Devotional messages written by Peter for Seeds of the Kingdom from Ellel Ministries
John 11:25-16, NIV
Jesus said to Martha, “I am the resurrection and the life. He who believes in me will live, even though he dies; and whoever lives and believes in me will never die. Do
you believe this?”
Jesus sometimes gave emphasis to his teach…
Matthew 6:26, NIV
“Look at the birds of the air; they do not sow or reap or store away in barns, and yet your heavenly Father feeds them. Are you not much more valuable than they?”
I am writing this in Australia in Kangaroo Valley which is on the south coast in New South Wales.
Did you know that a mummy kangaroo has two wombs – when she mates, two eggs are fertilised and one goes into each womb? The first egg starts to develop but if in the desert or unfavourable conditions the second fertilised egg lies dormant up to two years.
The first one is born with immature development, about 2 to 3 centimetres long, no hair and blind and it has, after birth, to make a steep uphill journey to the pouch, on a path that the mother has licked in her thick fur. The baby secretes a lubricant out of its mouth as it follows the path set out for him by his mother.
Once in the pouch it attaches to a teat and stays there until it is ready to face the world, taking little excursions cautiously, over a few months.
Meanwhile if the conditions become more favourable and grass is available for the adult, a hormone is released and baby number two begins to come out of its dormant state and starts to grow and the pattern is repeated.
The baby is not fully developed when it climbs into the pouch to join its by now much older sibling. The new joey attaches to a teat but the milk for the newborn is completely different than that for the older one who can digest much thicker and creamier milk.
I am completely stunned by what God has created in the make up of these animals to ensure their survival, but just think about the endless lengths that God has gone to over each one of us and how much more valuable we are than a little kangaroo joey.
Psalm 19:1 says, ‘The heavens declare the glory of God; and the firmament shows and proclaims His handiwork’.
Prayer: Heavenly Father, LORD of all creation, we stand in awe of You today. We are so humbled by the intricate detail of your plans and purposes, we cling to your truth today and we know that we can trust you with all of our needs, whatever our circumstances. Thank you Lord. Amen.
Colossians 3:12, NIV
“Therefore, as God’s chosen people, holy and dearly loved, clothe yourselves with compassion, kindness, humility, gentleness and patience.”
When we get dressed in the morning we have a choice over what clothes we are going to wear. We probably think about what we are going to be doing, and then choose appropriate clothing for the occasion. If we have an important appointment, then we will probably choose the best clothes out of the wardrobe. If we are simply having a day around the house, doing our own thing, then we will probably choose some favourite old clothes in which we will feel relaxed and comfortable.
Paul uses the analogy of clothing to give us some idea of what we as Christian people should wear each day – not on our physical body, but as clothing for the person we are. Earlier in this chapter Paul talked about clothing that would be inappropriate for Christians to wear – indeed, he said there are some things we should get rid of from our wardrobe altogether and never even consider wearing. They are the clothes that should be put on the bonfire (put to death) because they belong to our carnal earthly nature.
Things such as immorality, impurity, lust, evil desires and greed, for example(Colossians 3:5), shouldn’t be given hanging space in the wardrobe of our life. They are not appropriate for Christians to wear, whatever it is they may be thinking of doing. There are no occasions when it would be right to choose them as the clothing for the day! They won’t bring blessing into our own life, or anyone else’s. Paul also told us (in verse eight) that we must get rid of such things as anger, rage, malice, slander, and filthy language from our lips. And then adds that we mustn’t lie to each other either. All of these things will not only be incompatible with our desire to serve Jesus, but they will also give the enemy entrance to our lives. In another passage, when Paul is saying similar things to the Ephesians, he says, ‘Don’t give the devil a foothold!’ (Ephesians 4:27).
Sometimes the clothes of worldliness can seem very attractive – especially when we feel sorry for ourselves and feel in need of comfort. At times like this we need to throw ourselves wholly on the Lord who is the ‘God of all comfort’ (2 Corinthians 1:3) and not resort to conduct that would attract the devil’s attention! When Jesus was preparing people for days of great testing, and urging people to flee from all that surrounds them in the world, He said, ‘Remember Lot’s wife’ (Luke 17:32). She looked back with longing to all that she was leaving behind and paid for her sin with her life. It can sometimes be very costly to choose the world’s clothing!
Let’s determine before God that we will get rid of all the clothing from the wardrobe of our life that would cause us to behave shamefully and fill the hangers with appropriate clothing for followers of Jesus to wear at all times.
Prayer: Help me, Lord, to carefully assess the clothing that’s hanging in the wardrobe of my life. If there are things there that I know shouldn’t be worn by a follower of Jesus, help me to clear them all out and only fill my wardrobe with the clothing which comes from the fruit of the Holy Spirit being at work in my life. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Colossians 1:13-14, NIV
“For he has rescued us from the dominion of darkness and brought us into the Kingdom of the Son he loves, in whom we have redemption, the forgiveness of sins.”
Along with millions of others around the world I have been glued to the television screen as I watched the first of the Chilean miners emerging from the darkness of their prison, 700 metres below the ground. The sight of these men, for whom there seemed to have been no hope of rescue, has had the world fighting back the tears of emotion and joy, as these remarkable scenes unfolded before our very eyes. These were moments of extraordinary drama, as their families greeted the men who had been totally incapable of rescuing themselves. As they emerged from their rescue capsule, into the glaring floodlights of media publicity, they were hugged by the President of Chile.
These were amazing pictures which will become part of unforgettable world history. Never before have so many men been rescued from being so long underground. These were men who, after 69 days in their prison of rock, had been rescued from certain death and given another chance of life. It was as if they had been born again. As I watched these dramatic scenes developing through the Chilean night, I was deeply impacted by the living parable that was unfolding before my very eyes.
Man’s condition was so like that of the trapped Chilean miners. Since the fall of man, the whole of the human race has lived out its spiritual existence in the darkness of a prison, from which there was no possibility of escape. There was nothing the miners could do to effect their own rescue. All they could do was wait – first to be found alive, and then to be rescued. Those dramatic pictures that eventually emerged, of men surviving in the blackest of black holes, perfectly illustrated the condition of fallen man, existing, but without hope.
The miners were totally dependent on rescue from above. It took over two months to drill a hole wide enough for a rescue capsule to descend through the rock to the darkness of their prison. Then we saw the first miners enter the rescue capsule, one at a time, and be lifted from ‘the dominion of darkness’ into the light of freedom at the top of the San Jose (Saint Joseph) mine, now renamed by the Chilean authorities, and the world’s media, as Camp Hope.
Joseph was the man whom God chose to rescue the Children of Israel from death by famine. His brothers condemned him to death, but God raised him up to the highest position in the land, and through him Israel and his family were saved. Joseph became the picture of ‘Hope’ for God’s people, and Jesus became the picture of ‘Hope’ for the whole of humanity.
Isaiah prophesied that ‘the people living in darkness have seen a great light; on those living in the land of the shadow of death a light has dawned’ (Matthew 4:16). Man was incapable of rescuing himself from his self-imposed darkness. Like the miners, he had to wait for rescue from above. And when that moment came, it wasn’t the world’s media who were watching in awe, but the angelic host who gave ‘glory to God in the highest’ as they sang their praises and gave the good news to the Shepherds of Bethlehem.
The President of Chile waited at the surface for the first rescued miners to step out of the capsule. But the President of Heaven, Jesus, the King of Kings and Lord of Lords, ‘manned the rescue capsule’ Himself and stepped down to earth to show man the way of escape.
Joseph’s brothers tried to kill him and mankind did kill Jesus. But the cross of despair was renamed Camp Hope when God raised Him up on resurrection morning! The rescue capsule to take man from the realm of darkness to the Kingdom of Light can, like it was for the miners, only be entered one at a time. To choose to be rescued is a personal decision, but, as the writer of the Hebrews so accurately expressed it, ‘How shall we escape if we ignore such a great salvation?’(Hebrews 2:3)
The miners were ‘living in darkness, in the land of the shadow of death’. Today they have been given a chance to live a new life, freed from their underground prison. One of them expressed it so powerfully when he said, ‘We were with God and the devil underground – and God won!’ All of humanity outside of Christ is ‘living in darkness, in the land of the shadow of death’. God gave man a way of escape, so ‘Today, if you hear his voice, do not harden your hearts’ (Hebrews 4:7). Just as there was great joy on the surface of the mine with the rescue of each and every miner, Jesus said ‘there is rejoicing in the presence of the angels over one sinner who repents’ (Luke 15:10). What an amazing rescue! What a Saviour! Hallelujah!
Prayer: Thank you, Lord, for the amazing rescue of the Chilean miners and for the new life they now have to look forward to. But thank you even more, for your amazing rescue of mankind and that there is a way back to God from the darkness of sin. Help me never to forget what Jesus did for me on the cross, when the hill of Calvary became Camp Hope for lost humanity. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Exodus 23:24 , NIV
“Do not bow down before their gods or worship them or follow their practices. You must demolish them and break their sacred stones to pieces.”
It is a wonderful truth that God says He is a jealous God. He is jealous over all our love and all our worship. The first commandment is: “You shall have no other gods before me.”
A lady in Kuala Lumpur told me that one Sunday her pastor challenged the congregation to get rid of all occult things from their homes. She had done this already, but as she listened to the pastor, she remembered four very large dragon pots that were on the patio of her house which she had now rented out.
She was determined to get rid of them, so she telephoned her tenants, “Can I come and remove something I left behind” she asked. “Absolutely not!” came the reply, “You have no legal access to the house!”
She was a little offended but rang the pastor and told him that she had felt convicted about the dragon pots following his sermon. The pastor suggested that they should meet outside the house and pray. This they did and she spoke out to the Lord, “When I next get access to my house I commit to getting rid of those dragon pots.”
The pastor told her to be at peace and went.
Can you imagine her surprise when the very next day the tenants phoned to say, “You will never guess what has happened! A big rock fell down the hill onto the patio and it fell on those beautiful pots. It smashed the first one, then bounced on the second, then the third and finally the fourth one and all of them are smashed and in pieces!”
The lady owner could hardly keep a straight face as she put the phone down. She rang her pastor who said, “God moves in mysterious ways His wonders to perform!”
When we are willing to be fully obedient to God, He is able to fulfil His word of truth. What an awesome God we serve. He is on the throne; the enemy is NOT!
Prayer: Dear Lord, remind me afresh today that you are the God of the impossible and that you are jealous over my love. I choose today to be wholly obedient to you. In Jesus’ Name. Amen.
Malachi 4:5, NIV
“See, I will send you the prophet Elijah, before that great and dreadful day of the Lord comes.”
The whole world will be looking in on Johannesburg on the 11th July. There is tremendous expectancy and excitement about what will happen in the World Cup Final. On that day more people will be watching South Africa than on any other day in history!
For the two teams contesting the final, all the years of preparation, training and competition will reach their climax. They will have successfully battled through all the early stages of the competition to have the privilege of stepping out on the pitch in the final of this, the greatest of all football competitions. For the players and their managers it will be the defining point of their careers. It will be the ultimate highlight for all their fans and supporters across the world. All the honour and the glory of their country is at stake – to say nothing of the massive financial rewards for the winners. When the referee blows his whistle to start the game, just ninety minutes of soccer action will stand between both teams and potential glory.
I had no idea before the competition which two teams would make it through to the last match of the competition, to compete for the famous Jules Rimet Trophy. But there is one thing I did know and can absolutely guarantee – it will be both a great and a terrible day! You may well ask how the same day can be both great and terrible at the same time. The answer is obvious – for the winner it will be a great day, but for the loser it will be a terrible day!
To have battled for so long and so hard to get to the final, but then to lose the last match of the competition will be an awful experience. For the losers it will be a terrible, terrible day. But for the winners it is going to be the greatest day of their footballing lives. Players will hug everyone in sight and kiss their winner’s medals, golden reminders of the trophy they’d always dreamed of winning. They will celebrate that moment long into the night and for months and years to come! For the rest of their lives, they will look back on their achievement with pride and joy.
Yes, the same day will be both a great and a terrible day. Which one it is will totally depend on which side you’re on! The Bible says nothing about football, but it does talk about a great and terrible day. Right at the end of his prophecy, Malachi says that when the day of the Lord comes it will be a great and terrible (or dreadful day) – but it will be the same day! And whether it is a great day for you, or a terrible day, will also totally depend on whose side you’re on!
For those who know and love the Lord every day is a great day. For those who continue to reject His love, every day is a terrible day, for to die without knowing Him will have terrible consequences. And let’s never forget that the prophecies about Jesus coming the first time were all fulfilled. And that the whole universe is waiting, not for the World Cup Final, but for the prophecies about His second coming to be fulfilled as well – as they surely will be. We have no idea when that will happen, but one thing I can absolutely guarantee is that when it happens it will be both a great and a terrible day!
May I urge you to heed Isaiah’s advice and ‘seek the Lord while he may be found; call on him while he is near.’ Then, he says ‘let the wicked forsake his way and the evil man his thoughts. Let him turn to the Lord, and he will have mercy on him, and to our God, for he will freely pardon’ (Isaiah 55:6-7).
I pray that the World Cup Final will be a wonderful event, but, as you watch the match, remind yourself of the fact that there’s a day coming of far greater significance even than the 11th July. I pray that, for you, when Jesus comes again it will be a great and not a terrible day!
Prayer: Thank you, Lord, that as a believer in You I can look forward with joyful anticipation to that day which will be both great and terrible, depending on whose side you are on. I am so grateful for the gift of salvation and the new life You have given me. Help me, Lord, to live every day ready for that moment when You come again or You take me to be with Yourself. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Isaiah 40:23, NIV
“He brings princes to naught and reduces the rulers of this world to nothing.”
While I was in Rome I was thinking about the Roman Empire. When Jesus came into the world as truly God and truly man, the Roman army was occupying Israel, in the time of Caesar Augustus. Nobody would have believed that Jesus had been born of a virgin and they would have considered Him to be the biological son of Joseph, a carpenter.
But Jesus was the Son of God the Father and was to be the Lamb of God that would be the Messiah, the Saviour of all mankind. John writes, ‘He came unto his own, and his own received him not’ (John 1:10-11). Although the religious leaders hated Jesus so much, and clamoured for His crucifixion, they had no political power to do it. Pontius Pilate was the Roman governor who (very reluctantly) gave in to them and pronounced the sentence of death on Jesus.
At the foot of the cross, the centurion said,‘Surely, he was the Son of God!’ (Matthew 27:54). The Romans and the Jews thought that would be the end of the matter! But Jesus Christ victoriously rose from the dead on the third day as He had said He would and made a way for all men to have their sins forgiven and to have eternal life. 40 days after His ascension, the Holy Spirit came on the disciples to enable them to be witnesses to the truth of the Gospel, and in Acts 2, we see Peter addressing the crowd and leading the early Church. Followers of Jesus began to meet and worship the risen Christ.
The Roman Empire was still very powerful and the believers who followed Jesus were dreadfully persecuted, tortured and killed. Emperor Nero at around AD30 wanted to rebuild Rome to his own glory – he set Rome ablaze and blamed the Christians. Huge slaughter of Christians soon began and horrifying carnage followed.
As I looked at the Coliseum which is still amazingly intact, I saw the place where the early Christians were fed to the lions and wild beasts. In the ‘games’ of the gladiators the Christians were set alight as if they were human torches. The martyring of Christians continued, and Christians were stoned, slain with the sword, made destitute, persecuted and tormented.
As a born again believer today, it had a profound impact on me that the cross of Jesus Christ stands on every important building in Rome today – HE IS LORD! I couldn’t help wondering what all the Romans of Jesus’ day would make of it. If they could have fast-forwarded and had a picture of today, they would have been amazed. They had never realised then who Jesus truly was.
Here we are 2000 years later; the Roman Empire has been swept away, and Jesus Christ has won the eternal victory over sin, death and hell. He is truly God! He rules and reigns! He is alive today and He lives in us! Hallelujah!
Prayer: Lord Jesus, help me recognise afresh today that principalities and powers will all pass away but Your kingdom stands forever. Thank You, Lord Jesus, You are coming back to this earth a second time, and that we will live and reign with You in glory because through the finished work of Calvary’s cross, You have forgiven our sins and given us eternal life. Thank You, Lord. Amen.
Philippians 3:7-9, NIV
“But whatever was to my profit I now consider loss for the sake of Christ. What is more, I consider everything a loss compared to the surpassing greatness of knowing Christ Jesus my Lord, for whose sake I have lost all things. I consider them rubbish that I may gain Christ and be found in Him.\”
On January 26, 1905, the superintendent of the Cullinan mine, in South Africa, Frederick Wells, came upon a reflection in the dirt. He picked up the otherwise dull stone, nearly four inches long, and, almost accidentally, discovered the largest diamond ever found. This amazing stone turned out to be a perfectly clear, colourless diamond weighing 3,106 carats.
Taking the name of the owner of the mine, the Cullinan diamond was sold to the Transvaal government for £150,000, with the finder of the stone, Frederick Wells, receiving 3,500 pounds as a reward for the precious discovery – a huge sum back in 1905! This enormous diamond was cut into several exquisite diamonds, most of which now adorn the Crown Jewels of England, having been presented to King Edward the Seventh as a 66th birthday present.
The value of the Cullinan diamonds would today be almost beyond price. They are the sort of treasures that people can only dream of. Yet even if it were possible for you to buy and own such amazing treasures, they would be totally valueless to you at the moment you stopped breathing at the end of your days! At that moment the value to you of everything you have and own reduces to zero and will become totally irrelevant! At that point the only treasure that will be of any interest or value to you, will be that which you can take with you beyond the grave.
And the only treasure that we can own in this life which is of value to us in the next, is our relationship with Jesus. He is the ultimate treasure, the utterly precious One. The One who left the riches of Heaven’s glory to show us the way to the Father. It is beyond belief to me how the majority of the world will spend all their time and energies in the acquisition of treasures that are only of value while we have life and breath, and will spend virtually nothing on discovering the surpassing greatness of Christ Jesus.
Paul got his sense of values exactly in the right perspective. What would be the point of owning the Cullinan diamond, he would have said today, if it became the focus of your existence and you took your eyes off Christ. For it is only those who are found in Him that will have any eternal treasure – everything else is rubbish by comparison. Yes, we can own and appreciate the things of this world while we are here, but let’s never forget that they are irrelevant when we stand before God at the end of time. If Jesus is not the treasure in our heart then, we will bewail the years when we sought earthly treasure at the expense of Heavenly blessing.
Prayer: Thank You, Lord, for all the wonderful things you have created in this world for us to have and to enjoy. But help me Lord, never to value them more highly than I should and to take my focus off Jesus, the only treasure that is valuable in this world and the next. In His Name, Amen.
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Ephesians 2:6-7, NIV
“And God raised us up with Christ and seated us with him in the heavenly realms in Christ Jesus in order that in the coming ages he might show the incomparable riches of his grace, expressed in his kindness to us, in Christ Jesus”
A few years ago we were ministering in Alaska – that most amazing and wonderful of American States. Not only was I able to take advantage of being there to have a ‘once in a lifetime’ adventure of fishing for salmon, in the most prolific salmon waters of the world, but we were taken in a light aircraft on the most adventurous flight of my life! I’m not sure I would choose to go again, but I’m sure glad I went once!
Mount McKinley, at 20,320 ft, is the highest mountain in North America. The summit was first climbed in 1913, almost a hundred years ago. It lies at the heart of Alaska. There is only one way that people like me can ever get close enough to the top of such a mountain to enjoy its spectacular views – and that’s by climbing into a light aircraft, equipped with skis as an alternative landing gear to wheels. As I looked at the plane on the ground, and then at the distant mountain, I did question whether or not this was a bridge too far, for someone with not much of a head for heights! But it was too late, we’d booked, we climbed in and were off!
It was the most incredible, unbelievable and wonderfully hair-raising journey I will ever take! We were soon above the snow line, flying over glaciers, made of ice hundreds of feet thick; trusting our pilot, believing he knew where he was going and how to get back; flying, it seemed, straight at a wall of rock, only tilting the wings at the last minute to escape into open air as we climbed higher and higher; finally we landed in the snow on the highest possible glacier that the tiny plane could reach. We were alone ‘on top of the world’ – it was an unforgettable experience.
As I look back on that amazing trip, and think about today’s Scripture, I realise that what we experienced is nothing, when compared with the view God gives us from his perspective, not just of the view from one mountain, but of the whole world. His perspective is not limited by either man’s aeronautic abilities or his human understandings. He is not just looking at the physical, but at what is happening in the spiritual realms also. He sees the way man, in his pride and self-sufficiency, is trying to solve the problems of the world, without reference to the only One who can give you a right perspective on how things really are.
The world desperately needs to get in ‘God’s light aircraft’ and see things from His viewpoint. But there is a problem – in order to get His perspective on things, man must first humble himself. It is only then that we can have lift-off, for the Word of God promises that He will then lift us up (James 4:10). As our leaders seek to tackle the world’s problems, we need to pray that they will humble themselves, so that they may get God’s viewpoint on things and start to tackle the real issues with the supernatural insight we get from being seated with Him in the heavenly realms.
Prayer: Thank you, Lord, that in You we have the enormous privilege of being able to see the world from a right perspective. Help us not to focus our attention only on what we can see in the physical, but to see the reality of the spiritual warfare which is pulling at the hearts of men and women. I pray that You will raise up leaders in the world who will have the courage to humble themselves, so that, in and through You, they will have a right perspective on the world as it is and the actions they need to take. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.
Colossians 2:3, NIV
“My purpose is that they may be encouraged in heart and united in love, so that they may have the full riches of complete understanding, in order that they may know the mystery of God, namely, Christ, in whom are hidden all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge.”
The magnificent Forth Railway Bridge inspired me as a child. I had a jig-saw depicting this amazing double-cantilevered steel bridge across the River Forth, just north of Edinburgh in Scotland. I loved the picture and did that jig-saw time and time again. It wasn’t for another ten years that I first crossed the bridge that had inspired my childhood imagination. The sound of the train changed as the powerful steam engine started out across the bridge and pulled us northwards into the heart of Scotland. High above us were the great central towers that supported the cantilevered steel. Far below us were the grey-blue waters of the River Forth. I will never forget my first crossing of the Firth of Forth!
This extraordinary construction has now been carrying about 200 trains a day across the River Forth for one hundred and twenty years. More than 55,000 tons of steel were used in its construction and over eight million rivets were used to hold all the steel plates together. The bridge was opened on 4 March 1890 by the Prince of Wales, later King Edward the Seventh, who drove home the last gold-plated, rivet! The bridge is still in remarkably good condition and looks set to last at least another hundred years.
While everyone photographs the structure, and thrills to the sight of trains crossing this great river divide, there is a part of the bridge which is never seen, but which, to me, is the most important part of the bridge. Largely hidden from sight and buried deep beneath the river bed are 18,122 cubic metres of solid Scottish granite. These are the foundations of the piers which support the steel. They are unseen and unmoving, but they never stop working. They are always there making it possible for all those trains, with their thousands of passengers and thousands of tons of freight, to travel north and south day after day, year after year. It’s the hidden foundations which make the bridge safe.
Not only, as a child, did I enjoy my Forth Bridge jig-saw, but I enjoyed all the different ways in which my Mum and Dad put foundations into my life. And as I got older I realised they could only have done that for me because, in turn, foundations had been put into their lives when they were young. The foundations were out of sight, they were hidden treasure. When I was much older I began to appreciate how many other people had been enabled to cross into the safety of knowing Jesus, because of the solidity of the foundations that had underpinned the life of my parents.
As I look at the Forth Rail Bridge today, realising that it is the hidden rock which bears the load, I am reminded of a song we used to sing as children, ‘Build on the Rock, the Rock that ever stands’. Jesus is the only foundation that is sufficient to withstand all the pressures and storms of life. The Forth Bridge was built to withstand the extremes of weather that can be experienced on the River Forth.
If our lives are built on the Rock of Jesus Christ, not only will we be secure, but we will be constructing a bridge with our lives, which will withstand all of life’s conditions and enable many, many others to cross over into the safety and security of knowing the Saviour for themselves. And one generation after another will be blessed by the way you, your children and your children’s children demonstrate the reality of the hidden treasure of wisdom and knowledge that Jesus gives to each of those who know and love Him and build their lives on the Rock!
Prayer: Thank You, Lord, that you desire to build such solid foundations into us, that whatever life throws at us we will, in Your strength, be able to remain firm and secure on the one and only foundation for life that can carry the load. Help me to so build on the Rock that my life becomes a bridge, across which others can go and find the Saviour for themselves. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.