November 23, 2024 Devo

November 23rd, 2024

“It’s All About Jesus!”
Jesus and His Brothers (John 7)
After this, Jesus traveled around Galilee. He wanted to stay out of Judea, where the Jewish leaders were plotting his death. – John 7:1 (NLT)
“Balancing Your Faith with Wisdom”

There is a difference between having faith and being stupid. Some of us haven’t learned that yet. Having faith involves hearing from God and taking steps that fall in line with His leadership and guidance. Being stupid is taking risks and daring God to bail us out.
Our passage today is a great illustration. As Jesus’ popularity began to rise, so did the anger of the religious leaders. They saw Jesus as a threat, not a Savior. Jesus knew that their anger had come to a point that they were plotting to kill Him. Now some people would see this as a test of faith. They would say go ahead and preach wherever you want to because God will protect you. But look at what Jesus did. He stayed out of Judea. He knew that He could preach in a lot of other areas where the temperature of His popularity wasn’t quite so high. He didn’t feel the need to test God’s protection of Him or prove His courage or faithfulness. He simply carried out His mission in safer places. That’s not a lack of faith. That’s called WISDOM.
Not every adventure with risks that we take off on is a move of God—even if we blame Him for it. If we’re honest, sometimes we do things because we WANT them to be of God. So we’ll leave our job without having another job because we believe God has a “perfect job” out there somewhere. Or we’ll make a financial commitment beyond our means because “God will provide.” Or we’ll refuse medical treatment because God is our Healer. Please hear my heart. There ARE times God leads us to take risky steps of faith. But taking those steps because WE want to and not because we’ve received direction from the Lord is to make OURSELVES God! If we call that faith, it’s faith in US, not faith in Him.
Jesus eventually did go to Judea where He was a wanted man. But He did it in the timing and leading of His Father, not so He could demonstrate what great faith He had. Jesus didn’t just exercise faith in His journey here on earth. He exercised wisdom as well. Maybe we should too. That’s God’s Word for you today.