Devotionals

Daniel 1:8, NIV
“But Daniel made up his mind that he would not defile himself with the king’s choice food or with the wine which he drank.”

As a teenager, Daniel was carried off to Babylon by king Nebuchadnezzar. There he was selected to be trained for service in the king’s court, along with three of his friends and some other young men from Israel – chosen because of their intelligence, handsome appearance and aptitude for learning. They were each appointed a daily ration of choice food and wine from the king’s table, and were to be in training for three years, before entering the king’s service.

However, Daniel (and his three friends) showed courage, bravery and integrity when they refused the prime cuts of meat and wine from the king’s table so they wouldn’t defile themselves before God. Daniel requested a ten day trial where they would eat vegetables and drink water, and at the end of the ten days Daniel and his friends were found to be healthier than the rest of the men. God had rewarded their obedience with physical health and vitality!

Daniel was unwilling to compromise on his convictions, even in the midst of a hostile land. As Christians living in a fallen world, we’re also in the midst of a hostile land. Do we serve God without compromise, refusing to defile ourselves by submitting to the ways of the world? Or do we compromise our godliness and submit to the world instead of to God? Compromise happens when the lines between good and evil become blurred, and when we try to stretch the boundaries that God has set for us, losing sight of the righteous path that God’s marked out for us.

This is exactly what’s happening in society today. People are becoming increasingly hostile towards God, and towards those who stand for Him. Moral truth has become subjective and there are very few absolutes. The Word of God is seen by many to be irrelevant, and sin is protected by political correctness. Christians are under constant pressure to compromise their loyalty to God and indulge themselves in the things of the world. It takes courage, discipline and the empowerment of the Holy Spirit to stand firm against all kinds of temptation and remain steadfast in our commitment to ‘be holy, as He is holy’ (1 Peter 1:15-16).

What would we have done in Daniel’s shoes? Would we have had the courage and discipline to say no to the things of the world that defile? Living without compromise means standing firm, even in the face of opposition and temptation. As Christ’s ambassadors here on earth, we’ve been given the opportunity to uphold the name of Jesus and His Word of truth. We’ve been filled with the Spirit of God, and in His power we are able to overcome all things – including the temptation to compromise – because ‘greater is He who is in you, than he who is in the world’ (1 John 4:4).

Let’s make a new commitment today, to live a radical life in Christ! Let’s stand for truth without compromise, refusing to submit to the defilement of the world, that we might be salt and light in an increasingly dark world. Today, let’s dare to be a Daniel!

Prayer: Dear Heavenly Father, thank You that You have given us Your Word and Your Holy Spirit, to lead and to guide us as we try our best to life holy lives, in the midst of an unholy world. Please forgive us where we’ve compromised in the past and been defiled by sin. Today we commit ourselves to You again, to live a life that will honour You – without compromise! Please empower us to do this, by Your Holy Spirit, in Jesus’ name, Amen.

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Proverbs 29:18, NIV
“Where there is no revelation, the people cast off restraint; but blessed is he who keeps the law.”

Without restraints being in place there is danger. This is true in many areas of life. We have recently had much heavy rain in the UK. Some areas of the country have been subject to severe flooding and people have even died when the flood waters became a raging torrent. A river is a wonderful blessing when it is contained within the restraint of its banks, but once the restraint has been breached the water goes everywhere, people’s homes are flooded out and there is danger. Restraints make the river safe.

The laws of God are meant to act as a restraint on our behaviour. But if people have no understanding that God’s law is designed by God to keep them safe, then there is no restriction on their behaviour. As I write this devotional, the newspapers are full of news of the tragic death of one of Britain’s richest women – she had everything she could possibly have wanted. Her house was said to have been worth seventy million pounds. But she and her husband had lived a life without restraint, addicted to drugs. Her life ended at a tragically early age. If only she had learned to live her life according to the revelation of truth that there is in the Word of God.

When we choose to respect that God’s Word truly is a revelation from God himself, and begin to walk in His ways, we lay down a foundation of blessing – not only for our own lives, but also for the lives of our children and grand-children. When we gladly live within those restraints we find ourselves constantly discovering the many blessings God wants us to enjoy as His children.

But because we have freewill, people find it tempting to laugh at those restraints and choose to live life in their own way. But we will eventually discover that there is a law of sowing and reaping – and it’s only good seed that produces a good crop. If you need convincing about the blessings that come to those who keep God’s laws, then I suggest you spend a quiet hour reading Psalm 119. Just as the Highway Code is the blue-print for safe driving, Psalm 119 is the Highway Code for God-blessed living!

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, that you loved us enough to show us how restraints can be a source of blessing in our lives. Help me, Lord, to welcome the application of your laws in my life. In jesus’s Name, Amen.

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1 Samuel 16:7, NIV
But the Lord said to Samuel, “Do not consider his appearance or his height for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart.”

Samuel was sent by the Lord to anoint a son of Jesse as the next king, because of King Saul’s disobedience to God. In those days the eldest son, the firstborn, would receive the inheritance and the blessings. Eliab, Jesse’s eldest son, thought it would be him, and Samuel thought so too, but the Lord said, ‘Do not consider his appearance or his height for I have rejected him. The Lord does not look at the things man looks at. Man looks at the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart’.

What an amazing statement for us to consider today, when looking good is for many people an obsession. We are impressed by appearance, but God is not. He looks at the heart of each person. Seven of Jesse’s sons passed before Samuel and God told him it was none of them. So Samuel asked, ‘Are these all the sons you have?’ Even Jesse hadn’t remotely considered that David could be the one chosen to be the next king. David hadn’t been invited to the party!

David was the youngest brother and was doing a servant’s job, looking after the sheep, but God told Samuel, ‘He is the one.’ So David was anointed in front of his brothers as God’s choice for the next king and ‘the Spirit of the Lord came upon David in power’! Wow! I wonder how the seven brothers reacted to their youngest brother being chosen by God as the next king?

As for King Saul, ‘Now the Spirit of the Lord had departed from Saul, and an evil spirit from the Lord tormented him’ (1 Samuel 16:14). What a dreadful scripture! The judgement of God had come upon Saul. He had started off so well but ended so badly. God had judged his heart.

Does this fit in with our view of God? Perhaps we only like to think of Him doing things that we approve of! But God is a God of justice and hates sin which has not been repented of. There are serious consequences for sin, especially in a leader who has been entrusted by God with authority over others.

God chooses those whose hearts are set on Him. ‘Man looks at the outward appearance but the Lord looks at the heart’. That’s why God chose David.

Prayer: Dear Lord, as I go through today, help me to have a pure heart. Search my heart and help me to repent of anything that displeases you. I want to have a humble and an obedient heart so that You can use me in your kingdom purposes. Amen.

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Hebrews 11:7, NIV
“By faith Noah, when warned about things not yet seen, in holy fear built an ark to save his family. By his faith he condemned the world and became heir of the righteousness that comes by faith.”

I’m always very challenged when I read Hebrews chapter 11. This is where the writer gives us a long list of Old Testament saints who have lived by faith and how even though they never knew the Messiah, demonstrated to a very pagan world the truth about God and the wonderful promises that are revealed to us through His Word. They had enormous faith and trusted God without the privilege of seeing or knowing about Jesus, the man who came from God.

Noah tops my list of those who persevered and endured, even when there was no evidence around him that the ark he was building would ever be needed. He just trusted that if God said it would be needed, then God knew best. Such faith is unusual. In our experiential world people want to see something with their own eyes before they will believe it. Noah believed what God had said to him and lived the whole of his life in full expectation that one day the ark would be the most important item on the planet! And he was right.

Our scripture tells us that it was ‘holy fear’ that Kept Noah’s faith fuelled with divine energy. This sort of fear is nothing to do with either being afraid or being in terror, but is a fruit of “love and awe”. His love for God was such that nothing pleased him more than doing what God had asked him to do. And it was in awe of God that he found his place of security in the world that God had made, the almighty God who created all things and before whom we are but a speck of much loved dust!

I often meet people who in later life have regretted not doing the things God had asked them to do when they were younger. They have had to face the reality that even though God has forgiven them for their disobedience, they have, nevertheless missed out on what was God’s best for the earlier stages of their lives. If you are at the younger end of life never forget Noah’s amazing example and choose to live in holy fear of a holy God knowing that His plans and purposes are always His best for us. But if you are at the older end of life and wishing you had been more like Noah when you were younger, perhaps this is a time when you could come back to God and express your sorrow and repentance and ask Him to show you the right way forward for the rest of your days. God is a great redeemer – and He loves to redeem every season of our lives.

Prayer. Thank You, Lord, for Noah’s amazing example of persevering obedience. Help me Lord to be like him and always choose to live my life in loving obedience also, as I trust You with whatever is left of my life. In the Name of Jesus, my Redeemer. Amen.

Judges 16:28, NIV
Then Samson prayed to the LORD, “Sovereign LORD, remember me. Please, God, strengthen me just once more, and let me with one blow get revenge on the Philistines for my two eyes.”

Why did God want us to know this story about Samson’s tragic life, and about the weaknesses that he never dealt with? Obviously not so that we might gloat or point a finger, but because his life demonstrates spiritual principles that are important for us to understand.

If there are areas in our life where we resist the Lordship of Jesus Christ, then in this area where we submit to our sinful nature, we give rights to the enemy. When we allow these areas of weakness to continue, refusing to acknowledge and deal with them, other areas of our life – such as our gifting and calling – will be affected.

Samson did not appreciate or value the gifting and calling that God had given him, and as a result he did not protect it from those who wanted to destroy it (the very people he was supposed to defeat). Samson had everything he needed to be the greatest leader in history. He had charisma, charm, supernatural strength and popularity, but his story is a tragic tale of wasted potential. He slept with the enemy!

However, Samson never stopped believing in God, even after… his hair was shaved off; his strength gone; his eyes gouged out; and his freedom stolen. In the end he called on God one more time. From this we can learn no matter how far we have fallen God will listen to our prayer and can still use us. It is never too late!

Samson’s life was compromised all the way through. Compromise always weakens us and brings us into destruction, as no man can serve two masters. Ultimately, compromise will lead us to death. Like Samson, if we sow to please our sinful nature from that nature we will reap destruction (Gal. 6:8).

In the end Samson realised his utter dependence on God and in spite of his sins and weaknesses he did accomplish his God given purpose. All five Philistine kings were crushed by the temple of Dagon, when God gave Samson the power to bring it down, killing himself at the same time.

As we look today at Samson’s life, we learn that if we willingly and repeatedly walk into temptations which lead us to sin, we will suffer the consequences of our disobedience, even though God may still use us to accomplish his will in the end. Samson understood the true source of his strength was God, but we see that he never understood the true purpose of this strength.

He called out to God to strengthen him just one more time, God heard and answered his prayer. It is never too late! It is extraordinary to see that despite his failure, he is mentioned as one of the heroes of faith, in Hebrews 11. When we fail let us run to God, not from God.

Prayer: We thank You Father that Samson is just like us in so many ways. And his story proves that You are a faithful God who can and does use people of faith no matter how imperfectly we lead our lives. Would You help us today to value the gifts and calling You have given to us and to follow You without compromise, to recognise our carnal nature and to deal with the weaknesses and sins that so easily beset us. Remind us that it is never too late to turn to you! In Jesus’ name, Amen.

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Ecclesiastes 7:29, NIV
“This only have I found: God made mankind upright, but men have gone in search of many schemes.”

When I am praying for people, especially those who have suffered many things in their lives, I have in my mind a definition of Christian healing that God gave me many years ago at the outset of the work of Ellel Ministries – the restoration of God’s order in a person’s life. So I sometimes start by asking people the obvious questions about possible roots of disorder in their own lives and the lives of their parents and those whose influence and control they have been under down the years.

Often, however, I discover that some people are only looking for the healing of their present symptoms, and are not really interested in asking God what those roots of disorder actually are. As our Scripture implies, disorder is the fruit of mankind wanting to go after the many schemes that both men and women dream up for themselves – usually with a little help from the schemes of the devil that Paul warned us about in Ephesians Chapter 6! God created mankind upright, but following the schemes of man has resulted in a lack of uprightness. And none of us can escape the reality expressed by Paul in Galatians 6:5 that there is a law of sowing and reaping which applies to our lives as well as our crops.

It is a sad fact that, in the stories of the Kings of Israel, the Bible tells us that many of their problems were caused by things like a lack of uprightness in their lives or because they were not wholehearted in following the Lord. As I read this Scripture afresh I felt God challenging me to examine my own heart and ask Him to show me any areas of my life where the schemes of man have got in the way of the plans of God. May I encourage you to do the same and trust God as you seek His best for every area of your life.

Prayer: Lord, help me to see myself as You see me. Help me to see those places where there has been a lack of uprightness in the things I have done. I want to put things right with You and anyone else who has been affected by my decisions and actions. In Jesus’s Name, Amen.

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Esther 4:14, NIV
“And who knows but that you have come to royal position for such a time as this?”

These words from the story of Esther are very often quoted and used to give scriptural affirmation to the purposes of an individual’s life. You will all have heard it said of someone that the purpose of their life was ‘for such a time as this’! It was certainly true of the young woman who became Queen Esther. Her intervention was strategic in saving the Jewish peoples from annihilation.

Today is a special extra national holiday in celebration of the Diamond Jubilee (60 years on the throne) of Queen Elizabeth the Second. There is absolutely no doubt that her presence on the throne of England has been ‘for such a time as this’. But for the abdication of her Uncle, Edward the Eighth, Elizabeth would have lived out her life as a minor royal – a niece of the King – but God had other plans for her life. When her father, King George the Sixth took the throne, in place of his older brother, the course of history was dramatically changed. A godly man became King and carried the nation through the greatest military conflict in the history of the world. And he instilled into his daughter, the new heir to the throne, the very essence of royal service so that even though he passed away in 1952 at a young age, Elizabeth was already well-schooled in the godly responsibilities of serving her peoples Sovereign..

And this she has faithfully done for sixty long, and often difficult, years – years in which, sadly, the western world has largely turned its back on their spiritual history and allowed secular humanism to be the driving force of society, instead of living in godly submission to the living God. In the midst of all this change, however, the Queen has quietly maintained her own personal faith, as was evidenced In her last Christmas message to the Commonwealth, in which she said:

“God sent into the world a unique person – neither a philosopher nor a general, important though they are, but a Saviour, with the power to forgive. Forgiveness lies at the heart of the Christian faith. It can heal broken families, it can restore friendships and it can reconcile divided communities. It is in forgiveness that we feel the power of God’s love. In the last verse of this beautiful carol, O Little Town of Bethlehem, there’s a prayer:

It is my prayer that on this Christmas day we might all find room in our lives for the message of the angels and for the love of God through Christ our Lord. I wish you all a very happy Christmas.”

I listened in stunned amazement as I realised that the Queen had just told the world that she was praying for all who were listening, that they would find room in their lives for the message of the angels and for the love of God through Christ our Lord!

At her Coronation the Queen laid down her sceptre and took off her crown before receiving communion, in recognition of the fact that even though she was now Queen of England, she was still in submission to a higher authority, the King of Kings! I don’t believe there is any doubt that, like Esther, Queen Elizabeth the Second came to royal position for such a time as this. Scripture urges us to pray for those who reign over us. I have no problem in singing the prayerful words of our national anthem in which we ask God to save the Queen, that she may reign long over us!

Prayer: I thank You, Lord, for Queen Elizabeth and pray that you will long preserve her as Queen of her peoples. I thank you for her personal faith in You and ask that You will once again raise up the British peoples to follow her example of trusting in the “Holy Child of Bethlehem”, the risen Lord Jesus Christ. In Jesus’s name, Amen.

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Isaiah 30:15, NIV
‘This is what the Sovereign Lord, the Holy One of Israel, says: “In repentance and rest is your salvation, in quietness and trust is your strength, but you would have none of it.’

God has made His ways very clear to us in His Word. In chapter after chapter, book after book we read of the blessings that come to His people as we choose to walk in the ways of our God. When we come back to Him in repentance, we know salvation and healing. When we rest in Him, and cease to strive to do things our way instead of God’s way, we know His presence and the healing restoration that resting in Him brings. When we stop depending on our own abilities and start trusting in Him and His ways in all circumstances, then we discover the reality of how much God loves and cares for us.

Sadly, the people of Isaiah’s day reflected the universal condition of a rebellious heart in all generations when they said, “we will have none of it!” Some of the saddest days of my ministry life have been when people have poured out their life story and had to relate circumstances in which they had known what was right, but chose to do wrong. Sometimes the price they had paid for their pride was huge as they discovered what massive consequences had flowed out of ungodly choices.

Because the nature of God is love, however, He still acts towards us in a loving way and that means warning us when we are in danger and correcting us when we make mistakes. It would be a cruel human father who never helped his children grow up through loving correction and encouragement to do what is right. And that is what God is doing in this passage of Scripture. He is reminding us of the dangers that lie ahead on life’s journey if we ignore God’s loving direction.

Road signs warning us of road conditions ahead are there for our benefit. The road signs we discover in God’s Word are also for our benefit, but even more important! If we choose to ignore the signs, we shouldn’t be surprised if there are consequences.

Prayer: Help me, Lord, to have my spiritual eyes open at all times to see the possible dangers there are on the road of life. Forgive me, Lord, for the times when, in pride, I have not wanted anything to do with what your Word says. Today I choose repent and rest and discover your strength through quietly trusting in You. In Jesus Name, Amen.

2 Peter 1:5-8, NIV
“For this very reason, make every effort to add to your faith goodness; and to goodness, knowledge; and to knowledge, self-control; and to self-control, perseverance; and to perseverance, godliness; and to godliness, brotherly kindne…

2 Peter 1:8, NIV
“We did not follow cleverly invented stories when we told you about the power and coming of our Lord Jesus Christ, but we were eye-witnesses of his majesty.”

False religions depend on people being deceived into thinking that something false is true. Cleverly invented stories or deceptive spiritual experiences convince people into thinking that they are following the truth when in fact they are swallowing a lie. All such lies have their origin in Satan, the father of lies, who delights to deceive people into trusting him instead of trusting in the Lord.

Peter had no need to make anything up. He and the other disciples had witnessed so many amazing and wonderfully true things that all they needed to do was ‘tell it as it was’. For example, Peter was present on the mountain top with Jesus when “the voice came to him from the Majestic Glory, saying, “This is my Son, whom I love; with him I am well pleased”. We ourselves heard this voice that came from heaven when we were with him on the sacred mountain.” (2 Peter 1:17-18). Peter saw with his own eyes and heard with his own ears. He didn’t need to make up anything.

There is nothing like a personal eye-witness account to add credibility to the facts. In the same way Jesus gave his own eye-witness account of when Satan was expelled from heaven’s glory when he said, “I saw Satan fall like lightning from heaven.” And then there was the blind man who didn’t need to make anything up. He said, “One thing I do know. I was blind, but now I see!” (John 9:25).

The facts of the Kingdom of God speak for themselves. We don’t need to exaggerate them. All we need to do is tell the truth and let the truth speak for itself. That’s why a healing church will always be an evangelising church! For when God touches a person’s life, the facts of what God has done will speak for themselves and those with eyes to see and ears to hear will begin to ask the right questions. And when we give the truth as an answer then God gives them an opportunity to respond to His love and turn to follow Him.

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, that Scripture records many of the amazing things that You did when You walked this earth. And thank You, Lord, that you are still working miracles in people’s lives today. Help me to share the true things that you tell us about in Scripture, and which you do in each one of our lives, with those who don’t know you, so that they may have the opportunity to get to know You for themselves. In Jesus’s Name, Amen.

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