Daily Devotion

 

The Jews wanted Jesus to do something sensational to prove that He really was the anointed one of God. Later than this, about 45 AD, a man called Theudas arose claiming to be the Messiah. He persuaded the people to follow him out to the river Jordan with the promise that he would divide the river in two and give them a pathway through it to the other side. Needless to say, he failed, and the Romans dealt with him. That is the kind of thing the people wanted Jesus to do to prove His claims. They could not see that the greatest sign that God could ever send was Jesus himself.

 

Just as long before, Jonah had been God's sign to Nineveh, so now Jesus was God's sign to them---and they failed to recognize him. When Solomon was king, the Queen of Sheba recognized his wisdom and came from far to benefit from it; when Jonah preached, the men of Nineveh recognized the authentic voice of God and responded to it. In the day of judgment, these people will rise up and condemn the Jews of Jesus' time, because these people had had an opportunity and a privilege far beyond anything they had ever had and refused to accept it.

 

Privilege and responsibility go hand in hand. Think of two of our greatest privileges and how we use them.

Available to almost everyone today is the Bible, the word of God. It comes to us with great cost to the lives of others. There was a time when it was death to teach the English Bible. When Wycliffe wrote to a certain scholar, about the year 1350, asking him to teach the common people the gospel stories in the English tongue, he answered, "I know well that I am holden by Christ's law to perform thy asking, but, natheless, we are now fallen so far away from Christ's law, that if I would answer to your asking I must in case undergo the death." Later on, the writer, Foxe, was to tell us that in those days men sat up all night to read and hear the Word of God in English. It was Tyndale who gave England its first printed Bible. To do so, he suffered poverty, exile, bitter absence from friends, hunger, thirst, cold and great dangers. In 1536 he was martyred. There is no other book that cost as much.

 

Life Application: How dear to you is your relationship with Jesus, your Bible and attending Church?

 

Praise/Prayer: Dear Father, I am so thankful for those who went before me in paving the way to the freedom I have today. I pray for those who do not have the freedom I have to read the Bible. I know there are many who are dying because they want to serve you, and for them, Heaven is very real. I pray that You will raise up an army that will go forth with the Word of God. Amen!