Bible Focus                                

Bible Focus started as a brief daily devotion in mid-2012. I found I was soon sharing the thoughts the Lord was giving me, with an increasing number of brethren via sms phone messages. The task and number of messages became too large to pursue every day, which gave rise to this blog of daily devotions linked to  our church website: http://www.pentecostalfamilychurch.com.au  

Here, all those who wanted to access the daily portion and make it part of their personal devotional time of prayer and study, could do so at any time it suited them.

Over the past year, 356 plus devotionals on various parts of the Scriptures, have resulted. These offer a full year of daily spiritual servings for contemplation and discipline in the Word. I do not profess to have the greatest or best content, but have prayerfully tried to offer a focus and brief look into portions of God’s Word and verses not usually visited for devotional purposes, or in fact in some cases hardly read at all! While providing some comments and thoughts, the brief messages contained in each entry have been intended as primers or starting points for further personal meditation, study and development, or maybe as seed for sharing and discussion.

Some have suggested that an audio version would be useful and in some cases desirable. As requested, I intend to make this endeavour available in audio format also for those who may prefer or be more inclined or limited to listen rather than actually read.

With God’s help I will in time return to Bible Focus and attempt to produce a second year of brief notes on various scripture passages, so that they may be used either as an am/pm devotional focus in the Bible, or as a means of alternating the daily devotional from one year to the next, so that the material offered may remain fresh to the reader.

I covet the prayers of those who have participated by reading these simple offerings, and pray with all humility of heart that some benefit to the soul, help in the Christian walk and encouragement to study God’s Word further and deeper, may ensue from them. I know I have personally benefited from the prayer, study, research and meditation which have gone in each brief article every day for the past year.

I glorify the Lord Jesus for all He has supplied: all inspiration, understanding, thought and word, for without Him and the help of His Holy Spirit, there would be no spiritual understanding, strength or growth.

May the Lord richly bless every faithful believer who daily builds relationship with Jesus by fervent prayer, and drinking deeply from the everlasting, fresh and restorative fountain of His Holy Word.

July 19

“And I will write on the tables the words that were in the first tables…” Deuteronomy 10:2

God had supplied the first set of stone tables, and written on them by His own hand the commandments He wanted His people to live by. When Moses had returned from his encounter with God on the mountain to the Israelite camp, he found they had broken the very laws he was bringing to them! In anger and disgust at their idolatry and short lived faithfulness to Yahwah, who had delivered them from Egypt, he threw down and broke the tables of stone, and judgment was visited upon the people. The scripture tells of three thousand who were killed on that day, and plagues which came upon the Israelites because of their sin. The second set of tables were carved out of stone by Moses, but again written upon by God Himself. The accuracy and veracity of the original text, was in this way preserved by the Lord. God has always been interested in keeping His revelation to man, free of mistakes or tampering. All subsequent scripture was therefore given by inspiration of God, so that the writer was merely the hand on the pen, but the Author was still Yahwah. This process of full verbal inspiration lifts the Bible above any other book ever written, and on a plane unique and superior to any work of man. The accuracy and veracity of the scriptures have been challenged and verified many times, in various spheres of science and observation. Personal experience also confirms the content of the Holy Writ and provides further evidence of its truth! People from all walks of life, from all cultures and of all levels of education, have found God’s Word to be true, trustworthy and a reliable source of guidance, light and learning. God wrote then, and wrote again while here on earth, resulting in the forgiveness of a woman who had been caught in sin. His writing was and is a letter of love, direction and instruction. Today He still writes -this time not on tables of stone, but the fleshly tables of our hearts. There He lodges the truth and conviction of His principles and inscribes the reality of His love and grace. In our hearts He engraves the knowledge of His will, and stores the confidence of our salvation! Praise God for all that He writes and communicates with us, for without Him and His Word, we would have no knowledge of right, no understanding of our purpose, no love for one another and hope for the future!

http://www.pentecostalfamilychurch.com.au/devotion

Mar 11

“Which is not another…” Galatians 1:7

Paul had laboured hard with the church at Galatia. He had ensured that they were exposed to the whole counsel of God and understood the gospel of truth. Here we find him expressing surprise and concern over how quickly and with little discernment, they were influenced to follow teaching, which did not support or reflect the truth they had learned from him. Sadly this is not an uncommon fact among many believers. Those who instead of aligning what they hear to God’s Word, as the plumbline and benchmark, merely accept anything that ‘sounds like truth’, will inevitably end up accepting error and a false gospel. False doctrine, promulgated by false teachers, was a serious concern in the early church, and it remains a primary cause of alarm in our day and age. Far too many subscribe and too easily consent to teachings of men, that cannot be satisfactorily substantiated by the Holy Scriptures. Tradition and cultural preferences, often play a major part of bending understanding, and twisting the truth of the Bible to suit the customs and practices of the people being addressed. To some degree this was happening in the early New Testament church, where people of various cultures and established religions, came into the relatively new Christian faith, in spite of accepting Christ, they also tended to include and impose factors of their own beliefs, upon others. Paul speaks against these troublesome individuals, and sees them as perverting the pure and true gospel of Christ. Satan has been intent in manipulating humanity to adulterate and pollute the purity of God’s Word. During the establishment of the church, and often since, many ‘gospels’, so called, have been formulated, and offered as ‘truth’. Paul makes it clear that though some may present alternatives as ‘another gospel’, they are not really “the Gospel” at all! We too must take a stand the way he did. We live in a time when all kinds of substitutions, changes and replacements are being inflicted upon the established Word of God. Many gnostic writings, which had in the past already been disqualified from being included as part of the revealed and inspired message from God, are being resurrected, and presented as viable options and choices of belief for Christians. We should view this as Paul did - a perversion and falsification of the truth! When we hear or read material which cannot be aligned with the revealed Word of God, the Bible, as it has been known and established now for many centuries, let us stand firm and resolute for the truth. It has been correctly stated that "if we do not stand for truth, we will fall for every lie". We are encouraged to distinguish and discern truth from error, through the Spirit of God and the inspired text. It ultimately becomes our personal responsibility to stay true to God and not be moved, affected or persuaded by any of the winds of false doctrine and false gospels, published and proclaimed by false teachers. Let us carefully buy into, treasure and never sell out, the truth God reveals to us from His Word!

http://www.pentecostalfamilychurch.com.au/devotion