JANUARY 17 READING…GENESIS 32-33 & MATTHEW 11 & PSALM 131
Today’s theme is humility before God and others. Jacob had to wrestle with an angel from the Lord to bring him to the place of humility, which resulted in his salvation. We have all wrestled with God…very few have responded to the Holy Spirit and put their faith in Jesus the first time they heard the Gospel. For all of us there was a period where we struggled with putting our faith in Jesus. Our pride got in the way, just as pride always gets in the way of trusting God. A prideful person cannot be saved, for brokenness must come first. After Jacob was humbled by the angel…after he put his faith in the Lord…then he humbled himself before his brother, and asked for forgiveness. Getting right with God will enable us to get right with one another…without Christ in our lives we can never be completely right with others. The Psalmist in our reading speaks of that humility that the Lord brought into his life, and the humility he continues to live before God and others.
Matthew 11 speaks of what happens when people refuse to humble themselves before God…they reject Jesus. The same is true today…pride will always cause people to reject Jesus as their Savior…because in their pride, they don’t need a Savior. These people showed they rejected God as they rejected His prophet, John. They reject Jesus as their Messiah, just as they rejected John. The major towns of the Galilee rejected Jesus, for though they loved to see Him perform miracles, they would not humble themselves and trust Him as Lord. We are all called to humble ourselves before the Lord, we must be broken, it is from that place that we will be able to respond to the Holy Spirit and trust Jesus. Don’t let your pride cause you to miss heaven.
Please share your thoughts.
TOMORROW’S READING…GENESIS 34 & MATTHEW 12 & PSALM 64
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