Reading your Bible for today April 26

April 26: 3 John 1:1-6

Key Verse: 3 John 1:4
I have no greater joy than to hear that my children walk in truth.

Devotion:
Have you ever thought what others would think of you if you actually stood up and showed everyone you did listen to advice! Listening to advice may well be hard, but actually doing what was asked is often much harder. Then allowing others to see you have been following their advice is the next step. Baptism later in life is one of those steps where you have taken advice from God's Word and you have applied it to your life. You are willing to show others you have applied God's advice. But doing God's will is not always as easy as going through the waters of baptism!

One of the things Christ repeated to the disciples when He walked with and taught them was that they should love our friends as well as loving strangers. Today we are often taught we should not even consider strangers. It is a sign of just how much things have changed in the last few hundred years that we no longer talk to strangers for the simple fact they may well turn out to be unsavoury characters.

But there is a big difference between acknowledging a stranger and shunning a stranger. If you are new to an area (or even a country) you may well feel at a bit of a loss. You may find it hard to make friends because people are not willing to accept strangers into their community at first. But if you continue to show them you have God on your side and you are willing to acknowledge them, they will come round to seeing what makes you different.

As Christians we need to stand apart from the world to show everyone we do care – not just for those few people that we like, but for everyone. For the people who annoy others, for the people who nobody else wants to acknowledge, for the people who have made mistakes and want to change and for those who are just lost in a strangers’ world. Showing others you care makes a huge difference to those people as well as to the ones who know and love you already!

Points to Ponder:
Do you restrict yourself to your circle of friends?

What would have happened if Christ had turned His back on everyone but a few people?