Category: Devotions

Zephaniah 1 v7

The Lord has prepared a sacrifice
Is it you?

Habakkuk 3
1-2, 17-19

Does your God change according to your circumstance?
What kind of God do we worship when it’s a bad day?
When it all goes well, do you sing more?

Shigionoth

“Wild passionate song with rapid changes of rhythm, sing in a spirit of victory and excitement”.

When do we sing the shigionoth? = v17
When blessings have gone, crops fail, cattle are no more. The fig tree being Israel is gone, judged, over. It doesn’t get any worse than this.

23rd June 1978 – 830pm it didn’t get any worse for our Elim missionaries at the Emmanuel Mission School in Katerere, Rhodesia (Zimbabwe).
Terrorists came over the hills from Mozambique and headed for our missions station. The missionaries had just finished their evening meal when they captured and led them to the school field. What they did to our missionaries was unthinkable. So much so that the bishop of the Church in Rhodesia and South Africa said the next morning when he visited, ” we saw no humanity there”.

In 1953 our Queen mother visited the station known as the Eagle School. All the white colonial children waved union flags. But when the Liberation War escalated they moved out and Elim Missions moved in and brought all the African pils to this place which they believed we safer.

But on this night there was desolation.
An orgy of carnage, mutilated bodies of 13 missionaries, one had to tried to flee through the bush but died later. What they did to the missionaries is unspeakable.
Later the terrorists were caught or came forward to confess, some sought forgiveness.
They gave their accounts of what transpired that night.
The missionaries had been singing hymns as they were violated and killed.
They sang in surrender to Christ and to comfort their children.
Local Africans said later that on some dark nights when the wind blows through the trees the sound of hymns in the midst of cries of fear and pain can be still heard drifting across the sports field at the school.

It was their shigionoth.

Habakkuk 2

We cannot speak what we haven’t first seen.
We cannot make known what we do not know.
We cannot make an impression if we do not leave something behind.
We cannot make things clear if we are complicated.
We cannot go without the message within us.

Habakkuk 1

It’s okay to question God if you are first carrying the burden of God. This was not simply a prophecy but this was a heavy message weighing on him.
Will we still carry burdens that are not for our personal well-being? A burden for others?

It’s okay to question God if you have been praying. Surrounded by violence and evil and facing up to the injustices are you calling on God to help. Many look but are you crying out?

It’s okay to question God if you will keep watching the world. God moves through the nations and He invites us to stand alert and see what He does.

The point is that many question God but not many are bothered to do what they can. Those that can and do rightly question God.

Nahum 3

Assyria thought they were invincible. They believed that no one, not even God, could break them.
And then we have that verse that all the women who have read it today will be shouting with complaint!
“Look at your troops – they are all women!” v13.
Now don’t worry, God is not against women!
The point is, you’re not who you think you are.
You are not this crack-force, hardened, unbeatable task force.
Often we want to encourage those who don’t think they are able to the task. However, we also need to speak to those over-achievers. Those who think they can but who cannot. Those who appear to be but who are fake. Those who think of themselves too highly.
Pride is the killer in life, nothing else.

Nahum 2

The Lord will restore the splendour v2

I must share this story…

Matt Chandler in his book ‘The explicit gospel’ writes about a time he and a couple of his friends invited a young woman named Kim to a gospel concert. Chandler writes:
The preacher took the stage, and disaster ensued …. He gave a lot of statistics about STDs. There was a lot of, “You don’t want syphilis, do you?” …. His big illustration was to take out a single red rose. He smelled the rose dramatically … caressed its petals, and talked about how beautiful this rose was and how it had been fresh cut that day. [Then] he threw the rose out into the crowd, and he encouraged everyone to pass it around. As he neared the end of his message, he asked for the rose back …. [But by now] it was broken and drooping, and the petals were falling off. He held up this now-ugly rose for all to see, and his big finish was this: “Now who in the world would want this?” His word and his tone were merciless. His essential message, which was supposed to represent Jesus’ message to a world of sinners, was this: “Hey, don’t be a dirty rose.”
Matt didn’t hear from Kim for a few weeks, until one day her mother called Matt to inform him that Kim had been in an accident. Matt immediately went to visit her.
In the middle of our conversation, seemingly out of nowhere, she asked me, “Do you think I’m a dirty rose?” My heart sank inside of me, and I began to explain to her the whole weight of the gospel of Jesus Christ is that Jesus wants the rose. It’s Jesus’ desire to save, redeem, and restore the dirty rose.”

How many people feel just the same way today? Let us all commit to speak the restoring message of Christ.

Nahum 1

The Lord is good, v7

It’s good to be reminded.
Sometimes He doesn’t look good.
The circumstances appear to be anything but good.
But He is.
If we are the ones to measure good then often we wouldn’t want to attribute the Lord to it for fear of hypocrisy. But our good is not always His good.
He may withhold the good, but He is good.
He may say things that sound bad, but He is good.
He may bring things that on the surface don’t look good, but He is good.
The Lord is. This is His identity. Good is who He is.
Keep choosing nature above nurture.
The Lord is good.
Have you got it?

Micah 7

“He will turn again”v19 kjv.

We serve a God who turns back to us time and again.

In the middle of a collapsing world Christ will come again.

He cannot and will not turn His back for long.

The God who disciplined Israel so severely will “turn again” toward His chosen people, in compassion!

What about us? Will we turn to others again?
Who have you given up on?
Who has need of compassion?
Who has sinned against you?
Who needs you to be faithful?
Who did you turn away from?
Be like God …
Turn again.

Micah 6

V8 Here we have a clear summary of how God wants us to live. To walk humbly with God is to know him intimately and to be attentive to what he desires and loves.
And what does that consist of? The text says to ‘do justice and love mercy’, which seems at first glance to be two different things, but they are not.
The term mercy is the Hebrew word chesedh, God’s unconditional grace and compassion.
The word for justice is the Hebrew word mishpat. Here in v8 mishpat puts the emphasis on the action, chesedh puts it on the attitude (or motive) behind the action.
To walk with God then, we must do justice out of merciful love.
The word mishpat in its various forms occurs over 200 times in the Hebrew Old Testament.
The most basic meaning is to treat people fairly, rightly.
It also means giving people their rights.
The mishpat or justness of a society according to the bible is evaluated by how it treats the groups of people found in Zechariah 7:10-11, which we will discuss soon:
This is what the Lord Almighty says: Administer true justice, show mercy and compassion to one another. DO not oppress the widow or the fatherless, the immigrant or the poor.

This is one of the main things He does in the world. He identifies with the powerless, he takes up their cause.
This sets our God apart from all the other ancient gods whose power was always channelled through and identified with the elite of society. Our God was and is always on the side of the powerless and of justice for the poor, needy and vulnerable.
If God’s character includes zeal for justice that leads him to have the tenderest love and closet involvement with the socially weak then what should God’s people be like? They must be people who are likewise passionately concerned for the weak and vulnerable.

Today look around you and see how you can do justice out of merciful love.

Micah 5

It feels like Christmas reading this today!

Though the circumstances are difficult.
Though your abilities seem inadequate.
It is always who is inside you that is of importance.
Greater is He that is in you than is in the world.

But you …
Bethlehem whose name we have to use the region of Ephrathah for because there are other Bethlehems, in order to determine which one we mean. You are not unique. There are others like you.
Well, not exactly like you, because you are small, weaker, insignificant actually.
However, King David was born in your town.

I love this.

I am writing today to those churches and Christians who on the surface do not feel they can influence the environment they are in. Their frontline is certainly a defensive approach. Holding their own. Struggling through life.

1.Look back.
See what God has done in previous years through you.
Bethlehem, King David was born in your town!!
He was your ruler, strong, majestic, secure and great.
You may need to go back to a previous generation or it may be within your own personal history, but God is there to be found.

2.Believe again.
It can happen again. God can come again.
Out of you will come for me one …
And not just one but The One.
The One who is everlasting, who is from of old, from ancient times, the One who is peace.

3.Live in the light of that fact:-
You are called to thrive, v7-8
In the way you live with the enemy, live victoriously, v9.
In the truth that a new day will come, where God does move miraculously in the things you cannot do yourself, v10