Devotionals

Psalm 107:19-20, NIV
“Then they cried to the Lord in their trouble and he saved them from their distress. He sent forth his word and healed them.”

We are constantly in need of the Lord, but so often people only cry out to Him for help when they are in distress. I was once on a plane that filled with smoke in mid-air. I looked around and saw how suddenly the whole atmosphere in the plane had changed. People were obviously praying and starting to cry out to God. People who, moments earlier, were oblivious to the presence of God were, very suddenly, made to focus their attention on Him!

That is such a clear picture of how many people live their lives, unaware of the presence of God. Even believers can find it easy to live out their lives like this, fulfilling all their own desires day by day, but without paying much attention to what God may be saying to them. Then, when things go wrong, and a crisis occurs, they can suddenly, like the psalmist, in their trouble cry out to the Lord from their distress.

Our Scripture for today comes from the Old testament, but many people only associate healing with the Gospels and the stories and teaching of Jesus. God’s truth is the same in the old as well as the New! For example, the foundational Scripture for Ellel Ministries is from Luke 9:11, where Luke tells us that Jesus welcomed people, taught them about the Kingdom of God and healed those in need. And in our Scripture for today, we have almost exactly the same thinking expressed from the Old Testament, where it says that God sent forth His Word (His truth) and healed them. This foundational healing principle is as present in the Old Testament as it is in the New – if we feed on the truth of the Word of God, we will discover that when we apply it in our lives it becomes a powerful healing message which can transform our lives.

I have just met a person who we prayed with over twenty-five years ago. She was radiantly telling us how God had transformed her life and that she was now bringing others back for the same help she received. And what was that help? To put it simply, it was the application of God’s truth in a way she could understand and apply in her life. She was healed by God through the application of His Word. This is such a precious message – I pray you will not only want to know what the Word of God says, but you will actually want to apply it in your life and experience God’s salvation and healing as He sets you free from trouble and distress.

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, for Your living Word. Forgive me for the times when I have chosen not to apply it in my life. Help me to stay close to you so that I will more clearly hear Your voice giving me clear direction along life’s journey and experience Your healing touch in my life. In Jesus’s Name, Amen.

Hebrews 10:23, NIV
“Let us hold unswervingly to the hope we profess, for he who promised is faithful.”

The faithfulness of God is one aspect of His character that I find particularly reassuring. The world today is full of uncertainty and is constantly changing, yet despite it all Jesus Christ remains the same. He is our rock, the firm foundation on which we can build our lives. His plans and His Word stand firm forever and while the world that we live in will eventually pass away, His words will never pass away.

His character doesn’t change. His truth doesn’t change. His purposes don’t change. He’s our covenant keeping God, and He keeps ALL His promises! As long as we’re willing to be His people and obey His commands, He commits Himself for ever to be our God. He will always be there for us, never leaving or forsaking us.

It’s one thing to say and believe that God is faithful to us (and He most certainly is), but the more glorious truth is that God is faithful to Himself first, and therefore to us. He’s faithful to His own character, faithful to His own plans, faithful to His own promises… and therefore faithful to us, His precious children, whom He is lovingly committed to.

When we understand that God is faithful to Himself, and therefore to us, we’re freed from the devastating effects of thinking that His faithfulness is dependent on us. He’s not faithful to us because of anything we’ve done well, or badly, and He doesn’t determine His faithfulness on any merit of ours. We could never earn or deserve His faithfulness, yet He chooses to give it to us freely!

God is faithful to us, even when we’re not faithful to Him, because it’s a part of who He is; He can’t deny Himself (2 Timothy 2:13). We may be thoroughly unfaithful, but God is faithful to Himself. No matter what circumstances or situations we find ourselves in today, whether we’ve been faithful or not to Him, we can trust that God is faithful in the midst of it all. For we know that God absolutely can’t be anything BUT faithful… because it’s part of who He is.

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, thank You that You are completely and utterly faithful – first to Yourself and therefore to me. Thank You that Your faithfulness is an unchanging part of who You are, and does not depend on how strong my faith in You is. Today I choose to trust in Your faithfulness and ask that You will demonstrate Your faithfulness in my life today. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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Psalm 94:12, NIV
“Blessed is the man you discipline, O Lord, the man you teach from your law.”

Real love can be expressed in many ways. It isn’t loving not to warn a person when they are in danger. And it’s not loving to avoid giving a person correction when, without correction, they would be heading for trouble!

I loved my Dad – but I also had a healthy respect for him! He was incredibly loving and amazingly generous , but he was also firm, but fair, when it came to the need for bringing some needed correction into my life. I learnt to recognise that Dad’s love could sometimes hurt – at least for a season – but it was the sort of ‘hurt’ that I knew was for my own good, even if I didn’t like it at the time. A loving and disciplined environment made for an amazingly secure and safe family in which to grow up. I was very blessed. And even today I know I am being blessed by the straight edge of godly order that he helped establish in my life.

Now, if a human Dad, who is not perfect and sometimes acts without full understanding of everything that’s going on, can be the source of such blessing, how much more can we expect our heavenly Dad to be a loving Father – a Father who has both perfect understanding and insight into our lives, and cares for us enough to want to teach us truth from His Word?

We may have to go through some tough times when we get it wrong, but a mature believer will welcome those times of discipline from the Lord, for we can know for sure that God has no other objective but to bring us back to a place of blessing. What He teaches us from His Word is TRUTH – and when we choose to walk in His ways we will have LIFE – abundant life and real blessing.

Prayer: Lord,. I choose to welcome Your discipline in my life. Help me to see with Your eyes the things that need to change and I ask that you will bring to me the blessing of Your correction – now and always. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

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1 Corinthians 15:3 – 4, NIV
“For what I received I passed on to you as of first importance: that Christ died for our sins according to the Scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day according to the Scriptures.”

The death and resurrection of Jesus Christ is one of the most significant and amazing events in all of history! Nothing like it has ever happened before and nothing like it will ever happen again. It’s a central and foundational truth for all believers, the cornerstone of our faith. I remember being sad when I saw the musical ‘Jesus Christ Superstar’ because it ended with Jesus hanging on a cross – not with the resurrected Christ. How interesting that the last the world saw of Jesus Christ was Him hanging on a cross. And some Christians today believe that Jesus died on the cross for their sins, but don’t believe in His bodily resurrection.

Yet in the Gospels we read about the empty tomb, the broken seal, the rolled away stone, the surprised guard, the missing body, the empty grave clothes, the transformed disciples and of course the powerful explosion of the Christian Church that followed. Unequivocal proofs that Jesus rose from the dead, and will return again in glory!

As I reflected on the resurrection earlier this year, I sensed God prompting me to never preach about the cross on its own, but always share the other half of God’s redemptive plan – the bodily resurrection of Jesus Christ! It’s because of the resurrection, in which Jesus powerfully overcame death, that we can say ‘Where O death is your victory? Where O death is your sting?’ (1 Corinthians 15:55).

We absolutely cannot separate the death and the resurrection of Jesus Christ. They are two halves of a whole. One precedes the other. One completes the other. Both halves are essential in completing God’s redemptive plan – and an incomplete redemption would be no redemption at all!

A balanced and full gospel must include both His saving death and His saving resurrection life, because Jesus’ death alone doesn’t save us. If Jesus had stayed dead, then we too would remain dead in our sins, there would be no forgiveness and there would be no reconciliation with God. If Jesus had stayed dead, then to put our trust in Him would be completely useless. Our faith would be in vain.

But Jesus did rise again, conquering sin and death forevermore, and making it possible for us to share in His resurrection and enjoy eternal life with Him. He is Holy, without spot or blemish, and therefore it was absolutely impossible for death to hold him down. This is because death comes out of sin, and He was sinless – death had no hold on Him and victoriously He rose again! It’s His death and resurrection together that’s the good news – salvation for all mankind! And it’s His death and resurrection together that we must proclaim as of first importance, that all may believe and be saved.

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, please forgive me for the times that I’ve doubted the truth of Your Word, especially where I’ve doubted Your resurrection. I declare today – I believe that You bodily rose again! Thank You for saving and redeeming me. I gratefully rejoice in Your completed redemption plan and I look forward to the day of Your return, In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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Proverbs 22:6, NIV
“Train a child in the way that he should go, and when he is old he will not depart from it.”

As I was thinking about writing today’s Seed, I received inspiration from a surprising source – the London Daily Telegraph! Tomorrow is the funeral service of Margaret Thatcher, Britain’s longest serving Prime Minister in the twentieth century. There will be few reading this Seed of the Kingdom who haven’t heard of her. The great and famous of the nation, together with Her Majesty the Queen and the Duke of Edinburgh, will be present at St.Paul’s Cathedral for the service.

Margaret Thatcher was known as a strong leader and she had a deeply entrenched respect for the laws of God. But where did that come from? The Daily Telegraph explained how It came from her childhood upbringing. Her father, a Methodist lay-preacher would take her Sunday by Sunday to churches all over Lincolnshire, where she heard him preach from the Word of God. God’s Word became her childhood meat and drink. While studying Chemistry, and then Law, at Oxford University she herself became a Methodist lay preacher. Her sermon on “seek ye first the Kingdom of God” was described as outstanding. And she took prayer meetings “extremely seriously”.

So when the world watches the service, relayed by television to the nations, what will they hear? Famous people sometimes have the privilege of preparing the Order of Service for their own funeral. Margaret Thatcher was known for her great attention to detail, so she carefully prepared instructions for how the event should be conducted. She specifically asked that there be no political eulogy at the service, because, she said, “the sole object of worship must be God!”

And then she asked that the Prime Minister of the day should read the second lesson, carefully chosen by herself from John’s Gospel. So, in tomorrow’s funeral service, David Cameron, the Prime Minister, will read to the world from John 14:1-6, which begins with the words, “Do not let your hearts be troubled. Trust in God” and concludes with Jesus answering Thomas’s profound question, “how can we know the way” by saying, “I am the way and the truth and the life. No-one comes to the Father except through me.” I will be praying that the congregation, and the nations, will be listening to what David Cameron reads.

So where did the 87-year old lady learn such wisdom? As our Scripture for the day reminds us, it came from her childhood upbringing. When she became old, she did not depart from what she learned about God from her father’s preaching, and her childhood upbringing in the heart of her local Methodist Church. What a privilege it is to impart to our children and grandchildren a knowledge of God. None of us know what fruit there will be in the generations yet to come. I pray that we will each take seriously our own personal responsibility to impact the generations yet to come with the truth that Jesus is the only way!

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, for those who have impacted my life with truth from the Word of God. Help me, Lord, to serve You and the generations yet to come, by sharing my knowledge of You with those who are young, so that when they are old, they will still desire to serve You. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

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2 Thessalonians 3:5, NASB
“May the Lord direct your hearts into the love of God and into the steadfastness of Christ.”

In all His works, and in all His dealings with mankind, God reveals His character of love. In the greatest act of love ever known Jesus came down to earth, died our death on the cross, and rose again three days later, in order to reconcile us with the Father.

But how can we truly know and experience the reality of God’s love in our lives?

So many of us know in our heads that God loves us, but we struggle to truly know this in our heart. We can talk about, think about, read about and hear about love all we like, but no amount of human effort can bring us to the place where we are able to truly know the love of God. We can’t make it happen ourselves!

We need God to give us a personal revelation of His love.

The Spirit of God directs us into His love (2 Thessalonians 3:5) and also pours out the love of God within our hearts (Romans 5:5). This pouring out of love can only be accomplished by the power of the Holy Spirit, and can’t be attained by human effort or through intellectual understanding.

One of the most amazing revelations I’ve had recently is that God loves each one of us with the same love that He has for Jesus. How amazing is that!

There’s no more pure and perfect example of love than that which exists within the Godhead. The Father loves the Son perfectly, and without restraint or measure – yet for some reason we seem to believe that God must love us a little bit less than He loves Jesus.

We always seem to feel as if God loves Jesus with His ‘number one’ love and then loves us with His ‘number two’ love. But not so!

Since the love of God is perfect and complete, there’s no measure. His love is boundless and immeasurable. He loves us with exactly the same love that He has for Jesus! As fully, completely, wholeheartedly and immeasurably as God loves Jesus – so He loves us.

This is the love that melts our hearts and minds, and draws us closer to the heart of the Father – the irresistible love of an indescribable God.

‘For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whoever believes in Him shall not perish but have eternal life’ (John 3:16).

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, Thank You that You have loved me with an everlasting love, and that You have been directing me to You, and drawing me to Yourself throughout my life (even if I have not been aware of it). Today I would like to receive a true and complete revelation of Your love for me. Please pour Your love into my heart by the power of the Holy Spirit, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

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Lamentations 3:25, NIV
“The Lord is good to those whose hope is in Him, to the one who seeks him; it is good to wait quietly for the salvation of the Lord.”

When learning English as a child, I soon got hold of the fact that it’s the ‘action word’ (the verb) which makes a group of words into a meaningful sentence. Without the action word the other words made no sense. In our Scripture for today, taken from a little-read book in the Old Testament, there are three such ‘action words’. But for those people who like to make things happen, and get on with life ‘their way’, the third of these action words can be very frustrating, for it can seem like a ‘non-action’ word, when there is so much we want to be doing!

The three verbs in the verse – hope, seek and wait are like three keys which God gives us to help us through difficult doorways on our spiritual journey. The keys are hanging from an amazing key-ring called faith. It’s not for nothing that in Hebrews 11:6 it says that “without faith it is impossible to please God, because anyone who comes to him must believe that he exists and that he rewards those who seek him.” Faith is the forerunner of God’s reward and when we use the three keys and turn them in the doorways to life, we will discover some of the blessings that God has laid up for those who love him.

The first key, HOPE reminds us that there is a source of blessing – it is the Lord Himself. The meaning of this word is a million miles away from what we usually mean when we say something like “I hope it won’t rain today”. Certainly, in the UK in 2012, that seemed like a very uncertain hope! Hope in the Lord is an expression of certainty – not wishful thinking. It is absolutely certain that He loves us and that because He loves us, He not only understands all the circumstances of our life but cares for us in them.

The second key, SEEK, reminds us that there is a requirement on us as disciples to actively look to the Lord for His Word to us for today through the Scriptures, and for every sign of His presence, His leading and His signposts, giving direction to our lives. The word seek is a very active word.

But it’s the final key that can often cause us the most difficulty – WAIT. Having done everything we can do to walk in His ways, then sometimes there is a period of waiting as we trust that in His time, God will provide the answers we are looking for. A period of waiting is not, however, a period of doing nothing.

When you go to a restaurant the ‘waiter’ is there to serve. And while we are waiting for the next step in life, then our responsibility is to serve faithfully in the place where God has already put us, as we look to Him for His unmistakeable leading. “Waiting quietly for the Lord” simply means to be at peace where we are and to carry on serving until we have heard His unmistakeable voice. If we try and rush ahead of God and make things happen ‘our way’ then we may well miss the very best that God had in store for us and He was waiting to give us!

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, that you are a faithful God and that I can trust You! I know that those who hope in You will not be disappointed. Help me, Lord, to be faithful in serving You while I wait for Your leading in my life. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

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Psalm 84:5-7, NIV
“Blessed are those whose strength is in you (the Lord), who have set their hearts on pilgrimage. As they pass through the valley of Baca, they make it a place of springs, the autumn rains also cover it with pools. They go from strength to strength, till each appears before God in Zion.”

These three verses describe the journey of faith which believers follow as they travel through life. A pilgrimage is not an occasional walk in the country – it’s a determined commitment to keep on walking forward in faith throughout life, until that moment comes when we step into the realms of glory and ‘each appears before God in Zion’. The psalmist states without any hint of compromise that those who set their hearts on pilgrimage will be blessed.

But almost immediately the psalmist anchors this promise of blessing into the context of earthly reality, as he recognises that we are not exempt from the sufferings that are hinted at by reference to passing through ‘the valley of Baca’. The word Baca means a place of tears, or a place of weeping and lamentation. Tears are a godly expression of inner pain – they are also the first step on the road to comfort and healing. We are not, in this life, exempt from the possibility of suffering, as is so graphically illustrated by Job’s experiences, described in the first chapter of his book.

There are many events in life that can be the source of pain and consequential tears. Perhaps the greatest suffering any of us can experience is the untimely loss of a loved one. Such events prompt unanswerable questions – questions that Jesus totally understands. For, in the midst of the pain of bereavement, Jesus himself declares, “blessed are those who mourn, for they will be comforted.” (Matthew 5:4).

Our Scripture then moves us on to the place of trusting God for the blessings that can come from God, even in that place of tears – blessings that change ‘the valley of Baca’ into ‘a place of springs’ that strengthen and equip us for the onward journey of faith and encourage us to keep walking forward. My prayer today, therefore, for all those who are walking through their own personal ‘Valley of Baca’, is that in the midst of all the unanswerable questions, they will keep looking up to the Lord in faith, knowing that He is the only source of comfort that can touch the very core of our being and strengthen our hearts for the pilgrimage that lies ahead. The springs that well up in the valley will enable us to go from strength to strength.

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, that You understand the hurts and pains we experience when travelling through our personal ‘Valley of Baca’. Help me today to keep on trusting you on the pilgrimage of faith, even when things happen that I cannot understand. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

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Matthew 6:14-15, NIV
“For if you forgive other people when they sin against you, your heavenly Father will also forgive you. But if you do not forgive others their sins, your Father will not forgive your sins.”

Some years ago I came to the place where I felt completely unable to forgive. Somebody close to me had hurt me deeply, breaking my trust through betrayal and broken promises. I found myself saying to God, “I’ll do anything for You, but don’t ask me to forgive, I can’t do it!”

I continued to pray and read my Bible, but something wasn’t the same. I felt distant from God, as if something was getting in the way when I tried to connect with Him.

Around the time this was happening, I’d moved to a new area, and hadn’t been going to church. I felt convicted to attend, and as I found there was a large charismatic church in the nearest city I decided to try it.

The preacher began his sermon with Matthew 18 – the Parable of the Unmerciful servant. He was preaching that we had to forgive everyone, for everything. I felt quite angry at this, and didn’t even stay for the final hymn.

The next Sunday I decided to try a different church, in another nearby town. I couldn’t believe it when I discovered the sermon was on Matthew 6 – The Lord’s Prayer – which teaches us to pray ‘forgive us our debts in the same way as we have forgiven our debtors!’ The preacher explained that we need to forgive if we want to be forgiven by God. I couldn’t stand listening to it, and again left early.

Following these two encounters, I wanted to choose the next church very carefully! I felt that the nearby ‘sleepy’ Methodist church would be just the thing. By 11 am there were only a dozen people in church, most of them elderly ladies in their eighties wearing felt hats! A very aged Methodist minister was helped into the pulpit, and as he prepared to speak I noticed some of the elderly ladies beginning to doze off – I felt reassured that this wouldn’t be too challenging!

He opened his message with the words: “I want to teach this morning on how to forgive when you can’t”. I couldn’t believe what I was listening to – the third sermon in three weeks on forgiveness! But this sermon was different.

He began by explaining that within our own selves (independent of God) we have no resource with which to forgive. We need to ask God to come supernaturally and fill our empty forgiveness tanks with His spirit of forgiveness. Having received this empowerment from God, we are then able to release our forgiveness to those people who have hurt us the most. Apart from Him we can do nothing!

Secondly he taught that forgiveness is not a transaction between us and the person who has hurt us, but it’s a transaction between us and God. Forgiveness is an act of obedience on our part – if we don’t obey this command then our relationship with God suffers and we end up in prison ourselves. We must look upon the face of God when working through forgiveness, rather than seeing the face of the person who has hurt us.

Finally he explained that we need to release those who have hurt us, from our judgement. We must let go of our ‘right’ to judge, and hand them over to God, trusting that He alone is the righteous judge of all men. We can’t (and don’t) pardon them for what they have done (only God can do that), but we forgive and release them into God’s hands.

The preacher then said, “I believe that there’s someone here this morning who knows that they need to forgive, but they don’t know how to do it. I would like to pray with you.”

I went forward and knelt at the altar with this old man, as he helped me to understand how to forgive. I sobbed for nearly an hour as I worked through it all, and finally I experienced the freedom that full forgiveness brings. I was then able to pray blessing into the life of the person who had hurt me and discovered that I had let myself out of prison!

I am so thankful to this Methodist minister, and to God, who had been so patient with me. He went to such lengths to help me forgive and enter into the freedom that forgiveness brings. I still remember what happened to me, but when the memories surface they no longer have the power to trigger pain or anger, because I’ve received inner healing from Jesus. When God forgives us He chooses to remember our sins no more.

Prayer: Father, will You help me today to list all the people that I need to truly and completely forgive? Will You come and fill my empty forgiveness tank with Your spirit of forgiveness, so I can release forgiveness to all those who’ve hurt me. I love You and choose to be obedient to You in forgiving others, as Your Word teaches me to do. Please come and bring healing to all the wounds I’ve received, and all the pain I’ve been carrying, especially where I’ve been hurt by those closest to me. In Jesus’ mighty name, Amen.

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Forgiveness – God`s Master Key. Book by Peter Horrobin.

Jonah 3:1-3, CEV
“Once again, the Lord told Jonah to go to that great city of Nineveh and preach his message of doom. Jonah obeyed the Lord and went to Nineveh.”

God had called upon Jonah to go and preach to the people of Nineveh. Yet in direct disobedience to God’s command, Jonah set off to Tarshish, 2,000 miles in the opposite direction. Jonah was running – as far away as he could possibly get!

God intercepted Jonah’s flight by sending a massive storm into the path of the ship. The wind was so severe that it threatened to break the ship into pieces and all the sailors cried out fervently for help – yet Jonah was surprisingly unmoved. His heart had been hardened by sin.

Being identified as the cause of all this calamity, Jonah was thrown over board by the other sailors. It would be very easy for the story to end here! A disobedient man runs away from God and as a result is thrown into the stormy seas and swallowed by a giant fish. End of story.

But it doesn’t end here – God gives Jonah his second chance! Jonah found himself alive, within the belly of that fish. From this place of darkness and isolation, he cried out for deliverance and God gave him another chance.

Many of us can relate to Jonah’s experience. Having run away from God and from His calling on our lives, we find ourselves in the midst of a storm. Our hearts are hardened and perhaps we are trying to fix things ourselves, or do things our own way. But ultimately we seem to come to our own personal low point, just like Jonah.

The good news is that no matter how far away we have run or where we have found ourselves as a result, we serve the God of second chances! He assures us in 1 John 1:9, that ‘if we confess our sins, He is faithful and just, to forgive us our sins and to cleanse us from all unrighteousness’.

And not only does He forgive us, but He also lifts us out of the miry clay, restores our relationship with Him and gives us another chance to respond to His call. As Romans 11:29 tells us, the gifts and the calling of God are irrevocable. What wonderful news!

So no matter where we find ourselves today, let’s be encouraged to stop running away. Instead, let’s turn back to God and cry out to Him for deliverance. He’s the God of second chances and He uses imperfect people – like Jonah, and each one of us!

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, Thank You for Your grace and Your mercy – that no matter how far away I have run or what sort of circumstances I now find myself in, You offer me another chance. I’m sorry for running away from You, and I choose today to turn around and run back to You. I gratefully accept the gifts and the calling that You have given me and I choose now to respond to You and walk in Your ways. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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