Category: Devotions

THURSDAY 9^th

Psalm 102

NIV (v15) ‘The nations will fear the name of the LORD, all the kings of the earth will revere your glory.’

ESV (v15) ‘Nations will fear the name of the LORD, and all the kings of the earth will fear your glory.’

This is another of those psalms that remind us of the fragility of life (v3,11) but also compares it with the eternality of God (v12,26) but the verse I want to consider is verse 15 that speak of a day that is to come when the nations will fear the name of the LORD and all the kings of the earth will revere his glory. It is a verse that is speaking of the time when Jesus will return to earth and establish his kingdom in Jerusalem, from there he will reign for the thousand-year period we call the Millennium. And during that time the nations will have no option but to fear the name of the Lord and the kings will have no option but to fear his glory, it will be a time on earth like there has never been before since the fall of Adam and Eve in the garden, for during this time the devil will be bound and the whole earth will be filled with the glory of the Lord.

Recently while we were in New York, during one of the many walks that we made we walked past the United Nations Headquarters, we know that one of the purposes or intentions of this organisation was to seek to establish peace in the world following the conflicts of the two world wars, but with all the money spent and all the effort put into their endeavours, they have not yet succeeded in bringing about global peace, nor global security. And they will not, for there is only one who will be able to do this, and his name is Jesus, he is called the Prince of Peace, he is the one that gives a peace that the world cannot give, and a peace that the world cannot take away, and one day he is going to descend from heaven and his feet will touch down on Mount Olivet and at that moment he will establish his throne in Jerusalem, yes, I believe in the future Millennial reign of Christ on earth, a kingdom which the Church will not establish through Christianizing the world, but a kingdom that Jesus himself will establish on that day when he comes again in power and glory, and it will be a kingdom of peace, you can read more about this in Zechariah 14:1-9 and Revelation 20:1-6. Isaiah 11 indicates the harmony that will be found during this time.

WEDNESDAY 8^th

Psalm 101

NIV (v2) ‘I will be careful to lead a blameless life—when will you come to me?

I will conduct the affairs of my house with a blameless heart.’

ESV (v2) ‘I will ponder the way that is blameless. Oh when will you come to me? I will walk with integrity of heart within my house.’

This psalm is full of ‘I will’ statements, in the ESV there are eight listed, statements that are declarations that the author is making as a result of his decision to walk in integrity before the LORD God, verse 2 says ‘I will walk with integrity of heart within my house’, this should be the desire of everyone of us who have a relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ, not just integrity within the house or the home, that means we have integrity in all we do, our marriage, our families, our domestic affairs, but we should also desire to walk with integrity of heart in every matter, work, pleasure, and church, integrity in the material and the spiritual.

As I read this psalm and looked at the statements the psalmist has made, I see very clearly a good formula for us to live by, particularly verse 3 stood out, ‘I will not set my eyes before anything that is worthless’. Wow, surely in the age in which we live this is a challenge to us all, we have so much that can grab our attention and cause our eyes to be turned towards, in the abundance of multi-media, TV, Sky, internet, smart-phones, Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, TikTok, etc. newspapers and magazines, everything grabbing for our attention, the challenge is how much of our time is spent allowing our eyes to be turned towards anything that is worthless? How much time do we spend in what could be called wasted moments rather than to be edifying ourselves spiritually, how much time do we give to turn our eyes towards the Lord, towards his Word, towards all the provision that is made available for us to grow in grace and in the knowledge of the Lord?

May God helps us to look into our own lives and if we need, to rearrange our lives in such a way that we ensure that our eyes are turned away from worthless things towards that which has impact for eternity.

TUESDAY 7^th

Psalm 100

NIV (v3) ‘Know that the LORD is God. It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, the sheep of his pasture.’

ESV (v3) ‘Know that the LORD, he is God! It is he who made us, and we are his; we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture.’

We return to the same psalm as yesterday, I love this verse, it is a verse that encourages us as to who God is and who we are in our relationship with him. He is the LORD God, he is the Creator, ‘it is he who made us’, it is he who owns us, ‘and we are his; we are his people and the sheep of his pasture.’

Stop for a moment and give thanks from your heart that God has made you, this means that you are unique and special in the eyes of God, you don’t have to try to be someone else or try to be like someone else, be yourself for that is who God made you to be.

Stop and give thanks that God not only made you, but that he has called you by his grace, he has saved you and caused you to be a part of his family.

Stop and give thanks that you can say that because you know the Lord as your Shepherd, that you are a sheep in his pasture, a sheep that is under his care! That means that we are in the safest pasture and under the careful and watchful eye of the greatest of all Shepherds!

Stop and give thanks that God knows all about you, so much that he is aware of every situation and circumstance that you go through—even now as you are reading this you may be going through a difficult patch, remind yourself that the Shepherd knows, he daily scans or surveys the flock and comes to tend and to care.

What a great Shepherd, and what a great privilege to be in his flock, sheep together, in one-fold, under one Shepherd.

Sadly, there are those we know of who have wandered, perhaps to use a phrase they thought the grass was greener on the other side, like the prodigal son in Luke 15, they have left the Fathers house to go and to do their own thing, I don’t know how many watch the TV programme ‘Our Yorkshire Farm’ but in a recent episode it showed them going off into the hills and the moors to look for some sheep that were missing, they had done the shearing, and some had failed to be collected and so they needed to find them to bring them home to tidy them up. They went and searched until the sheep were found, it reminds us again of Luke 15 and the parable that Jesus gave of the sheep that was lost and of the shepherd that searched till he found it. It may be as you are reading this devotion, that you are one of those lost sheep, you have wandered from the fold of the great Shepherd, you have become lost in the mountains or on the moors of this sin sick world, the Shepherd is seeking you out, he is longing for you to return to the safety of the sheepfold, come home, come back to the Shepherd, and if you are reading this and have those on your mind that you know have wandered, maybe family members, friends, don’t give up hope, keep praying and trusting, the Good Shepherd is out and about looking for the sheep that have strayed, still looking for those that are lost, ready when they are found or willing to be found to pick them up and to carry them back to the fold.

MONDAY 6^th

Psalm 100

NIV (v4-5) ‘Enter his gates with thanksgiving and his courts with praise; give thanks to him and praise his name. For the LORD is good and his love endures forever; his faithfulness continues through all generations.’

ESV (v4-5) ‘Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name! For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.’

Another psalm today that calls us to make a joyful noise to the LORD, we know this short psalm so well, reminding us to ‘Enter his gates with thanksgiving, and his courts with praise! Give thanks to him; bless his name!’ And why? ‘For the LORD is good; his steadfast love endures forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.’ As I have already said, we know it so well, it is our joy and our pleasure every week to ‘Enter his gates with thanksgiving’ yes, we are not entering the same building that the psalmist was thinking about, but we enter into the place where we go to worship, for us at Emmanuel Pentecostal Church, it is in Caris Street, Gateshead, for others reading this devotion it will be the place where you attend for worship, and we go because we have thankfulness in our hearts for all that God has done for us, and for all that he will yet do for us. ‘The LORD is good, and his steadfast live does endure forever, and his faithfulness to all generations.’ God blesses us again and again.

There is so much that we can thank God for, and for those of us who are physically able to, we should do our utmost best to ensure that we attend the place of worship that we are connected with at every possible opportunity, especially on a Sunday morning to give thanks, to give praise and to be found in fellowship with one another, for as the psalm also says ‘we are his people, and the sheep of his pasture’, (we will look at this tomorrow) as the sheep of God’s pasture, we should desire more than anything else to be in fellowship with other sheep of the pasture! Perhaps we find it too easy to be somewhere else, mixing with others in different situations, and different places rather than in the house of the Lord, but I want to repeat what I have often mentioned, the words from Scripture that remind us of the importance of our meeting together especially as we see the day approaching. (Hebrews 10:24-25) We are living in dark days and days which are becoming increasingly more difficult, and we need to do all we can to ensure that we ‘enter his gates with thanksgiving’ to be in a place where we give thanks and praise but also in the place where we receive the strength that we need to live out our lives as the sheep of his pasture.

FRIDAY 3^rd

Psalm 99

NIV – (v5) ‘Exalt the LORD our God and worship at his footstool; he is holy.’

ESV – (v5) ‘Exalt the LORD our God; worship at his footstool! Holy is he!’

This psalm commences with a resounding declaration, ‘The LORD reigns; let the peoples tremble!’ It is a statement of fact, ‘The LORD reigns’, we are as I mentioned yesterday, living at a time when it would seem that the eyes of the unbeliever are blinded in such a way that they are going around in a drunken stupor, oblivious of the coming judgement, they do not all deny God, but they also do not accept what he has done and is doing,  but there are those as well, who would vehemently deny the very existence of God, therefore they do not care whatsoever, but no amount of denying the existence of God will ever lead to him not existing, it is a sure fact, ‘the LORD reigns’! The day will come when those who deny God, will have knees that will knock together like they have never done so before because, because they will find themselves standing before the very presence of the One who they said does not exist, and what an awful day it is going to be for them.

It is far better to face God now as sinners, to tremble before him, to acknowledge who he is and what he has done, and to receive his grace into our hearts and lives, so that we may enter eternity knowing that we stand right before him now and will stand right before him then, because of what Jesus has done on our behalf.

The verse that I have highlighted today is a call to exalt the LORD our God, to worship at his footstool, for he is holy. God has the right to demand our worship, as we will see in the next psalm for it is he who has made us, he deserves the honour and the glory and the praise that is due his holy name, and it is far better to kneel before God now, willingly, with hearts that are forgiven and in a right relationship with him, than to face eternity without him, and to stand one day where it will be through compulsion that ‘every knee will bow and every tongue will confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father’, for, for so many then the bowing and the confessing will be too late, they will see him and confess him as Lord, but will not know him as Saviour!

The same psalm continues, ‘you were a forgiving God to them’ that is that God will forgive those who call upon him, but it continues, but ‘an avenger of their wrong-doing’ and God will avenge all who have done wrong and have not come to him for forgiveness, and when he avenges, when he judges, he will do so with righteousness and truth.

Where do you as you read this devotion today stand regarding your relationship to the Lord God through the Lord Jesus Christ. Do you willingly bow the knee, and exalt the LORD God, knowing him as your heavenly Father because you have come to know Jesus as your Saviour, or are you still shunning his loving kindness, still rejecting his offer of salvation, refusing to bow the knee? One day you will have to bow the knee, why not begin to do it now, willingly, by accepting what God has done for you through the Cross of the Lord Jesus Christ.

THURSDAY 2^nd

Psalm 98

NIV – (v2) ‘The LORD has made his salvation known and revealed his righteousness to the nations.’

ESV – (v2) ‘The LORD has made known his salvation; he has revealed his righteousness in the sight of the nations.’

This is another psalm that calls the people to come and to sing to the LORD because of what he has done, within the realm of salvation and deliverance for the house of Israel, which as verse 3 says, ‘all the ends of the earth have seen’.

Today it would seem that the ends of the earth are blind towards the salvation of God, it is as if the enemy has put mankind into a drunken stupor so that they cannot see the hand of God at work, they fail to see his majesty in the heavens, they fail to see his amazing love and abounding grace at Calvary, they fail to see that the One who has created them has reached down to embrace them and welcome them into his presence, they walk on the road to destruction without an ounce of thought toward the destiny of their soul.

The same psalm says in verse 9, that the LORD comes and ‘he comes to judge the earth, he will judge the world with righteousness and the peoples with equity’, what an awful day this is that is coming,  when every man and woman will be judged, and the reason for the judgment is man’s sinfulness, and the Scripture says that ‘all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God’,  and the basis of the judgement will be in regard to what man has done with God’s Son, the One who was sent to be the Saviour of the world, for the free gift of God is eternal life through the Lord Jesus Christ. He alone is the means of eternal redemption.

This takes me to some well-known verses from Romans 10 where Paul says concerning those who are still lost and blinded to the good news of the gospel, ‘How then will they call on him in whom they have not believed? And how are they to believe in him of whom they have not heard? And how are they to hear without someone preaching?’ This is the challenge to us who have heard, who have believed, yes it is good as this psalm commences to ‘sing to the LORD a new song, for he has done excellent things’ but equally of importance is that we should also be telling the good news of the gospel, for without us sharing it, those in a drunken stupor, blinded to the things of God, will remain on the road that leads to destruction, we cannot and must not keep the good news of the gospel to ourselves, we need the help and the power and the boldness of the Holy Spirit to be the ones with the beautiful feet ‘who preach the good news! . . .  for faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ’ (Romans 10:15-17)

DECEMBER

WEDNESDAY 1^st

Psalm 97

NIV & ESV – (v6) ‘The heavens proclaim his righteousness, and all the peoples see his glory.’

If there is something the psalm writers understood, it was the fact that the LORD God reigned! They were surrounded by nations that served the gods of the world, the idols that they had carved out of stone and wood, and the writer of this psalm makes the statement ‘All worshippers of images are put to shame, who make their boast in worthless idols; worship him, all you gods!’ (v7) He continues later to say, ‘For you, O LORD, are most high over all the earth; you are exalted above all gods.’ Take note, ‘above ALL gods’.

The other nations served many gods, many of the religions of the world have multiple gods, a god for this and a god for that, but at the end of the day they are just idols which we dare to say as the psalmist said, ‘are worthless.’ They have eyes but cannot see, ears but cannot hear, mouths but cannot speak.

We join today with the psalmist and say ‘The LORD reigns, let the earth be glad’ for today we are living in an age which has become filled with many gods and with many idols, there is only One true and living God and he is the One who is the creator of all things, the One who was the God of Abraham, and of Isaac and of Jacob. The One who came and delivered the children of Israel from the hands of the Pharaoh, the One who displayed his power in the wilderness, the One who came to the aid of the Hebrew lads in the fiery furnace and to Daniel in the den of lions, the One who spoke through the prophets of old, the One who came in the person of the Lord Jesus Christ to die for sinners. Our God is the living God, he is the active God, he is the One who can hear, see, and speak, he is the One who has reached out to fallen humanity to offer eternal life, he is the One to which one day we will have to give an account.

Yes, many religions, many gods, and they are all worthless for there is still only One true God, and only ever will be One true God and he allows us to come before him as verse 12 says to ‘rejoice in the LORD, O ye righteous, and give thanks to his holy name!’ Verse 6 reads ‘The heavens proclaim his righteousness, and all the peoples see his glory’ Every living being can look into the heavens and see the manifest glory of God displayed in all that he has created, and yet so few are willing to acknowledge his glory, they see it but just cannot accept him, may we who have come to a knowledge of the truth, never fail to pray that the eyes of the blind will be opened that they too will come to see the glory of God and discover the wonder of his incredible love that caused him to send his Son into the world to save sinners. That those who serve the gods of this world, will turn to serve the true and the living God.

TUESDAY 30^th

Psalm 96

NIV – (vv8-9) ‘Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering and come into his courts. Worship the LORD in the splendour of his holiness; tremble before him, all the earth.’

ESV – (vv8-9) ‘Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; bring an offering, and come into his courts! Worship the LORD in the splendour of holiness; tremble before him, all the earth!’

In yesterday’s devotion I reminded ourselves that when we come to worship, we are coming to a holy place and before a holy God, in today’s psalm the psalmist says, ‘Worship the LORD in the splendour of holiness’ an earlier psalm says the same thing, ‘Ascribe to the LORD the glory due his name; worship the LORD in the splendour of holiness.’ (Psalm 29:2) God is a holy God, and everything about him and around him is holy – there is nothing that is impure about him nor in his presence and if we read the text from the KJV it would read ‘in the beauty of his holiness’. This tells us that there is something beautiful and to use another word, wonderful, about holiness, it is difficult perhaps for us as fallen mankind to picture an absolute perfect state and yet God is, he is sinless, faultless, perfect in everything and in every way, and the wonder is that through the death and the resurrection of the Lord Jesus Christ, God is willing to impute to us the holiness or the righteousness of his Son, and as a result although we do not reach a state of sinless perfection here in this world, we can become holy and we can come into the presence of the Holy God, not because of anything that we have done but based on what Christ has done for us. And it is a joy, a pleasure to be able to come together to worship the LORD in the beauty of holiness.

This whole psalm is about coming into the presence of God to worship him, it is a psalm that encourages us to sing, to bless, to tell, to declare, ‘for great is the LORD, and greatly to be praised’ It continues, ascribe to the LORD glory and strength, ascribe the glory due unto his name, bring an offering and come into his courts.

Some of us are old enough to remember the days when to get a car started in the cold that we had to pull the choke out, a little device that controlled the carburettor and made it easier for the car to start, and once the car engine was running, we would slowly push the choke back in and away we would go. Perhaps far too often when we come to worship, we are a little like the car on a cold day, we need the choke to get us going, whereas when we consider all that God is and all that God has done, we shouldn’t need the boost, we should be ready, willing, and raring to go, we should be off the starting blocks before the signal to worship has been given! God is good, and this psalm encourages us in such a way that when we come into the presence of God, no choke needed, we will be ready to worship with all our hearts.

I want to worship the Lord with all of my heart

Give him my all and not just a part

Lift up my hands to the King of Kings Praise him in everything

MONDAY 29^th

Psalm 95

NIV – (v6) ‘Come, let us bow down in worship, let us kneel before the LORD our Maker . . .’

ESV – (v6) ‘Oh come, let us worship and bow down; let us kneel before the LORD, our Maker!’

This is another psalm with a call to come and sing to the LORD for he is a great God and a great King above all gods. In our text it talks about coming and kneeling before the LORD, our Maker.

There are many ways in which we can come before God, we can stand or sit, we can even lie down but here it talks about kneeling, and then says why, ‘For he is our God, and we are the people of his pasture, and the sheep of his hand.’ The act of kneeling before God is a way of expressing our dependency upon him, recognising who he is as the One who has created all things, and specifically created us as individuals. A later Psalm which we will get to in a few devotions is Psalm 100 which also speaks of our being his people, the sheep of his pasture, so I will consider this when we get there.

For today we need to remind ourselves that the LORD God deserves the respect that he should be honoured with. He is not like the other gods and idols of this world, they are worthless, he is not like those who other religions come before or who claim to be the one that should be worshipped for there is only one True God and the only Living and Eternal God, and Yahweh is his name.

Remember the time when Moses was out on the mountain side tending his father-in-law’s sheep and he looked and saw a bush that burnt but was not consumed, his curiosity caused him to turn and look to see what was going on, and as he approached the LORD God spoke to him from in the midst of the bush, saying,  ‘“Do not come near; take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.” And he said, “I am the God of your father, the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.” (Exodus 3:5-6) Moses hid his face, for he was afraid to look at God. Moses wanted to know more, he had obviously heard of the God of Abraham, he had even experienced his hand of protection upon him as a babe while hidden by his mother in the basket in the bullrushes, but on this occasion he was having a fresh, new experience which would alter the course of his life, and Moses wanted to know more, I paraphrase it here, ‘Who are you?’ and God spoke to him again saying ‘“I AM WHO I AM.” And he said, “Say this to the people of Israel: ‘I AM has sent me to you.’ (v14)

We know the story, a real story, not a fairy tale, it is the genuine account of a man’s experience of coming face to face with God, and it required a response that showed respect towards the holy God, ‘take your sandals off your feet, for the place on which you are standing is holy ground.’ I mentioned it a few weeks ago during our Sunday morning service that when we come into the Church building, we are coming into a place which has been dedicated or consecrated as holy ground, it is the place that has been appointed for us to meet with God, or rather should I say for God to meet with us! Therefore, we should always come with respect and in awe that we are allowed to come into the presence of the Holy God, the One who is our Maker, the One who has made each one of us. May we encounter God just like Moses did in powerful ways that will have an impact upon our lives in such a way that our future path will be in accord to what God’s will is for our lives, individually and collectively, may we as each Sunday morning arrives ‘turn to’ the house of God and come to see what great sight it is that God wants to do among us. May we come and whichever way it is, standing, sitting, lying down, or kneeling come before the Holy God and do business as we meet with him.

FRIDAY 26^th

Psalm 94

NIV – (vv1-2) ‘The LORD is a God who avenges. O God who avenges, shine forth. Rise up, Judge of the earth; pay back to the proud what they deserve.’

ESV – (vv1-2) ‘O LORD, God of vengeance, O God of vengeance, shine forth! Rise up, O judge of the earth; repay to the proud what they deserve!’

Yesterday the subject was that God reigned, he will do what he has determined to do, in our psalm today it continues with the theme of God doing what he has decreed by saying ‘O, LORD, God of vengeance, O God of vengeance shine forth!’ Because he is the eternal God who reigns on high, he has the right to judge the earth and the peoples of the earth. He has made the earth, it is his, he has made us, therefore he has the right to deal with us how he sees as right. God is a merciful God, but he is also a God of justice.

We see through Bible history how he has wrought vengeance upon those who refused his rule, who reject him as the Lord who reigns on high, consider the time of Noah, when the wickedness of man was so great that God was sorry that he had made man and he came with vengeance and brought a devastating flood upon the earth to wipe out mankind except for Noah and his family. We see him exacting his vengeance again when man sought to build a tower to reach up into the heavens and God came down and scattered humankind around the four corners of the earth, and confusing their language so that they no longer understood one another, we can think of the Egyptian Pharaoh and his stubbornness towards God and his refusal to let the Children of Israel go, the ten plagues and then the final assault as they sought to follow them through the red sea. The lesson is plainly obvious ‘how dare we refuse to obey God’ and why, because ‘the earth is the LORD’S and the fulness thereof’, he has the right to rule and reign for he is seated above the earth as the Almighty and the all-powerful God. There is no one above him or equal with him, he does what he wants, and he will always do what is right.

Another Scripture says that ‘it is a fearful thing to fall into the hands of the living God’ (Hebrews 10:30-31) and what a fearful day it is going to be when God comes to execute his judgement upon the earth and upon the peoples of the earth, then there will be no escape, for what has been will always be, in another Scripture we read, ‘Today if you hear his voice, do not harden your heart as in the day of rebellion . . .’ (Hebrews 3:7-8 also appears in our next psalm 95:7) My devotion today is a reminder to all that God will always act rightly, but more importantly it is a devotion for all who may read it that haven’t as yet received God’s offer of mercy which is being made available to you through the Lord Jesus Christ, this devotion can be the voice of God speaking into your heart, do not harden your heart but open it up to receive the good news of salvation offered to you through the Lord Jesus Christ, for in doing so you will know God coming to you in mercy and forgiveness rather than one day to be standing before him as a God bringing vengeance upon all who have rejected him.