Category Archives: Random Devotional Thoughts

Random Devotional Thoughts

Celebrations!

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       We’ve been invited to a Golden Wedding celebration, so we are looking forwards to that with great anticipation. We talked a couple of weeks ago about being made in God’s image, and have we ever thought that God loves celebrations too? Celebrations are a great time of fellowship with each other and God loves to fellowship with His people….that is another way He has made us in His image!

    We read of the Lord Jesus Christ going to a family wedding which no doubt was a time of celebration as we read of the guests running out of wine (John 2:1-10). His mother said to the servants, “Whatever He tells you to do, do it!” Then we read of how He told the servants to fill the water pots with water, and then to take it to the MC of the feast. As they did what He said, the water was miraculously turned into wine….not just any old wine either, but it was the best the guests had tasted!!

    We must always think of how God loves to fellowship with His  people. In some of the Old Testament writings we read of when His people of Israel had wandered away from Him into idol worship, how it hurt His loving heart to see this happen. We must never think we cannot turn to Him in times of loneliness and disappointments….He is always ready and waiting for us to call out to Him at these times!

Random Devotional Thoughts

What is Truth?

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There  are so many rumours and stories flying around the place, by word of mouth, by social media, and worse still what we are being fed by the news people, that we really don’t know what to believe at all!! When we do find someone we feel we can believe what they say, and then we see that it was all just a made up story after all, we really feel let down. Once we hear the same things being pumped into our ears day after day, we have every right to begin to doubt what we hear.

  Things that we want to hear then turn out to be false, and we don’t know which way to turn! People we once trusted then changing their minds and turning against the very things they were once saying! Just who DO we believe? 

    We hear our leaders and those in places of authority saying that the truth is what you want it to be, and that the truth that is for you, may not be the truth for another person! There seems to be a multiplicity of  truths, and we don’t know which one is right!

    When we get to this stage, there is only one thing to do and that is to turn to the One Who is the truth. We may not like this, but where else is there to turn? Who else can we trust? Jesus Christ says in the Bible , “I am the Way, the Truth and the Life! No one comes to the Father but through Me!” (John 14:6) This is the word of truth that resonates all through the Bible…. “Your word is truth” says the Psalmist (Psalm 119:160), and then he could say, “Teach me Your way, O Lord, I will walk in Your truth”  (Psalm 86:11)

    The Roman governor, when faced with this One with the piercing eyes waiting at the judgement seat said after hearing all the accusations that were being hurled at Him, “What is truth?” and this is what we feel like saying  at times…..  “Well, WHAT is the truth?” Jesus didn’t answer Pilate at this question, and Pilate had to go out to those who were accusing Him to say, “I don’t find any fault in Him at all!”  Yet they still wanted to get rid of Him.

       As we are approaching the Easter season which is the time of the year that His death and resurrection are celebrated by church people, let us try to evaluate what the truth really is, and to follow the One who is the Truth  sincerely. After all, there is nothing else solid to base our beliefs on.

Random Devotional Thoughts

Thoughts for the New Year.

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     As we enter this new year of 2022, many thoughts come to mind. The main one being that the only certainty for this year is the uncertainty that we finished up with last year! Plans for this year can’t be made with any certainty, as we don’t know when what freedom we have, will be clamped down on again. Our clubs and gatherings that we have worked so hard to start and keep going are now in limbo. Rules are being put in place constantly changing things that we thought we knew we might be able to do. We hear of things happening in other countries, and know with a sinking heart that it will only be a matter of time before we too, will be bound by the same things.   

      But all is not lost! The sun will still rise each morning, giving us a brilliant promise of another day! Plants in the garden will still grow and flower,  amazing us with their brilliance and beauty. God is still on His throne, and His promises still stand….He said, “I am the Lord, I change not!” His Word, the Bible, still stands true and nothing can alter that. His people can still look back on their experiences in life, and see how He has worked for them….nothing can change those memories! So let’s remember these things and look upwards instead of downwards and take heart to keep going.

    If we do not have these memories,  remember it is never too late to start our journey with the Lord on our side…all we have to do is to ask Him. He has said, “Those who seek Me will find Me!”, and He will never turn down a sincere and repentant person. Once we have done this, then all the rest of this life’s uncertainties that we face this year, will fade into insignificance, and we will be able to go forward into 2022 with confidence!!

Random Devotional Thoughts

Beauty out of Dry Ground.

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    I have been growing amaryllis lilies in pots this year. A friend who was moving away from the district gave me several of these beautiful plants of hers which I had always admired, and I didn’t want to miss a minute of their beauty. So when the flowers began to come, they were brought in to the living room so we could watch them open and develop.

   It always amazes me how such beauty can come out the same soil….how do these plants know when the right time to grow is? How do they know when to send up their flower shoots? Yet each year, we could almost set our clock by them! We have a lot of a certain type of cherry tree that grows wild around our town…how do they know when July comes and that it is time to  begin to flower?

     There is the Belladonna lily that follows a  regular pattern too…every year without fail it sends up long stalks from the ground with its flowers of either pink or white. There are no leaves around this flower stalk and it stands up stark and naked on its own. After two or three weeks, the flower dies down, and the plant is dormant again until about July when the first leaves start to appear. It is a very luxurious looking plant, quite handsome in fact, and fills the empty gaps in the garden. Then about October the leaves start  to go brown and die down, and the whole plant goes to sleep. In fact, if you didn’t know better, you would think the plant had died! But when the next February comes, the whole cycle starts again!

    The creativity of God to put these patterns into the plants He has designed, is amazing!  When we stop to think about it, everything He has made is amazing. Mankind is no less amazingly made, and it is a lesson to us to look for the hidden talents that each one of us has, and to use them for God’s glory. No matter what our surroundings are or the environment we are in, there is always something we can thank Him for. As the Bible says, “Whatever you do, do it all for the glory of God” (1 Corinthians 10:31)

If you think that you don’t have anything you can do, we can ALL give praise and thanks to Him for what we see in His creation around us!!  (Philippians 4:20)

Random Devotional Thoughts

Famous Last Words!

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     We recently watched a documentary made by a very well known person towards the end of his life. He had everything this life would promise us….fame, money, and a massive business behind him. But, he had received the diagnosis of terminal cancer. Now he had to face the prospect of leaving all this behind. He had nothing to look forwards to as he did not know God.

     But he was still able to leave some good advice which we would all do well to take notice of. He said that even though he had reached the pinnacle of his business world, and could employ anyone he wished to do his work, yet no-one else could bear his illness for him. He said that once good health is lost, it can never be regained.

    None of his possessions gave true happiness….his big mansion was still only a place to keep him dry and warm the same as a pensioner’s cottage did….it did not give happiness, and there was still the same amount of loneliness when on your own.

     His $300,000 car still had to travel the same road as a $30,000 one, and still take as long to get there, up and down the same hills  to the same destination. His expensive watch still told only the same time as a cheaper one, and neither could hold time back. It didn’t make any difference if he drank a $100 bottle of wine or a ten dollar bottle, the hangover was still the same! If you fly first class in a plane or economy class, and the plane goes down,  it is the same end result!

    Some advice he gave to parents was to train  children to know true happiness rather than to strive to be rich. People matter more than things. There is a big difference between being a human being, and being human! We are loved when we are born, and we are loved when we die, but what about the years in between?

    Money does not buy happiness….true happiness comes from within, from the joy that the Lord gives when you seek to know and follow Him. The richest man who has ever lived, who started off well, but seemed to end up poorly was King Solomon who said, “Vanity of vanities, ALL is vanity”, and he would no doubt echo the words of the man in the above story.

   The thing we would do well to remember is that the Apostle Paul who knew what it was to suffer, could say “Rejoice in the Lord always, and again I say, Rejoice!” (Philippians 4:4)

Random Devotional Thoughts

Lead Us Not into Temptation….

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  We have been thinking about temptations of different sorts for a couple of weeks now, and these thoughts have come to me yet again….  A young man training for missionary service remembered hearing the following sentence, and he never forgot it…”.There’s no point in praying, ‘And lead us not into temptation’ if you go where temptation lurks “. This statement made a deep impression on him, and kept him from many a compromising situation.

    A lady I once knew wanted badly to give up smoking. She had been convicted about the habit for a long time, but had excused herself by saying, “I know God loves me just the same if I smoke or if I don’t!!”  Someone else asked “If you gave me your smokes today, how would you get on?” She promptly replied, “I’d just go and get another packet!” At least she was honest with that statement!!

   But now the conviction had come more strongly than ever, and besides that she couldn’t really afford the weekly cost of her habit, so she once more asked for prayer to overcome it. We didn’t hear for some time if she had overcome it or not.

     To go back to our original statement, God will only answer our prayer with a “yes” if we do our part by either keeping away from temptation or getting rid of the cause of it altogether. It’s a two-way thing, as are a lot of God’s promises. He will do His part if we will do ours.

     It’s the same with salvation…He has provided it, but we have to take it from Him. When we are given a present, we have to take it and open it before we can enjoy it or use it. Let’s think about these things and get the full benefit from God’s promises!

Random Devotional Thoughts

Winter Fires

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We have just finished putting a load of firewood in the shed at the back of the house. There is nothing more cheerful than a fire burning in the grate on a cold raw winter day, and the mess and wok that a wood burning fire makes is more than worth the trouble of cleaning up around it!

A fire has many qualities….it not only keeps the house warm and inviting, but it can be used to get rid of any rubbish around the place….it cleanses as it burns. It is also referred to as a refining fire, and we know that a fire is used to clean any dross out of metals. Watching a metal worker heating the metal and then being able to twist it into any shape that he wants to, shows us that when we go through the fires of troubles and trials, that we come out at the other end, the better for it. Let us make sure that this is so, and that we don’t become bitter instead of better!

Something else that we can learn from a fire is that if a coal is taken out of it and left by itself on the hearth, it will gradually go cold and black, no more use for anything. So this is a warning to us, to make sure we keep in the fire of meeting with God’s people regularly to keep ourselves glowing with His peace and joy, able to warm and encourage others with our company.

Random Devotional Thoughts

In Fighting!

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      We have just started putting bread in our bird feeder again for the winter months and once again it is giving us a lot of pleasure watching the little birds feeding there. I wondered how long it would be before they discovered the bread slices in it sitting there, but it only took about an hour and first one and then another came along and had a feed.

But you know, even among the birds there is continual scrapping going on. The small silver-eyes stand on a branch nearest the feeder and fluff their little wings angrily at each other. The bold mynah struts around at the base of the tree and even jumps up on the branch to take a few pecks before he gets chased off. The sparrows take no notice of the others and greedily grab as many beakfuls as they can while the others are scrapping among themselves.

    Once again it reminded me of how we as people often scrap among ourselves, sometimes vying for the better places or positions. This is not how we are meant to behave, especially in church situations. The Lord Jesus told us to be prepared to take the humble place and wait for others to give us a higher position rather than angrily (or sneakily)  try to take it from others.

    It is not smart to behave like this anywhere, and only causes hurtful situations that often can never be remedied. People can forgive, but they very seldom completely forget!