Can you trust Jesus with your past, present, and future?

 14 Mar 26

Today's devotional: taken from YouVersion, Devotions on F.I.R.E. Year One

Readings:

Deuteronomy 23

Deuteronomy 24

Deuteronomy 25

Mark 14:51-72

Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever (Hebrews 13:8). 

Can you trust Jesus with your past, present, and future?

The Lord Jesus knows Peter’s past perfectly since He created him. When he meets Peter, He says to him, “You are Simon the Son of Jonah. You shall be called Cephas” (John 1:42). Later Peter and his associates struggle one night to catch fish and their nets are barren, Jesus says to him, “Launch out into the deep and let down your nets for a catch” (Luke 5:4). Jesus shows Peter by the enormous haul of fish that he can trust the Lord with his present. Finally, Jesus predicts Peter’s three denials. Mark records what happens after Peter’s third denial, “A second time the rooster crowed” (Mark 14:72). Jesus’ prediction and fulfillment show that He knows the future perfectly. Since “Jesus Christ is the same yesterday, today, and forever,” we can trust Him. 

Employment Point: Commit to perpetually trusting Jesus.

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Reflections

“Do not take advantage of a hired worker who is poor and needy, whether that worker is a fellow Israelite or a foreigner residing in one of your towns. Pay them their wages each day before sunset, because they are poor and are counting on it. Otherwise they may cry to the Lord against you, and you will be guilty of sin.”

‭‭Deuteronomy‬ ‭24‬:‭14‬-‭15‬ ‭NIV‬‬

• I hope this kind of law is being reinforced by our ministry of manpower so that no persons will suffer in silence, having not receive their pay when it is due. 
• As there are more news of companies closing down, we pray that the Lord will guide and help them to be responsible employers, seeking help from NTUC to help anyone who may be displaced due to such circumstances.

“When you are harvesting in your field and you overlook a sheaf, do not go back to get it. Leave it for the foreigner, the fatherless and the widow, so that the Lord your God may bless you in all the work of your hands.”Deuteronomy‬ ‭24‬:‭19‬ ‭NIV‬‬

• I thank God for His grace that He has always teach people to be loving and to care for their neighbours. 
• This is a reminder where we received such grace, we too ought to give such grace to others, so that the outpouring of such love from Christ will flow through us to the people we meet. Reminder too for us not to be greedy, always share with others so that we do not also directly cause others to starve (whether in physical or spiritual food)

“Immediately the rooster crowed the second time. Then Peter remembered the word Jesus had spoken to him: “Before the rooster crows twice you will disown me three times.” And he broke down and wept.”Mark‬ ‭14‬:‭72‬ ‭NIV‬‬

• there may also be times where we have fallen short. We realised the things we should not do, we do it anyways, which we later on regretted and get disappointed with ourselves, beating ourselves up.
• We realised that Jesus knew about it but Peter wasn’t. Jesus later on spoke with Peter, assigning him things to do, at the same time asking him if he loves Him. We saw how gracious the Lord is to Peter, and also to us. He realised how imperfect we are, yet, He can still use us, if we are willing, to do His works. 

Help us to trust You Lord, for only You know everything. 🙏🏻

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Obedience

BY OSWALD CHAMBERS

March 14

You are slaves of the one you obey. — Romans 6:16

The first thing to do when confronting a habit or mindset that controls me is to face an unwelcome fact: I am responsible for being controlled, because at some point I gave in. If I am a slave to myself—to my habits and urges, my egotisms and selfishness—I am to blame, because I gave in to myself. Likewise, if I obey God, it’s because I’ve yielded myself to him.

We learn the truth of this in the most ridiculously small things. “I can give up that habit whenever I want,” you say. You cannot. Try it, and you will find that the habit absolutely dominates you. Give in to selfishness in childhood, and you will find it the most binding tyranny on earth. Yield for one second to any form of lust—to the thought “I must have this thing at once”—and you will be chained to that thing, even if you hate yourself for it.

No human power can break the bondage of a character that has been shaped by giving in. Only the power of the redemption is sufficient. You must yield yourself in utter humiliation to the only one who can set you free, the Lord Jesus Christ: “He has sent me to proclaim freedom for the prisoners and … to set the oppressed free” (Luke 4:18). It is easy to sing “He can break every fetter” and still be living a life of obvious slavery to yourself. Only Jesus can break the chains, and only when you let him. Yield yourself to the Lord, and he will set you free.

Deuteronomy 23-25; Mark 14:1-26

WISDOM FROM OSWALD

There is no condition of life in which we cannot abide in Jesus.
We have to learn to abide in Him wherever we are placed.

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Reflections

It is indeed true that we become a slave to what we give in to. In the past I was so addicted to gaming, I spend my waking hours fully focused on gaming, even during my meal times. It became too much. To a point I was even spending money buying packs to upgrade. Well, definitely good money for the developers. But I slowly realised gaming is eating into me and decided to just give it all up. I realised that my life was revolving around the game and my clan mates. I was detached from the real world. 

Perhaps that is the danger for our younger adults and friends too. To get sucked into a virtual world where everyone just seemed so nice. But try not playing for 2 days people will probably kick you out. I realised people only wanted me in because of my availability. The true gamers wanted like-minded individuals to be in their clan. They wanted power, growth, to be the top. We go around attacking others. Frankly, it doesn’t do much to build our character in Christ-like sense.

Truly thank God for knocking senses into me and be pulled away from addiction and obsession. It was a bondage I cannot break. But yes, through Christ we can. Walking with Him has allowed me to see what is more important. Our family, our life, our friends. Real life relationships!! Not virtual ones where most are nice or good to you because of benefits or practical reasons.

So yes, if I have to be a slave, I want only to be slave of the Lord. For I can find rest in Him, He loves me truly, no hidden agendas. Just pure love. 

_I am willing Lord, to yield to You._

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Lent devotion Day 25/53

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 18

WEEK 3: SATURDAY

There are at least three levels at which we should read this sharp and startling story. And at least three levels at which we should apply it to our lives, not least our lives in church.

Start, though, with Peter's question. It seems practical, almost common sense, but also a bit naive. Jesus has told us to forgive; very well, but supposing someone does the same bad thing again and again. Isn't there a limit? Wouldn't seven times be enough?

Some translations make out that Jesus said 'seventy-seven times'; but actually the word more likely means 'seventy times seven'. Four hundred and ninety! What's that about?

Jesus, of course, didn't mean that you should be counting up, through clenched teeth, so that on the four hundred and ninety-first time you could finally take revenge. If that was how you were thinking about it, it would show you'd never really forgiven once, let alone seven times or seventy times seven. So what was he meaning?

The story he tells takes us straight to the first level of meaning. If you yourself have been forgiven, then your gratitude for that ought to make you ready to forgive others. It's that straightforward. When someone annoys you — drives across in front of you when it was your right of way, takes your seat on the bus, or even, in church, sings loudly out of tune right behind you — then it's easy to allow it to fester. You may still be thinking about it a day or a week later. With larger annoyances it can go on for months or years. Your entire life can be blighted by these angry memories, by the sense of frustration and self-righteousness. How could they behave like that to me?

Jesus' first and best answer would be this. Just imagine what God and his angels think about what you did yesterday to the person you bumped into on the street when you weren't looking. Just think how many people may quite rightly be angry with you for your carelessness, your arrogance, your selfishness. And just think how the angels think about the way you some- times sing in church. And yet you have been forgiven. When you say your prayers today, God isn't sitting there thinking crossly 'How dare you! I'm still angry with you after what you did last week!' He has forgiven you. Is it then too much to ask that you do the same?

Underneath that, there is a second level. My wife and I once had long conversations with a student who found herself in-capable of feeling God's love. She believed in Jesus; she had prayed and read the Bible; but she couldn't feel a thing. She wanted to know God's love the way her friends said they did. But it wasn't happening. Eventually, as we talked about her life, it all came out. She hated her parents. She resented the sort of people they were, the way they'd treated her. So she had closed up her heart. Where there should have been an open readiness for God's love, there was a steel wall. It was as though you cut off the telephone line to stop certain people ringing you up and then grumbled because you couldn't phone your best friend. Forgiveness and love are a two-way street. The same part of you, spiritually, both gives and receives. If you shut down the part labelled 'forgiveness', you shut down the part labelled 'forgiveness' — in both directions. The ending of the story seems harsh. But at the level of psychological reality, it rings true. 

The third level of meaning is altogether bigger, and goes back to the 'seventy times seven'. In the book of Daniel (9.24) the prophet is told, after praying that Jerusalem will be forgiven, that it will take 'seventy weeks of years' — in other words, seventy times seven years — before transgression, sin and iniquity are finally dealt with. This takes us back even further, to the ancient law of the Jubilee (Leviticus 25), which lays down that every forty-nine years (seven times seven) all debts must be remitted, with land returning to its original owners. Daniel is speaking of a Great Jubilee, a cosmic version of the Jubilee law. There will come a time when God will deal, once and for all, with all debts of every kind.

And Jesus? Well, Jesus announced that the moment had come. He was the Great Jubilee in person. His entire mission was about implementing God's age-old plan to deal with the evil that had infected the whole world. Forgiveness wasn't an incidental feature of his kingdom-movement. It was the name of the game. Those of us who find ourselves drawn into that movement must learn how to play that game, all the time. It's what we're about. It's what God is about.

TODAY

Loving Lord, teach us to forgive as we have been forgiven.

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Let’s pray:

Father, thank You for Your grace. That You overlook all our sins and still love us. That You still trust us to do Your works even though we do not have a good track record. 

Help us Father to forgive others as how You have forgiven us. We know sometimes deep hurts take time but also know that in Christ, anything is possible. Help us Lord, to turn to You, to repent and confess our sins and submit fully to Your will. Help us Lord, to step forth with open hands, willing to do Your works, for Your grace and glory. In Jesus’s Mighty name we pray. Amen 🙏🏻