DEVOTION NINETEEN: NO COMPROMISE

Do you know the story about Daniel in the lions' den? Im sure most of you do and have heard about it in sunday school! Anyway, at the end, Daniel was rescued from death inspite of the plotting and scheming from his co-workers. Surprisingly, he passed the test with his faith and character beautifully intact. How? He refused to compromise.

In places where no one would know except the Lord, Daniel didnt waiver in his private actions. His model is a great one for us to follow.

Establish consistency in your walk with God. If you're not walking with God today, its only a matter of time you'll fail and fall. We will never stand consistently until we are walking consistently with God.

Exact Opposition. Following Christ doesnt mean fewer hassles and hardships. Sometimes it means more! Resistance from family, schoolmates, close friends...They may even say things like "When did u get so serious about following the Lord?" Dont worry about any of them, and take a stand for Christ.

Maintain Consistency. Keep praying and stay on in God's word. "When Daniel knew that the document - his death warrant - was signed, he went to his house....He got down on his knees three times a dayand prayed and gave thanks" (6:10)

Did u notice the subject of his prayers? "Thank You, God, for this opportunity. Thank You that You're gonna show Yourself strong in my life. Thank You that I can trust You even in this."

Consistency in our walk with Godand His word will strengthen us during times of crisis.

Daily Bread

But be doers of the word, and not hearers only, deceiving yourselves. For if anyone is a hearer of the word and not a doer, he is like a man who looks intently at his natural face in a mirror. For he looks at himself and goes away and at once forgets what he was like. But the one who looks into the perfect law, the law of liberty, and perseveres, being no hearer who forgets but a doer who acts, he will be blessed in his doing. (James 1:22-25, ESV)

People,just in case you miss the "DailyBreadCorner". Please read the verse of the day THRICE.Get it into your mind and think about it seriously.Are you a hearer only and not a doer? If you're a hearer only,are you thinking to be a doer too? Come on,lets' be doers and not just hearer shall we?

kev

devotionEIGHTEEN - Light Of The World

"I believe in Christianity as I believe that the Sun has risen not only because I see it but because by it I see everything else" - C.S Lewis

It would be a mistake to think that Christianity does nothing more than tell us what happens when we die. It does even more than simply tell us how to live. The Word of God is the lens through which every thing else comes into focus. We need to learn to adopt Christianity as both a philosophy and a world view. Just as we are called to become like Christ in our personal lives, we are called to shape the world into the Kingdom of God, but we cannot hope to do that unless we understand it.

While most Christian thinkers defend Christianity by presenting either some sort of evidence or by offering some logical proof, the late Cornelius Van Til proposed a subtler type of approach. He used to encourage people to investigate Christianity by first getting them to assume it was all false, and then challenging them to explain the universe without it. Why are we here? Where did we come from? What are good and evil? In doing so, Van Til helped people to see for themselves that without a foundation in Christ, nothing makes sense. Christianity doesn't just have the answers to salvation, it has the answers to everything.

For example, Christianity helps us to see why Communism was such a wicked and dismal failure. In the days following the resurrection, Christ's disciples practiced a kind of communism and it was successful because every member placed the will of God first. However, modern-day communism denies God and so there is nothing to keep the power and authority in check. The Bible teaches us that without God, man is inherently sinful and communism has been the ultimate and unfortunate demonstration of that fact. Democracy, though far from perfect, works because it understands that power has the tendency to corrupt and so there are check and balances in place to protect us.

The Bible does not provide solutions for every problem we face in the world. It cannot specifically tell us what to do about gun violence, broken marriages, sexual immortality or rampant famine. What it can do is provide principles and a framework by which we can arrive at the correct solution. Things will get better in our lives and community when we start to see every problem from a Biblical perspective and then apply these principles consistently in our lives, our families, our work, our home and our governments.

If you want to know more about the "Christian worldview", one of the finest books I've found is How Now Shall We Live? It's a long, challenging read, but well worth the effort.

kev