Devotionals

Proverbs 17:3, NIV
“The crucible for silver and the furnace for gold, but the Lord tests the heart”

Many years ago I watched as gold was being refined in an electric furnace. As the ore began to melt, the slag floated to the surface. Then the whole furnace was tipped forward so that the slag could be poured off. But then the furnace temperature was increased, and more slag was separated from the gold – again, and again. At each pouring the remaining gold became more and more pure. Finally the refiner judged that the gold was ready and the liquid metal was poured into brick-shaped moulds.

I was very impacted by the fact that at each stage of the refining process the temperature was increased so as to achieve a greater level of purity and I have never forgotten this very graphic lesson – for greater purity, the temperature must go up!

We sometimes sing a very popular worship song, “Refiner’s fire” which encouragers the worshippers to ask the Lord to “Purify my heart, let me be as gold, pure gold”. I sometimes wonder if people really understood how gold is refined whether they would sing this beautiful song so enthusiastically! To purify the gold the temperature must be turned up. So, here’s the big question – are we sufficiently in love with the Lord that we can gladly ask Him to turn up the temperature, so our hearts can become more refined!

It’s so easy when facing tough times to cry out to God for a way of escape on an easier road. None of us like going through such experiences, but is it possible that the road God has put us on is the very road God has chosen for us, as part of our refining process? If so we could even find ourselves praying against what the Lord has planned for our best! Perhaps it would be best to pray as the Lord taught us “Deliver us from evil”, for we certainly need deliverance from anything that the enemy uses to oppose us. And then we should pray for the Lord to be with us on the journey, covering and protecting us through the tough times and inviting Him to use whatever circumstances we are passing through to cleanse and purify our hearts so that we will come forth as ‘pure gold’.

Prayer: Lord, I choose to ask you to use whatever circumstances I am passing through to cleanse and purify my heart. I want to be wholly available for You. Help me to learn to trust you through all the situations I have to face today. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

Click here for Conference teaching from “God of the Breakthrough” now available online

Click Here to read Peter Horrobin`s blog

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

Ephesians 2:8, NIV
“For it is by grace you have been saved, through faith – and it is not from yourselves, it is the gift of God”

What do you think of when you hear the word ‘Grace’? Grace is a powerful word because it’s God’s enabling power in us.

Ephesians 2:8 tells us that we can’t possibly earn grace since ‘it is a gift of God’ which we simply receive through faith in God. We’re justified and made righteous by God’s grace. Jesus Christ paid the price to buy us back when we were slaves to sin. Someone has said, “Grace is something that costs the one who receives it nothing, but costs the one who gives it everything”. It’s up to us, to accept it. As Philip Yancey said: “A man who admits no guilt can accept no forgiveness”.

How then can we accept God’s grace?

First of all, we need to confess and admit all guilt and our own helplessness. We need to repent and let our minds be renewed. This change of mindset has to become a visible outworking in our lives – how we conduct ourselves and live in this world. Thirdly, we need to set our faith in Jesus Christ and lastly, receive Him as the Lord of our lives.

Grace is an incredibly critical and important doctrine of our Christian faith. It’s God’s love coming to us free of charge – no strings attached, absolutely unconditional. Although we don’t read of Jesus using the word ‘grace’ in the Gospels He did demonstrate it by His life.

We’re brought up on the idea that the harder we work the more we’ll receive. Matthew 20:12-15 tells the parable of the workers who got what they didn’t deserve. Trust in God’s grace. He freely gives it to us. It’s deep in our human nature to think that we can gain God’s love or that His love is based on what we do.

Some people think that we have a good bucket and a bad bucket of God’s love. But grace means that there’s nothing we can do to make God love us more, and there’s nothing we can do to make God love us less, and however much good there is in our good bucket it can’t cancel one sin in our bad bucket.

Grace means that God already loves us as much as an infinite God can possible love.

God’s grace allows for second chances.

That’s what God does for us. When we stumble, when we struggle, when we’re disobedient and unfaithful God’s always there to welcome us back, with open arms.

We’re taught mottos such as ‘The early bird gets the worm’, ‘No pain no gain’, ‘No such thing as the free lunch’. None of these reflect grace. But grace is the means of our salvation. In all the world religions salvation has to be worked for, but in Christianity free grace is offered through the cross.

So what do we do now with all this understanding of grace? Knowing about grace is one thing, living it is another. We need to show God’s grace to others. Grace is the best gift Christians can give the world because it’s the best gift we’ve ever received. Have you received the fullness of God’s grace in your life yet?

Prayer: Dear Lord Jesus, thank You so much for the underserved gift of Your grace. Help me as I go through today to pause to think about what Your grace truly means to me. Help me to receive the fullness of Your grace, 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

Isaiah 40:31, AV
“Those who wait on the Lord shall renew their strength; they shall mount up with wings as eagles; they shall run and not be weary; and they shall walk, and not faint.”

We’ve all smiled at the quip which says, “Lord, give me patience. And give it me now!” But however much we may smile at something like this, the sad fact is that we can all fall into the trap of wanting to twist God’s arm to do something quickly – especially when the pressure’s on and we’re struggling. God must sometimes feel like a father who hears all the wants of his children, but knows very well that to grant all those requests instantly would not be good for them.

Just as there are seasons in life, there are also timings in God and learning to wait on God is, in reality, learning to trust God – that He knows best. And that can be especially hard for those who have been brought up by parents who proved themselves to be untrustworthy or even abusive. Our natural instinct is to think that God is like our human parents, so we find it hard to trust Him.

One of the reasons Jesus came was to show us what the Father is really like. Was Jesus trustworthy? If we can answer yes to that question, then we can know that Father God is also trustworthy and we can safely depend on Him. We can know that when we bring our requests to Him that He knows what is best for us.

There are many times when I’ve cried out to God in desperation only to find that God didn’t seem to answer the prayer – and that was usually because I had a pre-conceived idea of what the answer should be. The best answers are usually ones that come from a very different direction and, yes, later than we would like – but always on time, nevertheless! God’s clocks do keep perfect time!

And when we wait on Him, as our Scripture teaches us, we gain strength and through trusting God we can rise up above the problems and have God’s divine energy to run the race of life.

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, that You are totally trustworthy and that when I bring the needs of my life before You, that I can trust You to provide the right answer and at the right time. 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

Click here to see a short video about Peter Horrobin’s Alvis Tour

Joel 2:18 and 25, NIV
“Then the Lord will be jealous for his land and take pity on his people. The Lord will reply . . . I will repay you for the years the locusts have eaten”

I will never forget the day in 1970 when I acquired the wreck of a 1934 Alvis Speed 20 car. It was already 36 years old and in an unbelievably impossible condition. The problem certainly wasn’t locusts – but the car had been stolen, crashed, vandalised, set on fire and finally pushed into the River Mersey! Most sensible people would have consigned it to the scrap heap without any hesitation! But as I looked at that broken car God spoke to me about His vision for restored lives. I was thinking of a restored car, but in God’s vision He was showing me that He wanted to see beautifully restored lives.

Just as I didn’t see the sad remains of the car as being a hopeless case, God doesn’t look at the history of any of our lives and write us off. He sees what the “locusts of life” have eaten and dreams of what He could do in restoring His people to once again fulfil their destiny in Him.

In a few precious moments of vision I caught a glimpse of timeless eternity. I saw things that I’m still unpacking today. I saw into the heart of God and with His eyes I looked at the wrecks of broken lives – hundreds of them, thousands and millions of them. And there on the sidelines was Satan grinning over the lives he had wrecked and which he was wanting to send to the scrap-heap, without hope.

But as I looked, I sensed the joy there had been in God, when each life had been created in all its pristine beauty. Then I saw His tears at the wrecks that so many of these people had become. Finally, however, I became aware of the joy that would be His once more, if those broken lives could be restored as their maker had intended them to be, and for which His Son had died.

I realised that God’s emotions over broken lives were not dissimilar in nature to the ones I had experienced when I looked at the wreck of a broken car – only broken lives are much more important than broken cars. God never shrinks from the magnitude of the task. In Him there are no hopeless cases – none are beyond the healing love of a God who is passionate about His creation.

It has taken me 42 years to restore the car and this year I will be driving it to all our UK Centres and across the Channel to our Dutch Centre as well. The car has been restored to run! At each Centre I will be conducting a new training course, simply called Restored to Run – because that’s what God wants to do with each one of our lives, restore them so we are able to run the race of life.

To see a short video about the vision, the car, Restored to Run and the Alvis Tour, http://www.thealvistour.com/video {please click here.}

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, that You rejoice to see Your people restored and once again fulfil their destiny. Help me to own the mistakes I’ve made and to forgive those who have hurt me, so that You can have Your way in restoring my life and dealing with the damage caused by the “locusts” which have damaged me. In Jesus’s Name, Amen.

Click Here to read Peter Horrobin`s blog

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

To see a short video about Restored to Run and the Alvis Tour, please click here.

Romans 8:1-2, NIV
“Therefore, there is now no condemnation for those who are in Christ Jesus, because through Christ Jesus the law of the Spirit who gives life has set you free from the law of sin and death.”

Familiar surroundings make us feel safe and comfortable. We like the security of the world that we know and believe we can trust – even though there may be much more exciting places to live, work and play in. It’s amazing how often people are just content to enjoy living in the same old familiar surroundings that they’ve known all their life – even when they have all the resources at their fingertips to make radical and positive changes to their lives.

Equally, I find it surprising sometimes, when trying to help people face the real issues in their lives, to find that often they have known the Lord for many years but have not allowed the supposedly abundant life they now have to change their way of living! They are still in bondage to the same old temptations and the same old behaviours. What they were familiar with in their unredeemed life has continued to be the furniture with which they are still comfortable.

Yes, they are looking forward to the joys of Heaven, but they have rarely experienced the blessings from Heaven on earth – in spite of the new law of the Spirit that God has written in the heart of every believer. This new law gives us authority over the law of sin and death which tries to drag us back into the attitudes and activities of Satan’s Kingdom. Satan does his best to blind us to the fact that we can use our free will to walk free of his chains, using the higher authority that we now have in our lives – if only we would use our free will to let the Spirit of God transform us from the inside out many of the problems which beset believers on a day to day basis would simply fall away.

Those who are in Christ Jesus are freed from the curse of sin – they don’t need to remain sitting in the jail of Satan’s making oblivious to the fact that the chains that formerly held them there are broken. Jesus – the Lion of Judah – has broken the chains. Now is the time for His people to start living in the reality of their new found freedom.

Prayer: Thank You Jesus, that you have broken the chains of bondage for all those who have trusted in You. Help me, Lord, to live in the reality of that freedom, now and for the rest of my life. In Jesus’s Name. Amen.

Click Here to read Peter Horrobin`s blog

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

Exodus 33:15, NIV
“If your Presence does not go with us, do not send us up from here.”

As I was praying about the New Year ahead I sensed God ask me a question, “Do you want to work for Me or with Me?” This is a big, important question. It’s so easy to lose sight of the fact that I’m involved in God’s work, not mine, and my life should be hidden in Christ with God. Moses got this completely right. He didn’t just want to do the work of God. He wanted the presence of God to be in the midst of them.

The presence of God distinguishes us from others. If God doesn’t go with us we’re without hope, without honour, and without protection. And we go without His salvation and His love. Like Moses I found myself saying to God, “If You don’t go with me, I simply don’t want to go”.

I want God’s manifest presence to take me forward from here, because out of God’s presence come miracles, signs and wonders, healing and deliverance. Moses talked to God face-to-face. The word ‘face’ is connected with the word ‘presence’. ‘Face-to- face’ is an idiom meaning close relationship in the intimate presence of God, (because no one has seen God’s face and lived).

Do you want to seek God’s face, become like Moses and insist on His presence? Are you working for God or with God, in His manifest presence? We need to greatly value the presence of God. Nothing is greater.

Jesus made it clear that living in the Kingdom means living in a real relationship with the King. God the Father glorified Jesus and highly exalted Him because He made Himself nothing and took on the form of a servant and became obedient to the Father, even though it cost Him His life. He had no other ambitions but to glorify His father, and He emptied Himself. The Scripture says, ‘Let this mind be in you which was also in Christ Jesus’ (Philippians 2:5). Jesus did everything the Father wanted Him to do.

That’s a challenge in front of us in 2012. Don’t let’s get side-tracked into working for God when we’re called to work with God. Don’t let’s just talk about it or sing about it. Let’s be part of the Kingdom, bearing fruit and bringing God glory; a people through whom God manifests His presence, glory and wisdom.

Prayer: Dear Lord, Don’t send me anywhere to do anything unless You go with me. Put Your words in my mouth. I need Your presence and Your power. Free me from anything else, and ruin me for anything less than You working with me, to glorify Your name. Amen.

Click Here to read Peter Horrobin`s blog

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

Isaiah 14:24, NIV
“The Lord Almighty has sworn, ‘Surely, as I have planned, so it will be, and as I have purposed, so it will stand.’”

As a child I always took great comfort from the words of my Dad. I was always totally secure because I knew that my Dad was in charge of everything pertaining to my life. I knew that I was safe in the home, and that Mum and Dad together would always honour their promises to us as children. Home was a safe place because I could trust them. What Dad planned always happened.

Obviously, ‘my world’ at that time was only a tiny portion of the world that God had made and I was only one of billions of people that made up God’s huge family. But because of the security that had been built into my life by my parents it was an easy step for me to understand that God really did have the whole world in His hands and that I could trust what He says in His word.

World events of the past twelve months have shaken all the nations. As the financial structures through which the nations govern the world collapse, fear and insecurity have disturbed the peace of many. The world seems to be changing shape at an ever-increasing rate and in the midst of confusion, the sense of imminent danger, even disaster, is never far away. In such circumstances is there anyone we can trust? Does anyone know what they’re doing?!

The world has gone through tough times before – on many occasions. When you read Scripture you see that there is a golden thread of the purposes of God being fulfilled that is woven into the fabric of every book of the Bible. And when you read history you see how in all seasons God has been slowly working out His purposes on the pages of man’s story. And as our Scripture assures us – what God has planned, He will fulfil. The purposes of God will always stand like immoveable rocks – we can trust Him. And to be more specific, it is only He who can be trusted. Knowing that He is in charge is the ultimate comfort for the believer. No matter what is happening around us, we are secure in Him, both for time and for eternity.

Prayer: Thank You, Lord, that You are in charge of Planet Earth! I’m so glad that whatever happens I can trust you at all times and in all circumstances. Help me, Lord, not to be afraid, but to trust in Your unfailing love as your plans and purposes are fulfilled. In Jesus’s Name, Amen.

Click Here to read Peter Horrobin`s blog

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

Deuteronomy 4:1-2, NIV
“Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.”

God knew the heart of man all too well! He had seen how even when He had shown people the right way to go, that they had often wanted to follow their own carnal nature and, as we might say today, ‘do their own thing’! No wonder God had to reinforce His directions to Joshua as they were about to enter the Promised Land by reminding them not to add to or take away from the instructions He had given them.

All too often when praying with people I have had to help them see that the problems they were now facing had arisen because at critical stages in their own pilgrimage they had tried to rewrite God’s Word and make it say what they wanted it to say! It’s so easy to close our eyes to the truth and to justify going in a direction which, in our hearts, we know to be wrong. Hindsight is a great teacher, but if we ignore the lessons that hindsight gives us, we will never have God’[s foresight to lead us into His future.

The beginning of a New Year is always a time of both challenge and opportunity. The world talks about New Year Resolutions – most of which are usually broken during the opening days of the year! I would prefer to talk about New Year Opportunities – by which I mean opportunities to discover how faithful God is to His Word, how loving He is to His children, how caring He is for those who look to Him. For lying before each one of us is a 365-day diary of opportunities to discover God afresh for ourselves, to prove His love and rejoice in everything that He has planned for our blessing.

God has promised to show us His way for our lives, but we need to do our part by choosing to walk in His ways. In Psalm 25:14 the Scripture tells us that “the Lord confides in those who fear Him.”

Prayer: Thank you Lord that You have given us Your Word and that it is a light for our feet on the pathways of life. Help me day by day to make right choices as I choose to live in the love and fear of the Lord in the year ahead. In Jesus’s Name. Amen.

Click Here to read Peter Horrobin`s blog

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

Genesis 37:10–11, NIV
“Hear now, O Israel, the decrees and laws I am about to teach you. Follow them so that you may live and may go in and take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, is giving you. Do not add to what I command you and do not subtract from it, but keep the commands of the Lord your God that I give you.”

Joshua was now the leader of God’s people. He had been with them throughout all their wanderings in the wilderness, and following the death of Moses he had taken up the reigns of leadership. By his own testimony he was able to say to the people, “The Lord . . . has watched over your journey through this vast desert. These forty years the Lord your God has been with you, and you have not lacked anything” (Deuteronomy 2:7).

There are seasons in life when it is right to look back and remember with thanksgiving the lessons that we have learned in the past – and the turn of the year is one of those seasons. John Wesley always used this time of the year to renew his personal covenant with the Lord, and so he led his followers to mark the end of one year and the beginning of the next with a special covenant service – a service which was both a time of confession and repentance as well as rededication and commitment, in the context of a service of Holy Communion.

Some of those lessons of life we have learned the hard way – by going our own way and discovering that when we ignore what God has said, there is a consequence. Joshua could look back and see how God’s people were disobedient forty years previously and as a result they had missed out on God’s best and lost the opportunity to enter their Promised Land at that time. But Joshua could also look back and see that even though they had been obliged to wander through the wilderness all those years, God’s hand had still been upon them. There was so much to thank God for!

So, as you look back on the past, may I encourage you to look afresh at the journey you’ve been on this past year. And if there are obvious places where you have left the path that God laid before you, let this be a time of personal confession, repentance, receiving forgiveness and rededication. Even though there may have been mistakes, as there were with His own people, Israel, God has still been there for you and now’s the time to come before Him with an open and willing heart.

God gave Israel another opportunity to enter their promised land and through Joshua He reminded them that it’s still important to keep the commands of the Lord. And so it is for us as well! God has given us His Word – let’s choose to walk in His ways and enjoy His blessings in the new year that lies ahead.

Prayer: Thank you, Lord, that even though your people sinned, you still loved them and did not leave them. Help me to remember that you are always there and that you long for us to return to you so that we may enter the promised land that you have laid before each one of us for the years ahead. In Jesus’s Name. Amen.

John 9:4, KJV
“I must work the works of him that sent me, while it is day: the night comes, when no man can work.”

As we prepare to enter 2012 there’s a real sense that God can wipe the slate clean of all the sins and failures of 2011. Do you remember being given a new, clean exercise book at school, with all the pages blank? God is handing us a new book for 2012 with all its pages blank. I wonder what we will write in it?

This new year will have 366 days, and we need to make each day count in the Kingdom. None of us knows how much time we have left or when Jesus will return. This scripture (John 9:4) encourages us to work WHILE IT IS STILL DAY.

In order to please God we need holiness and godly character. This doesn’t often happen as the result of our New Year’s resolutions, which surveys tell us only last, on average, for thirteen days! We do have an opportunity, though, for new beginnings.

Recently in Hong Kong I witnessed Chinese believers in whole-hearted, fervent and passionate worship, which deeply impacted me. And I realised the key lay in their complete, and often costly, obedience, which flows out of their deep love and absolute surrender to our Lord Jesus Christ.

In 2012 we have 366 days in front of us, and the developing of our godly character will flow from the workshop of our everyday life, each day a new step. We face an exciting, unknown adventure with God, who has promised to never leave us or forsake us. Someone has said, “With God on our side we are always in the majority!”

If we ask Him, Jesus can press the ‘delete’ button on all our confessed and repented of sins of the past, and He chooses to remember them no more. Praise God for the cross!

Every day in 2012 can be a fresh start. Only Jesus can make all things new.

Today, as we take time to reflect on all that 2011 included for us, and maybe on just how quickly it all went past (I find as I grow older the years seem to shorten), we must accept that none of us can change one minute of what happened. But what we can do is to learn how to lean more heavily on the grace of God in 2012, and to trust Him by faith, one day at a time.

There is a right place to begin. Maybe you need to forgive someone, or apologise to someone? Do you need to stop a practice that is wrong? Perhaps you should go for ministry or godly counsel. If you have unfinished business with God today is a good day to deal with it. Ask God to give you the strength and determination to take that first step and your healing process will begin, as you get your life into godly order.

Prayer: Lord Jesus, I come today and ask Your forgiveness for all the sins of my past, and commit myself to You for every day of 2012. I want my life to count in the Kingdom. Help me to lean on Your grace and strength for each new day and to bring all areas of my life into godly order. Thank You for Your love for me, and help me to trust You to provide for me each day. I love You, Lord, and take Your hand as I go into 2012. Amen.

Click Here to read Peter Horrobin`s blog
Click here to find out more about a FREE TRIAL of Ellel 365