Category Archives: Daily Devotionals

Daily Devotionals

The Story of Queen Esther, Part One

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Esther 1:1-12….       We are going to be following the steps of a godly girl in a heathen country, and see how she fared in facing evil head on and in doing so , was able to deliver her people…

God’s people had left Him out of their lives and had turned to follow heathen ways. Because of this, God allowed them to be taken captive to this strange land with another language and different customs. But there among the people of the king’s court, were those who had come from the land of Israel as captives, and who had risen to positions of authority.  A man called Daniel was one of these, and we  see how God intervened in his life as he lived in this place. God does not allow His plans for His people to be thwarted and He only allows evil to go so far.

         Our story starts, not with the character of the one we are going to study, but with a vastly different type of woman!   

The scene is set  in the opulence of an Eastern king’s court.     The splendours and splurgings of King Ahasuerus are graphically described in this chapter. The beauty of his palace and the richness  and length of  his feast is beyond our imagination.  He  called together all his officials and princes and put on a tremendous banquet for them. After that was over, he then put on another feast which was supplied with wine in abundance.

At the same time, Queen Vashti put on a feast for the  women of the court. After a whole week of feasting and drinking had gone on, the king decided to call for the queen to come and show her beauty to the men of the court. There are several ways that we can look at Vashti’s reaction to this royal command…..she may have arrogantly refused the king’s command or it may have been from the modesty of not appearing before a drunken crowd of men. Whatever it was, she refused the king’s command and paid for it dearly.

Vashti the queen refused to bring,                                                                          Her homage to her lord and king;                                                                          Whate’er her reason, we do not know,                                                                  The king then said she had to go!

Daily Devotionals

Devotional Thoughts from Proverbs

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PROVERBS  ONE…. (v.20-33)

Verses 1:20-33                                    John 3:36       

This is a serious warning indeed! The wisdom of God calls out to every person to “TAKE HEED!” “LISTEN!”  “ACT NOW!”

What could be more plain than the warning above? Those who respond to it are wise; those who don’t are foolish, scorners and simpletons! God has done everything in His power to save people from their sins…..all they have to do is to tell Him they accept His invitation or else suffer the consequences. Those who don’t believe the Son of God, will not see life, but God’s wrath (anger) will stay with them for ever, so our verse from John says. Just as a child who disobeys and gets burned in touching a hot stove, so the soul who disobeys God will suffer the fires of God’s wrath for ever.

God says, “I called you and you wouldn’t listen…..you’ve ignored me continually and despised My Word while there was time, and why should I hear you now?” Why indeed? The principle of cause and effect works just the same for a believer as for a non-believer in enjoying the peace of God…..if a believer obeys God’s word, he will reap the fruit of the Spirit ( love, joy, peace etc.); if he sows to the flesh, he will reap the consequences of  that life style (which includes lack of peace and joy)

The soul who ignores His God’s sweet call,

Will reap results of man’s hard fall;

 To respond will bring God’s great rewards,

Of love and peace which He  affords.

Daily Devotionals

Devotions from the Book of Genesis

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Genesis One….(v.1)                              God’s Plan

Verse 1….

   The first phrase of the Bible says….”In the beginning, God”. This is where most people start but as we go through the Bible we get little glimpses of eternity past….things that happened before the world was even created. Verse one presupposes that God was there before He started creating…….

One of the main attributes of God is that He is a God of Love. How could He possibly display this love to the beings that existed there in eternity with Him? They all obeyed Him implicitly, and there was no reason why they shouldn’t. They had been created to be His ministering spirits to do His slightest command (Hebrews 1:7, 14)

God wanted to display His manifold (many faceted) wisdom to all the principalities and powers of the heavenly places (Ephesians 1:10). How could He do this unless there was a dark backdrop to show His marvelous light against? Unless there is disobedience, perfect obedience doesn’t have any impact.

We are told that God had a plan  BEFORE He ever began creation (Ephesians 1:4; 1 Peter 1:20). Not only did He have this plan, but it was written down in detail ahead of time. Jesus Christ could say to His Father, “You have prepared Me a body, as it is written in the volume of the Book” (Hebrews 10:5-7)

God’s plan was written in His Book, Of things the angels wanted to look;

He made the earth so He could show, His love and light for men to know.

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Daily Devotionals

Psalm Three

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                      The Trusting Man

Lord, there are many who rise against me,

Ones who say that  no help  comes from Thee,

But I know You are there, a shield for my head,

You don’t cast down, but lift up instead;

I know that You hear me, and give me Your peace,

I can lie down and sleep, for it never shall cease.

I will NOT be afraid, tho’ ten thousand abound,

My God will save me from those who surround;

Salvation comes free, from our God on the Throne,

His people are so blessed by Him  alone.

We see  the complete trust and peace that those who rest in the Lord can have. This is what our Lord was referring to when He said we have to have the trust that a little child has in its elders…..a trust that never doubts or questions (Matthew 18:2-4). We have to have the faith that says, ”God says it, I believe it and that settles it!”

This is not always easy to do, but we have to learn to put it into practice…the more we do this the easier it becomes. God tells His people many times to “Remember what I have done” (Deuteronomy 7:18) and this is just as important for us now as it was then. Paul also remembered how the Lord stood with him in his times of trials and this gave him the courage to continue  (2 Timothy 4:17-18).

Daily Devotionals

Devotions from the Psalms (1 & 2)

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          Psalm One…  The Godly Man 

Blessed is the man who walks in God’s ways,  Who delights in His laws, all of his days;

As trees by the water bringing forth fruit, Whose leaf doesn’t wither, in God is his root,

The ungodly aren’t so, but are like the dry chaff, Blowing away, in the lightest draught,

The Lord knows the way the righteous take, The ways of sinners, man’s greatest mistake!

What a great picture we have here of those who follow the ways of the Lord and delight in Him! We don’t do these things to EARN our salvation, but we do them because we already HAVE God’s salvation and want to please Him. Delighting in the Lord comes from the heart and the fruit comes naturally.   What a contrast to those who are ungodly, who do not delight in the Lord! There is no life there, and all that they do, no matter how great, counts for nothing in God’s sight.                                              ***   ***   ***

Psalm Two;  The Ungodly Man                                                       

The heathen rage and imagine a vain thing, Against God they rail, and curses they bring,

“We WON’T have His rules, we’ll throw them away,  We’ll go our own way, we will NOT God obey!!”

Yet the Lord in the heavens, has the last word, Against them His anger, He’ll eventually gird;

His Son He’ll exalt to inheritance great, And His wrath against sin will never abate,

They’ll be broken in  pieces, discarded for e’er, Unless they confess their sin to prepare;

Then blessed they’ll be when they turn to the Lord, And trust in Him with one accord.

How much we see this attitude around us in the world today! Sadly, we often see it in believers too. But we know with certainty that God WILL have the last say….those who have never turned to Him will be utterly destroyed in the end. How often we are conscious of the Lord laughing when man makes his great boasts against the creation of God, with his predictions of the weather, wind and tides that are completely in God’s control! Those who are His but have turned away from Him may have to endure some bitter experiences as God deals with them to bring them back to Himself, as He will indeed.

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Daily Devotionals

Devotional Thoughts from Psalm Seventy-Seven

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The Weeping  Man

I cried aloud to God on High, He heard my call and every sigh,

I felt that things were most unfair, I was bowed down with all my care,

I felt that God forgot me then, I was the most miserable of men!

But as I thought what God had done, I remembered vict’ries won,

I meditated on His ways, And thought of all His grace always;

He has given salvation free, And pours the rain upon the sea,

As thunder comes from heaven above, He gives all things in His great love.

How often we feel like this! This is what makes the book of Psalms so relevant for us today….those who wrote it had the same feelings of despair and being downcast as we do today. The human heart is still the same. We often forget that when we read of these people of old times what their feelings would have been as they surveyed their surroundings and circumstances. But when we remember what God did back then, we know that He is still the God of miracles and encouragement. Our current attitudes depend entirely on ourselves….are we going to wallow in our misery, or are we going to praise God for our blessings? It all depends on us!

Daily Devotionals

What do you put First?

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fbgrlkck“What church are you going to now Stephen?”

“Aw well, I’m not going anywhere. Got to take the boys to football on Sundays, you know!”

My heart sank. This man had been one of the most promising boys in our Bible Class fifteen years earlier. Now when he had a family of his own that he should have been bringing up in Biblical knowledge and standards, all he could think about was teaching them football!

He was allowing the world’s standards to mould his thinking by putting sport first and church last. What a missed opportunity to teach his family by example, of the things of God!

We need to stop and think of where we put the things of God on our own life….do we allow other things and interests to crowd out meeting with God’s people? Do we only go to church when there is nothing better on? Are we teaching our children that church is only an option?

Let’s make sure we put first things first in our lives remembering the verse in the Bible that says, “Blessed (or happy) is the person who doesn’t walk in the counsel of the ungodly, nor stands in the way of sinners, nor sits in the seat of the scornful. But his delight is in the law of the Lord and in His law he meditates day and night”  (Psalm 1:1-2).

Daily Devotionals

How Would We React?

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FIG01_F - Copy Devotional Thoughts  from Mark 3:1-6……                          

The Pharisees watched the Lord on Sabbath days like a hawk watching its prey. This man at the synagogue who had the useless hand was quite obvious and they wondered what He would do with him….

Jesus knew this, and He didn’t hide what He was going to do. He told the man to stand up in full view of everyone and then asked if it was lawful to do a good deed on the Sabbath Day or not . They refused to answer His question, and it pained Him immensely to see how hard they were.

This is one of the occasions when we read that our Lord was angry with people and grieved with their refusal of His blessings. But in spite of this He told the man to stretch out his useless hand, and immediately it was healed and became like the other one. How glad this man must have been! What a difference it made to his whole life and livelihood!

The Pharisees were not pleased at all. They immediately began to plot how they could get rid of Him. The challenge for us is…do we rejoice at others’ good fortune or do we remain sour faced and hard?

The man stood there with hand so dead,                                                                     “Stretch it  out” the Saviour said,                                                                              As he obeyed it became whole, Healed and useful, a different soul!

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