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.

May 22

“…but in lowliness of mind let each esteem other better than themselves.” Philippians 2:3

A desirable and commendable quality of heart and its natural outflow are described here. Translated elsewhere as humility and humbleness, lowliness of mind is true modesty and genuine unpretentiousness. Much false humility has been given rise, by those who would apply this concept out of it intended context. It is natural to find some ability, skill, talent or knowledge in one man which is greater than that found in another. To this of course, humility should immediately defer. The context of the humility spoken of here however, is that which is required when considering the effects of God’s grace in another person’s life. This lowliness of mind causes one to see and highlight the importance, growth or experience of his brethren, in preference to his own. This is not to say that we must believe everybody ‘better’ than ourselves in every sense, or pretend we cannot see the faults in others. Quite to the contrary, true humility is capable of seeing self in a true light. It is able to step in the position God sees fit to give or call one to, without losing sight of personal dependence on Him. True humility can acknowledge progress or achievement without once attributing any aspect of it to mere self. It has as its outflow, the ability to look beyond the flaws in another’s life or character, remembering all too well  the vileness and insignificance which describes and defines us all, outside of Christ. This humility principle flies in the face of all pride and ambition, associated with spiritual pursuit or progress. It remembers that each of us owe all we are, have and do, to Jesus Christ. It knows and proclaims unashamedly that without Him, we have no achievement, no success or accomplishment to present as our own. This is why such humility can always find some detail, some experience, and some personal aspect of God’s grace fulfilled in our brother, as ‘better’, more worthwhile and exemplary than our own, and is willing to gladly state so! It glorifies Jesus, in others, and therefore it is ‘better’ and greater than us in our natural state! It highlights what God does in someone else’s life, and that is always a greater work than we could ever do for ourselves! This is God’s recipe for total annihilation of pride! Should all believers genuinely be clothed in such pure humility, foolish and destructive pride would not be known among Christians, and the praises of God would be sung, as believers testify of the wonderful works God has done and they can see in the life of their brethren!

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