Daily Reading: Matthew 25
Scripture Focus: Truly, I say to you, I do not know you. (Matthew 25.12)
Devotional Thought: Last week, I was going through my library and came across: Dig Your Well before You're Thirsty, by Harvey Mackey. As I remember, the premise of the book was to work on relationships before you needed them. Then when the need came, they would be in place. There's nothing quite as awkward as trying to get close to someone from whom you need something - especially when you haven't been close before.
In the first of the three parables of Matthew 25, the story of the wise and foolish bridesmaids, Jesus shows us that we need to stay close to him. The five wise ones had their oil before they needed it. The five foolish ones waited until the last minute and then got caught unprepared. The response of the bridegroom was interesting. When the five foolish bridesmaids begged to come into the wedding, the bridegroom said, "I do not know you." The time to get to know theBridegroom, Jesus Christ, is not when he returns to take us all to heaven. We need to have that relationship in place long before that!
I've always marveled at (and felt sorry for) people who do not take care of their relationships with family and friends. Those are the kind of people who are left alone at the end of life. When need comes, they have no one on whom they can call. They usually get angry when the people, whom they have ignored for a lifetime, turn around and ignore them.
That is sad enough in human terms, but it is eternally devastating in our relationship with Christ. The worst words we could ever hear would be to hear Jesus say, "I do not know you." Then who will we turn to?
Prayer: Lord, help me to keep my jar filled with oil - to keep my relationship with you current! How great is the joy of friendship with you. It would be tragic to miss out on a single hour!
Psalm of the Day: Psalm 95.6-11
6 Oh come, let us worship and bow down;
let us kneel before the Lord, our Maker!
7 For he is our God,
and we are the people of his pasture,
and the sheep of his hand.
Today, if you hear his voice,
8 do not harden your hearts, as at Meribah,
as on the day at Massah in the wilderness,
9 when your fathers put me to the test
and put me to the proof, though they had seen my work.
10 For forty years I loathed that generation
and said, “They are a people who go astray in their heart,
and they have not known my ways.”
11 Therefore I swore in my wrath,
“They shall not enter my rest.”
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