Weekly Devotion

This week I read a passage in 1 Kings 20 that I would like to share with you. The king of Aram decided to attack the king of Israel, but his attack didn't go very well. They were soundly beaten by the Israeli troops. Then the officers of the king of Aram came to him and said:

"The Israelite gods are gods of the hills; that is why they won. But we can easily defeat them on the plains." 1 Kings 20:23

The king of Aram followed their advise and attacked the next spring, but this time they fought Israel in the plains and not the hills. He had such a large army that the "…Israelite army looked like two little flocks of goats in comparison to the vast Aramean forces." Verse 27. And then God stepped in:

"The Arameans have said that the Lord is a God of the hills and not of the plains. So I will help you defeat this vast army. Then you will know that I am the Lord." 1 Kings 20:28

God indeed helped them. A hundred thousand Arameans were killed in one day and another 27 000 were killed when the walls of Aphek fell on them as they were hiding behind it. God kept His word and helped Israel in their time of need.

The king of Aram didn't bargain on the fact that God was omnipresent and that was his downfall. God is indeed everywhere, He is in the plains and He is in the hills, He is absolutely everywhere. And that counts for us too. God is the God of the hills and the God of the plains in our lives too. He is God in every situation and condition that we are in. He is there with us. We are secure in knowing that. God will stand up for us even if no one else will. God is the One who will 'call' when we feel lonely, God is the One who will wipe our tears when we cry, God is the One who will lead the way if we let Him, God is always with us.

God's omnipresence is a wonderful support and a great comfort to us as believers. We can know no matter what, He is and will always be there. But it should also motivate us to live holy lives. We should remember at all times that God is standing right next to us and can hear and see everything that we are doing. I think we would never even think about doing some of the sin that we do if we were physically standing in the throne room of God. But if you think about it, we actually are standing in His throne room every day, yet we act as if we don't.

Focus on God's amazing ever present presence in your life, and know that He knows best in every circumstance in your life. He is there and will work everything for your good, good things and even bad things will be turned around for your ultimate good because He is right there. Remember Romans 8:28:

"And we know that God causes everything to work together for the good of those who love God and are called according to His purpose for them." Hallelujah!

Thank you Father that You are always there for us. Thank you that we can trust in You. You know best. Help us to live the holy lives You want us to live. In Jesus Name. Amen

I was reading the Accountancy South Africa magazine this week and in the magazine they honored a couple of Chartered Accountant woman who is an inspiration to all women in the financial sector and actually to all women in general. One lady's testimony stood out for me. Her name is Mpho and she grew up in a very poor family. She herded the family's animals and when she had the chance she had to walk to school barefoot. Some days she didn't even know whether she was going to get any food when she returned home. But she had a very wise mentor that told her that life is like being in a car. The rear-view mirror is smaller than the windscreen, symbolizing that what lies ahead is more important than what is behind you. This inspired her and despite her horrific circumstances she persevered and didn't use her back ground as an excuse. She excelled and qualified as a Chartered Accountant and has made her stamp on the corporate world.

Her story made me think. This is so true. The rear view mirror is so small compared to the wind screen in front of you. And that is the position we should give to our past in our lives. It should be a small part of our vision, something we can learn from, but mainly we should be focusing on the windscreen and what lies ahead.

The Lord also revealed to me as I pondered this that if you solely focus on the rear view mirror and only look at it you will most definitely go off course and you will leave the road and either make an accident and hurt yourself and others or go into the ditch on the wayside. You will not be able to proceed on the road planned for you. You will be stuck and still blaming the 'rear view mirror' for not guiding you properly.

We do it often as Christians, we use our past as an excuse not to strive and aim for higher heights as God planned for us. Joyce Meyer is famed by saying that your past might be an excuse of why you are the way you are, but it is no excuse to stay that way.

We as Christians are new creations, created in the image of Christ. We have the mind of Christ and our past do not have any place in our future, except to learn from it. Our Father is now our Father in heaven and He promises us all an inheritance bigger than we can ever imagine. He has a road all planned out for us and we need to keep on that road. Paul said:

"I am focusing all my energies on this one thing: Forgetting the past and looking forward to what lies ahead. I strain to reach the end of the race and receive the prize for what God, through Christ Jesus, is calling us up to heaven." Philippians 3:13, 14

A prize is waiting for us in heaven, we simply need to focus and give our all in the race before us. Recently I watched the athletes perform in the IAAF world championships and one thing that stood out for me was that they gave it their all, their best, up until the finish line. They didn't give up, but strained to perform at their best, every muscle working in synergy towards their goal. And so should we. A mediocre performance is not good enough, being average is not good enough, we need to perform at our best and give it our all. God has paved the way, you just need to forget all the excuses you might have and run. There is a whole host of spectators that will cheer you on!

Dear Father, thank you so much for a wonderful future that we can look forward to. Thank you that You have a road all planned out for us. Please help us to stay on that road and not stray away due to excuses. Thank you Father. Amen

After receiving God's laws and decrees the Israelites were ready to move on and conquer their Promised Land. They have been camping at Mount Sinai for quite some time and I am certain that they were eager to get moving. But first God instructed them to take a census.

'Take a census of the whole community of Israel by their clans and families. List the names of all the men twenty years old or older who are able to go to war. You and Aaron are to direct the project, assisted by one family leader from each tribe.' Leviticus 1:2 - 4

Now as you might imagine, a census was a tedious and long process and I can just visualize that it was the last thing that most Israelites wanted at this point. They most probably wanted to get going and to settle in their new beautiful land. They were tired of camping out in the desert. But the census was necessary. It was necessary to do because they had to assess Israel's military strength before engaging in battle, but more than that they needed to determine the sizes of the different tribes in order to be able to divide the land fairly amongst them. This information was needed to organize the Promised Land amongst the tribes.

Now of course God knew how many they were and He could have divided the land between them and helped to organize the land, but sometimes He wants us to participate and do our part as well, like the Israelites had to do here. Now after the census they also knew the numbers of their tribes and shouldn't later feel that they have been allocated the smallest portion of the land even though they were the smallest tribe. It also gave them a sense of dignity and participation in the process.

Sometimes when we reach cross roads in our lives, we should first consult God and ask Him what His will is and then we need to take inventory of our lives just like the census of old. For example sit calmly and write down what is going on in your life, what is your present position concerning your family, how healthy is your spiritual life, are you making enough time for what is truly important, what is your strong points that God can use etcetera. Sit down and realize where you are at the moment and look up to God to see where He wants you to be. Ask Him for guidance and ask Him how you can use what you have to His glory. And also ask Him where you need to change. Obvious things would be to improve your spiritual life and to spend more time with Him, but when it comes to the less obvious things like which job to choose, spend some time on your knees praying and ask Him to help you and lead you to your Promised Land. When we do our part, God does His.

Father only You know what is best for us. Help us and guide us with Your Holy Spirit to see clearly what You want us to do and what Your perfect plan for our lives is. We hand our lives over to You. Amen

God is love and God is good and everything He tells us to do or not to do is for our own good. We can trust Him to know what is best for us! And as I read through the laws given to Moses I noticed one interesting one that affects us today as well:

'Do not practice fortune-telling or witchcraft.' Leviticus 19:26

'If any among the people are unfaithful by consulting and following mediums or psychics, I will turn against them and cut them off from the community. So set yourselves apart to be holy, for I, the Lord, am your God.' Leviticus 20:6, 7

God was very strict concerning this. Why? Well first of all because He expected His people to turn to Him if they needed advice and certainly not to witches, mediums or psychics! Only He knows what the future holds and it is an abomination to Him if you think someone else can rather be trusted to know the future.

Second of all, these people are either fakes trying to predict something to happen or even worse, they are under the influence of demonic activity, and that can be very dangerous.

Only God knows the future and the overall turn of worldly events are written down in detail for us all to see in the Bible. There are really no surprises about what lies ahead, only the actual date when all this would start to happen remains a mystery.

Now today we are just as guilty as the Israelites of old. People love to know the future; they love to know what will happen to them. And therefore most secular magazines/newspapers have horoscopes in with the stars predicting how their week/month or year is going to be like. They follow doom prophets, like the people believing in the Mayan calendar and that the world were supposed to end on 21/12/2012. They jump on the band wagon when some astrologer sees some stars aligning and this predicts a new season for new beginnings. They go and see fortune tellers, or even modern day prophets, hoping that they can glean something about their future and hoping that they can change whatever is predicted and so I can go on.

Now some people claim that everything did turn out as predicted to them. Now it could be by chance or remember that the devil has a network of demons all over the world which sees and hears everything and can therefore tell you information concerning a situation that no one else knew. For example they can 'call up' dead people, but in fact it is only a demon impersonating someone who has died. That demon can talk and act like that person and can reveal facts that that person did in private, because they were there and saw him do it. Or for example the demons could have overheard that someone is planning to assassinate John F Kennedy, now they predict through a medium that it is going to happen and when it does, people praise the medium and exalt him/her above God. That is the plan of the devil, to get more praise than God does.

And we cannot allow that to happen in our lives as Christians. God should be number one in our lives and we should run to Him if we need to know something/or need advice about something in the future. I have done it many times and sometimes He clearly shows me and other times He doesn't, as it might be better for me not to know. But the point is that He is the one who truly cares about me and will lead me to where I need to be. If you have read horoscopes or gone to the psychics of our day, ask God's forgiveness and move on with Him. Ask Him in future and trust His judgment over areas in your life.

Father please forgive us if we believe news from others above news from You. Only You know best, no one else. Thank you that we can come to You at any time and that You are there whenever we need advice! We love You so much! Amen

Last week we looked at the first of two points that I would like to highlight regarding the Law of Moses. As I said last week, I am not going to go through the Law in detail now; I simply want to highlight these two points. Firstly a lot of the rules were given to ensure that the Israelites do not start acting like the people in Canaan that they were about to enter and last week I discussed how that applies to us and that we should not conform to this world, but rather follow God and His ways.

Now today I would like to look at the Law from a different angle. I think a lot of people are scared or not really motivated to become Christians when they look at all the 'Do nots' that we find in Leviticus. And then they come to the conclusion that the whole Bible is full of 'Do nots' and then they naturally don't want to read the rest of the Bible.

But Jesus sums up the Law of Moses beautifully in Matthew 22:37 - 40

'Jesus replied, "You must love the Lord your God with all your heart, all your soul, and all your mind. This is the first and greatest commandment. A second is equally important: Love your neighbor as yourself. All the other commandments and all the demands of the prophets are based on these two commandments."

John affirms this in 1 John 3:23:

'This is God's commandment: We must believe in the Name of His Son, Jesus Christ, and love one another, just as He commanded us.'

There are a number of other scriptures that affirm this, but I think the point has been made. The Law can be summed up in the following manner: Love God with all that you have, believe in His Son Jesus and love other people. This is the message that echoes throughout the Bible and that echoes to us today. Now at first I thought, thank goodness, that is not too difficult, but the more I think about it the harder it becomes.

To really love God means to spend time with Him, to put Him first above everything else, to take away things in our lives that He doesn't approve of and to stand up for Him and share Him with others no matter what the circumstances. Think about it carefully. It is not an easy task! It might be easy on a Sunday at church, but it certainly isn't easy when the week is rushed, when we don't have the time to spend with Him, when we are confronted with people who don't believe in Him or even worse if we were to find ourselves in a country where He isn't served and honored. Then it is not easy at all.

And to love other people is even worse! As Jesus said, it is easy to love our friends and family, but it is so difficult to love our enemies and those that hate us and want to do us harm. That is not easy, but that is what is expected of us. John pleaded in his first letter that we should love one another, especially our fellow brothers and sisters in Christ. It is sad to think that we don't even get that right, never mind loving unbelievers!

It is a very difficult task that Jesus has given us, but lucky for us, He gave us His Spirit to help us in it. He gives us the strength and the grace to be able to love like we should love. He would never have told us to do it if He knew we couldn't. In our own strength I am convinced we would never be able to do it, but with His help, everything is possible. But we need His strength. Ask Him for it and strive to be more like Him every day. That is the task of every Christian.

Father we feel as if we have an insurmountable mountain in front of us. But thank you that with You, all things are possible. Thank you that You will give us the strength that we need. We thank you that You loved us first, even though we were rotten through and through. Thank you Jesus, Amen.

We are currently busy discussing Moses' life and we are looking at the rules that God gave Moses for the Israelites to follow. These rules are called 'The Law of Moses' and is actually quite interesting to read and I think there is a lot to learn from them. But for now I am not going to focus on them, maybe God willing, at another time. I can only give an opinion of all these rules if the Holy Spirit leads me to, because without His leading I might just come to the wrong conclusion.

So for now there are only two things that I would like to highlight. The first thing I'll highlight today and the second next week. In the first place through all these rules God wanted to teach them a new culture, as they were about to enter into an idol-infested country full of pagan religions and cultures. He wanted them to stand out and be different from these pagans. These Canaanites' society and religions appealed to worldly desires, especially sexual immorality and drunkenness. And God wanted His nation to keep themselves pure and set apart for Him and Him alone. God didn't want them to be affected by the pagan nations as they could easily forget all about Him.

And today is no different. Today's society loves money, looks, status and power. It all revolves around them. Pick up any secular magazine and it is filled with how to enhance your looks, sex and even pornography disguised as 'health and fitness'. The world doesn't endorse marriage and children brought up in a stable home. No, anything goes. Whatever you feel like, you do. That is the way to go. And if you want to make it in the business world, any means is okay, even if it ruins other people's lives in the process, making it to the top is all that matters. It really is so sad.

God wants us to clearly stand apart from all of this and show the world that serving Him is the best way! Only by serving Him and living according to His Word, can we truly be happy. The way of the world leads to destruction and Satan doesn't want us to realize it. He wants us to follow him and his ways. And God knows how easily we can be distracted. Therefore in everything you do, keep away from the world and all its 'pleasures'. I know it is very difficult in our society as we are surrounded by it, but try and rather fill your minds with what is pure and good. Remember that next time you want to buy a magazine that doesn't honor God, remember that when you want to watch a movie that is questionable, remember that when you 'flirt' on face book with someone you are not married to, remember that when you want to discredit someone at work in order to advance etc etc.

Remember to stand tall as people of God. He is our Standard and only in Him is true happiness. Only He provides everlasting peace. Be different from this world, don't conform to it and make the same mistake the Israelites did thousands of years ago. They followed the customs of the Canaanites as soon as they entered the land and that had grave consequences. Rather follow God's standards and know that you are on the right path.

Lord, thank you so much that there is a different way to this world's. This world is wicked and can deceive so easily. Please help us to discern and to do the right thing. You are what is important and nothing else! In Jesus Name. Amen

God's Tabernacle was finished and Moses received further instructions from God there. One of the instructions that God gave Moses was that they must celebrate a Day of Atonement once a year. On this day the High Priest had to go into the Most Holy Place and present God with an offering to atone for the sins of all the people of Israel. Now according to my Bible the Hebrew word for 'atone' means 'to cover'. Therefore the people's sins were 'covered' for the time being until Jesus' sacrifice on the cross could give people the opportunity to have their sins removed forever.

So once a year the High Priest and only the High Priest could enter the Most Holy Place. And on that day all the people of Israel would gather together and they would fast for that day. It had to be a Sabbath day of rest and no one was allowed to do any work.

Now God was very strict on this. No one was allowed, not even the High Priest to enter the Most Holy Place, except once a year on the Day of Atonement.

'Warn you brother Aaron not to enter the Most Holy Place behind the inner curtain whenever he chooses, the penalty for intrusion is death. For the Ark's cover - the place of atonement - is there, and I Myself am present in the cloud over the atonement cover.' Leviticus 16:2

So only once a year, only the High Priest could enter into the presence of God. So if you were an ordinary Israelite, you only saw the acts of God, but you never had the chance to be close to Him. You could never enter into His presence, ever. And the High Priest that did, only could once a year and when he did, he had to spend hours preparing himself to go in. He didn't simply waltz in, there were strict instructions that he had to follow.

But the good news today is, that Jesus pathed the way for us so that we can all now enter into His presence into the 'Most Holy Place' and spend time with God whenever we want to and for how long we want to. This is clearly demonstrated when the inner curtain, that prohibited people to enter into the Most Holy Place, was torn in two.

'Then Jesus shouted out again, and He gave up His Spirit. At that moment the curtain in the Temple was torn in two, from top to bottom.' Matthew 27:50, 51

Can you imagine the faces of the priests who saw this happen whilst performing their normal duties in the Temple? They must have felt faint! They have never seen the Most Holy Place and yet now it is revealed to them and the best part is they didn't die as God said they would if they entered into it without being the Day of Atonement. They must have been flabbergasted!

And due to what our High Priest, Jesus, has done for us, we have the privilege of going into God's presence whenever we want to and for how long we want to. The only problem is that I don't think we realize what an awesome honor it is. I truly think we take it for granted, and I am speaking for myself here too! We forget how privileged we are. And now in this rushed world of ours we even have the audacity to say that we don't have time to spend with Him. We don't have the time to enter into the 'Most Holy Place' and have fellowship with Him. He paid such a high price for us to be able to do just that and by being blasé over it, we in effect show how ungrateful we are.

I think it is time that we once again have a deep reverence for who God really is. We need to think carefully before we enter into His presence that we are treading on holy ground. We cannot simply waltz in and start making demands. Who are we but a speck of dust? Rather focus on the privilege of being in His presence and offer Him the praises due to Him.

Father please forgive us if we cheapen what Your Son Jesus have done for us. He has paid such a high price and we are truly thankful. We thank you that we can enter into Your presence at any time and that You are always with us. We don't want to take it for granted anymore, we simply want to sit at Your feet and adore You. We love You. Amen

The Tabernacle of God has been built and all the duties of the priests and the people have been assigned to them. I think a lot can be said about the Tabernacle and God willing I will one day write about the significance and symbolism of the Tabernacle and subsequently the Temple of God. But for now I would just like to highlight one thing.

The Tabernacle was hundreds of years later replaced by the Temple of God. Solomon had the privilege of building God's first Temple. And what a Temple it was! I think never in the history of mankind has there been a building like this. For the construction for the Temple, David donated 112 tons of gold and 262 tons of refined silver, and on top of that, the people donated 188 tons of gold, 10 000 gold coins, 375 tons of silver, 675 tons of bronze and 3 750 tons of iron. Can you imagine that? It is too much to comprehend for me! And to build this Temple Solomon employed 30 000 laborers to fetch the cedar and cypress timber from Lebanon, he also enlisted 70 000 common laborers, 80 000 stone cutters and 3 600 foremen to supervise the work. Wow, can you imagine co-ordinating basically 183 600 people on one project? I battle to co-ordinate 8 in my husband's business, never mind 183 600!! You can most definitely see a Divine Hand here in ensuring that His home gets built and gets built right. And to top it off, at the dedication of the Temple Solomon sacrificed 22 000 oxen and 120 000 sheep to God. What a dedication! I cannot even begin to comprehend it!

And today God calls us His Temple. We are now His Temple.

'We are His house, built on the foundation of the apostles and the prophets. And the cornerstone is Jesus Christ Himself. We who believe are carefully joined together, becoming a holy temple for the Lord.' Ephesians 2:20, 21

'Come to Christ, who is the living cornerstone of God's Temple. He was rejected by the people, but He is precious to God who chose Him. And now God is building you, as living stones, into His spiritual temple.' 1 Peter 2:4, 5

How amazing that God considers us worthy enough to be His Temple here on earth! He traded the magnificence of Solomon's Temple for us. He chose to rather use us, than a physical Temple. And I realized this morning, that one of the reasons why the Temple was so glorious was to show us how glorious we are. We are truly glorious, because God's Spirit lives within us. We need to shine and attract people to God's Temple and therefore we are not allowed to look down upon ourselves and to frown at our appearance. No, we should shine and glitter like gold and silver for all to see.

Plus another thing I learned was that in Solomon's day, people had to go to the Temple to worship God. But today, we as the Temple, go to the people. In other words, no matter where you are today you must walk in the realization that you are the Temple of God going out to the people. So if you are standing in a queue, you are the Temple, if you are sitting in a waiting room, you are the Temple, if you are at work, you are the Temple, if you are out in a restaurant, you are the Temple and so I can go on. And when you have a deep revelation of that, you will be able to make a difference to the people around you. I heard of an old lady that had such a revelation of this, that she believed that merely by touching someone, she could bring healing/restoration. After all the woman suffering from hemorrhage for 12 years merely touched Jesus and she was healed. And we are the Body of Christ walking this earth and the same can be true of us.

Think about this and realize what is true of you. You can make a difference merely by your presence. Believe it and you will see the impact it can have.

Thank you God that You deemed us worthy enough to be Your Temple here on earth. Thank you for the privilege. Please help us to have revelation of it and to walk in Your truth. In Jesus Name. Amen

The tabernacle has been completed and the Israelites did a wonderful job. It was precisely as He had commanded and to show that He was pleased with it, His glorious presence entered into the Tabernacle and He resided there with them. From the tabernacle, He continued to give Moses right instructions on how He expected them to live and the procedures on how the sacrifices should be made and what He expected from the priests. His words were not even cold (so to speak) when Aaron's sons decided that they think that they have a better way of doing things.

'Aaron's sons Nadab and Abihu put coals of fire in their incense burner and sprinkled incense over it. In this way, they disobeyed the Lord by burning before Him a different kind of fire than He had commanded.' Leviticus 10:1

Now my Bible explains that there are two possible reasons why this was an act of disobedience. The first one is that the fire of burnt offering was never to go out, implying that it was holy and they possibly took coals of fire to the altar from another source, making the sacrifice unholy. Or the other reason could be that they gave an offering at an unprescribed time. Whatever the reason might be, they didn't obey God and they treated His instructions with disrespect. And that had grave consequences:

'So fire blazed forth from the Lord's presence and burned them up, and they died there before the Lord.' Leviticus 10:2

The Lord doesn't treat it lightly if we treat Him and His instructions with disrespect. And to top it off, they were His leaders and were supposed to lead the people to Him and not away from Him. And today is no different. We need to treat and talk about God and to God with the proper respect. I have heard people talking about God as if He is their 'best buddy' and as if He is 'their next door neighbor' and that He would do whatever they prayed for. I have heard people viewing God as a grandfather figure who is okay with all that they do wrong and who gives them a sweetie when no one is watching. I have even heard of people giving God instructions.

We live in an age where the proper respect is lacking in all areas of life and also in our Christian walk. It is time that we put God back where He belongs. On the Throne, from where He can rule our lives and be shown the proper respect. We shouldn't take Him casually and in our stride like Nadab and Abihu did, but we should look up to Him with adoration and the proper reverence He deserves.

Please forgive us Father if we tend to forget that You are the God of the Universe, mightier than all. We love You and want to look up to You with admiration for Who You are. You are amazing and the King of our lives. Amen

God gave Moses the instructions on everything concerning the building of the Tabernacle and Moses followed all the instructions down to the letter. He did everything exactly as God had commanded him. He also didn't try and do all the work himself, no he had learned an important management lesson, he delegated the work to the Israelites and to those God has blessed to be able to do the work. And it is wonderful to see that they obeyed him down to the letter.

'The Israelites had done everything just as the Lord had commanded Moses.' Exodus 39:32

'So the people followed all of the Lord's instructions to Moses.' Exodus 39:42

'Moses proceeded to do everything as the Lord had commanded him.' Exodus 40:16

Notice that they didn't build the tabernacle 80% according to God's instructions, or even 99% right, no they built it 100% right as God commanded them to. They were careful to obey even the smallest detail.

And we can learn from them. When God gives us something to do, we need to obey Him. And we need to obey Him 100%, as partial obedience is seen as disobedience. King Saul learned that lesson the hard way. War broke out between Israel and the Philistines. Samuel had instructed King Saul to gather his troops at Gilgal and to wait for him there. Saul did just that, he was obedient and he patiently waited for Samuel to come. Samuel also told him that he will offer a burnt offering to the Lord when he came and only then can they go into battle. But now Samuel took a while to come. I think it was probably on purpose to test Saul's obedience. Saul waited for 7 days for Samuel to come and while he waited he saw that his troops were slipping away from him and it all got too much for him. He decided to offer the burnt offering himself and to go into battle without Samuel. And lo and behold, right after Saul offered the burnt offering, Samuel arrived. And look at Samuel's stern words:

"How foolish!" Samuel exclaimed. "You have disobeyed the command of the Lord your God. Had you obeyed, the Lord would have established your kingdom over Israel forever. But now your dynasty must end." 1 Samuel 13:13, 14

Wow, talk about harsh words! Now if we look at it, it would seem that the punishment doesn't fit the crime. He only disobeyed the Lord on one small point. After all, he did go to Gilgal and he did wait for 7 days. It would seem very harsh to take his whole kingdom from him due to this. I think most of us have done far worse things than this.

But it just shows how strongly God feels about obedience, more specifically 100% obedience. He wants to see whether we are truly on His side, or will we fall at the first test that comes our way? I have learned that lesson. God doesn't want a half hearted attempt, He wants your best attempt, and He wants you to give your everything for His sake. Don't lose out on your 'kingdom' here on earth and all that God plans for you, simply because you weren't prepared to go the last mile. Learn a lesson from Moses, God's friend, and obey God 100%.

Father, please forgive our half hearted attempts. Please forgive us if we don't obey You fully in everything that You tell us to do. We are so sorry that our selfish ambitions sometimes come in the way. Please help us to rather focus on You and all that You are, and then we will see that Your plans are good and that 100% obedience is the best way forward. In Jesus Name. Amen