Devotionals

Philippians 3:12, NIV
“Not that I have already obtained all this, or have already been made perfect, but I press on to take hold of that for which Christ Jesus took hold of me”

Yesterday we asked the Lord to shine His lamp on the inner recesses of our heart – especially to check the motives of our heart. Today we are looking out on a New Year with all that the year may have in store for each and every one of us.

Ultimately, there is only one New Year’s resolution for believers! And that is profoundly expressed in our Scripture for today – to press on to take hold of everything that God has planned and purposed for our lives. And the other side of such a goal is to lay aside everything that gets in the way of achieving God’s best for our lives.

The big question is, of course, how do we know what it is that we should take hold of? The answer is found in the Scripture which God has used to deeply impact my own life – Psalm 25:14. Here God tells us that He confides in those who fear Him. What a privilege believers have – to be able to hear His voice directing our lives and leading us into the plans and purposes that He has for us.

Learning to live in the love and the fear of the Lord is a wonderful key to turn – it’s a key which will unlock even the most difficult situation in your life. With God showing us the way to go we can then press on with confidence to take hold of that which He has prepared for us in advance. I pray that this will be a very special year, as you step out into all that God has set before you in 2013.

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, that you have plans for my life. Help me, I pray, to walk in your ways in 2013 and to press on to take hold of that for which you took hold of me. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Click Here to read Peter Horrobin`s blog

Start the NEW YEAR with a FREE TRIAL of Ellel 365

Proverbs 20:27, NIV
“The lamp of the Lord searches the spirit of a man, it searches out his innermost being”

I have always enjoyed the opportunity which the end of a year brings – the opportunity to review the past, assess the present and make plans for the future. John Wesley always led his followers, the early Methodists, to use this season of the year to renew their covenant with the living God.

The secular world knows nothing of covenant, but many people are fond of making New Year Resolutions – even though most of them will probably be broken by the end of the first week of the new year! A resolution, without understanding of the reasons why the resolution has become necessary, will invariably end up on the scrap heap of impossible dreams and unfulfilled ambitions!

So, what, as believers, can we do at this time of the year to redeem the season? One answer to that question lies in our Scripture for today. Our innermost being is the source of the decisions we make and the things we do – both good and bad. It is here that the motives of the heart have their origin and another proverb (Proverbs 16:2) tells us that it is the motives of the heart that are weighed by the Lord.

It is so easy for us to deceive ourselves and for our ways to seem innocent to us (also in Proverbs 16:2), even though they may be far from innocent! As a result we become blinded, even to what those innermost motives are! We need help – and help is at hand. For this Scripture tells us that the lamp of the Lord will search out our innermost being. So our prayer for this last day of the year is simply to ask the Lord to shine His lamp into the recesses of our heart and to show us what He sees! We will then have some great material to address with the Lord as we renew our covenant with Him as children of the King, who have chosen to follow Him in the work of the Kingdom of God.

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, that You are able to see into the inner recesses of my heart. Please shine your lamp and help me to see those things that are displeasing to You, so that, with Your help, I can make lasting and fruitful changes in my life. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Click Here to read Peter Horrobin`s blog

Start the NEW YEAR with a FREE TRIAL of Ellel 365

1 Peter 3:12, NIV
“For the eyes of the Lord are on the righteous and his ears are attentive to their prayer, but the face of the Lord is against those who do evil.”

At times Scripture can seem difficult to understand and we wrestle with the words to try and discover their meaning. At other times it is so devastatingly simple and clear that we wish it was more complicated and difficult to understand – so that we would have a good excuse for not putting what God has said into practice! Today’s Scripture is one of these – so clear and so obvious that we can be tempted to wish it wasn’t so!

What can be clearer than what the Apostle Peter wrote in his letter? It’s so simple! God hears the prayers of those who are righteous, but he turns away from those who do evil. I am reminded of what the Psalmist wrote about his prayers in Psalm 66:18, “If I had cherished sin in my heart, the Lord would not have listened.” Again his words are devastatingly simple – the cherishing of sin in the heart (much the same as Peter’s ‘doing evil’), means that God is unable to listen to the cries of our heart or, in other words, our prayers.

I fully realise that there can be other reasons why God doesn’t always answer the prayers we make at the time we ask Him. But sometimes, when trying to help people through the problems of their lives, the Holy Spirit has prompted me to ask some hard questions about the cherishing and practice of sin in their hearts – not always the obvious sins of commission, but those that can be more hidden which have their root in pride and secret rebellion against the ways and the will of God. Unvarnished honesty, followed by repentance and receiving forgiveness, is so often the key to the power of God being released in our lives.

So, by way of response to today’s Scripture, may I encourage you to pray the prayer which the Psalmist recorded in Psalm 139:23 & 24 – a prayer which I have made our prayer for today. If we then wait to listen to God’s response we may be surprised to hear Him speaking to us and giving us some important keys as to why our prayers may not have been answered!

Prayer: “Search me, O God, and know my heart; test me and know my thoughts. See if there be any offensive way in me, and lead me in the way everlasting.” In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Click Here to read Peter Horrobin`s blog

Click here to find out more about a FREE TRIAL of Ellel 365

Joshua 24:31, NIV
“Israel served the Lord throughout the lifetime of Joshua and of the elders who outlived him and who had experienced everything the Lord had done for Israel.”

There’s nothing like first-hand experience to energise the soul and motivate the heart! When we have seen something for ourselves we are transformed by what we have been able to share in. Nobody can ever take away from us the blessing of watching God at work.

So, as long as Joshua, and the elders who had walked with him through all the pilgrimages of the Children of Israel, were leading the nation, the people were happy to serve the Lord – they knew that God was real, because He had been real to those who were leading them. But as soon as that generation had passed, on and there were no longer any witnesses to what God had done left alive, the people soon forgot the stories and started going their own way.

There are many things I have seen God do in people’s lives across the years of the ministry. Those experiences are as precious to me today as they were on the day they happened – and I often tell the stories to encourage and inspire people. They were unmistakeable evidence of a living God and of His hand upon the work that God has given us to do.

But what will happen when the generation who saw all these things has passed away? My prayer is that each generation will have their own experiences to talk about, but that will never happen if they are solely depending on second-hand stories. People have to gain their own experience of God at work, so it is always fresh in the memory of the present generation.

I pray that while you may rejoice in what God has done in the past through others, that you will never be satisfied with second-hand accounts of what God used to do – otherwise the next generation will have no living evidence on which to base their trust in Him.

Prayer: Help me, Lord, not to depend on the stories of what you used to do, but to be always trusting in You here and now, so that I will have my own stories to tell of what You have done in my life, which will be a blessing and an inspiration to others. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Click Here to read Peter Horrobin`s blog

Click here to find out more about a FREE TRIAL of Ellel 365

John 10:14, 27, NIV
“I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own and my own know me… my sheep hear my voice, and I know them, and they follow me.”

Jesus often used pictures and analogies when teaching about the Kingdom. We see this in John Chapter 10, as He taught using the picture of a shepherd with His sheep.

At this time, the Middle East was an agricultural society. Although usually each shepherd would care for His own flock individually, at times multiple flocks would be combined together in a larger pen. A watchman would be appointed to guard the sheep on behalf of the shepherds. When they returned for their flock, each shepherd would go in to the pen and call the sheep that belonged to him. The sheep would recognise the voice of their master and would leave the pen to follow him.

I witnessed this happening during a previous trip to Israel. I was on a bus tour and we had stopped for a rest break at a roadside cafe. I looked over a wall and saw an Israeli shepherd leading his sheep out of a sheep pen. He was calling them individually by their names, “Bella, Mary…” and they were following him!

We stopped at the same spot the next day, and I ran to the wall with my video camera ready, wanting to capture the beautiful scene. To my horror, the shepherd was not calling the sheep forward like before – he was hitting them with a big stick, driving them from behind. I asked the coach driver what on earth the shepherd was doing! He replied, “That’s not the shepherd, it’s the butcher and he’s just bought them!”

Jesus is the Good Shepherd and He leads from ahead, calling us by name. The sheep recognise the Master’s voice, and when they obey and follow Him, they enjoy good pasture.

However, there’s an enemy who’s much like the butcher, driving the sheep from behind and hitting them. He came only to steal, kill and destroy.

The Good Shepherd has laid down His life for the sheep, in order to save them from the enemy. Not only did He willingly lay His life down, He also took it up again – just as He said He would. A dead shepherd is no good for the sheep!

Do you yearn to hear the voice of the shepherd more clearly? Then live close to the Shepherd and choose to follow Him today.

Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, I want to hear and recognise Your voice today. Would You come and speak to me by name, in ways that I can’t possibly misunderstand. Please help me to recognise Your voice, to follow You and to trust You as my Good Shepherd. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Click here for more information about the NETS Training Programme

Joshua 7:12, NIV
“I will not be with you any more unless you destroy whatever among you is devoted to destruction.”

The story of Achan’s sin (Joshua 7) is both sad and sobering. How could the people of Israel have fallen so quickly, after such an astounding victory over Jericho? The pathway that led Achan to sin (seen in verse 21) is the same pathway that Adam and Eve walked down back in Genesis: ‘I saw, I coveted, I took and I hid’. Sadly, we have all travelled this road to sin at some point ourselves, for we all have sinned and fallen short of the glory of God.

However, we do not always recognize the impact that our personal sin has on the body of believers to which we belong. Achan alone had sinned against God by stealing banned items from Jericho, yet God held the whole of Israel accountable for this sin. We are all susceptible to sin in one way or another, and our personal disobedience can have a negative effect on our entire community.

We must also recognise that yesterday’s victory is not an assurance of the same today. Following their victory at Jericho, the people of Israel went against Ai without inquiring of God first. They acted presumptuously, confident in their own ability, and 36 men died in battle as a result of this. Perhaps if they had stopped to inquire of the Lord first, He may have warned them not to attack whilst they were compromised by sin (as we see He did in Deuteronomy 1:42), and this discouraging defeat might have been avoided.

Achan did not repent of his sin, and God did not deal with his sin lightly. Though we do not know how much time elapsed between him stealing the items and being exposed, there was a window of opportunity in which he could have repented and did not. Even when he was identified by sacred lot, he confessed his sin but did not actually repent. As a result, Achan and his entire family died and were buried in the Valley of Achor.

Sin has serious consequences, both personally and corporately. We cannot stand against our enemies when sin is hidden in our midst. However, we read in Romans 6:23 that although ‘the wage of sin is death, the free gift of God is eternal life in Christ Jesus our Lord’. Jesus has already taken upon Himself the punishment for all our sins. If we will repent and turn to Him, we receive the free gift of eternal life!

In Jesus, all things are made new; our ‘Valley of Achor’ (which literally means ‘valley of trouble’) becomes a door of hope (Hosea 2:15)! Let’s learn from Achan’s sin and acknowledge afresh today how dangerous our hidden sin truly is, that we might turn to Jesus in repentance, receiving His free gift of eternal life, and being able to stand firm against the enemy.

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, Thank You that You love us enough to convict and correct us when we fall into sin. Please send Your Holy Spirit today; to convict us personally of any sin we have hidden within us. We choose now to humble ourselves before You, acknowledging that our victory is in Christ alone, not in our own strength or ability. We ask You to cleanse us and fill us afresh with Your Holy Spirit, so that we can stand against the enemy and walk in victory, in You. In Jesus’ name, Amen.

Click here for more information about the NETS Training Programme

Nehemiah 1:11, NIV
Give your servant success today by granting him favour in the presence of this man.

Lessons from Nehemiah – Day 1

Nehemiah had received news in again with Jesus as Lord of the rest of your days on earth and eternity in Heaven as …

Isaiah 61:1, NIV
“The Spirit of the Sovereign Lord is upon me . . . to proclaim freedom for the captives and release from darkness for the prisoners.”

Many of the people who read this daily devotional are in prison! But some are in prison twice over!! All can know the freedom that only Jesus, the Sovereign Lord, can bring into our lives, wherever they are and whatever their present circumstances may be.

The prisoners the Bible is talking about here are not those who are experiencing punishment in an earthly jail, but every single one of us who, through sin, is eternally separated from a holy God. As a result of sin we have all been born in a ‘jail of mankind’s own making’. Satan is the jailer – and all of mankind has come under his control.

The only one who can release us from this eternal jail is the One who never sinned – Jesus, the Son of God. When He died, He took the punishment for everyone who was born within the jail. He has the key of freedom and He offers that key to everyone who believes and chooses to accept Him as their Saviour. He is the Doorway to Freedom. And not only can He free us from sin’s jail, He is also the only one who can open the gates of Heaven for us. When we accept the fact that we are sinners and ask Him to be Lord of our lives, we are freed from the eternal jail and can begin a new journey into the purposes of God for the rest of our lives – on both Earth and in Heaven.

And what about those reading this devotional who are also in an earthly jail and could, therefore, be in prison twice over?! I want you to know that even in jail you can be more free than people who are not in prison! They may be free to live their lives as they please, but without Christ they are in eternal bondage. You may still be in an earthly jail, but with Christ you can already have eternal freedom – and can now prepare for that day of release when you begin life all over again with Jesus as Lord of the rest of your days on earth and eternity in Heaven as well!

Prayer: Thank You Jesus for dying on the cross so that I may have eternal freedom. Help me to humbly ask God for forgiveness, so that I might be free to live the rest of my life released from the consequences of sin and set free to serve God all my days. In the name of Jesus. Amen.

Click Here to read Peter Horrobin`s blog

Click here to find out more about a FREE TRIAL of Ellel 365

Psalm 102:18, NIV
“Let this be written for a future generation, that a people not yet created may praise the Lord”

For some time now I have been gathering information about my family history and recording some of the things that God has done in my life. I have an object in mind that was inspired by today’s Scripture. For children, grand-children and the generations beyond will never have the opportunity to hear of all the things that God has done and all the lessons I have learned in my walk with Him unless I write them down.

True, it’s possible that they may not want to know, but I know how interested I am in the pilgrimage through life of my ancestors and if, one day, some of my descendants do start asking questions, I wouldn’t want them to miss out on the opportunity of being blessed by reading of what God did in the lives of previous generations. Our experiences may even be the very means through which our descendants are drawn to wanting a personal faith in Jesus for themselves.

Remembering what God has done in the past is a theme which goes throughout Scripture. Both Moses and Joshua spent time reminding God’s people about what He had done for them. These stories inspired, encouraged and challenged them to continue walking in the ways of God. And how I would love my own descendants to learn about the ways of God from my own experience of Him. I believe it’s important to keep a record of the things God does.

So, when you experience the hand of God upon your life may I encourage you to do what our Scripture says – write it down for a future generation. I have been very blessed to have records of things that happened in my own Dad’s life. I have been amazed and thrilled by some of the stories – they have been a huge source of encouragement – especially when going through tough times. If he hadn’t written things down, I would have missed out on a huge amount of blessing. And when we remember the way God led us earlier in life, these very lessons can be instrumental in giving us the courage to press on to run the race that God has set before each one of us.

Prayer: Thank you Lord for all the times You have blessed my life. Help me to remember these important lessons and write them down so that future generations will be able to read of what You have done in my life. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.

Click Here to read Peter Horrobin`s blog

Click here to find out more about a FREE TRIAL of Ellel 365

Philippians 3:14, NIV
“I press on towards the goal to win the prize for which God has called me heavenward in Christ Jesus.”

In the coming days the focus of the whole sporting world will be on the Olympic Games. Over a billion people watched the opening ceremony in London and billions more will be watching as the contestants strive against each other for the highest possible sporting achievement that our world has to offer – Olympic gold! And I will be one of them, glued to the TV screen whenever I can get the chance to see these modern-day Olympians going for gold. Inevitably, as the events unfold and the final races are run, there will be tears of intense disappointment as well as tears of great joy.

At times like this I am always reminded of a much more important race – the race of life. This is a race that is not just for a few super-fit Olympians, but a race into which all of humanity has been entered, with the opportunity of striving, not for Olympic gold, but the gold of eternity. We are not running against each other, but against all the obstacles that Satan puts in the way of mankind to prevent us from reaching that golden moment of eternal destiny! And yes, there will be tears of not just disappointment, but anguish as people realise that they have ignored the truth about God and have been running to serve themselves.

Satan does all he can to blind the eyes of the world to the absolute truth that is found in the Son of God. He doesn’t want people to discover that there is One who has already run the greatest race there has ever been and come forth as gold. Jesus’ desire is that we would join Him in His victory procession when, at the end of time, all the powers of darkness will be seen for what they are. All who come to God the Father through Him, trusting in His righteousness and not in our own, will be partakers of the prize which Paul talks about in our Scripture.

And then, for those who have come to know Him, God has a destiny for us to walk in – a purpose to live for – a race to be run. And it is as we walk in his ways and learn to be obedient to his voice that we will have the opportunity to gain the rewards, the ultimate prizes, which Paul reminds us about, and that God has stored up for those who love Him.

Prayer: Help me, Lord, to always remember that I have been entered in a race which is far more important than any event at the Olympic Games. Help me to be aware of, and avoid, the pitfalls along the way, and to so hear and respond to your voice that nothing will get in the way of winning the prize that You have stored up for me in eternity. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Click Here to read Peter Horrobin`s blog

Click here to find out more about a FREE TRIAL of Ellel 365