Category: Devotions

WEDNESDAY December 13^th

Acts 9:16

‘For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.’

In the 6^th devotion in this series, I quoted from Acts 20:22-23 the words of Paul ‘And now, behold, I am going to Jerusalem, constrained by the Spirit, not knowing what will happen to me there, except that the Holy Spirit testifies to me in every city that imprisonment and afflictions await me’.

He knew before he arrived in every city what awaited him, and yet he still threw his all into being obedient to the instruction that Jesus gave that he was to carry the name of Jesus.

We see here as well, that it was revealed to him by the Holy Spirit, reminding us of the importance of the work of and the ministry of the Holy Spirit in the hearts and lives of us as believers.

In 2 Corinthians 11 verses 24-27 Paul lists a number of the various ways in which he had to suffer on account of the gospel. Countless beatings, often near to death, forty lashes minus one 5 times, three times beaten with rods, three times shipwrecked, stoned, in danger from rivers, robbers, his own people, the Gentiles. Danger in the city, in the wilderness, at sea and from false brothers, through toil and hardship, hungry and thirsty and often without sleep, cold and exposed.

Can I suggest that one of the reasons that Paul was willing to suffer for the gospel, for the name of Christ was because he had come to fully appreciate that the holder of the name which he had carried to the nations had set an example for him to follow, for Christ suffered, beyond what we can ever imagine and understand to bring about eternal redemption for mankind.

Isaiah prophesied how Christ would suffer and yet Jesus willingly bore it all because of his great love for each one of us, read Isaiah 53, He was despised and rejected by men, a man of sorrows, he was numbered with the transgressors, and yet at the same time he bore our sin and made intercession for the transgressors.

Peter tells us this, ‘For to this you have been called, because Christ also suffered for you, leaving you an example, so that you might follow in his steps. He committed no sin, neither was deceit found in his mouth. When he was reviled, he did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but continued entrusting himself to him who judges justly. He himself bore our sins in his body on the tree, that we might die to sin and live to righteousness’ 1 Peter 2:21–24.

Christ suffered, yes, first and foremost to bring us redemption, but also to leave an example that we should follow, and Paul had followed Christ’s example in ways that would make us shake in our boots.

May God increase our love and our desire for the things of God so much that we will be strengthened in our inner man to resolve to stand firm, and if called to do so, to willingly follow Christ’s example and Paul’s example and the example of many of our brother’s and sister’s today in the world around us to suffer for our faith.

TUESDAY December 12th
Acts 9:16
‘For I will show him how much he must suffer for the sake of my name.’
I have returned back to Acts 9 and to verse 16 again, for as we look at the life and ministry of Paul, it was told to him as we saw from verse 15 that he was to take the gospel or to carry the name of Jesus before Gentiles, Kings and the children of Israel.
In our previous devotion we saw how Paul talked about partnership with others in the gospel, in this devotion I want us to see what is another partnership, which to be honest about it none of us would wish to choose, but Paul knew from the moment he had been saved that he would be faced with this partnership and it is this, ‘suffering for the sake of the gospel’. In verse 15 ‘Carry my name’ and in verse 16 ‘Suffer for the sake of my name’. The gospel and suffering for it.
We cannot get away from the fact that throughout the history of the church, men and women have known what it is to suffer for the gospel. We recall that it was while Stephen the first Christian martyr was being stoned to death that we met Paul as Saul.
The Romans had a constant hatred towards Christian carrying out such horrendous acts of cruelty to them, and in each succeeding generation there have been those who have been taken hold of by Satan himself to relentlessly seek to destroy the people of God, whether the Jewish nation or the Church that Jesus is building. But thank God for the promise of Jesus that the gates of hell will not prevail.
But despite knowing he was going to suffer for the gospel, Paul immediately began to carry the name or to take the name of Jesus to wherever the Holy Spirit led him to go. We will consider this further, but for now, let’s call to mind the suffering that many of our brothers and sisters in Christ are undergoing at this present time around the various nations of the world.
I found these alarming facts on the internet, every two hours a Christian is killed for following Jesus, 1 in 8 Christians worldwide experience high levels of persecution, the World Watch list 2023 lists from 1 -10 the worse countries where Christians suffer. 1) Norh Korea 2) Somalia 3) Yemen 4) Eritrea 5) Libya 6) Nigeria 7) Pakistan 8) Iran 9) Afghanistan 10) Sudan you can go to opendoors.org for more information, but as well as that you can go to Emmanuel Pentecostal Church, Gateshead on a Wednesday evening at 7:00pm for the hour of prayer, where especially on the first Wednesday of the month we pray for the persecuted church.
An important question, how would we fare if persecution were to come to our nation in the same way has it has in other countries around the world? I cannot give an answer for anyone, but what I can say is how important it is that that the church in the UK prays fervently for our nation that we will be able to continue to keep the freedoms that we presently enjoy to practice our faith publicly, we should give more consideration to the importance of being together in fellowship and of the need for corporate prayer, for, our nation needs it, our government need and we the church need it.

MONDAY December 11^th

Philippians 1:3-5

‘I thank my God in all my remembrance of you, always in every prayer of mine for you all making my prayer with joy, because of your partnership in the gospel from the first day until now.’

I have stayed in Philippians 1 for this devotion, for I have always loved the way that Paul expresses that he sees his relationship with the Philippian Church has being a partnership in the gospel.

This church commenced when Paul visited Philippi in Acts 16 and he says that from the first day until now, an unbroken partnership and relationship that was based upon the gospel was ongoing. The gospel that Paul had been called to take to the nations, is a gospel that not only reconciles man to God, but also unites people together from a variety of backgrounds, a variety of nations and forms them to become one in Christ Jesus.

Is it not amazing that as a result of the gospel that God draws together individuals who outside of the gospel would probably never have met, or if they had, probably would have had very little to do with each other! The gospel brings us into a relationship with God as our Father and into relationship with others who have become a part as his family as brothers and sisters in Christ.

On a personal level, it is only as a result of the gospel, that I met the girl who was to become my wife and has been by my side for forty years as we have served God together as husband and wife. And many of you who read the devotion can say the same, a partnership formed through marriage. But on another level we have all formed partnerships with other believers that would never have happened outside the gospel of God.

Because of what God has done for us through Christ, we have friendship, fellowship, relationship, partnership with not only those who of our own nationality, but with others from the nations of the world, for what the world fails in managing to do successfully, the gospel does, and Revelation 5 describes this wonderful amalgamation of nations, peoples, tribes and languages who because of the shed blood of Christ have fellowship and partnership together here on earth and will share in eternal fellowship in the presence of God. ‘And they sang a new song, saying, “Worthy are you to take the scroll and to open its seals, for you were slain, and by your blood you ransomed people for God from every tribe and language and people and nation, and you have made them a kingdom and priests to our God, and they shall reign on the earth.”’

What a wonderful scene in heaven! Now, when I started this series of devotions, I said that I wasn’t quite sure where they would take us, and it may seem as if I’ve gone a little of track—but, let’s recall what Jesus told Saul through Ananias as to what he had called him to do ‘“Go, for he is a chosen instrument of mine to carry my name before the Gentiles and kings and the children of Israel.’

Because of Saul’s response and his obedience as Paul the apostle, he went and as a result we can say that a large proportion of the crowd in heaven will have been as a response to his obedience, directly as he went to the Gentiles, Kings and the children of Israel, and indirectly as the gospel spread further as a result.

Who knows what you and I could achieve if we gave ourselves over whole-heartedly to serving the Lord!

FRIDAY December 8^th

Philippians 1:6

‘And I am sure of this, that he who began a good work in you will bring it to completion at the day of Jesus Christ.’

Because I touched in our previous devotion on us being God’s workmanship, I want to link it to another verse that came from the pen of Paul (or quill?) and it is the verse I have chosen for today. Not only are we to do good works, but God is doing a good work in our lives! And Paul says that he is sure of this, that God will complete the good work he has started at the time when Jesus comes again.

The ESV has a link from this verse to Psalm 57:2 ‘I cry out to God Most High, to God who fulfills his purpose for me.’

The good work that God is doing in our lives is that of salvation, the good work of saving us. This again helps us to understand that our own good works never can save, for salvation is from God alone and through Christ alone. Linked to our salvation is the work of sanctification in our lives. We have touched on this a number of times in previous devotions, but it is good to be reminded.

When we are initially saved, part of God’s good work of salvation in our lives is that we are both justified and sanctified. That is God declares us as not guilty, and we are washed or cleansed in the precious blood, we are declared as righteous and as holy. Justification is a one-time only action, but sanctification is on-going.

Through the work of sanctification God works in our lives through the work of the Holy Spirit through his word to make us more Christ-like and when Jesus comes again and we enter into the glorious presence of God, the good work will be completed, we will be perfected for eternity.

So God’s good work is seen through the purpose he has for each one of us to fulfil and through the process of sanctification that purifies us. That is another reason why going back to the devotions from 1 Peter that we need to play our part in desiring to be holy because God is holy and desiring us to become more Christlike each day.

And Paul says that what God has started he will complete, salvation is a work of God through Christ Jesus from start to finish. It is important to say through Jesus Christ because it affirms what Scripture says and what we have already touched on that Jesus is the way, the truth and the life, NO ONE can come to the father except through him, also salvation is found in no one else, for there is no other name under heaven that has been given among men by which we MUST be saved, (John 14:6, Acts 4:12). And linking in with our text today, from Hebrews 12 which tells us that Jesus is both the author and the finisher of our faith or as the ESV puts it the founder and perfecter of our faith.

It is in the book of Revelation that we read ‘Salvation belongs to our God, who sits on the throne, AND to the Lamb!’ (7:10)

THURSDAY December 7^th

Ephesians 2:10

‘For we are his workmanship, created in Christ Jesus for good works, which God prepared beforehand, that we should walk in them.’

In the previous devotion, I mentioned that Paul would have been in awe as he considered the great salvation that God had wrought in his life and was still working out through him as he continued in the mission to which he had been called. And I am reminded of what Paul had written in Ephesians 2 in the verse I have used today following on from the verses we looked at previously, ‘For we are his workmanship’.

The moment that we are saved we become the workmanship of God created in Christ Jesus, having been saved God works through us, in us and upon us, he works to fashion us or to shape us into the people he wants us to be as his children and here specifically Paul says ‘for good works, which God prepared beforehand that we should walk in them.’

We have already seen that good works do not and cannot save us, but once saved, good works should become the evidence that we have been saved.

In John 15, Jesus talked about the need for us to be abiding in him and as a result we should be bearing fruit, what is this fruit? Well one of the answers is that the fruit is the good works that we should be doing which God has already preplanned for us to be doing. That means it is essential that we learn to discover what is the good, pleasing and acceptable will of God for our lives as we read in Romans 12:2. But Paul says in Colossians 1:10 that the good works only become evident as we walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, ‘so as to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, fully pleasing to him: bearing fruit in every good work and increasing in the knowledge of God’.

 Imagine if Saul had remained as Saul, and continued to walk in the manner of his old life, consider the outcome, no missionary journeys as we call them, the gospel would not have reached in the various areas to which God had called him to go, but because he learned to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord, he set aside everything to live only for Jesus and as a result we see the evidence of the ‘good works’ that God had prepared beforehand for him to do.

Now, the word of God should and must challenge us, and I wonder for myself how much of what God had prepared for me to do have I failed to do in those times when I have not walked in a manner worthy of the Lord? What about you? It should cause us to stop and think of those things we so easily get involved with or attached to that keep us from walking in a manner worthy of the Lord and have a knock on effect of us not producing the good works that God has prepared for us to do. Perhaps one of the ways to help us to learn to walk in a manner worthy of the Lord is to keep asking ourselves as we go through each day, ‘Would Jesus be pleased with where I am and with what I am doing today?’

WEDNESDAY December 6^th

Ephesians 2:4-9

‘But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.’

The wonder of the gospel—I am sure we could begin to write a list of the many outcomes and blessings of this wonderful gospel, the good news that Jesus came and gave his life for us.

Using the same verses again from Ephesians 2, Paul highlights some of the outcomes and blessings for us, in fact he has already touched on it in Ephesians in the first chapter and verse 3, where he says, ‘Blessed be the God and Father of our Lord Jesus Christ, who has blessed us in Christ with every spiritual blessing in the heavenly places.’ In our verses he reminds us of what we were, dead in our trespasses, that is every one of us, but in Christ we have been made spiritually alive again, we have been raised to a position of being seated with Christ. Not only has our spiritual state been altered from dead to alive, but our status has been altered, from lost in the hopelessness of this world to being seated with Christ in heavenly realms.

I can imagine Paul in a worship service and as he pondered the love of God and the transformation that meeting with Jesus had made to his life, I think that he would have been the most joyful and exuberant person in the service! He would have recalled what he had been, as I mentioned in a previous devotion, a bully, full of hatred, out to commit murderous threats and acts towards the believers, but now, he would see himself standing with the believers in worship, joining with them to exalt the Lord God and to worship his Saviour. He of all people would have been in awe with the majesty and the power of God unto salvation which had been and still was being outworked in his life.

On the day that I am preparing this devotion I have had the words of a hymn going through my mind, a hymn we know so well, it is a hymn that Paul would so easily have identified with, ‘To God be the glory great things he hath done’.

He had done great things for Paul and he continues today to do great things for each one of us, so many blessings that come from knowing Jesus as our Lord and Saviour.

To God be the glory, great things He hath done,
So loved He the world that He gave us His Son,
Who yielded His life an atonement for sin,
And opened the life gate that all may go in.

Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the earth hear His voice!
Praise the Lord, praise the Lord, let the people rejoice!
Oh, come to the Father, through Jesus the Son,
And give Him the glory, great things He hath done.

 

Oh, perfect redemption, the purchase of blood,
To every believer the promise of God;
The vilest offender who truly believes,
That moment from Jesus a pardon receives.

 

Great things He hath taught us, great things He hath done,
And great our rejoicing through Jesus the Son;
But purer, and higher, and greater will be
Our wonder, our transport, when Jesus we see.

TUESDAY December 5^th

Ephesians 2:4-9

‘But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.’

These verses are important to those who are trying to get to heaven by their own effort.

I am going to make a statement here which to some who fall into this category may seem to be arrogant but is the truth which you need to hear.

‘There will not be a single person in heaven who will have arrived there through their own effort.’

Sadly, this means that there are thousands upon thousands who are expecting to get to heaven or whatever they consider to be their home in the afterlife who will not get there. And why? Because rather than trusting in Christ alone, by grace alone and through faith alone they are trusting in their good works or other expressions of human effort.

For those who are keeping themselves busy going from door to door or standing with their propaganda on the street corner and then reporting each week or however often it is required of them to those who have oversight over them the time and effort they have put into their ‘witnessing’, it counts as nothing, absolutely zilch, they might as well just sit at home with their feet up reading a book or watching TV, because the gospel message is very clear that we will never be saved by works, therefore relying on a works based religion is pointless.

Listen again to what Paul says, ‘And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.’  On another occasion Paul put it this way ‘Therefore do not be ashamed of the testimony about our Lord, nor of me his prisoner, but share in suffering for the gospel by the power of God, who saved us and called us to a holy calling, not because of our works but because of his own purpose and grace, which he gave us in Christ Jesus before the ages began, and which now has been manifested through the appearing of our Savior Christ Jesus, who abolished death and brought life and immortality to light through the gospel’, (2 Timothy 1:8-10)

Not one of us can make ourselves spiritually alive again, no matter how hard we try, for all of our own righteousness or righteous actions, even good works are like filthy rags, we can only stand before God and in the presence of God through the righteousness which is imputed or given to us through and from the Lord Jesus Christ as we come to him by grace and through faith.

So when we see the vast crowd standing around the throne of heaven in the book of Revelation it is comprised only of those who have come and placed their faith and trust in the Lord Jesus Christ, those who have come to him as the One who was slain for the sins of the world and been washed in his life giving blood.

So, for anyone who may be involved in a works-based religion, stop now, it will achieve nothing for you as far as eternity is concerned, instead come to the only One who can make you ready and fit for his eternal kingdom, the Lord Jesus Christ.

MONDAY December 4^th

Ephesians 2:4-9

‘But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.’

Now, I know these devotions are predominantly for the fellowship at Emmanuel Pentecostal Church, but with this one and as with the next devotion, I still want to include content that will be applicable to those who are not saved or are trying to earn salvation, for one of our aims must be to reach the lost and with the devotions also being available on-line, who knows who may come across them and read them.

These verses having giving hope to those of us who are saved by God’s grace also offer hope to those who are not saved, and it is this, that while it is still the day of grace and of opportunity the way is still open for you to come by faith and to be saved by the grace of God.

It has been said that grace can be considered this way, using a word for each letter of the word grace—Great Riches At Christ’s Expense. Grace is getting what we don’t deserve, grace is God’s mercy being shown to sinners and bringing them the opportunity to repent and to be forgiven. None of us deserve his mercy for we are all sinners, yet out of his love, God has extended his mercy, grace and forgiveness through the Lord Jesus Christ.

One of the hymns we sometimes sing is ‘Years I spent in vanity and pride’, it continues with the chorus part that says

‘Mercy there was great and grace was free,

Pardon there was multiplied to me,

There my burdened soul found liberty,

At Calvary’

 

Today to all who read this devotion, who have not yet come to Calvary you can receive God’s mercy and grace, in doing so you will be forgiven and reconciled to God, as the Bible says, ‘Believe on the Lord Jesus Christ and you will be saved’. If you wish to make this important step, you can get in touch with us at Emmanuel Pentecostal Church to find out more at pastorepcgateshead@gmail.com

FRIDAY December 1^st

Ephesians 2:4-9

‘But God, being rich in mercy, because of the great love with which he loved us, even when we were dead in our trespasses, made us alive together with Christ—by grace you have been saved—and raised us up with him and seated us with him in the heavenly places in Christ Jesus, so that in the coming ages he might show the immeasurable riches of his grace in kindness toward us in Christ Jesus. For by grace you have been saved through faith. And this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God, not a result of works, so that no one may boast.’

We will be considering these verses over a couple of devotions, for they are a great encouragement to us who have been saved and they offer hope to those who are not yet saved and are important verses for those who are seeking to be saved through any other means rather than through what Christ has done for us at Calvary.

These verses answer the question I ended with in our previous devotion, ‘How do we receive this wonderful gift?’ or ‘How can we be saved?’

Verse 8 tells us ‘by grace . . . through faith’ And Paul knows what he is talking about, because he would say that he of all people was underserving or unworthy of anything in regards to salvation, for he had put all his effort into trying to destroy the believers, but Jesus met with him and instantly he was saved and transformed and all by and because of the grace of God.

As Saul he could have boasted in so much, he tells us this in Philippians 3 but he says that who he was and what he had achieved as a Jew and as one who had kept the law counted as nothing. He says in verse 9 ‘not having a righteousness of my own that comes through the law, but that which comes through faith in Christ, the righteousness from God that depends on faith.’ The words of a hymn come to mind, ‘Nothing in my hands I bring, simply to the Cross I cling’ or the chorus that says ‘Christ is enough for me.’

Recently I brought ministry on a Friday evening based around the five ‘solas’ that came from out of the Reformation, summarized in this sentence ‘Christians are saved by grace alone, through faith alone, in Christ alone, as revealed by Scripture alone, to the glory of God alone.’

Not one of us has been nor ever will be good enough to arrive in heaven though our own merit, it is only by grace and through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ that we can be saved.

There was no other good enough,

To pay the price of sin,

He only could unlock the gate,

Of Heaven and let us in.

THURSDAY November 30^th

1 Corinthians 15:20-22

‘But in fact Christ has been raised from the dead, the firstfruits of those who have fallen asleep. For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.’

As we continue to look at the ministry and life of the Apostle Paul and hopefully learn something and be reassured in our faith, I am also using them to be a means of presenting the truth of the gospel to any who may find the devotions on-line who as yet do not know Jesus.

Here in the verses for today we see one of the reasons why the gospel is so important, it is because it is the difference between death and life! ‘For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead. For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.’

Paul’s reference to Adam takes us back to Genesis where after being created by God and given the task of taking care of creation, Adam was told he could enjoy the fruit of all the trees in the garden except for one tree, the tree that was in the middle of the garden. If he partook of the fruit of that tree there would be serious consequences, he would die! And we know the story, the devil came and tempted them to disobey God and Adam along with his wife Eve, disobeyed God’s instruction and immediately that they partook of the fruit that was forbidden sin entered into the human race. As a result, Paul says ‘by a man came death . . . as in Adam all die’. In Romans 6:23 Paul says, ‘For the wages of sin is death’, and every day we see that what God said would happen, happened and still happens, men and women die every day, the funeral parlours are busy and all because of the disobedience of Adam to the instruction that God gave him.

But thank God that even though Adam sinned and thus through Adam all have sinned and fall short of the Glory of God, God still loved mankind that he had created and put into effect a plan to reverse what happened in the Garden of Eden and to give eternal life and he has done it though sending Jesus into the world so that through his death as a substitute for each one of us, and his resurrection from the dead, all who believe in Christ will be made alive.

The gospel is a wonderful story, a story of the love that God has for mankind, the story of how he has demonstrated his love towards us through the Lord Jesus and of how Jesus was willing to come and to be the atoning sacrifice for our sins, and after saying in Romans 6:23 that the wages of sin is death, he continues with these words that are full of hope for each one of us, ‘but the free gift of God is eternal life in Jesus Christ our Lord.’

For those of us who have come to faith in Jesus, spend some time thanking Jesus for such a wonderful salvation, but for any who have not yet come to faith, consider what it is that Jesus has done for you – he alone has done what is necessary and he alone can grant you eternal life. How do we receive this wonderful gift—we will discover what Paul had to say in our next devotion.