it with thy might.”
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Reflections
As I was pondering over this devotional, I read something about the Noah’s Ark. That the way that it was built was scary. So if we go back to read about it in Genesis 6, we would have realised that the Lord gave instructions to Noah to build the ark down to the measurements and the materials. Realised we all miss something. This ark was built without a rudder, without a sail and without an engine. It was meant only to float and Noah and whoever that is in the ark, has totally no control over where the ark will go. He would not be able to dodge any rocks, avoid any waves or land and the control? Was entirely left to God. Now let that sink in…
Our lives are meant to be lived like Noah. It doesn’t matter who we are but it is all about who God is. All He needs is someone who is willing to obey and leaves the rest into His hands.
Indeed our own testimony is all for His glory. It is all because of Him, His love, His sacrifice, His blood, that we are all able to have eternal life, that we have full access to the Father, and that the link that was broken is now mended by Christ Jesus, bringing us back to where it all started. There is no part for us to be in this. Only by the grace of the Lord. To God be the glory!
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