July 28

“I will love thee, O LORD, my strength.” Psalms 18:1

Clarke says that “love always subsists on motive and reason”. Love does not exist without meaning and purpose, it is an act of purpose and choice. The love expressed in this verse, is a love born out of tenderness. It is significant of true inward affection, expressed outwardly in word and deed. Like David we can pray this same prayer of love as of children towards our loving Father. It is a pledge of continuance in this love, not a mere momentary feeling or emotion. It is a commitment to love Yahwah because of Who He is, what He has done and the promise of all He will fulfil in our lives. It is an expression of intimate relationship with our Creator and Saviour, redefining our position in relation to Him and reminding us of the heartfelt regard and respect that our love should demonstrate towards God. It is a confession of our need for the power and strength of the Lord and further reason why we love Him and fear Him. It is in loving God from a pure heart that we experience the greatest benefit and vigour for daily life. In loving God with all our hearts, we have the greatest motivation for serving Him and helping others. Genuine love for God is the fuel that powers our Christian living, and makes it holy, useful and committed. It is the backbone of any love we are able to share and give to others. Developing a deeper, more significant and resolute love for Yahshua, (Jesus) will keep us from sin, provide us with vision for His will and purpose and settle us in all circumstances of life, while reassuring us that our essence is safe and sure in the hands of the Eternal, Almighty, Holy One whom we love! 

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

July 24

“…and went not fully after the LORD, as did David his father.” 1 Kings 11:6

Solomon weakened his stand for God as he aged. The verse says he did evil in the sight of the Lord, and his evil was idolatry. He had held a privileged position with God and had been blessed with great advantages by Yahwah, but unlike his father David, Solomon added to the worship of Yahwah, his allegiance and adoration of pagan idols. In this sense then, the scriptures say that he did not go ‘fully after the Lord’! Full-hearted desire and service for the Lord, is still a measure of the quality we offer the Almighty God. The mandate of scripture is that we should love the Lord with all our heart, soul and strength. If our love for Him is wholehearted, then our service to Him will reflect that same fullness. There seems to exist a trend among many Christians today, which reflects more the ways of Solomon, than the ways of his father David. I refer to the half-heartedness, partial devotion and splintered love, which so many professing believers offer to God, while at the same time holding onto a passionate, intense and consuming desire for many things of the world. This, the Bible calls enmity against God, spiritual adultery and faithlessness! We must judge and weigh out the condition of our hearts towards the Lord. Is an ardent, deep and fervent love for God held firmly in our hearts, grasped so steadfastly that it cannot be easily dislodged? Does it surpass the affection we have for anyone and everything else? Is it fully devoted to Him as our only God, or shared with things and interests we hold so dear that they have become idols in our lives? The lukewarm heart condition of the Laodecian church of Revelation, or the condition of having lost our first love as the Ephesian Church was charged, are not the state our hearts should be found in at the coming of Jesus! The summation of our lives should read more like the résumé which God gave to King David, a shining testimony of a person who while perhaps not perfect, yet followed after the Lord with all his heart! Such excellence of love and wholeheartedness is our reasonable service to God and appropriate response to His love for us!

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

May 16

“And also I have withholden the rain from you…” Amos 4:7

In a repetitious pattern of disobedience, Israel again had fallen out of favour with God. When as God’s people we multiply our transgressions in total disregard to the Lord, and without repentance, we can be sure to encounter God’s punishment and correction. In our text this took the form of God withholding rain from His people. God is in control of His creation, and whilst overall He allows it to ‘rain on the just and the unjust’, it is error to think that God is limited by, or a slave to His own laws of nature. No, He remains in control and His will reigns supreme. Nature does not distinguish where to deposit its resources, but God can control nature at will and direct its course. In this particular instance, just to ensure that the Israelites knew this wasn’t merely a circumstance climatic difficulty they were facing, He caused it to rain on one city, but withheld rain from another adjoining it. He made it rain on one parcel of ground, but the next was dry and parched, this was done for the three months prior to their harvest, clearly making it a supernatural phenomenon, and marking it as a judgment upon their iniquity. Rain was and is still a basic necessity of life. Without it crops will not grow, and animals we use for food will not survive. Without water in our reservoirs, even in our modern world, we quickly become victims to the ravages of hunger and thirst. It is interesting also that the rain was withheld in the critical time preceding the harvest, when it was most needed to provide a rich and plentiful crop. Without rain at such times, the produce is scanty, dry and unusable. God is always ready and willing to bless and prosper His people, but time and again, our actions, indifference and disobedience, demand discipline from the Lord. This correction is not given to us because God hates us, or because He is a vehement, unreasonable, angry God. Castigation from the Lord is motivated out of love for us, to redirect us to a correct path and holy conduct. When we stray from God’s ways and violate His laws, we are placing ourselves in the way of judgment and making it our choice to be corrected by whatever means may be necessary, and at times these may be stern. How much better to listen carefully to God’s Spirit, obey His word and remain faithful and obedient to His ways, so that we can learn by God’s coaching and gentle leading, rather than His sterner hand. It is God’s will and purpose however, to fulfil the ultimate goal of His love toward us, which is our sanctification. This is a spiritual work and it takes precedence over every physical need, creature comfort and temporal provision. To that end He will continue to protect, direct and correct in whatever manner He sees fit, that our souls may be provided for and saved. When the blessing fails to ‘rain’ on our souls, let us be swift in analysing our hearts and conduct, and equally quick to repent and turn back to God from any conviction and righteousness we may have strayed from!

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

Mar 7

“... Hearts...might be comforted, being knit together in love…” Colossians 2:2

Our text expresses the comfort and encouragement, experienced by those who are united in faith to God. Christians are well acquainted with the distresses and trials of life, the rigours of persecutions and the challenges of reaching the lost. All such things add to the ‘discomfort’ that may be experienced as we walk ‘in Christ’. Yet God has not left His people without comfort! He not only sent the ‘Comforter’ - His Holy Spirit, to fill, empower and guide the believer, but He has also ensured that our hearts may find comfort in the reality of the companionship, fellowship and brotherhood that exist within the Church. The bonds of this company of blood-washed, redeemed individuals are strong! God’s family is meant to be close-knit and cohesive. Like the sinews and tendons that hold the joints of our bodies, even so the members of the Body of Christ, are held together by the strong bonds of the truth and love, which God has imparted to them. This is the mortar that joins each brick in the building and forms the edifice of God! The brethren that belong to the family of God, are not meant to be disavowed, distanced acquaintances, empty of common purpose and devoid of interest and love for one another.  The opposite is true! God’s will for us is that we are ‘knitted together’ into a solid, unified ‘oneness’, fused with the ‘glue’ of His amazing love, and motivated by His Spirit to carry out His godly and spiritual purposes! May the hearts of those who willingly put aside their own program of life, and embrace God and His ways, find in Jesus, and in the wonderful family of God, the joy, comfort and strength of His love, and the blessing of intimate unity.

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

Feb 20

“…Solomon clave unto these in love” 1 Kings 11:2

Though many have emphasised the number of Solomon’s wives, as being the cause of his heart becoming less than perfect in his old age, this does not appear to be the emphasis of scripture. The stress of the text highlights the fact that the women he ‘loved’ were ‘strange’ women. In context with the listing of the various nations from which God warned Israelites regarding intermarriage, this must be taken to mean ‘foreign’ women, but more importantly, foreign women which had not become proselytes to the Hebrew faith! God does not rebuke Solomon for the many wives and concubines he loved, but for loving and cleaving to them, to the detriment and loss of his love for God! Evidence would show that this is just as possible with one wife as with many, or with one sole possession as easily as with much wealth! Should Solomon not have had as many wives? As a king, this man was indeed ‘excessive’ in many ways; with his wealth, his horses and with his wives, yet nowhere do we find God reprimanding him for any of those things. Should Solomon not have loved his wives? Clearly both loving and cleaving to one’s wife, or as in this case, wives, is not against God, but rather encouraged and even commanded by the Lord! The simple fact and truth we are presented with in these verses, is that Solomon failed when it came to the comparative love he gave his wives, as against the quality of love He had and lost for his God! He failed to ensure the conversion of his foreign wives; then tolerated his foreign wives’ idols; then facilitated their idolatry by building temples and shrines to them; and lastly ended up himself influenced by them to enter into their idolatry! This was the cause of the deterioration of his relationship with God. It was descent by degree, born from the misplaced consent of his heart. The prime reason this happened, appears to be because he loved and clave to unconverted women, more so than he loved and clave to God! Could not this have happened just as easily with loving and cleaving to just one unconverted wife, and displacing the love he had for God, if a man’s heart was so inclined? The lesson we learn from his life, in the context of these verses, is that we must be extremely careful not to yield the love and passion we owe to God, to anything or anyone else, at any time! Interestingly, this was the very righteous and godly example, Solomon had seen from his father David, a man who also had been much blessed of God, allowed a great deal of wealth, position, influence and a large family with multiple wives. David was the standard of upright and ‘perfect’ heart by whom, the Lord compared and judged Solomon’s heart! Seeking God and His will, loving and pleasing Him, must take priority, remain first, and be in importance, above all other people, pursuits or purposes in our lives! 

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

Jan 19

“Hearing of thy love and faith…” Philemon 1:5

Philemon’s godly life and the love he bore towards God and the fellow-believers made Paul joyful and thankful. There is a reputation of godliness and diligence, which should precede those who are true Disciples of Christ. It is not a status, achieved through personal boasting, advertising of one’s virtues or self-promotion of any kind! The Pharisees of Jesus’ day were bent on attracting attention to their spirituality through such means. It is rather that which God brings forth in us and others are able to communicate, having experienced for themselves the reality of the fruit, which the faithful servant abundantly bears unto the Lord. There can be no pretence about this. It cannot be a strummed up ‘character reference’, without supporting ‘documentation’! The enduring quality of the individual’s life, his loving interaction with peers and the longevity of his service and diligence, become the ‘unwritten’ documents, which underpin the claims of godliness others may proffer about him!  Though some may appear in the shorter term to bear such fruit, it is over the longer period of service in Christ, that such fruit and the reality of it is validated and verified. A tree may bear good fruit for one season, but if after that it fails to raise a crop, or its fruit is stunted and sickly, it will hardly be sought after. A good tree and one worthy of commendation, on the other hand, is one which continues to bear good fruit, season after season, and is reliable for the quality and quantity of its produce. Clearly as Christians also, it is not a matter of merely having some spiritual fruit, some of the time, but rather, as God’s Word exhorts, that it should be plentiful and remain - that is be more permanent in nature. This is how godly reputation is formed. It cannot be the result of a single effort, just a season of well-doing followed by periods of indifference and fits of tepidity, nor a resting of previous ‘laurels’ of achievement, without present signs. It must stem from ongoing, active and evident, submission to the ways of God in love and faith, and from assiduousness to fulfil the law of Christ towards others, which is the law of love. Such a fruitful life brings great rejoicing to those who lead, and great inspiration to all who follow Christ!

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