Today’s Bible Reading
March 03

Old Testament 1
Exodus 22:1 - 23:9

God gave the Israelites laws to govern them. Laws are necessary to keep order.


Old Testament 2
Psalm 64 & 65

64:10 The righteous shall be glad in the LORD, and trust in Him. And all the upright in heart shall glory.

64:1 Hear my voice, O God, in my meditation; Preserve my life from fear of the enemy.

The psalmist prayed to God to save him from the enemy.

We should trust in God no matter the situation we are, no matter the challenges. God is ready to save us.

Psalm 65 talked about the power of God.


New Testament
Acts 12

12:5 Peter was therefore kept in prison, but constant prayer was offered to God for him by the church.

12:15 But they said to her, You are beside yourself Yet she kept insisting that it was so. So they said, It is his angel

The church was praying but when their prayer got answered they did not know.

They probably thought the way their prayer would be answered is God will touch Herod's heart and Herod will change his mind and release Peter. But God had other plans, that was why they didn't believe when Rhoda told them Peter was knocking at the door.

This happens till today, we have people fervent in prayer but they don't recognize when their prayer is answered because it doesn't look like the way they thought their prayer would be answered.

When you pray, believe God will answer and focus on the answer, your job is not to worry about how your prayer would be answered. When you worry about how, when your prayer gets answered, you will still continue praying for the same thing God already answered.

May God give us understanding on how to pray and recognize the answer to our prayers.

12:22 And the people kept shouting, The voice of a god and not of a man

12:23 Then immediately an angel of the Lord struck him, because he did not give glory to God. And he was eaten by worms and died.

The Angel of God struck Herod dead because he didn't give glory to God. People started worshipping him, they called him god. The people probably did it in ignorance but he didn't rebuke them. Remember in one of our previous expositions, we read how people were praising Peter when he did miracles, but Peter was quick to tell them he wasn't the one working, that it was God's work. This is a lesson to us, we are nothing without God, when people praise us, we shouldn't get carried away by the euphoria, we should ascribe God all the Glory. Herod didn't and it cost him his life. We shouldn't even wait for people to praise us before we ascribe God the glory!


ACTION POINT

Be a law abiding citizen


QUOTE
“God answers prayers, but he doesn't always answer it your way”

-Lou Holtz

PRAYER POINT
  1. Thank God for making you who you are
  2. Ask God for mercy
  3. Pray for deliverance from every bondage or prison. (sin is a prison, lack is a prison etc. prison is not only physical, there are spiritual & abstract prisons as well)
  4. Pray for Grace to be humble and always ascribe God the glory

#BibleInAYear