Daily Devotion August 9

August 9: Nehemiah 8:8-12

KJV Key Verse: Nehemiah 8:12
12 And all the people went their way to eat , and to drink , and to send portions, and to make great mirth, because they had understood the words that were declared unto them.

Devotion:
How much of the Bible did you understand the first time you read it, or part of it? I know I struggled to understand what all these words were about when I read it and my God parents gave me a Bible to make that job easier. It was a translation which would allow me to read it more easily. Now I know many people jump up and down about various translations but if this is the way we can get people to read about God and give them a thirst for God’s Word, then what is wrong with a translation?

What is wrong is when people treat the easy read versions as their study Bibles. This is not what they have been translated to do! If you want to find out about the things NASA does then you can go about it in a few different ways. You could watch a few dramatized movies about things they have done which may encourage you to find out more, or you could sit down and get straight into the history books which detail everything step by step. I know I would struggle with the history book way until my interest had been pricked, then I would want to find out more.

God wants us to open people’s hearts to His Word. We can do this in various ways and the way Jesus chose was to tell parables or stories that would get people interested so they would want to find out more. I vote to doing the same thing by going out and dramatizing the works of Christ so people want to find out more about Him. We can then get into the history books and into our study Bibles to tell them in more detail about what happened.

But telling them something which did not actually happen is where it goes wrong because when they find out the truth they question everything we have told them in the past. Yes it is difficult telling people about God sometimes, so using God’s own word to tell them is going to be so much easier and safer than making up our own stories. Trust God to do what we think we can do…

Points to Ponder:
Do you like telling stories?

Are they God’s stories or your own?