Saturday 27 Jun 2020

June 27: John 7:14-18

Key Verse: John 7:18
Whoever speaks on their own does so to gain personal glory, but he who seeks the glory of the one who sent him is a man of truth; there is nothing false about him.

Devotion:
How many know someone who is always telling everyone how things actually are and will not stop to listen to anything anyone else has to say? I’m sure we can all think of people in our communities who fit this description and if we are honest many of us will go out of our ways to stay out of their ways because we don’t want to get involved in an argument against someone who will never admit defeat!

But imagine if you met someone who actually did tell the truth and did know the answers for everything. Someone who was not pompous about it and did not refuse to listen to your point of view – or even more to know your point of view before you got into any argument and was able to point out the problems with your way of thinking before you dug a big hole for yourself with words which were more emotive than truthful!

I think I can imagine how the people in the temples felt about this ‘unlearned’ person coming in and telling them the truth. As much as they hated the truth being pointed out to them, they had to accept it. But they did not want to go down without some sort of fight or argument! So they started to blame His knowledge on things out of their control, things they knew as evil and demonic in any way!

We need to be more like Jesus and know what we are talking about if we are going to try and face arguments from others. But a better way is probably to simply tell the truth at the level of your own understanding and not to try and get one up on others who may well know more than you. Our’s is not to promote ourselves, but to promote God in all we say and do – this is the life of a Christian and one we should revel at upholding for our God!

Points to Ponder:
Do you like a good argument?

Will you stick to what you know about God?