Monday Reading: Acts 7:51-53
Key Verse: Acts 7:51
51 O stiff-necked and uncircumcised in heart and ears! You always resist the Holy Spirit. As your fathers did, so you do.
Devotion:
How long would you try to teach someone the right way before you gave up and turned round and told them off for doing things wrong? As a parent I can honestly say that there was many a time when I gave in a shouted instead of continuing to try and show what was right. Sometimes we will be up against people that will not want to hear the truth or people that have rejected the truth all their lives and will continue to reject it. Stephen broke off from his words and rebuked those around him for being stiff necked, stubborn or obstinate; they continued to reject Christ even though He had gone to the cross and shown them the truth. These were the people who upheld the law as it was given to Moses or at least that is what they believed they were doing.
Sometimes we get so tied up in our own ways that we will not open our eyes to any other ways around us. We close off the rest of the world because we think that it is wrong. We close in our view of what is right and limit our view to the things that we want to keep in view, blocking out everything else. The people around Stephen knew that the law showed them that a Messiah would come to save the people from their sins and yet they did not want to believe that Christ was the Messiah because that would show them up for the sinners that they were. They had taken the law to the extreme and assumed that they were right and that Christ was wrong. If we continue to close off everything around us then we may well miss out on what God would have us to see!
What we do have to be very careful for is the ways of the devil because he will use all means possible to persuade us that certain things are indeed ok when they are clearly not. As long as we are willing to compare everything in our lives with what God’s Word tell us then we will remain safe in God’s arms. God’s Word is the truth...
Points to Ponder:
Do you limit your view of the world?
Are you overriding God’s limits with your own?
