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Today’s Bible reading plan:

Read it in a year – 1 Samuel 1-5

see the whole year’s plan [here](http://www.bible-reading.com/bible-plan.pdf)

Today’s Devotional

Matthew 12:25-28
Jesus knew what the Pharisees were thinking.
Jesus: That would be like a father splitting his own household down the middle or a king cutting his kingdom in half—the household and the kingdom would fall apart. So, too, if Satan imbued people with the power to drive out demons, Satan’s kingdom would collapse. And you should think about this too: you have friends who drive out demons. If I am working as a tool of Beelzebul, whom are your people working for? When I come to you and drive out demons by the Spirit of your Father in heaven—for the glory of your Father in heaven—you should recognize and rejoice that the kingdom of God has come to you.

What do Jesus’ words mean for us today?

Have you ever been guilty of the Pharisees’ crime, trying to give credit to the wrong spiritual side? They tried to give credit to Satan for the work Jesus did. Particularly His work in driving out demons from the possessed. They just couldn’t come to grips with Jesus being the Son of God as many claimed. He kept fulfilling the prophecies they kept reading to the people. But surely, this carpenter’s son from Nazareth could not be the Messiah they looked for. Surely, the Messiah would come from the priestly line and would be born in their capital among the priests. After all, they were the leaders of Israel. Everyone expected their Messiah to come from the proud lineage of Levi.

So the Pharisees disregarded what they saw in front of them and declared Jesus’ miracles must be a product of Satan’s work. But they didn’t use their head and think it through. Just like we too often make rash statements without thinking them through. Jesus’ retort put them in their place, still they plotted to kill Him because He disrupted their system of religious rules. He made them introduce love and mercy and hope into their religious equation, characteristics they were not ready to adopt as the harbingers of justice, not mercy.

So what about you? I’m pretty sure you haven’t told anyone lately that their exorcism is done by means of Satan’s power. We don’t hear much about demon possession in our enlightened society today. But what about other things. Do you call other Christian faiths into question? Do you denounce your brothers and sisters in Christ because they worship in a different way than you? Do you hold Christians in other countries in a lesser light than those in your church or your denomination?

What do you action show that equate to same thing the Pharisees did with Jesus?

You might not even invoke Satan’s name when you degrade someone’s actions, but you denounce them as Christian because they don’t fit your mold, nonetheless. Isn’t that about the same thing? There are only two camps we can belong to after all. We can work for Christ or we can work for self and Satan. That’s it. Those are the only two choices. No others exist, so if we think people do something outside the will of God, then aren’t we saying they do them as part of Satan’s camp?

Jesus will determine if someone is doing things in His name out of selfish motive or for God’s glory, but that is not for us to decide. We cannot look at a person’s heart. So if someone is doing good things in Christ name, like Jesus told His disciples, let God have the glory. God will sort out the selfish from the unselfish, those who want rewards here versus those who only want glory for God. It should be a pretty simple solution for us. Just give God glory when we see someone working miracles in Christ’s name. Period.

I think in these days if we think about Jesus’ words, He would tell us to respect everyone who worships Him. He would tell us to be careful in condemning anyone who did things in His name. It’s His job to judge the good people do. Certainly, we know when bad behavior is taking place and His word tells us to police the members of His church to keep His name and reputation clean, but when His people perform good works in His name, we should be praising Him, not condemning them.

It is amazing how often we see that getting mixed up in our world. We talk about this church or that denomination. We hold this preacher in contempt or gossip about that worship leader. We thing poorly of this televangelist or assume everything that one does is fake. Can we just stop and give God the glory for what we see and let Him sort out the rest? Can we thank Him that someone is bold enough to proclaim His name and do something for Him that others can see?

Maybe we do something really remarkable this week and peek inside ourselves and ask ourselves why we are not boldly proclaiming His name to others. Maybe we can ask ourselves why we need to talk about those who do things whose validity we question and instead ask why we are not doing those things in Jesus’ name. Maybe we can begin to realize Jesus told us we would do more than He did when He went back to His Father. Then, just maybe we can start doing it instead of talking about others.

The Voice Bible Copyright © 2012 Thomas Nelson, Inc. The Voice™ translation © 2012 Ecclesia Bible Society All rights reserved.
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