Stress Test Devotional May 25
May 25, 2024
MATTHEW 2:4-5, 7-8, 12-14 | 4 and calling together all the chief priests and scribes of the people, he inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. 5 They told him, “In Bethlehem of Judea; for so it has been written by the prophet.”
7 Then Herod secretly called for the wise men and learned from them the exact time when the star had appeared. 8 Then he sent them to Bethlehem, saying, “Go and search diligently for the child; and when you have found him, bring me word so that I may also go and pay him homage.”
12 And having been warned in a dream not to return to Herod, they left for their own country by another road. 13 Now after they had left, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Get up, take the child and his mother, and flee to Egypt, and remain there until I tell you; for Herod is about to search for the child, to destroy him.” 14 Then Joseph got up, took the child and his mother by night, and went to Egypt.
The awful Herod tried to discern the location of the newborn King by inquiring from the priests and scribes about the prophetic geography. He hopes to discern the age of the child by learning from the Magi the celestial timing of the birth. Finally, he recruits the foreign astrologers as informants to find the baby so he can “destroy him.”
Before we dismiss Herod as the incarnation of evil, and essentially unlike us, consider the possibility that we too are resistant to Jesus’ authority. We also resist His kingship, preferring to be sovereign authorities over our own small kingdoms. We want to rule our own lives. Herod is right to be threatened, in one sense. Once the Christ child is born, Matthew stops referring to him as “King Herod” and he just becomes “Herod.”
Is there a part of you that wants to “rule the world?” Or at least your own world?
