Devotion
Loving Wounds
Chipo Biti
It is far better to be smarting from the correction of a friend who cares for you, instead of being led on the wrong path by people who try to deceive you with false approval. If you choose to base your life on positive feedback only and you block out any form of correction, you will end up with the wrong people advising you. Positive feedback is great. It can boost you, it can get you motivated, and it can make you feel good. But if that feedback is blinding you from the areas in your life that you need to correct, you will find yourself on that fast track to making a series of mistakes.
Correction is necessary for our growth as Christians. We need correction in our spiritual lives in order to ensure that we are reflecting God and His love and righteousness. We also need correction in other aspects of our life. We can never know everything or get everything right. When we are corrected, we are alerted to the areas in our lives that we need to work on. When we work on those areas, we become better people. If we don't receive that correction, how will we grow?
Correction may be hard to receive, especially from the people we love, but it is worthwhile. The people who love you will always desire to see you become the best person you can be. In order for that to happen, they have to correct you when they see that you are headed in the wrong direction.
People who are trying to use you will not care about what is best for you. They will only be concerned with how you can serve their hidden agenda. They will take advantage of your shortcomings in order to gain a one up on you.
Prayer
Discernment is required when it comes to who you listen to when you are in need of counsel. If you surround yourself with people who will tell you what you want to hear, you will not get very far in life. But if you choose to have honest people around you, who are convicted by the love they have for you and not their selfish interests, you will be able to grow. You should also aim to be the person who corrects, in love. Lying to someone or overlooking their errors in order to make them happy is not love.
Devotion
Abraham is Father of All
Frances Taylor
There are questions in every age about the importance of the Old Testament for Christians. Abraham is considered to be the Father of Faith for Jews, Christians and Muslims. We forget that it was Abraham who believed in the doctrine of only one God. It is through him and his descendants that this tradition comes down to us. Another fact that we can overlook is that Jesus was Jewish. He was born a Jew, lived as a Jew, died, rose and ascended into heaven as a Jew. Because we believe that he was the Messiah, the Christ, and we follow him, we are called Christian. Without the Old Testament, we wouldn't understand the promise of salvation; we wouldn't understand why it was important for Jesus to be of the family of King David. We would not understand his teaching either, because Jesus quoted from Scripture – the Old Testament – frequently. He told us that he came to fulfill the Scriptures, not to abolish them. In the same way, we can ...
