Category: Devotions

Matthew 18 can be summarised as this:

How great have you become that you have stopped searching for the one who sinned against you that you may forgive them?

Matthew 17

Contrasts and Comparisons

Just as Moses had three companions on the mountain so Jesus chooses three of his closest companions.

Just as Moses face shone and was transfigured so the disciples see Jesus as they’ve never seen him before.

The return of Moses and Elijah was expected in connection with the Messianic age and here they are with Jesus.

Just as the bright shekinah glory cloud enveloped Moses here it is again, a sign of the presence of God.

Just as Moses fell facedown so did the disciples as they heard the voice of God.

‘When they looked up, they saw no one except Jesus’.

Jesus then remains alone. Moses and Elijah are gone, for it is Jesus alone who is to be heard and who is Saviour!

Matthew 16

You have followed Jesus for 2 days over hills and rocky terrain and you arrive at Caesarea Philippi. This was a location famous for its pagan rituals and sacrifices. Jesus then leads you to a famous cliff called the ‘Rock of gods’. At the base of the 100 feet high cliff was a cave called ‘the gates of Hades’ and people believed gods such as Baal entered the cave. Into the crevices of the rock the people had placed hundreds of idols and statues.

Here, Jesus taught the people about His and their mission.

Standing near one of the shrines, Peter declares “You are the Christ, the Son of the living God.”

“You are Peter and on this rock I will build my church and the gates of Hades will not overcome it.”

On this rock of gods and every religion imaginable, I will build my church.

There is no cliff face for us but we live in a culture of idols and false religion.

The disciples were familiar with the Scriptures that tell us we are from a different rock.

The gates of Hades will not stand up against the power of the Church. Our mission is to take on evil and defeat it within culture.

Today this is why God has planted you where you are. In the factory, neighbourhood, school etc. It is not easy to live and work in such an environment. But it is here where Jesus is building His church.

Matthew 15

No matter what position you find yourself in, God has a place for you if you so desire Him.

The Jews despised people who lived in Tyre and Sidon. Jesus had said, “it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you who see miracles but don’t believe.” Matthew 11:22.
The disciples thought they knew who Jesus had time for and it sure wasn’t this woman. “send her away” v23.
As for Jesus he is trying to teach the disciples through experience. He declares, “I was sent only to the lost sheep of Israel.”
He reinstates his position, “Yes disciples she is an outcast, I don’t want her. Will anyone of you disagree with me?” No they didn’t and they failed the test.

“It is not right to take the childrens bread (Israel) and toss it to the dogs”. Jesus is testing again, this time the woman.
Will she see the salvation plan that God ultimately desire to heal all peoples, Jew and Gentile? Or will she fight back at Jesus?
“But even the dogs eat the crumbs that fall from the masters table.” She got it. She understood what the disciples didn’t. Even as an outcast if she persevered she would get a crumb. And one crumb from the master’s table is all she needed.

Matthew 14

Jesus calls to us “come”. But the territory between the boat and Jesus often looks impossible. The only way to walk in the impossible is to stop trusting your boat and start trusting your Saviour. There is a big difference. Trusting the boat is easy. You can touch it, it feels secure. There are always other people in the boat and if they’re okay then you will be also. It is tangible, you are safe.

So often we want to get out of that experience on the boat and expect that trusting Jesus will bring the same feelings – the feelings on the water are not the feelings on the boat.

Peter was not walking on a bridge or stepping stones, but water with the wind and waves against him.

This was a very hard thing for Peter to do – it took a lot of strength for Peter to walk against those winds. How did he do it when there was nothing tangible under His feet?

At that moment Peter was a God chaser, a true follower of Jesus. His Spirit was in control of his flesh. His mind was crying out “this is not safe!!!”

You can take a leap of faith. It will affect your feelings big time. It will not feel safe, it will not feel like the boat feelings, you will feel that things have gotten worse. You may be tempted to think whether or not this was a good idea. But with your eyes on Jesus it is more than possible for you to do what you have never ever done before. It is possible for you to leave people behind in their comfort zones as you become all you can become for God.

Matthew 13

So many have nearly given everything, they nearly entered the victory place of total devotion but stopped short of ‘everything’.

v46 When he found one of great value, he went away and sold everything he had and bought it.

John Huss was a Czech priest and a key predecessor to the Protestant movement of the 16th century. Before the Catholics burned him at the stake and lying in chains in prison he wrote this:

Without you I cannot do anything and especially, for your sake I cannot go to a cruel death. Grant me a ready spirit, a fearless heart, a right faith, a firm hope, and a perfect love, that for your sake I may lay down my life with patience and joy.

Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a German Pastor, whose book The Cost of Discipleship is a classic was part of a staunch resistance to the Nazi dictatorship. He was executed by hanging in April 1945 while imprisoned at a Nazi concentration camp, just 23 days before the German surrender.

He wrote these words before his death:

Suffering willingly endured is stronger than evil; it spells death to evil … The worse evil, the readier must the Christian be to suffer.

Majasobtsova began her early life as an atheist but then gave her life to Christ who would ask her to give everything for Him. Her and her father helped many Jews escape the occupation.

On Easter Saturday 1945 at the Ravensbruck concentration camp she took the place of a Jewish woman who was going to the gas chamber, one day before the Red Cross liberated the camp.

She wrote these words as she went:

Lord, I am your messenger. Throw me like a blazing torch into the night.

When Jesus is your pearl of greatest value then you will sell all for Him. Everything.

Matthew 12

I am who David and Elijah spoke of (v8); I am the Lord of the Sabbath (v8); I am who the Jews are waiting for (v23); I am the driver out of satan (v28); I withhold forgiveness from those who resist the Spirit (v32); I am the sign of Jonah (v39) and my Father is in heaven (v50).

Such influence!

Never before had anyone been so confident. It was claims about why he was here that brought great trouble to him. It was claims about where he was now that brought great trouble to the church. Never before had someone lived with such relationship of purpose with the Father. Never before could a dying man utter the words ‘It is finished’ signifying all that he was put on earth to do had been done. Never before had anyone predicted their own resurrection. Never before had someone been crucified and died and 3 days later was risen again. It is that purpose of life and belief in eternal life that Jesus wants for you and me, for this church.

People follow people of influence who promote worthwhile causes.

People first buy into the person before they buy into the person’s product.

Every message that people receive is filtered through the messenger who delivers it. If you consider the messenger to be credible, then you believe the message has value.

We need the Holy Spirit to so permeate our lives that we become people of influence.

The person of influence finds the message and then the people.

The people find the person of influence and then the message.

Our prayer has got to be that we become a person of influence

Matthew 11

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.

There are many.

And many are finding their rest in Him.

In her moving autobiography, Song of the Nightingale, Eritrean gospel singer Helen Berhane tells the inspiring story of how she was detained for two years because of her Christian faith and her unwillingness to renounce her beliefs. She faced brutal beatings and abuse, which included being kept for prolonged periods in a metal shipping container in the scorching heat of the desert.
“The air is thick with a dirty metallic tang, the ever-present stench of the bucket in the corner, and the smell of close-pressed, unwashed bodies.
I peer around, trying to work out where she is, the woman whose mind is gone. She is worse now there are more of us; nineteen in a space that can only sleep eighteen. Tonight she is quiet, and it makes me uneasy.
Suddenly, without warning, hands close on my neck like a vice. Then there is a guttural snarl, and I know that it is her, the madwoman, her fingers tight on my throat. All around us prisoners are waking up. I gulp down a breath and manage a scream. The other prisoners start to shout too, and bang the sides of the container.
There are shouts now coming from outside, and the sound of hurrying feet, the noise of the bolts sliding back and the pop as air rushes into the container and then the doors are flung open.
The guards pull her out of the container, and slam the door again.
Sometimes I cannot believe that this is my life: these four metal walls, all of us corralled like cattle, the pain, the hunger, the fear. All because of my belief in a God who is risen, who charges me to share my faith with those who do not yet know him, and who I am forbidden to worship”.

Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. There are many Helen’s today.

Matthew 10

At the end of the last chapter Jesus prays for workers and at the beginning of chapter 10:

(Msg) “The prayer was no sooner prayed than it was answered.” You are the answer.

You have all that you need.

You have a calling, v1

He called Simon – denier; Andrew – “we don’t have enough food”; James and John – worried over prominence and prestige; Thomas – doubter; Judas – betrayer. But the call was still there.

You have a mission field v6.

Message “Go to people right here in the neighbourhood”. We need to begin in the obvious place, the areas of influence that exist now. We don’t necessarily need to travel or go somewhere new. But to our workplace, friendships, home.

You have a message, v7-8.

Wherever we go, in our places of influence we speak a message: “The kingdom of heaven is near or at hand”. It means this: “God’s rule/influence is right here in me.”

You have power v8.

Demonstrate it: make things better; turn things around – the impossible; embrace the unlovely.

Matthew 9

v2-8 This is the first occasion we read about when Jesus forgives somebody of their sins which was his greatest mission on earth. There were other healers around at the time but only Jesus who was offering the forgiveness of sins.

Jesus was saying:

Right now, in the present tense, you are being forgiven.
Without the confession of sin, you are still forgiven. I can do what I choose to do.
It is your forgiveness that identifies my equality with God, for only God can forgive.
Your forgiveness is more difficult than your healing because it requires God.
I now heal because others want proof of my authority to forgive. I am forgiving you for you, but I heal you for others.
The Son of Man in Daniel forgave sins, I am who Daniel saw. I claim to have that authority but I act with that authority.

It is this forgiveness that makes Jesus who He said He was and why He is the only way to God.