Tuesday Reading: Matthew 21:23-27
Key Verse: Matthew 21:25
25 The baptism of John, where was it from? From Heaven or from men? And they reasoned within themselves, saying, If we shall say, From Heaven, he will say to us, Why then did you not believe him?
Devotion:
Have you ever noticed how some things get rather more difficult to do when you think about them? Take walking up stairs for example; we walk up them every day but if you suddenly think about the next step you are going to take when you are half way up you will falter in your step. When we leave things down to re-actions then we get along fine but as soon as we intervene with our conscious though process then things get a bit sticky. We are very much like that in our spiritual lives as well whether we like it or not.
If we continue to allow things to pass we very quickly get into the habit of doing those things wrong. We know we are doing wrong but because we are in the habit of doing them wrong we continue to do wrong. The inverse is also true though because if we get into the habit of doing things right then we will continue to do things right without thinking. The chief priests and scribes were in the habit of doing things their own way and their own way did not agree with Gods way but they continued to do things wrong nonetheless.
When they confronted Jesus asking who had given Him permission to teach He could have simply turned round and said God had but He chose to get them to question themselves instead. When they thought about it they did not want to lie and they did not want to go against the people either so they were stuck for an answer.
We do need to stop and examine our lives and what we are doing every now and again to make sure we too are not getting ourselves into habits that are contrary to Gods teaching. We do need to just stop and think for a second.
Points to Ponder:
Do you have many habits?
Are any of them needless?
