Daily Devotion August 18

August 18: Romans 12:9-16

KJV Key Verse: Romans 12:14
14 Bless them which persecute you: bless , and curse not.

Devotion:
What happens when you are standing waiting in a queue and you accidentally step on someone's toe? Do you turn round and say sorry or try blame them for getting too close to you in the first place? Or if you are walking down the road in town, not being too aware of your surroundings and bump into someone? But when someone else bumps into you, or steps on your toe you want to jump on them!

What happens when you are the victim of someone else deliberately doing something against you? That is when we start to feel hurt, start to feel like the other person is going out of their way to hurt us. Even if we find out later it was actually a mistake, we still harbour the feeling that they did it on purpose!

Have you ever stood up for someone that was in the wrong and asked whether you could take their punishment for them? Would you be willing to take the place of someone on death row just so that they could have another chance? Imagine if someone did that for you? How thankful would you be? Would you go out of your way to thank them for what they are doing?

Jesus did exactly that for us all. But, most of the time we do not thank Him for everything that He has done. Most of the time we just take Him for granted. We do need to think about what others do for us and to thank them more often than we do. It may not be easy for us because we are surrounded by people who do the opposite as well, but if we can turn the tables and be thankful and humble, people would find it more difficult to be aggressive toward us!

Points to Ponder:
Do you help your enemies?

Do you try to make others happy?