Alone With God (OPEN HEAVENS Devotional)

OPEN HEAVENS Devotional – Saturday April 23rd 2016

TOPIC: UNGODLY SORROW

Memorize: And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself. Matthew 27:5

Read: Matthew 27:3-8,

³ Then Judas, which had betrayed him, when he saw that he was condemned, repented himself, and brought again the thirty pieces of silver to the chief priests and elders,

⁴ Saying, I have sinned in that I have betrayed the innocent blood. And they said, What is that to us? see thou to that.

⁵ And he cast down the pieces of silver in the temple, and departed, and went and hanged himself.

⁶ And the chief priests took the silver pieces, and said, It is not lawful for to put them into the treasury, because it is the price of blood.

⁷ And they took counsel, and bought with them the potter's field, to bury strangers in.

⁸ Wherefore that field was called, The field of blood, unto this day.

 Bible in one year: 2^nd Samuel 23-24, Proverbs 14:18-31

MESSAGE

The type of sorrow that Judas Iscariot experienced is undesirable. I pray that you will not experience such a sorrow in your life in Jesus’ name. We need to know why the sorrow that Peter experienced is seen as godly and why that of Judas Iscariot perceived as ungodly.

When a man thinks he can outsmart his creator, the result is usually ghastly, and it is only when that person has godly sorrow for his acts that he can be saved. Greed and materialistic tendencies can make a man think he can outsmart God. It is unfortunate that some so-called Christians are not spared for this monster called greed (or the love of material things.) The Bible says:

“But godliness with contentment is great gain. For we brought nothing into this world, and it is certain we can carry nothing out. And having food and raiment, let us be therewith content." 1^stTimothy 6:6-8

Judas Iscariot thought he could swindle the Jewish leaders by betraying Jesus, he thought Jesus could not be arrested because he had, before then, witnessed Him escaping from the hands of the Jews. However, he didn’t know that Christ escaped then because His time was not yet up.

“And all they in the synagogue, when they heard these things, were filled with wrath, And these things, were filled with wrath, And rose up, and thrust him out of the city, and led him unto the brow of the hill whereon their city as built, that they might cast him down headlong. But he passing through the midst of them went his way.” Luke 4:28-30

With the background knowledge of what Christ could do, he felt that once he had collected the money and showed them who He is, Christ would disappear and life would continue as usual. To his surprise, Christ surrendered Himself. The type of sorrow he had does not lead to repentance; rather, it leads to despair, frustration, and eventually suicide as seen in today’s memory verse.

Beloved, let us fear the Lord and abstain from all forms of greed and the love of money. These things drown men in destruction and perdition.  

Prayer Point

Father, please don’t let the love of money drown me in Jesus name.