PLANETSHAKERS REVOLUTION DEVOTIONAL SERIES APRIL DEVOTIONAL APRIL 2009 AUTHOR: PS SAM EVANS SENIOR PASTOR, PLANETSHAKERS CITY CHURCH THIS DEVOTIONAL SERIES CONTAINS 31 DAILY DEVOTIONAL READINGS TO INSPIRE AND EQUIP YOU THROUGHOUT YOUR DAY. COPYRIGHT © 2009 PLANETSHAKERS MINISTRIES INTERNATIONAL PTY LTD APRIL DEVOTIONAL DAY 1 DAY 1 1 Timothy 1:1-2 1 Timothy 1:1-2 “Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus by the command of God our Savior and of Christ Jesus our hope, To Timothy my true son in the faith: Grace, mercy and peace from God the Father and Christ Jesus our Lord”. Grace, mercy and peace. How powerful are these three words? To have them a part of your life everyday is certainly productive and beneficial. If we look at the first word, grace, it is the unmerited favour of God. This means there is nothing you could possibly do to earn God’s favour. Favour is when you are liked by people, welcomed, looked up to and trusted. It’s like you become someone’s favourite. These days we may liken it to the favour of a movie star. They are popular so they are sought after. Everyone wants to be associated with them. Companies will give them gifts of clothing, jewellery, cars and more just so their product, if seen on a star, is endorsed, therefore influencing others to purchase that product. Someone who is favoured has their needs met. They have access to certain exclusive places; they have the power to influence society. When Paul wrote to Timothy he was expressing his desire to see God bless him with this favour that has already been purchased for us by Jesus. This is exactly what God wants us to walk in. He desires to see us have influence, to have all our needs met and to be trusted in. Today, as you go about your day, why not have expectations that God has poured his grace out upon you and that you can walk in it. It’s amazing how our confidence can instantly grow as we begin to expect God to favour us in everything we do. Then there is the mercy and peace that accompany favour. To be merciful towards someone means you are covering their mistakes, you’re forgiving them for their weaknesses. The blood of Jesus has covered our mistakes and so now we walk in the mercy of God. We’re not perfect but every time God looks at us He sees His son Jesus and He is perfect. We can therefore grow in an even greater confidence. The peace comes naturally when we walk in this state of favour and acceptance. There is nothing that can separate us from the love of God so we might as well enjoy walking in it. Our hearts can feel at ease knowing that we are blessed in such a way. PRAYER I want to thank you for this day. I receive right now your grace, mercy and peace. I know you want to favour me, bless me, provide for me and cause me to have influence in the world that I live in. Today I declare my belief in your word and appropriate by faith your grace, mercy and peace. I ask you to fill my heart with peace, my mind with confidence and may everything I do today establish your kingdom. I love you and I know you love me. APRIL DEVOTIONAL DAY 2 DAY 2 1 Timothy 1:3-5 1 Timothy 1:3-5 “As I urged you when I went into Macedonia, stay there in Ephesus so that you may command certain men not to teach false doctrines any longer nor to devote themselves to myths and endless genealogies. These promote controversies rather than God’s work—which is by faith. The goal of this command is love, which comes from a pure heart and a good conscience and a sincere faith.” Another group of three important phrases contained in these scriptures that I want to focus on are found in verse 5 – a pure heart, a clear conscience and a genuine faith. In order for us to be effectively filled with the love of God we need three heart conditions. A pure heart is a heart that is clean of any sin. We live in a fallen world and every day we have the potential to sin. It might not be so drastic. It could be as simple as a bad attitude, disrespect towards our boss and our parents. Perhaps it is more dramatic and maybe we struggle with a secret addiction. Sin separates us from God. It puts us in a state of guilt and hardness of heart that also makes it difficult to receive the love and grace of God. Many of us, when we sin, fall into the trap of running and hiding from God. When we sin we should first repent from our sin and ask the Lord to clean us. When our heart is clean, we have a greater reassurance of the love of God in our hearts. A clear conscience also helps us to receive the love of God. There are too many Christians that live in the guilt of what they did in the past. The devil also loves to remind us of what we used to be like. However, once we have said we are sorry, the Lord takes away our mistake. He says He places it in the sea of forgetfulness to remember it no more. We can also clear our consciences by making sure we say sorry to anyone we have hurt. Whether they forgive you or not, you are making the right move towards clearing your conscience in order to receive the love of God. The third phrase is so important in our day and age. We live in a cynical world. Genuine people are sometimes hard to find. We often become cynical towards people because we have been lied to. Take for example an anti-wrinkle cream that you spend hundreds of dollars on without any results. When you see an ad in the future for a similar product, you tend not to believe their claims because you have been lied to before. You may have been lied to about some more serious things and it has put a cynicism in your spirit towards the word of God or perhaps God appointed leadership. God wants you to have a genuine faith in your heart that would put your trust in him to see his love poured out. He also wants it to be genuine so that the world may see that He is real and that His promises are yes and amen! Whatever predicament you may find yourself in why not spend a moment before the Lord getting your heart right and position yourself to receive the love of God. PRAYER I thank you that you love me. I thank you that today, no matter what has happened to me, no matter what I have done, I can receive a touch from you that can instantly bring me to the place of purity with a clear conscience and genuine faith. I confess to you these things that I have held in my heart that have separated me from you. Please forgive me and cleanse me from my sin. I let go of the things of my past. I thank you that they have no hold on my mind or my heart. I let go of the guilt and shame and I ask for your precious blood to cleanse me. Forgive me too of any unbelief and cynicism. I put my trust in you and choose to believe you above my circumstances and my past experiences. I receive your love right now. Fill me to over flowing. APRIL DEVOTIONAL DAY 3 DAY 3 1 Timothy 1: 6-14 1 Timothy 1: 6-14 “Some have wandered away from these and turned to meaningless talk. They want to be teachers of the law, but they do not know what they are talking about or what they so confidently affirm. We know that the law is good if one uses it properly. We also know that law[a] is made not for the righteous but for lawbreakers and rebels, the ungodly and sinful, the unholy and irreligious; for those who kill their fathers or mothers, for murderers, for adulterers and perverts, for slave traders and liars and perjurers—and for whatever else is contrary to the sound doctrine that conforms to the glorious gospel of the blessed God, which he entrusted to me. I thank Christ Jesus our Lord, who has given me strength, that he considered me faithful, appointing me to his service. Even though I was once a blasphemer and a persecutor and a violent man, I was shown mercy because I acted in ignorance and unbelief. The grace of our Lord was poured out on me abundantly, along with the faith and love that are in Christ Jesus.” God is so good at turning lives around. If I think of the apostle Paul and when he was first being mentioned in the Bible, you would never think that God would transform his life to the extent to which he did. To think a third of the New Testament was written by him. He was a vicious persecutor of the church. He would go from house to house dragging men and women out of their houses to put them in gaol. Paul even describes himself as a ‘chief of sinners’. Yet God turned his life completely around.