Reading your Bible for Today November 1

November 1: Psalm 37:4-5

KJV Key Verse: Psalm 37:4
4 Delight thyself also in the LORD; and he shall give thee the desires of thine heart. 

Devotion:
I bet you can remember at least one occasion when you were younger where you asked for something fully expecting to get it, just because you asked for it. There was probably no justification for it, other than the fact that you asked for it! How surprised were you when you did not get it? We go through our lives desiring many things and even expecting to get most of them. We may justify our expectation by the way we have acted or done something towards someone else. I bet you can also remember a few times when things happened for you out of the blue. When you received things that you were not expecting.

Have you ever thought about why you did or did not receive things? When we are very young, we brush off not getting things quite quickly, but as we get older we tend to understand why we get things and our expectations tend to fall in line with what we get. That is because we grow to realise we do not often get things for nothing. If we obey our parents and generally be good, we will often get rewarded for our actions – this is something we learn.

So what is the difference between our actions towards our family and our actions towards God. He is watching over us all the time. He expects us to eventually fall in line with His commandments and His will in our lives. He is not going to push us there, but just like our parents do or did, He will reward us for things which we do right. But that is where things break down a bit, because people suddenly get it into their heads if they do a multitude of things right, then they are going to get big rewards for it...

God can see into our inner thoughts. He can see when we are doing things for a reward. He can see when we are genuine about what we do. He can see when we are doing things because we 'have to'. In short, we simply cannot pull the wool over His eyes – ever! So, if we are going to expect things from Him, we have to be committed in our walk with Him and that means doing it because we want to, not because we have to. Doing things out of love rather than requirement...

Points to Ponder:
When was the last time you did something 'because you had to'?

What is your relationship with Christ like?