Excited

​Have you ever made an exciting discovery?  You go and share your new found information with those who should be interested and their response is unenthusiastic.   Instead of them celebrating with you or wanting to learn more, you are met with disinterested head nodding.  The test of whether someone really cares about what you care about is their genuine willingness to get involved.

Meditation
Matthew 2:3—When King Herod heard this, he was deeply disturbed, and all Jerusalem with him.  
 
King Herod found out from unexpected wise men from the east, that the King of the Jews was born.  “So he assembled all the chief priests and scribes of the people and asked them where the Messiah would be born.  “In Bethlehem of Judea,” they told him, “because this is what was written by the prophet” (2:4,5).  Herod was disturbed because his reign was threatened by the emergence of the unexpected King.  All he wanted was for the wise men to reveal the location of Jesus so he could destroy Him.

Does anything strike you as odd about the religious leaders?  First, unlike Herod, why didn’t they join in the excitement of the wise men?  As the nation’s religious leaders supposedly waiting for the coming Messiah, shouldn’t they have been the first to jump with joy? Why didn’t they join the search for the One Micah prophesied over 700 years earlier?  Unlike the Magi who traveled over 800 difficult miles, all they needed was at most a two hour walk of six miles![1]  The fact that they knew Scripture yet were uninterested in accompanying foreign worshipers is quite telling.  Either they were skeptical of the reported Savior, or they were smug in their own religiosity.  Their actions foreshadowed what Jesus would experience thirty years later.
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Never let what God reveals in your heart to be dampened by the skepticism, apathy or opposition of others. If the Lord reveals something new or important, revel in your discovery.  Too often we take our cue from the response of people and in the process lose the joy of what the Holy Spirit inspires.  Don’t be surprised when the people you would expect to support you are the least helpful.  If God reveals to you a star, follow it!  Thank God the wise men did not take a survey before they decided to mount their camels! You may face ridicule and scorn but your quest is to worship not to be popular.  Beware of those with false agendas and those who quote Scripture but have no intent of following it.  Take your joy in Jesus and enjoy the journey!  
 
Inspiration
Objective truth is something we grip but religious truth is something that grips us.  It is appropriated and not merely acknowledged.  It is discovered by commitmentand not by any alleged correspondence to the world.—Norman Geisler in Christian Apologetics
 
©2012 Daniel York  ARR.  Reveration is the weekly devotional ministry of First Cause.  If you would like to receive these devotionals go to www.firstcause.org and click on the “Click here to receive weekly devotionals” box.  Unlimited permission to copy this devotional without altering text or profiteering is allowed subject to inclusion of this copyright notice.      
 
Ecclesiastes 12:10-The Teacher sought to find delightful sayings and to accurately write words of truth.  (Holman CSB)
 


[1]Francis Frangipane in Holiness, Truth and Presence of God, p. 85.