A BETTER LIFE

Blessed are the pure in heart, for they shall see God.
Matthew 5:8

C. S. Lewis is quoted as saying, “Integrity is doing the right thing, even when no one is watching.” The truth of the matter is that Someone is always watching. God in heaven sees our thoughts, our actions, our mistakes, and our guilt when we fail. One of the great assurances found in Scripture is that in spite of our failures and sin, God loves us and encourages us to be better. How often have we heard a young child say, “Daddy, I want to be like you!” What a blessing for an earthly father to hear those words from his child. That is what God wants to hear from us—not that we are perfect—but that our desire and goal is to be like Him.

Do you have someone in your life who makes you want to be a better person in one or more ways? We should all be so blessed. People who knew Jesus felt that way about Him. The phrase “Go and sin no more” (John 8:11) is emblematic of what happened to many people who encountered Jesus in their life. It was hard to be around the Son of God without being motivated to be better, especially to be a purer person.

If you are a Christian, you are around Jesus every moment through the Holy Spirit’s presence in your life. Let His presence, and His Word, be the primary shaping influence in your life.

If you would have the life holy before men, let the heart be pure before God.

Thomas Manton

By David Jeremiah

From - NaijaPage - David Jeremiah Devotional 2020

Peter, the apostle, warned people about ALL MOGs (False Prophets and Teachers), from about 2000 years ago.

2 Peter 2 vs 1-7 (ERV)
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1. In the past there were false prophets among God’s people. It is the same now. You will have some false teachers in your group. They will teach things that are wrong—ideas that will cause people to be lost. And they will teach in a way that will be hard for you to see that they are wrong. They will even refuse to follow the Master who bought their freedom. And so they will quickly destroy themselves.
2. Many people will follow them in the morally wrong things they do. And because of them, others will say bad things about the way of truth we follow.
3. These false teachers only want your money. So they will use you by telling you things that are not true. But the judgment against these false teachers has been ready for a long time. And they will not escape God who will destroy them.

4. When angels sinned, God did not let them go free without punishment. He sent them to hell. He put those angels in caves of darkness, where they are being held until the time when God will judge them.

5. And God punished the evil people who lived long ago. He brought a flood to the world that was full of people who were against God. But he saved Noah and seven other people with him. Noah was a man who told people about living right.

6. God also punished the evil cities of Sodom and Gomorrah. He burned them until there was nothing left but ashes. He used those cities as an example of what will happen to people who are against God.
7. But he saved Lot, a good man who lived there. Lot was greatly troubled by the morally bad lives of those evil people. 8 This good man lived with those evil people every day, and his good heart was hurt by the evil things he saw and heard.