Daily Devotion

Selection Taken From:
A Year with God by R.P. Nettelhorst

Make this the year you let God's Word "dwell in you richly"---and marvel at the results! Each entry in this 365-day devotional features Scripture verses in which God speaks, accompanied by insights and applications to enhance your understanding. Learn what God says about hope and fear; perseverance and quitting; companionship and isolation; and more! 384 pages, softcover from Nelson, Copyright 2010.


It Was for Your Awn Good
This is what the LORD says:
'A cry is heard in Ramah—deep anguish and bitter weeping.
Rachel weeps for her children,refusing to be comforted—for her children are gone."
But now this is what the LORD says:
"Do not weep any longer,for I will reward you," says the LORD.
'Your children will come back to you from the distant land of the enemy.
There is hope for your future," says the LORD. "Your children will come again to their own land.
I have heard Israel saying,
'You disciplined me severely, like a calf that needs training for the yoke.
Turn me again to you and restore me, for you alone are the LORD My God.
I turned away from God, but then I was sorry.
I kicked myself for my stupidity! I was thoroughly ashamed of all I did in my younger days.'" - Jeremiah 31:15—19 NLT

Augustus Caesar, the first emperor of Rome, once made a wry comment about Herod the Great, the man he had made into the king of Judea. He said, "It is better to be Herod's pigs than Herod's sons." Pigs were not kosher, so he wouldn't touch them. But Herod's family? Herod was paranoid and killed several sons he thought might be plotting against him.

When wise men from Persia came looking for a royal son, Herod was panic stricken. None of his wives had recently given birth. He was not descended from David. If a new king had been born, then Herod had a rival. So he found out where the child had been born, and then he took care of things in his own inimitable style. He killed all the babies in Bethlehem who were close to the right age.

God's prophecy of Rachel's weeping because her children were no more was taken by Matthew and applied to Herod's slaughter. But Jeremiah's original intent was to prophesy about the deportation of the Jews to Babylon. "Rachel," of course, was Jacob's—Israel's—true love, the mother of Joseph and Benjamin. Rachel came to stand in as a poetic reference to the nation of Israel. Why did Matthew use a prophecy of the Babylonian captivity for Herod's slaughter? The thematic parallel in it—Babylon had failed to destroy Israel. Herod had failed to destroy Christ.

God reassured the Rachels of Jeremiah's day, the people of Israel, that those taken from them would one day return. For those murdered by Herod, the resurrection was coming. Those lost to us now will be with us forever someday. Our tears will be wiped away.