Reading your Bible for today November 18

November 18: Obadiah 1:12-14

KJV Key Verse: Obadiah 1:13
13 Thou shouldest not have entered into the gate of my people in the day of their calamity; yea, thou shouldest not have looked on their affliction in the day of their calamity, nor have laid hands on their substance in the day of their calamity;

Devotion:
What happens when you are playing a sport and the opposing team makes a mistake? You try to make the most of that mistake and you take the advantage as far as you can. If you fail to take the advantage, then you will not get around to much winning in your sport. But you cannot rely on waiting for your opponent to make mistakes. So should we take this sort of attitude into life with us? If you are going to treat life as a sport or a game, then you will, and so many people do exactly that! They treat life as a game to be played to the best advantage to gain out if it what they can.

If we break the rules in a sport, the referee will soon blow the whistle and we will lose our advantage because of the foul we have carried out. But in life we do not have referees standing on the side-lines to check up on us all the time. People are out there breaking the rules because they think they can get away with it. They take the advantage through any means they can. In Obadiah's prophecy against Edom the destruction was listed out in similar ways to other who took God's work into their own hands. The carnal desires and earthly security was what would bring them down. They played the game and thought they had won. They looked for the mistakes and pounced upon the people when mistakes were seen. They did not follow God's laws, they took things into their own hands.

Just like so many people today, they tried to make their own rules instead of following God's laws. In doing so, they lusted after success, no matter what. They lost sight of what was good. They went too far. Their earthly desires took them further than required because they lost sight of God's rules. The only problem being for them was God was watching that game... We need to remember with everything we do, God is watching over us and waiting for us to follow the rules...

Points to Ponder:
Do you set your own standards or follow God's standards?

Do you keep to God's rules even when the world breaks them?