Day 31 – Psalm 51:10-11/Jeremiah 29:11
by Lizzy

I absolutely love these passages as we are ending 2015 and beginning 2016. When David wrote Psalm 51, he had just been caught having an affair with a married woman named Bathsheba. He then went on to have her husband killed to cover up what he did. Talk about a scandal!

Psalm 51 is so amazing because we see David pour his heart out to God and ask him to forgive him for these terrible mistakes. God, being the gracious and loving God that he is, of course forgave him. Although his actions didn’t come without consequence, we all know of David today as a man after God’s own heart. Despite his messy past, God used David in mighty ways.

As we enter into 2016 I want to encourage that you all search yourself before God and ask him if there’s anything you may have done in disobedience to him. Ask him for forgiveness for those things and enter into 2016 with a new pure heart. God has such huge plans for our lives and he wants nothing less than for us to have a true relationship. Not a bunch of rules and legalism but He just wants us to get to know him.

We hope that the readings have been beneficial for you and that you would continue this habit of reading the word every day in the New Year. God will meet you right where you’re at each day as you spend time with him.

Day 30 – Luke 2:22-35
by Annie

Have you ever held a 40 day old baby? If you have, you’ll know that they are tiny, are asleep for most of the day and can’t even hold their heads! At this age, Jesus parents brings him to the temple in Jerusalem and an old man comes up to them crying out that he knows that this tiny, less than 7 weeks old, baby-Jesus will bring salvation to both the Jewish and the Gentile world! Pretty amazing how someone could recognise all of that in Jesus so early on, isn’t it?

Day 29 – Isaiah 54:10
by Annie

This verse is about God’s love and it uses some pretty strong language to describe how there is nothing that can stop God loving us. In modern language we probably wouldn’t talk so much about mountains shaking or hills removed though. What metaphors do you think Isaiah would have used today to describe God’s unfailing love?

Day 28 – Philippians 2:9-11
by Jason

Today we see God’s vision for our lives, that Jesus is number one for us, and that we acknowledge Jesus as Lord, so we live in love and harmony with each other. Wherever we are. We can see this is God’s visions where it says that God exalted him (or lifted Him) to the highest place (…) ‘SO THAT’ every knee shall bow and we should all worship Jesus.

I think the closest example I have seen this year is what I have experienced this Christmas. I spent a lot of time this Christmas with friends who have children, from 3 months old to 5 years old, and one thing I loved seeing was our friends talking about how proud they are of their kids and lifting them up for other people to admire. Your parents most likely do that now about you because they love you and are so proud of what you do, especially for family back in you home towns.

God does this to Jesus, lifts Him up, exalts Him, so that we can show our love to Him. What Jesus went through for us was more than anyone could do for anyone. We aren’t worshipped by our parents friends, but we do get some attention. In life, God wants us to give Jesus our complete attention, because what He did was FOR all of us.

Think of one thing today to thank Jesus for. It might be something personal from this Christmas, or something more general like the cross. Either way, thank Him and mean it.

Day 27 – 1 Corinthians 13:1-13
by Jazmine

Today we read about Love! We find out the definition of love, and the difference between lust and God’s love for us and how to express it in the right way as christians.

When the passage talks about love it doesn’t mean the lust kind of love the oh i have to have a boy/girlfriend or sexual love. But it means the love God shows us and that he wants us to show to others…the unselfish love that is directed outward not inwards to ourselves.

Loving unselfishly can be hard for some people because you may want something in return afterwards but it’s important to remember that when we love unselfishly God sees this and will reward us later in heaven. Personally it makes me feel good when  I see someone I love happy and knowing that they know their loved is better than any reward. Of course sometimes it can be really hard to see the point of doing nice things for people cause i take my own time do stuff for them and don’t get a thank you, but even if they didn’t say thank you God is saying it for them.

Think about the way you love others is it selfish or unselfish and does your faith fully express that you love others because God loves you? Pray and ask God to help you love the way he loves you!

Day 26 – 1 John 4:9-10
by Jason

This is the day that I get to celebrate my own birthday. One thing I that is always a bit strange is having my birthday the day after a day that we all put so much effort into. My birthday have been forgotten by a lot of people before. However, Facebook has helped people remember this and it always nice to get messages from people, and people I haven’t heard from in a while. I have to say I do feel very loved…

But ‘love’ isn’t this. Not in it’s fullest. Today’s passages gives us a very real and a very expansive view of what love is. We get told that love isn’t something we have to give God, but something that He gave us first.

A lot of the time it can be hard to know what love looks like, and we can take a guess and get pretty close to the right answer, giving and not wanting to receive. Helping people out that we care about. Being there for people when it inconveniences us. But I think the closest we can get to seeing what love is is drawing a vertical line down the centre of a piece of paper, then drawing a shorter horizontal line a third of the way down the first line. A cross. This is love, and beats all other ways of showing love. How amazing is that!

Merry Christmas! God Jul!
by Jason

In Sweden, if you celebrated the Swedish way, then most of the celebrating would have happened yesterday, and today might be more of a restful day. Or you may be opening presents today.

One of the presents I gave this year I won in a competition and I realised that someone I knew would like the prize more than me. And it wasn’t too easy to win it, and I went to a lot more trouble than just going into a shop and exchanging it for money. In some ways I feel I put way more effort into that present that I did the ones I bought.

Either way, take some time today to focus on Jesus, and be thankful for that gift most of all. God went to a lot of trouble and effort to give us that gift, and it is to be enjoyed and thankful for. What really can be more enjoyable than eternal life?

Day 24 – Luke 2:8-21
by Jason

So here it is, the birth of Jesus, the time we have been leading up to. Sometimes it can be heard to switch of and focus on this day with all the food being cooked, catching up with family and entertaining the younger members of the family.

One of the things I really like about spending Christmas with Annie’s family is that before they share out presents, everyone sits down while Annie’s dad reads this passage out to everyone. It’s something my family never did when I grew up, but something I can really appreciate now. Don’t make today so busy that you forget why we get this holiday in the first place. Take today to just read the passage and take in the elements of the story.